When we were test driving new cars for my wife we noticed that the turn signals on 2015 Fords were different. The switch had the typical lane change feature (push down half way and it will return to neutral and flash the indicator three times), but even on a full actuation the switch returned to neutral. The signal kept flashing until you turned or canceled the signal by actuating it again. I remarked on that to the salesman and he said yeah Ford was getting a lot of complaints on it.
We otherwise liked the car so a few weeks later we wound up ordering a new one, but by then Ford had switched over to the 2016 model. When our 2016 came in the first thing I noticed is that the turn signals now functioned more traditionally. Lane change is still there but when you push it all the way down it will stay in that position.
Furthermore, if it doesn't cross state lines, how the hell does the federal government have a right to step in anyway? Because I guarantee you that the little toy has crossed state lines at least once in its lifetime, if for no other reason than to have its major components imported from China.
That's enough to trigger the federal government's authority to regulate something under the interstate commerce clause. With a few exceptions, it's a federal offense to possess a firearm within 1000' feet of a school if that firearm has ever traveled in interstate commerce. It could be the rifle my grandfather bought from Sears and Roebuck back in the 40s that hasn't left the state since then but that's irrelevant. The feds were able to assert federal jurisdiction against the Amish beard cutters in Ohio because the shears they used to commit the deed had been made in New York.
The idea that one must cross state lines in the course of committing an offense as a prerequisite for federal jurisdiction is sadly not even a trifle.
Maybe I'm just a rarity but I've found a local dealer that deals very fairly with me. Due to a family connection I get A plan pricing on all Ford/Lincoln vehicles. There's no haggling involved and the dealer is going to make a set amount of profit (actually paid to them by Ford not me). I walked in one day and said I'm A-plan and willing to wait for however long it takes for my order to be built and I'm 99% sure I'll just write you a check. To the national/regional dealers you basically get fuck you treatment from that point out.
Not this place - they pulled a half dozen different models out for us to test drive to see how we liked the various options and let us take over a half day of their time. One official dealer fitted option of interest was a particular cargo area cover and they actually told us not to buy it because people weren't happy with how it worked and the durability wasn't great. There went an easy $150 for them but the owner said he couldn't ethically sell it to someone without warning that others have been dissatisfied.
On our second car we had a trade in that needed a lot of work (CEL was lit and would require a $800 repair and the airbag light was on which needed almost $1200 in work). There were a good number of dings and dents. Despite that they still offered us $500 below the Good condition.
Do we take our cars there for service? You bet - basic oil changes are only $5-10 above that of a Jiffy Lube and include a tire rotation. Out of warranty repairs are charged at the lesser of book rate or actual time, whichever is in my favor.
One other thing I've noticed is that the owner is not hurting for every asshole's dollar either. I was waiting for an oil change one time and a guy came in playing the tactics others have espoused here, to the point of being belligerent. The owner came over, offered his hand and calmly told the guy that he was sorry that his dealership would not be able to give him the experience he was looking for, but he would fire any salesman that used 10% of the language he [the customer] had used. He wished him nothing but the best in his car buying adventure and showed him the door.
The part about not paying for your commuting miles (miles that you would spend from the office to your house) is correct. In the US anyway tax rules require commuting miles to be deducted from any amount paid to or claimed by the employee. It makes sense - if you normally drive 10 miles each way to work, why should you be paid to drive 9 miles to a client site if you never went into the office that day?
It can get tricky if you go into the office and then to a client site and then home (or vice versa) but where I work they've got a pretty good system for figuring that all out.
Good points, but one thing I'll caution on. You can outsource the responsibility but you can't outsource the ultimate accountability. Recognizing that you're not able to handle a particular task is a fine reason to outsource it and this is a perfect example. But at the end of the day, you hired them.
Even with the best indemnification agreement your wife's business will suffer to some degree if there's a breach. It is, after all, your wife's brand first and foremost. If she accidentally sells subpar yarn due to a screwup at her supplier she can't completely wash her hands of the affair when customers complain. Same thing if your PCI vendor lets you down.
