To have guns insured just like cars are, so that gun owners will always have enough funds to cover any damages that may ensue from mishandling the weapon.
Do you realize, how dangerous mere speech is? You yell "fire" in a crowd, and people die in the stampede. You say: "It was him!" — and an innocent man gets hung. You say, "Republicans are Nazis!" and an incompetent wannabe gets elected president (with an outright lunatic as vice-president). But nobody is required to carry insurance nor post bond before speaking.
If you, folks, treated the First Amendment the way you treat the Second, our right to Free Speech would've been limited to petitioning the government — and only for redress of grievances.
The "public performance" provision, however, is imposed not by the copyright holder but rather by the law itself. That's where the difference lies.
Ok, I see the distinction, but I don't see a difference. One way or another even a legally purchased DVD can only be used privately. (Whether showing it to inmates is still private, is another question.)
Although there is wording on DVDs to the effect that they are "licensed", this is not true. If you purchase a copy, you own that copy and retain all first-sale rights.
This is interesting... Could you offer a link, where this legal quirk is convincingly explained? Because right now it sounds like one of those "you don't have to pay your income tax" proclamations...
The actual phrasing in 17 USC concerns "public performance".
If, indeed, I can do anything I want with the purchased DVD, as you claimed at the beginning, then this part becomes irrelevant, no?
it's possible the prison performance would not be considered "public"
The code clearly states that distributions by unauthorized person is a crime. charging is irrelevant.
False. Though all unauthorized distribution is illegal, not all of it constitutes a criminal offense. To make the perpetrator a felon, according to paragraphs; 506 federal Title 17 of the United States Code, the distribution must be committed:
for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
Our protagonist qualifies for the first item above. And so do his current jailers. Small-time non-profit distributors — such as torrent-users, who keep the stuff they just downloaded available, but not for long enough to qualify for the second case — do not.
Don't try to sell them and you're mostly in the clear.
Generally, you are right — the particular prisoner's case is different. However — content-owners have tried to make "non-profit" infringers (people making copyrighted material available for free to others) into examples by suing them for large sums of money (though no jail-time).
And second, the prison officials aren't just watching the material themselves — they are showing it to a large number of people (entire prison population). This is something, which you can not legally do even with a DVD you purchased in a store — they are only licensed for private viewing.
They should be busted and, ideally, someone ought to end up in the cell next to the protagonist — even if for a shorter sentence.
Don't you Foxbots have anything better to say than AAAAALLLLL GOOOOORRRRRE!?
It was not Fox, but Al Gore himself, who made Al Gore the face of the global movement for control masquerading as a virtuous fight against Global Warming, nay, Climate Change, no, what's the term du jour, — Climate Disruption yeah, that is it.
There was one significant difference: The Mayans never invaded and conquered Spain.
Only for lack of the sea-faring technology. And if they had the technology, their code of ethics and religion would've caused them to kill all the Spanish. Not convert, not even enslave, but kill. And that's why I consider them much more barbaric, than the Spanish were at the time.
Because the oft-denounced "Western culture" has developed by those times not just the ocean-crossing ships and muskets, but also a monotheistic religion, which did away with idols, who could only be appeased by blood.
Keep electing republicans and america will end up with so many starving and jobless people
Both the number of food-stamp recipients (starving) and unemployment (jobless) increasedunder Obama. Why, when the unemployment was 6% under Bush, he was blamed for "jobless recovery" by some. Worse, as his figure went further down to 5%, he was still blamed by others.
Obama's figure today — six years later — is still above 6% (despite millions leaving the workforce for good and thus not figuring into the count) — but you are blaming Republicans? Wow...
One side had 2 revolutions already that seemed to have worked for their end. Why can't the other side have their own revolution too?
You could've asked your question before — but on February 27th, when Russia invaded Crimea, it became an obvious enemy. An armed invader. No ifs or buts about it.
Waving the enemy's flag, replacing your country's flag with that of the enemy on official buildings, arguing for joining the enemy — these are not expressions of legitimate political disagreements. These are acts of treason.
