No, because they're not quoting the Court's rulings, they're quoting things the opposing side said about them. I suspect if you read SCO's briefs and take them as gospel, you will be under the impression that IBM's goose is cooked. The truth is somewhat different. Same applies here: the Universiy can say just about anything in opposing the RIAA's moves. It's what they can get to STICK that matters.
Personlaly, what I would do is I'd give Mr. Levine "equal time" in one of my titles. Just put footage of him saying *anything he wants* for, say, two minutes into the game. Advertise his new game, mock my own products, mock me personally, whatever. Given the state of Spike TV and the VGA awards (and also Gamecock) he'll reach probably just as many people as he would have on the show:)
No, scratch that. That's not quite right. Want to know what I would have done? I wouldn't have done that in the first place. But hey, that's just me, I don't go round calling myself GoD (sorry -- 'Gathering of Developers'). I go around calling myself LrdDimwit because nobody ever takes that name (funny that).
You know what? I hereby dub these Gamecock guys the new Acclaim. Acclaim went under so it's hard to find a good reference -- In case you can't remember, Acclaim decided to try to pay people for ad space on tombstones (really) and offered to pay IRL traffic tickets on the day they released an illegal street-racing title (also true).
And what about predatory lending? Consider how they make bonsai trees. If the tree grows in a way the grower doesn't like, he trims it. Eventually the tree looks exactly how the grower wanted it to look. The tree grew under its own power the entire time, its own 'will' (if plants have such a thing). It was in full control of its own growth, and yet it danced to the grower's tune. Who's responsible for that? The tree, or the gardener?
If I am a dishonest lender, I offer these loans. I hawk them loudly, like a carnival barker, knowing that some people won't be able to keep up. There's enough stupid people out there that some of em will fall for it. (This is the spammer's strategy.) Sure, they'll eventually crash and burn, but that won't happen for several years. Meanwhile, I've taken the mortgage contract and sold it for cash - up front - to another broker (who either didn't ask to many questions or was stupid) **. After three years, shortly before the first people I chained to impossible-to-repay loans give up and default -- I get out of the business.
Sure, the people who signed deals they didn't understand, and lost everything, bear some responsibility. But they -- at least some of them -- were systematically taken advantage of by people who absolutely DID know better, and kept their mouths shut.
** - In older times it was common for banks to hold the mortgages themselves. Lately though, the bank just sets it up -- they don't want to sit on 50-year contracts anymore, they sell the mortgages to companies who specialize in that.
Aside from the vast increase in complexity (and therefore expense), this wouldn't even cut it. Here is a good place to start: The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.
A check like you propose would certainly be a good attempt, but it isn't going to preserve fair use. It's a much more complicated test. 5% may be acceptable in one case but not in another. Some works are more valuable than others. A leak of an unreleased work in any amount will very likely be found to not be fair use, other things are far more forgiving.
Furthermore, any such rule must account for gaming. People on both sides will try to get cute with any ruleset for the obvious reasons. The immediate problem I see with the specific example, is the person creating this 'work' can easily control this percentage. Say the "kill percentage" is x%. I take the Harry Potter novels, and then grab more and more books from the Gutenberg project or other public domain sources (say, the US Tax Code) until the percentage of the "work" I've created falls below X. Then I distribute the resulting.zip file. Is this fair? No, it's cheating. But it might fool the filter: x% or less is copyrighted -- the fact that the x% is the only thing people want in the first place is glossed over.
I, for one, welcome our new -- wait, I'm being handed a memoranda -- Apparently they are our old, still-existing Congressional budgetary overlords. Seriously. Who voted for these turkeys? I demand a show of hands.
Deriving the argument from the nature of infinity is a problem anyway. I agree that the Question of Evil is a very big problem against omniscient-and-omnipotent, but tossing the nature of infinity in there vastly confounds the issue.
In particular infinite -> includes everything is NOT TRUE. Did you know there are exactly the same number of a) postive integers, and b) positive even numbers? They have the same size: infinitely large. n -> 2n is a bijection. And there are exactly the same number of real numbers a) between 0 and 1, and b) between 1 and postitive infinity (n -> 1/n is also a bijection). It's quite easy to construct infinite objects that do not encompass the whole of the space they occupy.