Actually if you'd read my subject instead of just the comment you would have seen that I said I was glad to hear the news (implied: because it's good news for somebody else) but it was not terribly relevant to me. Sorry if I'm not out actively celebrating this ruling any more than I am that raisin farmer in Oregon who doesn't have to give the government his raisins, or the family in Ohio who now gets to sit through a third murder trial.
But I suppose it's just easier to shoot from the hip at someone who's not cheering with the expected level of enthusiasm.
This affects me about as much as just about all the other cases decided this year, which is to say not in the least. On to the next topic. It's warm and sunny here, time to take the kids to the playground!
Does that actually work though? As part of the settlement the defendant almost never admits to anything. That means you can't just staple the settlement to the back of your prayer for relief and expect it to stand on its own.
But I find it rather amazing how every municipality around the world is rushing to the defense of existing taxicab services.
That is because every municipality went through the time when there was no taxi regulations.
Bingo. Obviously in the larger cities there is going to be somewhat of a profit incentive because they have the benefit of scale. The county I live in is relatively rural but it neighbors a big metropolitian county. There are taxi regulations for all the reasons you listed. From a financial perspective the cost of the licenses barely covers the cost of administering the program. Time was they thought about doing away with the program because it was costing more than it was taking in. The county commissioners had residents packed to the rafters demanding that the program stay in place because many had memories of the unregulated world just 15 years prior. In years that the program doesn't self fund the county makes up the difference.
So why is it that I can't send my child to preschool with a peanut butter sandwich, but yet I am expected to respect your decision to send your unvaccinated child to be with mine?
The good news is that once the Ohio politicians rightly realized that the prosecutor in that case was using a law they passed in ways it wasn't intended (no kidding!) they quickly closed that loophole. And upgraded the charges to being a felony. Unfortunately for the victim in the case you cite you can't criminalize past conduct so no charges were brought but that investigation quickly came to a halt.
The trouble here is that federal employees are exempt from all state laws while carrying out their duties. So even when the states see a problem and quickly close it federal agents remain free to do whatever they want. Then it falls on the federal agent's employer to decide if any crime occurred. Funny how often no crime is found when federal employees are involved no matter how outrageous the situation but that same agency will be quick to bring charges when local law enforcement do something that's close to the line.
I can and do pay cash for a lot of things. But I use my credit card whenever it's convenient to me. It's a question of utility. My credit card was among those swept up in the Target breach. My hassle consisted of two days without said credit card and having to sign a form and mail it back.
No liability, no problems. If I lose cash that's on me baby.
Other than for some altruistic "for the greater good because merchants just pass down the cost of fraud to their customers" why should I care? I mean, seriously, why should I care? Debit card interchange fees were statutorily capped a few years ago and all of the merchants stoically supported the idea because it would be great for consumer's bottom lines. A study conducted by the Wall Street Journal six months later found that despite merchants generating substantial savings from the interchange fees being cut virtually none of it made its way back to the consumers. In fact some merchants even boasted in their earnings statements about how the savings went straight to the corporate bottom line. If credit card fraud went "poof" tomorrow, where do you think those savings would go?
So I ask again, if I bust my ass and Initech saves a few units, I don't see another dime, so what's in it for me?
I have always found that whenever an opinion cites a URL the courts are careful to indicate the date that it was accessed. A hard copy (or at least a PDF) of the page as it existed at that time is then retained by the clerk in the case file. There's usually a footnote concerning this arrangement.
It's not that hard. No need for fancy technology or mass archiving of the Internet. The only thing they need is a basic PDF writer. Problem solved.
And it became a classic George Carlin skit about airline safety and euphemisms:
Here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss. They say that if two planes almost collide, it's a near miss. Bullshit, my friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss. [WHAM! CRUNCH!] "Look, they nearly missed!" "Yes, but not quite.”
As implied by other posters, take the time to get your bank account ownerships/titles in order. At my bank online banking is tied to me, the individual. As soon as the bank gets wind of a customer's demise the first thing they do is revoke online banking access and restrict the safe deposit box. Unless it's a joint account or one with right of survivorship they are SOL until an executor can be appointed and the account retitled. Only then will the executor will have access to the online account using their own credentials.