Pax Americana really only worked because America was ridiculously strong compared to the rest of the world for a few decades. As military strengths equalize- we are likely to see a return to war.
Yeah. Keep electing obamas and America will get the punishment it so richly deserves for those decades.
Ask the defenders at Masada or any other nations that were lined up on crossed to die in the sun after daring to resist.
Defenders of Masada killed themselves. If they didn't resist at all, they would've been residents of a Roman Province — hardly a horrible fate (see "Life of Brian" for humorous take on it). They — a sect, which in today's America would've been laughed at as "Right-wing religious nuts" — chose to fight, which is admirable, but even then losing didn't mean dying — they were in for enslavement, but not death.
The Mayans, on the other hand, whom somebody else mentioned here with regret, were killing all their prisoners-of-war. Visit Chichen Itza or any other Mayan site in Yukatan — you'll be shown walls made of human sculls — centuries before the "horrible" Spanish showed up.
There may be less wars and deaths but you do know that is only because the powers that be have found easier ways to rape neighbouring countries and enslaving their citizens?
And yet, there being fewer wars and deaths really is a welcome improvement...
"Open Source," "Free [Software]," "Contribute," and "Development" appear to scare managers away.
Not where I'm working (a giant company). On the contrary, we are rather suspicious of commercial solutions — because their costs tend to run up pretty quickly (we have a large user-base) and their license terms often enough turn out to be rather enslaving (Oracle is particularly scary in this regard, from what little I've overheard from the company lawyers).
Sure enough, free software has its rough edges, but so does the commercial kind. And we have enough bright people to fix the problems (bugs or missing features) in the open-sourced packages, whereas with the proprietary stuff you are usually at the mercy of the vendor. We still use some commercial programs, but, when choosing a software solution, the program being proprietary is a negative, rather than a positive factor.
I wish, it remained possible to get the source for the commercial packages as well, but with modern attitudes towards theft of intellectual property as well as the wide-spread propensity to use the terms "free" and "open source" interchangeably, this is not an option...
If Al Gore-like shamans lived back then, the insufficient fervor of the rival shamans in keeping the fires going all day and night would've been blamed for the freeze.
Anybody failing to keep their fire going would be shamed and punished — unless they paid tribute (to buy global freezing offset credits) to the right shaman, of course.
Didn't you notice incidents such as overt poisioning of oppenents happening in Ukrane politics?
Yep, and the victim — Victor Yuschenko — was the guy, who dared to run against Putin's choice for Ukraine's President. To you the names like "Yanukovich" and "Yuschenko" may appear similar, but a foreign policy expert advising the leader of the free world must be able to keep up.
It's hard to pick the "good guys" when things have got that medieval.
On the contrary, it is very easy — if Putin-TV talks against them, they are most probably alright. The "things" have gotten far more "medieval" in Syria, yet America's sympathies there are perfectly "black-and-white", for some reason. That we no longer have "good options" in Syria can be blamed on Obama and his Department of State. If he does not act quickly, there may be no "good options" left in Ukraine either.
It may not be as hard as picking a side in Syria but it's not a black and white choice either.
It is "black-and-white". The only possible negative is angering Russia. That's all.
Backing Saddam against Iran was a pretty stupid mistake
Saddam Hussein has always been considered a "lesser evil". Ukraine's new government — contrary to Putin-TV's allegations — is not evil in the slightest. Their case is as clear-cut as that of Czechoslovakia and Poland of the late 1930-ies — and Obama does seem to agree with that. He just can't do anything about it for some reason.
Some times I wish this were true, but it is not. I think, Obama is genuinely and sincerely appalled by Putin's aggression against Ukraine and other countries. He is just caught completely by surprise — Obama is a master of class warfare rhetoric, which helps him domestically, but he is learning foreign relations as well as simple history of the world on the job.
Mr. Biden is among the best-informed lawmakers on international affairs, a gap in Mr. Obama’s résumé.
I'd say, things could've been a lot worse under an Administration, where a jovial lunatic is the primary fount of foreign policy expertise. Or, maybe, they are just as bad as they could get...
