I am going to disgree here. Besides pissing and moaning to congress, there is little to be done until there is a harm.
Look at the Felton suit, the court ruled that there was no harm, so they dismissed the case. Now, that someone has been harmed (not just threatened with harm), now he can get a lawyer involved and go after Sega.
Maybe he can get the school to talk the lawyer that handled the Felton case.
If I remember correctly, items of soley functional design (as opposed to artistic) cannot be copyrighted. So, the pinout or shape should not be copyrightable. Remember the Apple ][ clones? Some shipped them in without eproms to get around that.
I don't believe there is. Think of the shrinkwrap/clickwrap agreements. After seeing the terms of the site, you can' keep using it and disclaim that contract, while receiving the benefits of the same contract.
Look at Hamibi v. Intel, the appeals court held that he could be enjoined from sending email. Look at the cases along the line of Ebay v. Bidder's Edge and Register.com v. Verio. That scraping the site is improper in those cases. There is a recent one in 1st circuit that holds the same way.
As a copyright holder, you are allowed to show works publically, but not permit others to use it for commercial purposes. Look at Baseball broadcasts, you can't record them and sell a World Series Tape Collection. There was a case where people at games were allowed to collect scores and send them to susbscribers pagers, but that was a very labor intensive, so the court allowed it.
A robot can determine if it is allowed, it is called robots.txt.
The next step is to go after SPAMbot publishers for contributory copyright infringement, ala Napster. At least get some good out of that case. It is different though, because there is a simple way to determine permission, analyze the page for copyright or look at the robots.txt.
Put terms of use on your websites to prohibit email collection. Use a unique email address on the site, so it can be tracke.
Then when the spammer emails to it, track them down, file a large lawsuit for copyright infringment, tresspass to chattel, computer tresspass and fraud.
Bankrupt a few spammers, others may think twice before spamming
How about a program that checks for SPAM, then the program will delete the entries in the database that SPAMMERs have used to publicize. Then if there are more than 3 SPAMs, then notify the ISP and delete every page in the data base from that ISP.
They will use the law in cases that they can villify the defendant. If the RIAA sees that they will lose, the RIAA will throw the sword out the window and say, "What sword?"
There are provisions in some jurisdictions for paying fees and costs where a case is frivilous (in Federal court it is rule 11).
There are also torts of abuse of process and malicious prosecution.
The problem with these are the companies that bring this, like Mattel are not concerned that a judge may order costs and fees. Costs and fees may amount to $10,000-$2000, where such a company would spend less than that in a month on outside counsel.In some companies, the inhouse counsel gets additional monies for assisting outside counsel.
I don't think the at large members should be paid. Maybe reimbursed for expenses, but then you must define and limit what expenses that should be covered/required. There should be some benefit for the at large members, not cash though.
There is a need to thin the herd of at-large members, because some people will sign-up and do nothing.
Though a patent is granted, it may not be enforcable. Laws could rule certain patents unenforcable. Even if you have a patent, it only is tested in court -- the PTO is not the final arbiter.
I patented sex, so you you don't pay you aren't screwed.
Would you open on any SPAM that has a link in it? I would not. There are spams that contain bugs. They generate a unique link (based on target address) so that when you open the SPAM in html, it will made a request back to their server indicating that the email address is valid.
The only trusted spam that I could think of is a SPAM service. The spammer sends the service the SPAM text, then the service will email them out, after being processed by a removal list. The spammer could not get the service's remove list, because the service is sending out the spam, not the SPAMMER.
This is an example where the government entrapment is a good thing. What about the dark side of the force?
Let the FBI put up sites for child porn, and the requirement for entry into the child porn is submitting your own child porn. Is this entrapment? What about the MPAA doing this with movie downloads?
Don't sign up for their mail list or post comments.
They wil put your email address on their website which will be attacked by SPAMbots. They will do nothing about it.
Use a disposible address for any comments to them. An alternative is to use an address that goes to an autoresponder, that provides a CGI controlled form. The CGI will have an adress embedded in it.
Third, what prevents me from grabbing the removal database and using as a verified sucker database?
What would work is that DMA provides an email service that allows a member to submit a list and email to send to them, then they will test the address and if it is ok, then send it.
If you are going against an ex-employer, then the ex-employer will use the not following the old policy as a reason for not reinstatement (cutting off front-pay damages). See McKENNON v. NASHVILLE BANNER PUBLISHING CO.
People will always save (on their own) documents to protect themselfs. So any policy will be useless.
If you destroy a document, then the other side makes a statement, it would be hard for you do show proof that the statement is false, because you destroyed your evidence.