Minor nitpick: you've missed the point of the "if a tree falls in the woods" question. It's a test of faith, as the question is specifically designed to never be testable, much like "I dreamed I was a butterfly". If a tree falls in the woods, but no one is around to hear it (by extension this must include listening devices), then we don't know if it makes a sound or not. Sure, our understanding of physics has very strongly validated assumptions we've made axioms that mandate that it does (that the laws don't change over time, that they apply everywhere in space equally, that things cannot fade in and out of existence). But that is still a leap of faith.
We could be part of a gigantic world simulator -- like those commonly used to run video games, for example -- where when nobody is around to hear it, the simulation glosses over and skips most of the intervening steps, so that in fact it did not make a noise. (To preserve untestability, we'll say whenever anyone does anything that requires answering the question, the simulation backfills missing data.) There, if you want to exclude this possibility now you need to demonstrate that we're not in the Matrix.
More than that. The legal system in the US is set up so that even if you have an ironclad defense -- but don't bring it up at the right time -- then you waive that defense. This is just one of the reasons you do not represent yourself unless you have no choice at all. The justification is that otherwise, no judgement would ever be final because you could continually add new legal theories to the case. In fact, this is very similar to SCO's tactics (which were quite effective at causing huge delays).
In this case, a number of promising avenues haven't been explored because nobody got good attorneys to bring them up. So the issue gets waived, the court accepts the RIAA's version because it was "undisputed". Recall the RIAA suits have been going on for a number of years, but it was only a couple months ago that this PI licensing issue was even mentioned -- because nobody ever did their homework before.
I have read the opinions in question. I am not a lawyer, but it is fairly clear these laws will never be upheld, no matter how they're phrased. Any kind of restriction on speech based on its content triggers the First Amendment, and in order to uphold such a restriction you have to prove a) a very compelling interest, b) that the restrictions are directed at, c) in the least restrictive way possible.
To prove this, you basically would need unshakeable evidence the games directly cause violent behavior. Not the 'agression studies' that have been done so far, the kind of murder-simulator stuff Jack spews. First, I believe this will never happen -- because it's just not true. Second, supposing it WERE true, would you really object to regulation?
In many ways, you are correct and the age limits are not ideal. However, it is important to understand that what you propopse is a sex permit. Sure, you didn't use those words, but that's what it is. An individual would need some kind of permit or license, or it would be illegal to have sex with them. This is a very very very bad idea, for the same reason "literacy tests" were struck down.
How are you going to get such a license? You'll have to undergo a physical examination; pass a sex-ed test; and prove you're emotionally mature enough to handle sexual activity. That last part is the kicker: not only does no one agree on what that even means -- or how it might be measured -- but it's so subjective that the examiner will be able to find reasons to disqualify anyone. In the South during the Jim Crow days, "literacy tests" were administered that all black people would routinely fail, and all white people would routinely pass. Racial profiling is a bad enough issue when in the arena of traffic stops; I can only imagine the horror a "sexual activity license" would entail.
Since assessing the quantity we're ACTUALLY interested in -- maturity -- is inhumane and impracticeable, we have to make do with something that can be objectively determined, AND doesn't involve horrific expense (a medical exam for everyone applying for a license is a "horrific expense"). That doesn't leave too many indicators, and so we have settled on age-of-consent laws, most of which have fuzzy grey areas for (say) 12-on-17.
How can you allow under-18's to use IRC and comply with this rule? The article is very vague, but it sounds like they just won't be allowed to make the information available at all, and they're expected to magically know if you're under-18. Both of which are of course impossible.
Actually, you don't even have to do that. There's statutory damages -- the law provides damages regardless of actual damages, at an amount set in the law -- see here for details. It's $750-30K per work, BUT willful infringement can go up to $150K. I can't think of a clearer way to willfully infringe than deliberately stripping out copyright statements. If Harvard wants to nail these guys, they certainly can.
Nope, won't work (at least in theory), because if you've been rooted then the reformat might get hooked, and the new partition could still contain the malware. You're better off nuking the site from orbit.
I would suspect that the something small wasn't so small after all -- it is, after all, worth a lot of money to somebody -- and that (for example) I might be about to make myself an unwitting accessory to murder. Or something else. Of course, that's still a lot of money. Like most people, I have no idea what would happen (but if you have a hundred grand and you'd like to find out, by all means...:)
No. In fact, they've repeatedly said they hate it; company reps have also said in panels at cons, that *individual volumes* of a show whose episodes had previously seen fansubs released sold less well than later volumes of that same show that hadn't been fansubbed. I believe the specific example was Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, where 2 and 3 sold much better than 1 (which had been fansubbed). The point was further made that this is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect (you would expect people to start at the beginning).
