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If the takedown notice wasn't retracted after YouTube removed the copyright strikes, The Verge would have been obligated to go to court

If the video creator chooses to press charges, the Verge is still obligated to go to court.

The Verge (Vox actually) took the ad money on the video illegally, and youtube stats show exactly how many views a video gets and thus a minimum amount of damages in lost revenue.

Vox also violated copyright law and committed "libel per se"

Plain "libel" require proving in court there was malice, and you must show specific exact loses.
"libel per se" is when being falsely accused of a crime, among other things, and you can claim both specific loses as well as general harm and potential loses.

https://dictionary.law.com/Def...

broadcast or written publication of a false statement about another which accuses him/her of a crime, immoral acts, inability to perform his/her profession, having a loathsome disease (like syphilis) or dishonesty in business. Such claims are considered so obviously harmful that malice need not be proved to obtain a judgment for "general damages," and not just specific losses.

Despite Vox committing crimes that are an open and shut text book case, the video creator still needs to pay a layer and go to court for their rights. Sadly that is all too rare.

I think you're viewing restitution too narrowly to limit it to material/financial interests, as recompense can take many forms. How do you feel about forcing a perpetrator apologize publicly? I feel like that's part and parcel to making the victim 'whole' via an acknowledgement of the crime against them, though forced public shaming would fall under the 'revenge' banner as well.

I'm going by the dictionary definition:

1. reparation made by giving an equivalent or compensation for loss, damage, or injury caused; indemnification.
2. the restoration of property or rights previously taken away, conveyed, or surrendered.
3. restoration to the former or original state or position.

Or if you prefer a legal definition:

1) returning to the proper owner property or the monetary value of loss. Sometimes restitution is made part of a judgment in negligence and/or contracts cases.
2) in criminal cases, one of the penalties imposed is requiring return of stolen goods to the victim or payment to the victim for harm caused. Restitution may be a condition of granting a defendant probation or giving him/her a shorter sentence than normal.

A public statement would only be (partial) restitution if it reverses damage caused by the crime, such as defamation. Publicly apologizing for stealing someone's money doesn't return the victim's money.

He didn't have a deal lined up, but what is the reason for thinking that he might not have *believed* that he could have a deal lined up?

As I said before... it's stupid, but being stupid is not the same thing as trying to commit fraud. It's not an excuse to avoid consequences, but it certainly should be an excuse to avoid being accused of doubting a person's integrity or intentions, and the legal definition of fraud most definitely includes having an *intent*.

But I thought that libel was something that forum sites were protected against.

No, actual legally defined libel has no specific protections.
The site when served legal papers requesting it, is supposed to pass on the information they have about the poster. Failing to do that can very well make the legal buck stop on the sites shoulders.

But that isn't really the issue here.

The questions are if the comments even qualify to potentially be libel, and if and only if so, did a court deem them so.

Options by definition can never be libel or slander.
Claims to facts are the only things that potentially can be libel or slander.

This alone makes the companies claim dubious, when they word it as "ANY suggestion that our current or future products pose any threat to users is absolutely false and libelous"

Posting "I think they would do _" can never be libel, as it is an opinion that can't be proven.
Posting "They have done _" however is a fact, and if found to be a false-fact may qualify as libel.

Both libel and slander are forms of tort law (libel being a written tort and slander being a spoken tort)
https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1153

Specifically:
" It is a tort (civil wrong) making the person or entity open to a lawsuit for damages by the person who can prove the statement about him/her was a lie."
"Publication need only be to one person, but it must be a statement which claims to be fact and is not clearly identified as an opinion."

and to your question about websites or forums being protected:
"Most states provide for a party defamed by a periodical to demand a published retraction. If the correction is made, then there is no right to file a lawsuit. "

Not necessarily. A TOS or any other contract is only as valid as are the contents of it. Just because a company says, "We can take your money and screw you over" in the TOS doesn't mean that it's enforceable.

Regardless, you have no basis, whatsoever, if you're using a free service. Basic law 101: consideration.

this is getting magnified by two thing:

a). It's click bait. I predict 300+ comments on this post if not more.

b). These lawsuits are being funded by the Republican party. This is a major political issue for the Republican party. It's part of a larger narrative they're building that white males are under assault.