And in 100ms, there will be porn sites registered as mywife.sucks, mytwolesbiangirlfriendsandI.sucks.
The problem here is by making a distinction between.sucks and.com or you don't get people getting the same information on the same searches. There may be a stigmatism from the information being on the.sucks tld, it is someone who is just complaining. Then you will have the issue of domain battles for barbie.sucks, because people will fight over who thinks barbie sucks more.
Sometimes it is the lack of money and lawyers. Sometimes lawyers don't see the advantage of it, ie. no money in it for them. Sometimes, people are just too scared to fight. Or, they think you can't win against a large corporation.
Slashdot Mirror
It would be a diffult suing customs for following what they have been told or UPS for following customs' instructions.
By bring such a case into court, you may get a court ruling that would chip away at the DMCA. That probably was the idea behind the Felton case.
Look at the Felton suit, the court ruled that there was no harm, so they dismissed the case. Now, that someone has been harmed (not just threatened with harm), now he can get a lawyer involved and go after Sega.
Maybe he can get the school to talk the lawyer that handled the Felton case.
If I remember correctly, items of soley functional design (as opposed to artistic) cannot be copyrighted. So, the pinout or shape should not be copyrightable. Remember the Apple ][ clones? Some shipped them in without eproms to get around that.
Learn the basics first. The computer should suplement, not replace.
Look at Hamibi v. Intel, the appeals court held that he could be enjoined from sending email. Look at the cases along the line of Ebay v. Bidder's Edge and Register.com v. Verio. That scraping the site is improper in those cases. There is a recent one in 1st circuit that holds the same way.
As a copyright holder, you are allowed to show works publically, but not permit others to use it for commercial purposes. Look at Baseball broadcasts, you can't record them and sell a World Series Tape Collection. There was a case where people at games were allowed to collect scores and send them to susbscribers pagers, but that was a very labor intensive, so the court allowed it.
A robot can determine if it is allowed, it is called robots.txt.
The next step is to go after SPAMbot publishers for contributory copyright infringement, ala Napster. At least get some good out of that case. It is different though, because there is a simple way to determine permission, analyze the page for copyright or look at the robots.txt.
Then when the spammer emails to it, track them down, file a large lawsuit for copyright infringment, tresspass to chattel, computer tresspass and fraud.
Bankrupt a few spammers, others may think twice before spamming
Well, that is redundant. But even so, it make me think of the book, "Sex for dummies" which gave me a whole new perspective on RTFM.
They will use the law in cases that they can villify the defendant. If the RIAA sees that they will lose, the RIAA will throw the sword out the window and say, "What sword?"
Now, I am showing I'm really old, like when 64K was lots of memory.
The agreement held that you did not have any rights to what you suggested, but as compensation you would receive free product.
There are also torts of abuse of process and malicious prosecution.
The problem with these are the companies that bring this, like Mattel are not concerned that a judge may order costs and fees. Costs and fees may amount to $10,000-$2000, where such a company would spend less than that in a month on outside counsel.In some companies, the inhouse counsel gets additional monies for assisting outside counsel.
There is a need to thin the herd of at-large members, because some people will sign-up and do nothing.
I patented sex, so you you don't pay you aren't screwed.
Congress may hold funding for NASA until there is an exception made for them.
Junk mail does have a use, do you have a fireplace?
The only trusted spam that I could think of is a SPAM service. The spammer sends the service the SPAM text, then the service will email them out, after being processed by a removal list. The spammer could not get the service's remove list, because the service is sending out the spam, not the SPAMMER.
Let the FBI put up sites for child porn, and the requirement for entry into the child porn is submitting your own child porn. Is this entrapment? What about the MPAA doing this with movie downloads?
They wil put your email address on their website which will be attacked by SPAMbots. They will do nothing about it.
Use a disposible address for any comments to them. An alternative is to use an address that goes to an autoresponder, that provides a CGI controlled form. The CGI will have an adress embedded in it.
That does not prevent me from taking the list and selling it to one of the 1 million verified email addresses for $149.99.
Second, who trusts the removal links?
Third, what prevents me from grabbing the removal database and using as a verified sucker database?
What would work is that DMA provides an email service that allows a member to submit a list and email to send to them, then they will test the address and if it is ok, then send it.
If you destroy a document, then the other side makes a statement, it would be hard for you do show proof that the statement is false, because you destroyed your evidence.
The problem here is by making a distinction between .sucks and .com or you don't get people getting the same information on the same searches. There may be a stigmatism from the information being on the .sucks tld, it is someone who is just complaining. Then you will have the issue of domain battles for barbie.sucks, because people will fight over who thinks barbie sucks more.