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The Constitution only guarantees individuals, not companies, free speech.

I wish you were right, but unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled, seperately, that corporations are individuals for the purposes of the first and fourteenth amendments.

I only have a link for the first amendment case, CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO. v. PUBLIC SERV. COMM'N, 447 U.S. 530 (1980), which is the one that specifically states that corporations are entitled to free speech protection under the constitution.

In addition, here's a more general article about the issue, which is less detailed but much easier to read than the supreme court opinion.

The Constitution only guarantees individuals, not companies, free speech.

I wish you were right, but unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled, seperately, that corporations are individuals for the purposes of the first and fourteenth amendments.

I only have a link for the first amendment case, CONSOLIDATED EDISON CO. v. PUBLIC SERV. COMM'N, 447 U.S. 530 (1980), which is the one that specifically states that corporations are entitled to free speech protection under the constitution.

In addition, here's a more general article about the issue, which is less detailed but much easier to read than the supreme court opinion.

The argument that you can't just shout "fire" in a crowded theater entered the law in Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919). This was a Supreme Court case concerning whether the government may suppress pamphlets encouraging people to resist the draft. Although I think that case may have been correctly decided (with the distinction being expressing opposition to the draft versus encouraging people to violate the draft law), I wonder if the Court realized they were treading on, or near thin ice, when they used the "Fire" analogy.

So it is with people who use the analogy today. Whenever someone start comparing some kind of speech to shouting "Fire" in a crowded theater, don't get carried away by the emotional appeal but keep an eye on your rights, lest someone try to make off with them.

Well, the first one, I would say that's covered by the 1st and 5th amendments, depending on the situation. Or not covered at all, in other situations. For example, if it is proven in a court of law that you have evidence of a crime (or you have even been served a subpoena), you are forced to testify or you'll be held in contempt. For example, see here for Cal. Gov. Code 9405. In no sense do you have a "right to remain silent" if you have information about a crime. There are cases where you can remain silent, for example the 5th amendment says you don't have to incriminate yourself.

As for the others, it is not clear that these are Consitutional rights, to me, at least. Even being pro-choice, I'm not sure the reasoning in Roe v. Wade is anything but contrived. And given the tenuous support it has in the High Court today, I'm not alone. Of course, I won't say this too loudly, because, hey.

In general, though, I think it would be disingenuous for someone to declare the death of the US Constitution because they were restricted access to birth control or abortion. This was my original point, that, whether these things should be around or not can be debated, and just because something we are used to goes away, it is not a sign of the demise of the Constitution.

Well, to be honest, you can't. It takes some ... eh... "interpretation". But that doesn't make these rights any less "Constitutional". That's because the true Constitution-of-the-USA is more than just the document referred to as "the Constitution".

This is a good point. That being said, it's not even clear to me what in the Constitution should be interpreted as a right to privacy in this situation. If you're a prisoner, you certainly don't have the right to privacy when communicating with any other member of the outside world. For an even more egregious example, you don't even have the right to keep the inside of your body, even yo acehole, private [insert goatse.cx joke here]. Since the courts have been very happy to restrict prisoners' right to privacy, it is just as reasonable to not consider this "right" as "Constitutional".

Bet your bottom dollar this will be a US Supreme Court case.

Here we definitely agree.

U.S. Constitution: Sixth Amendment - Rights of Accused in Criminal Prosecutions

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

That's exactly how it works.

I do have one question: does anyone know whether the (written, by requirement, and by the AG or TLA head, by requirement) certifications of necessity must be public? I don't have time to spelunk for it, and if it turns out that they do have to publish their assertions, in a place where the general public can get them conveniently and could be expected to look for them, I'll be fine with this. Do read the rule. Please. I might have missed something.

• It must be plausible to the judge that your answer could incriminate you.
• You must take the fifth at the beginning of the line of questioning: "One must explicitly claim his privilege or he will be deemed to have waived it, and waiver may be found where the witness has answered some preliminary questions but desires to stop at a certain point."

