Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

The difference of course is with fiat currency the government/central bank can "print"* money on demand and lend it to the commercial banks so they can cover their customers withdrawals.

With BTC denominated accounts if everyone tries to withdraw their BTC at once the bank has a big problem. They can try to buy BTC to cover the withdrawals but there is no guarantee they will actually be able to.

* It starts out as entries in the central banks database but if the customers are demanding their money in cash then that cash will have to be physically printed and sent to the banks.

bitcoins reside in "unspent outputs" in the blockchain. The unspent outputs are associated with an "address". An "address" is a cryptographic hash of a public key and the holder of the corresponding private key can spend the bitcoins.

A wallet is basically a collection of private keys for addresses (or sometimes just a generator seed for said keys). To an outside observer it is not visible whether two addresses are part of the same wallet or not. The only thing that distinguishes between a customer withdrawl and a move to cold storage is the internal records of the exchange. If the echange isn't keeping proper records it is unlikely to be feasible to distinguish thefts from legimitate withdrawls (and even if the exchange is keeping records do you trust those records to be honest?)

And yes if the private key for an address is lost (or someone sends bitcoins to an address that wasn't obtained by hashing a public key) the coins are gone for good. Bitcoin propoonents maintain this is not a significant issue.because of the divisibility of bitcoins, I have some reservations about that.

Liar, the upgrade is most definitely not free for life, your data has value M$ is taking and hence you are paying for it. As for permanently blocking updates what do you do about security and the inevitable slew of security bugs. Face it, this is turning out to be an even bigger fuck you from M$ to it's customer than windows 8 was. The very first time you do a security update they can and will hose all your settings, requiring a full check of all settings and some could well have been permanently removed as an option.

I'll have to call bullshit on this comment because standard M$ practice is to turn stuff back on during upgrades even after you have specifically turned them off. So, compulsory upgrades means any settings you make are not fixed and are only temporary and according to the M$ non-warranty, anyone they want to allow into your computer is allowed in at any time no matter what your settings are, NSA, cough, cough. Basically it seems windows 10 is the NSA spy dream come true, do not install. If you must, pay the extra for the professional version which is exactly why M$ change pretty much a hundred dollars more for it because it knows full well, anyone who wants to at least pretend to secure their computer will be forced to pay that protection racket cost ie pay the hundred dollars or else everyone owns your information, your browsing history, you digital habits and that especially means for you nasty foreigners those who under US law you specifically can never trust (they are legally entitled to lie, cheat, steal and kill with regards to you and yours according to US law, no stinking courts required).

You can expect an EU legal sanction in pretty short order.

Look it up http://www.thefreedictionary.c..., English spelling as in how it is spelt in England the home of the English language. Not stupid American spelling because special spelling was required for them because it seems they are a bit thick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....

So yes it does apply to the magazine when it is sent electronically. No it does not apply to the magazine when it is printed and sent via a truck and then van and then motorbike. I mean exactly how thick can you be, I thought I could not be clearer. Look the people who are paying you, well, they should simply get someone better, you are quite simply not good enough and just make their arguments look worse. Keep pulling boners like this and you'll be out of work but PR=B$ is far worse than no PR=B$.

Actually, the Copyright Act was replaced entirely in 1976 (becoming effective in 1978), and has been amended some, yet in substantial ways, since then. Noises are being made about a new Copyright Act coming along in the near future.

The person who wrote the summary is a bit confused. What happened is that the Warner claim was based on a copy published in 1935. Evidence was discovered of a copy that was published in 1927. That's not terribly interesting, but a copy published in 1922 has also come to light. That is interesting, because the cutoff for copyright on published works is 1923. (Due to the duration of copyright prior to the effective date of the 1976 Act, which retroactively lengthened the term of copyrights that were still in force)

The problem is that numerous companies haven't invested the time or money in ensuring their network can speak IPv6 or to the IPv6 world. The main issue has probably been that it was cheaper to do business a usual. Until major services do an IPv4 blackout day or ARIN raises the prices of the remaining IPv6, companies will be dragging their feet.

One site amongst the feet draggers is /. Sure there was a bug in some of the Perl code used by /. a number of years back, that apparently prevented supporting IPV6, as an excuse, but should that still be a reason today?

