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Hollywood Nervous About Kagan's Fair Use Views
Of the many commentaries and analyses springing up about Obama's Supreme Court nominee, this community might be most interested in one from the Hollywood Reporter. Reader Hugh Pickens notes that Hollywood may have reason to be nervous about the nomination of Elena Kagan to be the next US Supreme Court justice. "As dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009, Kagan was instrumental in beefing up the school's Berkman Center for Internet & Society by recruiting Lawrence Lessig and others who take a strongly liberal position on fair use in copyright disputes. And Kagan got an opportunity to showcase her feelings on intellectual property when the US Supreme Court asked her, as US Solicitor General, to weigh in on the big Cablevision case. 'After Cablevision announced in 2006 that it would allow subscribers to store TV programs on the cable operator's computer servers instead of on a hard-top box, Hollywood studios went nuts, predicting that the days of licensing on-demand content would be over,' writes Gardner. Kagan's brief compared remote-storage DVRs to VCRs (PDF), brought up the Sony/Betamax case, and lightly slapped Cablevision on the wrist for not making fair use a bigger issue. 'It sounds to us like Kagan would love the Court to determine when customers have a fair-use right to copy, which should cheer those on the copy-left at the EFF, and worry many in the entertainment industry.' On the minus side, Kagan has surrounded herself with entertainment industry advocates in the Justice Department."
A story on the Supreme Court appointment that's actually News for Nerds rather than Republocrat propaganda!
Pirate Party UK
I hope they're nervous. They need a little "fear" to keep them honest (or at least as honest as they can be considering they are the some of the greediest bastards on earth).
Looks like both Dem's & Rep's aren't exactly thrilled with everything Elena Kagan stands for. It always sounds like a good choice when neither side is happy with the possibilities.
Her name is on the Bilski brief submitted by the Obama administration:
No extant field of technology or industry--including software and diagnostic methods, the two fields addressed by numerous amici--is wholly excluded from patent protection under that approach;
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
but hopefully we'll see more articles such as this one, cementing her position. The sad truth is that people can be bought for the right price. The MPAA/RIAA have too much power in Washington right now. Hopefully she can withstand the payola and push some of that power down the toilet.
technology changes law. technology does not fit into the confines as defined by law, law adjusts and accommodates to new technology
and when law pits itself against technology, law always loses. technological progress has destroyed and swept aside so many legal, social, and political structures in this world
why does anyone believe hollywood stands a chance? the internet has permanently changed media distribution, in favor of the consumer. all that media companies can do is adapt, or die. of course, in the adaptation period, plenty of absurd attempts at preserving the legal status quos of past dead technological eras will be attempted, but this is just denial
in the end, we, the consumer, win. because technology empowers us to route around the old status quo. and if the law is pitted against the technology, then it also empowers us above the law (in this one narrow issue)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Usually, if the movie industry opposes a view or a law, that's because it benefits their customers more than it benefits them :-)
Living With a Nerd
I'm failing to see where she would be influenced by 'payola'. It's true that politics play a role in getting onto the Supreme Court. Once on the Supreme Court the only way she can lose her job is if the House of Representatives impeaches her, the Senate tries her, and she is convicted by a super-majority vote. Her salary can never go down. She will not have to face election. She will be guaranteed employment for life.
The only way she could accept payola is if she took an outright bribe. That's not unheard of as Clarance Thomas accepted a $1 million advance on his biography one week before issuing his ruling in Eldred v Ashcroft. Nevertheless, accepting a bribe is one of very few things that could ruin a Supreme Court justice's career.
That's a pair of neat tricks called, "reporting" and"journalism."
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Hey, it's refreshing to hear of any public official actually being in favor of Fair Use.
I don't know how it'll play out, but considering the pro-corporate stance most have taken, I'm encouraged by the fact that she even knows Lawrence Lessig and has apparently some understanding of the issues involved.
Most of the Justices would just call up Jeff Bewkes and say "Whaddya think, Jeffie? You got it! Now can you get Seth Rogan to do standup at my nephew's birthday party"? (or, in Clarence Thomas' case, "Do you really know Jenna Jameson?")
You are welcome on my lawn.
Kagan: Hey, Barack. This software patent's issue is a real head scratcher. I can't find your stance on it. Can you remind me of it?
Obama: Elena, Elena, I'm busy. To be a patentable process, innovations should involve significant extra-solution activity i.e. activity central to the purpose of the claimed method. And don't forget that no patent can wholly pre-empt the use of a fundamental principle - and I don't just mean that a field-of-use restriction will suffice, I want to be sure that the algorithm can still be used for other purposes even in that same field.
