RIAA Doesn't Like Independent Experts

Krishna Dagli writes to tell us Ars Technica is looking at the latest in the comedy of errors that is the RIAA's crusade against supposed pirates. From the article: "As one might expect, Arellanes isn't too keen on the idea of sending her hard drive (PDF) to an RIAA star chamber for examination. Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans, she requests that the court require a "neutral computer forensics expert and a protocol protective of non-relevant and privileged information" be used to conduct the examination."

Comments

News?

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA doesn't like anything.

How much longer can this go on?

[legoburner]

It seems that every other week I am reading about another flaw in the RIAA's legal cases. Now it seems that anybody who wants to fight and starts getting close to winning has the RIAA cancel the case. Will there come a time when enough people (or their lawyers) get educated as to the ways to win/stop the cases that the RIAA will start using different means of oppression? Am I right in thinking that in the US, the RIAA does not have to pay the court costs for the loser if they withdraw the charges?

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[legoburner]

court costs for the loser

That should obviously be court costs for the winner.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[rolfwind]

I think a countersuit is necessary to collect that sort of thing. Of course, the RIAA may offer to pay your lawyer fees as part of the settlement if they decide the best course of action is to withdraw and withdraw quickly.

On the case itself, wouldn't the best course of action be to make a few exact copies of that harddrive, just in case the original craps out if nothing else and also so the data can't be slightly altered by the "expert" witnesses.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Elemenope]

That's like calling the guy who was attacked by a lion, tossed arond like a rag doll, disemboweled, but let go because he tasted bad a 'winner'. Sure, it's technically true, as he didn't get eaten, but that's really a small comfort for the guy. I bet he doesn't feel like a winner. ;)

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[legoburner]

Yeah, but then the guy can have a t-shirt made that says 'winner' with a picture of a lion on it, and for the rest of his life he can bask in the glory of his conversation-piece t-shirt, making him very popular at social gatherings and allowing him to get over his latent social anxieties. I am sure there is some decent, similar t-shirt option for an RIAA lawsuit. ok I'll shut up now.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[dyamkovoy]

It's like a bad poker game.

RIAA bets 1 bogus charge
Defendant raises 1 "let me see your evidence"
RIAA sees "let me see your evidence" and raises 1 "give me your hard drive"
Defendant raises 1 countersuit
RIAA folds.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the result should be that the lion won't attack another guys based on this 'bad taste' experience, then yes, he won, as did we all.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[rtb61]

Now for the normal user additional copies of the hard drive is expensive, not to mention the technical ability to create them. There is also the issue of a gross invasion of privacy.

The RIAA want their expert so they can grossly invade the privacy of the user (an issue which an obviously biased judge seems to forget when looking at personal, rather than business use) so other information can be used to force the issue in their favour.

Deleted embarassing photos or private letters or even childrens photos (and nobody wants the pervert asshats at the RIAA pawing over the photos of your friends and family), no, you destroyed incriminating evidence.

They obviously want to go far beyond what they are entitled to, like a bunch of perverted freaks. Deny everything, admit to nothing, make them prove anything.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought he was stung by a stingray.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I thought it was a reference to Siegfried and Roy. But either way, it is not really in good.. taste.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[ViaD]

Ye, that lion example says it all. The title of the /. article says nothin. I did not even know that RIAA liked anyone :)

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am sure there is some decent, similar t-shirt option for an RIAA lawsuit. ok I'll shut up now.

How about, "I got sued by the RIAA and all I have left is this lousy t-shirt."

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[delinear]

Or "If RIAA had their way they'd take this shirt from my back".

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA says they have enough mana and the right cards to kill defendant

Defandant taps 1 plain and uses glasses of urza to see defendant's hand

RIAA taps 1 mountain and casts shatter on glasses of urza

Defendand taps 2 islands and casts counterspell

RIAA taps 1 mountain and casts red elemental blast on counter spell

Defendant taps 1 island and casts blue elemental blast on red elemental blast

RIAA taps 1 mountain and casts pyro blast on blue elemental blast

Defentant taps 1 island and 1 plain and casts counterspell on pryoblast

RIAA relaizes it now doesn't have enough mana even if it had the right cards and quits the game

Defendant wins the battle but is now out of mana and counterspells, other player in the game uses lotus/mox/channel/fireball combination to kill defendant, defendant loses.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[LifesABeach]

I can not help but wonder if Legal Data Bases like, "West Law" have been keeping track of these types of law suits. My thinking is that the only way the RIAA can get any evidence is by way of, "Wire Tapping", something the F.B.I. has said to me as being illegal for people like myself; And a good reason why the jails are so full. Now I know I am "Tap Dancing" on a angry spider's web here, but why is it that the RIAA can get away with wire tapping?

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

not really. it more just sucks balls

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[BakaHoushi]

Maybe you can clear something up for me. This is a lawsuit, and not a criminal case, but shouldn't the rule still be that you need some type of evidence to even BEGIN a case? I mean, someone can't be charged with murder unless, you know, there's a body that has been murdered, right? I mean, in an ideal world, anyway, it should go like this:
RIAA: We're suing you.
Me: On what grounds?
RIAA: For the contents of your harddrive!
Me: But you don't know what's on my harddrive.
RIAA: No, but once you give it to us, we'll prove you have illegal things on it.
Me: Why would I give it to you?
RIAA: So we can prove you're a criminal?
Me: As soon as you work your way out of that circle, we'll talk. So long and thanks for all the fish.

I'm just saying, maybe I judge should need to see this sort of stuff BEFORE a lawsuit notifcation can even be sent out. And if they don't have any (legal) justification for believing I infringed on their copyrights, why should I have to even dignify them?

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[drinkypoo]

I'm sure they have some kind of evidence, logs or something. I'm also sure it's bullshit, but they wouldn't go to court with nothing. Maybe nothing worthwhile, but not nothing. They can read groklaw too :)

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[BakaHoushi]

Well, obviously I am not a lawyer, but I would question the legality of getting logs from an ISP. And even if they find out you've downloaded SOME things, wouldn't they need to prove it was indeed illegal? Would it count me transfering files via e-mail? (As I often do for small music/video/picture files) Of course, if I recall correctly, these are the same people who say you shouldn't be allowed to back up your own CDs. So more than likely, they'd still sue me if I downloaded that MP3 of *Insert Band Here*'s *insert song* even if I already OWN the damn CD.

Bottom line, I do not pretend to know copyright laws, but this whole thing reeks of stupidity no matter what.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[drinkypoo]

Well, obviously I am not a lawyer, but I would question the legality of getting logs from an ISP.

A private citizen or a corporation can use/introduce evidence gathered during the commission of a crime, while a law enforcement agent or agency cannot. Thus if they have gotten any evidence from someone's ISP they can use it.

At the same time, if your government (local, state, or federal) or your ISP promises you safety from search and seizure of logs, and then gives them to them anyway, arguably you could sue them for damages, which could equal the amount you were required to pay the RIAA or whoever.

And even if they find out you've downloaded SOME things, wouldn't they need to prove it was indeed illegal?

That's why they want her hard drive. Ostensibly.

So more than likely, they'd still sue me if I downloaded that MP3 of *Insert Band Here*'s *insert song* even if I already OWN the damn CD.

Yes, they might do that. When confronted with proof that you own it, they would probably elect to drop the case rather than have your fair use laws held up in court.

The RIAA knows damned well that Fair Use law provides you the right to make backup copies. They believe, however, that if they claim loudly, uncontested, and often that you don't have that right, that eventually it will become so.

They are probably right.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[pjt33]

Are you volunteering to be the guy mauled by the lion?

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your gain is little solace to an involuntary martyr.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[hesiod]

> other player in the game uses lotus/mox/channel/fireball combination to kill defendant, defendant loses.

Who's that, the MPAA?

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[soft_guy]

Making your own T-Shirts is fun. I have made some silk screens. I could probably make you a shirt that says you were eaten by a lion.

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[__aalwyc6372]

it will go on, as long as the the RIAA gets enough money from our legal purchases. so what do we have to do? i leave the answer to you as homework...

Re:How much longer can this go on?

[JonTurner]

Where are moderation points when I need 'em? This was the best post of the day, AC!!

How can you allow such treatment?

[elh_inny]

I live outside US, in an EU country and I constantly see how many basic freedom rights are violated in US.
With all the recent actions of NSA, RIAA, MPAA, it seems like you hardly care about things like:
-freedom
-what is not explicitly banned should be allowed
-all citizens should be considered innocent unless explicitly proven otherwise, within US agencies, it seems the assumption is the other way around
Perhaps your life is still very bearable with those restrictions, but I would firmly rebel against such treatment...
I can't provide you a withsimple solution, but it seems nothing is being done to counteract the wrong-doings of your government, it can only deteriorate form that point :(
I don't know how many people have changed their minds recently, but I don't want to go to USA anymore.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[oclawgeek]

I agree with you, somewhat. First, however, copyright violations are explicitly forbidden, so that argument does not seem terribly relevant. However, the people currently in control of the federal government (as opposed to the governments of at least some of our states), are people who have decided that they prefer safety to liberty, and are perfectly willing to trade most or all of the latter for the illusion of the former. In this Faustian bargain, they will end up with neither - which is only just, as Benjamin Franklin famously (in the U.S., at least) observed. There is a simple word for this, naturally: cowardice. These same people tend to now populate the courts, but with the added vice of intellectual dishonesty so that the rights expressly granted to the citizenry in our Constitution are simply interpreted out of existence; any who dare acknowledge them are branded as "judicial activists" or traitors. But don't give up hope, world: we have a rich heritage of eventual rejection of the kind of nincompoopery you see in our federal government today. Let us hope we reject them soon.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[rolfwind]

From my observations, the continued abuses on our Freedoms comes from the bottom up in society in a lot of situations. I mean, a lot of things ingrained in our basic groupthink (as a country) about things allows this sort of thing to happen. Many of the defiencies in the legal system (mostly that it seems Justice is bought, and that courts seem to care more about protocol than right or wrong anymore) stem from English Common Law and works it's way up from there - sort of like how Microsoft's security problems continually stem from the same sources. Until we address more than the symptoms, the problem continue to happen.

But you should specify where in the EU you are from. I recently hosted an Englishman at my place, and he says that while England is a police state and none of the younger generation want to live there any longer, he's for more draconian reforms since "if you have nothing to hide, what do you have to worry about?" Funny that, since he's moving out of England soon.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[FormOfActionBanana]

I left.

And I'm not going back until I see things better back home, or until everywhere else I could be just happens to be worse:-(

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Jugalator]

It's not much better in the EU with the EUCD... I think the only reason we're doing a bit better against these lobby groups is that they are simply not financed as well or otherwise as influental.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Phillip2]

In general, when people say England is a police state, it's preparatory to a diatribe against either a) speed cameras or b) immigration.

Holding people without charge for years, shooting unarmed civilians or searching people for having beards or being Asian is fine, of course, and a necessary response to terrorism.

I'd like to say that such people can be safely ignored as the sad lunatics that they are. But, sadly, they are becoming more of a political force now than they have been for years.

Phil

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[CmdrGravy]

"In general, when people say England is a police state, it's preparatory to a diatribe against either a) speed cameras or b) immigration."

Absolutely, if you meet these people at outdoor events they will usually try to sell you some sort of magazine and attempt to explain how the current government is directly comparable to Nazi Germany. They will not listen to reason and should be shot out of hand.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[herbiesdad]

To my non-US friends. The RIAA and MPAA are non-governmental, private industry groups. They have nothing to do with the US government, nor do they take direction from the US government. Those groups are formed and run by companies in the entertainment industry. There are no penalties imposed by these industry groups directly; they act only through the US court system, and pursue strictly civil matters (i.e. there is no opportunity for prison time). Outside of the court system they have no direct power. Where someone is suspected of large-scale distribution of copyrighted material, these groups might refer that person to various criminal prosecutors. These are government entities, but it is their discretion alone whether to pursue the wrongdoing and file charges. I hope this clarifies some things; there appears to be some confusion about this on /.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[cruachan]

...usually try to sell you some sort of magazine...

You are of course refering to the Daily Mail?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[jackjeff]

I would like to be as optimistic about Europe. But I'm not...

In most EU countries the EUCD (=local DMCA) has just been voted. Despite the bad example DMCA set, the powerful media industry managed to make the law voted nearly everywhere (ah yeah.. Denmark is a bit of an exception). It's just been voted, so it will take a while before you have the first cases... but there will be.

And regarding the involvement of the NSA. I'm sure similar practices are used by security services in Europe. You just don't know it. A story similar to the watergate failed to impeach the President in France. And the press simply does not have the power here than it has in the US. Odds are that newspapers would be pressured one way or another not to publish such information. Remember. We're 25, with different languages. Newspapers belong to press groups, which are divided among nations... and some of them belong to Universal in the end. Got the picture?

And how about those automated cameras in London and UK which take pictures of license plates/people in the streets? Don't you think Bush is jealous and dreams about it at night?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Shaper_pmp]

"From my observations, the continued abuses on our Freedoms comes from the bottom up in society in a lot of situations. I mean, a lot of things ingrained in our basic groupthink (as a country) about things allows this sort of thing to happen."

How are gutting judicial oversight, running up the national deficit, invading countries without just cause and removing civil liberties like privacy and free speech coming from the bottom-up?

I see plenty of people apologising for Bush after he announces each new violation of civil liberties or due process, but very few people campaigning to have cameras in every house and strip-searches every time you enter a building before he announces the ideas.

"Many of the defiencies in the legal system (mostly that it seems Justice is bought, and that courts seem to care more about protocol than right or wrong anymore) stem from English Common Law and works it's way up from there - sort of like how Microsoft's security problems continually stem from the same sources. Until we address more than the symptoms, the problem continue to happen."

Hmmm. Our democracy has problems, true, but it's lasted for several hundred years longer than yours so far. You've now got fewer civil liberties than us, your country's younger, and you're already vastly more institutionally corrupt than we are.

<FLAMEBAIT>
I'd say your problems stem fro mthe things you did differently, not the things you did the same... >:-)
</FLAMEBAIT>

Reversing the 1886 decision to give corporations most of the same rights as people would be a good start.

"But you should specify where in the EU you are from. I recently hosted an Englishman at my place, and he says that while England is a police state"

Hyperbole, although it's slowly tending in the same direction as the USA. It's common knowledge in the UK that whatever the US does, five years later the UK is at least seriously debating.

"and none of the younger generation want to live there any longer,"

Hyperbole. If the younger generation wanted to leave we all could. People grumble and worry about the government, but not nearly as much as in the USA. TBH, polls indicate we worry more about the US government than our own, as they're much more of a threat to world peace.

"he's for more draconian reforms since "if you have nothing to hide, what do you have to worry about?" Funny that, since he's moving out of England soon."

Where's he moving to? Highly amusing if it's the USA.

Referring you to a quote by Robert Anton Wilson (IIRC): "It only takes 30 years for a liberal to turn into a conservative, without changing a single idea".

Also, remember the usual caveats about generalising from a single data-point.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[vtcodger]

How can we allow such treatment?

We're slow learners.

It's safe enough to come here BTW -- at least for the time being. On the other hand, Canada is very similar, in better contact with reality, and if the cops decide to beat you up, you'll be bashed by guys in really spiffy uniforms.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Simon Garlick]

< Outside of the court system they have no direct power.

When the corporations in question can quite brazenly buy politicians and get laws rushed through Congress specifically to make these charges possible, that's quite enough INDIRECT power to give me the shits.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[ajs318]

Yes, copyright violations are explicitly forbidden; but not every MP3 represents a copyright violation. The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" (we used to have that in the UK once) should still hold: any copy should be presumed to be permitted under the doctrine of "fair use" unless it can be proved otherwise. And the scope of fair use in the USA is quite broad.

If the US courts still work anything like the UK courts on which they were modelled, decisions in one court can set precedents. If enough people claim "fair use" and win, the scope of fair use will be widened. I guess the RIAA would sooner drop a case than continue prosecuting it and risk further expanding fair use. In the best case, a jury could even decide that P2P filesharing constitutes fair use!

Also, there are two things very wrong with the US legal system. One is that lawyers are allowed to demand payment before a verdict is agreed upon by all parties. And two is that even if you win a case, you have to pay your own costs. These two make it possible to bankrupt someone in the courts before a verdict is delivered. In a truly fair legal system, the lawyers would only be paid after all appeals were exhausted and both sides' costs would be borne by the losing party.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

it's preparatory to a diatribe against either a) speed cameras or b) immigration.

And CCTV covering entire cities leaving nowhere except indoors to privacy, and police that shoot unarmed citizens just because they run away from unmarked officers, and traffic systems that track vehicles everywhere they go leaving no privacy, and stranglehold warranty laws that make it impossible to sell inferior goods *when the customer is informed*, and ...

