Posts by Neil Brown 142 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Sep 2008
When this happens, use VLC or other DVD playback software to view the first few seconds of the desire, and just look at the title - this gives you the number. Then, in HandBrake or whatever, set it to prompt for title number, so that, when you out in the number from the playback software, it only scans that title. Irritating, but still pretty fast.
I bought a USB-powered LED-based light with a flexible housing about five years ago, from the pound shop, and it stills works well.
I have not tried to modify it to work with an iPad / Kindle / other connector, so I've no idea whether the circuitry would supply sufficient power, but, at £25, this seems remarkably expensive.
I was hugely impressed with FreeNAS - I found it very easy to configure, and it "just works".
Since FreeNAS 7 is working fine for me at the moment, and uPnP support is important to me, I'll just keep an eye out for features - but I'm not going to risk messing up a perfectly good system for the sake of a later release number!
Unfortunately, yes it does - to change the format, you would be creating a copy of the various underlying works, without a licence; there is no general "personal use" exception to to the reproduction right under English law (i.e. nothing which implements Art. 5(2)(b) of dir. 2001/29/EC) to grant you the right to do this. Similarly, it's an infringement of copyright (probably of multiple copyrights) to rip a CD to your hard drive, or copy it to your music player, or to put an image of a DVD or a copy of just the film (i.e. stripping the unnecessary chapters out) on your NAS, for streaming to your media centre.
I would question whether a rightsholders would want to invest the money to sue an individual doing these for his/her own personal use, but, to my mind, it simply demonstrates that copyright law in England is out of touch with reality.
... having switched from Linux for my desktop systems about six months back, to see what it was like. (Still using a mix of Linux and BSD on my home servers, but added a Mac server to tinker with that too.)
For me, having the menu bar at the top is not too bad when windows are opened as full screen, since I still tend to Alt-Tab between applications, so bringing the menu bar I need to the fore is not that much of a problem. However:
a.) I like to minimise windows, whilst leaving the application running, and this is more of a hassle - I might be missing something obvious, but I have yet to find a way of minimising a window, whilst retaining it as Alt-Tab selectable;
b.) when I have a terminal / small window open on the right hand side of the screen, moving across to the menu bar is a nuisance - although, I guess it has the side effect of me continuing to use keyboard shortcuts to do what I need to do the most, to avoid using the mouse too much. (Although the battery life in the Magic Mouse is always less than magical for me, whether I try to avoid using it or not.) However, I'd be surprised if the "average user" would want to use keyboard shortcuts, or whether they'd prefer a more point-and-shoot approach; and
c.) yes, I'll go to do something in the menu bar, having forgotten that I changed window focus, or else forgot to change window focus, and get irritated by it being the wrong menu bar. Sure, it's my fault for forgetting something, but it still bugs me.
Can I live with it- yes. Would I change back, if the option were there - probably, yes.
"Double jeopardy" is not out completely - the Court of Appeal held that there can be a retrial where there is "new and compelling evidence". There's ambiguity as to what this means, for sure, but it does not mean a complete revocation of the principle.
I meant to add in my previous response, that the principle of double jeopardy applies to someone who is tried and acquitted, not someone who is tried, found guilty, and serves their sentence - that someone cannot be tried again for the same offence after serving their sentence comes from the fact that the have done their penance - the slate is wiped clean. In the situation here, the slate is wiped clean only in as much as the breach of the previous s49 order has been remediated - another order, another breach, another slate to wipe.
To my mind, at least, it's not clear that the double jeopardy principle would apply. The crime, for which he was imprisoned, was failing to comply with a s49 order. I agree with you that he cannot be tried twice for the breach of a s49 order- the double jeopardy principle.
However, there is nothing in ss49-51 of RIPA which prevent a law enforcement agency from issuing another s49 notice, seeking the same information - this is entirely different to charging someone again for the same crime. If he fails to provide the key, he is tried for the breach of the new order, and thus commits a new, triable, criminal offence. There is no double jeopardy issue here - it's breaching a separate s49 notice.
There are two competing policy issues here - one is that someone should not be tried twice for the same offence (although under attack in some situations), and the other is that someone should not be entitled to obstruct the investigation of a larger crime by committing a smaller crime, and take the penalty for that smaller crime as a way of preventing the investigation.
I'm not aware of any legal authority on this, so just going on the basis of what makes sense to me in terms of approach - I'd be very interested to see something which suggests a different approach.