A few other cases have gone through various courts in the US with similar results. No case has ever found in favor of the spammer and no spam-specific[1] case has ever been heard at the appellate level.

Actually, one case did make it up a state appeals ladder. Washington state passed the first US anti-spamming law. Under that law the state's attorney general filed suit against a spammer (Jason "Natural Instincts" Heckel) and won.

The spammer appealed the case and had it overturned at the appellate level (spammers rejoiced worldwide). But luckily the state's Supreme Court was not composed of idiots and threw out the appellate decision in June of this year.

This made the law golden in that state and only a VERY extensive and expensive appeals process though the federal court system could change it.

One can still spam under the law, but must follow certain rules. The state Supreme Court stated the law only really required the spammers to do one thing: Be Truthful

Now we know why spammers hate the law so much.

[1]Link to COAngler's "Rowan v. US Postal Service" note

If I understand this correctly, FT made a contract with Mosfet to pay him to code specific software. He performed his part of the bargain, but they breached the contract.

Now THEY claim that they are going to sue!? If anything, HE should be suing THEM. Given their bad faith threats he'd have a good chance at getting more than actual damages.

By the way, it sounds a whole lot like he's an independent contractor instead of an employee, so unless their contract is written and explicitly signs the copyright over, even if they do pay him, he still owns the copyright. See CCNV v Reid.

I think this could be considered fair use, because it's non-commercial, for research and education purposes, and does not actually interfere with their profit potential. OTOH, if someone cloned AIBO, they might have some reasonable justification to interfere.

Fair use cannot be used as a defense for unauthorized _distribution_ of copyrighted material. Use != distribution.

Check out the great overview of copyright law at Findlaw:

http://profs.lp.findlaw.com/copyright/index.html

Copyright law isn't logical, of course. Mitigating circumstances don't remove one's liability unfortunately.

Crazy.

-core

Where the hell did you get that idea? Got news for you genius:

http://businessweek.findlaw.com/book/23.E..html

Once again, it must be pointed out: do some research before posting bullshit. Dumbass.

Why does everyone here get all worked up about the governement watching us if they truely have nothing to hide?

Because we have something called The Bill of Rights that was designed two centries ago to limit the power of the federal government. See Amendment no. 4. [findlaw.com]

How would you like if if the Police stopped by every day and searched your house without a warrant? You have nothing to hide, right, so what's the worry?

I'll tell you the worry: Where is it going to end? Can they listen to my phone conversations? Make me take a lie detector test? Force me to turn over my PGP keys to some type of gov't clearinghouse?

--

Lincoln's act was declared unconstitutional in 1866, Ex parte Milligan.

Milligan was arrested in 1864 under Congress' 1863 authorization of the President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, not under the President's earlier declaration. As such, Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, deals with the Congressional Act, not with the Presidential declaration.

Congress authorized the President to detain citizens and suspend writs of habeas corpus, but specified that his name be delivered to the court and that, if the grand jury adjourned without indicting him, he should be released. If his name was not furnished to the court within twenty days, he likewise should be released.

Milligan, however, was tried and sentenced to death by a military court. The question before the Supreme Court was whether this military court had jurisdiction to try Milligan (Milligan was a resident of Michigan, which was not in rebellion). Not only had Congress not given the military court such jurisdiction, but the Constitution forbade it.

The Court did not, however, rule that the Act of 1863 suspending the writ of habeas corpus was unconstitutional, nor the President's use of it. Nor did it rule on the President's earlier suspension of the writ by executive order.

Forgive me if this is a naive question, but has any American citizen ever taken the U.S. government to court over the types of issues Sanford Levinson discusses in his essay? Like the fact that the US has not formally declared war against a particular country? Or when Eugene Debs was imprisoned for speaking out against entering WWI? Can the gov't be taken to court for these things?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Debs in Debs v. U.S., 249 U.S. 211. It dealt somewhat with your first question, but the Supreme Court insists that everyone who argues before it be a party to the case. Since declarations of war are a power of the Senate, acting as if such a declaration existed when in fact it did not would be a matter of executive encroachment on the Senate; i.e., the Senate would have to sue the President in order for the Supreme Court's requirement of standing to be fulfilled. Of course, this would be more a matter of checks and balances than judicial action.