Even working in HR is not carte blanche to access to everything. A payroll clerk has no need to access my annual performance reviews, job application or disciplinary history. Furthermore once my pay information has been entered into the system the payroll clerk has no need to look it up absent a change request, processing error or a complaint.
At my employer audit, HR, and security are held to much higher standards than everyone else. HR clerks have been fired for transgressions that might only result in a written caution for a dude in the mailroom.
At my company the salary range is up there for anyone to see. You log in to the HR system and pull down your compensation information. It will show you how much you make plotted right on the salary band and which quadrant you fall in. There's four quadrants - entry, competitive, advanced competitive, and experienced. IMHO its good to be in the competitive categories. There's something to be said for not being the guy busting his salary range when the Bobs come around.
They also show the breakdown of my total compensation which includes things like their contribution to my 401(k), pension, and health benefits. It does put things into perspective because if I were to consider going to another employer I'd have to really understand the total value of my compensation and not just my salary.
So for instance I could get an offer at another employer for $10k over what I make now but if they don't offer a pension plan and match the 401(k) at half the rate of my current employer then it's not a better deal (assuming my motivation for leaving is strictly financial).
Seriously... the fraud was discovered Wednesday with arrests following overnight and the suspect made his first court appearance yesterday. Even the prosecutor has said that he doesn't even know if the suspect profited from his actions.
Almost no confirmed details have been released and yet every Tom Dick and Harry in cyberspace knows exactly what happened and has a simple fix whether it be regulatory, managerial, coding changes or a combination of all three.
To trot out the usual car analogies... this is kind of like the news reporting that there was a serious car crash on the freeway an hour ago, three cars caught fire and five people are dead. Then in the next segment they have a panel of experts who talk about how better brakes, traction control and a closer fire station could have prevented the tragedy.
Anybody who claims to know what could have prevented the incident at such an early stage is overgeneralizing, talking out their ass... or both.
This fraud has been going on for the better part of three years. We barely know what controls have been circumvented at this point and we sure don't know how they were bypassed. Why can't we wait for the investigators to figure out what happened first before we start trying to prevent the next one?
A lady walked up and complimented me on the dog and talked about the chicken and said it was nice to see a father out with his kids. I said they weren't my children and they had just come up to pat the chicken
Petting your chicken you say... you don't suppose the lady was confused about the gender of the bird and told the police that there was a man letting 12 and 13 year old kids pat his cock do you?:)
In all seriousness when they asked about the books I would asked if they'd like an autographed copy. That'd make for some really interesting analysis on their part.
If that's the site's policy and they consistently adhere to it, then why is it the site's problem? Sure it sucks for whomever was defamed but that goes back on the person who posted the defamatory statements in the first place. It's worth pointing out that this particular aspect of the case only concerns the forum in which the statement was made. The person who makes the defamatory post is 100% responsible for what they said. The fact that the defendant knowingly posted a false statement to a website that makes it perfectly clear that they will not remove the comment should be a factor in determining the level of damages owed to the defamed party.
In your friend's case, she should pursue Bridezilla for the damage caused to her business. Saying things on a public forum has consequences. I've never actually posted anything on RipOff Report but I did go through the process once just to see how it works. They make it abundantly clear to the poster that they are completely responsible for anything they say.
I'm glad you've been successful at representing yourself in court. As I alluded to in an earlier post though we can't begrudge someone for not doing what we would rather they do when it comes to their situation. It's a personal decision. Here we are talking about a fan site that a guy runs as a hobby. Presumably he runs it because he likes Discovery and he likes their show. He's probably not so endeared to them anymore. We don't know but after this treatment he may not even be interested in providing them with free publicity
Is it wrong that Discovery is going after him like they are? Yep, no doubt. But that doesn't mean we can decide for him how he should proceed. We know nothing about this gentleman's personal situation. What kind of a job does he have? Can he get all the time off he needs to defend himself in court, and what would his employer think about him being in a large civil suit? Is he married? Does he have kids that he's saving money for to send them to college? We don't know the facts and quite frankly we have no right to tell this guy how he should manage his affairs, particularly when the risk is all his and the reward is all ours. If he wins in court, what does he really get? The right to continue providing free publicity for a company he now despises? Talk about a hollow victory.
