Well for one thing, they would have to prove you downloaded and/or watched it. An IP address and YouTube user name is not proof of that. Further, if they subpoena your hard drive, they would not be very likely to find the offending file, so there is a lack of proof that way too.
For another thing how can you possibly know what the video is before you watch it? They would have to prove you knew it was copyrighted material. Its a little bit different from P2P where people are sued for *distributing* infringing content, not watching it. Anybody can call any video on YouTube anything they want, and describe it anyway they want. It could be a parody of the copyrighted material for all you know. There are literally hundreds of similar excuses you can come up with that would be perfectly believable in court.
Posting illegal content? sure, I guess they can somehow make money that way. Seems like a lot of trouble to me though for very little payoff. I mean its not like YouTube has any user who has anywhere near the amount of illegal content that, say, a Limewire user would have.
Watching illegal content? This will be the vast majority of the infringement going on, given the one-to-many nature of YouTube. Seems legally shaky to me though. How did I know that episode of Who's the Boss I watched on the YouTube was in fact there illegally? It's not the viewer's responsibility to verify legitimacy of content before consuming it.
That leaves profiling purposes. But what do the logs give them that they couldn't get from the Youtube page itself other than IP address? And I would argue that IP address is a mostly useless piece of information, because having one does not necessarily mean one has posted or viewed illegal content.
Hell, if they wanted profiling info, they probably could have just paid google for it, and probably much less than they are paying their lawyers.
That's a pretty big gamble though. For starters, what if they get the logs and find out that infringing content is in fact not more popular than non-infringing? They would have spent all that money for nothing, and I think there's a pretty damn good chance that an analysis of the logs might come out that way, given that YouTube's primary use is not as a source of pirated material.
Also, what does 'more popular' mean based on username and IP address? How do we know that all those hits for the YouTube version of 'Who's The Boss' aren't originating from Tony Danza's Nefarious Botnet, in some sort of harebrained scheme hatched by the management of Viacom to inflate the popularity of infringing content over non-infringing?
What would be the purpose of this? If you watch a video on YouTube, even if its not there legally, you are doing nothing illegal. Or at least nothing provably illegal. The person uploading these copyrighted materials is doing something definitely illegal, but couldn't they do figure out who that is already by just crawling the site for their content and making a note of the username, and then pestering Google for the IP address?
Something doesn't make sense here. My guess is they more or less know who is pirating their content, but what they are really interested in is who is pirating their partners'/competitors' content, and they are going to try to sell that info on to their competitors. Just a guess.
Divx usually looks fine to me on my 1080p tv. I download the media and store it on my kurobox NAS and stream it to my xbox 360 using twonkymedia and I can't really tell the difference between that and an HD copy of something purchased/rented from xbox marketplace.
Usually an hour long episode of something from TV, like say lost, weighs in at around 350 MB, and a movie will be between 700 MB and 1.3 GB. The xbox content is around 6GB.
I probably wouldn't use this method for something like Planet Earth, but for normal movies its usually just fine. Or maybe I have an unusually good TV. Or maybe I'm just not that picky. But it normally doesn't look pixelated or blocky or ghosty in any way.
Finally! Someone who understands that a proper analogy requires the use of a car comparison. Making an analogy without a car reference is like driving a car without wheels. It goes nowhere and is impossible to understand.
We solved that problem by getting a colorful live-in hobo, Pantload Tim. We usually lock him in the basement on the other nights, but on movie night we let him camp out on the floor and thrill us with his insane ramblings.
Monkeys aren't somebodies. They are somethings. So I'm not sure who the 'somebody else' is that you are referring to. Also, the monkey in the video didn't look like it was hurting anyway, so I'm not even sure where you get that from. Care to let us in on that one?
"Here's another nice question for you: when did you CHOOSE to be born a human, rather than a monkey? How would you stop yourself from being born a monkey? Since you didn't CHOOSE to be born human (nor choose to be born at all), why do you identify with only humans, when you could just as easily have been born a monkey, and therefore have been put through the hell the monkey in the video has been through?"
Animals are here for our amusement and because they are delicious. That is all. There is nothing sociopathic about it, because they aren't part of society. BECAUSE THEY AREN'T FUCKING HUMAN! I am assuming since you have such grave concern for animals, that you must be a vegetarian, so what about the horrors that you put everyday plants through to continue to live? Why do you only identify with animals and not every living thing? When did you choose not to be born a plant? I guess the answer is: because you're a fucking maniac. But that answers many questions about you.
