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Intellectual Ventures, eh? If you believe all those article in Techdirt (here,
here and
here), it is not so much a patent-holding concern as a patent-scam concern. Maybe Gates is getting ready to milk the nuclear power industry in the same way it is milking the IT and communications industries. If that is so, Gates just might save us from the perils of nuclear power, as the industry would be too busy defending itself in court to build any new plants.

Intellectual Ventures, eh? If you believe all those article in Techdirt (here,
here and
here), it is not so much a patent-holding concern as a patent-scam concern. Maybe Gates is getting ready to milk the nuclear power industry in the same way it is milking the IT and communications industries. If that is so, Gates just might save us from the perils of nuclear power, as the industry would be too busy defending itself in court to build any new plants.

Intellectual Ventures, eh? If you believe all those article in Techdirt (here,
here and
here), it is not so much a patent-holding concern as a patent-scam concern. Maybe Gates is getting ready to milk the nuclear power industry in the same way it is milking the IT and communications industries. If that is so, Gates just might save us from the perils of nuclear power, as the industry would be too busy defending itself in court to build any new plants.

Atkinson's censorship of games is a part of a pattern of behaviour. This is the man who also passed a law making anonymous speech illegal specifically for this election campaign.
He then had the cheek, after intense criticism, to say if he was re-elected he'd remove it after the election. It's likely that this was more damaging to the Labor party in this election than the R18 issue.

I am very happy to hear he no longer holds office, as I detest the man and what he stands for. Australia is now a slightly better place. Next up, hopefully, Conroy and the internet filter.

I don't know why this article was even posted. Mike Masnick actually put some time into READING the court documents, and Viacom (just like this poster) is taking things WAY out of context.

    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100319/1237138636.shtml

Read The Fracking Article!

I'm still waiting for the part where they're actually quoted in context. They've debunked a majority directly

"What a complete piece of FUD article. Nowhere in the original post he say anything about Linux or using this to attack Linux or Open Source in general. In fact, this is a guy who has previously wrote this about Microsoft open sourcing:"

"In discussing all of this with Gutierrez, I brought up the company's continual FUD campaign, where it goes to the press to wave that pointy stick around, in announcing that Linux violates over 200 Microsoft patents. Gutierrez noted that he was among the Microsoft execs who had made those statements, and he stood by them ..

This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement... There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed ."

If you have a news item about something that happened at company, and low level person there gives you some information, are you just going to ignore it? Please.

The choices are 1) don't report the information but keep digging until you can come up with a second independent source with with the same information or 2) report the information-- and risk getting burned if your single source turns out to be bad.

Now, if your "number one goal [of your website] is to provide [your] readers with accurate reporting", the choice should be clear.

For your amusement here's a story about single source reporting and blogger credibility.

interestingly that photography exception has been contested lately. A stamp showing the korean war memorial has been sued for infrigement.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090804/0116455762.shtml

http://www.floridapatentlawyerblog.com/2010/02/photographer-sued-over-photo-o.html

Indeed, but even as far as innocence or not, apparently she was 15 years old - at that age, we deem someone incapable of being informed or capable enough to make decisions such as having sex, taking a photo of themselves say topless, buying a lottery ticket, having a drink, smoking a cigarette. In some places, they can't do that for years later.

But apparently, at 15 they're expected to fully understand the ins and outs of copyright law, as well as being fully aware and liable for damages.

Yes, there is a good reason for punishing children who commit criminal offences, where they are a danger to society. But piracy is a civil issue. Children can't even enter legal contracts - should they be liable under civil legal issues?

(And don't be too sure that everyone knows the law, even adults, and even musicians - e.g., UK artists Lily Allen who, after accusing pirates of being thieves, was revealed to have been illegally distributing other artists' works in order to promote her own commercial material, in the form of mix tapes, and then defended it with "i didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then" - what 15 year old has a knowledge of the music industry?)

Jeff Raikes, head of the company's business group, said at a recent investor conference that while the company is against piracy, if you are going to pirate software, it hopes you pirate Microsoft software. --- http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070312/165448.shtml

I unfortunately have a Virgin Media connection, it sucks, the downloads are throttled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Media#Bandwidth_throttling a lot, often to 1/4 speed. Uploads are currently going at a paltry 20-30KB/s - That's Over 6 hours to upload a 700MB CD!!!!!!!!!.

