The Silencing of Maya • Hacker News Board

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#271

Post by jeremyarussell » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 5:40 PM UTC

bobwaycott wrote: post #128

I could be missing something here, and I certainly do not mean to negate the importance this family feels by "hearing" their daughter speak or the indisputable harshness experienced as a result of a patent dispute. I know I would certainly feel the same way if one of my sons had this problem. However, despite the convenience and awesomeness of being able to do this on an iPad, is there anything preventing the girl (a…

The problem here is you're trying to replace the ability for the child to respond and communicate within 1-3 seconds to form a sentence as opposed to the 45 seconds it takes for a kid to write it out. Also learning the symbols and such is easier then learning all the letters and words and grammar involved in written language.

Taking into account the difference in time, how much people communicate on a daily basis, how much more kids talk to parents.

1-3 seconds 45 seconds (less as time goes on and writing gets better.) - 15 seconds. lets assume the kid talks to her parents 30 times a day, each with 1-3 second talks.

Each day this app saves the daughter 11 minutes.

(25sec30talks) = 12.5min-a-day - (3sec30talks) = 1.5min-a-day = 11 Minutes saved Daily.

I used 25 seconds as an average sentence written.

I understand I'm making certain assumptions. But even if writing takes less time then that to get words on paper, we're talking minutes a day, if she talks more then it's saving more, in the course of a lifetime. This app may be saving the girl from wasting days of her life.

That's not getting into the fact that they did try out nearly ALL other options, they did ask if an iPad app was going to be made by their preferred PRC people anyways.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#272

Post by Maascamp » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 5:42 PM UTC

rwallace wrote: post #254

OlivierLi wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a real issue. A human and personal issue. But it is not a systemic issue that represents the state of patent law. If for example the child's Ipad was taken away because it was found out to be stolen property it would have an equally negative effect on her development. It would still not be a call to arms to change legislation. Appeal to emotion is wrong in an adult debate. I feel very bad for the mother and I w…

> If for example the child's Ipad was taken away because it was found out to be stolen property it would have an equally negative effect on her development. No, it would not. In that scenario, her parents would have a straightforward recourse - go and buy her another iPad. The closest parallel would be a law that forbade her from using any portable computing device regardless of where it came from. And yes, that woul…

I disagree. In this scenario her parents do have a straightforward recourse - go and buy her the physical device sold by the patent owners (who's interface is apparently almost exactly the same, hence the patent infringement claim).

Now, you could argue that the patent isn't legit (it may not be) or that the dedicated device is prohibitively expensive (it may be), but both of those arguments are tangential to the point you were trying to refute.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#273

Post by elehack » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 5:44 PM UTC

regularfry wrote: post #232

jan_g wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the same approach is taken for example by Facebook. If there's a complaint, Facebook will first freeze an account and only unfreeze it after the dispute is resolved (by the parties themselves or legally through court). Shoot-first-ask-later approach. I don't know why this is prevalent approach, since 90% of the time it's the big companies initiating disputes. So small companies are taking the hit.

My guess is that it's laywers being paranoid. If Apple didn't stop the app from being distributed when they were notified of a problem and a court later upheld the complaint, they might be sued for contributory infringement, or whatever the relevant patent term is.

We have a solution for this: preliminary injection.

IANAL, so perhaps this is still opening up for lots of liability, but I'd much prefer Apple say "You want it taken down? Ask the judge for a preliminary injunction. Until then, go away."

Preliminary injunctions are the due process mechanism for causing the action to cease while it's litigated rather than continue. They, not Apple's whim/decision/liability-aversion, should be how this kind of thing happens IMO.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#274

Post by randallsquared » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 5:51 PM UTC

ralfd wrote: post #230

randallsquared wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you think that Apple is immune to injunction, the mere existence of the capability to remove apps from customers' devices is a sort of attractive nuisance. Now, it could be that precedent will be established that removing infringing or other undesirable content or applications from third-party computers is not permissible. Until that precedent exists, though, the risk seems high that precedent will go the othe…

There is precedent. Not in a legal way, but in the judgement of the public. Amazon remote erased an eBook in 2009, ironically "1984", from Kindle devices because the publisher didn't have the copyright and the real copyright holder demanded it from Amazon. It was a PR nightmare! CEO Jeff Bezos had to offer a public apology to mitigate this mistake. I don't expect a big company will make this mistake again. http://sla…

There is precedent. Not in a legal way, but in the judgement of the public.