Executive encroachment of civil liberties frequently goes to trial, but the government usually wins.

There is also an article in the Washington Post which mostly gives the same information we have already but also cites the case more specifically as "Macromedia v. Adobe, C01-3940". So the next step is Findlaw which can get us to the web site of, say, the district court for Northern California (disclaimer: I'm not sure that is the right district but it is a decent guess). That web site seems to say there is lots of fascinating information on PACER but that's a pay service. So I think I'm more or less at a dead end (although I didn't try, say, searching the patent databases looking for macromedia owned patents which look plausible).

As for why PACER costs $$$, they answer that on the PACER site as follows:

Why are there user fees for PACER?

In 1988, the Judiciary sought funding through the appropriation process to establish the capability to provide electronic public access services. Rather than appropriating additional funds for this purpose, Congress specifically directed the Judiciary to fund that initiative through the collection of user fees. As a result, the program relies exclusively on fee revenue.

Because of equal protection and due process under the constitution (14th amendment)? This would be a quagmire of litigation til the end of eternity. Especially where litigants have the means.

Don't bet on that.

But copyright IS a right to control distribution channels!

NO. Copyright is only a right to control the first distribution channel, as established by the Supreme Court in a case dealing precisely with second-sale of books. The law is (q.v. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/ chapters/2/sections/section_202.html:

... nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.

Copyright law distinguishes the ownership of a copy of a protected work (a print of a photograph, a compact disc, a book, a diskette) from ownership of the intangible copyright rights...If you buy a copy of a work, you have a right to resell (distribute) that copy.

But copyright IS a right to control distribution channels!

NO. Copyright is only a right to control the first distribution channel, as established by the Supreme Court in a case dealing precisely with second-sale of books. The law is (q.v. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/17/ chapters/2/sections/section_202.html:

... nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.

Copyright law distinguishes the ownership of a copy of a protected work (a print of a photograph, a compact disc, a book, a diskette) from ownership of the intangible copyright rights...If you buy a copy of a work, you have a right to resell (distribute) that copy.

(Placing his beloved inflatable-Lucy aside, troglogeek responds.)

You did say, " . . . but if you were to ask most women in the US--especially those with school-age kids--if they were willing to permit changes in the laws that would give more power to policing agencies, they would support it. Go ahead and ask, I guaranteee (sic) you that any "soccer mom" would answer in the affirmative.", right?

While I think I sense your sentiment, might I suggest you review last year's Supreme Court decision, Atwater et al. v. City of Lago Vista etal. 99-1408 before proposing further erosion of your rights.

The gist of the complaint centers on the following scenario:
"Texas law makes it a misdemeanor, punishable only by a fine, either for a front-seat passenger in a car equipped with safety belts not to wear one or for the driver to fail to secure any small child riding in front. The warrantless arrest of anyone violating these provisions is expressly authorized by statute, but the police may issue citations in lieu of arrest. Petitioner Atwater drove her truck in Lago Vista, Texas, with her small children in the front seat. None of them was wearing a seatbelt. Respondent Turek, then a Lago Vista policeman, observed the seatbelt violations, pulled Atwater over, verbally berated her, handcuffed her, placed her in his squad car, and drove her to the local police station, where she was made to remove her shoes, jewelry, and eyeglasses, and empty her pockets. Officers took her mug shot and placed her, alone, in a jail cell for about an hour, after which she was taken before a magistrate and released on bond."

Read the decision for the answer to the exciting question, "But what happened to the children who were with her in the truck?"

the constitution forbids "blank" warrants. You must describe exactly where the tapping is to take place.