Too bad it will never see a judge because the owner of the site in question decided to acquiesce Discovery's C&D rather than go to court. I'm sure there will be posters who will bemoan the fact that he's "taking it in the ass" or "abandoning the principle of the matter" or other such nonsense. I never begrudge anybody for making a legal decision based on their own situation. Lawyers aren't cheap, and at the end of the day I can't think of any hobbies I have where I'd be willing to front thousands of dollars I don't have and years of stress just to make a point when the end result will be either: 1. I win, and now have the right to continue to maintain a fan site for a show that's either now out of existence (by the time the case is concluded) or that I absolutely despise after what the company put me through. 2. I lose, and go bankrupt.
I think the owner is doing the best thing he can here - he's giving in without spending a cent but he's generating a lot of negative publicity in the process.
As an aside someone should report all of Discovery's Youtube videos because they are not adhering to Youtube's terms of use.
That Apple isn't allowed to do anything warranty-wise if you jailbreak your iphone in the future? Could they refuse to replace a broken glass screen if they find out your iphone is or was ever jailbroken, JUST BECAUSE it was jailbroken?
No it just means that Apple can't sue you for $250,000 in compensatory damages for violating the DMCA and you won't go to jail. Of course they can still refuse to honor your warranty for things you've done that you agreed to not do as a condition of getting service (i.e. a warranty) from them.
In war a soldier's purpose is always to reduce the enemy's fighting capability, typically in any way possible. Killing a pilot is much more effective than just shooting down an aircraft, because training a pilot is a much more expensive and time consuming prospect.
Shooting down the aircraft but not killing the pilot might actually be the better outcome. If you kill a pilot his country will pay some money in a death benefit and cover his burial. On the other hand if you leave him severely injured he'll be useless to his country yet live to be an ongoing drain on the country's resources since they're obligated to treat his service-related medical / psychological issues forever.
Slashdot Mirror
When we were test driving new cars for my wife we noticed that the turn signals on 2015 Fords were different. The switch had the typical lane change feature (push down half way and it will return to neutral and flash the indicator three times), but even on a full actuation the switch returned to neutral. The signal kept flashing until you turned or canceled the signal by actuating it again. I remarked on that to the salesman and he said yeah Ford was getting a lot of complaints on it.
We otherwise liked the car so a few weeks later we wound up ordering a new one, but by then Ford had switched over to the 2016 model. When our 2016 came in the first thing I noticed is that the turn signals now functioned more traditionally. Lane change is still there but when you push it all the way down it will stay in that position.
Furthermore, if it doesn't cross state lines, how the hell does the federal government have a right to step in anyway?
Because I guarantee you that the little toy has crossed state lines at least once in its lifetime, if for no other reason than to have its major components imported from China.
That's enough to trigger the federal government's authority to regulate something under the interstate commerce clause. With a few exceptions, it's a federal offense to possess a firearm within 1000' feet of a school if that firearm has ever traveled in interstate commerce. It could be the rifle my grandfather bought from Sears and Roebuck back in the 40s that hasn't left the state since then but that's irrelevant. The feds were able to assert federal jurisdiction against the Amish beard cutters in Ohio because the shears they used to commit the deed had been made in New York.
The idea that one must cross state lines in the course of committing an offense as a prerequisite for federal jurisdiction is sadly not even a trifle.
Maybe I'm just a rarity but I've found a local dealer that deals very fairly with me. Due to a family connection I get A plan pricing on all Ford/Lincoln vehicles. There's no haggling involved and the dealer is going to make a set amount of profit (actually paid to them by Ford not me). I walked in one day and said I'm A-plan and willing to wait for however long it takes for my order to be built and I'm 99% sure I'll just write you a check. To the national/regional dealers you basically get fuck you treatment from that point out.
Not this place - they pulled a half dozen different models out for us to test drive to see how we liked the various options and let us take over a half day of their time. One official dealer fitted option of interest was a particular cargo area cover and they actually told us not to buy it because people weren't happy with how it worked and the durability wasn't great. There went an easy $150 for them but the owner said he couldn't ethically sell it to someone without warning that others have been dissatisfied.