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[greenechidna]

A lot of nonsence is, indeed, talked about a) speed cameras or b) immigration. However, as far as I have noticed, only the former gets cited as an example of police state behaviour and then rarely. Normally it is seen as a cynical revenue raising tactic. I don't have a problem with either a) or b). I do have a problem with the proposed ID cards bill, the attempt to limit access to trial by jury and similar initiatives. Your mixing of several points suggests but does not make explicit, that these are a set of views expressed by a reactionary right wing cabal. Such people do exist but I think placing the blame for the latter, more important points, avoids placing the blame where it belongs: the police and the current government.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

>In general, when people say England is a police state, it's preparatory to a diatribe against either a) speed cameras
>

Excuse me, but in case you hadn't noticed, they are now called "safety cameras"!

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[reminor]

But you should specify where in the EU you are from

From the poster's URL ending in .pl, it looks like Poland to me.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[murdocj]

Funny, I live in the US and wonder about how people manage to live in EU countries where extreme right wing parties are on the rise as voters get paranoid about foreigners. Certainly the EU can't make any great claims to tolerance right now. And as far as innocent until proven guilty, I thought French law didn't have that concept?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[aadvancedGIR]

I don't agree, they are not prefering safety over liberty, they are prefering their fortune to your safety or liberty and using the illusion of safety to get their hand on public money.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[LnxAddct]

You have to keep in mind that you only see negative things reported. The good things that are happening far outweigh the bad and you're getting a very biased view of the state of affairs in America. Things have certainly been better, but the things you see reported on /. and pretty much any news source (including the BBC in recent times, unfortunately) are extremely biased, twisted, and typically statistical anomalies pushing an agenda or grasping for headlines. Europe has it's own problems, with a lot of countries either already forcing you to hand over your encryption keys, or working on legislation that will (regardless of guilt in a crime), and in some places it is practically impossible to not be surveilled by government camera equipment. Europe has some issues with police corruption, and in many places free speech is limited. Not being able to use nazi related terms is ridiculous, at least in the U.S. you won't get arrested for standing outside the whitehouse and screaming "9/11 was a government conspiracy" or "9/11 victims deserved what they got" or any other ridiculous statement on such a sensitive topic, however discussing certain topics in Europe will almost certainly get you in trouble. Sometimes I get the feeling like the Europan governments helps highlight certain deficiencies in the American system in hopes that Europeans will be pointing fingers and laughing, and forgetting that their own rights are deteriorating.
Regards,
Steve

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[RodgerDodger]

The RIAA and MPAA don't take orders from the US government, they give them, primarily through their bought-and-paid-for senators and congresscritters.

Oh, and said politicians for hire are actively trying to make copyright infrigment a crime worthy of prison time. One of the reasons for hammering the "piracy is theft" mantra is to equate copyright violations with shoplifting - a crime that is jail-worthy. Already the DMCA makes any attempt to bypass a copy-protection mechanism (such as the CSS encryption on a DVD) a crime worthy of jail.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

You should note that as a European, i.e. non-American, you are afforded no privacy rights or protections from the spying activities of the USA, unlike americans. And they are mostly focused on spying foreign targets, not the americans. That means you as a European are among their prime targets. The 3-letter agencies of America a file on most people, especially nearly all Europeans. With a $100+ billion dollar annual spying budget, how would you distribute the money to be used for spying on 6 billion people of this planet?

Keeping a database of all your personal information, google searches, web accesses, emails, travels and credit card information is being done right now. Orwell's nightmare is true. If you want to experience some personal attention, attracting their attention is easy. And actually, if you have nothing to hide, it should be your civic duty to attract as much Intelligence agency attention as you can just to overload the Orwellian system.

For starters, making claims about 3-letter agency inside information and using relevant keywords is easy. They are required by laws to check up on you. It is time for some civil disobedience to regain some measure of privacy rights for all. Not just americans.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how about those automated cameras in London and UK which take pictures of license plates/people in the streets? Don't you think Bush is jealous and dreams about it at night?

Alas a result of the US sponsored terrorism in the form of the IRA.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[FooAtWFU]

In a truly fair legal system, the lawyers would only be paid after all appeals were exhausted and both sides' costs would be borne by the losing party.

It sounds nice, but if you don't sort of implicitly assume that all cases are resolved in a just manner. Well... Suppose you have $citizen who wants to sue $EvilCorp for being evil. The citizen does so. The citizen loses. The citizen has to pay EvilCorp's lawyers millions. That's a really good way to discourage suing EvilCorp. (Or consider the other way around. $EvilCorp sues $citizen because it's evil. They win. To add insult to injury, the citizen now also loses millions paying for the lawyers.)

That's the three-second Slashdot version, admittedly, but loser-pays is not all peaches and cream and pretty fluffy bunnies. Here's some random Internet paper that looks to present a few of the issues:

The fundamental problem with a loser-pays proposal is that it would chill counsel from pursuing cases involving potentially legitimate claims where success is uncertain ... Given the numerous variables that counsel must weigh, and the uncertainty of the outcome, the prospect of facing automatic sanctions for merely being incorrect would undoubtably deter a great number of claims that warrant pursuit.

-- MARC I. GROSS LOSER-PAYS -- OR WHOSE "FAULT" IS IT ANYWAY: A RESPONSE TO HENSLER-ROWE'S "BEYOND 'IT JUST AIN'T WORTH IT'"

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[lga]

My local town centre is subject to a police control order.

A police officer can ask anyone to leave the town centre, and refusing to do so is an arrestable offence.

Now that, is the genesis of a police state.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[lovebyte]

And as far as innocent until proven guilty, I thought French law didn't have that concept?
tout homme étant présumé innocent jusqu'à ce qu'il ait été déclaré coupable (26th august 1789).
You might not know it, but the French, by law, must also eat their first child!

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Paperkirin]

My only problem with speed cameras is that on a dual carriageway near my home, the morons in other cars see the speed camera signs and immediately drop their speed to less than 50 mi/h (80 km/h) - ignoring totally that they are still allowed to go at the statutory dual carriageway speed of 70 mi/h (110 km/h). Though I suppose this is more of a problem with people not knowing the highway code than the cameras themselves.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[xtracto]

In general, when people say England is a police state, it's preparatory to a diatribe against either a) speed cameras or b) immigration.

Well I dont know too much about what a police state is but from the time I have spent here (2 years now) I can say that the government DO have you controlled under a "scared to hell" tactic. I mean, you just have to read the letters I have received from the "TV Licesnse authority", god, although I dont give a shit about the TV license ( as I dont watch TV doh!) I have quite a lot of fun at reading those letters "To the occuppier of XXXX, I am in charge of TV licensing in you area, surrender to us and pay the license or we will fine your ass until you can only shit legal bills".

And, from the comments that my girlfriend has told me other ppl at her work (all of them British), it seems they are *affraid* of their government. I mean, dont you guys know that the government was made to serve people? of course maybe I should be affraid as the new mode is to shoot foreigners because they seem suspicious and are running in the tube stations (not that they had to get early to work of course...).

Well, besides of that, UK is great :) but really I understand why Britons are so cold and that (can you imagine that the *most* "crazy" thing Britons do in a ROCK concert [steve vai or joe satriani] is to *clap* their hands, people saw me with a weird look because I was head-banging on some songs... COME ON PEOPLE!!).

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The citizen loses. The citizen has to pay EvilCorp's lawyers millions. That's a really good way to discourage suing EvilCorp.

It's actually worse than that in the UK. EvilCorp's lawyers go to the court and point out that if they win you probably won't be able to pay them. So the court orders you to post a bond; in other words, you have to find EvilCorp's lawyers' fees (in addition to your own) before the trial even starts.

This has recently been mitigated by the introduction of "no win no fee" cases where your lawyer takes the risk (which he hedges through an insurer). However, "no win no fee" can't be used for all kinds of cases. Even where it can be used it requires you to find a willing lawyer and insurer. If you have a good but unusual case you may be out of luck.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[MartinB]

Holding people without charge for years,

28 days is the current limit, although the government wanted 90 days.

shooting unarmed civilians or searching people for [...] being Asian is fine, of course, and a necessary response to terrorism.

Replace Asian with Irish and that was the case for a *long* time. Travelling in possession of an Irish Accent was a defacto offence throughout the 70s and 80s, which is why the treatment meted out at airports these days is making me absolutely furious, having had enough friends and relatives who were on the receiving end of this.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote you use is redundant.

Every society sacrifice liberty for security. Why?

Because on train cars, the door cannot be opened while the train is in motion. If you want to open the door and jump out as the train is coming to a halt, you will be unable to, as the freedom to do so has been removed from you for the sake of the security of the passengers.
Add to this that going to the bank to withdraw money requires you to present identification, and that taking a flight does the same. You also cannot sell a property without legal documentation, and you cannot enter many situations without a press pass.

These are all limitations of freedom for the sake of security.

Of course, you could still argue that only _additional_ levels of freedom-vs-liberty tradeoff are bad. But that means you would have to argue that the current level is the best of all levels, which seems slighty absurd.

In fact, even tax is a limitation of liberty for the case of security.

I find that quote to be ridiculously misinformed, it's just sad to see how many still use it.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[MartinB]

and none of the younger generation want to live there any longer,

Hyperbole. If the younger generation wanted to leave we all could.

You didn't see the last census numbers then..? There's a huge hole in men aged 18-30 not explicable through birth & death data, which is analysed as being due to emigration.

People grumble and worry about the government, but not nearly as much as in the USA.

Perhaps that's because people aren't really paying attention. Can't see even the most rabid members of PNAC seriously proposing ID Cards.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[WindBourne]

Don't you think Bush is jealous and dreams about it at night?

Why should he be? Have you seen the traffic cameras that we are busy installing at stop lights? Most are not just simple snapshots cameras. They can and do stream images.

Likewise, notice the tollroads? Easy to track a car now.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[complete loony]

And then neither party would admit defeat because they are betting everything. There is a point where you have to cut your losses even if you might be able to win.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[WindBourne]

Outside of the court system they have no direct power.
Yes, these corps have no real power. It is indirect, but the fact that congress pushed the DMCA and other bills is starting to show who congress represents.

It is time for Americans to push Joel hefley's ideas concerning how to stop this slide towards corruption and fasicism.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we will just tell the millions of immigrants to go to your little fucking patch of paradise.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[dirk]

Yes, copyright violations are explicitly forbidden; but not every MP3 represents a copyright violation. The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" (we used to have that in the UK once) should still hold: any copy should be presumed to be permitted under the doctrine of "fair use" unless it can be proved otherwise. And the scope of fair use in the USA is quite broad.
If the US courts still work anything like the UK courts on which they were modelled, decisions in one court can set precedents. If enough people claim "fair use" and win, the scope of fair use will be widened. I guess the RIAA would sooner drop a case than continue prosecuting it and risk further expanding fair use. In the best case, a jury could even decide that P2P filesharing constitutes fair use!

You don't seem to understand how fair use works. Fair use basically let's you do something that would otherwise be illegal. It is illegal to copy copyrighted works except for under the terms of fair use. So if you are accused of copying copyrighted works, you have to then prove it falls under fair use. Fair use is basically a loophole. Fair use is a defense you can use. If you are accused of copying copyrighted works, the court will look and say "yep, they were copyrighted". You're denfense is then "this copying falls under fair use", which the court will look at and either confirm or deny.

I know everyone hates analogies, but fair use is similar to saying you killed someone in self defense. It does not say you didn't break the law, but tries to say why you broke the law and why it is allowed.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

the answer is simple - VOTE WITH YOUR MONEY
if you don't like something - never support it with your cash
for example if you don't like government then stop paying taxes to it - go work for gold( or other commodities) instead of dollars

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

However, the people currently in control of the federal government ... are people who have decided that they prefer safety to liberty

Actually, they've decided they prefer power to either.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[ajs318]

The solution is to insure yourself against losing. If the insurer believes you have a strong case, then they will take the job on. If they don't, then they won't. This acts to weed out time wasters, by keeping cases without merit away from the courts.

Obviously, it depends on the insurer's ability to predict success or failure; but that's exactly what insurers do for a living anyway. (It occurs to me that insuring is like placing very large bets at very short odds. If you get it right, you win an amount equal to the premium. If you get it wrong, you lose an amount equal to the claim.)

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[arkanoid.dk]

Yet another reason why I like our justice system. We have a term known as "Fri Proces" (Free Process) which means that if your case is non-trivial and/or you really can't afford lawyers, the state will provide you with one. This guarantees that resolving a case in a fair and correct manner gets priority over the matter of money. (btw, the "loser pays"-idea is the most widespread in our system as well).

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[westlake]

The idea of "innocent until proven guilty" (we used to have that in the UK once) should still hold: any copy should be presumed to be permitted under the doctrine of "fair use" unless it can be proved otherwise. And the scope of fair use in the USA is quite broad.

Let me remind you, for what seems like the 10,000th time:

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN QUILTY IS NOT THE STANDARD OF PROOF IN AMERICAN CIVIL LAW.

In the best case, a jury could even decide that P2P filesharing constitutes fair use!

CIVIL JURIES ARE PRSENTED WITH A VERY NARROW FACTUAL QUESTION. THEY DO NOT GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO RE-DEFINE STATUTES OR JUDGE-MADE LAW.

The reality is that your jury will be middle-class, middle-aged, and small-C or big-C conservative. If you expect to find any sympathy here, you are living in a dream world.

In a truly fair legal system, the lawyers would only be paid after all appeals were exhausted and both sides' costs would be borne by the losing party.

Good lord, do you really want to apply such a rule when the plaintiff has pockets as deep as Microsoft or the RIAA?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[jackjeff]

There are speed cameras everywhere in Europe. But I think my remark requires some precision since UK cameras are a bit nastier.

• Everywhere in UK to film cars. It's coupled with OCR software and your plate number is archived whether you commit an infraction or not (speed cameras normally don't archive pictures if you are not overspeeding). See this article
• In london cameras, are used to film people. This could be similar to your store next door having a camera, except some are linked to facial recognition software. As early as 1998: here And more recently MI5 plugged the cameras of the London congestion charge area (CCTV with OCR to read plates.. again) to add a facial recognition: see here

Of course the UK is a democracy and at the moment no abuse has been reported to my knowledge. But there's a potential for it, now that we have the technology... well facial recognition still kinda suck though:) But it will improve.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is time for Americans to push Joel hefley's ideas concerning how to stop this slide towards corruption and fasicism.

I'd agree if two things weren't true.

1) It's nowhere near as bad as you claim. Lying in an effort to bolster your point makes me suspicious immediately. Disagree if you like, you won't convince me.

2) We've been hearing this same stupid line for years. And yet, my life is NO different, yes I know about RIAA, and PATRIOT, and I'm telling you my life is NO different. Please don't attempt to tell me it is, because again, you won't convince me.

So what I see is a bunch of loud mouthed embellishment that doesn't correspond to my every day reality, combined with clear and continued insistence that something is happening, despite my ability to see otherwise.

Step outside into the rest of the world, where the slash-trolls don't monopolize the discussion, and you'll realize how little of what gets passed off as truth around here really is true. And THAT'S why I denounce diatribes like yours. Bad things are happening. Exaggerating the situation and claiming it's worse than it is, despite my own ability to see otherwise, does nothing but make you a liar. And if you're upset about politicians, then resorting to their tactics is a bad way to gain support.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Pancake Bandit]

First they came for the extremists and I did not speak out because I was not an extremist. Then they came for the arabs and I did not speak out because I was not an arab. Then they came for the filesharers and I did not speak out because I was not a filesharer. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[waferhead]

Privacy invasion cameras every 100 yards in the US will never catch on,
as they would suffer greatly from another long standing US tradition,
the "right to bear arms"...

At traffic lights? Most people realize they probably do some good.

Anywhere else they had better be armored like an M-1 tank, and have paint proof optics.
(especially paint proof optics...)

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The united States of America is a democracy? Wow, when did this happen? Last I checked, it was a constitutional republic where democratic principles only apply at a very local level.

Hint: if you appoint or elect others to vote on actual issues for you, you are not in a democracy.

HTH.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The concept "innocent until proven guilty" only applies to the GOVERNMENT's actions. Private citizens are free to assume anything they want, and as long as the manner they act is no legally proscibed, to do anything about it they want. The RIAA and MPAA are corporations, not government institutions, and as such legally private citizens, and thus entitled to sue anyone for anything and let the devil ^H^H^H^H^H courts sort it out. This does not make their actions good, only describes why it is permitted.