You are referring of course to the Fourth Amendment, which says in part: "no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." You must be careful when you are claiming what the Constitution does and doesn't guarantee, of course; clearly, the Constitution does not guarantee that warrants will be made public, nor that they must be made by a judge, nor that they be made available to the person who is going to be searched! The Constitution also doesn't talk about "wiretaps"; phone lines are not a "place to be searched" nor is a conversation a "thing" that can be literally seized; while it is not clear that roaming wiretaps will be found to be constitutional (although it is my understanding that in certain areas (organized crime, RICO, cross-border smuggling are a few) that roving taps are already used and are legal), you must admit that the issue is not as cut and dried Constitutionally as you seem to imply.

The USA and PATRIOT acts would allow nationwide taps. This completely disregards the jurisdiction of a judge (except some higher courts).

No, it emphatically does not disregard the "jursidiction of a judge", because the jurisdiction of a given court over warrant authority is whatever the Congress says that it is. There are only a few jurisdictional issues discussed in the Constitution, and all others are left to the Congress to decide (see U.S. Constitution, Article III, Secs 1 and 2); warrants are not one of the issues covered, and as I noted above, there is no guarantee that they will even be issued by judicial authority! (see Findlaw for an in-depth discussion of the state of 4th Amendment Law, warrants, oversight authority, and electronic wiretap warrants).

ADMINISTRATIVE LAW, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY VEECK v. S. BLDG CODE CONG. INT'L INC., No 99-40632 (5th Cir. February 02, 2001) Copyright may attach to regulatory codes that, although drafted by private industry groups, have subsequently been enacted into law.

You're confusing two separate points here. You're saying that the Taliban would have been entirely justified, and, in fact, probably correct, in not turning bin Laden over to the United States on the basis of the evidence presented prior to 10/7/2001. I'm not trying to refute that claim. I believe that it's false, but utterly irrelevant to the debate here.

I'm saying that (a) the Taliban would never accepted that they had enough evidence to turn him over for the WTC atrocities, because (b) they had already been presented with compelling evidence that he was complicit in other atrocities and had not handed him over then. The evidence I cite in (b) is public information, presented to a jury in US District Court last year. You could find it yourself; I did a single Google search for "Kenya embassy bombing transcipt" and came up with an Israeli site with the complete trial transcript here. From looking at some of the older CNN sites, it also appears that you can get a transcript through this point in the tree. That second site also contains the full text of the standing indictment against Osama bin Laden in regard to the actions of al Qaeda. That, in itself, is a pretty damning document.

Look, trendy as it may be to want to bad mouth the US, in this case, you don't have to trust the US gov't to realize that the Taliban are in an indefensible moral position here. There's plenty of publicly available evidence that shows bin Laden to be a murderous thug who has directed multiple acts of war against the US. You could have found it yourself, just as I did. That evidence was presented to the Taliban years ago. They should have turned him over on that basis and they did not. Complaining that they weren't shown this batch of evidence is a red herring, a dodge, and a lie. They didn't want to give bin Laden up, so they didn't. End of story.

11th Circuit Court of Appeals, Docket # No. 00-16346
Voyeur Dorm v City of Tampa
It's interesting to note that they ruled in favor of Voyeur Dorm because the company does not specifically service Tampa. The test cases involved companies that operated for the city and this one operates globally.

InfoCom Corp., an Internet service provider that was under investigation by federal anti-terrorism agents before the Sept. 11 attacks, received a $250,000 investment in 1993 by Nadia Elashi Marzouk. Her husband, Moussa Abu Marzouk, is deputy of the Hamas political bureau in Syria.

Marzouk was placed on a Treasury Department list of terrorists in 1995, allowing the government to seize his U.S. assets.

Everyone should support the EFF.

I don't support an organization which supports click through licenses in the KONOP v HAWAIIAN AIRLINES, INC. case.

Let's be even more specific why the DMCA doesn't apply here. The provisions of the DMCA /. readers are most worked out about (Section 1201) are the anti-circumvention provisions. These provisions forbid you to circumvent technology that "effectively controls access" to a copyrighted work. It also prohibits trafficing in devices (including software) that circumvent these access controls.