Now, the fact is white males are... by declining wages due to outsourcing, H1-Bs, economic crashes caused by widespread deregulation, vulture capital firms killing off their jobs, etc, etc); but they're no more so than any other member of the working class. It's basically the right wing version of identity politics. Something to distract from the broader issues and keep the various groups of working class people at each other's throats. A caste system.

That's exactly how law works in the US, Canada and most western countries. There's a thing called "chain of evidence" it deals with the initial source, through the people who carry it, to where it ends up in court and who signs for everything. Warrants filed under false pretenses and used to gain evidence are void.

If you want to see this in action read Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States. It's a very well known case where the US government seized tax records, then tried to present it as evidence before the court. There is also something called "Fruit of the Poisonous Tree" in US law it boils down to this; and this is a very slim definition. There is a lot of case law on this.

n. in criminal law, the doctrine that evidence discovered due to information found through illegal search or other unconstitutional means (such as a forced confession) may not be introduced by a prosecutor. The theory is that the tree (original illegal evidence) is poisoned and thus taints what grows from it. For example, as part of a coerced admission made without giving a prime suspect the so-called "Miranda warnings" (statement of rights, including the right to remain silent and what he/she says will be used against them), the suspect tells the police the location of stolen property. Since the admission cannot be introduced as evidence in trial, neither can the stolen property.

LOL.. That definition came from a law dictionary... http://dictionary.law.com/Defa...

Try again...

Look, your best argument is that this wasn't gross negligence. Why? Because this boils down to opinion and common sense and trying to determine the defendant's state of mind. Did Clinton care becomes the question...

Then you can apply the following: https://www.cordiscosaile.com/...

I don't think she cared about the law or the rules. She sure ignored a bunch of them. Remember, she ignored the private E-mail server being used for official government business, although she signed a memo reprimanding one of her ambassadors for this very thing. She knew doing official business on her private server was illegal, she just didn't care. I presume that she didn't care about classified material handling either. Why? Because it's consistent with her actions and consistent with her attitude to other laws she openly ignored.

All of these arguments would be valid in a criminal trial... Would they convince the jury to find gross negligence? Who knows, but there is a chance it would and if we live in a nation of laws equally applied, she should have been charged, gone to trial and had the jury decide.

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

Interesting sequence of events.

newegg sold: https://www.techpowerup.com/22...

anti-patent troll lawyer leaves: http://www.law.com/nationallaw...

current lawsuit: https://arstechnica.com/tech-p...

Another possibility is to treat them the way American justice treats offenders who commit civil offense 'crimes' like copyright infringement when copying a DVD.

Each copy can result in fines up to $250,000 because you copied a DVD instead of buying a movie ticket. The Movie company lost their percentage of a theater ticket sale (say about $10.00), so they need to fine you appropriately. Their math says you should pay $250,000 for each $10.00 they lost. Corporations, the Courts, American politicians all agree this is fair and just.

So we should apply the same standards to equifax. For every $10.00 lost by a member of the public in credit card fraud, higher interest rates because of ruined credit, additional legal fees, lost work and so on, equifax should be fined $250,000.

Clean and simple. What's sauce for the goose, and so on...

Start racking up the fines, and equifax might actually start paying attention to security.

As it is, equifax has very little liability and they are hoping their lobbying efforts will eliminate any liability that does exist.

We'll be lucky if they are ever held accountable. A few executives may be fined for insider trading, but they'll probably send Martha Stewart to jail before they send anyone who is really responsible.

Why did you not scroll down to Title 18, 793(f)?

(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officerâ"
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Beyond the basic fact that 793(f) applies only to national defense information, and instead these were state department materials?

Gross negligence is "carelessness which is in reckless disregard for the safety or lives of others, and is so great it appears to be a conscious violation of other people's rights to safety. It is more than simple inadvertence, but it is just shy of being intentionally evil."

Colnaghi, U.S.A., Inc. v. Jewelers Protection Services, 611 N.E.2d 282 (N.Y. 1993) defines gross negligence as "conduct that evinces reckless disregard for the rights of others or 'smacks' of intentional wrongdoing," and "represents an extreme departure from the standards of ordinary care to the extent that the danger was either known to the defendant or so obvious that the defendant must have been aware of it."

That's essentially intent, but eliminates the requirement that there be contemporaneous consciousness of the nature of the action. Combine it with the requirement that it be national defense information and you're still behind the eight ball if you attempt to bring a charge.