"Did you read up on HIV and AIDS yet? Of course not - the TV didn't tell you to..."
No need to. I'm actually quite familiar with the conspiracy theories around this issue. Sorry to say AIDS is pretty well established as to where it came from and what causes it: It was put here by the british royal reptilians to kill off the homosexuals and drug users so God didn't have to come down here with his 12-gauge and do it his damn self. I'm pretty sure that's what it says on the internet some place anyway.
Wow, you don't have to be such a dick about it. Maybe people would take your insanity a bit more seriously if you weren't so frothing mad about it.
"When did I ever say I didn't want experiments on humans, or "because they might die"? I don't remember saying either of those things."
You said "If this technology ever makes it to humans, it will only be after HUMAN experiments are done. Of course, the frauds who call themselves vivisectionists will say that "We couldn't have achieved the human version without first torturing - sorry - 'experimenting' on monkeys", but the first human version will fail, guaranteed. They will be EXPERIMENTING on humans, until they find out what works, as simple as that."
I drew the conclusion that you were against experiments on both humans and animals because it is the equivalent of torturing both. You your self say "first torturing - sorry - 'experimenting' on monkeys" and then in the same thought "they will be EXPERIMENTING on humans". Was this the wrong conclusion to draw from this paragraph? Perhaps you could provide a little clarification for what you originally meant then.
"Did you not read the part where I stated "92% of drugs that pass animal 'tests' FAIL human 'clinical trials' (AKA human EXPERIMENTS)"?????
In what way are 'clinical trials' NOT human experiments?"
Yeah, I get you are against animal testing for whatever reason. But you consistently link that idea to the idea of human EXPERIMENTS. What am I supposed to think then? Maybe you can work on your paragraph structuring or something. Learn how to link coherent thoughts together?
"Jesus. Where do I begin? Animal research has been touted as the CURE for all our ills."
Touted as the CURE for all our ills by whom?
" You yourself stupidly stated above that if we don't have animal research, we don't have ANY research!""
No I didn't. I just happen to think that animal research is a very important part of basic science and medicine.
Man, you are fucking batshit crazy! Hit me with some more of your colorfully worded 'wisdom'. Its entertaining to me.
Seriously though, I think Sci-Fi in general is a huge motivator behind alot of the scientific thinking of our time. An idea has to be dreamed first, then visualized, then made real by some obsessive geek who finds a way to build a working Tie Fighter in his basement.
So I still don't get what you are saying. You don't want experiments carried out on humans, because they might die, and you don't want experiments on animals, because its cruel. How then do you suggest we as a society carry out research on the level that leads to neat things like artificial hearts and robotic monkeys (aka prosthetics controlled by your brain)? At some point you're going to have to implant some probes into someone's head. It just can't be done otherwise. Theory only takes you so far.
"Animal 'research' is a fraud. Which is why we don't have a cure for cancer yet."
I'm not sure I see the connection between these 2 thoughts. Animal research is a fraud, therefore we don't have a cure for cancer. That just doesn't logically make a coherent argument. Maybe we just have not been able to find a cure for cancer yet because its a very complex problem. What does the cure for cancer have to do with animal research?
"And why idiots like you still believe that 'AIDS' is caused by 'HIV', and blindly parrot whatever the MSM tells you..."
OK Dr. Anonymous, tell me, what is AIDS caused by?
Episode 1x01: "Addition": Debbie has 2 boobies. In the pilot episode of this ground-breaking series, Debbie finds out how many boobies she would have access to if she got involved in a threeway with Amber and Chrissy.
Season 2 will explore differential equations, and I don't want to give anything away, but it involves motors, whipped cream, and plenty of latex body mods.
"I see that YOU also have no conception of the suffering of others... but don't tell me, you're a wonderful, 'caring' person, right? Because you say so.."
Get over it, monkeys are like a dime a dozen. And they would do the same to us if they could.
Also your world view is bizarre. Did you ever consider that maybe the people who did the first artificial heart trials, just maybe, actually VOLUNTEERED for it, knowing full well that they were taking a chance with their lives? Or do you think they just installed the first artificial hearts into random people off the street? Now why do you suppose they would do such a thing? Maybe because they had no other real option at the time and figured they would take a gamble and if they lost and died, at least they were doing their part to advance the state of the art?