I think we all agree that this is an overbroad, bad law. But hacking a proxy server has nothing to do with circumventing access controls. Controlling general access to the internet (or even specific access to all email and instant messaging) does not constitute the exercising of access control by a copyright owner.

Moreover -- and I suppose this might be disputed by some -- I don't think there's that much of a privacy violation here, either. Students using the school's network during class simply have no reasonable expectation of privacy -- especially if this policy were announced in class.

The government, through the judiciary, can refuse to enforce terms of private contracts that are against public policy. This is how discriminatory restrictive covenants on property deeds were rendered ineffective. The deed may say "the property may not be sold or leased to Blacks or Jews", but the courts will not enforce that restriction. See Shelly v. Kraemer.

"Whoever places on public or private property a symbol, object, appellation, the ordinance is facially unconstitutional in that it prohibits otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of the subjects the speech addresses.

Scalia wrote the opinion. Find it at http://laws.findlaw.com/us/505/377.html

Actually, you can be at war with a person. Under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress is constitutionally empowered to declare war on terrorists and is not obligated to name a host country. Article I authorizes Congress to "define and punish Piracies, Felonies committed on the High Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations."

Pen registers and trap and trace devices are used to find out who you are communicating with. They do not disclose the contents of your communications. I don't know when the law changed, but a few years ago, law enforcement didn't even need a warrant to use these. Law enforcement simply relied on the Supreme Courts 1979 decision in Smith v. Maryland.

" History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure." - Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

Allowing prosecutors to determine when they want to observe someone, without requiring a warrant from a Judge is a blatant disregard for the 4th Amendment. I understand that there are many people who are scarred due to the events of the last week, but this is no reason to allow the government to throw away the principles on which this nation was founded.

The real question: is privacy a fundamental liberty? It's never touched on in the constitution. The right to be left alone is flat out left out.

A decent discussion of the history and use of the Ninth Amendment can be found here.

Feel free to check the rather in-depth anaylsis of this amendment at Findlaw. A search on Google will turn up some less-dense discussions of this amendment's implications as well.

"(pretty disclaimers aside you are legally responsible for the content here - its just that no one has decided to pursue it yet)"

This suit is the closest I've managed to dig up so far, but between Communications Privacy Decency Act (or somesuch) and DMCA, along with a prevailing broad interpretation of "service provider", most message boards such as AOL, etc., have been found to have no liability for what goes on. If that weren't the case, ezboards would've been toast a long time ago, and AOL would be fighting dozens of lawsuits a month. Do you have any examples of case law to back up your statement?

ORDERED that the motion be denied. In order to obtain a stay of the mandate pending its petition for certiorari, Microsoft must show that the "petition would present a substantial question and that there is good cause for a stay." See Fed. R. App. P. 41(d)(2)(A); see also D.C. Cir. Rule 41(a)(2) (movant for stay of mandate must provide "facts showing good cause for the relief sought"). For the reasons stated in the appellees' response to the motion for stay, it appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion, particularly with respect to what would have been required to justify vacating the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law as a remedy for the violation of 28 U.S.C. 455(a). We need not decide, however, whether Microsoft's objections constitute a "substantial question" likely to lead to Supreme Court review, because Microsoft has failed to demonstrate any substantial harm that would result from the reactivation of proceedings in the district court during the limited pendency of the certiorari petition. See Renegotiation Board v. Bannercraft Clothing Co., 415 U.S. 1, 24 (1974); Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Ass'n v. Federal Power Commission, 259 F.2d 921, 925 (D.C. Cir. 1958).

The Clerk is directed to issue the mandate seven days from the date of this order. See Fed. R. App. P. 41(b).

(PDF here.)

From California Labor Code: 232. No employer shall do any of the following:
(a) Require, as a condition of employment, that any employee
refrain from disclosing the amount of his or her wages.
(b) Require any employee to sign a waiver or other document which
purports to deny the employee the right to disclose the amount of his
or her wages.
(c) Discharge, formally discipline, or otherwise discriminate against, for job advancement, an employee who discloses the amount of his or her wages.
Maybe your state has similar laws.

