Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Case Against Mother Dismissed
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Capitol Records v. Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma, a case against a mother -- whose only connection to the alleged filesharing was that she was the person who paid for the internet access -- has been dismissed with prejudice. Faced with the mother's motion for leave to file a summary judgment motion dismissing the case against her, and awarding her attorneys fees, the RIAA made its own motion for permission to withdraw its case. The Court granted the motion and let the RIAA drop its case. The Court went on to hold that the defendant, Ms. Foster, is the 'prevailing party' under the Copyright Act and is therefore eligible for an award of attorneys fees. The Court then indicated that it would decide the attorneys fees award question upon receipt of a motion for attorneys fees."
More people need to do this. They can't possibly mount lawsuits against all the people they target. If a sufficient percentage resist, they'll have to stop their campaign of terror.
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
That means the RIAA actually lost money on this one. Hopefully A LOT!
... and in the DRM, bind them.
Just askin'...
The important thing here is that there is now precident against RIAA, atleast as far as suing based simply upon who owns connection. Spineless lawyers will now be more willing to take these cases without advanced payment.
The issue is the precedent this sets. Now you might see more high profile attorneys that charge higher rates be willing to accept these kinds of cases on a pro bono basis, knowing that they have a good chance of recovering their fees from the other party. It is a ruling that is intended to send a message to the plaintiffs, and I think it might work.
Downloaders should be forced to keep the files and listen to them! Crappy manufactured, processed, RIAA generated McMusic!
;-)
Wow! A clueful judge (even down to the deciding appropriate attorney's fees). Will wonders never cease?
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Actually, there's very little precedent set here, and it's not as warm and fuzzy as you might think. If you actually read the findings of the court, you get the other side of the story.
It's not like the RIAA was worried that this woman was going to get fees awarded and then decided to withdraw - they basically got a judgement against the woman's daughter (daughter failed to enter a response, and a default judgement was awarded). Having already 'won' their case against the daughter, they withdrew the case against the mother. There was some squabble as to exactly how that should be done, and the court found that because the action was brought under copyright acts, and the mother was the prevailing party, the mother is *eligible* for an award of fees. The court also notes, however, that "under the statute, attorney fees are not to be awarded routinely or as a matter of course." I would be very suprised if she actually gets fees paid...
Hopefully her lawyer wasn't Rep. Stevens' Lawyer.
How Representative Stevens' lawyer would ask the judge for his fees to be compensated (if he were the defendent's lawyer in this particular case):
Lawyer: You see, Judge, when I go to the local branch of my bank, I can't just drive up with a pile of cash on the bed of my truck. You see, they've got these TUBES, and the money has to fit in them, and , and, it's - well they're TUBES!
Judge: I could give you a direct deposit.
Lawyer: Well, here's the thing, Judge. I got a direct deposit sent by my staff person last Friday, and it didn't show up in my account until this morning. WHY?
Judge: Banks are closed on weekends.
And for you Simpsons fans (which would be everybody here, right?):
Judge: This court fines you 1 million dollars
Burns: Smithers, my wallet is in my back pocket. Oh, and I'll take that statue of justice, too.
Judge (slamming gavel on podium): SOLD!
-THE END-
One particularly good thing about this ruling is that is seems to be very solid. The linkage of "prevailing party" under the FRCP and the allowance of attorney fee recovery under the Copyrights Act looks difficult to challenge. While this ruling is not binding on much of anyone (yay Western District of Oklahoma), I have no reason to assume the Cantrell case is a drastic departure from most other circuit's opinions on the FRCP. Not to mention the SCOTUS case they cite, which I haven't read but is probably still good law.
While she has to specifically file for attorney's fees, I'm sure she will. Even though the bar is set fairly high in that the court shall not award fees "routinely or as a matter of course", the standard of review (almost certainly abuse of discretion) means that if the court awards them, it'll be almost impossible to overturn.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.
In this time of big business vs. the little people, the only people who win are the lawyers. Big business get bad PR and the little people get bankrupted.
Allowing other people who you don't even know to use your internet connection is just plain dumb. Downloading music is the least of the problems you could face: what if they downloaded kiddie porn or used your connection to communicate with "terrorist groups"? You might get out of it after a nice friendly chat with an FBI agent, but you might find yourself fighting criminal charges. For your own good, close that connection. Free open WiFi sounds like a great idea, but doesn't work out so well in real life.
You mean a contingency basis. Pro bono means they don't get paid at all.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
At the end of the day, the attorney's fees will be paid with the
protection money they received from those who settled.
The only ones winning with all of this are the lawyers, as usual.
IANAL, but I have read the judgement.
RIAA initially sued the mother. When the mother said it was not her, but her daughter who had done the downloading, they sued the daughter instead *and won*. (by default - this was not defended.)
This is just about tidying up the suit against the mother. The RIAA asked to be allowed to drop the suit, and was allowed to do so (with prejudice - i.e. they have lost). The court finds that the mother is "eligible" for costs, at the court's discretion, but "such eligibility does not equate to entitlement" and "attorney fees are not to be awarded routinely or as a matter of course." The court has not yet decided on fees, it has just not yet rejected the idea - the mother can apply for an award of fees, and the matter will be decided then.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Accually there was not a precident set down by this case. There would have to be a ruling for that to happen which is exactly why the RIAA withdrew so there would not be a precident set down.
I keep seeing people saying these kinds of things on slashdot, but has there ever been an actual case of somebody facing criminal charges because of something done by someone using their open wireless connection?
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
This really is a black eye for the RIAA in terms of publicity. If I remember the facts right, the woman didn't own the computer or use it, she paid for the internet access for her weasel jailbird boyfriend. She apparently (again, if I remember correctly) didn't know a computer from a microwave. As the facts have borne out enough for her to win, the judge really had a no-brainer on his hands. All she was guilty of was a poor choice in kanoodling companions. The RIAA is (and has been) guilty of poor judgement as well, mainly of the not knowing when to quit and try another way variety.
In the end though, this will cause some bad press (what's one more bad article anyway) and the loss of say, 25 large. It won't cripple them. That will happen from the ongoing erosion of their outdated business model.
Hmmm, I guess I'm thinking of it as pro bono, because before this ruling it would have been for free (assuming they were helping the defendant for public service reasons and not because they were hired). I don't know that allowing the collection of attorney's fees in certain circumstances really changes it.
I guess in the techinical sense of the word the fees are contingent upon winning and being awarded them, but it's pretty different from a typical contingency fee case. If the judge awards the attorney's fees, the entire amount, not a percentage, automatically goes to the lawyer, without ever touching the defendant's wallet.