If people like you were in charge, we'd still be living in fricking caves. But its a good thing you aren't in charge, because now we get to have functioning artificial hearts, and in a few more years we are going to get RoboMonkey Wars on Comedy Central. I, for one, can't wait. My money's on Chimpticus-Z9.
Right, but why not punish her with actual abuse laws? That is my question. Surely there are laws that say you aren't allowed to harrass or abuse other people mentally. Why use some kind of trumped up hacking law? I'm just not getting something here. If they are going to pick an arbitrary law to punish this woman with instead of something she actually did, why not punish her with Tax Evasion? Or Animal Cruelty? or a Drug Conviction? Those are just as arbitrary. Hell, why not just say she's a terrorist and disappear her to Gitmo? That would make about as much sense as equating violating Myspace's TOS with virtual breaking and entering.
Unless she did actually hack the kid's myspace page or home computer. But as I understand it, that is not what happened. She violated a TOS. Something all of us do every single god damned day. Can somebody clue me in here where I missed the hacking part?
We are both arguing the same thing, I think: That the defendant didn't commit a crime. She should be sued, yes. She is human garbage for harrassing a 13 year old to death, absolutely. But violation of terms of Service IS NOT A CRIME. At worst its a small scale contract violation addressable in civil court. Its simply not the same thing as hacking into someone's computer.
(Just let me clarify: As I understand the matter, the defendant is being prosecuted for violating the terms of service as mentioned above. If she did in fact break into the girls computers, myspace page, or myspace's server, I somehow missed that and fully acknowledge that that is a real crime.)
But as I understand it, she is being indicted on some kind of 'creative' legal wrangling equating violating MySpace's TOS with virtual breaking and entering. She's looking at 20 years because the parents are basically looking for a scapegoat for closure. The prosecution knows they can't get her for murder, so they are taking what should be a civil matter between at least Myspace and the defendant or at worst the parents and the defendant, and making it a criminal case.
So then why aren't they bringing the parents in on this action? Were they completely innocent even though they didn't seek psychiatric help for their obviously mentally ill daughter? What about the bullies at school? Surely they can do some jail time on trumped up charges as well, since everybody is always breaking some law.
Why is it that nobody wants to admit that the little girl or her parents might have had some fault in this? Shit happens, and there isn't always a cut-and-dried scape goat. That they are resorting to getting creative with the law in and of itself suggests that their case is flimsy at best.
"The defendant in this case however has violated her contract with MySpace and infringed on their personal property (an ethical crime), also since the contract was violated, she has forcefully entered the computer system, since her license to use the system was revoked the moment she violated the terms of service."
Well that's the real question here isn't it? I suspect this will be thrown out or at least found in favor of the defendant. Violating terms of service is generally not the same as hacking into a system you don't belong in. THere are many many ways this could get slippery real quick if that were true. Posted something bad about cowboy neal on slashdot? oh shit, it says in the terms of service you can't do that. That makes you a criminal. See where that's going?
"A good analogy would be inviting someone over to your property and then having them refuse to leave when you ask them or break in later after they violated your rules of the house."
That's a bad analogy. For onething, it doesn't involve a car. For another thing, there is just no comparison. MySpace didn't ask the woman to leave when she broke the rules. Myspace's terms of service which is probably like 16 pages long and full of terms only a lawyer can understand said she had to leave.
A better analogy would be, "You invite someone to sit in your car, only after handing them a 16 page legal contract to read through and agree to. They violate that contract and don't leave the car, but you don't say shit about it. Then months later, you discover that your cigarette lighter is broken so you try to punish them retroactively based on something, anything you can desperately find in the contract, because they *may* have broken your lighter, and you don't want to pay for a new one, or admit that it could have been your fault too."
Why isn't she being tried for murder then instead of some trumped up computer hacking charges?
