Vitenka: 1545
I made this / Cat Games - Less lag, more 'thats bad'
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There's nothing to see here except for shadows of the past - and these ones won't be returning.

I'd point you to my next project here - but I'm not that organised. My style is to act and then sort out the consequences, rather than the other way around. Oh, and lying. I do that a lot too. (i.e. if you look closely, you may have seen some links appearing roughly once a week)

Vitenka.com is registered to me for the forseeable future, so you might find something there.

Edited by Vitenka at 2003-04-09 08:22:54

 
Vitenka : Thu 5 12:58:17 2001  

Passport to jurisdiction?

Rant based off of these stories

I tell you a tale

I have a new business plan. A revolutionary new product. And, for some reaosn, rather than dismissing it as useless, or posting it here for all to laugh at - I decide to send it to some friends or colleagues. And, because I am an imbecile, I use hotmail.

The very next week, by pure conincidence, a clever person at microsoft (I hear they still have a few) comes up with almost the exact same idea. And their press corp springs to action, and announces it to the world.

Now, how much money are they going to have to pay me to prove they didn't steal my idea, or at least to shut me up?

They had the opportunity, they had the motive - all they have in their defence is that they promise that they didn't steal the idea.

Worse, think of the damage to their reputation. No one would trust their service.

So the corporate lawyers leap into action. And in a classic butt-covering action, change the TOS agreement to say "you can't sue us if we steak yur stuff - we are assumed to own it already"

Ignoring the total unproven legality of TOS and licence agreements for a moment, this is an obvious covering. MS don't get sued, everyone is happy.

Except, of course, the punters - who would much rather have legal protection against MS stealing their stuff.

So MS change the TOS back (or try to, they get confused, and make it more complicated - but that's just because they are a large disorganised company, and PR staff can't write legal contracts) but it's too late.

Beacause people love hating large companies, and leave in droves.

Now - what would be even funnier is if you always used some trivial encryption (writing it backwards, maybe) Then they could say they owned it. But if they say they own the contents of it, then they must have broken your encryption, which is illegal under DMCA no matter how trivial it is...

Or, of course, you could use hard encryption.

Or not have secrets. Post everything openly on public forums. Wouldn't that be a better world anyway?

The opinions above are not those of giant space rats, nor of the league of microsoft haters. The author reserves the right to change opinions, or steal yours telepathically while you read this. Blame MS for all your ills, or don't.

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