You are welcome to hold such a narrow view of the Commerce Clause, but this view has been squarely rejected by the Supreme Court for 177 years. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1, 189-90 (1824).

In particular, this quote from Chief Justice Marshall's opinion might be enlightening:

What is this power? It is the power to regulate; that is, to prescribe the rule by which commerce is to be governed. This power, like all others vested in Congress, is complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the constitution. [ . . . ] If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the constitution of the United States. The wisdom and the discretion of Congress, their identity with the people, and the influence which their constituents possess at elections, are, in this, as in many other instances, as that, for example, of declaring war, the sole restraints on which they have relied, to secure them from its abuse. They are the restraints on which the people must often they solely, in all representative governments.

Id. at 196-97 (emphasis added). (In other words: the Constitution doesn't mean you can ignore what your Congressman does.)

The "IBM monopoly case" was based on hardware distribution and the "Microsoft monopoly" is based on software distribution. The lines of commerce are similar but different. You can't apply the same criteria to both cases - each one has to be looked at with different goals in mind. No doubt that both companies have enjoyed great success in the public sector, but to say Microsoft is a monopoly because IBM is a monopoly is disingenuous and smacks of radical leftist thought.

Actually, in the case of Winston v. U S, 172 U.S. 303, there's ample evidence to suggest that these patents will affect users. An excerpt from the decision:

'If you reach the conclusion of guilt, 'Guilty as indicted,' it is your duty to return that verdict; and, unless you unanimously agree that the verdict should be qualified as the statute provides you may qualify it, there can be no qualification. It must be the unanimous conclusion of the jury. The question for you to ask yourselves is this: Are the circumstances in this case such, if you reach the conclusion that the defendant is guilty as indicted, as to require you, upon your oaths, to interfere with the penalty fixed by law?

The penalty for patent infringement is fixed by law, so usage of patented files is governed by these laws. It may very well affect the public's reception then of the Ogg Vorbis format. I wouldn't be too hasty in my judgment of what will transpire over the next couple of years.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." U.S. Const. am. 13, sec. 1.

???

I think the real legal misinformation here is your snooty remark about not commenting on the law if you are not a lawyer. I and any other person with about an 8th grade education are perfectly capable of reading the law, it is just words in the english language. The whole "you be quiet you peasant, only us lawyers can discuss these affairs" belongs in Europe, not America. I'd be more willing to put up with it if lawyers actually knew anything, but as you can see by checking out that NY Times Magazine article from a few weeks ago, a fifteen year old who watches Court TV knows more than you guys. And finally, you lower yourself to the point of that sniveling false concern that I might be posting legal information while not a lawyer. I am not a lawyer, and I'm damn proud of it. I think people will weigh my opinions on the law or other subjects more because of it.

However, you have the tone of someone who is clinging to a parchment. Why don't you just come right out and tell us where you are licensed ? Is it possible that I could actually pay you a token sum for your legal advice on trade secretes, just so you'd be actually putting something on the line ?

By the way, if anyone is looking for examples of how to be a twit, they'll find plenty in Compulawyer's userinfo. He likes to post these dignified little tidbits on trivial nonsense, and seems to be on the search for some area in which his mature opinions on software engineering practices requiring correctness proofs and etc will be worshipped by a bunch of cub scouts.

Demanding money to keep quiet, however, is almost certainly a bad idea. See, for example, N.Y. Penal Law sec. 130.60 ("coercion in the second degree").

Demanding money to keep quiet, however, is almost certainly a bad idea. See, for example, N.Y. Penal Law sec. 130.60 ("coercion in the second degree").