Finally, the proposition was "There is no 'intent' test in the statue nor CFR regarding violation of the espionage act." Well, there is. You're merely attempting to move the goalposts, like the others before you.

Bunch of bullshit removed

I have been doing a bunch of looking, since reading your post to see if I could find references to what you are speaking of.

Based on my searches, I have several things to say to you. First, by posting what you did, in the manner that you did, without providing one shred of evidence, you have effectively engaged in libel. That kind of behavior has opened you up to a potential lawsuit. Given the daily readership of this site, coupled with the nature of your claims, I would say that if you have any assets to protect that you pray she does not become aware of your posts, or, if she does, that she doesn't subsequently contact an attorney.

The second thing I have to say is: Fuck you asshole. That kind of shit being posted anonymously, is exactly the reason that our freedoms get eroded daily. Your apparent willingness to defame someone, and to try to protect yourself by doing it anonymously reflects badly on everyone here, and is just one more piece of ammunition in the hands of those that wish to strip us of our rights. If you can't control yourself enough to take part in an adult conversation about the larger issues without the need to spew bullshit into the conversation just to make yourself feel more important, then kindly leave, as you have nothing of value to contribute.

"doesn't "innocent until proven guilty" mean the onus is on the boy to show the school district wasn't acting the same way as they would for anyone else in the same circumstances?"

No, because "innocent until proven guilty" is a standard for criminal offenses. This is a civil case, and the standard is the much easier to meet " beyond a preponderance of the evidence ."

And if Obama announced he was cutting an anti-terror program Clapper said was useful how long do you think it would be before there was a movement in Congress to thwart him by adding a line item to the budget? A couple of those schmucks would actually switch over from strong pro-Civil liberties to strong-anti Civil Liberties simply to spite Obama. Hell, the NSA's specific budget is classified. For all we know there's already that line item.

And I think you're severely under-estimating all of DC's culpability in this. Bush had pretty much a blank check to do whatever he wanted on September 12th, 2001 (note: this is actually how Checks and Balances are supposed to work. The President gets checked, and can do jack-squat, until there's a crises, then he assumes powers similar to those of an Ancient Roman Dictator). He approved this programs. Any attempt by him to disclaim the damn things is one of those age old "lying or stupid?" things. Obama has a little more deniability, because PRISM was actually passed as legislation by Congress before he became President. But not really, because he voted for it.

People like to delude themselves that some stupid bureaucrat deep in the bowels of some agency that nobody had heard of prior to these programs being enacted is the whole problem, and that One Simple Trick (either a Court Case, or the President's signature) will end it.

But the Courts aren't gonna step on Congress's toes, especially when all Constitutional cases against the programs can be brought into pretty serious question law simply by checking a couple legal dictionaries, both Presidents clearly prefer a world where this shit happens to one where it doesn't, and Congress itself has ay least one statute authorizing the whole shebang.

The least difficult fix is Congress.

The NDA in this case is basically an agreement which forces someone to not share information about their work. In that context, it's fairly understandable that Slashdot might not be keen on it.

I hope you are not a lawyer. This is a term in law called consideration. In exchange for a product that the public cannot buy right now, Apple has imposed conditions on transfer of the product. If you accept the product, you accept the terms. If you do not like the terms, you don't have to accept the product.

In the GPL, if you make modifications and distribute code, you must release the source code of your modifications. If you don't like those terms, then you should not modify and distribute. You can do either but not both without the source code.

Who said jack-squat about war-time? That word does not appear in the Constitution at all.

The constitution does have things to say about war time, or if you prefer times of peace which is kinda the opposite. Certain provisions are relaxed not during times of peace because the authors of the constitution aren't idiots and knew what an existential crisis is.

The only times of peace clause is the one banning states from having a combat Navy. Habeus Corpus can be suspended during times of rebellion, the Quartering Amendment (which has featured in one actual case I know of) is suspended in war-time.

BTW, your problem here is you don't understand the architecture. Under a system of Checks and Balances both policy-making branches are supposed to be nigh-tyrinical, their evil checked only by their stubborn refusal to agree on who should be horribly oppressed. These leaves governmental power gobbled almost all of the time. Except during wartime Congress is likely to roll over to the President's demands. Explicit mention of the concept would be against the design principles, because it would allow a potentially-tyrinical President to increase his own power by imagining a never-ending war.