If she truly is responsible for the girl's murder, she should be tried for murder. Harrassment or Abuse would do too. But she's not. She's being tried for some kind of trumped up hacking charge. I'm sorry, that's fucked up right there. What would a person with no priors get if they were did interstate fraud without the baggage of a girl who committed suicide? 20 years? I doubt it. they probably wouldn't even see the inside of a prison. So the cops know they can't get her for murder, so what do they do? Hit her with a 'creative' use of an unrelated law, and play up the dead little girl angle. That shit ain't right. Its not like its without precedent in this country, but its kind of like knowing you want to put someone away for a very long time, bringing them in, and then going through the books until you find something, anything, that sticks.
"It's BS, plain and simple. People are sad and angry that chubbo ended it all and want someone to pay....legality and sanity or not."
Which, imho, is exactly what's wrong with America. There's this notion that someone always has to take the blame for something bad that happens in life, and worse, usually that is the only way that the perceived victims (in this case the family) seek closure to come to grips with what happened. Alot of times there's a strong financial component to it too, like in the case of the 911 victims families. This isn't true closure, its vengeance.
Sometimes shit just happens. And it really sucks. Sometimes someone is to blame for it, but lots of times there isn't anyone to blame. And sometimes it is in fact the victim's fault. I suspect this is one of those times where there's no one to really blame, which is why this woman's being done on some trumped up computer hacking charges. I also suspect she'll walk, in the end. Is she human garbage for teasing this girl? IMO, yes. Should she go to jail for it on some creative interpretation of unrelated law? IMO, no.
Wait. Are you implying that her parents should have actually had to have some responsibility in raising their kid? What are you, some kind of Commie? If we can't punish other people who don't even live within hundreds of miles of us through the courts for our own failures of responsibility, then I think The Terrorists have already won. Frivolous lawsuits to blame other people for our mistakes are what America is all about. If you love taking personal responsibility for your own actions so much, why don't you move to North Korea.
I don't know if it can be labeled as serial killing if you are providing a useful service to society like killing off emo kids. If this country had any sense of reason, it would set you up with a stipend for doing that. Sort of like Farm Subsidies but in reverse.
Slashdot Mirror
Well for one thing, they would have to prove you downloaded and/or watched it. An IP address and YouTube user name is not proof of that. Further, if they subpoena your hard drive, they would not be very likely to find the offending file, so there is a lack of proof that way too.
For another thing how can you possibly know what the video is before you watch it? They would have to prove you knew it was copyrighted material. Its a little bit different from P2P where people are sued for *distributing* infringing content, not watching it. Anybody can call any video on YouTube anything they want, and describe it anyway they want. It could be a parody of the copyrighted material for all you know. There are literally hundreds of similar excuses you can come up with that would be perfectly believable in court.
Exactly. But sue individuals for what exactly?
Posting illegal content? sure, I guess they can somehow make money that way. Seems like a lot of trouble to me though for very little payoff. I mean its not like YouTube has any user who has anywhere near the amount of illegal content that, say, a Limewire user would have.
Watching illegal content? This will be the vast majority of the infringement going on, given the one-to-many nature of YouTube. Seems legally shaky to me though. How did I know that episode of Who's the Boss I watched on the YouTube was in fact there illegally? It's not the viewer's responsibility to verify legitimacy of content before consuming it.
That leaves profiling purposes. But what do the logs give them that they couldn't get from the Youtube page itself other than IP address? And I would argue that IP address is a mostly useless piece of information, because having one does not necessarily mean one has posted or viewed illegal content.
Hell, if they wanted profiling info, they probably could have just paid google for it, and probably much less than they are paying their lawyers.
That's a pretty big gamble though. For starters, what if they get the logs and find out that infringing content is in fact not more popular than non-infringing? They would have spent all that money for nothing, and I think there's a pretty damn good chance that an analysis of the logs might come out that way, given that YouTube's primary use is not as a source of pirated material.
Also, what does 'more popular' mean based on username and IP address? How do we know that all those hits for the YouTube version of 'Who's The Boss' aren't originating from Tony Danza's Nefarious Botnet, in some sort of harebrained scheme hatched by the management of Viacom to inflate the popularity of infringing content over non-infringing?
What would be the purpose of this? If you watch a video on YouTube, even if its not there legally, you are doing nothing illegal. Or at least nothing provably illegal. The person uploading these copyrighted materials is doing something definitely illegal, but couldn't they do figure out who that is already by just crawling the site for their content and making a note of the username, and then pestering Google for the IP address?