They choose to ignore it, and no fansubber has ever gotten in serious trouble -- well, other than AnimeJunkies, who in their infinite wisdom told the US *cofinancer* of a show to "fuck off" (and a lot more) after a C&D, and all that happened to them was they had to disband. But they do NOT like fansubbing, and especially not the way it's done now. AnimeSuki doesn't list licensed anime, but it's readily available anywhere and everywhere. Even groups that drop shows when licensed will keep the old stuff up a lot of the time! That was NEVER the goal. Distribution was supposed to *stop* once a licensing annoncement was made. In the old days it did. Not anymore.
It's ignored because they can't figure out a way to crack down on it without alienating their fanbase, but as soon as they can they will. And the Japanese makers have started getting in on it. Gonzo has given Funimation broad license to go after any fansubbing of any of their shows. One other company issued a formal demand that no show of theirs be fansubbed ever (forget who).
Also, "not licensed" used to be simple. If it's not licensed in America, fansubs are distributed in America. But bittorrent is worldwide. Japanese people can download from AnimeSuki if they want to! But "Licensed in America" still seems to be the gold standard, which is shakier now than in years past. As I understand it, there's some evidence to indicate the one who sent the notices off is Odex, the Singapore licenseholder to a lot of the shows in question. They've been cracking down on things in Singapore.
And you should see Hitchcock's The Wrong Man. It turns out that not only is someone who looks almost just like this guy running around committing these crimes, but all the people who could swear he was a hundred miles away on the day the original crime happened, have since died. Now, this was the days before ATM machines and credit cards and cell phones, all of which can be used after the fact to say "well, someone used his card to buy gas 100 miles from the crime scene" just as well as they can do the reverse. So the guy looks absolutely guilty. How's this relevant? Due process. Due process requires that you can't just rule against people like that because "anyone with technical knowledge" knows the person must have done it. You have to prove it.
The judge isn't technical. He's a judge. The plaintiff and the spammer are the technical people here. Missing from this story is all the stuff the spammer had to say in his own defense. All of it was pernicious lies, I'm sure, but -- as said -- the spammer knows how to sound convincing. All the plaintiff had was one email, and the plaintiff's own word versus the spammers'. What's the judge supposed to do, take the plaintiff's word for it on the technical matters?
If he wants to win these cases, he needs to do better than this. Show a pattern of activity -- be able to demonstrate more than one junk message, either multiple copies of one received at a single address, or get multiple plaintiffs, or... something. Get expert witnesses to testify how, even though the message is addressed to one person, they're autogenerated that way using stolen machines. And it can't be the plaintiff doing the explaining, otherwise it's he-said-she-said. The problem is, in small claims court, the rules are different and your ability to introduce this kind of evidence is limited. Small claims court has laxer standards and isn't really set up to deal with complicated evidence. It's unfortunate, but unavoidable, since the number of cases that need to go thru small claims court is so large that full trials are unworkably impractical. IANAL, so you'd need to actually talk to one to get real advice.
They named it "kindle", meaning "to catch fire"? This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I mean, you don't see an airline calling themselves Hindenburg Airlines, do you? Seems to me like Amazon just loudly asked what could possibly go wrong.
To add a bit more: A "show cause" order means the judge wants to take some action you won't like, and is giving you one last chance to protect yourself from it (this is, after all, only fair). They are basically the judge saying 'This is your last chance to explain why I should not take [action] against you. It had better be good.' After Jack Thompson filed the 'grey prawn' in the case he's currently embroiled in, the judge in that issued a "Show Cause" order demanding to know why Jack should not be referred to a disciplinary committee. A show cause order can't possibly be good for the recipient. It means you've pissed the judge off. Particularly, the judge here has begun to suspect the RIAA pulled a fast one and got him to sign an unjust order.
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No, because they're not quoting the Court's rulings, they're quoting things the opposing side said about them. I suspect if you read SCO's briefs and take them as gospel, you will be under the impression that IBM's goose is cooked. The truth is somewhat different. Same applies here: the Universiy can say just about anything in opposing the RIAA's moves. It's what they can get to STICK that matters.