Allowing other people who you don't even know to use your internet connection is just plain dumb.
Uhm, it was her child... And I'm pretty sure she knew her own kid...
But, that dose not mean she knew what her kid was doing on the internet...
--
I don't think so. That's like saying, "It's against the law to be ripped off." Not that it really matters since in a criminal case there's that whole "beyond a reasonable doubt" thing which would pretty much put the kabash on it going anywhere.
Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood. -- H. L. Mencken
"Actually, rereading the story, it is accurate. It is the early /. comments which are seeing a victory where it does not exist."
Gee, I can't imagine why. Now maybe all those "you can't win. They're too powerful. Clueless judges, spineless lawyers, and bought politicians" will simply shut up, and realize that the court sytem exists for a reason, and this story demonstrates that.
In the interest of accuracy in joke telling, it's Senator Stevens, not Representative.
Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
This actually sets a good precedent and counters one of the arguments against leaving your wifi connection open. Even if someone uses you're internet connection, you won't be charged with a crime simply because you are the owner of that connection. Which means that we no longer have to live in paranoid fear of the tiny, tiny chance that trying to do something nice for people will end up with being arrested for aiding terrorists or pedophiles.
Look a little closer. They did not fail, they got exactly what they wanted
Sounds similar to the RIAA case against Candy Chan of Michigan, for the actions of her 13 year old daughter, Brittany Chan. The court ruled the mother could not be sued for the actions of her daughter.
See Priority v. Chan
Basically it sounds like you have to sue the person who allegedly committed the offence. The RIAA needs to refile against the right person.
If someone phones in a bomb threat, you prosecute the person who made the call, not the person who pays the phone bill, right?
To the contrary, I remember hearing a case (maybe here on /. though I can't find it now) in which a kiddie porn ring was busted because the owner of an internet cafe noticed a man in a stereotypical child mollester van sitting outside his business every day with a laptop, leeching his wifi. He called the cops, and when they questioned him, they found him looking up kiddie porn and trying to seduce some kids in an IRC chat. Or some such, I don't remember the details exactly.
In any case, the man was brought in, and it was discovered that he was part of a larger ring, which were also busted. The owner of the cafe (and therefore the wifi connection through which the illegal porn was being downloaded) was not held liable in any way.
They can't even RTF Grandparent.
Agreed! They're just so wrinkly.
While I agree with you, my pessimistic side wants to cry out Dream On.
Sorry, just the way things seem to be going lately.
I deplore the trend to advance corporate profits/outmoded business models over individual's freedoms and fair use, it is a trend none the less.
I understand that there is a fine line between consumer's rights (damn, I hate the term consumer) and artist's rights, I also understand that it seems more an issue between the distributors and consumers....How the hell did we get to this point?
It will not be easy, but reform/revolution of the current system is much needed IMHO, but where/how do we go on from here to make it right?
p.s. in Firefox, the "Phoenixbay" (used to be piratebay) is on my bookmarks toolbar (Arrrrgh! Matey's!), I also support and utilize a lot of indie bands and their downloads.
I have no problems with the actual artists getting paid, I just have developed a very bad attitude with both RIAA and MPAA over the past couple of years.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
OOOOOklahoma where we download free....
Thank you, Michael, for your careful reading of both the decision itself and my initial post. The important legal precedent in my view is that the judge has dispelled the RIAA's notion that by withdrawing its claim against an innocent party, after she'd incurred the expense of discovery and of preparing for a summary judgment motion, the RIAA had immunized itself from an attorneys fee award. From my experience in these cases, the RIAA won't drop cases even after they know the party they are suing is innocent, because they look upon the pendency of the case as a convenient foundation for their fishing expedition -- the very investigation they ought to have undertaken before, rather than after, commencing suit. Now they'll have to think twice about that vicious practice.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
One should embrace illegal activity?
I love my sig.
They have thousands of default judgments they haven't collected a nickel on, and never will collect a nickel on, and the default judgments cost them a lot of money to obtain. So don't think they're making money on the default judgments. They're only making money on the settlements.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
some people take the extreme; and intentionally leave their AP wide open.
;)
plausible denyability then ensues. you can't be held responsible if you, by policy, don't protect your net connection. they can't prove it was you who 'did the bad thing'. the worst they can do is call you a bad sysadmin
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
There is a precedent. If the RIAA sues an innocent person, and doesn't immediately withdraw the lawsuit, they may be liable for attorneys fees even if they withdraw the case later on. I can assure you they are (a) quite surprised and (b) quite worried.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Wrong. 1. They did not want to drop the case against the mother. 2. They did not want to be exposed to an attorneys fees award. 3. They thought that by dropping the case against the mother they would eliminate their exposure to an attorneys fee award. They were wrong.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
There are huge differences between morality and legality. What is wrong is not always illegal, and what is illegal is not always wrong.
Don't give in so easily. Don't worry about what the "authorities" might do. Stand up for what you believe is right. Share your bandwidth, it's not illegal. Allowing yourself to be intimidated by what might happen to live in fear.
... but the kid has a judgement hanging over her. They can't enforce against her until she turns 18, but after that they can make her life miserable.
I'm amazed that the judge permitted a default judgment against a minor in the first place, but then in civil courts you don't have rights, you merely have privleges that you pay for.
Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
Ummm...ok, before you go ripping in to him and the people who modded his post maybe you should take a second to, you know, read the post that he was replying to!
Here let me help you
"I'm currently being prosecuted for downloading songs that I've never even heard of, probably because I was running an open wifi network "
That make it any clearer for you?
"Sheesh- f*sking idiots"
Talk about the pot and the f*sking kettle.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
Not only did the RIAA lose that case, but comically enough, there was a Free Music add placed in this story :)
I AAFreeMusicSlashdot.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v226/consoneo/R
As the only other good post states, this is hardly a win.
The Mother's case is more-or-less closed. RIAA members get to send the message (prepare for shouting) "WE'LL SUE YOU IF WE THINK YOU ARE STEALING MUSIC AND YOU ARE A THEIF" is the big stick message that pretty much everyone has gotten either through RIAA lawsuit activities or the dumb trailer in front of some movies.
It is very disappointing to see so many "stick it to the RIAA" messages. The war is over and your freedom to legitimately copy the media you bought is gone.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
It may not be a binding legal precedent but it is an important practical precedent.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
.....What is wrong is not always illegal, and what is illegal is not always wrong......
Legislators and courts decide what is illegal, but WHO decides what is wrong or immoral?
