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Funny...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Communist Control Act (68 Stat. 775, 50 U.S.C. 841-844) is a piece of United States federal legislation, signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower on 24 August 1954, which outlaws the Communist Party of the United States and criminalizes membership in, or support for the Party or "Communist-action" organizations and defines evidence to be considered by a jury in determining participation in the activities, planning, actions, objectives, or purposes of such organizations.

You might also be amused/informed/scared shitless by this:
https://trello.com/c/arrNVNIt/...

Oh, an amusing note on the Wikipedia page:

The overwhelming support provided by the liberals has attracted much attention from historians such as Mary McAuliffe (The Journal of American History).

This is worth reading:
https://law.resource.org/pub/u...

It's important to note, and this is from Wikipedia, that this is also true:

Despite that, no administration has tried to enforce it.

Further reading and research can be done here:
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/gran... (Loading poorly.)
http://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~cal... (Loads of good information.)

In other words, you're actually wrong. Now, the odds of it being prosecuted are nil and the US Communist Party exists to this day. But, it is very, very much a FEDERAL CRIME to be a Communist or a member of the Communist Party in the United States. The Nazi party is fair game, however. You can be a Nazi, if you want, but being a communist is right out.

You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. The reality is that Aaron repeatedly ignored both rules and advice only to draw negative attention to himself that made life difficult for him and others. The JSTOR event wasn't the first time he's done stuff like this. Take a look at what he did during the free PACER trial.

Swartz asked a friend to go to a Sacramento library that was participating in the program. After the librarian logged the friend into the library's PACER account, the friend extracted an authentication cookie set by the PACER site. Because this cookie wasn't tied to any specific IP address, it allowed access to the library's PACER account from anywhere on the Internet. But Swartz admitted to Malamud that he didn't have the library's permission to use this cookie for off-site scraping.

"This is not how we do things," Malamud scolded in a September 4 e-mail. "We don't cut corners, we belly up to the bar and get permission."

"Fair enough," Swartz replied. "Stephen is building a team to go to the library."

But without telling Malamud or Schultze, Swartz pushed forward with his offsite scraping plan. Rather than using Malamud's server, he began crawling PACER from Amazon cloud servers.

And do you know what happened? The trial was shut down because of the huge amount of traffic that was coming from the Sacramento library account. Aaron ignored the advice of Carl Malamud, hammered the PACER servers with his script, and ruined it for everyone nation-wide who could have participated in the PACER free-access trial. Who knows if the PACER folks will ever have a free-access trial again or if they are fearful that someone will abuse the access and hammer the servers like Aaron did.

The JSTOR thing is yet another example of him being a cowboy and hammering the servers. Why did he need to hide the laptops in a data closet instead of putting them in his office? Could it be that he knew what he was doing was wrong and wanted to avoid being caught?

I can understand that Aaron's heart was in the right place. However, his methods only brought negative and unnecessary attention to themselves. He undermined his own goals with his actions.

You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. The reality is that Aaron repeatedly ignored both rules and advice only to draw negative attention to himself that made life difficult for him and others. The JSTOR event wasn't the first time he's done stuff like this. Take a look at what he did during the free PACER trial.

Swartz asked a friend to go to a Sacramento library that was participating in the program. After the librarian logged the friend into the library's PACER account, the friend extracted an authentication cookie set by the PACER site. Because this cookie wasn't tied to any specific IP address, it allowed access to the library's PACER account from anywhere on the Internet. But Swartz admitted to Malamud that he didn't have the library's permission to use this cookie for off-site scraping.

"This is not how we do things," Malamud scolded in a September 4 e-mail. "We don't cut corners, we belly up to the bar and get permission."

"Fair enough," Swartz replied. "Stephen is building a team to go to the library."

But without telling Malamud or Schultze, Swartz pushed forward with his offsite scraping plan. Rather than using Malamud's server, he began crawling PACER from Amazon cloud servers.

And do you know what happened? The trial was shut down because of the huge amount of traffic that was coming from the Sacramento library account. Aaron ignored the advice of Carl Malamud, hammered the PACER servers with his script, and ruined it for everyone nation-wide who could have participated in the PACER free-access trial. Who knows if the PACER folks will ever have a free-access trial again or if they are fearful that someone will abuse the access and hammer the servers like Aaron did.

The JSTOR thing is yet another example of him being a cowboy and hammering the servers. Why did he need to hide the laptops in a data closet instead of putting them in his office? Could it be that he knew what he was doing was wrong and wanted to avoid being caught?

I can understand that Aaron's heart was in the right place. However, his methods only brought negative and unnecessary attention to themselves. He undermined his own goals with his actions.

Forgive me, but that doesn't seem to follow. Isn't a requirement to be the earliest use by definition the same as a requirement to be original? I mean, effectively what this court found was the trademark was not novel enough.

Incorrect. If you abandon use of a trademark for a sufficient period of time, anyone else can come along and adopt the same trademark for the same goods or services. The statutory presumption (Federal law) is abandonment after non-use for 3 years.

There are instances where a famous mark with residual goodwill, repair service activity, etc. has been deemed to still belong to the original owner even after more than 10 years of non-use, but those are exceptions based on odd circumstances (e.g. Ferrari trademarks for particular models of cars).