Something doesn't make sense here. My guess is they more or less know who is pirating their content, but what they are really interested in is who is pirating their partners'/competitors' content, and they are going to try to sell that info on to their competitors. Just a guess.
You have to admit, that was one hell of a zing.
Divx usually looks fine to me on my 1080p tv. I download the media and store it on my kurobox NAS and stream it to my xbox 360 using twonkymedia and I can't really tell the difference between that and an HD copy of something purchased/rented from xbox marketplace.
Usually an hour long episode of something from TV, like say lost, weighs in at around 350 MB, and a movie will be between 700 MB and 1.3 GB. The xbox content is around 6GB.
I probably wouldn't use this method for something like Planet Earth, but for normal movies its usually just fine. Or maybe I have an unusually good TV. Or maybe I'm just not that picky. But it normally doesn't look pixelated or blocky or ghosty in any way.
Finally! Someone who understands that a proper analogy requires the use of a car comparison. Making an analogy without a car reference is like driving a car without wheels. It goes nowhere and is impossible to understand.
"There, fixed that for ya's."
Y'all need to use the 2nd person plural when addressing more than one person. It ain't proper English no how otherwise.
We solved that problem by getting a colorful live-in hobo, Pantload Tim. We usually lock him in the basement on the other nights, but on movie night we let him camp out on the floor and thrill us with his insane ramblings.
Monkeys aren't somebodies. They are somethings. So I'm not sure who the 'somebody else' is that you are referring to. Also, the monkey in the video didn't look like it was hurting anyway, so I'm not even sure where you get that from. Care to let us in on that one?
"Here's another nice question for you: when did you CHOOSE to be born a human, rather than a monkey? How would you stop yourself from being born a monkey? Since you didn't CHOOSE to be born human (nor choose to be born at all), why do you identify with only humans, when you could just as easily have been born a monkey, and therefore have been put through the hell the monkey in the video has been through?"
Animals are here for our amusement and because they are delicious. That is all. There is nothing sociopathic about it, because they aren't part of society. BECAUSE THEY AREN'T FUCKING HUMAN! I am assuming since you have such grave concern for animals, that you must be a vegetarian, so what about the horrors that you put everyday plants through to continue to live? Why do you only identify with animals and not every living thing? When did you choose not to be born a plant? I guess the answer is: because you're a fucking maniac. But that answers many questions about you.
"Did you read up on HIV and AIDS yet? Of course not - the TV didn't tell you to..."
No need to. I'm actually quite familiar with the conspiracy theories around this issue. Sorry to say AIDS is pretty well established as to where it came from and what causes it: It was put here by the british royal reptilians to kill off the homosexuals and drug users so God didn't have to come down here with his 12-gauge and do it his damn self. I'm pretty sure that's what it says on the internet some place anyway.
Wow, you don't have to be such a dick about it. Maybe people would take your insanity a bit more seriously if you weren't so frothing mad about it.
"When did I ever say I didn't want experiments on humans, or "because they might die"? I don't remember saying either of those things."
You said "If this technology ever makes it to humans, it will only be after HUMAN experiments are done. Of course, the frauds who call themselves vivisectionists will say that "We couldn't have achieved the human version without first torturing - sorry - 'experimenting' on monkeys", but the first human version will fail, guaranteed. They will be EXPERIMENTING on humans, until they find out what works, as simple as that."
I drew the conclusion that you were against experiments on both humans and animals because it is the equivalent of torturing both. You your self say "first torturing - sorry - 'experimenting' on monkeys" and then in the same thought "they will be EXPERIMENTING on humans". Was this the wrong conclusion to draw from this paragraph? Perhaps you could provide a little clarification for what you originally meant then.
"Did you not read the part where I stated "92% of drugs that pass animal 'tests' FAIL human 'clinical trials' (AKA human EXPERIMENTS)"?????
In what way are 'clinical trials' NOT human experiments?"
Yeah, I get you are against animal testing for whatever reason. But you consistently link that idea to the idea of human EXPERIMENTS. What am I supposed to think then? Maybe you can work on your paragraph structuring or something. Learn how to link coherent thoughts together?
"Jesus. Where do I begin? Animal research has been touted as the CURE for all our ills."
Touted as the CURE for all our ills by whom?
" You yourself stupidly stated above that if we don't have animal research, we don't have ANY research!""
No I didn't. I just happen to think that animal research is a very important part of basic science and medicine.
