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RIAA Vs. Web 2.0? Social Media and Litigation
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "After learning that Professor Nesson's CyberLaw class at Harvard Law School has set up a Facebook page to assist in its defense of Joel Tenenbaum in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, Wendy Davis of the Online Daily Examiner opines that 'Web 2.0,' and more particularly, the 'social media,' are playing an increasingly important role in RIAA litigation. We at Slashdot have already learned that principle, and have made good use of it, as have our friends at Groklaw."
A couple weeks ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john, Barack Obama -- the messiah himself -- came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was busy and in any case I was sure the secret service wouldn't even let me shake his hand.
As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as his cock -- or at least as I imagined it!
I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd always been a liberal democrat and had been on the Obama train since last year. Of course I'd had fantasies of meeting him, sucking his cock and balls, not to mention sucking his asshole clean, but I never imagined I would have the chance. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of Barack Obama, the chosen one.
Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract?
I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled.
I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big half nigger cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was that Barack Obama wasn't there to see my loyalty and wash it down with his piss.
I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit. It's even better than listening to an Obama speech!
Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.
I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six orgasms in the process.
I often think of Barack Obama dropping solid gold out of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could, and at least once did, bring to a grateful democrat.
I'm troubled! On one had we have an article by NewYorkCountryLawyer our layer superhero. On the other hand "Web 2.0" is used as if it meant something!
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals.
...in another case that interests me a great deal, that of a blogger in the UK who received a rather heavy-handed "cease and desist" notice last July from a pair of American religious fanatics. For a few short days, this pair (who happen to be lawyers) attempted to "cease and desist" anyone who mentioned the initial notice or reposted the material they objected to. It soon became a game of legal whack-a-mole, and they apparently realized that desistance was futile. This hasn't stopped them from undertaking all kinds of other actions of questionable legality in the UK and in the US as well.
A Facebook group was formed, and interested people are able to keep in touch with what is going on. It enables group members to post to their own blogs, to sign petitions or send correspondence, and generally to assist in whatever ways they can to provide support to and to secure justice for the victims.
I had absolutely no need for, or interest in, Facebook until all this came about. Now I realize just how useful it can be for circumstances such as these.
NYCL, I hope you will continue to vex the RIAA. They deserve it.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
You're giving up much to the enemy when they can read your ideas. Those ideas had better be useful, or this won't be worth the damage.
Far better than I expected for an RIAA expert.
If you know anything about networking, network security and P2P, this deposition is hilarious. It's like a Monty Python skit. If you don't you can probably skip it.
Thanks to NYCL for a good read.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I'm speechless... the RIAA has the audacity to accuse a defense lawyer of inappropriate harassment because he brought legal precedents to the attention of his peers? They should be reprimanded for making such an outrageous request. I despise the term "Web 2.0", but blogs and social networking site provide a way for out-funded groups to organize and spread information. You won't beat the RIAA through traditional media and lobbying if you can't outspend them.
PS I admit I had to look up vexatious (intended to harass).
Maybe I'm missing something here, but why can the RIAA and MPAA sue individuals for file sharing? Can't they just back the movie and music studios and labels out there? Whats wrong with making money from box office movies? It's not like i can download a Theater or a Concert! Those things are awesome, and they are irreplacable and not cheaply duplicatable! But come on now, putting things in a data format and giving them out to everyone and telling them not to copy it, what did they expect? Are they just angry because their business model is no longer viable? It's free enterprise, plain and simple. If someone can do the same for cheaper... What if Target went to court and said "City of Los Angeles, please give us the video records of customers going to Wal-Mart. We would like to sue individuals for shopping there since we can't stop Wal-Mart from being so cost-effective, and we're holding the DMV an DOT liable as conspirators unless you comply." Have we completely gone insane? Why do we tolerate this?
This is an interesting sorta question in a way. Where as I see absolutely nothing about what's called "web2.0" to be ANYTHING special or unique, I find it rather puzzling and somewhat funny that so many seemingly smart people fall for this lie so easily. Many people refer to web2.0 as a new higher level of interactivity that users can achieve with a website. Personally, I see nothing that indicates any higher level of interactivity than that which existed before the web2.0 term came into existence. It is in the same league as "blogging". The plain truth is...a blog is a blog because it's labeled a blog and for no other reason. Web2.0 carries the same degree of non-sense. Now, I know many slashdot readers enjoy their blogs and fantasies found in the so-called web2.0 world so I do try not to affend (I am sorry if I do). It's just that I find all these things to be nothing more than rhetorical rubbish created to make people look as if they live on the cutting edge when the truth is likely that they live on the resulting creations of other people that actually do. That being said...I have no use for things like myspace or facebook. I am certainly no fan of the AA's. I see what they force people through. I would rather they not even exist at this point. My point (I guess) is that the only real connection that these two (RIAA and web2.0) pieces of our world have between them seem more coincidental than anything else.
NIGGER ASSOCIATION Users With Large Their hand...she
An element of painful truth is what makes us laugh. The RIAA story has it.
So he may not be much of a technology expert, but he's a good strong arm man.
I think he is expert. His skills might not be current, but some of his answers seem to rely on an expected lack of knowledge from you. They misdirect in various ways. He was hard put by depth of knowledge of your questioning, and that's why later questions were more forthcoming. At some point he plumbed the depth of your understanding and so at the end he mostly had his feet. under him again - IPV6 was a red herring to tell you he knew you were out of your depth at that point - but it was too late by then to take back the most damaging admissions, though he did try and muddy the water a little.