Also - See http://techdirt.com/articles/20091130/0316037113.shtml/ Deep Packet Inspection and File Sharing Monitoring http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/26/virgin_media_detica// and Phorm the advertising crap http://badphorm.co.uk/news.php?item.46.4/

And they don't support filesharers like Talk Talk http://www.pcworld.com/article/146785/virgin_music_campaigns_against_illegal_filesharing.html/ and http://torrentfreak.com/isp-will-protect-file-sharers-from-music-industry-disconnection-threat-080404// they will happily hand over your details to all and sundry if accused of copyright infringement - this handing over of personal details is probably Illegal itself under the data-protection act. Also they force you to have a phone line with high call costs or else you are charged an arm and a leg for the internet connection.

Which "real world" are you referring to?

Is it the one in the U.K. : http://mobiletechmob.com/2009/11/30/pub-owner-in-uk-being-fined-13k-for-copyright-infringement-over-open-wifi/

Is it the one in Germany: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080717/1558191712.shtml

Is it the one in the United States: http://www.coshoctontribune.com/article/20091109/UPDATES01/91109015

So, there are three examples that fulfill you're request. Open WiFi + legal repercussions to the owner after "something illegal" was done using that access.

Now what?

From my experience with Paypal this will be an outright desaster for many people. You can't get a hold of any human being through their shit telephone system. There is nothing except pre-fab email replies. They lock accounts for no apparent reason and refuse to explain themselves. They steal money from their account holders by blocking accounts and not creating opportunities to dispute that. They've stolen money from foobar http://www.foobar2000.org/, the Xorg Foundation http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.freedesktop.xorg/42548 and as we all clearly see Wikileaks http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100124/1846137886.shtml

Paypal is a lame excuse of an idea that went right of the window. They try to act like a bank but don't take the responsibility that comes with it. They screw several countries out of taxes because they're situated in Liechtenstein (at least for Europe) which doesn't pay anything. They provide the service of adding another layer of menu forms to a credit card purchase. They don't provide actual added value to most resellers and are currently used as an extortion tool for Ebay customers. On top of that they are a major target for phishing and skimming attacks, cross site scripting and abuse.

Who in their right mind would do business with them? Oh I forgot you have to. In case you've wondered I've had my share of problems w/ Paypal. They refused to let me balance my PP account from my bank because they are too fucking stupid to get a non-automated verification system for new bank accounts. So while my account was in transfer because of a merger they send the "verfication" (a ridiculous transfer of random cent values) to the wrong sort code and subsequently refused to correct their mistake or let me (who had done nothing but provide them with updated proper bank data) verify the account any other way. In short: Paypal sucks, I've closed my account there and won't be coming back. Ever.

If that is the kind of servce they provide to their paying customers imagine how brilliantly developers will find working w/ them.

This brings to mind the recent case where a student was using a school-provided laptop at home and the administrators turned on the webcam remotely "for security reasons." The student was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home." The school never said what the conduct was. Some theorized it was sexual in nature while others said he was eating Mike & Ikes which the administrator mistook for drugs.

In any case, if my child is doing something improper at home, it is my job to punish him, not the school's. If it impacts his schoolwork then the school can either give him bad grades, work with me to correct the behavior and/or take action if the action "spills over" into school (e.g. he comes to school high/drunk even though he wasn't taking drugs/drinking at school). But punishing a child for actions that apparently were exclusively done outside of school is *NOT* the job of teachers, principals or any other school official.

The IOC (and various Country Olympic Committees) have been abusing this stuff for a while now. Take a look at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010007020_olympian06m.html for some more insanity. In Beijing they would cover brands up with tape. On faucets. On light switches. And just about everywhere else. Check it out here: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080818/1248442014.shtml This is just complete insanity. I whole-heartedly that it might be high time we say to the IOC and the USOC to go fuck themselves, pull out of the revelant treaties and start a new high-profile sporting event.

"This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or of any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent, is prohibited."

"Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or account of this game, without the express written consent of Major League Baseball, is prohibited,"

See also

http://techdirt.com/articles/20090904/0304256103.shtml

http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-the_nfls_copyright_round_two.html

"Bronfman contended that this revenue comes nowhere near what they need in compensation for each individual's enjoyment of each work"

What if I stream something to see if I like it, only to decide it sucks more massively than Jar-Jar Binks? Will Warner pay me?
This is one inherent fallacy of attempting to monetize intangibles.

Another is that someone in the equation will likely overvalue their piece / portion / place, and thereby decrease the enjoyment of all.

It's obvious the suits running media companies are not paying attention to what works,.

This notice has been a part of the WH photostream since at least November; Techdirt wrote about it, and I wrote about it.

I checked the prices of ebooks, and as far as I am concerned, I am finding those prices outrageous.

I do respect the right of authors to make some money, but when an ebook is twice as expensive as a cheap paperback version, there's something highly wrong.

I actually agree with this, and I don't think that the fifteen dollar price, or even the proposed 9.99 price, will end up being the long-term equilibrium price. In the long term, I'll bet on low single digits-- the only question is how low. Four dollars for a book, or one dollar?

However, I really am horrified by Amazon's anticompetitive actions-- basically, holding paper books hostage for a deal on e-book prices.

And if you think that Amazon using its market-dominance power to set prices is a good thing for consumers, because they're setting prices at a point where they actually lose money on every e-book sold and low prices are good, right? -- you are not thinking very far ahead. Let me clue you in: Amazon is not trying to secure a dominant market position because they intend to lose money.

The NFL takes the farce of "intellectual property" to such absurd levels that even congressmen might be able to see the lack of clothing.

They aren't even in the same ballpark as the Olympics when it comes to Imaginary Property abuses.

Bad drafting can be expensive. Here's a bit of the 'million dollar comma' story from a few years ago:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20061026/185156.shtml

"... basing the ruling on just the comma alone (a comma which we doubt the original lawyers really paid attention to at the beginning). However, the story is about to get a lot more interesting. Rogers is appealing, and they claim that they have a second version of the contract written in French that makes it much clearer that the purpose of the original clause is ..."

That appeal in the end succeeded--because the French version of the contract was unambiguous:
http://www.slaw.ca/2007/08/22/rogers-wins-comma-contract-dispute-with-bell-aliant/

The teaching moment can be taking someone's ambiguous text, that could have been read three or four different ways, each of which would have different consequences if someone signed that agreement -- and breaking out each possible meaning, then asking the writer whether any of those alternatives captures the intended sense.

Good writers will know which one they meant. Those who don't even know, well, it's a new age, man.

see http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091119/1634117011.shtml for a list of some other people you have never heard of making money by giving their music away.

being honest is paying what i feel the music is worth, since $15 for an album is too much i haven't bought an album in 4+ years(i may have bought one or 2 at a concert in that time) I have not downloaded music in that time either. Good thing http://www.pandora.com/ and the radio exist, otherwise i'd be listening to the same music i had from 10 years ago.

I thought it did happen to images? Aren't JPEG/GIF - the most widely used formats online - patent encumbered? I don't recall anything apocalyptic happening with them,

Apparently it didn't happen to JPEG and all the GIF patents expired between 2003 and 2004. PNG was born a free alternative to GIF in 1996 because of those patents.

but I have a feeling MPEG-LA will be more pushy. After all, they want money so they can work on H.265.

I smell sarcasm here and I agree. I sincerely doubt that they're going to invest all the money they get into new technologies. I think they'll want some profit, which is OK, but why should I be happy to give them the money and to others the control of Internet video?

a fragmented planet in which access to information and opportunity is dependent on where you live and the whims of censors."

Yeah, it's touching... it's also empty bullshit. When ACTA comes into effect, Hilary will be pushing hard to enforce the whims of her censors.

sorry, I forgot the /a after the link. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091114/1839216938.shtml

Consider the following point:

Holmes, in the country of his birth (Britain), has been public domain for TWENTY YEARS.
Holmes, in the US and thanks to our fucked up laws passed by paid-off, bribed, and otherwise corrupt legislators, is covered by "copyright" law in the US all the way until 2023. At which time the character will be 136 years old.