Kagan: Thanks, I'll go fluff that out and add references. (done) Sorry to have bothered you, I simply don't have the power to come up with my own viewpoints, so I wanted to clarfy what yours are.
(...or just maybe it's not a purely clerical role and there's a bit of Kagan in the document she wrote and got approved by the president.)
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I actually thought this was pretty good as a slashdot article since, hey, current events, but with a decidedly "stuff people argue about here all day long" take on it.
A great HuffPo Piece by none other than Lawrence Lessig, Mr. Creative Commons himself.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
It is what it is. If extremists on either side don't like her, that's probably a good thing.
I think that she looks like a really good pick so far. For me, it's all about personal freedom, and her more self-directed work seems to be big on free speech (which appears to be somewhat of a specialty).
There are some amicus briefs that she's authored as an advocate for someone else, but it's really hard to hold that against a lawyer doing her job.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
I don't see what's "liberal" about fair use.
I think people should stop trying to shoe-horn every single issue into a liberal/conservative spectrum.
Not going to happen.
Kagen has spent a career making her position as ambiguous as possible. The Republicans are attacking the former Dean of Harvard law school on experience, not on substance, which should tell you something.
When this goes to the senate the confirmation is going to hinge on democrats deciding whether they trust Obama or whether they ought to make sure that Steven's replacement doesn't shift the balance of power.
The USA has no law on software patents. The relevant law was written before anyone was manufacturing computers: Legislation in the USA
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Bah, I couldn't find a better word for pressure, so I used payola. A bad word choice to be sure. You're absolutely right, hopefully a woman of her intelligence wouldn't accept something like that.
Holders of positions in the high courts are expected to set aside their personal views and opinions, and judge based on the law and the context in which the law was written.
She may have favored expanded fair use as the Dean of a school. But that does not mean that as a judge, she will be ruling in favor of expanded fair use more than she should, or in cases where a judge not in favor of expanded fair use would rule.
The job of a Judge is interpretation of the law, legislation and legislative context, and the constitution, based on legal principles, not based on personal views about what would be better for the public.
Some people need to realize it isn't just "the man" in hollywood. By ripping off shows and movies they are also hurting the folks who work with the CG departments, lighting and sound, construction etc. Many of these people make an average or slightly above average salary and when people don't pay for content these people suffer. With that being said, Hollywood needs to stop the blatant abuse of the copyright system. Fair use should be just that, FAIR. I should have the ability to use the content I paid for on any device and in any format I desire without jumping through the hoops of DRM. On top of that DRM servers are sure to go offline at some time due to age or greed which does nothing but force the consumer to re-buy what they already bought.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill
that is, the most addictive+inebriating: cocaine, heroin, meth, etc (marijuana should be legal)
its not a war, its a maintenance function of civilization, like taking out the trash every thursday
what you don't understand is that some drugs are far worse themselves to the destruction of freedom (addiction is bars in the mind) than any war on drugs and its effects on society. free and unfettered access to the most addictive/ inebriating drugs leads to a growing population of people whose lives have become zombified
so for the sake of saving lives from the hell of addiction, and preserving civilization from this infection, there will ALWAYS be a war on drugs, forever. the war on drugs is a permanent aspect of every civilization that ever existed and ever will
if it is not fought, you've created a zombie underclass of addicts and a financially fattened mafia. you need to continually drain these cesspools. every civilization that ever existed realizes this. acceptance of certain highly addictive+inebriating drugs merely means more addicts. surely you see this is far worse for the individual and society than the side effects of the war on drugs itself, right?
you don't actually believe addiction to cocaine/ meth/ heroin is harmless, or that without controls on these substances, that more lives won't be destroyed? the war on drugs has many negative effects on society. for something like marijuana, legalization is the solution. but for the most hardcore drugs, the drugs themselves are worse than the war on drugs. i hope you understand this
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You refer to the prophecy of The One who will bring balance to the Copyright. You believe it's this girl?
...Society by recruiting Lawrence Lessig and others who take a strongly liberal position on fair use in copyright disputes.
The Liberal position is, do what Hollywood says, because they donate a ton of money to political campaigns (as well as endorsing candidates).
The Libertarian position is, protect the individual.
Try not to confuse the two when you vote. There are liberals (and conservatives) who align with this Libertarian viewpoint, but if you make the mistake of voting only for liberals thinking they are going to always oppose the MPAA you will be very sad.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
PARMGPA? You obviously have no clue how to properly create an acronym for an act.
First, you gotta come up with what you want the acronym to be. For the act in question, PETLOVE would seem to be a good one.