For an example of an entirely unoriginal trademark, see the Love beverage trademark dispute.

Note that I did not say first use. I said earliest continuous use. I meant that.

An excellent way to help is to contribute to public.resource.org, the non-profit being sued by The State of Georgia: https://public.resource.org./ Click on the "$$ SUPPORT THE PUBLIC DOMAIN" link at the bottom of the page.

Public.Resource.Org is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit and your contributions are tax-deductible as allowed by law.

There is an excellent video entitled "Show me the Manual!" that introduces the issue.

No. You are incorrect. If they are codified in law, they are freely available from the State/Feds. You only have to pay for them if you buy them from the standards groups.

https://law.resource.org/pub/u...

There is no need to pirate. Most standards codified in U.S. State and Federal laws are available here.

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/cfr/manifest.us.html
https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/safety.html

If it is not already there, if is codified just do a FOIA request.

There is no need to pirate. Most standards codified in U.S. State and Federal laws are available here.

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/cfr/manifest.us.html
https://law.resource.org/pub/us/code/safety.html

If it is not already there, if is codified just do a FOIA request.

In the US there is a concept of "Fighting Words" that justify throwing the punch. The Arkansas Court upheld this a few years ago over calling a cop "chicken sh*t" and "mother fcuker". Read about it here: https://bulk.resource.org/cour...

I don't think a professor can demand that of the students. What if a student cannot accept the EULA of Twitter? Will the school refund the tuition and other expenses incurred before knowing about this requirement?

Yeah, I thought the same thing when the local public school (a mandatory-attendance government-run institution) required kids to sign up for Turnitin(TM). Certainly I didn't have an option as to whether to pay my school taxes in light of this requirement.

I think it is bogus, but good luck getting the majority to go along with it.

And if you didn't want to buy the textbook the course demanded? Of course, there is the conundrum of what happens if you disagree with something the Professor says. Can you retroactively refuse to pay for that textbook? or sue the university for the damage that a Twitter account caused you?

My only advice is that people realize that if they are going to have extremely stong convictions that will not allow them to participate in requirements of various courses, or even professions, they will need the courage of those convictions. Blind people cannot demand to be issued drivers licenses, even if it is discriminator,p>y. People who have such an objection to using Twitter need to resign themselves to the fruits of that refusal. Twitter isn't an illegal or immoral service, only a stupid one. What is even more bogus is that stuff like the National Electric Code or United States Pharmacopoeia is copyrighted. It is basically illegal to tell somebody what the law is - you need to pay the appropriate corporation for the right to know the law.

I don't think you meant what you wrote. What you wrote is saying that you can't discuss the NEC with anyone unless they buy a copy.

And you can always try this link to pdfs

https://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/

Pardon the tiny url, the website is the nfpa

http://tinyurl.com/n6hvw8v

That is for online viewing only.

Much ado about not a whole awful lot.

...and http://public.resource.org./

And who's paying them ~$100,000 a year?

That was during an election year. Their most recent 990 says they only received $25,000 last year:
https://bulk.resource.org/irs.gov/eo/2012_11_EO/20-5283809_990EZ_201112.pdf

Their other web site is:
http://cahc.net/

1) I'm willing to bet fairly good money that nearly every search conducted on Friday was done with the full voluntary consent of the property owners. Furthermore, there is legal precedent which allows the police to enter and search property without a warrant, and without the voluntary consent of the property owners anyway, so your talk about objecting is rather silly. The situation on Friday certainly fell within the definition of exigent circumstances. The point is: NO search conducted Friday was illegal or a violation of anybody's rights, and your claim that you would have refused such a search is probably moot - your attempt to refuse would have been (legally) overridden by police, and if you attempted to prevent them from entering your property, you probably could have been arrested for doing so.

2) You say, "it's not just limited to hot pursuit," when earlier you said "apply during hot pursuit, not just pursuit." If you concede it's applicable during hot pursuit, and call what happened on Friday "hot pursuit," why are you arguing the point at all?

2b) A simple, cursory examination of any of the literal reams of newsprint that have been consumed by journalists writing about the events in Boston would have told you that the area where the searches were conducted was a small section of Watertown. In the future, please don't offer opinions on matters you're ignorant of, and you'll spare yourself the embarrassment of being completely wrong.

2c) You wrote, "Those residences in the immediate vicinity of the suspects last known location are permissible to search. The whole of Boston? No." The searches occurred in a very small portion of Boston, and you've conceded they were completely reasonable. The so-called "lockdown" was a "request" that people stay inside, and had nothing to do with any constitutional issue, because they did not have the weight of any law behind them. The police made a request. That was the only thing that affected "the whole of Boston."

3) You are WRONG - exigent circumstance entry & searches must be "strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation", as in the linked case. If your defense attorney were competent, he'd know this, and file a motion to suppress all evidence gathered during that search. Your argument that "anything an officer sees can be held against you" applies in searches conducted under the auspices of a search warrant. It does not hold true in cases where exigent circumstances justify the search.