Keep in mind that the NORMAL term of our fucked-up copyright laws is supposed to be either 95 years for "works for hire" (bought and paid for by hookers sent to legislators courtesy of Disney Corp and Sonny Bono's widow), or "Death of the author plus 70 years", which means the copyright on all of Conan Doyle's Holmes stories should have passed into public domain in the US back in 2000 (Sir Artie died in 1930). Actually, they should have passed back in 1980 (and did), but every time it gets close, Disney sends another round of hookers and bags of cash to Congress to buy another extension.

Personally, I'm finding it hard to believe that he's serious. But people are saying he is ...

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

For movies there is Nina Paley and her movie Sita Sings the Blues , but there are plenty of others, including Michael Moore.

For books, lots of authors and even publishers are making more money by having their books freely available using smart economics.

The music industry has even more examples of unknown indie artists as well as well known artists and everything in between making money by using smart economics. Movies and books are going to go through the same transition. They can choose to do so kicking and screaming and make it painful for everyone, or they can try to actually give their customers what they want and be successful. It's very simple, you give people a reason to give you money, and they will do it. The happier you can make them, the more they'll give you.

It amazes me that people can freak out about free music, movies, books, etc., yet these same people don't see anything wrong with Krispy Kreme handing out free doughnuts to customers standing in line, or any of the other freebies people get. No one in their right mind thinks a basketball team is going to go bankrupt because they give out free t-shirts during the half-time show, yet many of the same people think that 50 cent is crazy to be happy that his music is freely available, yet he's making money and thinks it's just part of the marketing.

To me, the rule is simple: I can’t adhere to something that I don’t know. Even if I would want to. Which I don’t.

So what is the goal? Either they gonna open it up, as soon as it is quietly signed into law.

Or they employ the same tactic that churches use to control people: Make everything a sin, especially what people really wanna do. Because if everybody can be a sinner, but does not know when, they all have to do exactly as you say, to not be “caught”. Basically turning it around so that you have to prove you’re not guilty, with no chance of you doing that.

Hell, remember that couple who sued people for copyright infringement, only because they talked about a photo shown on a show? With ACTA they could get their “right” right away. No questions asked.
You could make anything up. Like “Hey, you! Do you hear me?”, “Yes!”, “Then I’ll sue you for copying my speech into your brain!”
The “sky” is the limit.

I begin to think that signing it quietly into law is the less bad way... Or maybe I’ve got too much imagination? :/

Techdirt did a nice deconstruction of the 24/7 Wall Street analysis. In a nutshell, 24/7 Wall Street applied the Drake Equation to iPhone apps, piling on layers of hand-waving to come up with their figure.

And, to show off his geek cred, Techdirt's Mike Masnick included the xkcd Drake Equation comic.

Yet someone else regurgitating the music industry's same old, tired, phony claims and bogus madeup numbers about "losses".
Just because someone doesn't buy, doesn't make it a loss. It could be a 100% piracy rate, and it still wouldn't matter, because the vast majority wouldn't have purchased anything anyway, so there is no loss.

And yet more writeups that show how stupid these phony claims and their madeup numbers are:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100113/1434217734.shtml
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/01/450-million-iphone-piracy-figure-not-grounded-in-reality.ars

They're the ones who threw a hissy-fit over the Kindle's text-to-speech capabilities when they were announced maintaining that it constituted a "public performance" and is a violation of copyright. (and a big "ffff-ank you" to the slimeball record/collection agency lawyers who got the ball rolling on that one...)

Check out:

Amazon Gives In To Ridiculous Authors Guild Claim: Allows Authors To Block Text-To-Speech
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090227/1759173928.shtml

and

Disappointing: Obama Administration Won't Support Treaty For Helping Blind Get Digital Books
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090529/1917545057.shtml

for more...

They're the ones who threw a hissy-fit over the Kindle's text-to-speech capabilities when they were announced maintaining that it constituted a "public performance" and is a violation of copyright. (and a big "ffff-ank you" to the slimeball record/collection agency lawyers who got the ball rolling on that one...)

Check out:

Amazon Gives In To Ridiculous Authors Guild Claim: Allows Authors To Block Text-To-Speech
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090227/1759173928.shtml

and

Disappointing: Obama Administration Won't Support Treaty For Helping Blind Get Digital Books
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090529/1917545057.shtml

for more...