Man, you are fucking batshit crazy! Hit me with some more of your colorfully worded 'wisdom'. Its entertaining to me.
Seriously though, I think Sci-Fi in general is a huge motivator behind alot of the scientific thinking of our time. An idea has to be dreamed first, then visualized, then made real by some obsessive geek who finds a way to build a working Tie Fighter in his basement.
So I still don't get what you are saying. You don't want experiments carried out on humans, because they might die, and you don't want experiments on animals, because its cruel. How then do you suggest we as a society carry out research on the level that leads to neat things like artificial hearts and robotic monkeys (aka prosthetics controlled by your brain)? At some point you're going to have to implant some probes into someone's head. It just can't be done otherwise. Theory only takes you so far.
"Animal 'research' is a fraud. Which is why we don't have a cure for cancer yet."
I'm not sure I see the connection between these 2 thoughts. Animal research is a fraud, therefore we don't have a cure for cancer. That just doesn't logically make a coherent argument. Maybe we just have not been able to find a cure for cancer yet because its a very complex problem. What does the cure for cancer have to do with animal research?
"And why idiots like you still believe that 'AIDS' is caused by 'HIV', and blindly parrot whatever the MSM tells you..."
OK Dr. Anonymous, tell me, what is AIDS caused by?
OK, how about this for a pitch:
"Debbie Does The Math".
Episode 1x01: "Addition": Debbie has 2 boobies. In the pilot episode of this ground-breaking series, Debbie finds out how many boobies she would have access to if she got involved in a threeway with Amber and Chrissy.
Season 2 will explore differential equations, and I don't want to give anything away, but it involves motors, whipped cream, and plenty of latex body mods.
"Do you merit all scientific advances purely by how much closer they're going to get us to the Star Wars universe?"
I think the bigger question is "Don't you?"
"I see that YOU also have no conception of the suffering of others... but don't tell me, you're a wonderful, 'caring' person, right? Because you say so.."
Get over it, monkeys are like a dime a dozen. And they would do the same to us if they could.
Also your world view is bizarre. Did you ever consider that maybe the people who did the first artificial heart trials, just maybe, actually VOLUNTEERED for it, knowing full well that they were taking a chance with their lives? Or do you think they just installed the first artificial hearts into random people off the street? Now why do you suppose they would do such a thing? Maybe because they had no other real option at the time and figured they would take a gamble and if they lost and died, at least they were doing their part to advance the state of the art?
If people like you were in charge, we'd still be living in fricking caves. But its a good thing you aren't in charge, because now we get to have functioning artificial hearts, and in a few more years we are going to get RoboMonkey Wars on Comedy Central. I, for one, can't wait. My money's on Chimpticus-Z9.
Right, but why not punish her with actual abuse laws? That is my question. Surely there are laws that say you aren't allowed to harrass or abuse other people mentally. Why use some kind of trumped up hacking law? I'm just not getting something here. If they are going to pick an arbitrary law to punish this woman with instead of something she actually did, why not punish her with Tax Evasion? Or Animal Cruelty? or a Drug Conviction? Those are just as arbitrary. Hell, why not just say she's a terrorist and disappear her to Gitmo? That would make about as much sense as equating violating Myspace's TOS with virtual breaking and entering.
Unless she did actually hack the kid's myspace page or home computer. But as I understand it, that is not what happened. She violated a TOS. Something all of us do every single god damned day. Can somebody clue me in here where I missed the hacking part?
We are both arguing the same thing, I think: That the defendant didn't commit a crime. She should be sued, yes. She is human garbage for harrassing a 13 year old to death, absolutely. But violation of terms of Service IS NOT A CRIME. At worst its a small scale contract violation addressable in civil court. Its simply not the same thing as hacking into someone's computer.
(Just let me clarify: As I understand the matter, the defendant is being prosecuted for violating the terms of service as mentioned above. If she did in fact break into the girls computers, myspace page, or myspace's server, I somehow missed that and fully acknowledge that that is a real crime.)
But as I understand it, she is being indicted on some kind of 'creative' legal wrangling equating violating MySpace's TOS with virtual breaking and entering. She's looking at 20 years because the parents are basically looking for a scapegoat for closure. The prosecution knows they can't get her for murder, so they are taking what should be a civil matter between at least Myspace and the defendant or at worst the parents and the defendant, and making it a criminal case.