Thus the PATRIOT Act is the system working as designed. The numerous Americans convinced it's a tyrannical attack on their freedom is also working as designed as the people are supposed to be an invisible, powerful, and wonderfully obstreperous branch of government.

Thus whatever it does in furtherance of those orders is a use of the President's Commander-in-Chief power, and not subject to the Fourth Amendment.

Oh yes. I forgot about the bit where the 4th gives exceptions to members of the government who are under the presidents order.

The Fourth does not apply to valid uses of the President's Commander-in-Chief power. His law enforcement power's are constrained by the Fourth. The way the Courts parse this is, if the Army finds out about something illegal in the course of using it's powers, law enforcement can't use the data until they get a warrant and re-aquire it. They can use Spec. Jackson's testimony that he saw that crack to get the warrant, but they can't say the suspect had crack in Court unless their capital-S-law-enforcement-Search turns up the data after Spec. Jackson snitches.

OTOH, if Spec. Jackson caught the suspect doing something clandestine that the Army has proper Commander-in-Chief authorization to stop (hard to imagine in the Continental US, but let's say that Putin's sending saboteurs in via submarine or something) then he can use the data to call in an air strike and kill everyone.

If you're wondering why our legal system is so much more expensive then yours, you now have an example of the complexities of administering a country with a 226-year-old document that only gets updated once a decade or so. You guys have some much older documents, but with Unity of Powers anything that looks obsolete tends to get refreshed by some maddeningly ambitious Minister every time there's a cabinet shake-up.

Funnily enough I'm having trouble in finding it in the one paragraph of text. The bit about "shall not" seems quite clear to me, but would you care to point me to the bit of the 4th (or later amendment) which makes an exception for the army?

"Shall not" applies to "unreasonable searches and seizures." A quick perusal of US legal dictionaries proves that phrase is a law enforcement term.

I'm not even arguing that counter intelligence is unreasonable. Searching and indexing the entire country's papers is unreasonable.

Ever heard the phrase

So you're assuming anytime the government looks for info in private papers it's a Fourth Amendment search.

That is clearly not the case, as multiple legal dictionaries have definitions relating solely to court proceedings. It's also clearly demonstrated by the fact that the Union Army didn't need warrants to search for Confederate Agents.

The Constitution was written in plain English. But it's the plain English of 1789. Back then complex legal terms like "search and seizure" were fairly common knowledge because the culture was vastly different. Everyone did their own lawyering, had to know what their Sheriff was allowed to do because their Sheriff's deputies were a posse of random people he happened to grab, etc.

Anyway they go away angry and write a nasty and completely false review of your restaurant on Yelp.

That is commonly called libel, and can be addressed through the legal system.

http://dictionary.law.com/defa...

How east Texas became the epicenter for 'patent troll' lawsuits

Company with no product wins $533M verdict vs. Apple, says it’s no “patent troll”

East Texas Federal Judge Sets Rules for Post-'Alice' World

"Consideration" means pay. It sounds like you got bullied by a lawyer. If it is without consideration, that means it isn't an enforceable part of the contract.

http://dictionary.law.com/Defa...

Could you have fought it and won? Only if what you're representing here is really what happened. But if so, then it wouldn't be "maybe" it would be "easily."

The company reasoned it as, "he believes whatever we tell him the lawyer said, and will agree to crazy stuff if we say so, so lets have him sign it, and then use it to totally screw him. He can't figure it out himself, and we'll be putting him under resource pressure so there is no way he's going to hire a lawyer when we already told him what the lawyer will say."

Don't want to eat GE crops? There are only 8 species of food crop that are GE; if doing five minutes of research are so hard then perhaps you don't care that much anyway.

You know what would really help consumers a lot? If there were LABELS to tell which were GE crops and which weren't. Why are you so anti-consumer on this issue?

I'll believe you care about 'knowing what's in your food' and not just fearmongering when you demand all other methods of crop improvement (which most people outside of plant & agricultural science [that's you] don't even know about) be labeled and demand labeling for the hows, whys, and benefits of what has been genetically engineered.

Great idea! LABEL ALL THE THINGS!