Next, you gotta come up with words that reduce to that acronym.
Protecting
Everyones
Timely
Lust
Of
Vertebrate
(rear)Ends
Apologies to those with invertebrate pets, I didn't want to spend any more time on this.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
think about the changes the gun wreaked on the feudal system
think about the changes the printing press wreaked on traditional religious/ monarchical power structures
think about the changes the nuclear bomb wreaked on warfare and international relations
now think about the internet and its effects on copyright law
the technology came, and changed everything. time and time again
i'm not talking about civilian restrictions on dynamite or radar guns, these are tiny dots. i'm talking about the larger technological themes: the introduction of electronics, the introduction of sailing ships, the introduction of the cotton gin, etc. surely you can see how technology alter society and the law in ways no one can foresee or even understand when the technology is introduced. its not like the guys fiddling with the arpanet in the 1960s said "hey, lets destroy the recorded music industry", but that's what their invention is doing
surely you can see technological change trumps existing law, and law must alter itself and adapt
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
mgm vs grokster was unanimous. i think hollywood can live happily with 8 to 1 rulings. unfortunately it's going to take a lot more than one supreme court nominee to bring balance to america's copyright laws.
Dude, you're saying this in the middle of the largest financial crisis ever.
Compared to the overall size of the U.S. or world economy, is this depression bigger than the one that started in AD 1929?
Hollywood goons look like amateurs compared to Goldman Sachs.
Companies like Goldman Sachs can use spurious copyright claims to suppress those who expose the high crimes and misdemeanors of said companies. Sure, it's perjury, but businesses that have been deemed too big to fail have gotten away with worse.
The USA has no law on software patents.
From 35 USC 101: "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." A software patent covers an allegedly novel method of information processing; how is such a method not a "new and useful process"?
What does being the dean of a Law School have to do with experience? That's academic experience, not experience practicing law.
This nominee has never, never, served as a judge before.
dynamite? plutonium? rocket propelled grenades? weaponized anthrax?
obviously these technologies need to be controlled
otherwise, what technologies can you possibly be talking about that has any merit on this subject matter?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's certainly a point worth of discussion. If the GOP or anyone else want's to say that supreme court justices have to have had judicial experience, they're free to make that case. Historically, judicial experience has not been a requirement. Some of the most effective justices have come from politics, not the court room, including John Marshall, Thurgood Marshall, and Hugo Black, and William Rehnquist. Qualifications, like the confirmation process itself may have changed after the Bork nomination, so it's a point worthy of debate.
However, you better believe that if the GOP had ideological gripes they'd trot those out well before raising issues about qualifications.
When has a bag of heroin kicked in someone's door and shot family members? When has a 8 ball of cocaine taken someone's house, car and any other property that can be confiscated without recourse?
There is no drug worse than the drug war. Drug addicts need treatment, not incarceration (unless they did crimes which weren't the use of the drug). Drugs remaining illegal means that the prices are sky high, and people willing to do the illegal work can make lots and lots of money (so do the police intercepting them), this means that an addict has little hope of maintaining their addiction, and they will turn to crime to support it. If drugs were legal (or decriminalized) they would have much lower prices, the crime surrounding it would be heavily reduced, and addicts could receive help as there wouldn't be stigmas and they wouldn't risk jail.
Go read up on the drugs you're demonizing, read the studies done before they became illegal, then make a decision as to whether drugs are really worse than laws that remove constitutional rights, police states, and millions incarcerated for non violent crimes which hurt no one (besides themselves).
Seriously.
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
Why is it completely legal to link on a website to things like The Anarchist's Cookbook and other materials that can be used for seditious acts and mass murder...yet completely illegal if you link to copyrighted material?
SCOTUSBlog posted a nice, hysteria-free overview of Kagan's career a few days ago. It's well worth a read, and the authors seem to know a thing or two about the courts (unlike most reporters and pundits who have been covering the story).