That is effed up.
So then why aren't they bringing the parents in on this action? Were they completely innocent even though they didn't seek psychiatric help for their obviously mentally ill daughter? What about the bullies at school? Surely they can do some jail time on trumped up charges as well, since everybody is always breaking some law.
Why is it that nobody wants to admit that the little girl or her parents might have had some fault in this? Shit happens, and there isn't always a cut-and-dried scape goat. That they are resorting to getting creative with the law in and of itself suggests that their case is flimsy at best.
"The defendant in this case however has violated her contract with MySpace and infringed on their personal property (an ethical crime), also since the contract was violated, she has forcefully entered the computer system, since her license to use the system was revoked the moment she violated the terms of service."
Well that's the real question here isn't it? I suspect this will be thrown out or at least found in favor of the defendant. Violating terms of service is generally not the same as hacking into a system you don't belong in. THere are many many ways this could get slippery real quick if that were true. Posted something bad about cowboy neal on slashdot? oh shit, it says in the terms of service you can't do that. That makes you a criminal. See where that's going?
"A good analogy would be inviting someone over to your property and then having them refuse to leave when you ask them or break in later after they violated your rules of the house."
That's a bad analogy. For onething, it doesn't involve a car. For another thing, there is just no comparison. MySpace didn't ask the woman to leave when she broke the rules. Myspace's terms of service which is probably like 16 pages long and full of terms only a lawyer can understand said she had to leave.
A better analogy would be, "You invite someone to sit in your car, only after handing them a 16 page legal contract to read through and agree to. They violate that contract and don't leave the car, but you don't say shit about it. Then months later, you discover that your cigarette lighter is broken so you try to punish them retroactively based on something, anything you can desperately find in the contract, because they *may* have broken your lighter, and you don't want to pay for a new one, or admit that it could have been your fault too."
Why isn't she being tried for murder then instead of some trumped up computer hacking charges?
If she truly is responsible for the girl's murder, she should be tried for murder. Harrassment or Abuse would do too. But she's not. She's being tried for some kind of trumped up hacking charge. I'm sorry, that's fucked up right there. What would a person with no priors get if they were did interstate fraud without the baggage of a girl who committed suicide? 20 years? I doubt it. they probably wouldn't even see the inside of a prison. So the cops know they can't get her for murder, so what do they do? Hit her with a 'creative' use of an unrelated law, and play up the dead little girl angle. That shit ain't right. Its not like its without precedent in this country, but its kind of like knowing you want to put someone away for a very long time, bringing them in, and then going through the books until you find something, anything, that sticks.
"It's BS, plain and simple. People are sad and angry that chubbo ended it all and want someone to pay....legality and sanity or not."
Which, imho, is exactly what's wrong with America. There's this notion that someone always has to take the blame for something bad that happens in life, and worse, usually that is the only way that the perceived victims (in this case the family) seek closure to come to grips with what happened. Alot of times there's a strong financial component to it too, like in the case of the 911 victims families. This isn't true closure, its vengeance.
Sometimes shit just happens. And it really sucks. Sometimes someone is to blame for it, but lots of times there isn't anyone to blame. And sometimes it is in fact the victim's fault. I suspect this is one of those times where there's no one to really blame, which is why this woman's being done on some trumped up computer hacking charges. I also suspect she'll walk, in the end. Is she human garbage for teasing this girl? IMO, yes. Should she go to jail for it on some creative interpretation of unrelated law? IMO, no.
Wait. Are you implying that her parents should have actually had to have some responsibility in raising their kid? What are you, some kind of Commie? If we can't punish other people who don't even live within hundreds of miles of us through the courts for our own failures of responsibility, then I think The Terrorists have already won. Frivolous lawsuits to blame other people for our mistakes are what America is all about. If you love taking personal responsibility for your own actions so much, why don't you move to North Korea.
PS. Please kill yourself today.
Love,
j_166
I don't know if it can be labeled as serial killing if you are providing a useful service to society like killing off emo kids. If this country had any sense of reason, it would set you up with a stipend for doing that. Sort of like Farm Subsidies but in reverse.
"It takes a village, and when that village fails it needs to be prosecuted."
And preferably burned to the ground, as an example to all the other villages.