Personlaly, what I would do is I'd give Mr. Levine "equal time" in one of my titles. Just put footage of him saying *anything he wants* for, say, two minutes into the game. Advertise his new game, mock my own products, mock me personally, whatever. Given the state of Spike TV and the VGA awards (and also Gamecock) he'll reach probably just as many people as he would have on the show :)
No, scratch that. That's not quite right. Want to know what I would have done? I wouldn't have done that in the first place. But hey, that's just me, I don't go round calling myself GoD (sorry -- 'Gathering of Developers'). I go around calling myself LrdDimwit because nobody ever takes that name (funny that).
You know what? I hereby dub these Gamecock guys the new Acclaim. Acclaim went under so it's hard to find a good reference -- In case you can't remember, Acclaim decided to try to pay people for ad space on tombstones (really) and offered to pay IRL traffic tickets on the day they released an illegal street-racing title (also true).
And what about predatory lending? Consider how they make bonsai trees. If the tree grows in a way the grower doesn't like, he trims it. Eventually the tree looks exactly how the grower wanted it to look. The tree grew under its own power the entire time, its own 'will' (if plants have such a thing). It was in full control of its own growth, and yet it danced to the grower's tune. Who's responsible for that? The tree, or the gardener?
If I am a dishonest lender, I offer these loans. I hawk them loudly, like a carnival barker, knowing that some people won't be able to keep up. There's enough stupid people out there that some of em will fall for it. (This is the spammer's strategy.) Sure, they'll eventually crash and burn, but that won't happen for several years. Meanwhile, I've taken the mortgage contract and sold it for cash - up front - to another broker (who either didn't ask to many questions or was stupid) **. After three years, shortly before the first people I chained to impossible-to-repay loans give up and default -- I get out of the business.
Sure, the people who signed deals they didn't understand, and lost everything, bear some responsibility. But they -- at least some of them -- were systematically taken advantage of by people who absolutely DID know better, and kept their mouths shut.
** - In older times it was common for banks to hold the mortgages themselves. Lately though, the bank just sets it up -- they don't want to sit on 50-year contracts anymore, they sell the mortgages to companies who specialize in that.
Aside from the vast increase in complexity (and therefore expense), this wouldn't even cut it. Here is a good place to start: The distinction between "fair use" and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission.
.zip file. Is this fair? No, it's cheating. But it might fool the filter: x% or less is copyrighted -- the fact that the x% is the only thing people want in the first place is glossed over.
A check like you propose would certainly be a good attempt, but it isn't going to preserve fair use. It's a much more complicated test. 5% may be acceptable in one case but not in another. Some works are more valuable than others. A leak of an unreleased work in any amount will very likely be found to not be fair use, other things are far more forgiving.
Furthermore, any such rule must account for gaming. People on both sides will try to get cute with any ruleset for the obvious reasons. The immediate problem I see with the specific example, is the person creating this 'work' can easily control this percentage. Say the "kill percentage" is x%. I take the Harry Potter novels, and then grab more and more books from the Gutenberg project or other public domain sources (say, the US Tax Code) until the percentage of the "work" I've created falls below X. Then I distribute the resulting
So long, and thanks for all the fish, Mr. Adams. You will be missed.
I, for one, welcome our new -- wait, I'm being handed a memoranda -- Apparently they are our old, still-existing Congressional budgetary overlords. Seriously. Who voted for these turkeys? I demand a show of hands.
Allowed nothing. Word has it that Kojima literally begged them to allow Snake into the game.
I think somebody's been in the shrooms again ...
Deriving the argument from the nature of infinity is a problem anyway. I agree that the Question of Evil is a very big problem against omniscient-and-omnipotent, but tossing the nature of infinity in there vastly confounds the issue.
In particular infinite -> includes everything is NOT TRUE. Did you know there are exactly the same number of a) postive integers, and b) positive even numbers? They have the same size: infinitely large. n -> 2n is a bijection. And there are exactly the same number of real numbers a) between 0 and 1, and b) between 1 and postitive infinity (n -> 1/n is also a bijection). It's quite easy to construct infinite objects that do not encompass the whole of the space they occupy.