On our second car we had a trade in that needed a lot of work (CEL was lit and would require a $800 repair and the airbag light was on which needed almost $1200 in work). There were a good number of dings and dents. Despite that they still offered us $500 below the Good condition.
Do we take our cars there for service? You bet - basic oil changes are only $5-10 above that of a Jiffy Lube and include a tire rotation. Out of warranty repairs are charged at the lesser of book rate or actual time, whichever is in my favor.
One other thing I've noticed is that the owner is not hurting for every asshole's dollar either. I was waiting for an oil change one time and a guy came in playing the tactics others have espoused here, to the point of being belligerent. The owner came over, offered his hand and calmly told the guy that he was sorry that his dealership would not be able to give him the experience he was looking for, but he would fire any salesman that used 10% of the language he [the customer] had used. He wished him nothing but the best in his car buying adventure and showed him the door.
The part about not paying for your commuting miles (miles that you would spend from the office to your house) is correct. In the US anyway tax rules require commuting miles to be deducted from any amount paid to or claimed by the employee. It makes sense - if you normally drive 10 miles each way to work, why should you be paid to drive 9 miles to a client site if you never went into the office that day?
It can get tricky if you go into the office and then to a client site and then home (or vice versa) but where I work they've got a pretty good system for figuring that all out.
Good points, but one thing I'll caution on. You can outsource the responsibility but you can't outsource the ultimate accountability. Recognizing that you're not able to handle a particular task is a fine reason to outsource it and this is a perfect example. But at the end of the day, you hired them.
Even with the best indemnification agreement your wife's business will suffer to some degree if there's a breach. It is, after all, your wife's brand first and foremost. If she accidentally sells subpar yarn due to a screwup at her supplier she can't completely wash her hands of the affair when customers complain. Same thing if your PCI vendor lets you down.
Actually if you'd read my subject instead of just the comment you would have seen that I said I was glad to hear the news (implied: because it's good news for somebody else) but it was not terribly relevant to me. Sorry if I'm not out actively celebrating this ruling any more than I am that raisin farmer in Oregon who doesn't have to give the government his raisins, or the family in Ohio who now gets to sit through a third murder trial.
But I suppose it's just easier to shoot from the hip at someone who's not cheering with the expected level of enthusiasm.
This affects me about as much as just about all the other cases decided this year, which is to say not in the least. On to the next topic. It's warm and sunny here, time to take the kids to the playground!
Not that impressive...I can stomp on an ant with all of my fat ass might and the thing gets up, slightly stunned, and continues on its way.
Does that actually work though? As part of the settlement the defendant almost never admits to anything. That means you can't just staple the settlement to the back of your prayer for relief and expect it to stand on its own.
But I find it rather amazing how every municipality around the world is rushing to the defense of existing taxicab services.
That is because every municipality went through the time when there was no taxi regulations.
Bingo. Obviously in the larger cities there is going to be somewhat of a profit incentive because they have the benefit of scale. The county I live in is relatively rural but it neighbors a big metropolitian county. There are taxi regulations for all the reasons you listed. From a financial perspective the cost of the licenses barely covers the cost of administering the program. Time was they thought about doing away with the program because it was costing more than it was taking in. The county commissioners had residents packed to the rafters demanding that the program stay in place because many had memories of the unregulated world just 15 years prior. In years that the program doesn't self fund the county makes up the difference.
So why is it that I can't send my child to preschool with a peanut butter sandwich, but yet I am expected to respect your decision to send your unvaccinated child to be with mine?
The good news is that once the Ohio politicians rightly realized that the prosecutor in that case was using a law they passed in ways it wasn't intended (no kidding!) they quickly closed that loophole. And upgraded the charges to being a felony. Unfortunately for the victim in the case you cite you can't criminalize past conduct so no charges were brought but that investigation quickly came to a halt.
The trouble here is that federal employees are exempt from all state laws while carrying out their duties. So even when the states see a problem and quickly close it federal agents remain free to do whatever they want. Then it falls on the federal agent's employer to decide if any crime occurred. Funny how often no crime is found when federal employees are involved no matter how outrageous the situation but that same agency will be quick to bring charges when local law enforcement do something that's close to the line.