All theory is gray
You don't remember correctly. Her daughter used the computer, and the RIAA won the case against her daughter. Her defense was "I didn't do it, my daughter did" and the RIAA agreed, the court agreed, that's all folks. This article don't mean jack - yo.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
1. The case against the mother is closed. 2. The mother's case against the RIAA for attorneys fees is still open. 3. A precedent is established that by withdrawing a case the RIAA does not immunize itself from liability for the harm it caused by prosecuting its meritless lawsuit in the first place. Sounds pretty good to me.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
You must be new here. Welcome to Slashdot. ;)
There's no place like localhost
Not entirely... but look at pornography. You never hear of people getting sued for copying gigs and gigs of porn; that industry adopts and capitalizes on new technologies rather than trying to crush them. It's simply not going to stop until the music/movie industries stop hoarding their product. Millions of people are disobeying the law to get what they want how the want it... can't they hear the banging? If the industries tried earnestly to give it at a fair price, people would be dropping cash with the quickness.
Anecdote: Legal issues aside, within the past five years I've spent $20 or so on music CDs (about two)... when I found out about allofmp3, I spent over $100 in less than two weeks. It was convenient, reasonably priced, and let me choose how I wanted my music. I've tried downloading songs from iTunes, and I don't care for it. I make decent money and I don't mind paying reasonable prices for music, but let me have it how I want it please!
Okay, but the judge ruled for the mother with prejudice. Doesn't that mean at least there's a precedent to protect internet subscribers from the use of their service by others to access copyrighted material? And if so, would this let, say, unencrypted WiFi hotspots be a "loophole" for obtaining copyrighted material with no practical way for the RIAA to prosecute anyone?
Just wondering.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
The answer is: you do. The world is what you make of it, with your choices, your actions, your intentions, your dreams, and your vision (no, not your eyeballs, but how you view the world).
Too many people forget that were born with the capacity to think and that unlike the other animals, thinking is a requirement of our survival - not to obtain food and shelter, but to build societies. Ethics and morality aren't the purview of philosophers and hermits, they are the practical application, every day, of what works to build a culture and what doesn't.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Hm, come to think of it, I think that's pretty close to how it normally works...
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Man does not decide what is right and wrong, God decides.
Well, that may be true, but until I personally receive a written list that He has signed Himself, I'll have to trust my own judgement (after all, He gave it to me). There are written lists of rules that are claimed to be from Him, but as far as I can tell they were written down by human beings who were just as fallible as I am.
What would Lemmy do?
No. A god can no more make it moral to rape and murder a 3 year old girl than it could make 1=0.
Gods cannot define morality. This has been known since ancient Greece.
You are both wrong.
And your responce also reflects things wrong with this world. The 911 terrorists thought as you do now.
Exactly.
And who decides what god decides is right and wrong?
The human beings that wrote the texts based on the decisions of their tribal elders and oral tradition.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
That don't work to well for athiests.
"I forgot my mantra."
As I've posted before. I'm a musician that has opted to go the home studio route due to the level of development in the software and hardware available. Well, it seems that others are taking heed of the this trend and bringing the worst fears of the RIAA into reality. Many local (and regional/national) artist are taking advantage of other channels to promote and sell their wares. Case in point: Here in my home town (major U.S. city) a local radio station is perusing the local uploads on MySpace and playing their music on their radio program. Then they have votes by listeners as to which songs played were their favorites. None of these bands or musicians are "signed" by a label. The winner of the vote is slotted into the regular play rotation.
This is a win for all involved and puts the RIAA affiliates in the light they deserve to be - Mind over matter. The radio station, listeners and musicians don't mind the RIAA dregs because it doesn't matter. These bands/musicians get the exposure they so desperately need and deserve and get a change to get signed by a indie label (or an RIAA label if they see fit to). Where the RIAA/labels are concerned they are dealing with musicians that have decidedly more leverage than they may have had without this exposure.
I for one welcome and highly advocate this trend. Personally I may not get any airtime. But at least I have an even shot and the "listeners" will decide my musics' marketability, not some coked out narssicistic R&A rep. And if I don't fair well with the listeners, perhaps I'll get an objective critique, which is something I likely wouldn't get by and "industry" goon.
This latest advent in court shows two things as far as I'm concerned. 1) they're getting desperate. 2) It just goes to show how out of touch these morons are - they just set precedenct. Unfortunately for themselves (the RIAA legal team) it's in the opposite direction they had intended. Next time some innocent gets randomly targeted by these clueless idiots their lawyer will have a tool to use against the RIAA - and all thanks to the RIAA's efforts. It's nice when the thugs hand you a gun! Bang! Bang! Baby!
"Allowing other people who you don't even know to use your internet connection is just plain dumb."
Does this help you out referring to what I was replying to asshat?
Get your facts straight before you jump the gun, you won't seem so foolish next time.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Yo mama so fat, when Capt. Hook tried to bury her booty, he needed a steamshovel!
Yo mama so fat, when she try to figure out her dress size, she violates the DMCA!!
Yo mama so fat, when the RIAA sue her, they get the case thrown out and have to pay the attorneys' fees!!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
If I leave my AP open and someone transfers kiddie porn or talks to terrorists, sure, maybe I didn't do it myself. But I sure as hell made it easy for someone else to do it. Is that really a good thing?
Secondly, sure, I didn't do it. But it's a hell of a lot easier to secure my AP then get charged with kiddie porn or terrorism and try to build a defense around, "It wasn't me, I just intentionally left my AP wide open for abuse." Kind of like leaving your house unlocked and not taking any action when a group of people walk in and start taking obscene pictures of little kids, and then claiming "I have a policy of leaving my door unlocked, it's not my fault they walked in and did that! I had nothing to do with it, I'm innocent!" Yeah, go sell that to the jury. If you're lucky, you'll be found not guilty by reason of stupidity. If you're not lucky, they'll think you were involved and are making up technical mumbo jumbo to try to get out of it. I dunno, but when being found not guilty by reason of stupidity is your best case scenario, it just doesn't sound attractive to me.
Anyway, the point remains... I don't want my connection being used by terrorists or kiddie porn people even if I'm not going to be held responsible.
Secure your damn AP, please.
Indeed, we should embrace and extend it.
So an individual is responsible for their own open WiFi connection? What about cities that have square miles of open WiFi? Are they responsible as well if people download kiddie porn or participate in terrorist chatrooms on those connections?
with prejudice simply means the RIAA can't refile.
