I'm not in the US or a lawyer but I wonder, if you sue everybody who has infringed your copyright can you still get punitive damages from them?
I thought the way punitive damages worked was by saying there this case is one of x but is the only one that has been brought to court therefore your damages can be multiplied by x.
If you can still get x times your actual damages from each of x people then it would seem to be a very good revenue stream indeed.
But if you can only get your actual damages from each case then you are not going to be making any money from this.
Well I personally know quite a few people who are getting decidedly p*ssed off with the amount of crap they get on Facebook through their friends playing the online games. Some of them have got to the point of not using it any more. I find the the current signal to noise ratio tends to make me miss interesting things.
I'm partly to blame myself I used to play Mafia wars myself - until I decided progresswars was more rewarding.......
Maybe it's time for for Facebook to realize it's the users who matter, without then the site is worth nothing.
I'm not sure whether you strangled use of the English language means you are (a) a non-native English speaker or (b) an ignorant troll, but neither are good attributes when it comes to analysing the documents from a complicated court case. I see no such condemnation of Jacobsen in them, maybe you could explain where you see these allegations, my dear little AC ?
I thought part of the problem was they already are starting to die off......
I still don't think this is a good solution or that they have thought it through, surely the same recession that has killed online advertising revenues has also severely reduced the number of people willing and/or able to pay ?
I can't help wondering why it has not occurred to this government, that if there are as many filesharers as they say, then being nasty to them is not going to exactly encourage them to vote Labour at the next election.
Well that was my first thought too, but then we may be past that point already.
A few days ago I read about a Firefox extension someone has sent a cease-and-desist over called Skipscreen which lets you avoid all those pesky waits when using Rapidshare type sites.
Now of course I never use these sites myself and certainly not to download anything illegal, but thought I'd install it for the convenience of anybody else who happened to use use my computer, I mean, who knows what my cat gets up to in the middle of the night?
Incidentally, this is a good example of the Streisand effect in action, as I'd never heard of the extension before and would probably never have used it.
Now this is not the most awesome captcha in the world, but we are taking about a free Firefox extension here not some multi thousand dollar program requiring some super computer to run it, although thinking about it maybe that's why I find Firefox too slow these days and have switched to Chrome for day to day browsing.....
I can't help feeling, that , in the eyes of the rest of the world, US "justice" has just become more of a joke.
Firstly, it more and more appears, that who ever has the most money can buy the verdict they want, secondly, everybody, up to and including the Judge herself, seem to be ignoring the law as it is written and making it up as they go along.
Finally, damages in the million dollar range when the actual loss in considerably less than $100, who needs to work and actually produce things when you can sue people?
And this is for something I'm guessing maybe 1 in 5 of the American population have done - maybe the simple solution would for everyone in the USA just to declare bankruptcy now and give all their money to the lawers, it would save a lot of time and tedious court cases.
Yes, but if you follow the link to copy of the takedown notice, it conveniently has a list of links where you can find the offending content!
I think if Google where to start removing links to copyrighted content other than as required by the law, it would very soon cease being the world favorite search engine.
Can you imagine the outcry on here and Geekdom in general if Google decided to censor results in this way? I'm pretty sure some other search engine would appear without these restrictions and quickly become all computer geeks new baby.
I'm also sure the Google is shewed enough to realize this.
Well I'm really glad to hear that NYCL gets as much fun out of slashdot as we get reading his posts on here.
One thing this whole saga has highlighted to me is the power of the web in bringing (great?) minds together in a common cause.
I don't think any of the interested parties - apart from the RIAA - would be as well informed and knowledge without the free sharing of ideas that has happened here, which somehow seems ironic.
Lets hope that the payback we get for all the hours we have jointly "wasted" here is to make the world a sightly better place.
Would a good game plot, overcome a lack of great graphics and features?
I'm not sure about a good storyline, but good gameplay can win out over limited graphics and features.
Probably the best example I can think of is The Kingdom of Loathing - http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ -
This needs way to many clicks to play and has stick figure graphics but the complex interaction of the various features make gameplay addictive.
This, and the humor in the game, has attracted a large loyal following.
Maybe I should make it clear I do not have intimate knowledge of NYCL's personal finances or his financial arrangements with his clients, but I do know how these usually work and would be surprised if it was much different in this case.
I'm sure the man himself will be on later to tell everyone the real situation, I've never met or spoken to him but from his words here and elseware would trust him implicitly, with your feelings about lawyers you may feel differently.
