In the entire history of the universe we have seen one example of life forming. It boggles the mind that from this one sample scientists think they know when, how, and where life can and can't form in the universe.

Thanks ak_hepcat.

Mrs. Grundy (a.k.a. @markmeyerphoto)

Kathy, I am a photographer and I am very familiar with copyright. I have also done a lot of work under federal contracts so I'm familiar with copyright in that context as well.

Your post has a headline, "White House Makes Full Copyright Claim on Photos." This is very simply untrue. Think of the ways people assert copyright: using the © copyright symbol, registering works with the copyright office, filing an infringement suit, etc.. I don't mean to say you need to do this to have a copyright, but to say that the White House is making a claim to copyright without doing any of the things we normally do to claim copyright things is misleading at best.

Claiming that works like the ones on Flickr cannot be used for commercial purposes is not claiming a right, but rather stating a fact. The statement is unnecessary, but it seems the White House decided it would be a good idea to remind people of the facts in light of recent events.

The only part that is a little baffling is the statement that the images may not be modified. It's also strange that this is not on the http://www.flickr.com/people/whitehouse page but only under individual images. I'm not sure what they are basing this on, but is certainly does not constitute a "Full Copyright Claim." It seems that the headline and article is written, not to illuminate or inform, but rather to garner attention and be provocative regardless of the facts.

If you look at the actual statement on their Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/people/whitehouse/) you will see that they aren't making a copyright claim. They state why the photos have been uploaded (for news purposes—purposely vague I imagine) and then go on to indicate that certain uses are prohibited—basically commercial use. There are more reasons that copyright to prohibit commercial use. Appropriating a person's likeness for advertising, promotion, etc. for example is not a copyright issue, but instead comes from privacy torts. There is no reason to believe that if the White House wanted to go after someone for using an image inappropriately that they would use copyright infringement as the basis for their case. The original article misread the language and assumed the White House was claiming copyright ownership.

It's a real shame that email encryption never really hit the mainstream.

There is a story about the famous conductor George Szell, who once while conducting looked down at one of the cellists and said, "Madame, God has seen fit to put that beautiful instrument between your legs and all you can do is scratch it."

I feel a little like this when I see Windows booting up on a Mac. If the question is, 'who's to blame,' the answer is users who run Windows on a Mac and corporate goons who can't or won't figure out how to allow OS X to work within their infrastructure.

Not at all--it is GCI. More importantly, the reason I am still with them is that I, like many, many people, live in a market with no serious competition. That is the real problem.

To be fair, their service, other that this REALLY annoying DNS business has been decent.

My ISP does this. They also have an 'opt-out' option, but you know what that does? It still doesn't send an NXDOMAIN response like it should. Instead it redirects me to a site that is serving the standard windows site-not-found page. A horrifying experience for this mac/linux user.

So I set up my own DNS server, which fixed the problem and sped up my internet connection since the ISP's DNS server was really slow.

I understand slashdot's obsession with the RI...really I do. But, don't you think stories like this that aren't really even news are getting a little too much attention? There is no decision, no new case, no new theory--not even the filing of an amicus curiae brief, just a petition to file an amicus curiae brief. Next we'll be hearing what the lawyers are eating for lunch.

I'm sure nobody here would argue with me if I suggested that the internet would be a much safer place without routers.