Maybe when you give me a reason to suspect genetic engineering, instead of arbitrarily singling it out, I'll ignore all the safety data that shows no problems. So, lets talk biochemistry; what is it you find uniquely suspicious about genetic engineering, and be as specific as possible.

No let's talk "all the safety data that shows no problems" instead. Citation please?

So you write a post slandering the flawless safety record of GE crops, reflecting the multitude of misinformation on the internet, then wonder why farmers and seed companies don't want them labeled? Gee, I can't imagine why.

LOL according to the law you can only slander humans beings and not inanimate objects. http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1969 BZZT try again!

And again, concerning the "the flawless safety record of GE crops", citation please? It would be nice to know that in this imperfect world a single pool of perfection exists: GE crops.

Also how do we know that in the past a farmer has not been crushed/suffocated by a pile of GE crops? Given the number of farm accidents annually world-wide the odds are good that GE crops have been involved in at least one farm accident.

But of course we would never find out about the linkage given the industry's fear of "Killer GE Crop" headlines...

> Especially publicly stating that the victims have faked them without any further evidence amounts to libel.

For someone so sure of themselves, you really lack a clue. Simply stating that it is your opinion, or "the only logical concusion from the evidence", etc. is more than enough to prevent its being libel.

                    http://dictionary.law.com/Defa...

Moreover, "publicly stating" could be slander, not libel. *Writing* it, to even one person, can be libel. And it doesn't have to be public, either.

It's more of a historical note than anything. Britain had classes, such as royalty and commoners.

In the US, we are all considered equal under the law.
More info here.

Fortunately for the GP, the odds are pretty high that any jury would have a few people burned by the telecoms industry.

"A process" and "due process" are not the same thing. "Due process" is a specific legal term of art with a particular meaning, in this case referring to civil remedies for wrongful termination. Tenure has nothing to do with the courts, therefore it is not the same thing as "due process."

Was that so difficult?

http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202617111781&rss=rss_ca_civil

I've not heard of this before, nor does Google give me any results: Where are your sources? Why are people modding you 'Informative' when no sources have been supplied?

Here you go. http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?id=1202561924057&EU_Court_OKs_Resale_of_Downloaded_Licensed_Software&slreturn=20130004105755

Their resources page reads like a Who's Who of, well, sites anyone can link to?

We’re proud to provide you with the following resources:

Professional Organizations and Governmental Agencies

American Bar Association
Library of Congress
American Association of Justice
Association of Trial Lawyers of America

News and Information

The Wall Street Journal
CNN Legal News
The National Law Journal
Law.com

Legal Resources

United States Federal Law
U.S. Code Search

And the footer text of their pages:

Content copyright 2012. Yes It Is No Piracy - DMCA Remover. All rights reserved.

Clearly they were in the DCMA removal business.

Their resources page reads like a Who's Who of, well, sites anyone can link to?

We’re proud to provide you with the following resources:

Professional Organizations and Governmental Agencies

American Bar Association
Library of Congress
American Association of Justice
Association of Trial Lawyers of America

News and Information

The Wall Street Journal
CNN Legal News
The National Law Journal
Law.com

Legal Resources

United States Federal Law
U.S. Code Search

And the footer text of their pages:

Content copyright 2012. Yes It Is No Piracy - DMCA Remover. All rights reserved.

Clearly they were in the DCMA removal business.

You don't even seem to know the basic rules of the road.

There's a lot more to knowing the rules of the roads and participating safely than simply knowing who has the right of way.

And just because you have the right of way, does not mean you are not at fault for using it. It's called contributory negligence. If you fail to do something that could have stopped the problem from occurring then you are partially at fault as well. It doesn't excuse the other individual, but however much they are at fault doesn't excuse your negligence in the situation either.

IANAL, but that's part of how fault is determined.

*Citation needed*
Seriously, I'd be interested, but I've never heard of any incidents like you drscirbe.

Done and done.

http://www.ij.org/texas-civil-forfeiture-background

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202447265145&Report_Blasts_States_for_Abusing_Civil_Forfeiture_Laws&slreturn=20120729114549

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLSz_p7Q1lg

A bit of Googling brings up tons of horror stories, news articles, blog posts, and discussions/debates. Those were just a few of the top results. The YT link is to a Stossel interview with Scott Bullock from the Institute for Justice.