If you read up on her career, you'll see that she has a great deal of respect for existing precedent, and doesn't seem to have allowed her own personal opinions to interfere with her past jobs.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
every anecdote of every negative effect of the war on drugs that you can cite or imagine
i'm also asking you to see that i'm only for making the worst substances illegal. i am for the legalization of marijuana and lsd, for exactly the reasons you cite: the war on drugs is far worse than the drugs, FOR THESE DRUGS
now i'm asking you to consider the negative effects of addiction OF THE WORST DRUGS on society and the free will
i'm asking you to consider if the war on drugs FOR ONLY THESE WORST DRUGS is less of a negative than the drugs themselves
do you see that the war on drugs cannot be mentally evaulated as "drug use" versus "war on drugs"?
it has to be evaluated as "alcohol use" versus "war on alcohol", or "lsd use" versus "war on lsd", or "meth use" versus "war on meth"
you can't lump caffeine and cocaine in the same category, and expect to say anything useful on the issue, do you see that?
think about it
real life is not a choice between rainbow unicorns and child eating demons. it is often a choice between child eating demons and slightly meaner child eating demons. with the war on drugs, and cocaine/meth/heroin, for example, you have such a difficult real world choice: lots of gray areas, and hard-to-evaluate-which-is-worse negative effects
your choice is between the horrible negative effects, and slightly worse horrible negative effects. for something like marijuana, the war on drugs is worse than the negative effects of marijuana use, clearly. so marijuana should be legal, clearly
but for something like cocaine, the war on drugs is bad, but the SUBSTANCE ITSELF, in terms of destroyed lives and encumbered society, is worse than the war on that particular drug
do you feel where i am coming from yet?
you can't come to me and evaluate all drugs the same. that's not intellectually honest of you. you cannot say something useful and valuable when mentally you put caffeine and nicotine in the same basket as heroin and methamphetamine. when you do that, you've lost the ability to say anything meaningful, because different drugs are VERY different in their pharmacological effects, so you have to evaluate each drug individually
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
... they should love Obama's pick for her replacement as Solicitor General.
That is all.
I'm not lumping them all in together though.
You say cocaine and meth destroy lives, how much of that is due to the illegality?
Can't work if you're a user (no money).
Drug is expensive, but you have no job.
Drug comes before everything else in life.. life ruined.
or
Police come in arrest person for use of drug, take away family, throw person in jail.
Would it be different if the drug was legal, and this person could work in a minimum wage job to pay for the drug, and have plenty of opportunities to enter treatment, offered every time he goes to buy it from the drug store (for lack of a better term)?
I know a few ex heroin addicts, I know the damage it causes, but I've yet to see any positives to its illegality. Lots of criminals make very good money supplying it, lots of police time is wasted chasing it (and they can't even hope to intercept more than a few percent of the amounts that enter), lots of time is wasted in the judicial system, and many lives are destroyed when a parent is jailed for a few years, instead of in treatment for a month or so..
You understand that they're not going away, right? Even in countries where drug dealing gets you the death penalty you can still find drugs.
Sometimes wars can't be won.. unless you're fighting them for some entirely different reason (keeping the lower classes down).
He tried to kill me with a forklift!
1) Recruiting people does not mean you share their ideological views. Indeed, one of the selling points of Kagan (according to her supporters) is that in spite of her supposed liberal views she was able to recruit people from across the ideological spectrum, including conservatives, to Harvard Law School.
2) As the Solicitor General, you are a lawyer for the government. You argue their cases. We should not confuse positions she took as the Solicitor General with her own personal opinions on the cases.
If anyone wants the real story on Kagan (she's woefully unprepared for the Supreme Court) please read what Glenn Greenwald has recently been writing about her http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/13/kagan and a debate yesterday http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/10/progressives_divided_over_obamas_nomination_of
So, when I was talking about propaganda, this is basically what I was referring to.
Do you know anything about the drugs you are talking about, or are you basing your argument on rumors and Hollywood movies? Let's clear a few things up:
What you should do is take some time to read a well researched article or book about substance abuse and dependence, and about the drugs you are so sure have the potential to destroy society. You seem to believe a lot of things that are not only untrue, but are frankly bizarre.
Palm trees and 8
no one is going to outlaw biochemistry, no one is going to outlaw physics
people ARE going to outlaw, and rightfully so (surely you can't say otherwise), working with SMALL SUBCLASSES of technology that only result in death and destruction
otherwise, you get stupid morons like this:
http://www.timw.com/2007/08/06/weird/radioactive-boy-scout-charged-in-smoke-detector-theft/
i understand your point completely, and your point is completely without merit
you apparently cannot tell the difference between large overall classes of technologies and small subclasses that deal in obviously dangerous topics that should be outlawed according to anyone. you apparently cannot tell the difference between, for example, outlawing something that might challenge a social dynamic, and outlawing something that makes people dead. the former is where law loses, the latter is where law is in the right, and will always be in the right, according to anyone not insane
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Although you make a fine argument.... and I agree nearly completely with what you say. I have come to the conclusion that I would rather abolish all drug legislation, and deal with the accompanying addicts, than have the blood of every man, woman, and child killed by police forces, or the black market organizations that spring up around this illegal activity on my conscience.
