Maybe she genuinely believes that one should do ones best to follow the law. After all, while US drinking age is somewhat puritanical, it's hardly morally repugnant to force bartenders to refuse service to 20 year olds.
I'd be inclined to check up on that law if I was her.
She may be right. However:
I find it unlikely that this gives her licence to publish them on the internet.
A bar tender is not a law enforcement officer.
It certainly doesn't make the ID her property.
A fake ID is a forged document, possession of which may be a felony, or at least be considered suspicious.
Ashley could deny that she ever attempted to use the fake ID, and that her copyright is only on the photo. There probably isn't enough evidence to make a forgery conviction stick. There's only the word of a bartender with a chip on her shoulder, and a fake ID that anyone could have made. This is flimsy evidence.
There seems to be a lot of confusion here. I take it they don't do this in the US.
In Britain (and I assume also in Canada), there's often a showing before the release date. Usually a day early, sometimes a week early. This is usualyl billed as a "special preview" or something to hype it up and to make people feel they're getting something special. Actually it usually just means the effective release date is the day before the posters claim.
So perhaps the headline should read "Movie piracy delays Canadian Release by up to a week".
I'm trying to understand the movie industry's motives here. I have a few thoughts.
Punishment: They're hoping that having to wait a week or two before the release will so infuriate the Canadians that they will lobby their government to enact stronger laws. If this is the idea they're really out of touch. While there is a certain desire to keep up with what's hot and happening amongst ones peers, and this will lead to a lot of demand to see the latest movies, people do not have an overwhelming need to see a film just because some people in a different country have seen it.
Piracy reduction: I guess it is conceivable that stronger laws in other countries will prevent camcorder copies elsewhere thus eliminating this problem in the first week of release, or something. But how much of an effect do cams have on audience figures? The previews exist in order to promote the movie. Will the reduction in promotion really be outweighed by the decrease in piracy?
Statistical data: They are genuinely interested in whether stronger piracy protection in Canada would cut down on this sort of piracy. This could actually work. Seems a fairly expensive way to get some data.
But you can try to make me, I guess. I'll mute it and deal with some minor household chore like chacking my bank balance or something. As will most people.
Am I the only person who sees this as the studios fleecing the advertisers by selling advertising that they know a lot of their viewers aren't watching.
Perhaps she was asked to take the photo down, and refused. Perhaps she then launched into a tirade about how she should have the right to encourage kids to drink, and told them how she got a load of underage frat boys drunk and how she liked to drink and it never caused a problem, and alcohol keeps the kids relaxed (and please don't shout I've got a hangover). The board realised that she really shouldn't be teaching with this attitude, so they took this action. They don't comment on these matters and she contacted the newspapers and spun it as being all about the photo.
Not saying this did happen, but if it did then how would we know?
Many free software licences have no legal requirement to share the source. Most companies who use it still do so. If I wanted to incorporate a large chunk of Linux into my closed source software, I most likely could do so. Linus seems somewhat reluctant to get involved in a protracted legal fight to protect his rights and most of the contributors seem to have better things to do.
The users don't work collectively. Nor can we do anything except complain about the software flaws, which is a method that manifests itself by blaming the developers.
So the argument seems to be we shouldn't blame the developers. We should blame ourselves for not blaming the developers.
RICO was always going to be a stretch. The RIAA was, and still is behaving reprehensibly. The lawyers wanted some way to prove they were acting illegally, so they has a stab at the RICO laws. But these aren't designed to stop an entrenched cartel from suing its customers using inappropriate laws. They're disigned to combat actual organised crime. We're talking gangsters and organised fraud operations.
The only way to stop the RIAA is for someone to fight them on their terms, and win on the basis that the laws they're suing under don't apply to P2P filesharing. Given the possible costs - expensive even if the defendant wins - this is unlikely to happen.
If I stole something from Asda (UK supermarkets owned by Wallmart), then clearly this would affect the US business at least a little. So would I be extradited for that? I'm sure even if it was major fraud, I'd still be tried under English Law. Why is copyright law so different? Their "losses2 occured all over the world.
Well, I'd be pretty strongly popposed to someone being tried in Australia if they happened to send a copy of GTA3 there or something else that was banned.
Excellent! Unlike most haikus, you actually made a reference to the season and addded a clever twist on the last line. Other haiku writers should take note and see that a haiku isn't just a way of formatting a 17 syllable sentence.