Minor nitpick: you've missed the point of the "if a tree falls in the woods" question. It's a test of faith, as the question is specifically designed to never be testable, much like "I dreamed I was a butterfly". If a tree falls in the woods, but no one is around to hear it (by extension this must include listening devices), then we don't know if it makes a sound or not. Sure, our understanding of physics has very strongly validated assumptions we've made axioms that mandate that it does (that the laws don't change over time, that they apply everywhere in space equally, that things cannot fade in and out of existence). But that is still a leap of faith.
We could be part of a gigantic world simulator -- like those commonly used to run video games, for example -- where when nobody is around to hear it, the simulation glosses over and skips most of the intervening steps, so that in fact it did not make a noise. (To preserve untestability, we'll say whenever anyone does anything that requires answering the question, the simulation backfills missing data.) There, if you want to exclude this possibility now you need to demonstrate that we're not in the Matrix.
Look, you can't have spam-email-n-websites without spam ...
More than that. The legal system in the US is set up so that even if you have an ironclad defense -- but don't bring it up at the right time -- then you waive that defense. This is just one of the reasons you do not represent yourself unless you have no choice at all. The justification is that otherwise, no judgement would ever be final because you could continually add new legal theories to the case. In fact, this is very similar to SCO's tactics (which were quite effective at causing huge delays).
In this case, a number of promising avenues haven't been explored because nobody got good attorneys to bring them up. So the issue gets waived, the court accepts the RIAA's version because it was "undisputed". Recall the RIAA suits have been going on for a number of years, but it was only a couple months ago that this PI licensing issue was even mentioned -- because nobody ever did their homework before.
Oh, that's easy -- the Devil is the one watching Gigli.
I have read the opinions in question. I am not a lawyer, but it is fairly clear these laws will never be upheld, no matter how they're phrased. Any kind of restriction on speech based on its content triggers the First Amendment, and in order to uphold such a restriction you have to prove a) a very compelling interest, b) that the restrictions are directed at, c) in the least restrictive way possible.
To prove this, you basically would need unshakeable evidence the games directly cause violent behavior. Not the 'agression studies' that have been done so far, the kind of murder-simulator stuff Jack spews. First, I believe this will never happen -- because it's just not true. Second, supposing it WERE true, would you really object to regulation?
In many ways, you are correct and the age limits are not ideal. However, it is important to understand that what you propopse is a sex permit. Sure, you didn't use those words, but that's what it is. An individual would need some kind of permit or license, or it would be illegal to have sex with them. This is a very very very bad idea, for the same reason "literacy tests" were struck down.
How are you going to get such a license? You'll have to undergo a physical examination; pass a sex-ed test; and prove you're emotionally mature enough to handle sexual activity. That last part is the kicker: not only does no one agree on what that even means -- or how it might be measured -- but it's so subjective that the examiner will be able to find reasons to disqualify anyone. In the South during the Jim Crow days, "literacy tests" were administered that all black people would routinely fail, and all white people would routinely pass. Racial profiling is a bad enough issue when in the arena of traffic stops; I can only imagine the horror a "sexual activity license" would entail.
Since assessing the quantity we're ACTUALLY interested in -- maturity -- is inhumane and impracticeable, we have to make do with something that can be objectively determined, AND doesn't involve horrific expense (a medical exam for everyone applying for a license is a "horrific expense"). That doesn't leave too many indicators, and so we have settled on age-of-consent laws, most of which have fuzzy grey areas for (say) 12-on-17.
How can you allow under-18's to use IRC and comply with this rule? The article is very vague, but it sounds like they just won't be allowed to make the information available at all, and they're expected to magically know if you're under-18. Both of which are of course impossible.
Actually, you don't even have to do that. There's statutory damages -- the law provides damages regardless of actual damages, at an amount set in the law -- see here for details. It's $750-30K per work, BUT willful infringement can go up to $150K. I can't think of a clearer way to willfully infringe than deliberately stripping out copyright statements. If Harvard wants to nail these guys, they certainly can.
Nope, won't work (at least in theory), because if you've been rooted then the reformat might get hooked, and the new partition could still contain the malware. You're better off nuking the site from orbit.
I would suspect that the something small wasn't so small after all -- it is, after all, worth a lot of money to somebody -- and that (for example) I might be about to make myself an unwitting accessory to murder. Or something else. Of course, that's still a lot of money. Like most people, I have no idea what would happen (but if you have a hundred grand and you'd like to find out, by all means ... :)
Fansubs are essentially buzz. For another great example of how buzz doesn't always translate to sales, see Snakes On A Plane.