Whereas Putin is an expert, Obama is a neophite — an out-of-his-league amateur. While Putin can order his army into Ukraine at any moment — they already have "PEACEKEERS" painted on their helmets and vehicles — Obama can't even muster enough determination to send body-armor to Ukrainian military.
People who thinks it is OK that the TPB guys had to serve jail time while the McAdee guys doesn't are hypocrites
I don't think, there are such people. Quite the contrary — Slashdot's general opinion remains, that copying copyrighted material around is Ok as long as the victim is big and the perpetrator — small. But the other way around is wrong somehow.
hypocrites who needs to be punched in the face
Yes, I tend to agree with this spirit — even if the actual punishment you are proposing is unusual.
Do you really believe that? The officer grabbed her boob from behind
I believe, that the jury of new-yorkers has heard both sides and produced a verdict.
And to stay on topic...Russia isn't saying you aren't allowed to blog. They merely want to make it easier for them to monitor your blogging.
The registration requirement alone gives them full power to not just monitor you (something anybody can do already), but also shut you down by withdrawing the registration at any time.
The US needs no such law, because the NSA is doing it anyway in violation of the constitution
No, monitoring bloggers — and other publications — is not at all unconstitutional. You are confusing this with NSA's other activities.
The only real difference is that Russia is being transparent about it.
"Blatant" is a better word. No, that's not the only difference. Once more — having to register your blog with authorities is the difference. Oh, and the other little part — about social networks keeping records on Russian soil — that's quite different too.
I'm getting a feeling that you're intentionally misunderstanding the issue.
At issue is the Russian government's requirement for bloggers to register with authorities and keep records in Russia (where FSB can get them).
An "insightful" commentequated that with NSA's activities — even though the NSA (nor any other American government entity) has never arrested or otherwise shut down a blogger.
Media is controlled through private ownership and editorial policy pushed by owners rather than government and legal framework.
Yes, and that's exactly, how things ought to be. The alternative is, to bring us back on topic, Russian model, where media is controlled by Putin (because only businessmen friendly with Kremlin are allowed to operate).
The separation of private and public tools of population control has often been fuzzy
Irrelevant.
aren't far behind
Thankfully, the opposite is true. We are very "far behind" Russia in this aspect. Michael Moore, for example, was ignored by the evil Bushitler regime — even the IRS never looked into the millions he made with his scathing anti-American lies. The Koch brothers today, though demonized by the ruling Party, are perfectly safe from criminal prosecution.
On contrast, this is, what happens to government critics in Putin's Russia...
Slashdot Mirror
Despite quadrupling per-pupil costs of public schools since 1962 (inflation-adjusted), the education remains the same or is getting worse. In some particularly well-managed cities, the costs are even higher and the results — even worse, than national average. This article is about Math, but ability to read remains rather sub-par as well — with only 30% of 8th-graders, for example, considered "proficient" readers.
Clearly, we need to spend more money...
Indeed. "Neither a fortress nor a maid will hold out long after they begin to parley."
Back to TFA, why is it even a story here? Would we have had an article about an upset driver pouring sugar in his employer's gas-tank?
Do you realize, how dangerous mere speech is? You yell "fire" in a crowd, and people die in the stampede. You say: "It was him!" — and an innocent man gets hung. You say, "Republicans are Nazis!" and an incompetent wannabe gets elected president (with an outright lunatic as vice-president). But nobody is required to carry insurance nor post bond before speaking.
If you, folks, treated the First Amendment the way you treat the Second, our right to Free Speech would've been limited to petitioning the government — and only for redress of grievances.
Yep, sounds about right. Do not do it.
Ok, I see the distinction, but I don't see a difference. One way or another even a legally purchased DVD can only be used privately. (Whether showing it to inmates is still private, is another question.)
This is interesting... Could you offer a link, where this legal quirk is convincingly explained? Because right now it sounds like one of those "you don't have to pay your income tax" proclamations...
If, indeed, I can do anything I want with the purchased DVD, as you claimed at the beginning, then this part becomes irrelevant, no?