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100110/2302157699.shtml

***I know - since much of the world has fiber optics, most site developers simply don't CARE that loading their page takes 3 minutes in the less developed world.***

It's not just the less developed world. Broadband penetration in the US is substantially overstated because of some simply awful metrics used by the FCC. Basically, if there is even one high speed line anywhere in town, the town is counted as having broadband. An awful lot of rural Americans have a choice of dialup -- probably at about 30K (rural phone lines often are noisy) -- or satellite with latency.

Even the FCC admitted 18 months ago that their numbers were "Stunningly meaningless". http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080319/164249588.shtml

IMHO, the lack of intelligence/concern for users displayed by web page designers and others in our communications infrastructure borders on astonishing.

I do not have a dog in this fight BTW as I have access to both DSL and cable. But there are people a ten minute drive from here who do not.

Hooray! Now we can all stagnate. See: Melancholy Elephants but instead of standard writing, apply it to programming writing. From a comment in: This Story (which I'm in too ;): "To protect all artists you must disadvantage some. Those some rarely see the logic." which leads to: "Its a horrible future where the copyright maximalist dream (copyright forever and ever) is near at hand, and is finally shown to be a nightmare. The "some" artists that are disadvantaged are the ones who cannot profit from their works in a reasonable time period and refuse to cope with the markets. The Vast Majority who are protected are the Other artists of today and the infinite future, protecting their freedom to innovate, rebuild and even reinvent without some ancient monopoly power looming in the shadows to spank them and call them thieves." Software patents are basically "copyright" for ideas so all of this applies. Now, I'm not saying software patents shouldn't exist but rather in the context of stagnation especially with the pace of development that they should be much shorter than they are now.

As Techdirt stated, this story was: Vetted By Malnourished Monkeys. Apparently the same this happened here. Yay.

Yes they would: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091209/1642147276.shtml

While ASCAP is "not for profit", it has paid employees, particularly its board of directors. This provides it motive to seek every drop of money it can, particularly if it is not "cost effective" to do so. The largest part of those costs are, after all, employee wages.

It has the muscle to extort money out of business owners even when it knows it is in the wrong; it is fully aware of the cost of defending a lawsuit, and that the vast majority of small businesses and performers cannot afford to do so. (And guess what? More overhead!)

This is by no means the first such story I've heard, even here on slashdot. If you've got potentially deep pockets and are high-profile, they may back off, but if you look sueable, they may sue to make an object lesson of you. Much like the RIAA.

Just as an aside, I found a reference saying that ASCAP does not automatically pay royalties for general live performances. I bet, though, that it still collects them. As you seem more informed about ASCAP particulars, would you care to speak about that?

From here:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091203/1531507185.shtml

The President of this theater chain is:

Hal Cleveland
Muvico Entertainment, L.L.C.
3101 N. Federal Highway, Sixth Floor
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33306

and...

Must be Movico! That's about the only small theater chain I'm aware of with a location in Rosemont, where the son of the late Donald Stephens (former mayor) runs the city with an iron fist, esconcing fairness to all (NOT)

If Google removed Murdoch's news sites from it's index for something that's not a violation of terms, they'd likely be sued for doing it - for doing his business irreparable harm, just like any other business would that's vying for placement in their index. No, I'm not joking.

Violation of what terms? Are you suggesting that there's some contract between News Corp and Google that obligates Google to crawl Fox News? If not, where do I sign up for free money because Google hasn't indexing my home page? Oh, that's right: I can't

If you're not joking, you're part of the reason the US legal system is such a mess. You assume that whenever News Corp is a little discomfited, the solution is to call in the lawyers, run their sadness through the courts, and get a sympathy payment. You assume that Google has some legal obligation to provide, at no charge, indexing service to every company on the planet just because they offer a search service. You sound more than willing to use fear of legal action as an excuse for your own inaction and apathy.

Perhaps they were thinking along these lines: No Freedom To Tinker: Arrested For Modding Legally Purchased Game Consoles
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090804/1537125771.shtml

More : http://www.google.com/search?q=man+arrested+for+modding+console

Let's remember the original cause of this Linux migration, shall we?