The NSA is another kettle of fish but it's dinner time so I won't get into it.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

The TV license people probably seem a bit intimidating to foreign people, and their approach is definitely a bit heavy-handed, but I am of the opinion that the BBC do such a fantastic job that I am more than willing to put up with it. Unfortunately, some people are prone to taking the piss as far as the license fee is concerned, which is probably what leads to this behaviour by the licensing people - but as long as you are on the right side of the law there is nothing they can really do, so you're free to sit back and laugh at them I guess :) As far as being scared of the government is concerned, I wouldn't really agree. I think most people dislike the government, and what they are afraid of is that changing the government might make things worse! It's pretty pathetic, but I think this is probably a common sentiment in many wealthy countries. The majority of people get more concerned about protecting what they have, rather than getting what they don't have. I think your experiences with rock concerts are probably modified by the fact that you like Vai and Satriani. I don't know how things are in the US, but here that kind of thing is considered pretty nerdy and/or middle-aged Dad music. No offence, that's just how it is! I have been to plenty of gigs in this country that have been absolutely nuts. Interesting to know what you foreign types think of us though :P

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[denoir]

To my non-US friends. The RIAA and MPAA are non-governmental, private industry groups. They have nothing to do with the US government, nor do they take direction from the US government.

No, it is the other way around - the government takes direction from them. And that's the problem. Rather than being driven by the priorities of the people the government's decision making is driven by special interest groups.

In Sweden we have had two legal cases regarding file sharing. The first one what a guy who shared a Swedish made movie on a p2p network. The verdict was that it was illegal, but only to such extent that it warranted a relatively small fine. By setting this limit, the courts defined in accordance to Swedish law that in future cases regarding file sharing no search warrants would be issued - as the crime wasn't serious enough. In addition they said that collecting data (such as IP-addresses) in order to prove a piracy case was in violation of Swedish privacy laws. So in effect they said "It's not OK in theory, but it's not worth using police and other resources for".

The second case was the now infamous pirate bay case. This was a direct government intervention by the ministry of justice as a result of US government pressure (on behalf of RIAA of course). This backfired badly as people here mostly think of lobbying as a form of corruption. And when government ministers got involved in ordering police around, it was even more than that - it was a blatant violation of the constitution. We have elections this year, and most likely in part due to this incident we'll see a "regime change". In the fall, the first hearings in this case will start for the impeachment of those that probably violated the law by ordering those raids on the pirate bay.

The point of this story being that what ultimately matters is how willing the government is willing to listen to the RIAA vs. listening to the people (or common sense) when deciding if piracy is a serious enough crime to deserve resources being allocated for fighting it.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[WindBourne]

And yet, my life is NO different, yes I know about RIAA, and PATRIOT, and I'm telling you my life is NO different.

And yet, that is exactly what the Catholics were saying in Germany until right towards the end of the war. We are sliding towards corruption and fasicism. In fact, I find it interesting that GWB is now calling terrorists by the same term that many would call America. After all, fasicism is where business control the gov.

BTW, if your world has not changed, why the A.C. posting?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Phillip2]

No, the current government is a right wing cabal:-)

I agree with your point actually; I was trying to say much the same -- there are signs all around of us of a police state arising, but when it is discussed it generally seems to be speed cameras that come out. I find this depressing; not least, because I like speed cameras. I'm a cyclist and the roads are much better now.

Phil

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Phillip2]

Actually, the TV license authority is not strictly governmental.

I do agree somewhat with your point though. I don't have a TV, so have a pile of
these letters also. I think that the current model is daft -- 98% of households
do have a TV, so this is clearly a daft way of collecting money. General taxation
would work so much better, or a tax on the sale of equipment.

My own worry, of course, is what happens if they put TV cards into laptops
routinely as happened with wireless. Of course, many people don't use broadcast cards
at the moment, but they may do eventually. I may find myself unable to buy a machine
without such, and get hit with the TV license after all.

Phil

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[BalanceOfJudgement]

28 days is the current limit, although the government wanted 90 days.

28 days in the UK (although as I understand it, it used to be far less than that prior to the passage of RIPA. Please correct me if I'm wrong.).

It is 3 days in the US, and yet there are men held as 'enemy combatants' in Guantanemo Bay who have been there going on 3+ years. And yet still nobody raises a loud enough stink to get that behavior ruled unconstitutional.

I simply fail to comprehend the world we live in.

which is why the treatment meted out at airports these days is making me absolutely furious, having had enough friends and relatives who were on the receiving end of this.

My mom's fiance is various shades of South American and has relatively dark skin. He is routinely searched at airports.

In the US, apparently racial discrimination is OK if it's all in the name of 'stopping terrorism.'

Again.. I simply fail to comprehend the world we live in.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of representative democracy?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[westlake]

When the corporations in question can quite brazenly buy politicians and get laws rushed through Congress specifically to make these charges possible, that's quite enough INDIRECT power to give me the shits.

Ask someone in the UK what James Bond and Harry Potter are worth to the British economy. Then take a look at New York, Florida, and California, where the stakes are higher.

Politicians vote the interests of their consituients. Ronald Reagan becomes the President, The Terminator becomes the Governor.

You don't have to bribe Bush to to vote the interests of the Oil Patch. He is the Oil Patch.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[spyfrog]

Are you sure that this applies to civil cases?
I only think that applies to cases where the one making a case against you is the state.

If not, I wounder why I my insurance also cower my legal fees.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[oclawgeek]

I stand corrected. It's the morons who vote that way, who prefer safety to liberty. My mistake. ;-)

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Bing Tsher E]

Shouldn't you be out on the sidewalk hawking newspapers?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Bing Tsher E]

No, but force-fed goose livers is considered a national delicacy.

Me, I'm an advocate of home-brew culture. If you want to eat 'foie gras' then you should force-feed the goose yourself. Or at least volunteer to participate in the process.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[oclawgeek]

Yes, copyright violations are explicitly forbidden; but not every MP3 represents a copyright violation.

That is true, but RIAA's lawyers are not suing people for downloading or sharing non-infringing files. They are going after users after verifying that one of their members' works is being copied. I'm not a supporter of RIAA by any means, and I also understand that some lawyers are better and/or more honest than others. But there are many mechanisms to block truly frivolous lawsuits in the early stages of litigation in the American system. See, e.g. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 11.

Additionally, in civil actions, such as a lawsuit filed by RIAA, the Plaintiff (that is, RIAA) has the burden of proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the infringement occurred.

If the US courts still work anything like the UK courts on which they were modelled, decisions in one court can set precedents. If enough people claim "fair use" and win, the scope of fair use will be widened.

We still use stare decisis, but in this country, Fair Use is not a judicially created doctrine - it's statutory, and therefore cannot really be widened beyond the scope provided for in the text... at least, it won't be by the kinds of people who typically become Federal judges in this country. And even if the scope could be judicially expanded, Congress could simply rewrite the applicable Code sections (or eliminate them altogether). And don't think our Congress doesn't know who is giving them money...

Also, there are two things very wrong with the US legal system.

Only two? Study further! You'll find many more!

Our rules on attorney fees are somewhat inconsistent. Generally, the rule is that each party bears their own costs unless the law provides for a recovery of attorney fees. In many kinds of civil actions, a prevailing party can recover attorney fees. But the law varies from state to state, in state court actions. Some federal civil actions also allow for recovery of attorney fees by the prevailing party. The harshness of these rules is somewhat softened by the fact that many attorneys will represent plaintiffs on contingency (that is, the lawyer gets paid from Plaintiff's recovery, if any).

What you really shoud understand is that most cases in the United States will settle before trial, and in fashioning a settlement agreement, parties often decide the issue of attorney fees themselves.

Despite all that, I do agree with you that it's inequitable, but for the following reason: it's plain that one can only really get "justice" (such as it is) if one can afford it. As a practical matter though, making attorneys wait until a case is resolved to get paid would not be very fair to the attorney, who in many cases, isn't going to risk working for free for the simple reason that he or she can't afford that. It's not true that all attorneys are wealthy. Burdening them is not the solution.

I'm not sure what a truly fair legal system would look like - I'm too busy routing around the damage caused by idiots to think about that one. ;-)

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[pjt33]

A slight modification which goes a good way to resolving the problems you raise is that the loser pays the winner's costs up to a limit equal to the loser's costs.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Sarisar]

That is true, but RIAA's lawyers are not suing people for downloading or sharing non-infringing files. They are going after users after verifying that one of their members' works is being copied. I'm not a supporter of RIAA by any means, and I also understand that some lawyers are better and/or more honest than others. But there are many mechanisms to block truly frivolous lawsuits in the early stages of litigation in the American system. See, e.g. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 11.

So when they sued that grandmother who didn't own a computer or another one who never used a computer they had verified they had MP3s?

I don't mean to sound bitchy here, but they have gone for the wrong people in the past so I guess you need some more mechanisms there.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[oclawgeek]

Well, obviously, whatever pre-lawsuit inquiry they've done in that case was really screwed up. In fact, I'd bet that some low-level flunky lost their job over it.

Based on what I recall of how they can investigate these things, RIAA, MPAA, BSA, etc. hire firms who man their P2P clients all day and try to ferret out IP addresses. Then they have to go to the usual places to figure out who controls the block of IP addresses and hit the ISP up for information. Possibly, they are using (or misusing) subpoenas to obtain records identifying the ISP's customer. At least, that's how I'd look into doing something like that if I were them.

If you're aware of any good descriptions of exactly how they investigate these things, I'd love to know. But in the examples above, it seems more likely to be a case of mistaken-identity (or even a total identity cock-up), rather than a case of an audio file that turned out to be public domain or something like that. In other words, a real infringing file (because someone was going to have to testify that they downloaded Britney_Spears.mp3 to kick the whole thing off. The file is not where they screwed up.

I don't deny that mistakes happen. In these cases you mention, it was very embarrassing to RIAA, and the lawyers did the right thing by seeking dismissal when the truth came to light. That's as it should be.

Personally, this area of litigation is interesting to me. But I think RIAA is barking up the wrong tree with its enforcement schemes. The real problem is finding a method of getting people to pay for your product, instead of stealing it. It's simply not the case that it's an easy problem for them to solve, especially as far behind in the game as they are.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know everyone hates analogies, but fair use is similar to saying you killed someone in self defense. It does not say you didn't break the law, but tries to say why you broke the law and why it is allowed.

Technically, you're wrong here. Homocide isn't intrinsically illegal. For instance, killing in self-defense is not against the law. Neither are state sponsored executions (under certain conditions).

Practically, the police would be remiss to not investigate all homocides, since there is no a priori reason to conclude that a homocide was lawful.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

That moderation is beyond belief. Have the mods never heard of political lobbies? How do you think copyright made the recent transition from civil to criminal defense? Or the extensions well beyond the intent of your nation's founders? To save you some search time, it wasn't public outcry for tighter copyright protections.

"Outside of the court system they have no direct power."

    What on earth does this even mean? The courts and laws 'bought and paid for' are the source of the RIAA's power. Are you telling we non-residents the RIAA owns no tanks or planes and doesn't employ mercenaries? Gosh, thanks. Is the sky blue in America too? It is here. Will wonders never cease.

    herbiesdad's post is as idiotic as claiming neither shooter nor gun have any part in inflicting injury, the bullet bears sole blame.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[mabhatter654]

the RIAA is contracting out the investigation .... they don't want to know where the data comes from... and will work harder than hell to keep that info from discovery in court.

Like the article is about, the RIAA is looking to do the HDD analysis themselves, without restrictions... which is way out of line in a civil case. The motion for an independant third party should have been welcome to the court... with restrictions as to scope and confidentiality of the data. Any judge not with that program needs disbarred... this is a music sharing case, not a criminal case.. the judges in these cases need to be quicker thinkers because these are "jon doe" cases and the plantiffs are grasping at straws to do damage... reguardless of whatever merits are involved to prevent fileshareing, the cases and evidence needs to stick to those terms.. not a farm to get info for more damage later.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[mabhatter654]

because EU countries also have a pretty good representation of left and far left parties. It's not uncommon for Union, Socialists, and even communist to get elected seats... and even more extreme people can run for office. In the US there is no "left"... left. now days somebody "center" during Regan would be "leftist" now.. and the mainline parties are clamboring to see how more "right" they can get.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[NoMaster]

You have to keep in mind that you only see negative things reported.

I agree with you - or, at least, I'd like to. Can you name a couple of good things to counter the bad examples of (a) unilateraly declaring war on an independent sovereign nation on the basis of falsified evidence, and (b) the unilateral creation of a whole new class of criminal because existing domestic and international law didn't allow you to hold people for indefinite periods without trial?

The rest of the world wouldn't care so much if you were just shitting in your own nest - but when the U.S. starts shitting all over the rest of the world, we start worrying...

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[madclicker]

There should be a differentiation between EvilCorp and a citizen. A citizen suing for damages and a citizen being sued for damages.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

> How are gutting judicial oversight,

Hmmm, ok.

> running up the national deficit,

National congressional pasttime, yeah.

> invading countries without just cause

Oh, and you were going so well, too. Now it's obvious that you were just repeating shit you read on Al Franken's website and that you don't actually have an attention span that enables you to remember that Iraq entered into a cease-fire agreement during the first Gulf War to keep his ass from getting thoroughly kicked for invading Kuwait and that there were 17 resolutions from the UN over the period of a decade because Hussein flagrantly violated it's terms with the help of corrupt UN officials like Kofi Annan and his "food for oil" program. Where I come from, I understand that violating a cease-fire agreement is an act of war.

> and removing civil liberties like privacy and free speech coming from the bottom-up?

It's too late. You've "screwed the pooch" as far as your credibility goes.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[cpt kangarooski]

Fair Use is not a judicially created doctrine - it's statutory, and therefore cannot really be widened beyond the scope provided for in the text.

Try again. Fair Use was created by the courts in the mid-19th century, and was not recognized in the statutes at all until the 1976 Act (c.f. First Sale, which was created by the courts but codified immediatedly in the 1909 Act). Even under the 1976 Act, it still hasn't been codified per se. Congress has merely said that Fair Use is an exception (though it's really an affirmative defense), and requires that certain factors be considered, though they're not determinative or exclusive. The courts have often pointed out that section 107 is merely Congressional support for the still vital judicial doctrine, and means little to nothing on its own.

That said, Fair Use is as broad as copyright is. Any use that is otherwise infringing can be a fair one, or not, depending on the circumstances. Fair use precedents tend to involve the weighing of various factors. The facts are still what matters, though, and they change in every case.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[cpt kangarooski]

Oh, and said politicians for hire are actively trying to make copyright infrigment a crime worthy of prison time.

No they aren't. Why would they? Copyright infringement has been a federal crime since the late 19th century. It's a felony and can carry as much as a ten year term. The relevant statutes are 17 USC 506 and 18 USC 2319.

Where have you been?

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[DarkDragonVKQ]

You would be correct. This only applies for Federal cases.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Mycroft_VIII]

Actually there are quite a few people who believe juries have every right to judge the law itself. Indeed why have a 'jury of your peers' otherwise. If was just to judge technical aspects of the law and which side they belived most I would think a jury expert in the apropriate area's of the law and the technical issues otherwise would make more sense.
    A jury of peers can however judge the justice of applying the law as written better by virtue of a clearer understaneding of the circumstances of a person in the defendand's circumstances.

Mycroft

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[bar-agent]

So, what, every lawsuit is "double-or-nothing"?

That doesn't sound good.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

To my non-US friends. The RIAA and MPAA are non-governmental, private industry groups. They have nothing to do with the US government, nor do they take direction from the US government.

Quite the contrary -- our government takes directions from them. Don't believe it? Google 'sonny bono disney copyright'. It was nothing short of a gift of public funds to the grasping bastard IP interests. The bought-and-paid-for legisltors may as well have extended coppyright from life plus 70 to life plus 1000. Then they could stand there with their fat, well-fed faces hanging out saying, "The Constitution says "for a limited time. Life plus 1000 years is a limit, is it not?"

The sons of bitches should be stood against a wall and have a 4x4 board rammed through their faces.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[ajs318]

Does the USA have the concept of a "vexatious litigant" or "enemy of the Courts" -- basically, someone who has been barred from initiating legal proceedings after bringing one case without merit too many? If so, it might be worth trying to have the RIAA branded vexatious litigants, enemies of the Courts or whatever.

I do think that if the authorities were a bit freer with handing out the "vexatious litigant" label, it would kill off a lot of frivolous lawsuits before they were begun.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Shaper_pmp]

Interesting position.

Since I don't know of a single so-called-democratic country on earth where there isn't some form of elected representation, does this mean there is in fact not one democracy on earth?

Time to start gluing some of those split hairs back together...

