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Comment: You don't even have to do that (Score 1) 211

by rfc1394 (#37521712) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Copyright Terms For a Thesis?

You don't even have to state the work is copyrighted; copyright notices became optional in the U.S. in 1988 when we became a member of the Berne Union. The only issue is that if you don't have a notice the person who is sued can claim 'innocent infringement' and reduce damages.

Also, the term 'all rights reserved' is completely deprecated. This notice gives special protection under the Buenos Aires Convention, a special copyright convention from around 1912. As of about 1990 every member of the Buenos Aires Convention was also a member of the Berne Union, which doesn't require copyright notices at all, therefore the term 'all rights reserved' is now completely superfluous. (There are very limited technical exceptions regarding when a copyright expires which doesn't apply for most people because copyrights last for life plus many years, either 50 or 70 depending on which country has stayed with the old version of the Berne Convention or the newer version.)

Comment: Re:You don't own it (Score 1) 211

by rfc1394 (#37521662) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Copyright Terms For a Thesis?

It doesn't matter what you want to put on your thesis, you university owns the copyrights to it.

I'd suggest you contact your Uni and put the same question to them, rather than 6 million /. Subscribers.

This is not correct. Unless you are an employee of the university and you are hired to do this sort of work, it is not the university's property. Even if you wrote the paper using university computers and university resources. You're paying the university and therefore you're entitled to use of the facilities. This point is very clear that unless you are doing this as a 'work for hire' you own the work, and for it to be considered a work for hire means you either have to be a contract or salaried employee of the university to be considered creating a 'work for hire' for them to own the work. A student of the university is not an employee of the university and the university has no ownership right whatsoever. This has been a standard rule since the U.S. became a member of the Berne Convention and eliminated copyright notices more than twenty years ago.

Comment: Use Creative Commons (Score 1) 211

by rfc1394 (#37521600) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Best Copyright Terms For a Thesis?
If you want attribution you cannot use Public Domain because you cannot impose any conditions at all, it is completely open. You probably want Creative Commons share alike non-commercial, which means people can use or quote your work, but if they want to use it for commercial purposes such as resale then they have to get your permission. Sounds like you probably want this one:

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike CC BY-NC-SA

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Comment: Re:Huh? (Score 1) 241

by rfc1394 (#36710644) Attached to: NJ Judge Rules GPS Tracking of Spouse Legal

You don't have the right to not be photographed in public,

But the photo can't be used for commercial purposes.

You don't have the right to 'privacy' over something that can be viewed from public land or public right-of-way.
You don't have the right to stop people from saying bad things about you.

As long as what they say is true. If someone calls you a bastard pedophile, as long as they can prove your parents weren't married before you were born and you engage in unacceptable private meetings with kids, that's perfectly legal to say. Otherwise they can be held to damages.

Procter & Gamble, the soap manufacturer, had a big problem with people who were claiming the company supported Satanism and their 'Man In The Moon' logo was a Satanic symbol. (What this has to do with the quality of their products is beyond me.) One rumor was that the President of P&G appeared on a Saturday edition of Phil Donohue and admitted that the company supported Satanism, despite the fact that (1) He'd never appeared on the show; (2) Donohue did not do Saturday shows; (3) No such show ever happened. Apparently it was some Amway distributors who were trying to besmirch P&G's spotless reputation with libelous insults. P&G sued and got a large judgement.

You don't have the right to punish people who don't break any laws and can call you out with proof of what a huge lair, criminal adulterer pig cop you are.

Again, only if it's true. Libel is not only a civil offense - the party who has been defamed can sue - but it's also a crime. Usually not invoked unless you say something really bad about someone or you malign a dead person who has a good reputation. Claiming Mother Theresa died of a venereal disease or was a hooker, that George Washington was a coward, or that FDR was faking he was crippled because he was actually collaborating with the Nazis, are the sort of things that if you tried to claim were true, might be serious enough if some prosecutor was offended to get you tried for criminal libel and if convicted, jail time. Libeling dead people is considered very bad because they can't respond and if they have a good reputation it damages it. Now you can libel Saddam Hussein or Stalin or Hitler all you want, their reputation is so bad they basically are considered undefamable.