4) I'm sorry, do you prefer "ignorant mouth-movings," "whining," or some other term to describe your chest thumping about how the police state is coming, and you're ready to stand against it? NOTHING new happened on Friday. No "step down a slippery slope." No "chipping away at our constitutional freedoms by police intent on stealing our freedom like they want to steal our guns." No "violations of fundamental constitutional rights." All that happened was a bunch of police officers conducted a search and an investigation using procedures and legal standards that have long standing precedents.

Idea is interesting, but it doesn't work under the current copyright law. The fact that anyone is downloading any material does not make that an infringement. "Making available" or sharing the copyrighted work is the only infringement that is a violation. In your case, only the server that hosts the file might be infringing on the copyright, not the people downloading.

Which law would that be? Not US law, not the way US courts rule. source:

We agree that plaintiffs have shown that Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright holders' exclusive rights: the rights of reproduction, 106(1); and distribution, 106(3). Napster users who upload file names to the search index for others to copy violate plaintiffs' distribution rights. Napster users who download files containing copyrighted music violate plaintiffs' reproduction rights.

In fact, it is far more debatable if "making available" is an infringement without proving actual instances of distribution.

Even if his aim wasn't to aid the enemy the effect was the same because they learned valuable intelligence on our operations. I don't think he should get 365 years in prison like Jerry A. Whitworth did but when you can get life just for pimping out girls he should get out as an old man.
https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/856/856.F2d.1268.86-1256.html
http://www.koinlocal6.com/mostpopular/story/Portland-pimp-remains-defiant-sentenced-to-life/bDDaEtsAMEWQ824ZK-5R2g.cspx

And what would knowing do for you? Your neighbor, instead of hiding the fact that he has weapons like criminals do, follows the law and registers his legally obtained weapons. This information is already available to see. What people are mad about is when some asshat decides to conveniently collect all of this information so that only criminals have a use for it. Oh, criminals and idiots who think law-abiding citizens should be ostracized or treated differently because they are exercising their rights and acting in a responsible manner.

Exactly!

The claim and exercise of a Constitutional Right cannot converted into a crime" Miller v. U.S. 230 F.2d 486 (1956). But in New York, for example, they have done just that. If I were a gun owner in New York, I'd refuse to comply, based on the Supremacy of the 2nd Amendment. New York's law is clearly unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.

BTW, Certain members of Slashdot that want to get rid of all guns not owned by the government would do well to read this page; but they won't...

Sounds a lot like the "willful ignorance" that Aimster tried to pull off, and got smacked down for. https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/334/334.F3d.643.02-4125.html

How about we put bad guys in jail, instead of punishing the millions of gun owners who haven't done anything wrong? A dramatic, double digit drop in murder rates for "Project Exile", vs. "challenges in discerning the effects of the ban"? Richmond, Virginia, had a program in the 1990s. "Project Exile". Short version: Mandatory additional 5 years in jail if you use a gun in a crime, or if you're a felon found possessing a gun or ammunition. Crime went down 40%.
https://house.resource.org/106/org.c-span.153371-1.pdf
From page 2 of this report, "Since the project began, the results have been evident. More than 200 armed criminals were removed from Richmond streets during the first year of Project Exile alone. An entire gang responsible for multiple murders has been dismantled. In 1998, murders were 33 percent below 1997, the lowest number since 1987. In 1999, murders are down yet another 29 percent."

Compare this with the Assault Weapons Ban, which accomplished nothing. Here's the National Institute of Justice's report, describing how it had no effect in reducing crime:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/jerrylee/research/aw_brief1999.pdf
"A number of factors—including the fact that the banned weapons and magazines were rarely used to commit murders in this country, the limited availability of data on the weapons, other components of the Crime Control Act of 1994, and State and local initiatives implemented at the same time—posed challenges in discerning the effects of the ban."

The factual basis of defendant's plea does not demonstrate the existence of "concealment," an essential element of the offense of misprision. The record of defendant's plea fails to reveal that he took " affirmative steps to conceal the crime of the principals." United States v. Daddano, 432 F.2d 1119, 1124 (7th Cir. 1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 905, 91 S.Ct. 1366, 28 L.Ed.2d 645 (1971); Neal v. United States, 102 F.2d 643, 649-650 (8th Cir. 1939). The mere failure to report a felony is not sufficient to constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C.A. 4. Lancey v. United States,356 F.2d 407 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 922, 87 S.Ct. 234, 17 L.Ed.2d 145 (1966).

Also, misprision of felony is not a felony, it's a misdemeanor.

Decades ago a guy blew up a brick restroom after announcing that a bomb would go off "somewhere downtown."

Even better: get it from the site mentioned in TFS. I recently did some work to my house and, thanks to this site, knew more about the codes than the inspector who came to make sure I met them! Nothing quite like responding to "That woodstove is too close to the wall" with "Actually, according to this chart in the NFPA codebook, I've got an extra inch of clearance than needed, see?"

http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/

(If you have some time, you might like to read our rather surreal paper trail.)

Forbidden

I don't have permission to access /hbs/pub/ on this server.

I'm glad you've had good experiences and it's interesting to know what's happened to you, but none of that changes the fact that YouTube's content ownership framework doesn't allow people to dispute claims of ownership on public domain material. How would you feel if someone claimed ownership on your Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse footage you assembled and chose to block it worldwide?