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Shaper_pmp]

I think you'll find that international law only gives you the right to defend, not invade.

It certainly doesn't give you the right to invade almost unilaterally, in defiance of UN and international opinion.

We already know Hussein didn't have and WMDs, and we already know Bush and Blair knew about it before going in. At the very least we know they deliberately lied and exaggerated to get public opinion on-side for a course of action they'd already decided-on.

But that wasn't really the point of my post, was it?

BTW, Who's Al Franken? <googles> Oh. Nope, never heard of him, or his website. I prefer to get my news and current affairs from the BBC, ITV, CNN and (even occasionally) Al-Jazeera. I find them slightly more credible than Fox News.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done it, it's not so hard. Funnel, grain, goose, go!

Still, you wear leather? Making that shit is harsh. Smells awful. Participate in that, my friend.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[tinkerghost]

Check out Jury Nullification it's the basis for the 'he needed killing' defense.
Basically, the jury can say - 'fuck the law, what he did wasn't wrong & we won't punish him for it' - it has a lot of historical support & is part of the reason for a jury of your peers.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[tinkerghost]

Jury nullification not sure why it didn't take the first time.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[pjt33]

Not at all. The effect is that the richer side can decide to pay their lawyers more, but if they do it's at their expense.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Bing Tsher E]

I don't wear leather made from force-fed cows. At least, not knowingly, and I'm pretty sure that sort of secret would get out.

Re:How can you allow such treatment?

[Pofy]

>That is true, but RIAA's lawyers are not suing
>people for downloading or sharing non-infringing
>files. They are going after users after verifying
>that one of their members' works is being copied.

This is not nessecarilly true since they can't verify, check or control that there HAS been a copying done. They typically go after people for making copies available to the public though.

And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Mia'cova]

I'm currently using six machines solely to myself between work and personal use. If I were acused of specific infringement, I could easily submit the drive from another machine (assuming that the accusation was true)... I don't see how that evidence is even admissable. Add on friends who use their laptops on my wireless network... I think it all just gets back to the point that there really isn't any proof. Using IPs are certainly going to be accurate most of the time but that's a long shot from proof. I still don't understand how they get away with all this.

I imagine that they will change their tactics. More deals to deliver bundled music subscription services with internet access, for example. Or perhaps we'll see something like myspace clean up in the next few years. Really, how long does it take to steal market share online?

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[scsirob]

Following your logic, the best tactic would be to set up an open WiFi access point "by mistake". If you then get an inquiry, it's easy to show that anyone in a 250m radius could have accessed a P2P network through your IP address...

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Sycraft-fu]

They get away with it because it's a civil dispute. In a civil case it's not your vs the government and the standard isn't beyond a reasonable doubt. Civil court is just for two parties to hash out a dispute.

Like let's say you are renting a place from me. I claim you've done damage and thus owe me money, you claim you don't. We can't settle it so I sue you for the cash. We then argue it in civil court. So the one that wins will be whoever provides more convincing proof. Doesn't have to be beyond a reasonable doubt, I just have to argue a bit more convincingly than you and I can win, at least a partial judgement.

Also, there's no real burden for filing a civil suit. You just go to the courthouse and do it. I don't have to present evidence or anything, I just file a suit against you and you have to respond. So that's how the RIAA gets these cases to trial.

Now in terms of proof, well that's why they drop any case that people actually start fighting. They don't have any good proof. However you don't have to have good evidence to file a case, just to win it.

The problem arises out of the fact that it's unbalanced. Since it's not the government going after you, there's no right to a lawyer for civil court. In person to person cases, it rarely matters, it's usually just small claims court and lawyers don't enter the picture. That's what you see on things like Judge Judy and such, that's small claims court. Because of the statutory amounts involved with copyright violations, it's not small claims. So you have one side with resources and lawyers, the other just being some person with no special assets.

Thus it's no surprise most people settle. Responsible or not (civil court determines responsibility, not guilt) it's an expensive proposition, so people take the settlement offer. It's not cheap, but you'd pay that much in legal fees anyhow.

The good news is in at least one case that someone fought back, the judge awarded her legal fees, even though the RIAA dropped the complaint. However, you can't rely on that. It's up to the judge.

That's the whole reason this goes on is because it's all civil law. This is perhaps the best example I've yet seen for the need for tort reform. Our civil system was designed so that people had easy access for remedies in disputes. Unfortunately it's being abused by those with resources to bully people to doing what they want.

So if you want a chance to put a stop to this one of the biggest things you can do, other than refusing to buy RIAA music and encouraging others to do the same (they can blame it on copyright infringement if they want, doesn't matter if their member labes get no money, they go out of business) is to encourage your representatives to get behind tort reform, and to support any that do. When people hear tort reform they think about medical malpractice lawsuits. While that's certainly an issue these shotgun lawsuits are another part of it.

It is actually something that we can get changed. People on /. love to get all cynical and say only money talks. They are right that having money gets you congress' ear like we normal people can't, however votes talk waaay more than anything else. The RIAA members can toss all the money they like a representative, if that rep believes they will be voted out for supporting them, they won't.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Pieroxy]

According to wikipedia:
Coercion is the practice of compelling a person to involuntarily behave in a certain way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation or some other form of pressure or force.

So when the RIAA comes to you and say: Sign this paper or I'll sue you (ie, I'll drown you under legal fees you can't afford), why is this not coercion? How is all this legal?

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which raises an interesting point. Is it possible to prove IP infringment when perpetrated by private individuals (it's easier in a company, they won't erase their drives just because they're scared)? If so, how?
If they raided my house they'd find a box full of anime DVDs. Pretty incriminating. But in other circumstances (eg many people download a move, watch it, keep it around for a while then delete it) how could you ever prove IP infringment? IPs are not conclusive, an ISP's log is not sufficient.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[madcow_bg]

Following your logic, the best tactic would be to set up an open WiFi access point "by mistake". If you then get an inquiry, it's easy to show that anyone in a 250m radius could have accessed a P2P network through your IP address...

And the problem exactly is?

I mean, with all the spambots and zombies out there, and the viruses, are YOU supposed to be held responsible for bugs in the software, that allows remote exploits and trojan horses? I know the all EULAs disclaim warranty of any kind, but to actually sue the user you must proove intent.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[geminidomino]

They have more money than you.

Next time, stay awake in Civics class.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Paradise Pete]

Yes, if you're going to be doing illegal things it's a better strategy to try to obfuscate the evidence. That's been true for pretty much all of civilization. On the other hand, if you're accused of something based on that type of evidence, it's a reasonable defense that the evidence could have been caused by means other than that of which you're accused.

That's just the way it goes. It's not right to deny a reasonable defense simply because it could also be used by criminals.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Q: Why don't lawyers get cancer?
  A: Professional Courtesy."

Q: Why don't snakes bite lawyers?
A: Species courtesy.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Kjella]

Possible, yes. Probable, well... One thing is reasonable doubt, another is to do it in a civil suit. First of all, you have to feign technical and probably legal ignorance, which also means you need some technical expert witness, plus a lawyer. If you act all knowledgable about how it gets off the hook or an open network invites everybody in the neighbourhood in, it looks like your planned scapegoat. So I'm thinking it'll be a very expensive defense.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[aadvancedGIR]

If you send the disk of a machine that has no traces of the MP3 or the P2P logs they are looking for, they will simply say you tried to destroy the evidences and it will look plausible to the court (since they gave you the time and opportunity to do so). Trying to prove you are innocent will just make things worse.
You're screwed anyway, so the only solution would be to fight them on procedural ground.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[RodgerDodger]

votes talk waaay more than anything else

Unfortunately, voters talk "waaay" more than they vote. Voter turnout in a presidental election year hasn't hit 60% of eligible voters since the Vietnam War; the "off-season" Congressional elections don't even get to 40% of the eligible voters. Heck, at the last election, 20% of the eligible voters didn't even bother to get registered!

Politicians know that the vast bulk of voters don't really care about these issues. Not one politican has lost office over this issue. A lot of them took the money offered by lobbyists and used it to fund their campaign or retirement. So, the politicians ignore the protests and take the cash.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[zotz]

"So if you want a chance to put a stop to this one of the biggest things you can do, other than refusing to buy RIAA music and encouraging others to do the same (they can blame it on copyright infringement if they want, doesn't matter if their member labes get no money, they go out of business) is to encourage your representatives to get behind tort reform, and to support any that do."

You know, I am not necessarily against tort reform, and it might help in this situation, but my take is that this is mainly caused by the inclusion of statutory damages in the copyright law. If the copyright holders had to prove damages, and could only collect those damages in civil court, the game would be a whole lot different don't you think?

all the best,

drew
(da idea man)

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Pieroxy]

Thanks for your insight. Let's resume:

1. They have more money than me so coercing me is legal for them ??? (Remember, that was my question)
2. I don't live in the US, so I guess the civics class you are referring to doesn't quite apply to me.

But if Civics class really teaches me #1, so I'm really glad I'm not american...

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[morgan_greywolf]

Following your logic, the best tactic would be to set up an open WiFi access point "by mistake". If you then get an inquiry, it's easy to show that anyone in a 250m radius could have accessed a P2P network through your IP address...

Y'know, that's just crazy enough to work, in the U.S. at least. The RIAA does have to prove that I possess the material, and not only that, to win a case of willful copyright infringement (as opposed to incidental copyright infringement, which doesn't carry statutory damages), they have to prove intent.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Anonymous Coward]

He was being sarcastic. Its not legal, but they have more money so in the corporate states of america they are allowed to get away with it. "Right" is defined by those with money.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Bing Tsher E]

I'm currently using six machines solely to myself between work and personal use. If I were acused of specific infringement, . . .

They would back a large police van up to your computer room and impound it all.

Things like that make me nervous, because I have a LOT more than 6 computers here, and they'd probably get surly and damage some of it and even my house on the way out.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[mabhatter654]

What could somebody request in court to keep the other side from running up legal bills just to hurt you? Is there any legal concept of "equal footing" in a case that would restrict big corporations to using only 1 lawyer (and associated fees and such) instead of an entire "team" mearly to drown the defendant in charges?

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[mabhatter654]

in this case all the defendant wanted was a "fair" collection of evidence. All they have to point to in court is the boarderline illegal efforts the RIAA has already made to see that any information collected not directly related to evidence will not be handled professionally. Even the court was willing to accept that proposition... The RIAA was not... and left the ultimatum to the judge to let them ... so the judge didn't budge and the RIAA dropped the case. If they were so "right" they should have had a list of file names/types ready to go for the independant auditors. All the "victim" wanted was a spelled out list of what the RIAA was looking for and what they were allowed to keep from her hard drive... that's perfectly reasonable in any court.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Shajenko42]

Threatening to sue someone unless they do what you want isn't illegal. It's the whole point of having a court system - you use it instead of vigilante justice.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[geminidomino]

Yeah, extortion and coercion are so much better than vigilante justice. I'm so glad we've got a court system.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coercion is the practice

Look up the legal difference between coercion and extortion, then get back to us.

Re:And searching a hard drive proves what?

[Paradise Pete]

Did you mean to reply to some other post? I agree with what you've written, but I don't see how it applies to what I wrote.

Link to the PDF???

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is quoted like this:

"As one might expect, Arellanes isn't too keen (PDF) on the idea of...

Where is the link to the PDF file? If the link is not supposed to be included, then why is there a "(PDF)" in the quoted text?

Re:Link to the PDF???

[Anonymous Coward]

You expect the submitter to copy, paste, AND edit?!

Re:Link to the PDF???

[Anonymous Coward]

You expect the submitter to copy, paste, AND edit?!

I know that you meant this as a joke, but basically: yes! If it is not done by the submitter, this should at least be done by the editor. That's what editors are for, after all.

And now I expect dozens of comments saying: "this is Slashdot, blah blah..." or "the editors never do their job anyway". Sigh!

Sigh. Not this shit again

[Sycraft-fu]

You know, I had a post written up on this kind of thing some time back, but it's too old for me to find a link and I don't really feel like writing another "Welcome to how the US legal system works guide." So I'll summarize:

1) If you get your news on the situation from /. please stop forming opinions. This is not a balanced source.
2) Please take the time to enlighten yourself about the US legal system (difference between criminal and civil) before spouting off about it.
3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing. Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance.

Seriously it is really tiresome seeing Europeans with this high and mighty "We are so free over here and the US has become a horrible dictatorship," attitude. It's as bad as Americans that see the French as weak, cheese eating surrender monkeys.

I know it's trendy to hate on the US. It's even trendy for many over here. But if you are going to do it, at least be intelligent about it.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[zootm]

I'm not one of the "US-hater" crowd, but I think I should at least point out why so many people take America's politics so seriously when, to a US citizen, it probably seems like none of their business.

Basically, this all comes back to us. If the RIAA/PATRIOT act/name your favourite anti-American act seemingly supported by the federal goverment here prevail in the US, international pressure appears for our countries to adopt similar ("compatible") measures. I get very much up in arms about these things happening on my doorstep (I live in the UK, and we have a lot of equivalent situations, as you point out), but all the while, in order to be conscientious, I have to keep an eye on the goings-on in the US, and I feel the right to speak on them, even though it is not my government, because the decision made will come back to me.

Of course, the extreme incarnation of this nonsense is people gaining a large resentment of the US, which on the whole it does not deserve. The US is a country whose base principles are those of freedom, and even if it didn't affect the rest of us, the perversion of these principles would be a tragedy to behold for those of us with "more traditional" societal backgrounds.

But, yeah, don't feed the trolls and so on.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[pubjames]

Seriously it is really tiresome seeing Europeans with this high and mighty "We are so free over here and the US has become a horrible dictatorship," attitude.

You reap what you sow.

The image your government projects is that of trying to spread freedom and democracy around the world, when they actually just work in the interests of the USA. And many Americans are also under the belief that the USA is the place with the most freedom in the world. These things wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that many Americans, and even your leaders, tend to mock and berate the rest of the world about this issue. This is of course annoying for the rest of us, especially when the USA doesn't actually look any freer to us than any other first world country.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Shaper_pmp]

Amen to your points 1 and 2, and everything Zootm replied with.

However:

"3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing."

There are several things wrong with this position:

1. You don't know what country your reader is in, and yet you're absolutely sure there are equivalent problems going on. This is clearly bullshit, since you don't know exactly what's going on in every other country on earth. Also, anyone from (for example), Sweden could then bitch about the USA all they liked.

It also speaks volumes about why the US administration is allowed to get away with it. You blithely assume the US is no worse than everyone else, so by extension whatever the US government does is "normal" across the world. It is not. The USA is the current thought-leader (and worse, arm-twister) pushing this kind of gutting of democracy and abuse of power across the world.

Tony Blair would be having wet dreams about the kind of police state he could construct, were it not for the US destabilising whole regions of the globe, upping the frequency of terrorism and cultivating the atmosphere of fear TB needs to get his (and Bush's) agenda across.

2. You appear to not understand the difference between a qualitative and a quantitative difference. Do many/most other countries have problems with lack of education/authoritarian governments/new technology eroding civil liberties/corrupt representatives/corporate interference in politics? Yes.

Does any other country on the face of the planet have as many problems (and quite as publically) as the USA has for the last decade or so? No.

3. You reap what you sow. The rest of the world has spent over a century listening to the USA's claims to be the leader of the free world, shining example of democracy and free-market capitalism, and epitome of open-minded tolerance. Although never as white as you painted it, the USA was generally viewed as arrogant, but essentially the "good guy". Now your freedoms are violated and removed, your democracy is tainted and corrupt and your political and legal processes are often an open market for corporations to purchase the results they want.

And if this wasn't a come-down enough, at the same time your administration is crowing even louder than ever about your "Freedom" and "Democracy" (which seem to be different to "freedom" and "democracy", since both of those are clearly being eroded right before everyone's eyes).

"Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance."

Not if you're asian. Or wear a turban and sandals. Or a muslim. Or expect officials to have any kind of sense of humour. Or don't like instantly acquiescing to authority without explanation. Or vocally disapprove of the administration's policies. Or have a name that sounds like a known alias of a terrorist. Or...

Sure, if you're a middle-class republican white guy you're laughing. Any different and there's a small (but significant) chance you could end up in legal trouble. And given the world no longer trusts the US legal system, that's a frightening possibility.

Would I still visit the USA? Yes, but I'd be careful while I was there.

Would I blame anyone who fitted any of the above descriptions from being wary of doing so? No.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously it is really tiresome seeing Europeans with this high and mighty "We are so free over here and the US has become a horrible dictatorship," attitude. It's as bad as Americans that see the French as weak, cheese eating surrender monkeys.

