Slashdot Mirror
Federal Judge Rules P2P Users Aren't In a Conspiracy
Fluffeh writes "Judge Holderman ruled against copyright holders who were trying to paint a rather distorted picture. They sue just one Internet user, but use that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. The plaintiffs in these lawsuits claim that the other users had participated in a "conspiracy" to assist one another in distributing particular copyrighted works. Because the copyright holder's threat is based on the cost of litigation (and risk of public embarrassment — as this is a tactic used increasingly by the pron industry) more so than the damages a defendant would face in the event of a loss, innocent defendants have virtually as much incentive to settle as guilty ones do. That's not how things are supposed to work, and more and more judges are refusing to play along. Coupled with recent rulings in Florida, the copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favor with judges."
Guess, I'll wait until April 2nd before reading anything more on /.
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
Some of you may have heard already that we are working on building an helicopter using the open source model. We already have an helmet design and have sourced components for building an horizontal plane for which an hydraulic valve can sit upon. We need your help to continue with this amazing project. Anybody is welcome to provide an hand but to ensure success we have a core team of people to lead the project. An handpicked core team is essential.
We were encouraged by the feedback we got from our previous plea to Slashdot and we would like to offer an humble thanks to all those responded.
One of the responses mentioned that we needed a “Jesus Nut” (http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2759021&cid=39538663) . An hunt on the internet gave us lots of information but the Wikipedia page was too hard to understand. If someone could give us an hand designing an handcrafted Jesus Nut we would be grateful.
While we were doing an hunt for the Jesus Nut we noticed that the Wikipedia page also mentioned rotors. In the interests of a honest disclosure we do have to admit that we had not thought of rotors which is maybe why we did not know about the Jesus Nut. An helping hand with rotor design would be welcomed. As well we would like an explanation of what a rotor is, preferably as an help file.
Back to the design of an helmet. In the interests of keeping this project 100% open source we would like an helmet that is designed and made by us as well. Currently we are using an helmet that is off the shelf and this will clearly not do. We want an helmet like this: http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/11_01/053HELMET_468x608.jpg. An hand building one would be great!!
The design of an hang glider to provide escape in the event that an horrible accident occurs is going forth at great speed and we have designed the major components and built a model from paper that appears to fly well. An hazard we did not think of is getting out of the cockpit onto the hang glider as you would have to let go of the helicopter controls. An harrier jet might be able to provide an additional pilot in the event of an hazard occurring but this is not currently within our project budget. A robotic hand that operates like an human hand might work better. If anyone has experience designing an human hand or an hand that can operate a joystick we would like to hear from you.
With things moving do fast we need to find an house to keep the helicopter in. If you can provide an house that would fit an helicopter in the garage please contact us. Alternatively an hanger would do. An house with an hanger would be even better.
If you wish to join an homebrew project that involves a software design as well as an hardware design please join the effort!
Please discuss.
Regards,
An Hacker
I see what you did there.
It's already April 2 hear, so alert mode for April Fools has been switched off. 2nd story I have been sucked in by. 2nd -1 for off topic too I guess.
They're in the same freaking torrent. Maybe it doesn't fit the legal definition of conspiracy but they sure as hell aren't innocent.
this is not stuff that matters.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Selling drugs is P2P, but so is having sex (see wikipedia for more info fellow reader).
Criminalizing a group of loosely or totally unrelated individuals based on a particular form of sharing content (or speech) is just one step away from a thoughtcrime and is seen in the banning of the web, twitter, or similar by oppressive regimes, and shows a undeniable contempt for those basics terms and concepts that form the acronym P2P.
Person to person communication is inherent to all humans, and sought out even by those who are handicapped to the extreme. It is the basis of science, individual development, society, and anything else that didn't come from instict or perhaps indirect observation. If you live in a society that doesn't allow newpapers, a certain internet sharing site, or any other medium that allows honest expression then you need to run like hell and be glad that you did. This is testing the waters.
I remember when using P2P for legimitate uses during the late 90'- early 2000's being so disgusted that the judges at the time couldn't seem to fathom in their wildest dreams how this new means of exchange could possibly be anything other than 100% destructive "theft" oriented black-market oriented, when in reality a lot of early P2P really was centered around specialized information exchange that had a dynamic nature not offered by the web and only hinted at by services like Hotline and the others. Sure the smart people set up their own FTPs, but for many mediums and industries there was little to no expectation-especially at that time- that the person had the skills to do so. The PC was still not on every desktop, or even remotely required for many non-technologically inclined persons.
This dynamism was of course the same reason Napster and the rest were able to gain such rapid traction- it was so easy, and connective. Before web search got it right, and even still P2P allows personalization and selectivity of content that has never been matched. Those early days of fairly high penetration of modern-like P2P felt like having a personal mailing list but without the management, unlimited hosting, it has integrated search, didn't require much work, and didn't make you wanna move to antarctica in the way you felt after the first attempt to "share" via a dutifully built template based GeoCity's monstrosity.
But despite the damage done to legitimate P2P by the so-called Napster boom of early last decade I refuse to buy the "blame the tool" B.S. leveled at those site who tended toward unlicensed transfers. It was a shit argument than, and time has only proven even more how P2P really is the core of the internet even if it isn't always manifested purely at the protocol level. Love them or hate them, but sites that allow quick person to person communication like Flickr, Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and old stalwarts like email and various chat clients represent the biggest reason people are shifting time away from TV and DVD porn. Sure companies have perverted and manipulated this model- Facebook being perhaps the worst- But the spirit of sharing is so central to human communication and by extension the web that literal clusterfucking; as in clustering us by service or protocol, and then sending in the lawyers to fuck us based on that designation is just wrong. There is perhaps no force that threatens free speech more, than being grouped in and implicated by remote extension with an individual based on their theoretical possibility to commit a potential crime.
the copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favor with judges."
Curiously, all of those judges were replaced when exceptionally large political donations were made to every one of their opponents during the next election. -_- The last time a few judges got it in their head to go against the corporate agenda, they were declared "activist judges" and dealt a massive amount of media spin, quickly ending their careers. That phrase has since lost the spotlight, but the instigators of that media frenzy are still perfectly willing and able to do the same thing.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
our plan is working perfectly.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
"copyright holders seem to be finding less and less favor with judges."
Maybe the judge found his name in the list of infrigers... :-)
We all send them a check for $3.17 right? Thats all I got when they conspired to rip me off for those degradable 20th century recording media they forced on us...
will work for dragon quest localization