"It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists." -Ludwig Wittgenstein
But the guy was allowing people he doesn't know to use his internet connection. Then a poster replied saying this was dumb. Then you posted something unrelated to the comment, about the woman's daughter. This has no bearing on whether the guy with the open Wi-fi network knew or didn't know who was accessing it.
Just to be totally clear to those reading - it means that they can't refile against *her* - they can still file similar cases against other people.
You ask where/how do we go from here to make it right? To fix the current system?
Eh...the answer isn't a very clean or elegant one, rather messy in fact.
It will in fact require a revolution of sorts. The current system has to fall, people need to take their freedoms and happiness back. This will most probably involve bloodshed. But if it's the blood of those currently in power, I leave it open to debate as to whether that's a bad thing.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
Why more so than the owners of an Internet cafe, or any business that provides free or paid wifi? Or for that matter, any ISP? Providing one more access point when there are literally millions already is hardly enabling crime.
Oh man, I can't believe I'm going to say this.
It costs a LOT more to make a song than take a picture of a nude girl. (Or guy, if that's your thing. Or a whole group. Whatever.) Some of the crazy twits will even let you do it for free. Set up a cheapo website, get some way to take money and you're set. There's no need for expensive artists, studios, managerial overhead, etc, etc. It can be done dirt cheap and still get quality goods that people love. (That's not to say it always is cheap, just that it can be.) Cheap songs suck. There's a lot of futzing needed to produce a good song.
I'm not saying the music industry couldn't do it a LOT cheaper than they do, but they couldn't get it down to the cost of producing porn.
And not all porn producers let their goods be stolen. Quite a few can and do sue anyone who redistributes their work, if they catch them. They just don't try nearly as hard as the RIAA does because they know the cost outweighs the benefit, most times. Unfortunately for us, the RIAA's cost doesn't.
On the note of allofmp3.com, I haven't bought music for almost 10 years. The last album was 'First band on the moon' by the Cardigans. That ENTIRE CD, including the song I loved so much on the radio, sucked so badly I swore I'd never buy a cd again. I've spent about $15 on allofmp3.com now, and I plan to spend quite a bit more. They could triple their rates and I'd still buy from them. Getting what I want, when I want it... That's the key. The preview function to make sure I'm not getting a dud is also quite handy.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
That's Slashdotters you're talking to. A small, obnoxious and irrelevant minority whose members like to think of themselves as some sort of "elite". They absolutely believe that they're smarter than anyone who has ever lived or ever will.
And while they're sweeping floors or cleaning toilets, they dream of their Big Day, which will never come.
I'm not sure what you mean. There isn't such thing as a binding legal precedent, as the court is always free to change its mind.
http://outcampaign.org/
They are dropping the case against the mother, she will get attorney's fees, but the RIAA is now going after her daughter who is the real downloader. So since the mother will have to pay whatever her daughter is sued for anyway as a minor, the initial victory for the mother is hollow. DD.
If you're going to use qualifiers like "actually", could you provide, you know, evidence, or heck, even arguments? Rhetoric may make youand your buddies feel good, but it really isn't going to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with you, unless they're complete morons, in which case you probably don't care what they think anyway.
http://outcampaign.org/
Because obviously intelligence is best rated on a one-dimensional scale.
http://outcampaign.org/
I can't: I'm at work.
http://outcampaign.org/
"There are huge differences between morality and legality. What is wrong is not always illegal, and what is illegal is not always wrong."
Just my opinion but I believe the only difference is that what is wrong is always grey and what is legal is (suppose to be) always black and white.
I think what infuriates many people is when others try to impose there morality shade of grey and/or when the legal system isn't clear cut.
Guess we don't live in a place called Perfect.
Hmm...obviously I'm not making myself sufficiently clear. Let me try again.
In this comment Mr. Anonymous Coward says (allow me to paraphrase)
"Boy this case sets a good precedent for me, since I'm currently being prosecuted for downloading songs I've never even heard of, probably because I was running an open wifi network."
Then in this comment pete6677 said
"Allowing other people who you don't even know to use your internet connection is just plain dumb."
Clearly in response to the AC's running of an open wifi network.
Then you come along in this post and say (me paraphrasing again)
"Boy everyone besides me sure is dumb. TFA says it was the woman's child who downloaded the stuff not someone she didn't know."
But pete6677 wasn't talking about the case in the article!! He was replying to the AC telling him he was an idiot for running an open wireless network. And he was right that is a pretty stupid thing to do if you're looking to avoid legal prosecution.
I hope that clears things up for you. Let me know if you need me to draw you a diagram.
"Get your facts straight before you jump the gun, you won't seem so foolish next time"
What you said.
I wish I were as sure of anything as some people are of everything
If defending attorneys can just say "OK, well our fees are X, unless we win a case against the RIAA, where they'll be $5,000,000 instead", then whatever settlement the mom would have to pay for the kid would be moot, no?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 SU CK IT MP AA
Haha, fair enough then :)
Or at all.
I'm an atheist and I don't go running around pillaging, raping and sacrificing virgins or anything.
Not every body needs an imaginary being up in the sky to tell us what is right and what is wrong.
Question everything
How do know when it is God trying to tell you what to do and when it is Satan?
Yup. That means acutally USING the brain that your presumed creator gave you.
Think of this a part of being "made in God's own image".
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"I'm sacrificing this virgin to humanist principles and/or Ayn Rand."
On the other hand, I believe the LORD told Isaac to do something like that... and also a few people more recently who get in the news now and then.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
> I'm not saying the music industry couldn't do it a LOT cheaper than they
> do, but they couldn't get it down to the cost of producing porn.
Sure they can... just borrow some deadheads and their recording gear.
the REAL problem is the fact that most pop acts couldn't actually PLAY music like real musicians (or even elementary school band students) even if they had a gun pointed to their heads. They just don't have the professionalism, talent or technique.
There are seminal genre recordings produced with tech lesser than what that deadhead would have.
No, the industry just chooses to indulge pop bands in excess and have no interest in any degree of efficiency because they are a state enforced monopoly (in terms of particular items) and a cartel (in terms of works in general).
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The /. blurb makes it look better than it actually is. This FA is particularly hard to read, as there's simply a PDF of the court proceedings imbedded in some legal firm's web page on their site. But I actually did RTFA.
As IANAL I may not have understood it completely, but it appears that what happened here is that RIAA sued this lady, Deborah, who owned the internet account, as well as her daughter Amanda whose age is unknown; it doesn't say if the daughter is an adult or a child. Deborah answered teh suit and denied downloading anything. Amanda ignored the summons, so the RIAA asked for the case against Deborah to be dismissed. As I said, IANAL, but it seems that if you sue someone and then drop the suit, you're going to have to pay their lawyer.