You say that you don't think that a big company will pull apps or content again, and then you provide an example of the same behavior from a big company (Google), where public outcry was limited.

The Amazon incident was why I said "or content" in my original comment. It's already happened more than once, as you note, and some cases prompted outcry and were reversed, and some did not and were not. But more importantly, none of these were cases where a court ordered the company to do this, and it matters far less (to Apple, Amazon, or Google) what the public thinks about an action that they were forced to do by law. They'll just shrug and provide the injunction.

Any application that requires making a backup and restoring after every killswitch usage is not going to continue to have a customer base, and therefore there will be few or no updates, and that will be that. It doesn't matter that it's technically possible to get around the problem, if having to do so reduces your audience by 95 percent.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#275

Post by pooriaazimi » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 5:54 PM UTC

Tomis02 wrote: post #237

pooriaazimi wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to be impolite or start a personal attack, but if you really don't consider what he did philanthropic , then you must re-consider your definition of this word. He wasn't the only on, but was one of those guys who created this device that's giving this child a voice in the first place. You don't have to give huge chunks of money to charitable causes to be a philanthropic, you can use that money to build a…

Wrong. By your rationale every person in charge of a business is a philanthropist because they make other people's lives better. Like, let's say, British Petroleum, Bank of America, Electronic Arts, Blackwater, Heckler & Koch, people baking bread, and so on. They are still a business, and they still make money. When they return some of the money they earned back to society without expecting them back, THEN you can ca…

No, not all of them. Just those that try to make a buck and try hard to make the world a better place by creating useful things (what have they given away? not their money; their time, which is the most important thing they have. they could go on vacation 200 days a year, but instead they try to create things to enrich the world and themselves).

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#276

Post by Chris_Newton » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 5:58 PM UTC

Karunamon wrote: post #217

jaysonelliot wrote: post #127

The biggest culprit here, in my view, isn't Apple, PRC, or the patent system. It's the death of physical media and the rise of the "app store" model. I have programs for my Apple //e computer that are over 30 years old. Most of the companies that made the software have long since disappeared, and the computer hasn't been supported since the '80s, but I can still use them. That software is my property. I own it, and I…

>and it can be taken away Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware. Not even apps that flagrantly and blatantly violated the store rules and got taken down are removed from end user devices. Not even apps which were pulled down for patent or copyright infringement . It isn't going to happen. Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reali…

>and it can be taken away

Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware.

I think Orwell might have something to say about that. Or at least, the people who (thought they had) bought his books from Amazon might:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10289983-56.html

Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality.

The trouble isn’t just this particular killswitch. As jaysonelliot was suggesting, the really insidious problem is the general trend that even when you think you’re buying a permanent copy of a knowledge work, you are often not getting what you think you’re paying for any more. I’m not sure which is worse, the dubious business models or the fact that the simplest of commercial transactions on-line routinely comes with absurd amounts of legalese attached, but neither is a welcome development IMHO.

I’ve never personally been the victim of an app store revocation, because I saw that one coming and won’t spend my money on unsafe purchases like that. But I’ve certainly seen the damage of phone-home activation, after the boot drive of my main workstation failed. Two pieces of high-end professional software, both legally purchased on physical media by my own company (each at a four-figure price), were at risk from this. It took weeks of chasing the software companies to get the licensing/activation concerns resolved, during which time one piece of software was unusable and the other was reportedly at risk of shutting down any time. It even turned out that both of those companies had completely screwed up the registration and thought my company’s licence keys were registered to someone else, and we really did get to the point of my sending them photographs of original invoices/packaging/serial numbers in one case.

