[conspire] Copyrights and patents

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):

> On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 07:09:43PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> > Quoting Ruben Safir (ruben at mrbrklyn.com):
> > 
> > > http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/media/29ipad.html
> > > 
> > > FWIW - this is an example of a company, TM in this case, stretching the
> > > law to create facts on the ground....
> > 
> > Stretching which law, by the way?

I notice you didn't address this question.  Let's try it again:
Rubin:  Stretching which law, by the way?

You also disregarded this question:  'The cited article doesn't mention
lobbying.  It does mention that Time Warner Cable had been doing a PR
campaign on its Web site.  Is there some other article that talks about
lobbying in connection with this story?'

Here, let me help you out:  This is your cue to say 'Yeah, you're right,
Rick.  My rhetoric got carried away with me when I said "not to mention
their inevitable lobbying":  As you noticed, the article said nothing
about lobbying.  It was just about a business dispute between a cable
company and two cable channel owners.'

I'd suggest that it's a really bad idea for you to ignore me when I
start (belatedly) reining you in by politely asking you to substantiate
doubtful assertions of fact that you sprayed onto my small local LUG
mailing list while attempting to abuse it as a target for rants about
the behaviour of corporations that doesn't even have anything to do with
Linux.


Let's back up.  This is important.

We have pretty relaxed standards of topicality on this mailing list, 
which we can indulge because the people on this mailing list are pretty
much well behaved and sensible.  They'd never, for example, seek to
troll the membership into some infamous flamewar about, say, the
Arab/Israeli dispute or, say, the RIAA / DMCA / copyright thuggery.
So, we trust to the maturity and judgement of our subscribers, and don't
declare 'You may not be an idiot in any of the following 43 ways' rules.

You're probably aware of where I'm going with this:  You've been guilty
of posting flamebait on various infamous flame topics.  This has been
very notably injurious to my small LUG mailing list.  You have been the
worst of several bad apples, and the chief excuse for bad behaviour on
the part of others.  I need you to stop all that, pretty much right now.

This is not Congress, and you are not giving Congressional testimony.
You will not be stumping here with ideological arguments for changes to
national, let alone international, copyright legal policy.

Now, before you start protesting that you didn't _mean_ to post
flamebait, don't even go there.  Alleged inadvertency wouldn't make it
better; it would make it worse.  That would be implicitly saying 'I
can't and won't stop doing that.'



> > The article you point to discussed cable channels such as Comedy
> > Central, which is owned by Viacom, one of the two cable-TV holding
> > companies it discusses.  Viacom asserts that Comedy Central is made
> > available to the cable companies by contract, and that the rights
> > conveyed by contract don't include streaming to tablet computers.
> > That strikes me as entirely plausible.
> > 
> > Are you saying some law requires that right to be automatically conveyed
> > to contract partners?  If so, what law?
> 
> No - every hearing on copyright in Washington includes extensive
> discussion on the rights of internet respoduction, and the TV stations
> themselves sued to prevent the broadcasts from being streamed from
> Canada.

Excuse me, but not so fast, please:  

(1) I saw nothing whatsoever in the cited article about broadcast.  The
article talks about cable channels, which is why this is reported to be
a busines dispute between Time Warner and two cable channel operators.

(2) You have conspicuously failed to address the question:  What law?
To rephrase that, what legal right (and according to what law) is one
of the parties being denied?  Neither party to this specific tort
dispute, which has thus far risen only to the level of vague legal
threats, is raising anything other than contract details.  If you're 
asserting that this isn't a contract dispute, which isn't the aggrieved
party raising that other issue?  Do you think they're stupid?

> TM knows....

Excuse me, but who the gently caress is 'TM'?  Toyota Motors?
Transcendental Meditation?  Thrash Metal?  Turing Machine?  You've now
used that expression in two postings in a row, but there is nobody, and
no company or organisation mentioned in the article, named TM, and none
whose initials would, if abbreviated, be TM.

Is that perhaps your erroneous rendering of 'Time _Warner_'?  Twice in a
row?

Maybe you should slow down a little bit.  Your postings might make quite
a bit more sense, in a number of areas.

Here's an idea:  Cease trying to batter people over the head with
verbose screeds stating your opinions, and at least take the time to
cite your underlying reasoning rather than just attempting to hammer
people.  It's really gently caressing obnoxious, Rubin.

> TM knows full well that they can no legally stream their
> broacasting rights to the net without violating copyright, whether on an
> ipad or not.  In fact, they are a leading arguer for this restriction.

Time Warner assert that they paid for those rights pursuant to contract.  
Maybe this is true; maybe it isn't.  Have you read those contracts?  
I haven't.  Thus my shutting the gently caress up on that subject.


> TW just woke up and decided to create facts on the ground and now is
> making a public campaign to try to gain a foothold.

By putting a page on their Web site.  Ooh, I'm quaking at the awesome
power of their PR machine.


Here's my bottom line, Ruben:  This crappy little story, that you are trying
to drum up outrage about via some pathetic tu-quoque argument, doesn't
even have anything to do with copyright (much as you might scream and
yell that it does), and it sure as gently caress has absolutely nothing
to do with Linux, and nothing to do with CABAL.

You are now going to cool it.  Very.

If you feel an uncontrollable urge to rant about dumbass business
disputes among disreputable entertainment companies, take it somewhere
else.  Not here.