sunchild

To keep me from advocating an unpopular, but entirely rational, position – all while other people freely misrepresent the First Amendment in response to my comments.

IAAL, and I think you should make up your own mind about what the agreement means. Personally, I think you're over-thinking it, but you shouldn't take my advice, because I don't represent you in this instance. It's a shame that something so simple has to be so dressed up by Apple's legal group in obfuscated language. I also fault Apple for deferring to its outside counsel on these matters. There's nothing stopping them from using plain english that everyone can understand in these agreements. Having said that, I read so many of these things, that I recognize 75% of it as pure "boilerplate" that is for all practical purposes ignored by everyone.

@cooldeal: Nope, I'm dead serious. There's no fundamental human right that entitles you to tell Apple (or any other device maker) what it can and can't sell you.

@recoiledsnake: (for whatever reason, I'm not allowed to reply directly to you)

You're comparing Apple's ecosystem to Earth's.

Apple is a private company that makes products that are sold on the commercial markets. The Earth is something entirely different. If Apple made planets, then yes – they could decide how to manage the atmosphere. That's how business works.

Yes, and never mind that just about everything you take for granted about personal computers was "given" by Apple, too. I find this notion that users are entitled to complete device freedom really annoying.

If you find it so objectionable, go build your own hardware and OS platform. This isn't a matter of human rights because no one is telling you that you can't make your own.

Right, because I can't think of any reason why Apple wouldn't support Flash on a mobile device...

Not to mention that once you've seen one 60 Minutes episode, you've seen them all. It's a legendary formula, but tired as hell.

And the "security" that they desired lost them tablet users on the dominant tablet platform...brilliant!

Are you taking the position that only auto-generated passwords can be secure? I'm trying to understand what conclusion to draw from your comment.

My point was that imposing length validations on passwords is not hard. Complexity validation, while more difficult, is also not exactly a novel problem.

I feel like I'm in bizarro-world with all these people telling me that sending a plaintext password via email is more secure than giving users the option to follow an authenticated link to create their own password because...users can't be trusted to choose good passwords?! Really?

Probably a draw, as you say, since someone could get ahold of an authenticated link in your email, too.

Only if you (admin user) ask it to. Still a bad practice. Also, the premise is that Google trusts itself as an email provider.

"email isn't that easy to intercept and properly nobody is hacking your users physical (or wireless) network".

If you actually believe this, then we will never be in agreement.

A. They don't need to remember any password. They're creating it for the first time.

B. Minimum password length/complexity. It's not hard to do.

I can't believe you're actually arguing that creating a new password is less secure than using an auto-generated password that was sent via email. I hope you are just confused...

And what percentage would – like me – delete their account as soon as you send them a plaintext temp password?

You're living in the past if you think this is an acceptable practice. I don't care how trivial your web service is, if you're throwing my password around willy-nilly, I don't want you.

I wish more apps would get out of their own way and employ standard UIKit. I'm all for experimenting with UI on a new-ish platform like iOS, but the amount of parallel energy expended on checklist UIs is just depressing to me – esp. when the standard Cocoa libraries are more than adequate. There are just so many cases where turning the UI upside down is counterproductive.

It's better, in that you now at least know who to contact – someone who showed enough interest to provide an email address.

"... tell them their password is waiting for them in their inbox."

Nope. That email should contain a link to password creation.

Actually, it has nothing to do with ruby. The problem here is that some people use minification tools that rely on semicolons. If that weren't the case, this would be a total non-issue.

Am I the only person who considers use of the word "smart" as a leading indicator of the absence of intelligence? The term is so vague as to be utterly meaningless, and is usually a signal that we're really talking about someone's insecurities, their feelings of inadequacy, or their passive-aggressive megalomania. /psychobabble

True, but in some cases, data integrity concerns outweigh the desire for total obfuscation.

Section 506 says distribution means: "...by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public..."

Oddly enough, that would seem to capture broadcasting a stream, even though they probably were thinking of file sharing when they added that language. Equally odd is that if the broadcast had been in an analog format, it wouldn't seem to pass that test.

For the record, I think criminal penalties for copyright infringement is bad policy. Whatever public interest there was in copyright protection has long since been overwhelmed by private interests that belong in civil courts.

Sounds like an issue for the judge/jury. That's what trials are for. The standard is willful infringement, and that would need to be proved for any criminal defendants. There are also tests for whether the distribution rises to the criminal level (e.g., over a period of 180 days or of materials that have not yet been released, and so on). The question isn't whether the criminal charges would stick, but whether there is a public policy and a rule of law that supports bringing them in the first place.

There is a whole bunch of legal jurisprudence in just about every country that deals with intentional infringement of copyrights.

In the US: Operation Gridlock, Operation D-Elite, etc., etc. Look it up.

First, you determine the rule. Then you determine whether it ought to be enforced.

While you might be right that the authorities won't take on the criminal case, you and your friend are wrong about the question of whether this is a criminal offense under the law. It's at least a colorable case of intentional infringement in a commercial setting.

IAAL, too. Does that mean you'll just assume I know what I'm talking about? I've been practicing technology law for a decade and a half in New York. You'll have to excuse me if I find your attitude a little insulting...

Section 506 doesn't say "sold commercially". It says for commercial or private gain. Any lawyer worth his salt could argue that showing the game at a private promotional event for a company falls under the statute. Much more spurious arguments have been made.

What are you basing this on? It doesn't jibe with the laws, as I understand them.

Intentional infringement = criminal penalties. Sorry, but that's the rule of law, i.e., the very bed they made for themselves. Everyone knows the Superbowl is proprietary. The NFL says so during the broadcast.

I have a hard time seeing how it doesn't fail all the fair use tests. Calling it a "textbook" case is huge overstatement, IMO.

1. The purpose and character of your use.

Verbatim republication, including original layout, etc. in a commercial publication - NYT.com is a paywall and ad-supported site.

2 The nature of the copyrighted work.

Originally published at some not-immaterial effort and expense in a reputable independent journal. Well known in the industry.

3. The amount and substantiality of the portion taken.

All of it, and the kitchen sink.

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market.

Destroys any chance the owner had of charging for this material.

You make assumptions about what the NY Times knew and didn't know that you yourself can't possibly know. My opinion is that it would have been easy for the Times (a crack news organization) to find the owner.

Also, you say that the Phoenix didn't know the story existed, despite the fact that the author clearly indicated that the story is legendary.

Long story short: spurious analysis of a complex issue.

To be anything close to useful, this system will need to accept input from reviewers, and build a library of white-listed exceptions to whatever the final formulation of these rules are. Those exceptions need to be weighted, too, since many of the rules are stylistic or subjective in nature.