In my country, hacking into someone’s computer and causing that level of damage would surely be a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act. I believe that remote blocking of legitimately installed software by, for example, phone home activation/DRM schemes or post-sale deletion by an app store should also be considered an offence. After all, the end result is much the same. I’ve never had the chance to ask a lawyer why it isn’t (or maybe it is, perhaps even under the same legislation, but for whatever reason the culprits aren’t being prosecuted). And if it can be a criminal offence in various jurisdictions to circumvent technical measures in order to do otherwise perfectly legal things with a copyrighted work you’ve bought (OK, “licensed”, but while I appreciate the need for lawyers to be precise, we all know how most people are going to understand the transaction), I don’t think it’s unreasonable to make it an offence to abuse such technical measures from the other side as well. Maybe we should have some sort of safe harbour provision to protect companies who genuinely make an innocent mistake but correct it immediately on notification, but the basic principle that abusing remote deactivation is illegal seems only fair.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#277

Post by justin_vanw » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 6:14 PM UTC

ralfd wrote: post #234

justin_vanw wrote: post #165

If someone makes a false or unfounded claim, and it causes harm to another person (not least of which a disabled 4 year old) can't you sue the person making a false claim? If this were shrink wrapped software, you wouldn't have this issue. This sort of thing only comes up because we have given a corporation the power to revoke access to software. In iOS there is no opportunity to install 'unsigned' software. This sit…

> If this were shrink wrapped software, you wouldn't have this issue. No. Think about it this way: Removing the App from the App store is like a brick&mortar store removing the shrink wrapped software from it's shelves and not selling it anymore. If you lose your CD you can't buy it again. But you can still use your copy. The same with an App: As long as you don't delete the App yourself it doesn't magically vanish.…

This isn't like a brick and morter store at all, because Apple can remotely uninstall software. Just because they haven't done it in this case doesn't mean it's reasonable for me to give them that option.

Google can de-list things in the Play store, but I can just use the Amazon store, or download apps directly. I don't have to jailbreak my phone every time there is an iOS release to enable this.

'Open Source' != Free as in beer. Speak for yourself could easily go to a model like the QT library, where they sell the software, but give the source to a safe third party, with an agreement to release it under an open source license if the software is abandoned, or the company goes out of business, the source is released under a free license.

The reason I am going to sell my Macbook is that unlike a free OS, OSX can turn to crap within a few years. They could lock it down like iOS, or lose key engineers and have it turn into another OS9, where it is years behind the competition and full of problems. I like to keep my options open.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#278

Post by tsunamifury » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 6:40 PM UTC

fsniper wrote: post #253

sdoering wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree with you. But having read a lot on HN, I have the feeling, that a lot of people do stomp on apple, when apple removes an app. But on the other hand, a lot of developers (oftentimes the same people that cry out when an app is removed) are happy to put apps on the shelves of this walled garden, trying to make a (fast) buck. When I started reading these arguments and outcries against apple, I really felt with…

Ah but this will never ever happen as we all know. Apple has a great influence over consumers. I really try hard to rationalize this but I can't. Using non-standard ports, having walled-garden approach, over-pricing, being over-arrogant, denying users the simplest rights as to install what ever they like. These must be enough reason for sane-people to stay away from Apple, but on the contrary they encourage people to…

Its simple. Choices are complicated. People prefer easy decisions over hard ones.

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#279

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 7:19 PM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #226

randallsquared wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you think that Apple is immune to injunction, the mere existence of the capability to remove apps from customers' devices is a sort of attractive nuisance. Now, it could be that precedent will be established that removing infringing or other undesirable content or applications from third-party computers is not permissible. Until that precedent exists, though, the risk seems high that precedent will go the othe…

The capability to remove apps from customer's devices has always existed in desktops since the internet, even for those you keep in CDs, as long as you are connected and receiving OS updates.

Really. Could you provide an example of this?

Re: The Silencing of Maya

#280

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Jun 13, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

Chris_Newton wrote: post #276

Karunamon wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and it can be taken away Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware. Not even apps that flagrantly and blatantly violated the store rules and got taken down are removed from end user devices. Not even apps which were pulled down for patent or copyright infringement . It isn't going to happen. Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reali…

>and it can be taken away Except this has never, ever been done to anything but malware. I think Orwell might have something to say about that. Or at least, the people who (thought they had) bought his books from Amazon might: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10289983-56.html Until such time as the killswitch is abused, this remains a slippery slope argument with no basis in reality. The trouble isn’t just this part…

>I think Orwell might have something to say about that.

Note that we're talking about Apple, not Amazon. And I doubt that it will ever happen on Amazon again either, after the PR drubbing they took after doing it the first time.

And your other anecdotes are well and good, but show me where this has happened with Apple. We're talking apps, not books.