Well, that's what's happened with the famous Duck and Cover educational video. It's public domain, but Image Entertainment (whoever that is) has claimed copyright of it and are blocking it from being seen in all countries except the United States. This is described in the report which Cory mentions.

The issue isn't really whether or not YouTube are good guys or bad guys. The issue is that the system they have in place doesn't effectively allow for disputing whether or not something is in the public domain. This allows people to claim content which they don't own and to profit from it. People like yourself who want to use that public domain content can have their accounts suspended or blocked for using video and audio content including content in the public domain. Now, in your case, someone made a legitimate claim to some of the content you used for your video and YouTube handled that appropriately. That's good. But when people make claims to things they don't own, they're handling that in exactly the same way, which isn't appropriate. So, if you worked hard and created an interesting video using public domain content, a random company can siphon off some of your revenue from it simply by falsely claiming that they own the copyright on something which is actually in the public domain.

Only if by "business practices relating to windows" you mean designing an incompatible JVM, including it with Internet Explorer, making ISVs agree to not include Sun's JVM with their applications, misleading Java developers into thinking that developing for Microsoft's JVM would produce cross-platform applications and threatening Intel that they would support AMD 3DNOW! if Intel wouldn't stop developing a high-performance cross-platform JVM.

But don't take my word for it, read section II(B)(5) here. The heading is "Java" under "II. Monopolization, B. Anticompetitive Conduct."

Nope. See
293 F.3d 79

The issue in this en banc case is the extent to which a private organization may assert copyright protection for its model codes, after the models have been adopted by a legislative body and become "the law". Specifically, may a code-writing organization prevent a website operator from posting the text of a model code where the code is identified simply as the building code of a city that enacted the model code as law? Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the organization's works retain their protected status.

As long as you treat the codes as part of law, they are public domain. Easy. So, if a code is adopted with any changes (even reformatting), only the changed version as adopted into law is in public domain. The original "model code", if any, is still subject to copyright protection.

Well, if you adopt such standards then they become law, plain and simple. Alas, I messed up my link: this is bulk resource and they have various building codes for your perusal. No need to spend a single cent for it. I think it's unconscionable that laws are a subject of copyright protection, just as it is unconscionable that the Queen holds crown copyright of King James Bible (in the U.K.). Both are fucked up IMHO (yep, I'm strongly opinionated on that front). If it's a law, it should be accessible online in an unencumbered fashion. Make it a U.S. constitutional amendment, for all I care.

You've nailed it. I've recently had to service a computer used by a chiropractor. The amount of quackery represented in the software installed there is beyond belief. Astrology, acupuncture "measurements", oh boy. The providers of this software surely must be making a good life for themselves. Sometimes I wish FDA had more teeth to stop it. Say what you want about the european Medical Directive, but if you want to market hardware or software that is classified as a medical device (anything directly used for treatment/diagnosis), it must have proven efficacy.

PS. I hate laws that come with a price tag attached just to view them -- many european directives include by reference national standards that cost thousands of dollars per single directive. I think this is completely broken and insane -- the U.S. has got it right: the courts have repeatedly ruled that if it's law, you can limit its distribution. Thus any code such as electrical, building, plumbing, etc. that got included in a law somewhere in the U.S. is available free of charge if you know where to look (resource.org is a good one).

If you're in the U.S., law must be accessible to all, in its entirety -- this apparently has a long legal history. So if something is a code -- too bad for the organization that tries to bully you into paying, it's your right to get it at your library, and it's your right to copy and redistribute it as you please. This is in stark contrast to, say, Europe, where plenty of directives "include by reference" ISO and IEC standards that cost thousands of dollars.

For U.S. building law from pretty much every state, law that includes some international codes, see bulk.resource.org. Don't ever spend another dime on NEC or building codes that are law in some jurisdiction in the U.S. It's silly.

Now, how about posting the physical address of a flea market (where you know there are physical "pirated" CDs, not to mention usually some real stolen merchandise) and posting a link to a "pirated" song or video on the net? Both are a pointer to where the "illegal" stuff is. But one gets you arrested and your domain taken and the other isn't a problem at all?

Why do you think running a service where you direct people to places where they can take part in illegal activities wouldn't get you in legal difficulties? People have been found liable for copyright infringement for promoting events in which copyright infringement took place, even when they themselves were not infringing the copyright. A site specifically designed to allow people to access infringing copies of works seems similar, and illegal for the same reasons.

Now, that this domain was seized apparently without an opportunity for the operator to defend himself in court is definitely a problem, but the idea that there is something terrible about holding some links to copyright content to be illegal is silly.

See the Murphy Bed case for an example on how to lose a trademark based on its generic nature.

I hope this makes it to the Supreme Court. This ruling does not jive with the Federal Circuit ruling in Chamberlain Group v. Skylink Technologies and 5th Circuit in MGE UPS Systems v. GE Consumer & Industrial that link circumvention with infringement. In short, that circumvention is only illegal if it is for the purpose of infringement.

As you said the DMCA is about copyright and not about ideas. He did copy the idea, but that is not the question. Anyway, ideas are protected by patents, not copyrights. If there were any patents on Pac-Man they should have expired by now.

