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Someone already pointed you to chillingeffects. Here's a direct link to an example:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/02/michael-crook-sends-.html

Although he finally retracted the claim, the damage had already been done (Youtube, following the law, removed a video showing Mr. Crook, despite the fact that he had no claim to the ownership of the video.)

Uri Gellar has done similar things, though to my knowledge, he has not apologized. http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/09/eff-sues-uri-geller-.html

So this isn't some crackpot paranoid conspiracy theory. These things have happened. As Cory Doctorow mentions in one of his posts on the subject, "For instance, others might use the same tactic to chill political speech: what better way to see to it that your opponent's campaign ads are yanked from YouTube a week before the elections?"

Someone already pointed you to chillingeffects. Here's a direct link to an example:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/02/michael-crook-sends-.html

Although he finally retracted the claim, the damage had already been done (Youtube, following the law, removed a video showing Mr. Crook, despite the fact that he had no claim to the ownership of the video.)

Uri Gellar has done similar things, though to my knowledge, he has not apologized. http://www.boingboing.net/2007/05/09/eff-sues-uri-geller-.html

So this isn't some crackpot paranoid conspiracy theory. These things have happened. As Cory Doctorow mentions in one of his posts on the subject, "For instance, others might use the same tactic to chill political speech: what better way to see to it that your opponent's campaign ads are yanked from YouTube a week before the elections?"

Why do you hate America?!

This was a decent discussion on BoingBoing not too long ago.

"Is it true that it's 'not infringement once fair use kicks in' ?

Fair use is a defense to infringement where you admit infringement but say it was justified, isn't it? You affirm the boundaries of copyright but justify crossing them, rather than arguing that the boundaries should be moved. This is why it's argued on a case-by-case basis.

This article suggests some good reasons to move the boundaries, I think."

Not sure if that's right (IANAL), but it sure sounds like it to this lay-person.

In any trial there are two broad groups of things at issue: issues of fact (what things actuall happened) and issues of law (how to interpret the things that happened). Fair Use is an issue of law, not of fact. When an accusation is made against you in a court of law, you may defend yourself in several ways: you can deny the facts of the case ("I never did the thing that I am accused of doing.", "I never made any copies of the copyrighted work.") and you may deny the illegality of your actions ("I did the deed, but it is allowed under the law for this reason.", "I did make a copy of the copyrighted work, but it is allowed under fair use for this reason."). You can even defend yourself on both the facts and the law ("I never did the deed, but If I had it wouldn't have been illegal under the law for this reason.").

This was a decent discussion on BoingBoing not too long ago.

"Is it true that it's 'not infringement once fair use kicks in' ?

Fair use is a defense to infringement where you admit infringement but say it was justified, isn't it? You affirm the boundaries of copyright but justify crossing them, rather than arguing that the boundaries should be moved. This is why it's argued on a case-by-case basis.

This article suggests some good reasons to move the boundaries, I think."

Not sure if that's right (IANAL), but it sure sounds like it to this lay-person.

Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Fucktard

And it's Multivac not MULTIVAC!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3407/The-Last-Question

You know, given the whole scribd / Asimov / Doctorow thing, I'm rather surprised that's still up there.

Sounds like a good time to make sure you've donated what you can to the EFF. The big fear, obviously, is that the RIAA will get to define what constitutes infringement, and suddenly you can't rip CD's to your MP3 player anymore.

Americans aren't afraid of robots. They are afraid of brown and yellow skinned people and the occasional Jew.

Not only is this one of the ugliest, most mis-placed pieces of architecture in the metro, its reflective stainless steel skin blinds drivers crossing the Washington Avenue bridge in the late afternoon, when the sun is behind them and they're headed eastbound.

This pinged in my head, and I went a-lookin'. Yep, it was Gehry's concert hall that accidentally implemented Archimedes' Death Ray on the unsuspecting sidewalk , nearby buildings, and the occasional passerby (where, thankfully, it only had the potential to cause sunburn, and not, you know, instantaneous firey death).

This guy could give Bloody Stupid Johnson a run for his money.

As of two weeks ago, the Intarweb had two out of three taken care of, and it's amazingly still safe for work.

Rule 34 stands. Rule 35 is waiting. Will you be the One?

"Now I'm no expert in Sudafed-Meth conversions, but I would guess you would need a *TON* of children's Sudafed to make any significant crystal meth."

I believe it is about a 3oz to 1oz conversion, 3 OZ of sudaphed can produce and ounce of meth.

"And what protection does a signed name in a paper book prove? Do all of those names get typed into some computer system by someone?"

Yes

"couldn't we just pharmacy hop to get all of the Sudafed that we needed?"