Strat

In the latter case, the only way for law enforcement to find out about these comments is if they're actively monitoring ALL messages on Facebook, ALL the time.

You do know many more things are monitored right? I haven't been on Facebook in awhile but most sites have a 'report this post' feature client facing. It's similar to a like but it's a dislike... pretty crazy concept right? I also don't find it shocking that there is active and most likely automated enforcement of their acceptable use policy. Perhaps you're familiar with how SPAM is dealt with? That doesn't seem to bother you. In some situations monitoring is a good thing. Like when they close peoples accounts who are known pedos, or idiots who post pictures of crimes. Please don't misconstrue this as support and/or endorsement of Fascist communications monitoring.

If that thought doesn't disturb you, then I can't help you, because there's obviously something wrong with you.

Indeed it does, which is why I'm very careful about what I choose to share online especially when my name and picture are associated with it. Did you even read what I wrote? I'm more alarmed at your lack of understanding of what privacy is and why you think people have it on Facebook. There is no privacy on Facebook. By sharing information you're doing the exact opposite of keeping it secret.

privacy/prvs/
Noun:
The state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.
The state of being free from public attention.

You have no expectation of privacy Facebook here too here. By posting information you are sharing information.

TLDR; "I can keep a secret but the people I tell cannot."

The overall trend of the judiciary seems to be moving toward greater permissiveness for e-discovery with regard to social media, as well as a strong likelihood that privacy concerns will be outweighed by the weight and relevance of the information.

Interesting read here too, seems the courts don't always agree.

Lots of people believe they are trolls.The appellation is generally applied to non-practicing holders who sue infringers, especially if they try to get a permanent injunction to cease practicing the invention, or if the patent covers an implementation standard.

In this case CSIRO is suing people who implement IEEE 802.11a and 802.11g and go after permanent injunctions. This is poor behavior.

http://www.itworld.com/mobile-amp-wireless/58796/court-puts-csiro-wi-fi-injunction-hold

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/australian-government-patent-troll-collects-from-wi-fi-vendors/2187

http://apcmag.com/wi-fi-patent-has-turned-csiro-money-mad.htm

http://legalpad.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/10/patent-troll-throws-party-to-celebrate-its-huge-pots-of-money.html

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=900005557448&slreturn=1

http://www.ipfrontline.com/depts/article.aspx?id=15866&deptid=7

No. We have real lawyers willing to work for free. Have fun paying your student loans.

Um, no. Look up the word "rape" in a legal dictionary: "the crime of sexual intercourse (with actual penetration of a woman's vagina with the man's penis) without consent and accomplished through force, threat of violence or intimidation". This is so obviously not what happened that calling it rape is very obviously not referring to the actual crime, "rape", as defined by the law. The lawyer very clearly said: the law might not define the crime as "rape", but any reasonable juror would characterize the crime as rape, and would be justified in doing so.

Now, "Obfuscant", let's pretend that I'm the judge and you're this TSA agent's lawyer, trying to make your idiotic argument in front of my court, that the woman really claimed that "rape" was committed.

"Obfuscant", are you telling me that, when the defendant claimed that the plaintiff "raped" her, the defendant intended to indicate that the plaintiff had ACTUALLY, LITERALLY PENETRATED the defendant's vagina with her penis? ARE YOU A FUCKING MORON, or are you now finally going to admit that this is VERY OBVIOUSLY an example of rhetorical hyperbole?

Think very carefully before you answer that question, because your answer might result in you being found in contempt of court and hauled off in chains to spend the night in jail. Judges don't tend to like lawyers who play stupid word games with them.

I was under the impression that there were statutes that said so explicitly. But I didn't find any with a quick search.

Rather, what I am referring to may just be based on judicial procedure, and a (common) misinterpretation of it. It's so common, in fact, that I've been taught this by two different lawyers, and never really had any reason to doubt it. Basically, it is the rule that certain "questions of fact" are "for a jury to decide". This leads prosecutors (and even police) to mistakenly believe that their duty is just to collect evidence and pass it along to an eventual jury, instead of using any type of discretion. In actuality, of course, this rule only exists due to abuses like those of "Hanging Judge" Isaac C. Parker, who had a habit of denying defendants the right to a jury trial. The defendant has the right to have a jury decide the question, but it's not an absolute requirement like many apparently believe.