It is possible...
False. Though all unauthorized distribution is illegal, not all of it constitutes a criminal offense. To make the perpetrator a felon, according to paragraphs; 506 federal Title 17 of the United States Code, the distribution must be committed:
Our protagonist qualifies for the first item above. And so do his current jailers. Small-time non-profit distributors — such as torrent-users, who keep the stuff they just downloaded available, but not for long enough to qualify for the second case — do not.
Generally, you are right — the particular prisoner's case is different. However — content-owners have tried to make "non-profit" infringers (people making copyrighted material available for free to others) into examples by suing them for large sums of money (though no jail-time).
And second, the prison officials aren't just watching the material themselves — they are showing it to a large number of people (entire prison population). This is something, which you can not legally do even with a DVD you purchased in a store — they are only licensed for private viewing.
They should be busted and, ideally, someone ought to end up in the cell next to the protagonist — even if for a shorter sentence.
It was not Fox, but Al Gore himself, who made Al Gore the face of the global movement for control masquerading as a virtuous fight against Global Warming, nay, Climate Change, no, what's the term du jour, — Climate Disruption yeah, that is it.
That said, the designation is serving Mr. Gore pretty well — he is already 50 times richer, then he was during Vice-Presidency — so I don't know, what you are complaining about.
Only for lack of the sea-faring technology. And if they had the technology, their code of ethics and religion would've caused them to kill all the Spanish. Not convert, not even enslave, but kill. And that's why I consider them much more barbaric, than the Spanish were at the time.
Because the oft-denounced "Western culture" has developed by those times not just the ocean-crossing ships and muskets, but also a monotheistic religion, which did away with idols, who could only be appeased by blood.
Both the number of food-stamp recipients (starving) and unemployment (jobless) increased under Obama. Why, when the unemployment was 6% under Bush, he was blamed for "jobless recovery" by some. Worse, as his figure went further down to 5%, he was still blamed by others.
Obama's figure today — six years later — is still above 6% (despite millions leaving the workforce for good and thus not figuring into the count) — but you are blaming Republicans? Wow...
And, no, the mortgage-crisis was not Bush's fault. The do-gooding Democrats are to blame.
For those — rich and poor alike — who'd get killed in earlier times.
That was funny.
You could've asked your question before — but on February 27th, when Russia invaded Crimea, it became an obvious enemy. An armed invader. No ifs or buts about it.
Waving the enemy's flag, replacing your country's flag with that of the enemy on official buildings, arguing for joining the enemy — these are not expressions of legitimate political disagreements. These are acts of treason.
Yeah. Keep electing obamas and America will get the punishment it so richly deserves for those decades.
Defenders of Masada killed themselves. If they didn't resist at all, they would've been residents of a Roman Province — hardly a horrible fate (see "Life of Brian" for humorous take on it). They — a sect, which in today's America would've been laughed at as "Right-wing religious nuts" — chose to fight, which is admirable, but even then losing didn't mean dying — they were in for enslavement, but not death.
The Mayans, on the other hand, whom somebody else mentioned here with regret, were killing all their prisoners-of-war. Visit Chichen Itza or any other Mayan site in Yukatan — you'll be shown walls made of human sculls — centuries before the "horrible" Spanish showed up.
And yet, there being fewer wars and deaths really is a welcome improvement ...
Not where I'm working (a giant company). On the contrary, we are rather suspicious of commercial solutions — because their costs tend to run up pretty quickly (we have a large user-base) and their license terms often enough turn out to be rather enslaving (Oracle is particularly scary in this regard, from what little I've overheard from the company lawyers).
Sure enough, free software has its rough edges, but so does the commercial kind. And we have enough bright people to fix the problems (bugs or missing features) in the open-sourced packages, whereas with the proprietary stuff you are usually at the mercy of the vendor. We still use some commercial programs, but, when choosing a software solution, the program being proprietary is a negative, rather than a positive factor.
I wish, it remained possible to get the source for the commercial packages as well, but with modern attitudes towards theft of intellectual property as well as the wide-spread propensity to use the terms "free" and "open source" interchangeably, this is not an option...