The RIAA still got its pound of flesh, it appears. However, some good news may be that this will create some kind of common sense precident; just because you own a computer and an internet connection doesn't mean you're the one using it. What if there were five people using it and all denied downloading? What if Amanda had hired a lawyer and denied downloading?
And the legal proceedings say "On November 18, 2004, the plaintiffs filed this action against Deborah Foster alledging that she had infringed their copyrights by unlawfully downloading music to which they owned the copyrights." This confuses me; I thought the NOTA said downloading was legal but uploading was illegal?
Is there a non-RIAA lawyer in the house that can explain this to me?
As in he was trying to find the Philosopher's Stone (or the Soceror's Stone for Americans)?
So, therefore, I suppose I should also believe in Alchemy, and be working on gaining physical immortality and converting base metals into gold.
After all, I'm not smarter than Isaac Newton.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
"I'm an atheist and I don't go running around pillaging, raping and sacrificing virgins or anything."
My point exactly.
(Although if you were religious, you could just do this stuff and ask for forgiveness.)
But I think we are wandering off topic.
"I forgot my mantra."
Allow me to make a minor edit:
s/God/Allah/
There... that's better. Spoken like a true member of the Taliban.
"I have as much authority as the pope, I just
don't have as many people who believe it" - George Carlin
Just sayin'...
Secure your damn AP, please.
You secure your own damn AP, I'll leave mine wide open thank you.
That way, if my new neighbors are waiting two months for DSL to roll in they can still get online. Or if someone is lost and needs to look up directions, they can.
Your selfish attitude disgusts me.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
It's not just production, but also marketing and distribution that the music publishers pay for. I'm sure if you started copying Playboy and trying to sell it on the street for $1 they would definately have something to say about that...
I don't like the sound of it, but I think you may be right.
Brings to mind a book I read from Baen Free Library (http://www.baen.com/library/) by author David Weber, titled "Freehold". Check it out sometime- very interesting read.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
While I'm delighted by this decision, it has the same glaring error that comes out of every such decision. Why may this woman simply get her lawyers fees paid? Yes, it is nice that her lawyers will be able to bill their time at perhaps $350/hour. But why shouldn't she be able to bill, at least at the rate she ordinarily earns money. If she had to take a day off work without pay to consult with her lawyers or to be in court, why can't she bill that? Why when a defendant wins, does all the money end up in the pockets of lawyers? Why do courts fuss over that and not say one word about any damages a defendant/victim may deserve for the harm done them? This is business in usual in the court systems of our country. Lawyers looking out for other lawyers as they go about their task of screwing the public. In that sort of situation, the fact that we can, at great cost, hire a lawyer to defends us from the misdeeds of another lawyer means little. --Mike Perry, Seattle
Because in the end they just pass along the costs to the consumer. Also, the lawsuits are surprisingly cost effective for them anyways. They have one group of attorneys who write up a form letter, costing approximately 500 an hour (assuming they're going for some decent lawyers) then the letters get mass mailed (bulk mailing rates knock the postage price per letter something close to 25 cents each) and then they wait for the Mom or whoever else gets the letter to go out, get a lawyer (at far more reasonable $150 an hour for some local bofunk) and they spend all this money filing motions, etc.
Meanwhile the RIAA has the process down to a science and the same time they file responses to Mom's motions, they're filling a half dozen motions of their own in proceedings against others who are actually guilty. Cost per transaction? Negligible.
The mom, meanwhile, has racked up roughly 2100 or so in legal fees (because it's unlikely her lawyer has handled many of these types of cases and thus spends more time researching and writing briefs) while the RIAA has spent surprisingly less (because they've done so many of these suits before filing the motions are a matter of fill-in-the-blanks now and they're down to roughly postage plus filing fees plus the cost of stuffing envelopes.)
Now, even better is that the average settlement in these cases is what? 5,000? Maybe 10? I've heard a few of the results, but conversely even fewer dismissals so my average may be high or low.
So basically the times they win or settle for a few thousand equal out to the costs they're spending.
And lets be honest for a minute here, in many of these cases there is no real defense. The dismissals I've heard of have been mostly "oh, we don't even own a computer so we couldn't have done it" or "you're suing me but I didn't do it so you should have been suing my child" type stuff.
None of the Slashdot friendly "oh, I run p2p because I think the prices are unfair" or "I use Limewire/Kazaa/the various torrent programs because I'm protesting the RIAA's unfair stand" cuts it in the courts.
The Legal Equation comes to something like
I did it because I don't like the prices = I did it.
So if half of the cases are dismissals (and I believe that number is rather high) and RIAA had to pay the legal fees for all these low-level lawyers out there (none of the Napsterites are hiring Biglaw lawyers) doesn't even scratch the pool of money they've gotten from every scare tactic settlement.
Okay, I see where we got crosswise. I missed the AC's post (set to not even see AC's), so yeah, I was confused. Diagram not needed, but thanks for clearing things up, and my apologies! :)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
>Because in the end they just pass along the costs to the consumer.
They don't pass it along to me, since I stopped buying their crap years ago and don't intend to start back up again any time soon!
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Am I the only one that's saddened that the Internet has come to this point? I remember, not so long ago, before the *AA and Homeland Security and god knows who else started poking their noses in the Internet, that it was much more of a friendly place. Sure, there were and will always be scourges like spammers and viruses, but it's just sad that you can't even be generous with your WiFi connection these days without worrying about legal troubles.
Meanwhile, the telecom monopolies are tightening their squeeze, threatening to hold VoIP packets and anything else that threatens their business model hostage (not in so many words, but what do you think net neutrality is really about?). The Internet has such great potential to be a distributed network run by us, for us, but there's all these ridiculous obstacles in the way. Not surprisingly, these "obstacles" are set up by aging monopolies with no sense of how to make money in an age where Internet connectivity is approaching ubiquity, and people are learning how to make use of it.
The obvious solution is a physically separated, anonymous network ("Freenetwork") , set up by us geeks, privacy advocates, pirates, and anyone else with some backbone – perhaps a mesh WiFi network + short ethernet links, starting in densely populated geek-happy regions like SoCal, or the Northeast. Some brave souls could set up Internet -> 'Freenetwork' gateways, perhaps the gateways to the Internet could be set up in a distributed, load-balanced fashion themeselves, like the current Tor network. You could get LAN speeds within the 'Freenetwork', and the pirates could play all they wanted to without fear of getting caught (If it got really big the *AA might come sniffing, but they'd need real hardware skill to track down anonymous WiFi mesh network users. They seem to be a lot better at manipulating the court systems than doing stuff like that). And, of course, it could even be set up to use onion routing within the network (like Tor), or perhaps even like Freenet. Boom, true anonymity and privacy.