This is a good example:
http://justicebuilding.blogspot.com/2007/06/self-defense-and-prosecutors.html

"The truth hurt me in this case," said Williams, who expressed no surprise at the verdict.

"They were bringing a lot of violence to this defendant. It's tough to put yourself in that guy's shoes and say he didn't act appropriately. It's really tough."

Ultimately, Williams said, the self-defense issue was one for the community, not prosecutors, to determine.

BTW... for a good article on Bedrock and some of the legal antics they've been able to pull off, check out: http://www.law.com/jsp/PubArticle.jsp?id=1202432513211

>WRONG. LE needs a warrant for anything on your phone. And if LE wants the locations of the cell towers you've used, along with direct triangulation of your position, they can serve a warrant to your provider.

You are flat out wrong on this, Grasshopper. At least in California, the police can search your mobile phone device without a warrant, according to a recent California Supreme Court decision. Anything on your phone is fair game for the cops without a warrant. I imagine that this will get appealed to the US Supreme Court, but if the rather liberal California court doesn't see a Fourth or Fifth Amendment right here, I can just imagine what Scalia et al.will do.

No need, they'll just continue to put their own judges in, along with continuing to bolster their efforts in the 'Justice' Department.

Hm... I just wonder how long it will be before someone makes an inexpensive network appliance containing a TV tuner, you just plug in to your cable, and comes with a free iPhone app to stream ANY channel locally at LAN performance, or remotely (from anywhere), by using your WAN...

And how long before that functionality gets integrated by major DVR manufacturers....

This would let you get all channels. Not just the few Time warner is streaming. It's not like you absolutely need the cable providers doing this to have it.

Are the Cable channels forgetting that the courts have ruled DVR as a service is not a copyright violation? Specifically Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings: Remote DVR Does Not Violate Copyright Protections Afforded to Television Program Copyright Holders

larceny

n. the crime of taking the goods of another person without permission (usually secretly), with the intent of keeping them. It is one form of theft. Some states differentiate between grand larceny and petty larceny based on the value of the stolen goods. Grand larceny is a felony with a state prison sentence as a punishment and petty larceny is usually limited to county jail time.

Citation

infringement

n. 1) a trespassing or illegal entering. 2) in the law of patents (protected inventions) and copyrights (protected writings or graphics), the improper use of a patent, writing, graphic or trademark without permission, without notice, and especially without contracting for payment of a royalty. Even though the infringement may be accidental (an inventor thinks he is the first to develop the widget although someone else has a patent), the party infringing is responsible to pay the original patent or copyright owner substantial damages, which can be the normal royalty or as much as the infringers' accumulated gross profits.

Citation

Larceny is a subset of theft, or "stealing." Infringement is not.

*lights strawman on fire*

larceny

n. the crime of taking the goods of another person without permission (usually secretly), with the intent of keeping them. It is one form of theft. Some states differentiate between grand larceny and petty larceny based on the value of the stolen goods. Grand larceny is a felony with a state prison sentence as a punishment and petty larceny is usually limited to county jail time.

Citation

infringement

n. 1) a trespassing or illegal entering. 2) in the law of patents (protected inventions) and copyrights (protected writings or graphics), the improper use of a patent, writing, graphic or trademark without permission, without notice, and especially without contracting for payment of a royalty. Even though the infringement may be accidental (an inventor thinks he is the first to develop the widget although someone else has a patent), the party infringing is responsible to pay the original patent or copyright owner substantial damages, which can be the normal royalty or as much as the infringers' accumulated gross profits.

Citation

Larceny is a subset of theft, or "stealing." Infringement is not.

*lights strawman on fire*

This is far from a settled issue; there's a lot of complicated case law wending its way through the courts.

Theft by conversion *does* deprive the owner of his own property.

Because for the conversion to take place *someone else* must have possession of that property.

For example:

SCO sells licenses for SCO Unix. They do this on behalf of Novell.
They are to remit 100 percent of the fee to Novell, and Novell is to give them 5 percent as the seller's fee.
SCO proceeds to hold on to every fucking license fee, including the ridiculous ones they sold to Microsoft and Sun.
SCO holds on to these through bankruptcy. Using the money to fund its lawsuits and operating expenses.

