Those digital bits are actually in the physical world! Pits/lans, magnetic polarity, light/dark spots..... they are still physically tangible!

SALE: Permanently transferring ownership of property from one party to another.

RENT: Allowing use of property for a specific amount of time, with the period of time either being defined or open-ended. Ownership is not transferred. Usage rights are allotted in exchange for reimbursement based on one or more variables.

LICENSING: Allowing use of property by one party from another for a specific amount of time.

This all being said, if I BUY something, I own it and can do as I please with it. I can re-sell it just as I do my car/house/boat etc. However, I cannot buy a car, duplicate it, and then sell multiple copies of it. I can, however, make copies of it for my own enjoyment. Yet, if I pay another party to develop a custom product for me using my engineering, I retain all the rights to the product. EXAMPLE: I pay Company A for time, research, development, and testing to develop a new kind of shaving cream. Even though I did not develop it, Company A was acting as a paid agent or contractor to develop it for me. Company A does not gain the rights to the product, unless I was reckless and just gave them a pile of my money without any documentation or a contract.

A license is nothing more than permission to use something, and nothing more. If products are licensed, the licensing party grants permission for another party to do something specific with property that is under ownership of the licensing party. When the license expires, you no longer have permission to do a certain thing with the property. Since permission to use something is taken away from you, the revoking property needs to take back what they previously licensed.

When you rent something, you do not purchase any property. You are paying for the use of property, and must return it when you are finished using it, or break the rental agreement (which is conditional use).

When you buy a CD or DVD, you buy a copy. Like buying a newspaper, you can do anything you want with it physically, do anything you want with the printed content (so long as you do not engage in commercial distribution), you can photo copy an advertisement or article for your own personal enjoyment, as well as incidental enjoyment of others (such as posting a Dilbert cartoon in your humble cubicle, which is primarily for you to enjoy, but you cannot control the enjoyment of others who might see it on their own) that is beyond your control.

When you buy a copy, you own not only the physical medium, but also the data contained on it. Since the data on such things is stored in a physical manner, you own the data contained on the specific item you purchased. You cannot duplicate the item and sell it, because only the physical rights to that specific copy was purchased, and not the distribution rights to the song. Ask a record company for the prices to purchase a song on a CD from them, and then ask them for the price to distribute that song. You will get two very different numbers.

If a company is going to SELL products while LICENSING their use, then they need to buy it back when it is done being used.

RoboCar.....Meet RoboCop!

I need clarification on your proposed measurement #3.

By 'Members of the Senate", do you mean:

a) The value of their lives (What the rest of us would be losing if they were to magically disappear in a Harry Potter-esque manner),
b) Their value to the rest of us (What we gain from them per capita versus what they take from us),
-or-
c) What it costs to buy one (What needs explaining?!)

The Method of Calculating Copyright Infringement Damages:

1) Multiply # of illegal downloads by the last 4 digits of Defendant's telephone number for value A.

2) Divide value A by Defendant's Age for value B.

3) Multiply value B by 1000 for value C.

4) Multiply Defendant's weight by Defendant's Zip Code for value D. (For Zip codes that use a combination of numbers and letters, convert to Base-10 depending on the letter's position in the alphabet, then divide by a factor of 100)

5) Add values C and D together. The result is the total damages the Defendant has caused.

6) Sue the Defendant into eternal debt.

7) Cite previous court cases to support the damages claim.

8) Sing a paraphrased line from "Sixteen Tons": "When Saint Peter calls his name tell him he can't go, because he owes his soul to the Company Store....."

If a kid swallows a rare-earth magnet, the best thing to do is to seek medical attention RIGHT AWAY. Secondly, TAKE THE SOURCE OF THE MAGNETS AWAY FROM THEM!

A suitable punishment for such behavior would be to make them eat things that no kid would want to eat:

1. Chili peppers,
2. Castor oil (the medical stuff),
3. Lima beans,
4. Anchovies / Sardines

You can also spray some electronics duster on the stuff you don't want them to eat, but know they will.

The 'compressed air' stuff sold at electronics shops contains Bitrex, which I found out the hard way (by accident) tastes like absolute crap, makes everything else taste like absolute crap, stays on the hands (until they get a good scrubbing), and will linger for an hour or so in your mouth.

(This is the kind of stuff that happens when a bunch of cops get bored and realize the department is awash in office supplies and Christmas food. It made a better prank than crank-calling the Lt. from the office next to his, but that's another story.....)

Possibly, but the degaussing would probably be due to the force of the magnet slamming up against the machine after it shot out of the kid.....

Would be pretty funny if it was strong enough to levitate the kid, though. The look on the technician would be priceless.....

Right! Get on it. You will need to get the cleaning chemicals out of the tape safe.....

May God help them if that thing carried the Spice Channel!

1. The Bastard Bible: The Tome From Hell.
2. The Compleat BOFH.
3. Kama Sutra

Pop quizzes every Friday. Tardiness punishable by 2 days in the comms cupboard. Unexcused absences punishable by cattle prod.

I think we may have another drunk Russian commie on our hands.....

"He who lulz last, lulz best"

A leak website complaining about some leaking documents about it? Delicious!

That's the problem with Assange and Wikileaks..... They are essentially griefers who can't swallow their own medicine. They think it is O.K. leak everybody else's secrets, which they have no right to do, but they run and cower behind lawyers when someone releases WikiLeaks' secrets.

Talk about hypocrites!

***** THERE IS NO HOTSPOT ON THE MOON *****
***** THERE ARE NO VOLCANOES ON THE MOON *****
***** THE EVIDENCE IS OF VOLCANISM 800,000,000 YEARS AGO *****

derGoldstein, please read the articles you BEFORE you type the summary AND TITLE. I mean, if you are linking to an article, please read it first.

Sincerely,

The Rest Of SlashDot

The way to get around all of this "wiretapping" crap, aside from a judge who beats some common sense into police chiefs with his gavel, is simple:

A small red led, either flashing or continuous, on the recording device, or.....

A t-shirt that says "Audio / Video Monitoring In Progress", or both.

If you want to cover your ass while driving, place a reflective sticker right next to your license plate that reads: "This vehicle equipped with active audio / visual recording devices.". The officer won't be able to claim, unless he is blind, that he didn't see the duly posted notice. Hell, you'd even be able to see it on the officer's dashcam recording. Be vague yet accurate and truthful to the officer if he asks you about being recorded (don't be a total dick, especially if you really did run the stop sign and are trying to cover your ass, as it will look bad in court).

Officer: Am I being recorded?
Driver: Yes, that is why I posted the sticker on my car, right next to my license plate.
Officer: You do realize that it is interfering with my investigation and traffic stop, don't you?
Driver: No, I don't. How is it interfering with your investigation and traffic stop?
Officer: You might use the recording improperly.
Driver: Like how?
Officer: Where is the recording?
Driver: It's being streamed to servers in Havana, Cuba, with the added bonus that they don't have an extradition treaty with the U.S. It's also available streaming from Hulu, but people only watch the good ones the whole way through.
Officer: Good ones?
Driver: You know, where the cop goes ballistic about being videotaped by some bystander from 50 yards away, and then confiscates his phone and tries to arrest him on charges of wiretapping, invasion of privacy, interfering, tax evasion, lion taming, etc., then simultaneously "loses" both the phone recording and the squad car's dash cam tapes. It only works because those idiots didn't post any notice that they were recording the cops. Which is why I posted notice. .....