Rough interpretation of the Constitution would lead you believe that.
Let's read it shall we:
Constitution of the United States of America
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To understand the clause you have to see it in context, namely the article to which it is attached. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 states, "Congress shall have the power to..." The subsequent clauses are attached to the first words as continuations of the thought (this means they all forgoe the "Congress shall have the power to" line. It is assumed).
All that this section entails is the powers and limitations of the Congress. It's merely authorizing them to create the copyright laws themselves. The copyrght laws that Congress passed are where the real copyright exists. Now, the law basis upon which those copyright laws exist are English in origination, namely the Statute of Anne. The actual laws are covered under USC 17

A special case exists here in that the content producers are freelance writers not working as either contractors or employees of the companies involved.

Justice Ginsburg makes a special note of this difference here. If the work is done by someone for hire (either an employee or through contract) then the rights associated with the work belong to the employer.

This most likely is the case with the major music lables. If the artists assign certain rights, especially the right to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission then most likely the Court's decision would have no impact.

In addition, the decision by the Court to foist remedy and future situations back to the lower courts (ultimately back to Congress) seems to indicate that the Court recognizes the crisis that current copyright law does and will face in the near future.

However, the Court's decision most decidedly affirms the rights of the content-producers, even though noting that this will possibly lead to more stringent contracts and an overall setback (see note 17, same page as above).

So IMO, the Court has given *no* indication that it favors the concept put forward by the orignal articles author. Indeed, it seems that the justices realize that would eventually mean a return to an earlier, less tolerable situation.



Thus the danger of the abrogation of the rights of property.


Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.

A special case exists here in that the content producers are freelance writers not working as either contractors or employees of the companies involved.

Justice Ginsburg makes a special note of this difference here. If the work is done by someone for hire (either an employee or through contract) then the rights associated with the work belong to the employer.

This most likely is the case with the major music lables. If the artists assign certain rights, especially the right to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission then most likely the Court's decision would have no impact.

In addition, the decision by the Court to foist remedy and future situations back to the lower courts (ultimately back to Congress) seems to indicate that the Court recognizes the crisis that current copyright law does and will face in the near future.

However, the Court's decision most decidedly affirms the rights of the content-producers, even though noting that this will possibly lead to more stringent contracts and an overall setback (see note 17, same page as above).

So IMO, the Court has given *no* indication that it favors the concept put forward by the orignal articles author. Indeed, it seems that the justices realize that would eventually mean a return to an earlier, less tolerable situation.



Thus the danger of the abrogation of the rights of property.


Nietzsche on Diku:
sn; at god ba g
:Backstab >KILLS< god.

The DMCA is pretty constitutionally sound

[Congress shall have the power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. [emphasis added]

Fact: The DMCA does not specify, grant, or recognize any time limitation on the validity of the access-control mechanisms. That is, there is no given time after which it becomes legal to circumvent the mechanism.

Fact: For now, at least, copyright does expire (if only in 120 years or whatever) and hence, works will pass into public domain. In fact, DMCA could be used to protect works copyrighted long ago as long as the mechanism is true. Therefore, at some point (perhaps soon), public domain works will be locked behind proprietary access-control mechanisms.

Implication: By wrapping content in access-control mechanisms, a content provider can charge access fees and so control the distribution, even of a public domain work, essentially forever.

Fact: "Forever" cannot be properly encompassed within the term "limited Times".

Conclusion: The DMCA is unconstitutional.

Valid? Through some crime of happenstance, I don't happen to sit on the Supreme Court, so I can't say so definitively. Is there enough there as to question the constitutionality of the DMCA? You bet.

PS: I really don't give a hairy fig if "any average IP holding millionaire" woulkd hate to be like me. I don't measure my self-worth in dollars. There exists value other than economic value.

Or perhaps clarification from a legal dictionary.

The Find Law for Legal Professionals legal dictionary provides several definitions for effective:

1: producing a desired effect
Example: an effective revocation of the contract

2: capable of bringing about an effect
Example: effective assistance of counsel (see also ineffective assistance of counsel)

3: being in effect

As you say, this is a question of legal semantics that a legal professional should decide. But, it seems to me that weak, outdated encryption effectively protects against hacking no more than a leather vest effectively protects against a bullet.