Yes, the GPL relies on copyright to work. If it was abolished, many compnaies would take GPLed code and add it to their closed source products. there would be no legal way to stop them. But would this matter?
Mot contributors have no interest in making the software closed source. GCC and Linix have a lot of developers in academic circles and hardware development. Neither have any interest in locking down the code. Amateur developers have no interest in this either. Even some of the commercial distributors behave in a manner that suggests they prefer code to tremain open. Red Hat GPLed a lot of their code. They could have locked it down.
If you had a choice, what would you choose? The version you can modify yourself, or the version you can't? And would those who wish to close the source really do any better? They'd have to integrate every update to their code to keep it current. That's a lot of work.
The GPL usually has no effective legal teeth anyway. The copyright holder on most applications have no interest in suing violators. Even the FSF is very reluctant to do so. The main reason the GPL works is not because of legal forces but because of social forces.
Uh, wouldn't that be a recipe for a lawsuit from Microsoft?
I don't know. What does the AACS licence say? Maybe Microsoft are obliged to make it tamper proof and the fact that their hardware was tampered with proves that it wasn't.
Don't the words "sued by Microsoft" stop pretty much any decision making process?
Not amongst the big boys. Microsoft have won against Lucent, and lost against Eolas in the courts. They're no legal juggernaut.
I hope they'll come up with a decent response, but not that one. Something to the effect that they are forced to waste resources protecting the media cartels' interests, rather than providing an education, the sheer unfairness of huge multinationals being able to threaten individuals with multi billion dollar lawsuits that in no way reflect their losses, and the benefits to society of weaker copyriught protections.
Occasionaly you get some fairly intelligent people at universities. They should be able to come up with something.
I'd be a little less weaselly than that. I'd stop at "I'm ready to begin installing Office on our PC's. From what I can tell, we only have XX licenses, so we can only install it on XX machines.", and let him specifically say that there are enough licences or to order me to do it anyway.
I'm no cryptography expert, but I can imagine that determining the key after you have both the encrypted and the plaintext message might be doable
I'm no expert either but I do know there are different types of attack. There's the cyphertext only attack (no information), the known plaintext attack (where you know at least some of the message) and the chosen plaintext attack (Where you can actually choose the plaintext to encrypt). Cyphertext only attack is the hardest, chosen plaintext is the easiest, known plaintext is the most common. Encryption schemes are designed to be secure against all three.
My understanding was that there is a Volume Key. This actually decrypts the data on the disc. A section of the disc is allocated to encrypted keys. This contains the Volume Key encrypted with every non-revoked Device key available.
The HDDVD player takes its Device key, and finds the appropriately encrypted key on the disc. It then uses its device key to decrypt this and get the Volume key.
Is this right? It would seem strange to do it any other way. But if they do it this way, then the only Volume ID you have on the disc is encrypted. Only a player with a non-revoked device key will be able to decrypt the encrypted key. So surely if they revoke all XBox keys, this hack will no longer work. Neither will the XBox 360's HD drive but that's another matter.
The amount of money your average magazine gets from readers is miniscule compared to what it gets from advertisers.
Yes, I know. Cover price is nothing. But what if nobody buys the magazine? How much money do they make from advertising then? They need to suck up to their buyers more than their advertisers. The advertisers need the exposure.
Magazines need to realise that it's the buyers who provide the money - They even provide the advertising money indirectly. The advertisers don't buy advertising because the want to magazine to do well. They buy it because they want to sell their product.
Sure, if the magazine says the product is rubbish, people aren't going to buy that specific product, but they might buy others. If you pull advertising they're not going to buy anything else either because they won't have heard of it. R
On the other hand, if the magazine loses the respect of its customers, they're going to stop buying it. Then nobody will buy advertising or the magazine.
Quite simply it makes no sense to give into the advertisers demands.
Slashdot Mirror
May I humbly suggest that you refrain from taking legal advice from alcoholic waitresses with blogs?
This combines those two excellent resources for information of "I read it on the internet" and "Someone at a bar told me".
Maybe she genuinely believes that one should do ones best to follow the law. After all, while US drinking age is somewhat puritanical, it's hardly morally repugnant to force bartenders to refuse service to 20 year olds.