Ergo, theft by conversion. Novell is out the money it rightly deserves. It has been *deprived of ownership* by SCO.

http://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=346

conversion
n. a civil wrong (tort) in which one converts another's property to his/her own use, which is a fancy way of saying "steals." Conversion includes treating another's goods as one's own, holding onto such property which accidentally comes into the convertor's (taker's) hands, or purposely giving the impression the assets belong to him/her. This gives the true owner the right to sue for his/her own property or the value and loss of use of it, as well as going to law enforcement authorities since conversion usually includes the crime of theft.
See also: theft

--
BMO

So, you root for the biggest patentwhore ever?

[citation needed]

Aside from some rumblings about Linux (mostly via SCO), and one or two FAT-related suits, MSFT has been very quiet with their patent portfolio.

If anything MSFT has been one of the biggest players fighting against software patents (not out of any kind of philanthropy, mind you, mostly because they want to use the tech without sharing the licensing fees).

Over the past five years, Microsoft has been a defendant in 96 patent cases. In most of those cases, Microsoft describes the plaintiffs as "patent trolls." Over the same time period, Microsoft was a plaintiff in 11 cases.
source
actual source (reg required)

You can't steal from corporations.

So if I jack a business vehicle off company property, I'm in the clear, then?

They aren't people.

Yes, they are, according to http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202439349140 .

They can't be drafted.

But they can be given military contracts, can't they?

They can't be executed.

Tell that to AT&T. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Bell_System_divestiture

They never serve a day in jail.

No, but their board members and CEOs sure as shit can. http://www.enrontheplay.com/

Thus, stealing only occurs when you steal from people.

No matter what the Supreme Court says.

Corporations are established by people and jointly owned by people. You steal from them, you steal from their board members, their employees and their families. And thank God we live in a country where the opinion of the courts matter.

The license is a contract. A contract is a memorial of an understanding between two parties. One party cannot be the sole arbiter of the interpretation of the license.

Sorry, but this is just plain wrong. A contract is a contract, whereas a license is... well, a license.

The terms of licensing are set solely by the copyright holder. The only 'understanding' between the licensor and licensee is 'take it or leave it.'

[Citation needed]

And in return:

License: "4) n. a private grant of the right to use some intellectual property such as a patent or musical composition."

Contract: 1) n. an agreement with specific terms between two or more persons or entities in which there is a promise to do something in return for a valuable benefit known as consideration.

The second definition is much lengthier than what I have quoted. I saw nothing in either definition to indicate that a license is not a type of contract.

The obligatory wikipedia link begins: "A software license agreement is a contract..."

Apologies for not having a definition from Black's, but IANAL and I'm not going to spend money for a more authoritative source to prove you wrong.

The license is a contract. A contract is a memorial of an understanding between two parties. One party cannot be the sole arbiter of the interpretation of the license.

Sorry, but this is just plain wrong. A contract is a contract, whereas a license is... well, a license.

The terms of licensing are set solely by the copyright holder. The only 'understanding' between the licensor and licensee is 'take it or leave it.'

[Citation needed]

And in return:

License: "4) n. a private grant of the right to use some intellectual property such as a patent or musical composition."

Contract: 1) n. an agreement with specific terms between two or more persons or entities in which there is a promise to do something in return for a valuable benefit known as consideration.

The second definition is much lengthier than what I have quoted. I saw nothing in either definition to indicate that a license is not a type of contract.

The obligatory wikipedia link begins: "A software license agreement is a contract..."

Apologies for not having a definition from Black's, but IANAL and I'm not going to spend money for a more authoritative source to prove you wrong.

Either the summons went to the wrong mail address (Whois for thedirty.com) or it went to the right address and right defendant. It sounds like it went to the wrong name & address.

There is another possibility. It is becoming common for process servers to lie under oath that they served the defendant when in fact they did not:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202432464950
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2010/01/15/guilty_server/
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/5146727-beware-of-process-server-scams

Forest Group, Inc. v. Bon Tool Co. in 2009 paved the way (rocket docket Eastern Texas, of course) for big fat jerkfaces to go nuts. The AP told citizens it's okay to sue, hell even on Slashdot I submitted an article way back in Feb of Activision's problems with an incorrectly marked patent and because of precedent on incorrect markings we found out in March that this could cost some companies trillions. Expired or wrongly marked could cost you $500 per item sold.