The obligations on source code provision when a covered work is conveyed/distributed arise at the point at which the work is made available - there is no concept of "we might release the code at a future point."
However, the "written offer" mechanism for distributing source code does not impose a particular reponse time - you would have to get into the rules of legal interpretation to determine whether the term "reasonably" would need to read into the sections in question. If Dell has made a compliant written offer, then, a slight delay is acceptable - but only for the processing of a request, rather than by need to get hold of the relevant source code, although, in reality, who would know?
Howevre, if Dell has failed to make a written offer to supply the source code, has not accopmanied distribution of the binary on the device with the relevant source code, and is not making the source code available from its website (although, under GNU GPL 2, even making source code available on a website is not a compliant source distribution for a binary distributed in a physical product, although, in practice, is generally considered acceptable), it would appear to be an infringement of copyright, even if an unintentional one.
I suggested a (cc) licence, which requires attribution, as a way of fulfilling the request, but also retaining (and, perhaps, increasing) the value to the author. The requester may not have thought of.attribution, so the suggestion of the equivalent of a link back / source reference might be appealing.
He was asking permission, to get around an onerous requirement by a local publisher - and, as you say, sometimes you see merit in your content being used without a royalty being paid. He did the right thing - he asked for a licence - and got a pretty shirty, sarcastic response back. If you did not want him to use the article, would a simple "I'm afraid that I would not be willing to license your use of my work in this manner" not have sufficed?
You may be the owner of the copyright in the article at law, but, as the Register so often promotes, copyright law is entirely out of touch - the article was built on the learnings, discoveries and writings of others. A definite case of "standing on the shoulders of giants". The requestor was so keen to get the article republished that he was willing to invest time and effort in modifying it, and seeking your approval of the modifications before going to print.
Perhaps a Creative Commons BY-SA licence grant would have been ideal, allowing him to get the article published, with a few minor amendments to circumvent the restrictive policy of requiring a local author, and still retaining attribution etc. (e.g. "This opinion was based on a piece by Andrew Orlowski, available at http://www.theregister.co.uk."). The Register gets its name further out there, for what appears to be very little cost at all - if the target audiencehad not already seen the Register, the attribution might prompt them to do so; if they had, then, they have already seen your store etc.
“This is an important inflection point in our business because it allows us to accelerate our commitment to enhance premium online services to the entire robust EA Sports online community"
Was this a public statement, or the output of a Web 2.0 catchphrase generator? Could he not just say "It's good for us, because we can sell stuff to a captive audience"?
I've had the pleasure (and, yes, it genuinely was a pleasure) of discussing issues relating to technology, law, and social policy etc. with the Earl of Errol on a number of occasions, and would suggest that he is very switched on, understands the issues from the point of view of a customer and a business owner, and appreciates that copyright infringement should be a civil, not a criminal, matter. The fact that he inherited a title should not come into it, to my mind - other than being grateful for the fact that it at least gives him a greater voice in this debate.
(We ended up running through Vauxhall, to the tube station, a few months back, and, once on the train, we had an enjoyable conversation about ereaders, and their scope for revolutionsing reading habits, and making information accessible and available, and of how to keep track of broadband usage if on a capped subscription - an independent peer, so no party affiliation, just looking after the interests of businesses and consumers, to my mind.)
I've never heard this to be the case - mostly, lawyers are paid on the basis of time spent (printing costs and the like tend to be charged on top of this), or else via a fixed fee arrangements.
However, most of my clients want shorter documents rather than longer ones - I can't see anyone thanking me for producing an unnecessarily long document, or anything which unnecessarily holds up the main purpose of their business, which is generally making money.
I'm not going to attempt to argue that we are the most dynamic of professions, but, the problem of lack of electronic access is self-perpetuating, unfortunately.
I've been using a COOL-ER ereader for several months now, and I'm a huge fan - but, short of printing legislation from OPSI into PDF to carry around, along with articles etc. for reading offline / without a backlit screen, it is very difficult to get legal texts, or even statutes, in an accessible and portable electronic form.
Which, in turns, leads to a reliance on books.
Which, in turn, means that publishers see lawyers buying lots of books, and so produce contents as books.
Some content is available electronically, but, not enough; perhaps this is gradually starting to change, but, I am not holding my hopes out yet.
Legislation and case law should be accessible to all - in the same way that, when dealing with open source software, for example, someone might look to engage me to configure a system for them, or build a custom feature, but need not pay for the underlying code, no-one should have to pay me for access to "the law", but rather pays for my advice and experience in terms of interpreting or applying it to their situation.