There is a limit on how much you can buy before it "triggers" an investigation, what you would need to do is have a number of people working together to buy from different states on a rotating schedule (I believe the records are only statewide currently), OR just buy shitloads from the internet from overseas.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/11/17/patriot-act-makes-it.html

Hey, speaking as the EFF's International Coordinator, I protest! We sponsor Online Rights Canada,and don't you recall Sam Bulte (ex-MP) ranting about "EFF members" ruining her day?

First off, I think this less of an "I'm sorry" situation, but rather "I'm sorry I got caught".

But regardless of whether they are truly sorry for this fiasco, they STILL don't get the problem. It's not that they staged a news conference, it's why they staged the conference that is the issue. They don't care about "emergency management", they only care about *public relations*. And while they claim that things are so much better than Katrina, this mock press conference only proves that nothing has changed.

On the positive side, Kanye West might be heartened to learn that it isn't just black people -- George Bush doesn't care about *anybody*.

First, This articlepoints out that "First and foremost, all of Radiohead's previous albums were already available as MP3s encoded at 320 kilobits per second". I take that to mean that Radiohead had already established a standard of expectation of 320 kbps with their previous behavior. Providing the album 'for 'free' but then changing the bitrate from what they had historically provided for downloadable material is what makes it look duplicitus to me.

Second is this quote from this article. "If we didn't believe that when people hear the music they will want to buy the CD, then we wouldn't do what we are doing,' Bryce Edge of Courtyard Management told Music Week, the UK's industry magazine."

That is a flat-out admission that the only point of the downloadable album concept was to push the CD sales, not any real expectation to make money off the actual download or to use it as part of a new business model that Radiohead was given credit for.

It's these two aspects together that made me think it wasn't an innocent oversight. Even if many won't know, care, or tell the difference, some will and Radiohead certainly wasn't thinking of the download as anything other than a promotion for the CD sales. In other words even if most people are okay with it, I think Radiohead intended for the bitrate to be a little too low and that it would encourage the CD sales instead of being a replacement for them.

I find the brevity and eloquence of your analysis to be admirable.

As a proud, music-loving Canadian I must agree.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/16/barenaked-ladies-rel.html/

It looks like someone didn't get their invitation to the Furries v. Klingons bowling tournament, and is pouting about it.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/25/furries-vs-klingons.html

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/13/teacher-faces-40-yea.html

Bert

You are in denial and need to admit you have a real problem. Just because slashdot mods are just as fucked up as you doesn't make you right.

Now you're trying to claim you weren't serious. It's pretty clear that you don't care if spammers are killed for no other reason than sending unsolicited email. You can either defend everyone's civil rights or you're no better than the ones taking them away. What's next Eric? Lynch mobs killing all disruptive advertisers? Going by your method of calculating damages, I'm sure it could be "justified."

Fortunately, it was a fake. The rabid anti-spammers on slashdot, in their zeal to see spammers DIE, were duped by the spammers. It seems they've outsmarted you guys again. You're just like the anti-abortionists that cheer for clinic bombings or the anti-americans that cheered 9/11 in the streets of palestine. You're a sick person. Seek help.

We couldn't even if we wanted... that kind of money is tied up in other things... Of course, we could print some of these and pay it off.

P.S.: It's cute when Cory tries to sound like a geek and fails miserably.

Yeah, he was successful with such a technique...not!

Maybe the RIAA should check the president's ipod? http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/16/gw-bushs-ipod-contai.html

And when I wrote Natalie's Restaurant more than two years ago, I thought it was fiction. Shit, the only thing I got wrong was that I imagined a San Francisco bureaucrat, as opposed to a Berkeley bureaucrat, and that my imaginararily-awkwardly-named "California Computer Recycling Use Fee Commission" wasn't long enough to match the actual bureaucracy's name (namely the "Department of Toxic Substance Control of the California Environmental Protection Agency").

Because nobody, not even in the Bay Area, could be so dumb as to suggest that tossing a bunch of working hardware into a container ship bound for a crusher/smelter in China, was somehow a "more green" solution than reusing (and giving away) perfectly functional hardware so that it doesn't go into the waste stream in the first place.

But then again, that's the difference between recycling as done by folks like the ACCRC - which is interested in reducing and reusing as well as recycling - and recycling as done by a government bureaucrat, to whom the only "green" that matters is how many taxpayer dollars can be milked out of an operation.

So we'll sing it again when it comes 'round on the guitar.

Can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day, diggin' through their closets and attics, findin' somethin' that still works, and givin' it to someone who ain't got one? And friends, they may think it's a movement...