for what substance addiction does to a life
you see all of the externalities, but you do not see what the actual substance does to someone
i'm asking to consider that, as it is obviously far worse than all of the negative effects of the war on drugs (for something like coke, heroin, meth)
additionally, i realize there is a hardcore subset of losers who are hellbent on destroying their lives and will get access to life destroying drugs no matter what is legal or not. such committed self-destructive idiots are beyond the help of anyone, no matter what the laws of drugs are: complete legality, or complete illegality, it doesn't matter: these people are doomed by their own psychology, having nothing whatsoever to do with any social policy. and so such people don't even matter in the discussion
i'm mostly concerned with the MUCH LARGER sphere of casual idiots, who will not try hard to get drugs (until they are addicts), but when offered casual use in a carefree environment, get zombified. this is what the illegality prevents: the destruction of the lives of the carefree casual idiot, whose life would be doomed to slavery to a substance, before they are given a chance to mature and realize on their own the folly and danger these substances represent to their freedom and the quality of their life
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Anything she argued solely as solicitor general = the executive's views, not hers.
In fact there is almost nothing she has ever written-- even as an academic that indicates her views on anything except a rather scary bit demonstrating that she is very pro executive power.
She is a bit of a stealth candidate (surely intentional), but there is enough in her record to assert that, if she is confirmed, she will pull the court even further to the right.
in the real word, it is a not a choice between rainbows and piles of shit. it is a choice between shit, and slightly stinkier shit
the war on drugs puts blood on our hands, absolutely, i understand and appreciate that 100%
but i also realize that for the worst substances, free access puts MORE blood on our hands. why some people don't understand this is beyond my understanding. they obviously don't appreciate, out of some sort of blind naivete, what something like meth, heroin, or coke does to people's lives. and that free access simply means more lives are desroyed
but assuming you do realize the blood that is spilt due to free access to truly life destroying substances, i ask you to choose again
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
then learn your history, before it is repeated, fool: this is what happens when drug dealing imperialists are allowed to destroy a society by reducing large swaths of its citizens to zombies via drug addiction:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM
in the history of the world, the sum total of every fascist, totalitarian, despotic, religious fundamentalist, and autocratic authoritarian law has, by orders of magnitude, never even remotely touched the freedom that was destroyed in terms of wasted lives due to drug addiction. drug addiction is the most potent threat to individual freedom that has ever existed and perhaps ever will exist in the history of mankind
the most fascist totalitarian state possible to be imagined in the furthest reaches of orwell's fantasy life has nothing on the freedom destroying power of drug addiction. unless, of course, such a hypothetical totalitarian government actually force addicted its own citizens. that's the ultimate totalitarian state
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
that the war on drugs has no effects? it minimizes the damage that substance abuse does. it doesn't eradicate it, that's never been the goal. anyone who thinks that mocking that goal somehow legitimizes the problem doesn't understand the issues, because no one serious thinks that's a goal
it simply makes it harder for the casual idiot to become an addict before they mature and realize on their own the danger. of course there will always be a hardcore group of seriously stupid who will destroy their lives with drugs, no matter what the social policy, completely free access or completely draconian laws: some people are just doomed by their own bad psychology/ ideology. you can't help such people, so they don't matter on the policy questions. the point is not to save everyone, the point is to save as many as you can
the point is, if there were no war on drugs, the stink you point to would merely be larger. of coruse we can never completely eradicate these things, and of course the war itself makes some things worse. but no war at all CLEARLY is even worse, can't you see that?
there will always be a growing underclass of drug addled zombies, forever. there will always be a mafia, forever. the best you can do is push back against both, and minimize it. and any civilization that has ever existed, and ever will exist, therefore will forever more be engaged in such a "war" (its not really a war, thats a bad name, its more like a simple maintenance function, like taking the trash out every thursday. we all have a "war on trash" in our houses)
what i don't understand this mentality that says "becuase we can't completely eradicate it, we should allow it to be worse"
insane
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wait, the best word you could think of that means "pressure" was "payola", not "pressure"? O.o
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
that if you legalized everything, every single problem you just cited above would be worse?
the best you can do is push back against the growth of the drug addled zombie underclass, and push back against the growth of the mafia, forever. NOT pushing back against these things simply means they grow and proliferate even more, to the destruction of far more rights and freedoms and destroyed lives than the war on drugs itself. you can't ever completely destroy the drug use, but that never was the point: the point is to simply minimize their stink
why can't you see that? why can't you appreciate the damage done by a large underclass of drug zombies and a fattened mafia from their existence? why doesn't your mind perceive of and understand the threat to individual freedom from those things?