Don't underestimate him. He really is a smart guy and understands how little the best judge and juror understand about this stuff. I don't doubt they select venue and jurors for that lack of understanding if they can. He probably does have the skills to do this investigation as well as can be done with available technology, and knows how fallible his data is. Your questioning just revealed that he didn't take the trouble to do that, not that he can't. It wasn't necessary before to take the trouble. Now he knows it is, and so his customers will actually have to pay him more for the more thorough effort.
Whether the current tech makes the job possible in the narrow scope of this case is debatable, bordering on dubious, but that's not the point. The funny part is both that this quality of expert testimony is almost always good enough and that people faced with this quality of evidence most often settle, and that PHBs consider the products from this quality of engineer to be more than the snake oil they are.
Anyway, this wasn't his "A" game. If you see him again be ready for a better challenge.
I was surprised to see you not ask about clock calibration, time zones and such. I was expecting that. Maybe next time. When comparing logs from two systems an understanding of how the clocks relate to each other is important.
Completely unrelated: You are reading this from "behind a router". From your point of view all of the Internet is "behind" that router. The practical limit of how many devices can be behind that router is "all of them except your PC and the router itself". The theoretical limit is as many devices as could be constructed from the available mass. That's what he meant by "limited".
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The __PROBLEM__ with the US Civil System is there is really no downside to filing really dumb ie frivolous and vexatious motions since costs are each party or in cause so people like the RIAA file to play to the main stream media who, puppy like quote the motion but ignore its dismissal.
Since, except that it is filed in court, the actual allegation is defamatory (it is in fact privilidged by reason of its forum) and un-constitutional if it were dismissed with an order for costs in any event, this nonsense would come to an abrupt stop and US civil actions would take half as long. The same can be said about un-preparedness and endless continuances.
I'd call that the Beta era. It was out there, and "smarter than average" users were laying the groundwork.
Your choice of what the Alpha era was. (University nets?)
I believe I intuitively feel the change between 1.0 and 2.0. Web 1.0's frontline mascot was Pets.com and friends. "Let's nationally advertise a national website connected to a warehouse . Our business model consists of saving BrickStore rents."
The problem became that without local community integration the customer base was too volatile.
Web 2.0 improved by starting small and social. Anyone with some modest hardware outlay (say $5000) can put a few servers, a couple of T-1 lines and run some random social app. It can live in ZombieLand for years with essentially no penalty. A few perfect examples take off and graduate to the spotlight. Everything else blends into the cultural long tail. Sill neat, ... but it's time for Web 3.0. Unfortunately I'm not quite good enough to see how that will skahe loose. But my hunch it is will have something to do with loosening the Copyright cold war.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
For anyone interested, there is an interview with Charlie Nesson on The Legal Broadcast Network. http://thelegalbroadcastnetwork.squarespace.com/the-lbn-blog/2008/11/21/charlie-nesson-takes-on-the-riaa.html
I am told they might be providing footage of the arguments if allowed by the court.
I'm still not seeing it.
I don't see any difference between the web of 1998 versus the web of 2008. Same underlying protocols, same tendency for people to create personal websites or waste a lot of time in chats/forums, and the same favorite website (scifi.com). Things are faster (750k versus 50k) but otherwise my experience is the same for the so-called Web 1.0 versus 2.0
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I'm going to question the utility of that. A judge can learn. A juror can learn. You cannot drag up the average judge and jury and you should not hope for that. It's neither a judge nor juror's job to understand technology, nor should it be. It's the job of experts to make the utility of technology available to the common man, without the need to understand its underlying complexity. It's no more beneficial to the common person to teach him the principles of network architecture than to teach him to be a medical diagnostician or to teach him to be expert in the nuances of bankruptcy law. Noone can become expert in everything -- that's why we have experts. The job of the experts is to make the underlying complexity possible to use by designing a useful simplified interface to it. Because you bridge the gap because of your practice specialty makes you special squared and your job doubly hard. You've done well, but like me you're old and your ability to internalize new concepts is limited. It would be nice if you found a nice young tech/legal person to be your apprentice.
Getting pre-educated judges and juries is wishful thinking. I think the utility is in educating the good lawyers and hoping they don't turn to the dark side, which is bordering on fatal optimism, I know, but it's preferable to getting the knowledgable to earn law degrees and begin practice of law - that would be like pissing in the font of wisdom. You've made great strides in getting educated and I owe you a due debt both for your achievements and for much amusement in the process.
I respect and admire you. You have given me, and everybody, much benefit both in your successes and your failures. Yet I would caution you. I would prefer that you continue to be successful in your path, and so I would caution you to avoid an excess of zeal. Though your limited constituency here in geekland holds you up high, you have not and will not earn the respect of the common man. You must not let our enthusiasm lead you to believe you have the support of everyone everywhere. That road leads to Jack Thompson's fate. You can be more moderate and modest and careful in your public expressions, and in my estimate you must if you are to continue to do well. Let us who rant and rave anonymously, like me and twitter, beat your drum for you in the most extreme cases. You need not make your case more dramatic than it is -- you are the very voice of reason against the tyranny of monopoly and madness of submission to it.
And forgive me for advocating the end of copyright and patents. Although I know you don't support it, you must agree that it would end your struggle to defend people against the evil **AA monopolies. It would also put a lot of lawyers out of work. I like you, but most of us would consider that last a good thing. Yes, in the short term there would be social costs, and in the long term it would need to be reinstated again with careful limits. Still, I see no real cure but to kill the whole tree, root and branch - and start afresh with our current understanding of the risks.
Help stamp out iliturcy.