This would be the same recycling center that was recently issued a violation by the California Environmental Protection Agency...

I hope they come out of it OK, good to see them getting more positive publicity. Reduce, Recycle Reuse!

The Department of Toxic Substance Control of the California Environmental Protection Agency has issued the ACCRC a violation that could make it very hard for the group to stay in business. And, quite frankly, that's a damned shame.

At this rate, why not patent Dark Matter and worm holes, too?

And what about the "Water bridge created with high voltage" effect?
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/10/01/water-bridge-created.html

What about patenting pissing water through your tear duct?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B6LGD3ituU

Patents are going to kill us all

This issue is important to consumers! This is a draconian attack on the very foundation of the First Amendment Speech. An entity or a person with 'deep' pockets believes he can suppress Free Speech through financial intimidation is no different than a foreign junta or a dictatorial regime arresting their opponents for their expression of free speech through military or police action.

Can you imagine where this would lead? Let's warp this ahead in time and say that Video Professor is successful in his suit against the defendants in this case. According to an article in the Denver Post, he promises to take this all the way up to the Supreme Court. Would this not have a chilling effect on every negative review of a product, movie, politician, corporate business practice, restaurant, movie etc.? Could not this open the legal floodgates for anyone who has received a negative review claiming the same cause for libel and defamation? I would lead you to another similar celebrated case being fought against a book review at various places on the web.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1546,PZ-Myers-sued-for-a-negative-review-in-a-blog-post,Boing-Boing or

Here:

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/20/writer-sued-for-a-ne.html.

Here:

http://www.angiegotsued.com/

Would this not suppress every critic out there or limit their comments in a fog of possible litigation?

The bottom line is this. Can a person or a corporate entity who has unlimited financial and legal resources be able to use the judicial system to suppress the Free Speech of outspoken critics who he KNOWS does not have access to those same resources? Litigation in the court system is expensive.

A lawyer can bury the other side in paperwork with legal tactics and strategies using depositions, interrogatories, subpoenas, delays, appeals etc. There is no way that the average consumer has the economic resources to legally fight such a strategy and they knows this. So in effect, they are able silence their critics by De Facto litigation. However, the chilling aftermath of all this is a suppression of the basic First Amendment Rights and Consumer Advocacy.

In the W. R.Grace & Co in the Woburn case and in Libby, Montana, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/grace03.shtml. Didn't Jan Schlichtmann's Law Firm end up in bankruptcy?

These cases do not merit the free speech dicussion above but only shows how corporations and individuals can use the legal system to advance or protect their business practices from consumers.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/09/22/why-knockoffs-are-go.html

Actually, it's not clear that copying intellectual property hurts its creator.

The fact is that copyright and physical property are nothing alike. You can't just forbid people to copy intellectual works - they've already started by watching them. Are the quotes they remember a violation?

"Canadians should re-establish their rights. First, their right to Smith & Wesson, Ruger, and Glock."

canada already has more guns per capita than the usa. they just don't shoot each other with them quite as often so you don't notice. in civilised nations the ballot box is used in preference to the barrel of a gun to 'maintain their rights'. it would appear that inhabitants of the united states have used neither, given the eight year brutal rape of your constitution and the bill of rights. you will never be able to hold off the government and it will not hesitate to crush you with overwhelming force (especially in america) if you do.

so you know the right end of a pistol, big whoop, maybe you can even fire it accurately wearing ear protection and standing upright. can you run 5 km, belly crawl and then do it? better yet, can 10 of your buddies do that too? there's a reason why militias tend to look like this. the makings of hardened guerrilla fighters? i think not. why won't this silly fantasy of a band of suburbanite, beer keg revolutionaries bringing the government to heel die already?

Well, I'm still jealous. At least Canada apparently cleans house every so often...

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. http://boingboing.net/images/cfa4827569_20070921device3.jpg does look like a bomb, and on a uni-bomber-style hoodie no less. I think the police did their jobs this time.

The damn thing definitely looks like it could have been a bomb.

No. It doesn't. It looks like a toy that goes blink.

A bomb would have to have some sort of, you know, stuff that goes boom. Not just lights that go blink.

I think that even to people involved with electronics it could look like something threatening.

Not in a million years.

Anyone who's played with electronics is going to look at that and assume it to be a blinkenlights toy.

Apparently, though, we've reached the level of paranoia where anything electronic that dodn' come from Best Buy must be presumed a bomb.

I think the police did their job and this Star Simpson person was pretty stupid to try that. Talk about no common sense.

Simpson wasn't "trying" anything. She was picking up a friend at the airport, wearing what was to her (an MIT geek) a fairly normal bit of clothing. The lack of common sense was once again on the part of the cops.