(However, before I'd be willing to put anything in the way of privileged, confidential or other non-public or personal information on my COOL-ER, I'd need encryption support.)
The Data Protection Act 1998, defines "data" in section 1, as "information which:
(a) is being processed by means of equipment operating automatically in response to instructions given for that purpose,
(b) is recorded with the intention that it should be processed by means of such equipment,
(c) is recorded as part of a relevant filing system or with the intention that it should form part of a relevant filing system, or
(d) does not fall within paragraph (a), (b) or (c) but forms part of an accessible record as defined by section 68." [which includes health records and the like.]
On the basis of this, information stored on paper may not qualify as "data" for the purposes of the act if it not capable of automatic processing, or is not stored in (or is not, in itself) "a relevant filing system". A relevant filing system is basically something which has an index or a structure, which allows the capability of retrieving specific information about an identifiable individual.
In the case of a bundle of paper, it's unlikely that this is the case - unless it has an index attached, which lists individuals by name, with each document on which they are mentioned - and, on this basis, probably is not data.
But, I think what you are actually saying is that, irrespective of vaguaries of "data protection" law, the wider concept of privacy should be considered- the fact that a particular information storage system falls outside the requirements of the Data Protection Act does not mean that the document should be treated without care.
(Sometimes, we do need a third party to give us, as a profession, a bad name...)
[i]It just goes to show, however tempting it may be, GPL or other open-source code and commercial software just don't mix.[/i]
Do you mean "proprietary"? It's perfectly possible to make use of Free / open source software in a commercial context, provided that you do not charge a royalty. I have advised on plenty of projects which make "commercial" use of open source software, including GNU GPL 2.0'd software, and hope to continue to do so.
>Do all "news" web sites now have to employ full-time, dedicated re-writers who must read each day's incoming mail and make any changes immediately?
For many, many years, actually - pretty much as long as websites have been in existence, there have been discussions as to the scope of a website's provider for liability for content on the site.
Here, the provider of the article is the author - so no chance of hiding behind an Art. 14 "hosting" defence, under the eCommerce directive - and so they are subject to the same laws of defamation as any other publisher. The decision here, whilst highly problematic for other reasons, simply reflects existing law; that, a fixed period from posting a letter, the intended recipient is deemed to have received it.
A distinction needs to be made before we, as a society, do something stupid.
In respect of news which is being reported as current, then, I see little problem in this - one needs to ensure that what they are saying is accurate, or, at least, there must be a balancing act between the rights and needs of the subject, and of the public. A story listed as current that implies something damaging, where it is an incorrect allegation, should, right, be treated as defamatory.
However, matters of historical record should be entirely different - a story which was accurate *as at the date it was written*, should not cause liability to fall on a provider. A printed version of the paper, which has been sold but remains accessible through a library, which contains a statement which was true at the time of publication/sale (argument to be had), is not libellous - it's a matter of fact that, at that date, the story was correct. The same should apply to online archives - if content is no longer a "current story", then, even ignoring the massive practical problems in terms of updating old material in the light of new discussions, it remains of historical value - if anything, an amended historic article is less accurate than an unamended one.
You can do "one page per view", and so see the pages exactly as converted to .pdf, so, if the .pdf page renders correctly, so will it on a non-zoomed rendition on the screen here.
However, when you start applying zoom, to make the font size more readable, you run into problem, with line breaks (or whatever you call the horizontal dividing line in an equation) disappearing, and bits of the equation appearing in odd places. I'm not a mathematician (as this clearly demonstrates), but, other than on a non-zoomed view, which makes reading very hard indeed, since it is small, I would not feel comfortable trusting the display of complex equations.
For example, Formula 20, on page 54 pdf / 28 paper of:
http://tex.loria.fr/general/mil.pdf (Grätzer's "Math into LaTeX" guide)
appears on a slightly-zoomed screen on my device as:
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5396/coolerlatex.jpg
(Green balance adjusted slighlty, otherwise, image as taken on phone)
moylan: the latest firmware has "Search" - I haven't tried it (reflashed the firmware this morning, to be greeted with lots of odd anime characters - not very intuitive at all!), but, there is an option, and pop-up keyboard, which one navigates via the click-wheel. My gut feeling is that I would not want to rely on it too heavily. Sadly, I still cannot find the source code for the GNU GPL components, which would make it reasonably easy, I'd hope, to implement a FITALY-based keyboard. (And, perhaps, encryption...)