I'd be inclined to check up on that law if I was her.
She may be right. However:
I find it unlikely that this gives her licence to publish them on the internet.
A bar tender is not a law enforcement officer.
It certainly doesn't make the ID her property.
A fake ID is a forged document, possession of which may be a felony, or at least be considered suspicious.
Ashley could deny that she ever attempted to use the fake ID, and that her copyright is only on the photo. There probably isn't enough evidence to make a forgery conviction stick. There's only the word of a bartender with a chip on her shoulder, and a fake ID that anyone could have made. This is flimsy evidence.
There seems to be a lot of confusion here. I take it they don't do this in the US.
In Britain (and I assume also in Canada), there's often a showing before the release date. Usually a day early, sometimes a week early. This is usualyl billed as a "special preview" or something to hype it up and to make people feel they're getting something special. Actually it usually just means the effective release date is the day before the posters claim.
So perhaps the headline should read "Movie piracy delays Canadian Release by up to a week".
I'm trying to understand the movie industry's motives here. I have a few thoughts.
Punishment: They're hoping that having to wait a week or two before the release will so infuriate the Canadians that they will lobby their government to enact stronger laws. If this is the idea they're really out of touch. While there is a certain desire to keep up with what's hot and happening amongst ones peers, and this will lead to a lot of demand to see the latest movies, people do not have an overwhelming need to see a film just because some people in a different country have seen it.
Piracy reduction: I guess it is conceivable that stronger laws in other countries will prevent camcorder copies elsewhere thus eliminating this problem in the first week of release, or something. But how much of an effect do cams have on audience figures? The previews exist in order to promote the movie. Will the reduction in promotion really be outweighed by the decrease in piracy?
Statistical data: They are genuinely interested in whether stronger piracy protection in Canada would cut down on this sort of piracy. This could actually work. Seems a fairly expensive way to get some data.
But you can try to make me, I guess. I'll mute it and deal with some minor household chore like chacking my bank balance or something. As will most people.
Am I the only person who sees this as the studios fleecing the advertisers by selling advertising that they know a lot of their viewers aren't watching.
Perhaps she was asked to take the photo down, and refused. Perhaps she then launched into a tirade about how she should have the right to encourage kids to drink, and told them how she got a load of underage frat boys drunk and how she liked to drink and it never caused a problem, and alcohol keeps the kids relaxed (and please don't shout I've got a hangover). The board realised that she really shouldn't be teaching with this attitude, so they took this action. They don't comment on these matters and she contacted the newspapers and spun it as being all about the photo.
Not saying this did happen, but if it did then how would we know?
You don't need the law to enforce the GPL.
Many free software licences have no legal requirement to share the source. Most companies who use it still do so. If I wanted to incorporate a large chunk of Linux into my closed source software, I most likely could do so. Linus seems somewhat reluctant to get involved in a protracted legal fight to protect his rights and most of the contributors seem to have better things to do.
This is a stupid argument.
The users don't work collectively. Nor can we do anything except complain about the software flaws, which is a method that manifests itself by blaming the developers.
So the argument seems to be we shouldn't blame the developers. We should blame ourselves for not blaming the developers.
RICO was always going to be a stretch. The RIAA was, and still is behaving reprehensibly. The lawyers wanted some way to prove they were acting illegally, so they has a stab at the RICO laws. But these aren't designed to stop an entrenched cartel from suing its customers using inappropriate laws. They're disigned to combat actual organised crime. We're talking gangsters and organised fraud operations.
The only way to stop the RIAA is for someone to fight them on their terms, and win on the basis that the laws they're suing under don't apply to P2P filesharing. Given the possible costs - expensive even if the defendant wins - this is unlikely to happen.
If I stole something from Asda (UK supermarkets owned by Wallmart), then clearly this would affect the US business at least a little. So would I be extradited for that? I'm sure even if it was major fraud, I'd still be tried under English Law. Why is copyright law so different? Their "losses2 occured all over the world.
Well, I'd be pretty strongly popposed to someone being tried in Australia if they happened to send a copy of GTA3 there or something else that was banned.
Excellent! Unlike most haikus, you actually made a reference to the season and addded a clever twist on the last line. Other haiku writers should take note and see that a haiku isn't just a way of formatting a 17 syllable sentence.