here, learn your history:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM
here's the problem: teenagers are idiots. they think of themselves as immortal and immune, they don't perceive of the limitations of their willpower when faced, for example, with crippling addiction to something like coke/ heroin/ meth. and so, in an environment of easy access, a heck of a lot of them will try these things, and wind up with a life long crippling addiction
prevent them from accessing to these drugs though, and they mature to the point where they perceive on their own these substances have towards their quality of life and their freedom. of course you won't save everyone, some committed idiots are just hellbent on personal destruction. but a much larger class of casual idiots needs to be given the chance to escape the hell of addiction
i really wish you could understand and appreciate exactly what heroin, coke, and meth do to someone's lives and their minds and their freedom. of course the war on drugs has negative effects. i recognize and acknowledge every single negative you cite. now i wish you would acknowledge what free and unfettered access to heroin/ coke/ meth will cost in wasted lives, and see that it is far worse than the war on drugs
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"but for the highly inebriating+highly addicting, you have a substance that overrides willpower, causing you to want to do nothing except zone out for hours, unable to maintain a job or relationship, and become caught in a biochemical feedback cycle that overwhelms all other desires in your life save one: more, more, more... you can't cope with any joy or depression in your life without resorting to the substance. nothing in your life becomes possible without the substance. you are now a slave. "
Alcoholics trying to quit will eat boot polish, steal, become violent and that's pretty similar to the decriptions I've heard from them.
"free access to only the worst substances zombifies people, making them unable to support themselves (and then society has to support them). therefore, society sees that it is cheaper to simply prevent the creation of such zombies in the first place (and additionally, preserve the free will of those who would otherwise become slaves to a substance)"
By what possible measure could the "war on drugs" ever be cheaper?
Addiction counciling is orders of magnitude cheaper than keeping someone in jail for a decade.
The crime and violence caused by lucrative drug markets created by the war on drugs cost society far more than feeding and sheltering the far end of the curve who completely go off the rails.
"you don't actually believe addiction to cocaine/ meth/ heroin is harmless"
I don't but I also believe you have no right whatsoever to decide that people have some kind of a duty to do only what is good for them. Freedom isn't freedom unless you are free to do stupid things and harm yourself.
cocaine?heroin?meth?
Cocaine is surprisingly similar to caffine in many ways.
If anything it's the form that people take it in which makes it dangerous.
And the war on drugs and retarded drug laws encourage highly concentrated and potent forms of the drugs which are also the most dangerous.
It's as if someone sat down and thought
"how can we make this problem worse than it already is?"
"Oh I know, lets create a situation where addicts have to pay more for their drugs so they steal and commit crimes to support their habbit!"
"Oh and we could create a situation where the quality of the drugs is far lower causing more medical problems!"
"Oh and lets make it so that the suppliers have an incentive to increase their market by getting new users addicted!"
"And we could then start shitting all over the constitution and justify it by saying we have to do it to deal with all the problems we just created!!! FANTASTIC!!!!"
there is no war on drugs
there is a "war on alcohol" (pointless) or a "war on lsd" (pointless) or a "war on meth" (NOT pointless)
you need to evaluate each drug individually, because for some drugs, that are highly addictive and inebriating, pushing back against the availability of the drug has a real effect in terms of saving lots of lives
there are two classes of drug users, for any drug: the committed idiot, and the casual idiot
the committed idiot, just as you say, represents a permanent underclass of drug addled zombie. no law will stop their self-destruction. whether every drug is completely free, or completely draconianly locked down, they will still destory their lives, no matter what you do. that's just their psychological fate. and so they don't matter in the policy analysis
but the CASUAl idiot, the average teenager who thinks they are immune and immortal, that there are no limitations on their will power: in a free and unfettered environment, these are lives you are burdening with decades of quality of life destroying, freedom destroying addiction (when it comes to only the worst drugs: cocaine, heroine, meth). but given enough time, and difficulty in accessing the worst substances, the casual teenage idiot will mature and realize on their own the threat coke/ meth/ heroin has on their quality of life and freedom
that is what the war on drugs is for. not the permanent unalterable underclass of drug zombies, but the much larger user base of casual idiots who, with CERTAIN substances (meth/ heorin/ coke) will be turned into drug zombies
you have to evaluate the substances individually. alcohol, marijuana: the war on drugs is stupid
heroin, coke: the war on drugs makes a genuine net positive. yes, the war on drugs has plenty of negative effects. for alcohol/ marijuana, those negative effects argue for legalization. but for some substances, life destruction is so viral through easy addiction, that the war, even with all the negativ effects considered, still has a net positive effect
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the effects of addiction of the worst (coke. meth, heroin) is far worse the effects of the war on drugs
you like to point to history. i'm glad your victorian upper middle class examples were able to make positive contributions despite their crippling drug problems (ask them, they would say themselves that the drug use didn't help them: imagine how much they could contribute had they not been so addled)
here's another victorian history lesson for you, that is the real instruction as to what the viral spread of highly addictive substances does to a society:
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CHING/OPIUM.HTM
"you're willing to point guns at people and lock them in cages to control their behavior. You should be ashamed."