The other alternative is for existing networks like Freenet, mute-net, and others, to improve to the point of genuine usability (Tor is already there, but it's good only for web browsing at this point). A comforting fact is that, barring the outright prohibition of them by our friendly Congressmen, they will expand into usefulness. It might take a while, but it will happen. Computers get faster, hard drives get bigger, and Internet connections slowly get faster. That's enough.
I guess the point I'm getting at, is that true Privacy is something that's really needed online. I suspect that once the general population gets a taste, they'd love it. The legal and political ramifications of this are quite large, but I for one think it's up to the legalities to catch up to us rather than the other way around. As I said before, it's a technological certainty that the existing Freenet and others will eventually get big enough to work, even if my dreams of 'Freenetwork' never come to pass. Distributed, anonymous communication thanks to strong encryption is already a reality. The legal system, thankfully, hasn't even begun to consider the ramifications of this. Let's hope they stay away for good. (Even if they wanted to, they'd have to more or less openly establish a police state to really quash something like 'Freenetwork'. That's a whole different can of worms.).
The only question is how long it will take for something like this to really get off the ground. I guess that's up to me, us. Thoughts?
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
"but they couldn't get it down to the cost of producing porn."
Sure they could. Most bands start out with production costs close to zero, and digital technology has dropped the resources down to where you dont need more than a laptop to make high-quality music.
Of course, production costs arent ever going to drop as long as the protective monopoly legislation remains in place; take a look at any monopolist and you'll find they can give you a flood of reasons why their services are so expensive to produce, and another flood of reasons why they need even more protection to afford to produce more. Costs always grow to eat all available capital; that's the essense of why competition is essential to the free market, and why anti-competetive legislation like copyright and patents damage the economy far more than their purported advantages.
It isn't about catching filesharers. It's about detering people from doing it by going legal-medieval on a small group of people. As long as people think that a $150,000 lawsuit has a sizeable chance of happening to them, the **AAs have done their job.
Heck, P2P is still somewhat legit in Canada, but a lot of the pople I talk to believe it's illegal (but still do it), thanks to the efforts of Captain Copyright and his ilk. They're also blissfully ignorant of our blank media tax.
It's never only the blood of those currently in power. As Jefferson wrote, it takes the blood of both patriots and tyrants. But there will be no revolution. Most people are happy with things just the way it is, and those that don't have no real power or voice.
The 911 terrorists thought as you do now.
Are we going to end up with a variant of Godwins Law for this?
I'm curious --thanks!
Blogging because I can...
The mother is being awarded fees for what amounts to malicious litigation, not for winning the case. The RIAA dragged her into court, causing her to spend money on legal defense, and then backed out. When you do that in America you frequently end up paying the other party's legal fees. They pulled out precisely because they didn't want a prcedent set by the mother winning the case. They already got the daughter and had no need to push their luck. Nothing to see here. Move along.
Irrelevant. You have missed the point entirely. 1+1=2 is independent of the existence of any gods.
Had there been no God, there would be no 1 to speak of. The only reason there is anything at all to talk about is because they were made, and the way things are the way they are is that God made them that way. We speak of the way things have to be, they have to be that way because that is how God set things up.
I love my sig.
The intellect has nothing to do with the image of God. Consider those whose intellect is damaged due to some sort of genetic disability. The image of God in them is not less simply because the brain is wired wrong.
I love my sig.
- RIAA files suit against Deborah Foster.
- Deborah explains that the computer belongs to her daughter Amanda who lives in a separate house, but Deborah pays her internet bills.
- RIAA adds Amanda to the suit. Amanda knuckles under. Then RIAA removes Deborah from the suit.
The RIAA got their pound of flesh.Man does not decide what is right and wrong, God decides. So God decided: what kind of digital information may be copied? the speed limit in a school zone? how waste asbestos may be legally disposed of? how many hours a week a person can work before overtime must be paid or if the job is exempt? whether it's legal to buy fireworks in your state? ...I could go on and on.
I contend that it is your response that reflects much of what is wrong with the world.
The laws we live by are most definitely made by man.
So you opened up the specific ports used by BitTorrent, forward them to a randomly-chosen IP/hostname, and some stranger just happened to correctly guess how to configure his computer to use your randomly-chosen IP/hostname? I'm not lawyer, but I don't think courts are that stupid.
No, I will not work for your startup
You are arguing from your premise. That's a logical fallacy.
I think what this ruling shows is a simple way to avoid getting nailed by the RIAA. Simply run your internet connection through a wireless hub. If the person who owns the connection is not responsible for its use, then by having an open connection you can easily deny that you were the offender.
Granted, this ruling hold no precedence for anywhere other then the county it was ruled in, but it does show that at least one judge interprets these fishing expeditions against Internet connection owners as unacceptable.
The judge can still make the demand that Lawyer's fees do get paid, even if the lawyer is working pro bono.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
.....The answer is: you do......
Ok, that's great! Now if (when) my notions of morality are different or even opposed to yours, then who decides? Is it the majority? Is it the one with the biggest gun? Is it, like some have posted here, God? If so, how can we know who of the many voices that claim to speak for God is the one to listen to?
It is for sure that no human can change or bend the laws of nature. They just are and we either obey them or suffer the consequences. Moral laws or codes are amazingly congruent in all humanity. Unlike physical laws, we can and more often than not, do go against what most of us innately know to be right and do what we know is wrong, because it is often seen to bring us short term advantages or appears get us out of trouble caused by previous decisions against our built in conscience. Thus one lie tends to generate further lies. Someone who desperately needs money knows it is both immoral and illegal to rob banks, yet still decides to rob one. Then, to avoid getting caught and punished, may resort to murdering the police and/or others perceived to be hindering the escape of deserved punishment for what the robber knew right from the start was bad.
It appears that the God who made all things, has made His physical laws inviolate, but has given us the freedom to obey or disobey the moral laws He placed within us. If this freedom to choose did NOT exist, then we'd be nothing more than pre-programmed robots and any notion of love would be ridiculous. If your computer screen suddenly displayed "I love you (your name) so very much", you'd know that someone was messing with it. On the other hand if your significant other expresses love for you, your reaction would ordinarily be quite different.
True love MUST include the choice NOT to love and be selfish instead......The answer is: you do......