Personally, I live in Canada and do admit that the Canadian Government has serious issues which need to be addressed (like transparency and accountability) and that the Canadian Government is also bullied around by its own lobby groups. I still see these issues with liberty and freedom that the Patriot Act, NSA spying and RIAA/MPAA represent in the USA as huge issues; in part because they happened in The United States of Fucking America.

The United States is one of the few countries where all political parties are reasonably protective of personal rights and freedoms mainly because they have a strong independant press and they have an electorate which is willing to hold people accountable; contrast this with Canada, where the largest Radio/Television network is Governemnt owned and controlled (CBC) and has a vested interest in keeping a conservative government out of office because the funding to the CBC would be cut (because the Conservatives have a crazy belief that if the CBC played programming people wanted to see they could become sustainable off of advertizing revinue, like every other network in Canada). If this is happening in the The United States of Fucking America how long is it going to be before it is a problem everywhere?

Now there are other reasons for people being all preachy when they hear about things like this happening in the United States, and I think they're justified. Under shrub, the United States has taken on a Campaign throughout the world to spread Democracy and increase the personal freedoms of everyone through-out the world; and at the same time they have been working at home to reduce the personal freedoms of their citizens. A hypocritical position always brings out stone throwers.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[j35ter]

3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing. Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance.

When my wife (who was a resident of the U.S.) decided to give birth to our daughter in a U.S. clinic, I applied for a visa so I could attend the birth of my first child. Everything was set for the trip, and even though I worked in Austria at that time, had a lot of cash on my account, I was not issues a visa out of concerns that I might not leave the U.S. Oh, btw. I am a Croatian citizen.
Quite a few Americans I talked to were comparing their democracy to the Romans or the Greek. There is one similarity they quite likely missed: The Greek and Roman treated non-citizens barbaric. Regardless of what you think, your gvt. treats non-US-citizens like shit

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Jedi Alec]

3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing. Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance.

Oh, definitely. The big difference is that the US of A is by far the leader in the field when it comes to flagwaving, touting the "home of the brave, land of the free" and showcasing that constitution you seem to be so terribly proud of. You see, the rest of us don't go around pretending we're the beacon of hope and salvation for all mankind, and seeing the US say one thing and then turn around and do something completely different starts to get a bit old by now.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[griffjon]

hear hear. The US has been spreading democracy since WWII (before, too, just not as well marketed). We've had some great successes! I mean, just think of the democratic governments we've replaced with dictators in such culturally diverse locations as the Philippines, Nicaragua, San Salvador...

Oh, wait. We're supposed to be doing that the other way, right?

I'm certainly biased, but has there ever been a case where the US has muddled around in the affairs of another nation's government and had it turn into a flowering democracy? Do any of the Marshall Plan "graduates" count?

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." - Mark Twain

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trying to be a troll myself, but it appears to me that you should focus your effort on your own country, specifically to resist the "international pressure [..] to adopt similar ("compatible") measures." Personally, I think that's the biggest problem - the creation of all of these international groups that seek to enforce other countries laws in all member countries.

We have a simlilar issue over here in the US with some particularly clueless Supreme Court Justices who seem to think we should use court cases in other countries as precidence in our own system. That's idiotic, and I'll be glad when we get a chance to replace those Justices with some that posess common sense.

Now I understand that much of that international pressure comes from the US itself. However, my advice would be for your contry to "Just Say No" like a former First Lady of ours used to say. You can only do that in your own country, not by criticising the US.

It's all because of the UN. The UN is basically a failure, and all of its specialized organizations like WIPO are the source of all your issues. Join some of us in the US who believe the best would be for the UN to be disolved. It is failing, and will fail, in its primary mission of preventing another World War and Holocaust. Nothing significant will be done from preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and they will not hesitate to use it on Israel. The destruction of Tel Aviv and murder of hundreds of thousands of people will unleash the full World War III. Most of Europe, however, will still have their head stuck in the sand and will refuse to believe that Muslims will do what their religion says they must do, kill all infidels, and what they say they will do.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[mrcolj]

I think people need to realize also that there is an organized marketing movement by each government to downplay the importance and perceived infallibility of the U.S. Remember, the stronger the dollar gets, the weaker the euro, the pound, the peso, whatever... On a macro sense, they're better off letting the US raise the world's standard of living, but corruption on both sides leaves unnecessary competition. If you're in Germany, you think there are all kinds of atrocities going on in the US because your competitive, zero-sum, government-owned news tells you so. That was the whole fight over trying to get German to be the official language of the EU. If you live in any other country, ditto. The US is doing a darn good job at most everything it does, and the perceived atrocities of the Bush administration are mostly marketing campaigns financed and written by those who would feign to compete.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

the USA country of the freedom is just a propaganda/marketing ad.

Did you really belive that in a country where native people has been "exterminated" and oppressed or where slavery has been so widely used or where there are been only 2 political party in ages and where presidency pass from dad to son (or maybe from husband to wife in future)where cia or nsa can wiretap your comunication without a warrant from a judge there is or have been freedom ?

Hey in which year black people get the right to vote there ?

USA is just a bully nation that exploit his own people.

A lot of strikes in the country of freedom,right ?

Maybe for better social services or pay rates or retirements or education system, and moreover what about the interference with the rest of the world, what about the "giunta" governement that the USA put up in the different nations in the latin america or tried to in the middle east, see in particular iran and iraq ?

Yes probably there are more freedom than in the ex urss or nk or in the fascist italy or the nazi german, but come on...

democracy and freedom are far from been born and living in the USA

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[zootm]

I'm not so convinced about that — most sensible people are savvy enough to get their own news these days, and at the very least news across Europe in general seems as unbiased as American sources. There's a degree of nationalism in most localised presses, though, and it can be hard to filter this out. On the other hand, the internet has made doing that a hell of a lot easier, of late.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

That's so true. As a European it's really funny when the americans describe terrorists as "freedom haters"...NO, they are "US Foreign Policy"-haters.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey $ doesn't need our comments to become a weak money, did you realize how much is costing to any US citizen the wars they are conducting around the world ? Did you know how much is your national debt ? You know that is china financing 1/4 of your money ?
You know that china is starting doing business in euro instead of the dollar ? You know that russia sell his petrol and gas in euro and in future in russian currency.
Indeed is not a surprise since dollar value lost 40% against euro in 5 years (you noticed it when you make the full to your car, isn't it ?).

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. Mod points won't do you any more good at this point, so I'll vocalize. I am a middle-class (formerly) Republican white guy. And I'm not laughing.

Things in the US have progressed to the point where our dominant pacifist religion -- not just individual groups of followers, but the very religion itself in the general sense -- is somehow being twisted to create millions of unthinking followers and supporters of our imperial escapades. I think I saw a shirt the other day pointing out this hypocrisy: "Who Would Jesus Torture?"

Friends ask me why I am down on the US and how can I even consider expatriation... They say, "You are a small business owner, with a beautiful wife, and a high standard of living. What more could you want?"

Well, as a software developer, patent law keeps me up at night. I'm terrified that by innocently innovating and providing my customers with valuable software, especially software that can provide them with some useful insight into their businesses, that I may be unknowingly stepping into a minefield and risking my future. Abuses of the kind in TFA are pertinent examples of what can happen when you accidentally surface on a large corporation's radar these days.

My wife is Chinese, and I get to see all the prejudices, stupidity, and xenophobia first-hand. The state of immigration these days is one of "guilty until proven innocent, and even then don't expect humane treatment just because you're innocent." Arcane laws cost us up to two weeks out of the year, getting unnecessary fingerprints and updated biometric tokens. She is forced to carry around a government-issued ID with who-knows-what kind of data encoded into a 3cm-wide (read: frickin' HUGE) magneto-optical strip, 2d barcodes, and holograms that cover it on both sides.

What more could I want? Liberty. Justice. Freedom. The benefit of the doubt. Rationality. Take your pick.

And since I'd like not to be harassed when the day finally comes to leave, I'm posting anonymously. Who knows what will happen here while I prepare? In many oppressive regimes, men have spent years in preparation to leave, only to be arrested and executed on the night of their departure. I think learning from history does not make you paranoid, especially given its tendency to repeat itself.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the world has spent over a century listening to the USA's claims to be the leader of the free world, shining example of democracy and free-market capitalism, and epitome of open-minded tolerance.

Yup. And thanks to the actions of the US numerous times, those same countries are free to spout as many ignorant or informed opinions as they like. It's kind of funny to watch people like you run on about the US while completely ignoring the fact that a major reason you're allowed to run on is because of the actions of the US.

It's hard to piss and moan about the US not being free when you're a) clearly ignorant of the facts of the matter (and you are as your posts repeatedly show) b) minimizing the idea that a large portion of your freedom is a direct result of US policies and actions.

Which is conveniently forgotten by all the free people running their free mouths complaining about not being free.

Really, when I read posts like yours it reminds me very much of a high school debate class where eveything is idealism and strong opinion, and very little is informed opinion or reality. Repeatedly insisting something is true doesn't make it so.

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[ravenshrike]

Bwhahahahahahhahhaaahahahhahahahahahhahahahahhahah ahaahahhaahahha. *deep breath* Bwahahahhahahahhaahahahahahahahaahahahahahah. Sorry, that was just too funny. Most internet savvy people that care about the news, which is a small portion of any population, know how to get their own news. The common idiot couldn't find his way out of a soggy 1-ply paper bag when it comes to sifting bullshit.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[ravenshrike]

Yep, even the barbary pirates where just US policy haters, they hated that we refused to put up with their bullshit.

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[zootm]

Again my faith in humankind has made me look like a fool. I should get more cynical ;)

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[MikeBabcock]

Living just to the north of the USA in Canada, I can say with much disdain that the USA now resembles very much the land they portrayed the USSR to be back in the Cold War. Government snooping, spying on your own citizens, protection of the oligarchy from legal repercussions, encouraging individuals to spy on each other (1-800 snitch lines), putting people in jail and throwing away the proverbial key, no access to lawyers, no access to Red Cross or other foreign help for non-naturals.

Welcome to the great empire of the USA.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[zootm]

I wish it were that simple, I really do. But the strongarming tactics of many countries, particularly the US, on the world stage simply makes it impossible. If we were to "just say no", we'd be "just saying no" to our economy.

I'm not particularly opposed to the large globalisation of issues. It's a natural consequence of the extra interconnectedness of the world. The growing natural convergence of laws and cultures is not a bad thing, but it does lead to the inevitable fact that isolationist views do not hold as much water.

Regardless of the influence of the UN, the world will converge on its own. It doesn't need the UN to make this happen.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

And the reason the US is able to complain about other countries' pissing and moaning is because of those other countries. France's assistance in the American Revolutionary Was was invaluable (even if they were just doing it to piss off England), and European nations were again instrumental during the American Civil War.

As an American, the blatant "America saved France and the rest of Europe!!!!111!!oneoneone" bullshit that comes out of fellow American mouths smacks of the worse kind of ignorant jingoism that our biased educations can provide. So let's all say it together:

1. America owes European nations for its continued existance.
2. Parts of Europe owe the US for their continued existance.
3. We all owe each other something, so get over it.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing significant will be done from preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and they will not hesitate to use it on Israel.

I disagree, Iran is a lot of things, but they're not totally stupid, firing a nuke at Israel would be a death sentence to any Iranian living in and around Tehran, and any other major Iranian city. Israel (although they wont publicly admit it) has been nuclear for some time, and while Iran could score a hit on Tel Aviv, they would pay for it dearly when Israel retaliates with its own arsenal.

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[Acer500]

Excelent point. My country is negotiating a trade treaty with the US, and one of the contentious points is that they're basically forcing us to adopt their patents & copyright law (besides forcing to abolish some state-run monopolies and other policies they're forcing on us).

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[HiThere]

especially when the USA doesn't actually look any freer to us than any other first world country.

And less free than many. Currently the Nordic group of countries, taken as a whole, look to be the freest, but that *IS* an outside viewpoint. Canada is another good choice, and so is New Zealand.

One thing these freer countries have in common is a low population density. I'm not sure about Iceland. I believe that it's near the top in freedom, but also that people emigrate. I'm also not sure about Norway, as Sweden get more news coverage. (And, if you are fluent in the language, immigration looks easy. ... Of course, that *IS* a big if.)

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Your post reminds me of what will (I predict) one day be a moving token to the freedoms we've lost, and hopefully a spark for what (I predict) is the coming revolution; a book called Vacation by my best friend's brother.

The desire to leave.. the desire to walk away, and to be free, is one I have observed becoming more and more powerful as the years wear on. This is how you know an end of some sort is coming. What the end leads to, is impossible to tell; but we know it must be something.

In our world, though, there is no place left to walk away to. We've exhausted our capacity to avoid the inevitable: it is here, now. Now, we will have to fight for the permanent freedom we want. And it'll be a battle the likes of which the world has never witnessed - not one just of guns and bombs, but of ideologies 12,000 years in coming.

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[Bing Tsher E]

Japan.

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[Bing Tsher E]

It's no surprise to some of us that the people most loudly criticizing the 'repression' in the US don't live here and only have media-supplied second hand knowledge of day to day life in the US.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Sycraft-fu]

I don't need to know what country they are in. It's simply how it goes. All countries have some things that seem big brotherish. The fact that he says he's in the EU well one need to look no farther than the EU constitution. That's a scary piece of legislation. Thankfully the voted it down, but apparently it's not being put to rest. One of the primary authors said the problem was that people were allowed to read it. He says they shouldn't have, they should have just been told about it then had to vote. Ummm ok, so you want to keep a secret from me what I'm voting about? Now that is scary.

There is, of course, never a 1:1 correlation of laws and actions. However it doesn't take a lot of looking to find rather disturbing big brother types of activities in any country. Germany with their cameras everywhere, England trying to ban large knives, etc. Now in many cases, it sounds worse in the media than it is, which is often the same here.

As for the "Not if you're Asian. Or wear a turban and sandals. Or a Muslim." No, sorry, not so much. At the border crossings themselves everyone gets to spend extra time on the BS security measures like taking off your shoes to be X-rayed, that don't really do any good. Once you are in the country, well have you seen America? It is exceedingly multicultural. They aren't rounding up all Muslims up and shipping them off to camps. There's no hassle for wearing a turban (we have a few people that do were I work, Sikhs rather than Muslims) and so on.

There are certainly some disturbing things that have happened in the US, but the good news is we can fight to change that. This is an election year and part of congress is up for replacement. Also legal challenges to many of the government's acts have been filed. The legal system moves slowly (on purpose) but it's happening.

So sorry, but I just don't see the US as having devolved in to some scary police state. Neither do many other observers. Take a look at freedomhouse.org. They are a site that monitors freedoms around the world and ranks nations. They are also good in that they don't sweat the small stuff, they don't get all reactionary because of something that gets bad press. At any rate you'll discover that, though they note some disturbing trends, they still rate the US as a very free society (as they do EU member nations).

Every time I visit a nation I try to make myself aware of their laws, and their history, so I don't act like a jackass and so I don't get in trouble. There's almost always at least one law that amazes me. For example in Norway you can be retried if found innocent. The state can appeal to a higher court. They can't do it for just any reason, but they can do it. Rather shocking to me, given the double jeopardy standard in America, but it's just a different way of doing things.

So really, saying "Oh I'm scared to visit America," just shows ignorance. It shows that you are getting your news form alarmist sites like Slashdot. Now there's nothing wrong with reading the alarmism, helps keep you informed (obviously I read Slashdot) however you need to take it with a nice glass of perspective and soda. What we have going on here is some disturbing trends and beginnings. Hopefully we the people can stop that. But at this point, if you are worried, you are silly. It's easy to visit far more restrictive places right in Europe (Bosnia and Serbia for example).

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Sycraft-fu]

No actually we don't. I'm the son of a non-citizen. My mother is a Canadian citizen and was a resident alien for 25 years. She did finally get her citizenship, about 1 year before moving back to Canada. Either way. As it happens I know and work with LOTS of non-citizens. Some are here on student visa, some are permanent residents. No they aren't treated like shit.

I'm sure you're pissed your visa was denied. I can't say why since I know nothing about the situations, but I can say that this is something the US is mindful of. Doesn't happen so much from European countries, more from South America, particularly Mexico, but we have a problem of people coming to the US, having their child here, and then staying because there's no legal way to kick them out. The general concern was probably that you'd have your kid and then get established. I don't know what it takes, but essentially you can get it so your kid allows you to stay, regardless of the legality of your immigration status.

These issues come up because there's a very minimal bar for child citizenship. For the most part, if you are born on US soil, you are a US citizen. I was a US citizen at birth, despite have one foreign parent. I never had to apply for it, never had it questioned, it was automatic at the time of my birth. This is different from, say, Norway. There just because you are born in Norway doesn't make you a citizen. If your mother is Norwegian, it's automatic (though it wasn't until recently) but your father being a citizen isn't enough to cut it.