A/C: yes, it's the same as the Bookeen, I believe. One of the files in the firmware image also indicates that it's a "Netronix E-Book"
Not sure how many months.
It's been a great piece of kit - and, for me, more importantly, the company behind it, InterRead, has been outstanding - personal customer support, and, when I sent in some comments and suggestions, a thoughtful and considered response, and the opportunity to visit their premises and discuss my thoughts with them.
Bounty - your post is confusingly. As the copyright owner, you can make your own code available under the GNU GPL 2.0 without releasing the source code; it produces a perverse result, which is largely useless, but, you are not restricting yourself in any way.
In any case, there is, most probably, a difference between a conditional licence and a contract; the mere fact that a licence contains obligations need not make it a contract.
"the "fair dealing" provision"
Sadly, not all jurisdictions benefit from such a defence; in Europe, a limited "personal use" right was made available to Member States to incorporate into national law, but there was no requirement do so - there is no such personal use right, nor fair dealing defence, under English law.
"Now, usually copyright protects the copyright holder's right to earn money from their works. It is on this basis that they sue for damages. How does that sit with GPL?"
Copyright gives a rights holder a range of restricted acts; acts which only the rightsholder has the right to perform, save where there are statutory exceptions or rights (depending on how you construe various parts of the law of copyright).
However, copyright is not purely a financial issue; one need not prove loss to bring a successful action for infringement of copyright, nor need to bring a claim for damages - one can merely bring a claim for infringement, with a remedy akin to an injunction - a court demand that the respondent, if found to have infringed the claimant's copyright, ceases to do so - or delivery-up of the infringing goods.
(There are also concepts of "moral rights" (e.g. the right to be recognised as author of a work), which, intrinsically, have limited/no financial value)
One could also make a case for an equitable (discretionary) remedy of an "account for profits"; a claim akin to unjust enrichment that, through infringement of copyright, the respondent has made money which they should not have made, and which should be paid over to the claimant.
In short, when dealing with copyright, one need not prove financial loss to bring a successful case.
I think there's little doubt that GNU GPL 2 is relatively unclear - as are many contracts and many licences. However, under English law, ambiguity in contracts should be interpreted "contra proferentum" - against the party seeking to rely on the uncertainty. I'm not aware of any case law applying this principle to licences, but, I'd be surprised if a different principle were adopted. This might mean a weakening of the hoped-for effect of the licence, but, not a fundamental uprooting of the whole licence.
To my mind, the distinction is whether one must license all code which touches GNU GPL 2'd code under GNU GPL 2, or only code which is "based on" that GNU GPL 2'd code - the ambiguity doesn't stretch sufficiently far to allow someone to distribute GNU GPL 2'd code without ensuring the source is available, nor to distribute modified GNU GPL 2'd code without distributing the source of the modifications.
This may be important to some, but, the ambiguity does not negate every aspect of value in the licence; without the licence, or a statutory exception / permission, one has no right to perform an act restricted by copyright on the covered code anyway. "Legally unstable", whilst correct, perhaps make it sound as if the entire licence is worthless, which, personally, I do not think is the case.
I can only hope that TV Licensing will realise that sending letters containing legal threats to those without televisions, threatening "home visits", and writing to households *after* being advised that there is no television there may well be construed in the same manner, as an act of harrassment.
"i.e. it makes it a crime to perform an act that enables someone else to misuse a computer. Where 'Enable' is left so vague as to be meaningless. i.e. punish Peter because something he does enabled Paul to do something illegal."
Peter's modification to enable Paul's access would need to constitute an authorised modification in its own right. Otherwise, the loophole in the original Act remains that, if Peter, without authority, creates a privileged account on a system (for example), and then passes the details to Paul to carry out the exploit, Peter could not be charged under the Act.
In any case, s61, Serious Crime Act 2007, repeals s35(2) of the Police and Justice Act 2006, so this provision does not come into force.
"Section 3A makes it a crime to make cracking tools, networks sniffers etc. "
No, it does not. The drafting is not perfect, but, it is a criminal offence to create a tool "intending it to be used to commit, or assist in the commission of, a [computer misuse act] offence." If you write a packet sniffer for testing your network, the burden on proof would be on the prosecution to prove that you intended to use it to commit an offence. It has the element of "intention" - a mental state - and is not absolute.
It's not perfect by a long shot, but, it's not as bad as you point out, at least to my mind.
The drafting of s37(3), sadly, is entirely incomprehensible to me.
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