You say that the question is whether or not he copied the artwork or code. Sorry, no. It does not matter if he copied the code at all. If you go to his website you'll see that he clearly copied the artwork. Copying does not mean getting a copy of the orignal art work. It does not mean running something through a copy machine or type "cp" in to a command line. A copy is a copy if the copier had access to the original and the copy looks "substantially" like the original. That is why you are violating copyright if you draw a picture of Mickey Mouse. Humanity made copies long before there were computers. Copyright law goes back centuries.

For further reading I suggest you all go look at:

Atari v. NORTH AMERICAN PHILIPS CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CORP
http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/672/672.F2d.607.81-2920.html

which is the federal district court ruling on a similar case from 1982. It just happens to cover exactly the same circumstances but 28 years earlier. It goes into depth on the method used by the court to determine that an illegal copy had been made and covers the law and precedents that applied up through 1982. This isn't a case of the DMCA making something illegal that used to be legal. This is a case of the owners of Pac-Man using recent law to rather politely and cheaply stop a blatant case of copyright infringement.

Like I said earlier, they could have sued him and left him penniless for the rest of his life. All they did was stop him from being able to continue to distribute their property. The new version of the game he has posted is most likely still in violation. All he did was change a little art to make it look a little different. Considering the existing precedent it would be a cheap suit to prosecute. It is the same circumstance as the one I pointed out from 28 years ago. I bet the court would just give them a summary judgment based on screen shots. The scum bag who asked the question would be sitting with a bill for legal costs and damages that he would probably never be able to pay off.

Stonewolf

Your use of "no, really, it does not" to then argue against my statement starting the same way is confusing, to say the least. Please be careful with your negatives.

In any case, Justice Stevens of the US Supreme Court disagrees with you, and wrote the opinion.

http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/434/434.US.497.76-1168.html

Dismissal, even with the case in this decsion involving exceptional mishandling of evidency by the prosedcutors, does not prevent refiling of charges. There are apparently some circumstances where a dismissal can bar retrial, but it seems to be mostly a matter of policy, not law. And the decision was a classic one of "there are issues, but we're not blocking it".

Here's an illegal checkpoint based on that law. here (warning: pdf) is a whole slew of them. This article tells of one specific victim. So does this one. Here's a dragnet for you folks in the UK. This case is the one where they stretched it to include all mail sent anywhere in America. But wait! There's more!

linky
linky
linky

While not specific to the case of searches inside borders based on these laws you may find this link enlightening, it's what our congresscritters are reading about these things.

Warrentless stops and searches inside our borders are being done and it needs to stop.

You are going to have to comply with things like building and fire codes, unless you want to exist in legal limbo. On the plus side, because rail cars presumably had to follow DOT regulations of various sorts(and are only one story tall) code compliance isn't going to be the biggest hurdle in the world; but you'll still have to do it.

http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/ is, by a fair margin, your best bet for free access to building, fire, and similar codes(run by one Carl Malamud, something of a hero in the "open public access to government documents" business). It might be less useful to someone of the Limey persuasion, which you seem to be; but many US municipal and state codes simply incorporate wholesale various industry-standard codes, many of which are of international reach. Depending on your location, you may still need one or more licenced people to sign off, for it to all be legal, and you might be able to get a copy of any local codes from some local authority.

More generally, If you want this project to be "open source" in a useful sense, you'll likely want to focus on two things: One is obvious: documentation. You want documentation anyway, just to save your sanity; but that is what you will be sharing with others. Second, slightly less obvious but more important, is modularity. An "Open Source" project that beings "Obtain 1 model XYZ-FOO-123 underground train car. Follow the following steps precisely to convert it into a house." That's a build log, which is fine; but it is of rather limited re-usability. Train cars(and probably other things you will end up incorporating during the course of the project) are the sort of item that is cheap to free(depending on the scrap/collectors market at the time) if you get lucky, uneconomically pricey otherwise. Some people will have them, some won't. Those who do have them will pretty much be stuck with the model they have.

What you will want to do, if you wish to make this a useful "OSS" project, is build it out of a bunch of documented modular components that fit in your environment; but could, possibly with some adaptation; be used in all sorts of other contexts. "Design for platform with sliding wall-mounted pivots that can be unfolded as either a sleeping surface or a table" is useful for anybody who has a flat wall and not much space. Various things of that nature will add up to the solution to your specific problem; but will also be generally applicable.

Coming back to code, and general applicability, and legality, you might also wish to explore minimizing your dependence on things like gas lines and mains electricity in your design. These are the most dangerous if a n00b fucks them up, the most likely to be code/legal-requirement encumbered, and the most likely to differ between nations. 12/24 volt electrical systems, for instance, will allow you to tap the experience of the camper/RV enthusiasts, and may well subject you to far fewer regulatory headaches. Trivial integration with solar is fun also.

I believe this is what you are looking for.

I'm assuming you're approaching this from a US centric point of view. If not, please ignore.

From a U.S point of view the courts have made it VERY clear that the police, and the state in general do NOT have a duty to protect you (they should, and most try, but it is not a requirement). To quote

" But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone; it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order." (Bowers v. DeVito, 1982) see http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/686/686.F2d.616.80-2078.80-1865.html, paragraph 6.