No, that part of the trademark will lapse when the copyright terminates. A trademark can't function as a substitute for a copyright. The remainder of the trademark might prevent people from selling MICKEY MOUSE brand breakfast cereal, but it would not stop them from using the character in their own works.

This is really the main reason that Disney is concerned about copyright terms; they know what would happen to the trademark.

I am wondering whether at this point ARIN would be justified to raising the price for remaining IPv4 addresses and offer IPv6 addresses at a lower cost? And then raise cost as a ratio of remaining IPv4 addresses available to hand out? I am sure this would change business perspective on how much to delay IPv6 adoption?

Piffle.

Copyright is utilitarian from top to bottom.

Copyright is only tolerable if it is better for society than not having it. One specific implementation of copyright is better than another if it provides a greater benefit for the public than the alternative.

It's no more based on fairness than a zoning regulation requiring a certain setback from the street.

A small nit here:

An exclusive right isn't a right that is held only by one party (and in fact, copyrights can be held by many parties), but is literally a right to exclude others.

So copyright isn't a right to make copies (that's free speech, and it applies even to works that aren't eligible for copyright). It is instead a right to exclude other people from making copies, and from doing certain other things with regard to the protected work.

Letter shapes are not copyrightable in the US. They may be eligible for a design patent, but that's relatively short-lived. Usually the only protectable thing, especially over a decent timeframe, is the name, as a trademark. That's why Apple's version of Helvetica from way back was called Geneva, and Microsoft's was called Arial.

We do.

We impose taxes on inheritances, because inheritance of substantial wealth is harmful to society. We impose taxes on property, because ownership of large, unproductive estates is harmful to society. We abolish property rights like the fee tail because inalienable property rights are harmful to society.

All property rights, beyond what an individual person can defend from others by force, relies entirely on the willing cooperation of others. The only reason I don't own the Brooklyn Bridge is because I can't convince enough people that I do. But if I were more convincing (or could overcome the force that would be mustered against me if I just tried to block others' access to it), my right of ownership would be perfectly legitimate.

Copyright operates similarly; no author has a right to tell others that they can't make copies, etc. of a work, merely because the author created it. All the author can do is keep the work a secret, if he's worried about that. Or he can convince others to respect his wishes. Just as you might not like to recognize my right of ownership of the Brooklyn Bridge merely because I really, really want you to, so too are third parties unlikely to honor a claim of copyright unless it provides some benefit to them that would not be enjoyed otherwise.

And so the deal with copyright is that we're willing to recognize an author's claim of copyright for a little while, because it seems to be useful to society, but eventually we're going to stop, and instead treat the work as being in the public domain, for the same reason. Authors can't stop that from happening, and there's too little benefit for the public in a perpetual copyright to bother recognizing them. It's a one-sided deal in favor of the public, but thems the breaks.

No, the whole point of copyright was to promote the progress of science (which is an archaic term for knowledge) and to thus serve the public interest.

Half of that involves encouraging authors to create and publish works which they would not have created and published but for copyright. But the other half is to grant the least amount of protection, for the least amount of time, that is necessary to accomplish that.

And the success of any copyright law is measured in how much of a benefit it provides for the public (in terms of the number of works created and published), less how much harm it causes the public (by restricting the free use of the works).

No. First, copyright doesn't guarantee any reward for the author or publisher; that's left to the market. All copyright does is funnel some of the profits available for the work toward the copyright holder. If a work is a flop, the copyright holder doesn't make any money.

Second, copyright doesn't care about quality. A brilliant work gets as much protection as a crappy one, (and again, the market may reward crappy works over 'quality works). This is necessary because artistic value is a matter of subjective judgment that the government should not be involved in. Quantity is the only permissible metric, and since a larger number of works will tend to result in a larger number of 'quality' works (see Sturgeon's Law) it's all okay in the end.

"Relatively recently?" What are you, a highlander?

The 14+14 term you describe lasted from 1790 to 1831. Then it became 28+14. And in 1909, it became 28+28. That's the term that changed relatively recently, in 1978, to life + 70, etc.

Still, kudos on the general thrust of your argument.