yes, i am willing to lock away mafioso who don't care about destroying lives in order to get a buck, i have no problem with that
you apparently are happy with millions of lives destroyed because you have no appreciation what easy access to a highly addictive substance does to people and the freedom it destroys. you should be ashamed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"By what possible measure could the "war on drugs" ever be cheaper?"
Actually, there are a lot of places where the war on drugs has become self-funded -- where property confiscated during a drug arrest can be auctioned off and the money kept by the police department that performed the arrest (this includes the DEA). With a sufficient number of drug arrests, this allows the vice squads to fund themselves, shifting the cost away from the tax payers themselves.
Before you argue that this simply shifts the costs from police to prison, remember that prison costs are often offset by prison labor and privatization. This creates a rather convenient situation: the police profit from drug arrests by keeping the property of the accused, and the prisons get to use their prisoners to turn a profit on cheap labor. Yes, it is pillaging and slavery, and no, our society has not quite moved past such behavior.
Palm trees and 8
It was pre-coffee this morning, please forgive.
You're quite right.
It is modern day pillaging and slavery.
With a thin venere of justification.
Are free-speech advocates called "speech-nuts"
Some news outlets call crowds of sign-carrying protesters things like that when they engage in organized protests outside major meetings of politicians.
There was nothing in District of Columbia v. Heller that would apply to DMCA.
Then let me clarify my position: Tools to break encryption could be considered "arms" if they are used to break a foreign military's DRM or "banned circumvention devices" if they are used to break an entertainment conglomerate's DRM. If the circumvention ban of the DMCA is not invalid under the Second Amendment, and terrorists start using AACS and other DRM systems originating from MPAA members, then the terrorists have already won.
Right, left, can anyone keep 'em straight anymore?
> And Kagan got an opportunity to showcase her feelings on intellectual
> property when the US Supreme Court asked her, as US Solicitor General, to
> weigh in on the big Cablevision case.
Not her views. She was repersenting the adminstration. He personal views may or may not be the same as those she presented on behalf of her employer.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
understand that if it were legalized it would be even EASIER. duh
so you push back against availability, and you cut down on zombie creation, simple as that. you don't stop zombie creation. you can't ever do that. but you certainly don't allow it to proceed without any interference: you're never going to stop the idiots committed to destroying their lives, but you sure as hell will stop a hell of a lot of casual idiots from the fate drug addled zombiehood. then they mature, realize the threat on their own, and that's one less useless zombie you have to house and feed
why do you have a mental block on the concept that addiction itself is a harm? i mean if the cost in wasted lives, if the destruction of individual freedoms means nothing to you (it's "none of my business") then consider the cost to society in terms of having to house and feed these zombies
with the monkey on their back, they can't keep a job or a relationship. so i have to pay for them. well, if i am footing the bill, then i think i'd rather spend my money preventing the creation of the zombies in the first place, no? its a hell of a lot cheaper. i won't prevent the creation of all of them, but i'll put a significant dent in their numbers
feel me now?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
ever hear of hillbilly heroin?
its nothing but WELL-REGULATED oxycodone, developing its own black market, as a simple result of WIDER AVAILABILITY of a highly addictive+inebriating drug
so you're deep in the twilight zone now: you're arguing in favor of the illegality of the substance (that's what "regulation" is, numbskull), while pointing at such regulation as a success (when its clearly a failure, as in the case of hillybilly heroin), under an obvious historical example of what happens when a drugs are freely available (the opium wars: drug dealers humiliating a proud civilization by force addicting wide swaths of chinese society)
consider yourself spanked, moron
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
has destroyed more freedom than any totalitarian government, religious fundamentalism, or any other government abuse you can think of in the history of mankind
unlike you, i actually understand and acknowledge what something like heroin does to a person: the bars int he mind of addiction is the purest form of freedom destruction imaginable
furthermore, in the name of alcohol and tobacco regulation, government agents have imprisoned mass numbers of citizens, and will continue to do so, and you support this, because oyu understand the rationale behind it. but not for heroin?!