Comment: Re:This would be illegal in Texas (Score 1) 241

by rfc1394 (#36710276) Attached to: NJ Judge Rules GPS Tracking of Spouse Legal

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.16.htm#16.06

Sec. 16.06. UNLAWFUL INSTALLATION OF TRACKING DEVICE. (a) In this section:

(1) "Electronic or mechanical tracking device" means a device capable of emitting an electronic frequency or other signal that may be used by a person to identify, monitor, or record the location of another person or object.

(2) "Motor vehicle" has the meaning assigned by Section 501.002, Transportation Code.

(b) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly installs an electronic or mechanical tracking device on a motor vehicle owned or leased by another person.

The car was owned by the person who installed the device, ergo this statute does not apply and it's legal in Texas. You can always put tracking equipment on vehicles you own. This was humorously treated in the cartoon King of the Hill (which coincidentally takes place in Texas) where the drivers got mad because Mr. Strickland, the owner of the propane company, had installed 'tattlers' on the trucks he owned to see where the drivers were taking the vehicles. Drivers didn't like it and complained, but the practice is perfectly legal. They're his trucks, he has every right to monitor them. If it's my car, I can monitor it if I choose to do so.

Comment: The whole point here is very simple (Score 1) 241

by rfc1394 (#36710252) Attached to: NJ Judge Rules GPS Tracking of Spouse Legal
If it's my computer, I can install a keylogger to record all keystrokes, or spying software to determine what places were visited; it's not illegal and any evidence collected is legally admissible. Even the police do not need a warrant to install such things on their own computers. If it's my car - or I'm co-owner - I can install a 'bumper beeper', a tattler to determine where the vehicle went, or a GPS tracking device; it's not illegal and any evidence collected is legally admissible. Even when car rental companies did something similar to this a while ago, the only thing that was illegal about it was they couldn't use the information to impose a 'fine' on renters who drove vehicles faster than the speed limit.

Comment: Hot dog vendor paying 10% in trans. cost? Get real (Score 1) 391

by rfc1394 (#36710226) Attached to: PayPal Predicts the End of the Wallet By 2015
As I noted on the original article (and expanded here) , if I give a hot dog vendor $3 for a hot dog and a soda, the vendor gets the whole $3. First, a vendor is not going to accept being charged 35c to process a $3 transaction. (Based on the typical transaction cost of 34c+3% of the transaction, which is what Google Payments or Paypal charges me, which would be a minimum of 35c) Get that down to 10-12c and it will probably be acceptable. Second, we need to have nationwide ubiquitous wireless internet to allow our prototypical hot-dog vendor to be able to handle transactions where they would need to handle it through some sort of system that doesn't charge a fee for message processing, unlike cellular networks who would ding the vendor for a text message fee to and from the charge processor. Third, the price to have the processing equipment has to come down, a hot dog vendor is not going to accept a minimum $30 per month service charge to be able to swipe credit cards when they can handle cash for free.

Comment: Re:That's odd (Score 1) 104

by rfc1394 (#36337334) Attached to: Internet Explorer Use Slips Below 55%

"I've read elsewhere that it's already below 50% on weekends"

That disparity is because China and Korea heavily use IE 6 and 7 which skew the numbers higher for IE. In North America IE had less than 50% marketshare for awhile. It is even lower in Europe.

Most machines in China are pirated and therefore do not get Windows Updates which mean they use IE. Korea is IE because all banks and e-commerce sites force users to use activeX controls due to the lack of SSL thanks to US export controls with encryption.

(1) Firefox supports SSL. (2) The U.S. no longer has export controls upon COTS (commercial, off-the-shelf) applications. If it's sold or given away publicly it's not export controlled. This has been the case for at least four or five years. See the government's rule page at http://www.bis.doc.gov/encryption/question1.htm for more details.

Microsoft

Internet Explorer use below 55%->

Submitted by
rfc1394
rfc1394 writes "Infoworld reports in this article "Internet Explorer's market share continues to drop like a rock. Net Applications published its numbers for May, and Internet Explorer's total share declined yet again, from 55.11 percent in April (see note at bottom) to 54.27 percent in May, a drop of 0.84 basis point in one month. Contrast that with Google's Chrome, which rose from 11.94 percent in April to 12.52 percent in May, an increase of 0.58 basis point. In the past year, IE's share of browser usage has dipped from 60.32 percent to 54.27 percent." So the article asks the question, "How long before IE usage drops below 50%?""
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