At any rate, the point is the US issues thousands of visas, tourist and other, each day. Why they denied yours I don't know, but that doesn't mean dump on non-citizens. I've got a department with tons of foreign nationals that will say otherwise.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

"3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. ..."

And you betcha driven by US pressure. Canadians just went through a period similar to the Clinton/Bush transition. No one was thrilled with the conservative challenger but were too repulsed by decades of liberal malfeasance to vote incumbent. Now we have a Prime Minister whos concept of sound policy is kissing Bush's ring finger and our liberties are already under attack in the name of 'alignment'. Yes, some times it really is your fault. I often wonder if we're better off cutting ourselves from NAFTA, aligning with the Asian Pac-Rim nations, shipping our natural resources west and telling America to fuck itself. China's no saint be even a 50-year dictatorship stops at trying to coherce foriegn policy for the benefit of domestic record companies and spying on citizens.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[NoMaster]

Basically, this all comes back to [the U.S.]. If the RIAA/PATRIOT act/name your favourite anti-American act seemingly supported by the federal goverment here prevail in the US, international pressure appears for our countries to adopt similar ("compatible") measures.

Or worse - there's plenty of examples (particularly in the realm of copyright and IP) where a law has failed to get up, or has been struck down, in the U.S., only to appear in another country in the form of 'regulation' required by a treaty or trade agreement.

(Aside: The reason GWB likes John Howard so much is because he's a) just the right height, and b) has false teeth. If JH had a flat head for GWB to rest his [non-alcoholic] beer on, he'd be perfect...)

And, if people in the U.S. think "Ha! Serves you right for being our butt-monkeys!", just wait until your country adopts those same regulations in the name of 'synchronising laws with our major trading partners'...

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[sean.geek.nz]

"My mother is a Canadian citizen and was a resident alien for 25 years"

I'm happy to believe that someone who has been married to an American for decades, has lived in America for decades, is from the country that is your closest neighbour and best buddy, and has a son who is an American, is *probably* not hassled by the INS much.

But you're hardly talking the case of the typical foreigner there.

So let's modify his claim: you Americans treats almost all non-citizens like shit.

If you can get even one tenth of the "tons" of foreign nationals in your dept to say anything good at all about your INS I'll be gobsmacked. After I'd lived in the USA for 4 years I was sick of my wife and I being dumped on by the govt all the time and we left.

USA: Good, mostly.
US govt's INS: Bad, completely.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[MightyYar]

Actually, Sweden and many other EU countries have a VERY scary free speech restriction: hate speech. It sounds all warm and fuzzy when it is enacted, but it gives the government the power to decide what is and isn't hate speech. If a priest in Sweden says that it is immoral to be a homosexual, he can be imprisoned. I have no problem with homosexuals whatsoever, but find it completely unreasonable to jail someone for their honest opinion. That shit is scary.

I'm not in the "The US is better" camp, but I agree with the original poster - Europeans need to simmer down with their smugness. Europe is better in some ways and worse in others. Further, Europeans have the nasty habit of comparing what happens in the entire US to what happens in their particular country. That is very apples-and-oranges. The US is much bigger than any single European country. You just did this with your Sweden comment. Why didn't you pick the best civil rights state in the US and compare that to Sweden? I think that if you compare the entire US to the entire EU, the problems will often be quite similar.

Regarding your point 3: we don't listen to our politicians - neither should you. Don't you work with any Americans? Don't you find them to be mostly regular people? I work with Europeans and they sure don't seem like the European politicians. Politicians are full of wind - don't base your feelings about a country on their ilk.

"Would I still visit the USA? Yes, but I'd be careful while I was there."

Your image of the US is wrong and unfounded. You are much better off here as an Arab then you are in Europe, or for that matter most Arab countries. I don't know where you got the idea that it's bad to be Asian here - it's much harder to be black or Hispanic than Asian. Just because one asshole shot a guy with a turban after 9/11, that doesn't make the entire US off-limits to ethnic minorities. Obviously there are places that you would not want to go in rural areas of the American South, but the same can be said of rural parts of the EU. I know that Hungary is not a big destination for American blacks, for instance, and in I was chased out of an area in East Berlin for being foreign.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

If non-US-citizens are too stupid to figure out how to sneak across the Mexican border and get a driver's license, a Social Security number, welfare, unemployment benefits, Section 8 housing, and SSI disability for their drug habit, then they should totally expect the US to treat non-US-citizens like shit. Watch some US news for a week and figure it out... geez!

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[cpt kangarooski]

Only recently. They had a one-party country for decades, and there's still a lot of areas where they could stand improvement to their government, civil liberties, etc. Still, Japan is a hell of a lot better than where they were back in the 30's. But it took so long, and had such a different starting position, that it doesn't lend support to the idea of any of the crap we've been doing in the Middle East.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Sycraft-fu]

Well I haven't gone and quizzed them or anything but there doesn't seem to be much discontent and INS doesn't come nosing around. As for your quotes around "tons" I assume you think I mean like 2 or 3. Actually I mean 100-200. We have a lot of foreign grad students and some foreign professors. Just got a new one from Serbia, he'd been visiting for some time and they hired him in full.

Sorry that you've had a bad experience but your personal experience does not equate to an overall truth. Likewise, neither does mine, I'm just using it as a counterpoint. You have a common attitude of "Situation X happened to me, thus X is universally true." No, not really. I'm sure there are some assholes in INS and I'm sure some people get a raw deal. I'm also sure that there are lots and lots of people who enter America legally as visitors, workers, students, and so on.

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[Mycroft_VIII]

MAD assumes the other side considers dying/destruction worse than destroying/badly hurting the enemy.
I'm not so certain this is the case with Iranian leadership.

Mycroft

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Anonymous Coward]

3) Get off your fucking high horse. Are there disturbing things happening in the US? Yes. Are there in your part of the world too? You betcha. I don't know what country you are from and really, it doesn't matter. Wherever it is, I guarantee there's some scary big brother stuff that some people are pushing. Hell, some of it you may already have and are just used to it, you might even think it's normal whereas it'd scare me. Either way this "I'm scared to go to the US," is an attitude that screams ignorance.

Lessee, France/Germany -- thought control, like not being able to even discuss Nazi philosophy, guaranteed under the US first amendment. What ever happened to "ab hoste doceri"? England -- arrest and hold wihout charge policies, along with pervasive video (and likely audio) surveillance. Welcomed by the populace, it seems. No ability to possess a gun to defend your once sacred home/castle. Frittered that one away ages ago.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[VShael]

It's as bad as Americans that see the French as weak, cheese eating surrender monkeys.

Sir, I object!

You forgot 'Wine-guzzling'

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Shaper_pmp]

Half a century ago the USA helped out Europe.

A little over two centuries ago the USA only came into being because of europe (ironically enough, fighting against the UK, now your biggest ally).

And if you go far enough back we're all only here because of a bunch of primates that were better at hitting other primates over the head with rocks - should we be eternally grateful to the chimps, too?

The fact is, you, me, Bush, Blair and almost everyone alive in each country today had exactly zero to do with freeing Europe from tyranny or achieving independance for the USA.

If I meet a WWII veteran I'm eternally grateful for their courage and sacrifice. Do you inherit the same gratitude because you happen to be born on the same continent as them? Grow up.

And the USA during WWII was a beacon of democracy and a shining light in international politics. It continued to be so for quite some time afterwards. It was (and always has been) also incredibly arrogant at the same time, but that's easily overlookable when it's doing as much good as it was.

Now, however, the USA is actually the/a cause of world destabilisation, not the cure.

There's a statute of limitations on gratefulness, and you've well-exceeded yours. If you give me five bucks last week, then spend all this week stamping on my foot and telling me what to do, I'm not going to think highly of you. This is not unreasonable.

Expecting to get gratitude and exemptions from behaving like responsible international citizens because of something your grandfather did, is just taking the piss.

You also seem wilfully blind to the difference between defence and offence. Iraq I was defensive - defending a third party form an aggressor. Handy hint: this is why you had international support and copped no political flak for it.

Iraq II was an act of naked aggression against a foe the administration knew posed no significant threat. This is offensive, and is why your international approval ratings are dropping precipitatously.

I'm going to go ahead and state the obvious (that Saddam Hussein wasn't a nice man, and that it would be better were he never in power) because I don't think you're going to be able to differentiate between "disapprove of how it was done" and "approve of the leader/country", ok?

Finally, although you claim I'm "clearly ignorant of the facts" (etc, etc, etc), I can't help noticing you haven't actually refuted one single assertion I made, let alone all of them.

By "clearly ignorant of the facts" do you perhaps mean "clearly disagree with my personal opinion"?

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Shaper_pmp]

Fair play.

I'd dispute that there's nothing to worry about, since it's a fact that PATRIOT/antiterrorism powers have been frequently abused in non-terrorism-related incidents. It's also well-known that the US law enforcement is vastly more po-faced and uptight than many europeans are used to, especially with foreigners.

I agree that the USA isn't even nearly unsaveable yet, but the mere fact it's tending further (and faster) towards totalitarianism than most other places seem to be scares foreigners.

I never said (and I don't recall any OPs saying) we'd be too scared to visit the USA - merely that we'd be nervous. Disregarding my own personal experience I know what I hear/read/watch about the UK, and I know what I hear/read/watch about mainland Europe, and I know what I hear/read/watch about the USA. And the USA is the scariest one by far.

So yeah, nobody's calling anybody a police state yet, but I know who my money's on to be the first one if current trends continue, and that makes me slightly more nervous about that country than most others. Fair?

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Shaper_pmp]

Fair point.

I would note that comparing EU states to "the best civil rights state in the US" is probably pointless, since many of the scariest things ("free speech zones" for example) tend to be federal initiatives.

Regarding my point 3, it's not just the politicians we're talking about - maybe you've missed it, but the american people (in general) tend to be much more vocally patriotic/arrogant/nationalistic/overbearing (take your pick according to your prejudices ;-) than most other nations, often even the more cosmopolitan ones who visit other countries.

However, your politicians are by far the loudest, however. ;-)

Again, I'm not saying I'd never visit the USA, merely that I'd be a lot more careful when entering or exiting it than I would be, say, France or Germany.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[MightyYar]

Actually, I find that we Americans are quite different based on location. *WARNING, I'm about to generalize like crazy*

The average Californian would probably have a lot of agreement with the average Western European. They have very similar political views on the environment, the role of the state, immigration, etc. In the American South and in the Heartland, the people tend to be like the Americans that you have encountered. In the Northeast, there is a strong tendency toward individual liberty and yet an embrace of big government... sort of a weird combination of the California and Southern attitudes. They sort of have a "accept everyone who accepts everyone" attitude, as opposed to California's "accept everyone unconditionally" and the South's "accept everyone who is like us". This changed a bit temporarily after 9/11, but I think it's mostly back to "normal". Americans have a strange position... we are all one country, for certain, but there are still strong regional feelings. I identify myself with the Northeast and distance myself from the attitudes of the "Left Coast" and the South. If (when?) I move to one of those places to escape the ugly Northeastern weather, I will stand out like a sore thumb. A friend of mine who moved to Kentucky got told by his co-workers that he was going to hell because he had a gay friend. Ugh, how long could I put up with THAT? When my wife was going to school in San Francisco, I would constantly get into spirited arguments about how you CAN be a registered Republican and not be the devil, and how, yes, George Bush was their president too, even if they did not like him :) In San Francisco, they have a very hard time comprehending that even if you do not wish harm on anyone, there are people that still want to kill you...

One final story about Kentucky... the restaurant down the block is owned by an Egyptian Christian. He opened the restaurant after being effectively chased out of his Kentucky gas station by ignorant locals after 9/11... so, yeah, there are ugly parts of America.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

When my wife (who was a resident of the U.S.) decided to give birth to our daughter in a U.S. clinic, I applied for a visa so I could attend the birth of my first child. Everything was set for the trip, and even though I worked in Austria at that time, had a lot of cash on my account, I was not issues a visa out of concerns that I might not leave the U.S. Oh, btw. I am a Croatian citizen.

I am truly sorry your application failed, but I am going to explain to you why this happened. I am American and my government believes that every person in the world wants to live in our country and would do so if given a chance. If you are a citizen of a country that is not on the "Visa Waiver Program" list (Croatia is not on the list), you are presumed to be a potential illegal immigrant. The fact that your wife willingly lives apart from you in America probably makes you suspicious to the US embassy when you applied for a visa. They probably think that you and your wife had a plan for her to legally immigrate, get pregnant, and then get you a visitor's visa and after your arrival, you never return to Austria. It also hurts you that the people who make the decision about your visa are usually young people in their 20s who work at the US embassy or consolate where you applied for the visa. Unfortunately, the policy of the US Department of State is that if an embassy/consolate worker grants a visa and the visitor doesn't return, it counts against the worker. If enough people illegally stay on visas they approved, they will never be promoted and it will hurt their career. So the system forces them to deny more visas than they approve because if they deny your visa application, you can't hurt them because you can't overstay. Also, as you know there is no appeal process for applicants, so you will never know why your visa was not approved. It was because some young person thought you were too big a risk, probably because your wife chooses to live without you in America. I don't know how much money you have in the bank, but I can promise you that it was not enough. Rich people always get visas to America. Always. Rich people don't overstay visas, so they get them.

It probably won't make you feel any better, but parents of legal immigrants are often denied visitor visas to visit their children in America. I know of cases where American men have married women from countries not on the "Visa Waiver Program" and the woman legally immigrated to America, yet the US government will not give visas to her parents for fear of them being "illegal immigrants". I even know of a case where a woman's mother and father applied for a visitor's visa on different days and the mother's application was rejected and the father's was approved. This makes no sense, yet apparently one embassy/consular officer decided that the mother was a potential illegal immigrant and on another day the a different officer worked on the father's application and decided that he was no risk to give a visa to. It's a constant problem and there is no solution for it other than a reform of the way the US government grants visas. Personally, I think the "Visa Waiver Program" is too restrictive and should be expanded to include all EU countries and a few others. However, this is never going to happen. The US government resists change and as long as the system says to young workers "If you give a visa to someone who doesn't return, we'll hold it against you", then applicants will be denied more than they are approved just to safeguard the careers of those who do the approving.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[j35ter]

OK, its true that I was pissed off when I did'nt get a visa. But, even though my daughter *is* an american citizen, which gives me a legal right to live and work in the U.S., I have no intention of moving to the U.S. !
I'll Probably move to Austria or Germany (where I was born :), where I have a permanent residentship.
What I was referring to were not the U.S. immigration laws, but rather the way your Government sets up dual standards in regard to non-US citizens. Many countries do just the same, but not many claim to lead the free world. I met a lot of americans, and consider most of them pleasant people. Therefore I consider it very sad when many innocent people around the world get mistreated in the name of the same individuals I met, and call my friends.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[sean.geek.nz]

Raise the topic in conversation sometime, over by the coffee machine.

See what they say.

I'm serious. You Yanks don't notice how bad the INS is: it'd do you good.

As a foreign grad student and foreign worker hanging out with others in the same boat, chatter about the nastiness of the INS was really, really common. Of course, if your company is that big you may well employ someone whose full-time job is dealing with the INS on behalf of your workers (I'm not kidding, I knew someone whose mum had the job for a chemicals company). If so your workers will be doing better not because the INS is competent but because you're paying someone full-time to understand and pander to its incompetence.

"I'm also sure that there are lots and lots of people who enter America legally as visitors, workers, students, and so on."

Well yes. That's what I did. I didn't say the INS failed to function: my claim is that it's really unpleasant to deal with.

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[Shaper_pmp]

Again, fair point. I was also generalising like crazy, but when you're talking about stereotypes of entire countries (especially ones the size or the USA) there are always going to be significant deviations from the mean.

All I was getting at was that the mean average loudness/patriotism/arrogance/forthrightness/whate ver was generally slightly higher amongst USians than Europeans.

It's also been observed that many nationalities tend to become more like their own caricatures the further they get from home - this is certainly the case with the "drunken Irish", "loud Australians" and "arrogant American" stereotypes.

Of course, the fact that local people expect these stereotypes can lead to them becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, and nothing's going to bump up your level of patriotism in a foreign land like having half the people you meet knocking your country down continuously...

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[MikeBabcock]

Its no surprise that you didn't claim any of my comments were inaccurate.

To be fair, you may have a mild version of Stockholm syndrome -- you've been under the control of your government and very predictable media for so long now that you may actually feel sympathy for their decisions, however wrong-headed and ill-advised.