Ok, that's great! Now if (when) my notions of morality are different or even opposed to yours, then who decides? Is it the majority? Is it the one with the biggest gun? Is it, like some have posted here, God? If so, how can we know who of the many voices that claim to speak for God is the one to listen to?
It is for sure that no human can change or bend the laws of nature. They just are and we either obey them or suffer the consequences. Moral laws or codes are amazingly congruent in all humanity. Unlike physical laws, we can and more often than not, do go against what most of us innately know to be right and do what we know is wrong, because it is often seen to bring us short term advantages or appears get us out of trouble caused by previous decisions against our built in conscience. Thus one lie tends to generate further lies. Someone who desperately needs money knows it is both immoral and illegal to rob banks, yet still decides to rob one. Then, to avoid getting caught and punished, may resort to murdering the police and/or others perceived to be hindering the escape of deserved punishment for what the robber knew right from the start was bad.
It appears that the God who made all things, has made His physical laws inviolate, but has given us the freedom to obey or disobey the moral laws He placed within us. If this freedom to choose did NOT exist, then we'd be nothing more than pre-programmed robots and any notion of love would be ridiculous. If your computer screen suddenly displayed "I love you (your name) so very much", you'd know that someone was messing with it. On the other hand if your significant other expresses love for you, your reaction would ordinarily be quite different.
True love MUST include the choice NOT to love and be selfish instead.
All theory is gray
"How do know when it is God trying to tell you what to do and when it is Satan?"
Because Satan's desires oppose that of God's, if you read his writings then you will be able to tell the difference.
Allow me to make a minor edit:
s/God/FSM/
There... that's better. Spoken like a true member of Slashdot.
You forgot:
"you insensitive clod!"
--You're BOTH right. It's a floor wax AND a desert topping!
It is this part to which I will reply, because the rest of it seems to be gibberish that doesn't have anything to do with the topic at hand.
The part that is silly to me is that you ask this question as though it were some great conundrum, gone unanswered through the history of Men and impossible to answer but through great philosophical effort due to the great apparent contradiction of it all.
Nothing of the sort need be true.
I once believed that objective morality existed, and spent quite a great amount of time attempting to discover such a morality out of the world of man, taking pieces both from religious morality and from pure philosophic thought. But I could never resolve the contradiction that says "Is his God right? Or is that God right?" I could never resolve the contradiction because I assumed only one could be right.
One thing I've learned is that if you run into a contradiction, question your premises. You'll invariable find that one of them is wrong, if you have the intellectual fortitude to honestly examine your own beliefs.
You assume, as does everyone in our culture, that there is one right way to live. Oh, you leave room for 'diversity', you know, people who have a different skin color, speak a different language, eat different foods for breakfast and maybe even do things on a different day of the week, but you all hold one thing in common: You believe everyone lives (or should live) by the same basic laws.
For 1000 centuries, the species of man lived by 10,000 different codes of life, all different in their vision and way of life, and how they chose to make a living. Some tribes conceptualized the world as existing without ownership of any sort, and so have no pronouns for words like "I", "Me", and "You". You can't even begin to imagine what the world looks like to people like that - and they are supposed to live by the same rules you do?
It is said that a sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to have a different outcome. For 12,000 years, our culture has attempted to enforce the "one right way to live" philosophy on every culture it has encountered. Those who were too weak to fight, were assimilated (yes, in the Borg sense). Those who chose to fight, were destroyed. And you see all around you now, in a world always on the verge of war, the result of that philosophy: 10,000 disparate cultures all forced to live in very close quarters, distrustful of one another yet incapable of breaking free and living the way they want to live, instead forced to live by the same rules as those they would never dream of calling 'brother.'
Never has that one right way ever answered "Who decides morality?" because that one right way prohibits such an answer from ever working.
You did not fully grasp my meaning when I said "You do." You thought I meant you, isolated, alone, without regard to the community around you, or those who raised you, or those you live and work with every day.
Moral and ethical law, government, and making a living, all work much better in small groups - groups we disdainfully call 'tribes' as though a 'tribe' were somehow less evolved. In small groups, the question of 'who decides morality?' becomes irrelevant - the group is small enough that everyone agrees. If you don't, you either a) leave the group, b) were never part of the group to begin with, or c) you die because you refuse to help that group make a living the way THEY CHOOSE to.
To summarize:
You assume everyone has to live by the same rules, that morality is absolute and must be determined for everyone, everywhere, by some absolute standard that cannot be define
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
> If you are being sued, and a lawyer protects you from the lawsuit,
> and the lawyer gets his or her fees paid for having accomplished something good,
> why is that a bad thing? I don't get it.
I don't know the OP's reasons for resenting the lawyer's fees but I can give you mine.
In no particular order:
1) The compensation is disproportionate
A lot of lawyers in such cases are not paid by the hour but rather get a (large) cut of the fine/settlement/etc amount.
We, regular people who get paid for actual work, feel that this amounts to robbery or, at best, to "justice tax" collected by individuals.
Consider, for example, physicians, who regularly "accomplishes something good" and yet their pay is usually correlated to the amount (or difficulty) of their work. Why is a lawyer better than somebody who saves your life or helps maintain its quality?
2) The lawyers are not "good"
Most lawyers are not out to "accomplish something good". They usually don't care whether their client is right or wrong, good or bad, guilty or innocent. They play at the "law" game and the one that plays better - wins (money, prestige, etc. which eventually translate to money). The fact that this "game" can ruin other people's lives is an irrelevant side effect.
3a) The lawyers perpetuate the "justice for money" system
No matter how you look at it, we don't have a justice system. We only have a legal system, in which the thickness of your wallet determines the quality of the justice that you can afford. It does not matter if you are right or wrong if the other party can outspend you. The framework of laws is so intricate, complex and sometimes contradictory to the point of being completely incomprehensible to a lay person, and lawyers (and politicians) do their best to keep it that way.
3b) The system works by ensuring that we can be easily victimized
Imagine yourself as a 5 years old orphan child living in a city full of drunk gangsters, drug-lords and corrupt policemen.
As long as keep out of sight and don't interfere with their business, they might leave you alone but if one of them decides that you're a nuisance, you're screwed and nobody can (or even wants to) help you.
Not a pretty feeling, right?
Now give these people names. Call them "Sony", "RIAA", "Microsoft", etc. The fact is that corporations, or just wealthy individuals, can often ruin you just by suing. And there's nothing to do against it because everything is legal and proper.
Well, the society (the government) is supposed to protect the weaker members from predators but it doesn't because it is actually run by them (and before you ask - no, it doesn't really matter whether you vote for Kang or for Kodos).