If Al Gore-like shamans lived back then, the insufficient fervor of the rival shamans in keeping the fires going all day and night would've been blamed for the freeze.
Anybody failing to keep their fire going would be shamed and punished — unless they paid tribute (to buy global freezing offset credits) to the right shaman, of course.
Yep, and the victim — Victor Yuschenko — was the guy, who dared to run against Putin's choice for Ukraine's President. To you the names like "Yanukovich" and "Yuschenko" may appear similar, but a foreign policy expert advising the leader of the free world must be able to keep up.
On the contrary, it is very easy — if Putin-TV talks against them, they are most probably alright. The "things" have gotten far more "medieval" in Syria, yet America's sympathies there are perfectly "black-and-white", for some reason. That we no longer have "good options" in Syria can be blamed on Obama and his Department of State. If he does not act quickly, there may be no "good options" left in Ukraine either.
Just curious, does that include Alan Turing spying on Germans? Or the UK intelligence intercepting Zimmerman's telegram?
There is clueless and then there is Obama-clueless — in a class all his own. Even Sarah Palin was able to foresee Putin's attack on Ukraine as next after his invasion into Georgia.
It is "black-and-white". The only possible negative is angering Russia. That's all.
Saddam Hussein has always been considered a "lesser evil". Ukraine's new government — contrary to Putin-TV's allegations — is not evil in the slightest. Their case is as clear-cut as that of Czechoslovakia and Poland of the late 1930-ies — and Obama does seem to agree with that. He just can't do anything about it for some reason.
Some times I wish this were true, but it is not. I think, Obama is genuinely and sincerely appalled by Putin's aggression against Ukraine and other countries. He is just caught completely by surprise — Obama is a master of class warfare rhetoric, which helps him domestically, but he is learning foreign relations as well as simple history of the world on the job.
This is not me — a racist RethugliKKKan saying it — sympathetic newspapers in 2008 agreed, that it is Joe Biden, who brings foreign policy heft to the ticket:
I'd say, things could've been a lot worse under an Administration, where a jovial lunatic is the primary fount of foreign policy expertise. Or, maybe, they are just as bad as they could get...
Whereas Putin is an expert, Obama is a neophite — an out-of-his-league amateur. While Putin can order his army into Ukraine at any moment — they already have "PEACEKEERS" painted on their helmets and vehicles — Obama can't even muster enough determination to send body-armor to Ukrainian military.
I don't think, there are such people. Quite the contrary — Slashdot's general opinion remains, that copying copyrighted material around is Ok as long as the victim is big and the perpetrator — small. But the other way around is wrong somehow.
Yes, I tend to agree with this spirit — even if the actual punishment you are proposing is unusual.
I believe, that the jury of new-yorkers has heard both sides and produced a verdict.
The registration requirement alone gives them full power to not just monitor you (something anybody can do already), but also shut you down by withdrawing the registration at any time.
No, monitoring bloggers — and other publications — is not at all unconstitutional. You are confusing this with NSA's other activities.
"Blatant" is a better word. No, that's not the only difference. Once more — having to register your blog with authorities is the difference. Oh, and the other little part — about social networks keeping records on Russian soil — that's quite different too.
At issue is the Russian government's requirement for bloggers to register with authorities and keep records in Russia (where FSB can get them).
An "insightful" comment equated that with NSA's activities — even though the NSA (nor any other American government entity) has never arrested or otherwise shut down a blogger.
Yes, and that's exactly, how things ought to be. The alternative is, to bring us back on topic, Russian model, where media is controlled by Putin (because only businessmen friendly with Kremlin are allowed to operate).
Irrelevant.
Thankfully, the opposite is true. We are very "far behind" Russia in this aspect. Michael Moore, for example, was ignored by the evil Bushitler regime — even the IRS never looked into the millions he made with his scathing anti-American lies. The Koch brothers today, though demonized by the ruling Party, are perfectly safe from criminal prosecution.
On contrast, this is, what happens to government critics in Putin's Russia...