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Comment: Re:Extension == Theft (Score 2) 536

by dwandy (#37378154) Attached to: EU Extends Music Copyright to 70 Years

Right. ALL copyright is theft. Artists should have absolutely no protections along these lines.

Don't know if you're trolling or if your entire post broke my sarcasm meter, but although I don't agree with Copyright as a good means to an end, it is not theft; it's a deal. (between the public and the artists in theory)
The bit that makes it theft is the retroactive extension. If the increased duration was for new works there would be no theft, but there would be a new deal.
That only one side is really represented at the bargaining table and that all the research (I've seen) suggests that shorter terms would be more beneficial to society isn't really part of this discussion.

Comment: Re:Hahaha. it failed. (Score 1) 110

by dwandy (#37340858) Attached to: P2P Traffic Drops 10% After New NZ Law
We have no idea of the success of this law as they're measuring the wrong thing.
Hopefully a decrease in p2p is not what the media publishing/distribution industries actually want. Hopefully they want increased revenue (more specifically profit, but in theory an increase in revenue is an increase in profit for this scenario). So unless we see an increase in sales that we can directly attribute to this law the law has failed regardless of the change in p2p traffic.
And to me this would still be measuring the wrong thing: as a society we want to measure not sales but some more abstract concept of how much quality art is being created.

Comment: Re:Greedy, Oracle. (Score 1) 173

by dwandy (#36845852) Attached to: Google: Sun Offered To License Java For $100M

and the two companies couldn't work out a deal

While interesting, that Google tried to strike a license deal doesn't mean they believed they would be infringing on valid patents; they may have felt it was easier/cheaper to license than fight. Once the license price hit a threshold they decided to fight if necessary. And they may have felt that Sun wouldn't litigate -- had they know Oracle would buy it they might have been willing to pay more to avoid litigation. But that doesn't mean they think they're "in the wrong". The license may have included additional value; at the very least would have made them customers of "Java" technology which they are now not. Having Android==Java might have been a good thing for Sun. We can speculate all day, but at the end all this means is that Google talked to Sun about Java, and then didn't implement Java.
In short, the negotiating is a (not very) interesting historical trivia and nothing more.

Google used the code

This implies a copyright issue; they're being sued for patent infringement.

People have known about Google being in the wrong

again, citation needed [...to the other people who presume Google's "wrong" not you who did provide linky :-) ]

It should be noted that many of the patent claims have already been invalidated w/o further consideration.
Where this all ends is yet to be determined, but I tire (in general terms) of the growing presumption of guilt (in general terms) before trials are concluded. That's not a Oracle/Google thing, but a we-believe-in-trials-to-resolve-disputes or for the criminal trials; we believe in innocent until proven guilty.

Comment: Re:Problem with face recognition (Score 1) 375

by dwandy (#36799982) Attached to: Facial Recognition Gone Wrong
65,000,000 * 0.01% == 65,000,000 * 0.0001 != 650 000
So 6500 people per year, or about 18 people per day get extra attention from a human. Doesn't seem unmanageable.
I don't disagree with technology helping deal with issues as long as in the end it's a human making the call; not a machine.

The real question/danger is if we begin to rely 100% on this machine whether other methods which work today will mean that Bad People (tm) will take explicit action to become one of the 0.01% ensuring 100% effective failure of the system.

Comment: Re:Is your microwave hostile? (Score 1) 281

by dwandy (#36799158) Attached to: iOS 4.3.4 Prevents Hacking and Jailbreaking

Why is Apple the bad guy?

In a word: Expectation.
I don't see my microwave as being a general purpose computer which has been arbitrarily locked down. For your example to work it would have to refuse to reheat chicken on Tuesdays.

but which the manufacturer prevents you from easily running arbitrary code.

In a word: Intention.
I don't think that they are actively preventing you (which you seem to imply). It may be difficult (as you suggest) but that's because they are not selling a device intended for running arbitrary code; they are selling a device for specific purpose. Apple on the other hand wants to sell a device that is intended to run arbitrary code, but only code they approve of.

Comment: Re:To Paraphrase Goering... (Score 1) 173

I reach for my gun

Congrats! You just made the Crazy People List. (trademark pending)
Now, thanks to that one comment on-line, the local and federal authorities have placed you on the Watch List (long ago trademarked). Should you go further in your anti-authority ways we may read about you in the paper with heavy slant about how you made dangerous remarks on-line. Or we may never hear from you again as some Secret Terrorist Court (trademark denied: "generic") deems you unfit to be amongst the law abiding citizens. And for our own good, we will let them keep you.

Either way; reaching for your gun works for them, not against them.

Comment: Patents are on Inventions, not ideas (Score 2) 274

by dwandy (#36395112) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: Reducing Software Patent Life-Spans?
There's numerous reasons why patents on software are invalid. The most difficult to understand for a non-technical person might be that it can be reduced to math, which is already not patentable; so be allowing patents on software you are allowing patents on math. And demonstrating this in court for any scenario could be somewhat difficult.
But the simpler answer (from the start) should have been that you are not supposed to be able to patent an idea; you must patent an invention (implementation). In software it's either source code (covered by copyright) or it's an idea (not patentable).
The simple question from the patent examiner or judge for a software patent is a request to see the implementation. Since there's no implementation in "a way to navigate the web using a touch interface" it should get tossed. On the other hand, the specific implementation could (I suppose) be patented, but since the implementation is already covered by copyright, why bother with the (inferior) patent...?

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