There is more but it's late and I'm tired.
> Some people take the extreme; and intentionally leave their AP wide open.
> Plausible deniability then ensues. you can't be held responsible if you, by policy, don't protect your net connection.
> They can't prove it was you who 'did the bad thing'. the worst they can do is call you a bad sysadmin
That's the theory.
In practice, "they" label you a terrorist, ship you off to gitmo and screw you so bad you wish you were never born.
Just to make a point. Because "they" can.
.....I once believed that objective morality existed, and spent quite a great amount of time attempting to discover such a morality......
....truly truly I say unto you...". Was He speaking the truth or were the writers of these accounts just imagining the whole thing? After reading the story of His life, come to your own answer to "Who was Jesus"? Is He who he says He is? Did He indeed conquer death? Unlike the founders of all other religions, Jesus is alive. If not, then millions of people have lived and died throughout the centuries for a preposterous lie.
Just as the physical laws are absolute in the sense that we did not make them and are subject to them, so too there are absolute moral laws. I believe that the Creator God who made everything is capable of also communicating to us what we need to know in order to fulfill His purposes. There is no way to either prove nor disprove His being. If we could, then we by our intellect would indeed be God. He communicates Himself to mankind in at least three ways. One, we study His awesome creation, which either created itself, has always existed, or has indeed come from Him who exists outside and apart from this universe. Two, He has placed within all humans a sense of right and wrong, fair and unfair. It is surprising how uniform this is in diverse cultures and ethnic groups. Three, He laid aside His divine prerogatives and entered our world, became as one of us so we could, if we so chose, be in fellowship with Him. We read about these things in the by far the most widely distributed human writing, the Holy Bible.
Most people who disbelieve what is written in this book have never really read it for themselves. They go by what OTHERS have said or written about it. Read and contemplate the four Gospels, the life of Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, chronicled therein for YOURSELF. Count how many times Jesus says:
All theory is gray
The judgement didn't award attorney's fees, the judgement stated the woman is eligible to APPLY for them under the copyright act. The only way the fees would actually be awared is if the lawsuit was frivolous or violated free speech rights or something like that. The lawsuit was not frivolous, because there was copyright infringement. It also sounds this woman tried everything she could do to avoid identifying who really did the copyright infringement (because the judgement states there were protracted negotiations).
This also does not mean that one would be shieled from legal problems related to an open WIFI connection. The only way this woman avoided getting sued is by identifying the actual infringer. If the owner of an open WIFI connection can't identify who did the deed in question, then they are exposed to liability. I would expect there to be a tendency for people to give them a break if they really are clueless, but nobody actually has to.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Dear "Anonymous Coward" I think that when you lump all lawyers together like that -- treating those who would help poor and working people without any real hope of getting properly paid for it the same as those who would do the unconscionable and unspeakable things the RIAA lawyers do daily, for which they are handsomely paid -- you do a disservice to the good guys, and a favor to the bad guys. Lawyers are just like any other people; there are good guys and bad guys. Support the good guys; criticize the bad guys. When someone does the right thing, recognize it, and applaud it. In this case, Marilyn Barringer-Thompson has fought a valiant fight against a giant cartel for which I can assure you she has received little or no money. In doing so she is carrying out the highest tradition in our profession, and in our country's history. We should all be sending her a thank you note.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Dear "Anonymous Coward" The RIAA complaints (19,000 or so) allege that defendant "downloaded, distributed, and/or made available for distribution". They don't actually particularize any incidents of "downloading" or "distributing", just of "making available" (which, the last time I looked, wasn't a copyright infringement at all).
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
1. The daughter is not a minor. 2. The mother would not be responsible.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
An important precedent has been established. The RIAA can't tie someone up in court for a year and a half, with a frivolous case, and then avoid exposure for attorneys fees by withdrawing the case at the eleventh hour. This puts a wrinkle in the RIAA's play book, and it will encourage more people to fight back, and more lawyers to take on their cases.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I hope so.
Though I am correct here regardless. We cannot go around making decisions thinking we have the authority of a god.
It is this arrogance I was attempting to speak against.
I fully agree. And that is the best counterargument to ever saying objective morality (based on any religious grounds) exists.
Well, then I suppose it's a good thing I'm not most people. I have read the Bible in its entirety - several times. I understand it better probably than you do, because I understand where every section of it came from, who it was written by, and the historical context in which it was written.
I was once a devout Christian, but I, unlike most, do not require a philosophy to lead me by the nose - I prefer to discover the truth of the universe myself. It has been that process of questioning, wondering, learning, that has lead me to where I am now.
1. This would be true even if Jesus lived. Killing and dying to enforce your beliefs right and those of others, wrong, is never acceptable.
2. You're beginning to get the point. A preposterous lie? Not necessarily. Religion has its place in a culture; I will not dismiss its value. It is a simple, functional way to establish moral and ethical codes of conduct. That has always been its purpose. Our culture has bastardized that purpose to create the most efficient killing machine ever known to our species:
Doctrine.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
I think it's ok that the Court let them withdraw their claim, so long as they're required to pay the legal fees.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
If someone's lost and your house is just about anywhere except in a downtown high-rise, the chance of anyone being lost within 100' of your access point and having a laptop and actually using it to grab a map is extremely remote. What that person needs is a GPS, not free/anonymous Internet access. If they're lost, they can do what's worked for decades: Drive to the next gas station/convenience store and ask for directions. I'll bet they figure out where they are faster than the person that cruises around wardriving for unsecured APs in residential areas.
My attitude is not selfish. But in the current environment, it's far more likely that most unsecured APs will be used for less than noble causes... again, unless you live in the middle of a very dense downtown area. In which case you still have a pretty high risk for less-than-noble uses, but at least you might have a few cases where someone actually uses it for legitimate purposes.
Saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my AP is no more reasonable than saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my SMTP server against open relays.
Saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my AP is no more reasonable than saying I have a selfish attitude because I secure my SMTP server against open relays.
:)
"Selfish" was probably incorrect. Nosy? Righteous? Perhaps. It's not my business to direct how you run your systems. If you lock down your WiFi and secure your SMTP server I applaud you. But please don't tell me how to run mine
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
It's not living "in fear", it's living "in reality", you say ... and then you invoke terrorists and child-molesters and a false arrest by the FBI as your base metric for "reality"? Mmmmmmmmmmyeah. Because of all types of people, terrorists and child-molesters are THE most likely to go wardriving for your signal, or live next-door.
Admit it: You have no good reason; you're just too lazy.