To continue. The state "... does not have an affirmative duty to protect individuals from private third parties" (Gonzales vs. City of Castle Rock, 2004).

If you really want an eye opener on just what the state can get away with not doing in regards to the protection of a private citizen, read the Gonzales vs. Castle Rock opinion. It's read that sounds like a bad "B" movie.

The key part of the Bowers decision, in regards to your argument is "...it does not require the federal government or the state to provide services, even so elementary a service as maintaining law and order" (Bowers v. DeVito, 1982). This doesn't (in my opinion) invalidate your argument, but you'll be hard pressed to argue that a service is, in of itself, a right, rather than a privilege.

One last point, you *DO* have the right "to not be killed by random strangers", but, as the court noted, it is up to you to claim that right. You can have Life, Liberty, and Happiness, but it's up to you to do what is necessary, within the confines of our society, to exercise those rights.

That's a bunch of crap, and if that's what the decision says then First Sale law is over, at least until it gets escalated, and it will. First Sale is critical to whole long lists of industries. Using copyright law to restrict transfer of an object [blogspot.com] is an abuse... First Sale law permits you to modify things you've purchased.

If Psystar modified the OS X software and then sold the modified software (along with the computer), then they've both created a derivative work and distributed it. This should be clear cut in the courts. There is a circuit split over whether attaching a postcard to a tile and then reselling it constitutes the preparation and distribution of a derivative work, but the split is over the question of whether simply gluing the card to the tile is enough to qualify as a derivative work. In this case, modifying the software is almost unquestionably enough to constitute the preparation of a derivative work.

First sale will allow you to resell a copyrighted work that you have purchased; if, however, it's been modified enough to constitute a derivative work, you'll run afoul of copyright law. If, in the Seventh Circuit's tile case, the defendant had made a new piece of artwork, e.g. a collage or something with a bunch of postcard, that would likely pass the threshold for a derivative work.

If all Psystar had done was resell copies of unmodified copies of OS X along with their Hackintoshes, the issue of derivative works wouldn't come into play at all. It would be more a matter of whether Apple's EULA matters, etc. By modifying the copies, however, they opened up a big can of worms.

It comes from the judiciary tech fund. The revenue exceeds the needs of the fund therefore it is for profit and could have even been paid for directly from the fund instead of from a specific line item.... it is essentially trying to repay the fund, which I will give you, but it is more than doing that. See graph: http://pacer.resource.org/recycling.html Besides, that fee is being charged for access, not for digitization efforts. The records are already and available through other databases (many are internal or paid). I don't have time to find quotes, but I have used them. All pacer does is pull them all together into one place.

I've actually asked that question myself - whether some sort of version control system could be very useful in handling and understanding the making of and changes to the law.

Unfortunately, expecting to get such a process actually adopted is probably unrealistic at the present time - there are FAR too many people and interests who would object to the transparency implied by being able to track changes to laws (although they would doubtless find some other way to justify it - say by claiming it would raise the costs of the lawmaking process to unreasonable levels and slow down emergency bills which would Harm The Children In Need, etc...)

My suggestion on how to approach such a system is as follows: Begin with the available online resources (thomas.loc.gov, Carl Malamud's work at http://public.resource.org/, etc.) and start a non-profit, wikipedia style effort to import existing and historical legislation (and whatever other material may be relevant) into a version control system. It would be an EXCELLENT project for students of political history - perhaps some university departments could be persuaded to get behind it. Initial import would be quite difficult in that change sets and ordering probably couldn't start "from the beginning", so some sort of preliminary work might have to be done in either a specialized or new type of VCS. Such a project would help shake out what is needed for such a system and how to make it robust.

Once a system is up that can display historical changes in legislation and has as its contents the history of such legislation, begin to use it and continually update it with new legislation as it appears. If the utility of the system is demonstrated (as it probably would be by media and interest groups using it to decode the process) you might begin to compel the actual legislative process to look at using it.

But in the meantime it would help the public understand the end results and the history of its development, which is already a massively worthwhile goal.

hese sort of redaction failures are important to know about; however, Malamud's letter to the clerk of court betrays a severe deficiency in his understanding of the courts and how they work. The Clerk of Court cannot redact filings. It just does not work that way. Filers must (and are required to) redact filings. The Clerk of Court must also accept any filing. S/he can't turn it away because of a defect in form or substance. The most the clerk can do is notify chambers (the judge) of the issue. The judge can then order the filing sealed as well as a redacted filing from the originator of the document.

In addition, contrary to everything you are reading in this thread, court opinions are free on PACER. Anything that sets forth the reasoned opinion of the court is not charged. Most PACER fees come from people reading mundane scheduling orders and routine motions made by counsel. Yes -- these should be (and are) available to the public. They are even free if you visit the courthouse -- but the system that runs them did not appear out of thin air. PACER fees *do not* pay staff salaries or local court operational costs. They are used to maintain the infrastructure and development of the Case Management and Electronic Case Files system. That infratructure is complex and the software systems used to run and maintain the systems is under constant development to handle new requirements -- be they legal requirements or operational requirements.