Even if you think that, if it's not a bomb, why can't she be released? Why does somebody have to be held for carrying something that we thought was a bomb but turned out not to be? The situation is normal so everybody can go home, or am I missing something?

Yes, you are missing something. If they let you go they'd be admitting to a mistake. Apparently cops in Boston don't make mistakes, YOU DO

And when you have made the mistake of making them look like dumbasses they take it very personally indeed. Even the courts back them up.

If I were a leader who wanted to inspire fear and vigilance in the country, I would be very happy with the way things worked out in Boston.

and they british best not try anything if they know what's what

and I'm surprised at all the people attacking her. Did you see the picture? It was a prototype board
with a bunch of led's and a 9v battery..there was no damn putty..

Here's the pic
http://boingboing.net/images/cfa4827569_20070921device3.jpg

She didn't walk in with a gun or a bomb..just a bunch of blinking LEDs, and the police thought it would be
reasonable to used deadly force? Electronics != Bomb...or even pretend bomb. do we as a society think
that it's reasonable for police to assume anything they don't understand is dangerous enough to warrant
killing someone for? Should my life depend on my ability to explain something to an idiot with
a gun? Or should we put the emphasis on the person with the gun to justify his action of using
deadly force.

And your comparison of a prototype board to a pretend gun...sheeesh.

Your witchhunt attitude scares me ALOT more than the MIT student with an LED!

...friends at MIT say she wears the hoodie on a regular basis- it's just unfortunate that she had it on while trying to pick a friend up at the airport. MIT students don't really do mornings, or worry about what they're wearing, so I can't imagine she'd even think about her clothes before heading out to pick up a friend at the airport before 8am.

Hrmmmm.... looking at the "device" from the images on the link makes me think the police overreacted.

This is BOSTON we're talking about!

Too bad we can't lock them all up in Second Life and feed them to the furries.

Oh yes, and call it 'heaven for plastic people' - "He Doctorow received his high school diploma from a free school in Toronto called SEED School, and dropped out of four universities without attaining a degree." (Wikipedia), but "A senior technical official in the Homeland Security Department has a phony Ph.D. from a diploma mill. I'm thinking that I'd like to get one of these and join my parents (Dr. and Dr. Doctorow) as Dr. Doctorow, Jr." (BoingBoing) and "I may not agree with everything Dr. Cory tells me, but if you're not reading boingboing blog, you ought to. Because Cory Doctorow is the king-hell blogger of the universe." (Sterling)

CC.

"...perhaps a selection of DIY PDF pamphlets which you print out yourself and carry through security, with titles like 'These Security Measures Aren't Doing Much For Your Public Relations, You Know' and 'Could You Work Harder At Making This Screening Process More Efficient And Effective Please?'

Sort of like a bug report."

And then:

"Here's a selection of DIY pamphlets:

[Link]

Why not make your own, print out some open source book you've been wanting to read? A flight, and the necessary long wait in a security line, is the perfect opportunity."

I wouldn't call him a Liberal: he helped a Liberal (Sarmite Bulte) to lose the last election.

Boing Boing says they will open up their archives. "...But the Times has also upheld the principle of public access to the public domain, and is opening its archives from 1851-1922, all of which are in the public domain. Archives 1987-present, though copyrighted, will also be freely accessible."

Fortunately, we have very similar rights in the UK, and PC World don't have a leg to stand on here.

Check out this article, advising you how to get PC World to repair broken stuff.

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/09/21/howto-get-your-fault.html

Not read it myself (it not having been released an all), but Lucy (Stephen's daughter) and Stephen Hawking's new book, "George's Secret Key to the Universe" might be worth a read?

They used to be stolen (sorry, 'copyright-infringing') pictures of people in labcoats. Presumably they paid for the pictures after they got caught.

http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/antiopenscience- hypo.html

What that means is that starving musicians could upload their work to a music hosting service, only to find that the site ends up selling CDs of their music, or licensing it for advertising jingles.

MySpace's TOS were this way until someone there organized a big protest. Let me find a link... ah, here we go - videos at YouTube too. And I quote:

"...by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business... in any media formats and through any media channels."

Among other things, this means they could strip the audio portion of any track and sell it on a CD. Or, they could sell your video to an ad firm looking to get "edgy"; suddenly your indie reggae tune could be the soundtrack to a new ad for SUVs. The sky's still the limit, when it comes to the rights you surrender to YouTube when you upload your video. Perhaps even scarier is the idea that anyone who might eventually buy YouTube would automatically obtain these same rights. Since YouTube is so popular, with 100 million videos shown each day, it's an attractive acquisition target for any number of companies.