I can and do pay cash for a lot of things. But I use my credit card whenever it's convenient to me. It's a question of utility. My credit card was among those swept up in the Target breach. My hassle consisted of two days without said credit card and having to sign a form and mail it back.
No liability, no problems. If I lose cash that's on me baby.
Other than for some altruistic "for the greater good because merchants just pass down the cost of fraud to their customers" why should I care? I mean, seriously, why should I care? Debit card interchange fees were statutorily capped a few years ago and all of the merchants stoically supported the idea because it would be great for consumer's bottom lines. A study conducted by the Wall Street Journal six months later found that despite merchants generating substantial savings from the interchange fees being cut virtually none of it made its way back to the consumers. In fact some merchants even boasted in their earnings statements about how the savings went straight to the corporate bottom line. If credit card fraud went "poof" tomorrow, where do you think those savings would go?
So I ask again, if I bust my ass and Initech saves a few units, I don't see another dime, so what's in it for me?
I have always found that whenever an opinion cites a URL the courts are careful to indicate the date that it was accessed. A hard copy (or at least a PDF) of the page as it existed at that time is then retained by the clerk in the case file. There's usually a footnote concerning this arrangement.
It's not that hard. No need for fancy technology or mass archiving of the Internet. The only thing they need is a basic PDF writer. Problem solved.
And it became a classic George Carlin skit about airline safety and euphemisms:
Here's a phrase that apparently the airlines simply made up: near miss. They say that if two planes almost collide, it's a near miss. Bullshit, my friend. It's a near hit! A collision is a near miss.
[WHAM! CRUNCH!]
"Look, they nearly missed!"
"Yes, but not quite.”
As implied by other posters, take the time to get your bank account ownerships/titles in order. At my bank online banking is tied to me, the individual. As soon as the bank gets wind of a customer's demise the first thing they do is revoke online banking access and restrict the safe deposit box. Unless it's a joint account or one with right of survivorship they are SOL until an executor can be appointed and the account retitled. Only then will the executor will have access to the online account using their own credentials.
Even working in HR is not carte blanche to access to everything. A payroll clerk has no need to access my annual performance reviews, job application or disciplinary history. Furthermore once my pay information has been entered into the system the payroll clerk has no need to look it up absent a change request, processing error or a complaint.
At my employer audit, HR, and security are held to much higher standards than everyone else. HR clerks have been fired for transgressions that might only result in a written caution for a dude in the mailroom.
At my company the salary range is up there for anyone to see. You log in to the HR system and pull down your compensation information. It will show you how much you make plotted right on the salary band and which quadrant you fall in. There's four quadrants - entry, competitive, advanced competitive, and experienced. IMHO its good to be in the competitive categories. There's something to be said for not being the guy busting his salary range when the Bobs come around.
They also show the breakdown of my total compensation which includes things like their contribution to my 401(k), pension, and health benefits. It does put things into perspective because if I were to consider going to another employer I'd have to really understand the total value of my compensation and not just my salary.
So for instance I could get an offer at another employer for $10k over what I make now but if they don't offer a pension plan and match the 401(k) at half the rate of my current employer then it's not a better deal (assuming my motivation for leaving is strictly financial).
Seriously ... the fraud was discovered Wednesday with arrests following overnight and the suspect made his first court appearance yesterday. Even the prosecutor has said that he doesn't even know if the suspect profited from his actions.
Almost no confirmed details have been released and yet every Tom Dick and Harry in cyberspace knows exactly what happened and has a simple fix whether it be regulatory, managerial, coding changes or a combination of all three.
To trot out the usual car analogies ... this is kind of like the news reporting that there was a serious car crash on the freeway an hour ago, three cars caught fire and five people are dead. Then in the next segment they have a panel of experts who talk about how better brakes, traction control and a closer fire station could have prevented the tragedy.
Anybody who claims to know what could have prevented the incident at such an early stage is overgeneralizing, talking out their ass ... or both.