The biggest problem with Malamud's project (and this plugin) is not the archival of public documents. I don't think anyone has a problem with that. The biggest problem is that it is woefully incomplete and someone might be under the mistaken impression that their project is anywhere near what Malamud claims it is. Their "vast repository' of documents contains fewer that 20% of the number of filings in one medium to large court out of 96 district courts (let alone Bankruptcy courts, which have much higher volume). The amount of actual data available from PACER dwarfs their available resources and is growing at a geometric pace compared to their relatively static growth. Take a look at their repository and just imagine how much has changed since this small slice of the whole pie was carved out. There is no way a few public users can keep up with hundreds of attorneys filing thousands of documents each day in all these courts. It cannot be done that way -- and they should make it clear that this is resource is nothing more than a tiny window on the whole.

"In 2006, the fund received $447.8 million, but they could only figure out what to do with $301.2 million, the so-called âoeobligated balance.â In other words, they had a âoesignificant unobligated balanceâ of $146.6 million. At 8 cents per page for a PACER Document, they could give away 1.8 billion pages of documents to the public and still have all the money they need to pay for their computers."

See question/answer #9 in the Recycling FAQ for a nice graph and a source of that quote: http://pacer.resource.org/recycling.html

See question/answer #15 (digital offsets) in the recycling faq: http://pacer.resource.org/recycling.html

The exclusionary rule does not apply to evidence gathered by private citizens.

See, for instance, U.S. v. Hood, 748 F.2d 439 (8th Cir. 1984), available at http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/748/748.F2d.439.84-1525.html

Well, first of all, the statutory language of the fair use provisions in 17 USC Sec. 107 is clear that the four points are not exhaustive. It says:

In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -

And then goes on to list the four factors. The "shall include" is the important bit there.

Also, there was a House Report (HR 94-1476, p. 66) on this legislation (the fair use bit was codified in the 1976 Act) that also supports the idea that the list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

The language of later decisions respects the illustrative nature of the list; e.g., in Harper & Row v. Nation (471 U.S. 539), which was decided in 1985, O'Connor describes the four factors as those "identified by Congress as especially relevant in determining whether the use was fair", thereby implying that if there was some other compelling thing to consider, a court would be free to do that.

One last thing - re: the fourth factor, people seem to think that empirical evidence about the effect of file-sharing on sales will help. They're probably wrong, though. The fourth factor is probably the most dominant one in most analyses, and it's been extended so much - even in the Harper opinion, you'll see the bit about "to negate fair use one need only show that if the challenged use 'should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.'" I find it really unlikely that a court will buy the argument that people swapping songs may increase sales in the long run, even if it's true. More likely they will simply say, "Each file shared is an instance where a work could have been sold, so the effect of sharing on the potential market is negative, case closed."

Please do tell us how you come to this conclusion with regard to Swedish copyright law. Nothing you described is a legal analysis, let alone a legal analysis that takes into account Swedish copyright law.

Okay here is how it breaks down.

1. They are indeed subject to U.S. copyright law and here is how:

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/ccmanual/04ccma.html#A.1.

Several of the statutes discussed in this manual require an interstate or foreign jurisdictional hook. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. Â 1029(a) (prohibiting access device fraud "if the offense affects interstate or foreign commerce"); 18 U.S.C. Â 2510(12) (defining "electronic communication" to mean any "transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence ... that affects interstate or foreign commerce").

Failure to establish the "interstate" basis for federal jurisdiction can lead to dismissal or acquittal.

Copyright charges are Federal and subsequently interstate can be shown with any country outside of Sweeden and also within the U.S. as well being allowed access to the same file links. Now typically this is about access fraud, but since it also includes disrupting commerce it still is applicable. (this would be the toughest stretch. If a US judge says yes this is applicable game over for TPB)

  Section 1030(a)(2)(C) requires a more particular nexusâ"the unlawful conduct itself must involve an interstate or foreign communication. See 18 U.S.C. Â 1030(a)(2)(C).

Prosecutors should be prepared to offer evidence that the conduct in fact traversed state lines.

Easy to prove there

Useful evidence might include testimony as to the geographic location of computer servers. Bear in mind that even a "local" provider may utilize communication facilities in another state.

# 2. Extraterritoriality

Absent evidence of a contrary intent, the laws of the United States are presumed not to have extraterritorial application. See United States v. Cotten, 471 F.2d 744, 750 (9th Cir. 1973).
 
This presumption against extraterritoriality may be overcome by showing "clear evidence of congressional intent to apply a statute beyond our borders."

Pretty clear here with the "Oh I am in Sweeden your laws don't matter to me way over here"

  United States v. Gatlin, 216 F.3d 207, 211 (2d Cir. 2000) (internal quotations omitted).

"Congress has the authority to enforce its laws beyond the territorial boundaries of the United States.

Aha so they are indeed liable and can be charged under U.S. law

Now here is where it get's really good... what if there was a precedent for extradition from U.S. to Sweeden. This in effect would show that the U.S. has complied with Sweeden's requests, and similar pretense.

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/670/670.F2d.722.81-1785.html

Tada! Precedent! So in fact under terms of international extradition agreements Sweeden should comply with the request.