No. In fact, they've repeatedly said they hate it; company reps have also said in panels at cons, that *individual volumes* of a show whose episodes had previously seen fansubs released sold less well than later volumes of that same show that hadn't been fansubbed. I believe the specific example was Cat Girl Nuku Nuku, where 2 and 3 sold much better than 1 (which had been fansubbed). The point was further made that this is exactly the opposite of what you'd expect (you would expect people to start at the beginning).
They choose to ignore it, and no fansubber has ever gotten in serious trouble -- well, other than AnimeJunkies, who in their infinite wisdom told the US *cofinancer* of a show to "fuck off" (and a lot more) after a C&D, and all that happened to them was they had to disband. But they do NOT like fansubbing, and especially not the way it's done now. AnimeSuki doesn't list licensed anime, but it's readily available anywhere and everywhere. Even groups that drop shows when licensed will keep the old stuff up a lot of the time! That was NEVER the goal. Distribution was supposed to *stop* once a licensing annoncement was made. In the old days it did. Not anymore.
It's ignored because they can't figure out a way to crack down on it without alienating their fanbase, but as soon as they can they will. And the Japanese makers have started getting in on it. Gonzo has given Funimation broad license to go after any fansubbing of any of their shows. One other company issued a formal demand that no show of theirs be fansubbed ever (forget who).
Also, "not licensed" used to be simple. If it's not licensed in America, fansubs are distributed in America. But bittorrent is worldwide. Japanese people can download from AnimeSuki if they want to! But "Licensed in America" still seems to be the gold standard, which is shakier now than in years past. As I understand it, there's some evidence to indicate the one who sent the notices off is Odex, the Singapore licenseholder to a lot of the shows in question. They've been cracking down on things in Singapore.
And you should see Hitchcock's The Wrong Man. It turns out that not only is someone who looks almost just like this guy running around committing these crimes, but all the people who could swear he was a hundred miles away on the day the original crime happened, have since died. Now, this was the days before ATM machines and credit cards and cell phones, all of which can be used after the fact to say "well, someone used his card to buy gas 100 miles from the crime scene" just as well as they can do the reverse. So the guy looks absolutely guilty. How's this relevant? Due process. Due process requires that you can't just rule against people like that because "anyone with technical knowledge" knows the person must have done it. You have to prove it.
... something. Get expert witnesses to testify how, even though the message is addressed to one person, they're autogenerated that way using stolen machines. And it can't be the plaintiff doing the explaining, otherwise it's he-said-she-said. The problem is, in small claims court, the rules are different and your ability to introduce this kind of evidence is limited. Small claims court has laxer standards and isn't really set up to deal with complicated evidence. It's unfortunate, but unavoidable, since the number of cases that need to go thru small claims court is so large that full trials are unworkably impractical. IANAL, so you'd need to actually talk to one to get real advice.
The judge isn't technical. He's a judge. The plaintiff and the spammer are the technical people here. Missing from this story is all the stuff the spammer had to say in his own defense. All of it was pernicious lies, I'm sure, but -- as said -- the spammer knows how to sound convincing. All the plaintiff had was one email, and the plaintiff's own word versus the spammers'. What's the judge supposed to do, take the plaintiff's word for it on the technical matters?
If he wants to win these cases, he needs to do better than this. Show a pattern of activity -- be able to demonstrate more than one junk message, either multiple copies of one received at a single address, or get multiple plaintiffs, or
They named it "kindle", meaning "to catch fire"? This sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I mean, you don't see an airline calling themselves Hindenburg Airlines, do you? Seems to me like Amazon just loudly asked what could possibly go wrong.
To add a bit more: A "show cause" order means the judge wants to take some action you won't like, and is giving you one last chance to protect yourself from it (this is, after all, only fair). They are basically the judge saying 'This is your last chance to explain why I should not take [action] against you. It had better be good.' After Jack Thompson filed the 'grey prawn' in the case he's currently embroiled in, the judge in that issued a "Show Cause" order demanding to know why Jack should not be referred to a disciplinary committee. A show cause order can't possibly be good for the recipient. It means you've pissed the judge off. Particularly, the judge here has begun to suspect the RIAA pulled a fast one and got him to sign an unjust order.
The glowing red eyes wouldn't bother you any? My, what big ears you have, baby ...