Having met many lawyers I must agree there are many who got into the law solely to make money and if this involves taking your grandmother to court and bankrupting her, so be it. There are also those who believe truth and justice are pearls to be upheld no matter what the personal cost, but the great majority lie somewhere in the infinite shades or gray in between.
I'm personally rather sad we have had the first "too much of NYCL on/. posting" but I suppose fame and popularity always result a few detractors.
It's people like him that have help restore a little of my faith in the (US) justice system. When I see large rich corporations throwing cash at cases just to make it harder for their much poorer opponents to defend themselves it's good to know there are people out there who will help the underdog. These cases are particularly redolent for myself and many slashdoters as they invoke a certain "there but for the grace of God go I" feeling.
I would sincerely doubt Ray is becoming a rich (or much richer) man because of them. I would expect that most of his potential clients with any amount of money would rather pay the RIAA's pound of flesh and settle without going to court than risk several years disruption to their lives.
Most of people he will be defending will be those who cannot afford to pay and so his only hope of ever getting adequate recompense will be if courts award fees in his favor, which I believe is a bit of a lottery at the best of times - at least he believes enough in his own skills and his take on the law to take that risk.
We need a feature to identify and block the transfer of copyright works? well how about this.....
We simply add a user settable tag to the file description to say whether the file is a copywrite protected work - if it's set on, refuse to copy it.
Well you may say, what if some naughty user didn't flag his files correctly? If the copyright holder finds he can download his works then all he needs to do
is set the tag himself and he can rest safe in the knowledge that no one else will be able to download it - from his machine at least........
Strangely enough, some time ago, something very similar to this to this happened in the UK with videos.
A friend is a lawyer who had to represent a video rental shop owner accused of renting fake videos. Now he'd bought these from a trade fair in London from some supposed American dealers - I don't know the details but I'm guessing he got a "good deal" so he may have some idea they where doggy so he's not whiter than white.
Sometime later a hotshot set of lawyers - on behalf of the film companies - comes after him for everything he owns for hiring out fake videos.
Everything looks bleak for him , they force his business to close and are after the rest of his assets when my friend happens to investigate the people who sold him the videos - they turn out to be American PI's and their hotel bill and return airfare was paid for by the hotshot firm of lawyers.
Result - the case was dropped and lots of compensation paid to the shop owner for the loss of his business and the hassle.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not in the US or a lawyer but I wonder, if you sue everybody who has infringed your copyright can you still get punitive damages from them?
I thought the way punitive damages worked was by saying there this case is one of x but is the only one that has been brought to court therefore your damages can be multiplied by x.
If you can still get x times your actual damages from each of x people then it would seem to be a very good revenue stream indeed.
But if you can only get your actual damages from each case then you are not going to be making any money from this.
I'm partly to blame myself I used to play Mafia wars myself - until I decided progresswars was more rewarding.......
Maybe it's time for for Facebook to realize it's the users who matter, without then the site is worth nothing.
I think this carries those Facebook games to their logical conclusion - http://progresswars.com/
I'm not sure whether you strangled use of the English language means you are (a) a non-native English speaker or (b) an ignorant troll, but neither are good attributes when it comes to analysing the documents from a complicated court case. I see no such condemnation of Jacobsen in them, maybe you could explain where you see these allegations, my dear little AC ?
Do you still find the same women attractive as you did 10 years ago...
So this is why so many marriages end in divorce !
I still don't think this is a good solution or that they have thought it through, surely the same recession that has killed online advertising revenues has also severely reduced the number of people willing and/or able to pay ?
Obviously a Government with a suicide wish.
A few days ago I read about a Firefox extension someone has sent a cease-and-desist over called Skipscreen which lets you avoid all those pesky waits when using Rapidshare type sites. Now of course I never use these sites myself and certainly not to download anything illegal, but thought I'd install it for the convenience of anybody else who happened to use use my computer, I mean, who knows what my cat gets up to in the middle of the night?
Incidentally, this is a good example of the Streisand effect in action, as I'd never heard of the extension before and would probably never have used it.
OK getting back to the point here, I was reading the Skipscreen blog and in this entry - http://skipscreen.com/blog/2009/06/new-skipscreen-megaupload-auto-captcha-auto-reloads/ they talk about using neural network to decipher and enter the 4 letter captcha on Megaupload with an 85% accuracy.
Now this is not the most awesome captcha in the world, but we are taking about a free Firefox extension here not some multi thousand dollar program requiring some super computer to run it, although thinking about it maybe that's why I find Firefox too slow these days and have switched to Chrome for day to day browsing.....