And that's how the Pirate Bay could be brought under U.S. Federal Copyright law.

It is indeed possible.. While they can cry "Oh we are in Sweeden your laws do not apply to us"

True... UNLESS you disrupt foreign commerce and by being an accessory to piracy they are indeed interfering with foreign commerce as an enabling accessory.

I couldn't find that exact phrase online, but the closest thing to it is described as:

In this case we confront a lawyer caught between his client and the court. Specifically, we are presented with the question of when counsel should be sanctioned for a client's failure to appear before a magistrate as ordered. We conclude that a lawyer who has used his or her best efforts to secure the compliance of the client ought not be subjected to sanctions in these circumstances. In light of the facts outlined below, we affirm the fine imposed on Tribal Co-Operative Marketing Development Federation of India ("Trifed"), but reverse the magistrate's sanctions against Trifed's counsel, Larry Klayman.
...

On December 4, 1992, a settlement conference of sorts took place. Universal was represented by counsel and an officer with the requisite settlement authority. Appearing for Trifed were two individuals: local counsel William Henney and Sushovan Sengupta, an administrative assistant in the Visa Section of the Indian Consulate in Chicago. In the course of the attempted settlement discussions that day, Sengupta refused to offer any money to settle the case, stating only that Trifed viewed the case as meritless.2 On December 7, 1992, Magistrate Noel issued an Order to Show Cause, directing Klayman to explain why he and Trifed should not be sanctioned for their conduct surrounding the settlement conference. On January 19, 1992, Magistrate Noel ordered that Klayman pay Universal "any costs, including attorney's fees, incurred by the plaintiff in attending the aborted December 4, 1992, settlement conference" and that Trifed be fined $6,708, "which represents the sum of money [Trifed] thought it would save in air fare by reason of [Trifed's] willful violation of the court's order." The district court affirmed the magistrate judge's sanction order on April 2, 1993.

This all sounds quite serious, but then, IANAL. ;)

Whether you call it audio rights, which means the right to perform the work orally, or an audio performance, you're talking about the same result and the same thing. Let's not let semantics bog us down.

Yes, it's semantics, but it's also important. If "audio rights" is used in the same sense as "movie rights", then "audio rights" means the right to produce a derivative work. If "audio rights" mean the right to publicly perform the work, that is a different right in the eyes of the law.

Once again, courts have determined that the use of player pianos constitute a performance.

If you're referring to White-Smith Music v. Apollo (which, as described by my IP law prof, is recognized as "one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever"), the court found that piano rolls didn't constitute copies of sheet music. This in turn led Congress to pass a new copyright act. In any case, read on for why this isn't relevant to the Kindle.

In the exact same way, the use of the Kindle 2 to translate text to an audio format constinues a performance.

Yes, it constitutes a performance. It does not constitute a public performance, unless it's done in public (thus my auditorium example). 17 U.S.C. Sec. 106(4) is very clear that there is an exclusive right to public performance, not to performance in general.

Of course the pianos were not sued.

Fair enough, I was just being pedantic here :-)

God, I wish people who knew nothing about the law would simply stop smashing their fingers. The copyright on the book is fixed. The book was written down and is sitting on a shelf someplace in a fixed state. God, why are you wasting our time on this BS?!

The copyright (on the original portions) of a derivative work is separate from the copyright on the original work. 17 U.S.C. Sec. 103(b). TTS can't constitute a derivative work, because it's not fixed, which is one of the fundamental requirements of copyrightability.

If we agree, then what are we arguing about?! . . . For Amazon to pay for the audio license. God, was that so hard?

No, I'm saying that Amazon doesn't need a license for audio rights, and that their current e-book license gives them the right to include TTS technology with the Kindle, and that perhaps the e-book license should be more expensive.

Because what you know about copyright law comes from what you've read online. Everything you read on line is not true. Seriously.

Funny, I could have sworn that what I know about copyright law comes from my IP law book and the lectures I've attended at the law school.

In any case, I can't waste any more time on /., I've got reading to do for tomorrow :-)

Yeah, public.resource.org is incredibly useful; I use bulk.resource.org to read appellate and Supreme court opinions all the time.

It's something we /.ers ought to be making more use of - instead of just opining on the law, we can actually link to and read opinions.

Posner's comment is pretty flawed, when you look at it in detail; I don't think he thought out the implications very clearly. This can all be found In re: Aimster Copyright Litigation.

He wasn't talking about VOD - he was talking about the Sony Betamax, and says that

"skipping commercials by taping a program before watching it and then, while watching the tape, using the fast-forward button on the recorder to skip over the commercials... amounted to creating an unauthorized derivative work... namely a commercial-free copy that would reduce the copyright owner's income from his original program, since "free" television programs are financed by the purchase of commercials by advertisers."

Posner later suggests that Sony could have prevented this infringing use by removing the fast-forward button (I'm not making this up), but for other reasons, they didn't have to.

Also, the assumption that the various commercials and the television program together constitute a single work is almost certainly wrong - the commercials are probably all individually copyrighted by different authors, and licensed to the broadcaster.

I ran across this stuff in an article about commercial skipping (PDF).