Yes, the GPL relies on copyright to work. If it was abolished, many compnaies would take GPLed code and add it to their closed source products. there would be no legal way to stop them. But would this matter?
Mot contributors have no interest in making the software closed source. GCC and Linix have a lot of developers in academic circles and hardware development. Neither have any interest in locking down the code. Amateur developers have no interest in this either. Even some of the commercial distributors behave in a manner that suggests they prefer code to tremain open. Red Hat GPLed a lot of their code. They could have locked it down.
If you had a choice, what would you choose? The version you can modify yourself, or the version you can't? And would those who wish to close the source really do any better? They'd have to integrate every update to their code to keep it current. That's a lot of work.
The GPL usually has no effective legal teeth anyway. The copyright holder on most applications have no interest in suing violators. Even the FSF is very reluctant to do so. The main reason the GPL works is not because of legal forces but because of social forces.
You damn conservatives. Always anti-piracy, and agaisnt anything else to reduce global warming. Do you care nothing for the environment!?
Uh, wouldn't that be a recipe for a lawsuit from Microsoft?
I don't know. What does the AACS licence say? Maybe Microsoft are obliged to make it tamper proof and the fact that their hardware was tampered with proves that it wasn't.
Don't the words "sued by Microsoft" stop pretty much any decision making process?
Not amongst the big boys. Microsoft have won against Lucent, and lost against Eolas in the courts. They're no legal juggernaut.
I hope they'll come up with a decent response, but not that one. Something to the effect that they are forced to waste resources protecting the media cartels' interests, rather than providing an education, the sheer unfairness of huge multinationals being able to threaten individuals with multi billion dollar lawsuits that in no way reflect their losses, and the benefits to society of weaker copyriught protections.
Occasionaly you get some fairly intelligent people at universities. They should be able to come up with something.
I remember the NYTimes having a policy genrealy on the side of the DeCSS guys.
While the suits can apply pressure, they don't always choose to, whereas journalists are typically very pro-freedom of speech.
as hackers have created a hack that CAN'T be revoked
They claim it can't be revoked. No idea why. All the AACS has to do is revoke all xbox 360 device keys and the hack will no longer work on new discs.
I'd be a little less weaselly than that. I'd stop at "I'm ready to begin installing Office on our PC's. From what I can tell, we only have XX licenses, so we can only install it on XX machines.", and let him specifically say that there are enough licences or to order me to do it anyway.
I'm no cryptography expert, but I can imagine that determining the key after you have both the encrypted and the plaintext message might be doable
I'm no expert either but I do know there are different types of attack. There's the cyphertext only attack (no information), the known plaintext attack (where you know at least some of the message) and the chosen plaintext attack (Where you can actually choose the plaintext to encrypt). Cyphertext only attack is the hardest, chosen plaintext is the easiest, known plaintext is the most common. Encryption schemes are designed to be secure against all three.
Wait, I'm confused.
My understanding was that there is a Volume Key. This actually decrypts the data on the disc. A section of the disc is allocated to encrypted keys. This contains the Volume Key encrypted with every non-revoked Device key available.
The HDDVD player takes its Device key, and finds the appropriately encrypted key on the disc. It then uses its device key to decrypt this and get the Volume key.
Is this right? It would seem strange to do it any other way. But if they do it this way, then the only Volume ID you have on the disc is encrypted. Only a player with a non-revoked device key will be able to decrypt the encrypted key. So surely if they revoke all XBox keys, this hack will no longer work. Neither will the XBox 360's HD drive but that's another matter.
Must. Learn. To. Preview!
The amount of money your average magazine gets from readers is miniscule compared to what it gets from advertisers.
Yes, I know. Cover price is nothing. But what if nobody buys the magazine? How much money do they make from advertising then? They need to suck up to their buyers more than their advertisers. The advertisers need the exposure.
Magazines need to realise that it's the buyers who provide the money - They even provide the advertising money indirectly. The advertisers don't buy advertising because the want to magazine to do well. They buy it because they want to sell their product.
Sure, if the magazine says the product is rubbish, people aren't going to buy that specific product, but they might buy others. If you pull advertising they're not going to buy anything else either because they won't have heard of it.
R On the other hand, if the magazine loses the respect of its customers, they're going to stop buying it. Then nobody will buy advertising or the magazine.
Quite simply it makes no sense to give into the advertisers demands.