This fraud has been going on for the better part of three years. We barely know what controls have been circumvented at this point and we sure don't know how they were bypassed. Why can't we wait for the investigators to figure out what happened first before we start trying to prevent the next one?
A lady walked up and complimented me on the dog and talked about the chicken and said it was nice to see a father out with his kids. I said they weren't my children and they had just come up to pat the chicken
Petting your chicken you say ... you don't suppose the lady was confused about the gender of the bird and told the police that there was a man letting 12 and 13 year old kids pat his cock do you? :)
In all seriousness when they asked about the books I would asked if they'd like an autographed copy. That'd make for some really interesting analysis on their part.
If that's the site's policy and they consistently adhere to it, then why is it the site's problem? Sure it sucks for whomever was defamed but that goes back on the person who posted the defamatory statements in the first place. It's worth pointing out that this particular aspect of the case only concerns the forum in which the statement was made. The person who makes the defamatory post is 100% responsible for what they said. The fact that the defendant knowingly posted a false statement to a website that makes it perfectly clear that they will not remove the comment should be a factor in determining the level of damages owed to the defamed party.
In your friend's case, she should pursue Bridezilla for the damage caused to her business. Saying things on a public forum has consequences. I've never actually posted anything on RipOff Report but I did go through the process once just to see how it works. They make it abundantly clear to the poster that they are completely responsible for anything they say.
I'm glad you've been successful at representing yourself in court. As I alluded to in an earlier post though we can't begrudge someone for not doing what we would rather they do when it comes to their situation. It's a personal decision. Here we are talking about a fan site that a guy runs as a hobby. Presumably he runs it because he likes Discovery and he likes their show. He's probably not so endeared to them anymore. We don't know but after this treatment he may not even be interested in providing them with free publicity
Is it wrong that Discovery is going after him like they are? Yep, no doubt. But that doesn't mean we can decide for him how he should proceed. We know nothing about this gentleman's personal situation. What kind of a job does he have? Can he get all the time off he needs to defend himself in court, and what would his employer think about him being in a large civil suit? Is he married? Does he have kids that he's saving money for to send them to college? We don't know the facts and quite frankly we have no right to tell this guy how he should manage his affairs, particularly when the risk is all his and the reward is all ours. If he wins in court, what does he really get? The right to continue providing free publicity for a company he now despises? Talk about a hollow victory.
Too bad it will never see a judge because the owner of the site in question decided to acquiesce Discovery's C&D rather than go to court. I'm sure there will be posters who will bemoan the fact that he's "taking it in the ass" or "abandoning the principle of the matter" or other such nonsense. I never begrudge anybody for making a legal decision based on their own situation. Lawyers aren't cheap, and at the end of the day I can't think of any hobbies I have where I'd be willing to front thousands of dollars I don't have and years of stress just to make a point when the end result will be either:
1. I win, and now have the right to continue to maintain a fan site for a show that's either now out of existence (by the time the case is concluded) or that I absolutely despise after what the company put me through.
2. I lose, and go bankrupt.
I think the owner is doing the best thing he can here - he's giving in without spending a cent but he's generating a lot of negative publicity in the process.
As an aside someone should report all of Discovery's Youtube videos because they are not adhering to Youtube's terms of use.
That Apple isn't allowed to do anything warranty-wise if you jailbreak your iphone in the future? Could they refuse to replace a broken glass screen if they find out your iphone is or was ever jailbroken, JUST BECAUSE it was jailbroken?
No it just means that Apple can't sue you for $250,000 in compensatory damages for violating the DMCA and you won't go to jail. Of course they can still refuse to honor your warranty for things you've done that you agreed to not do as a condition of getting service (i.e. a warranty) from them.
In war a soldier's purpose is always to reduce the enemy's fighting capability, typically in any way possible. Killing a pilot is much more effective than just shooting down an aircraft, because training a pilot is a much more expensive and time consuming prospect.
Shooting down the aircraft but not killing the pilot might actually be the better outcome. If you kill a pilot his country will pay some money in a death benefit and cover his burial. On the other hand if you leave him severely injured he'll be useless to his country yet live to be an ongoing drain on the country's resources since they're obligated to treat his service-related medical / psychological issues forever.