Enjoy your stay, personally, I won't be visiting anymore (and I'm not the only one).

Re:Sigh. Not this shit again

[MightyYar]

Heh, the "circle your wagons" mentality is definitely a factor. My friend is studying in Ireland right now. I would describe him as moderate-to-liberal (in the American sense). He is no supporter of Bush, and certainly never voted for him. However, he told me, laughing, that he's constantly defending Bush in Ireland because they've made him into such a devil over there. He says the people there just don't understand - nor even try to understand - American politics. He generally turns around and pokes fun at them for getting all bent out of shape about immigration after being a net exporter of people for 150 years... there are more Irish people in the Boston area then in Ireland!

But I digress :) One thing I have noticed is that the European press seems to quote our crazy, loud politicians more than is warranted. I mean, yesterday the ONLY item on the BBC news site regarding American politics was "Bush Likens Bin Laden to Hitler". Well, yeah, he did - but that was buried in the speech along with comparisons to Lenin and such. It wasn't exactly the focus of his speech - he didn't use it like on Slashdot when people call each other Nazis, he used the proper historical context. Meanwhile, CNN used the headline "Bush: Terrorists' intentions clear as Hitler's", which is a little more honest. But in both cases, man it must have been a slow news day for that speech to a military audience to make the news. Now, had either organization been sharp enough to notice that this was a deliberate tactical change for Bush, that would have been one thing - but they basically just regurgitated his speech. They seem to have already forgotten his newfound love of the term "Islamo-fascism" or "Islamic fascism". So first the fascism references... now the Hitler references... ahhh... but I digress again :)

Privileged communication

[Anonymous Coward]

This makes me wonder, what if you had a large amount of communication with your lawyer, letters and emails and such on your computer. Then if the RIAA conducted a search of the computer, would that render the entire search inadmissiable because of the presence of the communications?

Re:Privileged communication

[James_Duncan8181]

No. It would mean that the information in those messages could not be discussed in court, and possibly that the expert witness who stated he had seen them would be reclused, depending on the mood of the judge. This is not legal advice.

recipe for success?

[DarrylKegger]

Step 1. Convince humans to grant me the legal rights of a natural person.

Step 2. Leverage my ability to never die and to farm the responsibilities for my actions out to replaceable 'employees'

Step 3. Become the dominant cultural organisation to such an overwhelming extent that the majority of humans don't even consider the idea that my powers are illegitimate.

Step 4. profit!!! (no, really)

Re:recipe for success?

[delt0r]

At least I'm not the only thinking this.

So why do Corporations get so many protections, not just in the US, but the world over?

Re:recipe for success?

[TheLink]

Actually I don't think it's a problem if you have laws that make sure the people at the top go to jail if they do something really wrong AND those laws are enforced.

The typical sociopaths at the top usually won't want to go to jail.

Now the problem is when you have a situation where responsibility is "outsourced" and spread over many allegedly distinct entities/organisations.

Say A promised to people that they will do X, and then outsources it to B who promises to do Y=X*0.95, who outsources it to C who promises to do Z=Y*0.95 and so on.

When the people get shafted, A can say we were just cutting costs a bit, and point a finger to B and so on.

There are other sort of "pathological" scenarios similar or otherwise - e.g. bosses intentionally not wanting to be aware of bad stuff going on.

Then it gets hard to legally pin any particular person down for a crime.

While the recent "stolen houses" in Canada thing isn't a great example because the people doing the fraud are the crooks - the banks are arguably doing something wrong even though apparently _legal_ as of now.

Re:recipe for success?

[sploxx]

I like your post, especially for the (intended?) irony that you write down the company's rights from a

first person perspective :-)

Misleading Article

[WebHostingGuy]

This entire article is misleading. The article is trying to make out the RIAA for being bad for having their expert witness examine the evidence and not allowing anyone else to do this. This is BS.

The way expert witnesses work is that each side always gets to have their own expert witness examine the facts of the case. One expert witness for the plaintiff and another for the defendant. And not surprisingly, the plaintiff pays for and chooses their expert witness while the defendant does the same. Then in court each expert witness presents their findings.

You don't have a situation where the RIAA pays for and has to use only the defendant's choosing in an expert witness. That's because the defendant could just pick an expert which will say what the defendant wants.

All rules of evidence allow an expert witness of the own parties choosing. If there is confidential information then what the Judge will do is just issue a protective order noting that information cannot be used in the suit or released.

Re:Misleading Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh, what good is that?

A: I claim this.
B: I claim that.
Judge: Uh-uh, I can't decide. Let's call.. expert witnesses!
Expert A: This is right.
Expert B: That is right.

Now there are 2 against 2 and still no majority. There should always be 1 expert witness and he should be impartial. Anything else sounds like a bad joke only fools would come up with.

Re:Misleading Article

[Kjella]

There should always be 1 expert witness and he should be impartial. Anything else sounds like a bad joke only fools would come up with.

The point of expert witnesses isn't to replace the judge, it's to present both sides of the case to the judge. You might as well say we shouldn't have prosecutors and defence lawyers, and simply replace them with one impartial arbitrator who'll present the evidence.

Re:Misleading Article

[belmolis]

First, one of the two things that the defendant is asking for is a protocol specifying exactly what material on her hard drive the plaintiff will be allowed to look at. She is not simply asking for her own expert.

Second, it is not true that expert witnesses are always chosen by the parties. Precisely because of the problem of partisanship of expert witnesses and, as in this case, the possible invasiveness of the investigation, courts have the authority to appoint their own, neutral experts. They probably do not excercise this authority as often as they should, but from time to time they do. That is what the defendant is asking the court to do. It is a reasonable request and well within the authority of the court.

Re:Misleading Article

[delinear]

I think you're maybe missing the point here. The defendant is asking the court to appoint an independent witness, rather than RIAA using an in-house expert. This is not, as you claim, the same as RIAA paying for an expert of the defendant's choosing. It is to be expected that the court would appoint a neutral expert who has no bias in favour of the defendant, but at the same time does not have ties and bias in favour of the plaintiff. In no way does it imply that the defendant gets to choose an expert who will say what they want (this is pure FUD on your part), and if the court appointed an independent witness and the defendant objected on the basis that she didn't get to choose the expert, this would no doubt play against her in the judge's decision.

Under normal circumstances, asking the court to appoint an expert might be viewed as an unreasonable request. However, considering the plaintiff's past actions I certainly can't blame the defendant for taking this stance. It would certainly be in the RIAA's interests to leak confidential information from the defendant's pc which backed up their case or showed her in a bad light. If they get a financial slap on the wrists for doing so, they'd probably consider it a fair trade. At the least the defendant would feel their privacy was violated. At the worst, their information could be used for all kinds of nefarious purposes. You would hope the RIAA would be above such practices, but in light of their actions so far I find it increasingly difficult to trust them to do the right thing.

Confidential information, of course, is entirely subjective. I'm sure plaintiff, defendant and judge would all have different ideas about what was considered confidential information, which is another reason the defendant is asking for an independent witness and rules drawn up as to what data is released. After all, if the RIAA are merely looking for evidence of file copying/sharing, that should be pretty easily defined. It wouldn't include private documents, images, etc. An mp3 would be pretty easy to spot and then the defendant would have a chance to explain its existence on their system.

One final thing - you seem to be assuming the defendant has something to hide in asking for an independent witness. What you should be asking is what the RIAA has to gain by avoiding an independent witness. To me, it seems the word independent is the key here.

Re:Misleading Article

[asuffield]

All rules of evidence allow an expert witness of the own parties choosing.

And allow the parties to object to each other's choices in a whole variety of circumstances, including but not limited to compromising bias on the part of the witness (such that allowing that particular choice could prejudice the trial, in which case the judge will tell the party to pick a different witness). This appears to be what the defendant is asking for here.

You can choose your own expert witnesses, but you can't just choose anybody. There are restrictions, and in an adversarial court system (such as the US one) it is the opposing party's job to ensure that the rules are followed correctly.

Doesn't seem particularly newsworthy though, just standard legal bullshit.

Re:Misleading Article

[WebHostingGuy]

>>It is to be expected that the court would appoint a neutral expert who has no bias in favour of the defendant

That is not the way the courts are setup though. If you believe a person has bias then in cross-examination you bring out that bias to the court. It is then up to the trier of fact (whether that is a jury or judge) to either believe or dis-believe the expert testimony.

>>One final thing - you seem to be assuming the defendant has something to hide in asking for an independent witness.

No, nothing implied other than the defendant wants more expert testimony.

>>What you should be asking is what the RIAA has to gain by avoiding an independent witness.

Well, if I were representing the RIAA I would argue that it would increase costs (wanna bet the next motion would be to split the expert's cost if defendant wins) and time.

I don't think The RIAA is avoiding anything by not letting defendant try to get more expert testimony. Realize, if the defendant wants independant testimony so bad they can simply call an independant expert anytime they wish.

Re:Misleading Article

[WebHostingGuy]

Yeah, but if they are trying to bump the RIAA expert on bias it is the wrong way to go about it.

The way you handle a situation where the opposing expert is blantly biased is that you let them testify and then cross-examine them on their bias showing how un-objective they are. You then bring up a objective expert (yours) and show that they have zero bias. The effect is that all the testimony presented by the bias expert will be discounted and you are left with your unbiased expert.

You don't bump the biased expert because that just lets the opposing side bring in a stronger expert. Maybe that's why the defendant wants a judge to appoint someone, but there is no way that the RIAA will not be allowed to bring in their own expert. Failure to let them do that is reversible error (grounds for appeal).

Re:Misleading Article

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I think it's a little odd that they are fighting so hard to make sure it's an expert they've paid, as opposed to an independent expert whose qualifications are beyond doubt (as Ms. Arellanes's proposed order would ensure). I personally can think of only 2 reasons: (1) they're afraid of what an independent expert might say, and/or (2) they want to force the defendant to incur the expense of hiring her own expert at $200 per hour.

Most lawyers give tacit approval to RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason why it goes on and on is because lawyers do not consider the RIAA as rogues like the rest of the world does.

If the RIAA were a rogue legal outfit in the way that SCO is a rogue computing outfit, then they'd get criticized, disowned and marginalized by their own legal community.

That's not happening though --- lawyers throughout the US (and beyond) are almost 100% quiet about the antics of these "brothers" of theirs. That's tacit approval.

is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[beaverfever]

"Citing the RIAA's numerous missteps in its ill-conceived crusade against music fans..."

Setting aside my personal opinions about the RIAA's actions (and yours), I find this one line to show an incredible amount of bias. But wait; there's more!

"That case aside, the RIAA's history doesn't inspire much confidence in its ability to objectively examine what could be a piece of crucial evidence."

"Neither plaintiffs or defendants are objective parties in a legal dispute." ...and apparently not Ars News item either.

"When one of the parties has a history of bullying witnesses into perjury and is seemingly incapable of admitting they were wrong and clearing the names of those they wrongfully accused, it becomes even more crucial." Wow, that is an incredible accusation; bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves? Were they bullied into lying in the RIAA's favour or in their own favour? If they lied in their own favour, why would the RIAA bully them into doing this? If they lied to protect themselves, then why was telling the truth a less attractive option?

Much more insight from Ars into this accusation would be very interesting.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[kindbud]

If they lied to protect themselves, then why was telling the truth a less attractive option?

You're not really this naive, troll. Under threat of lawsuit, the RIAA got people who would otherwise have plead innocent, to sign a statement vowing not to do something again they didn't believe they had done once. It's called a settlement. You can sign the paper and get off with $2000 or more out of pocket in damages, or you can contest it and be out many thousands more in attorney fees.

So many people have perjured themselves, admitting on a legal document to deeds they believe they never committed, in order to avoid a RIAA lawsuit.

Eat it, troll.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, bullying via "pay up before court or pay 50x more in court" seems to be acceptable definition.
Perjury: that girl stated the RIAA lawyer asked her to tell lies in court against the defendent.
The last case of a dead person being taken to court had them saying "well, as an act of compassion". No admission of the idea being wrong. And the woman who didn't *have* a computer: "we have reconsidered" not "we were wrong". Both seem to be examples of denial of inaccuracy from the RIAA.
Also, plea bargaining is being coerced into admitting guilt in order to avoid a worse charge being laid at your feet, so your incredulity deems inappropriate here.

Overall, no real content to your rant here.

D-

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[beaverfever]

What you have said is not what the Ars reporter said, and that is the part of the point of my original post. I am not debating the rights and wrongs of the RIAA's action, but the way which Ars is reporting the story. Perjury is a very serious offense, and so a statement that anybody is bullying anybody else into perjury is a very serious statement. Not providing evidence or background, or playing with words to imply different meanings, is irresponsible and demonstrates shoddy work and on the part of Ars.

The other part of the point of my post was not who is right or wrong in RIAA lawsuits, but the obvious journalistic bias on the part of Ars.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[RpiMatty]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051230-5871 .html

Did you notice the green words "bullying witnesses into perjury" it was a link to the relevant article.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[beaverfever]

"Did you notice the green words "bullying witnesses into perjury" it was a link to the relevant article."

I saw the green words. Did you read the article?

The article is a story outlining the accusations of one side of a legal dispute. This suit has not been ruled on, but Ars is reporting it as undeniable fact. Until ruled on, the accusations of the Nelsons bear as much weight as the accusations of the RIAA - they are reporting one side as being absolute truth and the other as absolute evil.

My point is that Ars is practicing shoddy, biased journalism. I am not debating the merits of the RIAA's actions.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

The reference to bullying witnesses into perjury has to do with the RIAA's lawyers' conduct in Motown v. Nelson, a Michigan case in which a 15 year old witness testified to conduct by the RIAA's lawyers which might be construed that way. See also my blog post from last year on that subject.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Actually I'm pretty sure that the RIAA never disputed what the 15-year old said about the lawyer's conduct. My recollection is that they quickly and quietly settled the case with a confidentiality stipulation, so that we'll never know what happened.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[beaverfever]

"The reference to bullying witnesses into perjury has to do with the RIAA's lawyers' conduct in Motown v. Nelson, a Michigan case in which a 15 year old witness testified to conduct by the RIAA's lawyers which might be construed that way"

I'm familiar with the accusation, but my point is that it is only an accusation, and Ars is not presenting both sides of the story.

An accusation is not undeniable proof - it is one side of the story. Ars presents this accusation as the final word of truth in the matter. There is more to a court case than one piece of evidence, and heralding only the evidence or arguments seen as favourable to one's own interests is bias and favouritism. There is another accusation from the other side of the courtroom, one of criminal conspiracy, which is not being presented at all. It seems there has been no final ruling on this matter, and good journalism would point that out and present both sides of the story, which Ars is not doing.

Once again (as I have reminded several responders), I am not raising the issue of who is right or wrong in the ongoing RIAA lawsuits, but rather how it is being presented as news. Reporters and publishers have a code of ethics to live up to, but not all who present news seem to make an effort to abide by those ethics.

Several people have posted responses to my original comment, but they all discuss the behaviour of the RIAA, not the bias of Ars' journalism. This bias is so blatant and over-the-top that I don't think anyone could possibly deny that Ars is guilty of this.

Re:is Ars exempt from journalism ethics?

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Your are correct that it was only 'one side of the story'. However, it wasn't the defendant's side. It was the testimony of a 15-year-old witness, who testified under oath that she had previously 'misspoken' under oath at the behest of the RIAA's lawyer.

I don't trust my memory anymore, but my recollection is that the RIAA never disputed what she said, and that a quiet, confidential settlement was abruptly entered into. If I can find out that they did rebut it, I'll try to get the document posted, but I'm pretty sure this was something that actually did happen.

If a lawyer who is accused of suborning perjury goes for a quick settlement with a gag order, rather than demanding that his good name be cleared, I would tend to think it really did happen....but I have no personal knowledge one way or the other.

I CAN tell you that this guy is the very same lawyer who made the motion in Warner v. Scantlebury to stay the case against the dead defendant for 60 days, to give his family enough time to 'grieve', and then pick up taking depositions of the decedent's children.

Actually NOT quite correct...

[Svartalf]

The paper asks for a third neutral party (i.e. Someone the court picks that has NOTHING to do with either party) to do the search.

In a civil case, that's NOT an unreasonable request- and since the Plaintiff is the one ASKING for the discovery, they have to
pay for the third party's time; but they don't get to just use their experts unless the Defendant says, "Yes" to that piece of
discovery.

Re:Actually NOT quite correct...

[WebHostingGuy]

Nope. If the defendant wants a neutral expert witness then all they have to do is pick one (or have one picked for them by anyone in the industry) and then present that witness as their expert in court. You can have as many experts as you want examine the evidence outside of court (you just have to pay for them), but you only get to present one expert testimony in court. There is no need for another *neutral* expert witness when they can just do this in the first place.