as an american, someone who fights for and loves freedom, i am apparently more knowledgeable and have a better grasp of the subject matter than you and how freedom is maximized: the limitation of the spread of a freedom destroying substance
you argue form a position of ignorance: an ignorance of the subject matter. therefore your opinion is not only invalid, but dangerous to the very concept you care about
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
please tell me: if you let heroin be freely available to anyone who wanted it, exactly what would happen to such a society?
i'm too ignorant and uneducated to imagine what would happen. i'm too busy trying to destroy people's freedoms
k thx!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you'll see that the word "People" is capitalized, which in regard to the Constitution means it refers to the government
I disagree, and so does this Source. Look at the Constitution prior to Amendments, and see how much was capitalized. Also look at some Printings of Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Jonathan Swift and find the Nouns that are not capitalized. It was the Fashion at the Time to capitalize English much like modern German, starting Nouns with capital Letters. Otherwise, what was so special about, for Example, the "limited Times" referred to in the eighth Section of the first Article? And does this "Republican Form of Government" refer to anything like the GOP?
She also argued that prosecutors who deliberately manufacture evidence to convict innocent people should not be civilly liable for their actions.
Before you use her participation in support of the Pottawattamie prosecutors to extrapolate her entire character, I recommend reading the Pottawattamie County v. McGhee article over at SCOTUSWiki. Among other things, you'll find out that even the McGhee and Harrington side of the case agrees that prosecutors "enjoy immunity when they knowingly introduce false testimony during trial" based on the 1976 SCOTUS decision in Imbler v. Pachtman. All the legal wrangling was over drawing lines across contiguous situations, like whether or not that immunity extends to pre-trial conditions. The central idea of immunity for prosecutors during trial apparently wasn't even really being questioned, because much of the lawyering world apparently believes that if you open prosecutors to liability, it'll have a "chilling effect" on their ability to pursue justice even in situations where the defendant is guilty as sin because of the threat of being buried under lawsuits.
Now, from an ethical and liberty-focused perspective, I completely agree that a lot of this is ridiculous. I think that fabricating evidence is flat-out simply beyond the job description of any state officer, and so by definition, whether or not it happened pre-trial or during the trial, it's outside of official prosecutorial duties and can and should incur criminal and civil liability. But there are beings who walk the earth who see court cases very differently than a normal citizen does, who don't operate directly on matters of ethics and policy and justice and liberty, but instead on the law as the instrument which serves those matters, and who apparently see a prosecutors role as such an important one in actually pursuing justice that it's deserving of considerable latitude. I disagree and I think there's a cultural problem here that needs to be addressed by legal means: we're apparently going to need a law stating that fabrication of evidence is explicitly outside any public duty and that no immunity of any kind applies.
I'm unimpressed by Kagan's advocacy, and think everybody should contact their Senator -- particularly if they've got one that's on the judiciary committee -- if for no other reason to highlight this issue, which hasn't received anywhere near its due attention, but flogging Kagan in particular for it probably isn't going to address a systemic problem.
Tweet, tweet.
Eldred v. Ashcroft was decided 7-2. Are you saying they bribed him in order to avoid a 6-3 or 5-4 decision? If so, with what were the other justices bribed?
Agreed.
I just worry about the extent to which corporations with unchecked power will go in order to protect their positions.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It is also absurd to claim that Thomas would have in any case broken with the majority and joined Stevens and Breyer in dissent. An 8-1 decision in the other direction with Thomas in dissent would be considerably more plausible.
then learn your history, before it is repeated, fool:
I learned my history. The English had a trade deficit with China, so they turned to illegal goods to get the most bang for the buck. When China worked to stop the English government from importing illegal goods, England sent over a military force to attack.
That drugs were the illegal good is irrelevant. That you assert some harm was because of the drugs is irrelevant. The Opium Wars were about England asserting their domination over the planet.
in the history of the world, the sum total of every fascist, totalitarian, despotic, religious fundamentalist, and autocratic authoritarian law has, by orders of magnitude, never even remotely touched the freedom that was destroyed in terms of wasted lives due to drug addiction.
You are wrong. Drugs have been taken responsibly for thousands of years. It's only after making them illegal did we have the problems we have now. Making drugs illegal is what caused the drug problem.
Learn to love Alaska
Are you saying Harper Collins (or parent company NewsCorp) knew six other justices were going to rule in favor of the Copyright Term Extension Act? Even if they did, don't you think they would see value in future cases referencing a decisive victory rather than a borderline win?
Only she's not nearly as attractive.