Slashdot Mirror

but he does a decent business without them, and just figures he'll avoid getting into something that he has neither the time or money to deal with.

To quote attorney Jennifer Granick in her blogging about "Ciscogate":

At the point that you get sued, or even charged with a crime, it matters less what actually happened and whether you did something wrong and more what it takes to get out of the case as unscathed as possible. It's sad, but true, that our legal system can often be more strategy than justice.

I understand your current position, even if I don't agree. However, I think there is something you are overlooking, which is the collateral damage to society brought about by RIAA attempting to stop those "folks who infringe on their copyrights".

Do you actually believe that 100% of the hundreds (or perhaps thousands, there is no real way to know how many) of people who are contacted by RIAA for paying a mere few thousand dollars to settle out-of-court are all guilty?

You do realize that even for someone who is actually innocent, settling out-of-court is the financially correct decision to make in these cases? I'd like to refer you to the blog of attorney Jennifer Granick, who represented Michael Lynn in "Ciscogate":

At the point that you get sued, or even charged with a crime, it matters less what actually happened and whether you did something wrong and more what it takes to get out of the case as unscathed as possible. It's sad, but true, that our legal system can often be more strategy than justice.

Even if you are innocent, a few grand isn't going to pay for much work from a lawyer who is good enough to go up against RIAA.

There is also the matter of how distorted and dysfunctional copyright law has become because of lobbying by RIAA. Do you actually believe that it helps society (or even the record companies themselves!) that the term of copyright is so enormously long? It looks to me to be the opposite, even for them. If the term were only something like 10 years, I think that new artists recycling of works which still had some cultural significance would actually generate more music, and more interesting music, for the industry to push. And I doubt that the 10 year limit would actually change the recording industry's income by very much, the vast majority of their sales are either new acts or to people who wouldn't bother to waste time/effort looking for the free copy as opposed to just clicking in iTunes/Amazon/or similar.

Did you actually see who wrote the article? You must be kidding to claim she doesn't know anything about the first amendment and how it relates to computer security in the legal realm.

No grammar nazism involved at all -- I wondered that myself. Jennifer probably is on Slashdot, and I'm sure she doesn't mind her wired articles being quoted, but I did wonder who exactly this "gsch" feller was appears to be masquerading as her with some really crappy blog that has nothing to do with Jennifer's actual homepage.

Vulnerabilities in security products, especially those making outrageous claims, need to be exposed.

excerpt from NAI ePolicy Orchestrator Format String Vulnerability

"When deploying new security products within the enterprise, organizations should understand the risks that new security solutions may introduce."

-weld

I actually submitted this when I first saw it (no I'm not bitter... yes i am..) but in my version I bring up two points.
1) Should/Will this man be compensated for his time in the pokey. How do you repay a man 16 months in prison? Granted I would have loved to have seen something on the books (e.g. precedent) to stick some real spammers in jail. Good thing this guy had a great attorney.
2) He had an excellent attorney. For those of you who don't know Jennifer Grannick she is one of the most knowledgable legal eagles out there. I see her every year at Blackhat and she's also known to have helped out on many of the most important pieces of Internet case law to date.