We use to care.

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was a kid (back in the 60s), my elders would NEVER have allowed any of the actions that we have allowed (in fact, they were the ones that took back freedom for much of Europe). As much as I know that GWB is stealing our rights, it did not really start with him. This has been a slow slide for the last 20 years. And it is not just the presidents who is responsible for this. Every congressman that voted for the PATRIOT act or the DMCA is responsible. While democrats pushed this reprehensible theft of our rights to ideas/property (DMCA), the republicans pushed the PATRIOT act(which says that any information found from spying is to go to DOJ/admin). This is a a 2 fork attack on all of our liberties. 40 years ago, we had such presidents as Eisenhower and Kennedy who had fought in wars and understood the sacrifices that were made and what was gained. Now, we have Clintons (draft dodger; actually started the NSA spying), GWBs(also a draft dodger who evaded war and the label; Sibel Edmunds; Patriot Act; etc.), ted Stevens, orrin hatch, etc who have no problem with stealing rights from us. This is something that every citizen NEEDS to fight against. All congressman's voting record WRT rights should be closely examined. See which ones supported DMCA and PATRIOT act. Perhaps the EFF will start publishing these. After all, the biggest sets of rights being stolen affect the internet heavily. BTW, democrats; if you really feel that this is just a republican attack; consider that if more rights are stolen, then your guns to own gun will become very important. As was said before "a gov. should fear its citizens, not the citizens fear its gov."

Body Cavity Search is not Required in all Cases.

[twitter]

All rules of evidence allow an expert witness of the own parties choosing. If there is confidential information then what the Judge will do is just issue a protective order noting that information cannot be used in the suit or released.

That's why in everyone's favorite civil case the litigants get to pay "experts" of their choosing to trash each other's houses, right? I mean, everyone knows that it is absolutely vital in a divorce to get to the bottom of everything so that search warrents are issued for both residences. Who knows, diamond rings could be hidden in the mayo so you gotta dump it out on the floor. The expert had better dig through all their papers too, so they can find those letters where the low life confesses to treating em wrong. Pharmacy records can really be incriminating, better issue warrents to their doctors. To be effective, these searches have to come at a surprising time, like three in the morning and include full strip searches and tissue samples.

What, that does not happen? It's amazing how innocent parties in civil disputes are treated with respect in most cases isn't it? We have yet to descend to the level of big company love where we are all treated like criminals and subjected to humiliating searches for potential publishing violations. The RIAA has proven itself untrustworthy and right thinking judges are going to proceed with that in their minds.

Perhaps legislators who want to keep their jobs will look into copyright again and decide how it would be best to encourage the useful arts. 100 year copyrights have suppressed older content more than it has encouraged it's publication depriving us all of our parent's culture not to mention our own. The current set up of government franchises on radio space and anti-circumvention laws seem to have produced two large music publishing companies that are more interested in harassing the public than finding and promoting talented musicians. At some legislators might realize that there's more money to be taxed if there are more players providing more people with more of what they want. The big publishers are being circumvented but they still have a lock on 100 years of the past, which is all recorded media.

Re:Body Cavity Search is not Required in all Cases

[jb.hl.com]

100 year copyrights have suppressed older content more than it has encouraged it's publication depriving us all of our parent's culture not to mention our own.

I actually agree with you on this, copyright terms are extortionate. We need a life plus nothing term for all copyright. After all, an author can only benefit from the fruits of his labour while he's actually alive.

The current set up of government franchises on radio space and anti-circumvention laws seem to have produced two large music publishing companies that are more interested in harassing the public than finding and promoting talented musicians.

Now this is the twitter we all know and love.

1) Please explain how licensing the radio spectrum, for which there are many valid reasons (mainly circulating over issues like interference) has allowed the RIAA to build itself up. I'd love to know.
2) The DMCA has nothing to do with P2P lawsuits.
3) They don't harass the public, they sue people who they have reasonable suspicion to believe are pirating their constituent artists and record companies' music. Now, you can attack the methodology (I can and will; with the prevalence of dynamic IP addresses, suing people based on their IP is silly and misguided. They'd be better off going after people on Internet forums who brag about P2Ping shit.) but they have every right to defend their copyright in a civil court using the protections given to them by the US Constitution.

By the way, twitter, I do have a reasonable amount of respect for you for not going on about the evil RIAA etc and then downloading their music off P2P. Your previous comments indicate you get Creative Commons music instead of RIAA music, which as a position of protest I respect.

Well Earned Criticism.

[twitter]

bullying witnesses into perjury! How many times has this happened? What did they say to perjure themselves?

It only has to happen once to put the stink on your organization. If you follow the links you find RIAA representatives threatening a teen to make her lie in court. If you follow the other link where the RIAA tried to bully their media partners into ignoring due process, you find another outrageous violation. When you look at the big picture you see an organization that has bought a lot of crappy laws and then abused them beyond their limits so that they can threaten a lot of innocent people with ruin. The whole thing reeks of abuse.

The US Constitution established copyright to promote the usefull arts. What the RIAA is doing has little to do with that.

Re:Well Earned Criticism.

[beaverfever]

My original post is not about what the RIAA has or hasn't done, but about how Ars is reporting the facts. Their skew and bias is incredible.

Besides that, the perjury accusation is a serious one, and has not been ruled on. It is an accusation from one side of a legal case, and that is all. The accusations of one side cannot be taken as gospel while the other side is rejected out of hand.

Re:Well Earned Criticism.

[Anonymous Coward]

But they have perjured. you maintain that saying that is biased, but how can the reality be biased?

Re:Well Earned Criticism.

[beaverfever]

There is no "proof" of perjury through bullying", only a claim of such acts, and the court has not ruled on the accusation. The accusations of one side of a lawsuit do not constitute proven fact or "reality", despite Ars reporting it as such. One side claims perjury, the other claims criminal conspiracy, but there is no reporting of that side of the argument here, is there? I still claim overwhelming bias by Ars.

Re:Well Earned Criticism.

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA haven't refuted, and then brought up other charges.

I like to call it the "yeah, but you're smelly" defense, in honour of the many times this has been used in sibling arguments.

You misquote Ben Franklin

[emarkp]

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

As another poster said, the people in the federal government have preferred power to liberty--but limiting it to the current people in charge is silly. It's been going on for at lesat 100 years. Hell, go back to Abraham Lincoln and suspension of Habeus Corpus.

Re:You misquote Ben Franklin

[ravenshrike]

Shhh, you'll disturb their carefully crafted illusions.

Re:You misquote Ben Franklin

[jamstar7]

Good point. The Civil War was when State's Rights started taking it in the ass. Before, a state could legally seceed and go its own way. Mr Lincoln made sure this would never happen.

Re:Body Cavity Search is not Required in all Cases

[quintesse]

"We need a life plus nothing term for all copyright" Why life? The US founding fathers obviously thought that was a ridiculously long time. That way if you struck the proverbial gold-mine you could live off it the rest of your life and I have the feeling that somehow didn't fit well with the values that the US was founded on. Copyright was set just so that you had some time to make money but not too much that you didn't have any incentive anymore to create more work.

RIAA paying when they drop or lose a case

[falconwolf]

It seems that every other week I am reading about another flaw in the RIAA's legal cases. Now it seems that anybody who wants to fight and starts getting close to winning has the RIAA cancel the case. Will there come a time when enough people (or their lawyers) get educated as to the ways to win/stop the cases that the RIAA will start using different means of oppression? Am I right in thinking that in the US, the RIAA does not have to pay the court costs for the loser if they withdraw the charges?

In general the defendant has to pay their lawyer fees though sometimes the EFF, ACLU, or another group will have a lawyer represent the defendant. I think I heard once where an industry group was made to pay an legal costs when they lost a case but I'm not sure. What I'd suggest is when one of these groups looses either they are made to pay immediately or a counter lawsuit is slapped on them to recover the costs. Maybe a law can be enacted that requires the looser to pay all costs. But where will the line be placed? For instance almost ten years ago I was hit by a moving van while riding my bike and while I was in a coma my family hired an attourney. While he worked on a contingency basis, ie he received 1/3 of whatever he won, what if he had lost and my family had to pay not just his bill but the defendants as well, along with my medical expenses which were more than $100,000? My family wouldn't of been able to risk the chance of suing, loosing, and ending up with a hugh bill they'd never be able to pay. Luckily, or not, the insurnace company who insured the company the guy who hit me worked for decided to settle before the case went to trial. But I can see where requiring the loser to pay all legal costs would prevent someone who is injured, whether medically and physically or financially, from filing a lawsuit against those who caused the harm.

Falcon

Re:RIAA paying when they drop or lose a case

[macdaddy]

Well, I suppose this is what bankruptcy is for. You could also say that this is also what the appeals process is for. If you're right and don't get the desired outcome the first time, appeal.

fair use

[falconwolf]

any copy should be presumed to be permitted under the doctrine of "fair use" unless it can be proved otherwise. And the scope of fair use in the USA is quite broad.

Unfortunately fair use no longer exists in the US. It was tossed out when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DMCA, was enacted. Many politicans are getting decidely friendly with mass media and an enemy to consumers.

Falcon

barbary pirates

[falconwolf]

First Thomas Jefferson then about a hundred years later Teddy Roosevelt showed the Barbary Pirates a thing or two.

Falcon

supporting democracy

[falconwolf]

hear hear. The US has been spreading democracy since WWII (before, too, just not as well marketed). We've had some great successes! I mean, just think of the democratic governments we've replaced with dictators in such culturally diverse locations as the Philippines, Nicaragua, San Salvador...

You left out Chile, where under Gen Pinochet thousands were killed and tens of thousands simply "disappeared". And East Timor where after Indonesia invaded with the support of the US 200,000 were murdered. That was 1/3 of East Timor's population. Then again now Australia is stealing the oil resources in the Timor Gap in Timorese waters. That's billions of dollars the Timorese can use to rebuild their country after it was ransacked.

Falcon

Re:supporting democracy

[griffjon]

Oh yeah? yeah? well, you forgot Poland!!!

(I know, I'm sure there are many more still left out of this list.)

what they actually have to prove

[MO!]

Simply having 30GB of mp3 files and a P2P application installed is not enough to prove you violated "their" copyrights - although I assume they would argue it is.

If you have hundreds of CDs that you've ripped for personal listening on your computer, that's perfectly legal (fair use on alternate device). Using a P2P application to download files is not a violation either, it's the uploading of "their" copyrighted material that's the issue. So, if one has 30GB of mp3 files, a P2P application that finds all those files and auto-adds them to a "shared" bucket still would not be a problem - if you have a firewall that blocks those uploads. In that case, handing them your hard drive does nothing to prove guilt nor innocence. The firewall configuration showing you block P2P uploads is what will prove you're not violating any copyrights.

Granted, they identify people to sue based not on how many files are downloaded, but how many are offered for uploading. Even there, however, the few cases I've read through indicate they just look for large amounts of music showing as shared. In the example above, that would be misleading, because even if it appears like someone's sharing thousands of songs, doesn't mean you can actually download any of them from them. I'm not sure if the RIAA actually shows evidence that XYZ song was successfully downloaded from that shared library when they file these claims.

The word "their" is quoted because the RIAA doesn't actually own any of the rights they sue for, they represent others whom have had rights, typically for a temporary period, granted exclusively to them.

Loser pays rule has problems

[Cracked Pottery]

The main problems with strict loser pays is that many cases involve parties with huge financial asymmetries. Also cases often involve both merits and flaws in the arguments on both sides and are desided by a rule of preponderance of evidence. If the deep pocketed side is permitted any strategy that it can afford to grind the poorer adversary, and wins by exhaustion or default, the winner might be entitled to recover enormous fees beyond anything the loser could have afforded. This might eventually lead to the perverse doctrine that one must prove they are potentially capable of paying the winning sides fees before they can even proceed with litigation. It could also bring about a system for regulating legal fees and limiting stategems that might be considered frivolous or abusive.

Re:Loser pays rule has problems

[ajs318]

All the problems you describe still exist with a system where each side pays their own costs. {Of course, if each side claims their own costs from the other as part of the settlement, then you pretty much turn it into loser-pays anyway.} The richer party can grind the poorer party down just as effectively, just by delaying the proceedings and running up the other side's costs. That's where the other point comes in: no money changes hands till the final verdict -- after any appeal -- is delivered. This gives both sides the incentive against time-wasting {since you delay your own pay-day just as much as the other side's}.

A requirement to prove a party's means before the start of proceedings could be met by plaintiffs taking out insurance against losing the case. Insurers obviously will not back cases without some merit.

Any way of doing things seems to have disadvantages. It's precisely because no two cases are alike that some cases will break any negative feedback loop you try to set up. There needs to be some sort of mechanism for regulation, otherwise justice becomes reduced to a mere matter of pounds, shillings and pence. The courts exist to serve rich and poor alike, and must be seen to do so.

Re:Loser pays rule has problems

[Cracked Pottery]

The idea of insurance isn't a bad one, but the expert customized analysis that would be required to create a fair premium might make for a very expensive policy. On the other hand, I agree with the idea of some kind of regulation. I find abuse offensive, whether it's somebody trying to score from an accident using a false injury, or abuse of the patent system where big money buys a box seat in the courtroom and blinders for the referees.

This is why god invented wireless access points

[crossmr]

1)Set up an unsecure wireless access point
2)Isolate that access point so that it can't access the network or internet
3)Write script to quickly give the access point access to the entire network and internet
4)Wait for the letter
5)run the script
6)destroy the script
7)ask them to prove it wasn't someone who was using your access point

alternative:
1)move to another country

Wrong PDF file; here are the correct links

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

As some readers have pointed out, the PDF file cited is the wrong one. It was one of the papers in the Motown v. Nelson case, in Michigan, where a 15 year old witness testified to the RIAA lawyer's attempting to get her to say things that weren't so. The SONY v. Arellanes documents are here and the documents served by Ms. Arellanes objecting to the RIAA's insistence on their own expert are here, here, and here.

Re:Steve Irwins death a tradegy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously his friends and family weren't too fond of him, or they would have stopped him endangering himself.
Yeah. Just like soldiers' families.

Unfortunately not

[Sycraft-fu]

And it's not even a matter of their legal bills being run up (you'd only have to pay those if they won and maybe not even then) it's yours. Lawyers don't work cheap. So unless you get lucky and find one who will do your case pro bono, you can be talking thousands to tens of thousands in legal bills for a lengthy court proceeding.

It's one of a number of major problems with our civil law system. That's why the RIAA does what it does. They know that most people, faced with the choice of paying a few thousand up front and having the whole thing go away, or paying thousands more in legal fees and potentially millions in fine, will simply opt to pay the up front extortion. They wouldn't be doing this if they actually thought they'd have to fight.

Re:Body Cavity Search is not Required in all Cases

[Shajenko42]

I actually agree with you on this, copyright terms are extortionate. We need a life plus nothing term for all copyright. After all, an author can only benefit from the fruits of his labour while he's actually alive.

Am I the only one that thinks this would encourage people to whack competing artists?

It's called the...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called the Corporate Feudal State. Big Entertainment has a fat wallet that gets lawyers and congressmen all turgid and throbbing.

stupid americans

[ralph1]

private corp police you allow anything.

The honeymoon is over when he phones to say...

[thunderland]

The honeymoon is over when he phones to say he'll be late for supper

it is illegal

[MushMouth]

It's called "barratry" and is a misdemeanor in California.

Re:Body Cavity Search is not Required in all Cases

[jb.hl.com]

Kindly read up on Notorious BIG and 2Pac and tell me it doesn't happen already ;)

appeling and bankruptcy

[falconwolf]

Well, I suppose this is what bankruptcy is for. You could also say that this is also what the appeals process is for. If you're right and don't get the desired outcome the first time, appeal.

One, even when you declare bankruptcy you are still liable for medical expenses. Bush specifically pressed for this and it was included in the new bankruptcy law he signed a few years back. As for appeals, only the defendant can file an appeal, plaintifs and prosecutors can't. If they could it would be double jepardy. Now if it's the defendant who looses then yes they can appeal but that only makes it more expensive with no guarantee it will be overruled.

Falcon

Oh yeah? yeah? well, you forgot Poland!!!

[falconwolf]

Are you talking about the Warsaw Uprising? President Roosevelt did try to get Stalin to support the underground in Warsaw but Stalin wouldn't have any part in supporting any group in Poland fighting the NAZIs. More than likely he felt, probably correctly, that any group fighting the NAZIs will in turn fight the Russians as well. So he let them wear each other out.

Falcon