Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including word from the worlds of corporate patent lawsuits, secretive publishers vs. inquisitive readers in Canada, and the pitiful teachers versus the splendid kids in Pennsylvania. Read on for the details. Sir, this sentence mangling machine is Pl88^74djliivc33mq again! I posted a story earlier this week which scrambled in its summary the facts of the matter. My post, as reader Raymond Fingas points out, said that the "Internet archive ... has been sued by the firm Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey." Fingas was one of several readers (thanks to all!) to correct me on this, writing "According to the linked article that isn't the case; instead they are being sued by Healthcare Advocates, represented by the firm McCarter & English. Further, the article says that Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey is actually being sued along with the Internet Archive.."

Alacritech settles litigation with MSFT and BRCM An anonymous reader writes "Alacritech, Microsoft Corporation and Broadcom Corporation today announced that they have entered into agreements that settle all outstanding disputes between Alacritech and Microsoft, as well as provide Microsoft and Broadcom access to Alacritech's patent portfolio relating to scalable networking. (Previously mentioned on Slashdot here and here.)"

Sir, you have no right to read about your rights. Hobart writes "Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot - in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for. A memorable quote in the Times article says '...There is no human right to read.'"

Don'tcha think felony is a bit strong for a few button presses? ZombyHero writes "In a follow-up to a previous story, the 13 high school students from Kutztown, PA charged with felony computer trespassing for violating district usage policy are fighting back. They've hired lawyers have begun talking with the Assistant DA. As a former student of the school, I know that the district is used to getting its way. Hopefully this will knock them down a few notches."

Starship Exeter flies again! An anonymous reader writes "There's a new episode of Starship Exeter, a fan-made feature set in the original series Star Trek universe. The new episode, The Tressaurian Intersection, follows on from The Savage Empire, which was featured on Slashdot before. This time it's better than ever... better than the original series, in fact! You can watch the entire episode online."

Treasure hunts, commence. We've posted quite a few interesting applications for Google's mapping service; now phauly writes "I created an Animated Google Map (with some gnus and mozillas attacking Microsoft office) using Google Maps API. I think it would be easy to create real playable Games on Google Maps. For sharing ideas (and implementations!) I created the Games on Google Maps wiki page. For now some ideas are: risk, freeciv, freecraft, car races on real maps! Feel free to edit the page suggesting/revising/implementing ideas."

Comments

Re:RMS doesn't understand the meaning of free spee

[maxpublic]

If that happens to be on your lawn, you do not have the right to remove them forcibly, otherwise you are assaulting them.

That might be true in the People's Republic of California, but it isn't true where I live. Stepping onto somebody's property ininvited is called 'trespass', as is refusing to leave when told to. It is perfectly acceptable to use force to remove them from the property if they refuse to do so on their own. Shooting them might be a bit extreme, but taking a hose and washing them down won't get you into trouble. If they're too stupid to leave when told to get the fuck off your property, they deserve what they get.

Property rights are given to you by the government

No, they aren't. Property rights are inherent; governments exist to help you enforce your natural rights against assholes who believe they can violate them at will, not to 'grant' to you what's already yours. In any free society the government is a servant bound to protect the individual; it isn't the lord and master dispensing favors to the chosen.

As another example, if you walk onto my lawn with metal spikes in the ground, you can and probably would sue me.

In my state if you walk onto my property and put your foot into a bear trap I've left out (for the purpose of taking out an annoying bear, of course), it's your own damned fault. If you didn't want to get injured you shouldn't have trespassed. Here we have this idea of 'taking responsibility for one's actions, especially the stupid ones', although it seems to be rapidly going out of vogue.

But that's the world you get when you let a bunch of sniveling, socialist pussies seize power. Everything belongs to them, and whatever scraps they deem to dispense to you are 'favors' that you're supposed to be eternally grateful for....

Max