I can't help feeling, that , in the eyes of the rest of the world, US "justice" has just become more of a joke.
Firstly, it more and more appears, that who ever has the most money can buy the verdict they want, secondly, everybody, up to and including the Judge herself, seem to be ignoring the law as it is written and making it up as they go along.
Finally, damages in the million dollar range when the actual loss in considerably less than $100, who needs to work and actually produce things when you can sue people?
And this is for something I'm guessing maybe 1 in 5 of the American population have done - maybe the simple solution would for everyone in the USA just to declare bankruptcy now and give all their money to the lawers, it would save a lot of time and tedious court cases.
I hope you won't mind if I share your bank account a bit, then.
Yes, feel free to pay off some of my overdraft.....
You know, I can't help wondering if if Judge Gertner is following NYCL's blog and taking notice of some of the more insightful comments there?
I think if Google where to start removing links to copyrighted content other than as required by the law, it would very soon cease being the world favorite search engine.
Can you imagine the outcry on here and Geekdom in general if Google decided to censor results in this way? I'm pretty sure some other search engine would appear without these restrictions and quickly become all computer geeks new baby. I'm also sure the Google is shewed enough to realize this.
One thing this whole saga has highlighted to me is the power of the web in bringing (great?) minds together in a common cause.
I don't think any of the interested parties - apart from the RIAA - would be as well informed and knowledge without the free sharing of ideas that has happened here, which somehow seems ironic.
Lets hope that the payback we get for all the hours we have jointly "wasted" here is to make the world a sightly better place.
T.B.
Would a good game plot, overcome a lack of great graphics and features?
I'm not sure about a good storyline, but good gameplay can win out over limited graphics and features.
Probably the best example I can think of is The Kingdom of Loathing - http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/ - This needs way to many clicks to play and has stick figure graphics but the complex interaction of the various features make gameplay addictive.
This, and the humor in the game, has attracted a large loyal following.
I'm sure the man himself will be on later to tell everyone the real situation, I've never met or spoken to him but from his words here and elseware would trust him implicitly, with your feelings about lawyers you may feel differently.
Having met many lawyers I must agree there are many who got into the law solely to make money and if this involves taking your grandmother to court and bankrupting her, so be it. There are also those who believe truth and justice are pearls to be upheld no matter what the personal cost, but the great majority lie somewhere in the infinite shades or gray in between.
It's people like him that have help restore a little of my faith in the (US) justice system. When I see large rich corporations throwing cash at cases just to make it harder for their much poorer opponents to defend themselves it's good to know there are people out there who will help the underdog. These cases are particularly redolent for myself and many slashdoters as they invoke a certain "there but for the grace of God go I" feeling.
I would sincerely doubt Ray is becoming a rich (or much richer) man because of them. I would expect that most of his potential clients with any amount of money would rather pay the RIAA's pound of flesh and settle without going to court than risk several years disruption to their lives.
Most of people he will be defending will be those who cannot afford to pay and so his only hope of ever getting adequate recompense will be if courts award fees in his favor, which I believe is a bit of a lottery at the best of times - at least he believes enough in his own skills and his take on the law to take that risk.
We need a feature to identify and block the transfer of copyright works? well how about this.....
We simply add a user settable tag to the file description to say whether the file is a copywrite protected work - if it's set on, refuse to copy it.
Well you may say, what if some naughty user didn't flag his files correctly? If the copyright holder finds he can download his works then all he needs to do is set the tag himself and he can rest safe in the knowledge that no one else will be able to download it - from his machine at least........
Are not hunting rifles not designed to kill things like deer and wild boar?
I would of thought they would be equally effective at killing another creature of similar size, say a person?
I certainly don't intend to test this hypothesis by standing in front of the business end of one in the near future.
Strangely enough, some time ago, something very similar to this to this happened in the UK with videos. A friend is a lawyer who had to represent a video rental shop owner accused of renting fake videos. Now he'd bought these from a trade fair in London from some supposed American dealers - I don't know the details but I'm guessing he got a "good deal" so he may have some idea they where doggy so he's not whiter than white. Sometime later a hotshot set of lawyers - on behalf of the film companies - comes after him for everything he owns for hiring out fake videos. Everything looks bleak for him , they force his business to close and are after the rest of his assets when my friend happens to investigate the people who sold him the videos - they turn out to be American PI's and their hotel bill and return airfare was paid for by the hotshot firm of lawyers. Result - the case was dropped and lots of compensation paid to the shop owner for the loss of his business and the hassle.