I just watched the whole thing: I have never seen such an enormous waste of CG-talent and render time on something so poorly acted, poorly written and generally inane. Conclusion: Big Waste-O-Time.
In filing a class action suit plaintiff firms take on all the risks and costs associated with the litigation. Consequently, no intelligent class action lawyer is going to file an unmeritorious suit; it's a huge waste of time with no payoff (this is also why these suits always SETTLE: the defendant knows they could never win at trial).
The "large" (as you see them) attorneys fees are based on the many many hours spent investigating the suit (making sure its solid before filing), drafting the complaint, milling through thousands of documents during discovery, and finally using that discovery to force the company (in this case Apple) into realizing that they're cooked if they go to trial. All this has to happen before the company is going to begin to consider sitting down to discuss settlement.
In short, this case was not litigated in 10 minutes (as some/.ers have speculated). And, ultimately, the winners are the consumers who get some cash compensation for Apple's false promise that they wouldn't be stuck with a dead iPod in 2 years.
This idea reminded me of the sci-fi detective novel "Gun with Occational Music" by Jonathan Lethem which is set in a time when everyone regulates their emotions as well as their memory through specifically designed drugs such as "forgettol and acceptol." In order to remember the important aspects of their mental lives that they are continuously erasing through drug use everyone carries around personal memory units much like this stupid device which they query for answers to question like "who is this guy right in front of me? Do I like him?"
I say let memory fail; it's half the fun of reality anyway.
This is an idea I had about how hackers could legally distribute the source code to circumvention devices they've written that might be deemed illegal under the DMCA. In it's most basic form this idea calls for the adoption of an inexplict hacker convention such as "before distribution subtract 3 to char 3, before compliation add 3 to char 3". Here's the long version (warning: I'm not a lawyer AT ALL):
Prior to a hacker distributing the source code to his/her circumvention device, they would (by this informal convention) subtract 3 from the ascii value of the 3rd character in thier source code. This small, simple and easy to remember mathematical operation would almost certainly lead to either a compliation error or a runtime error of some sort; thus transforming the otherwise illegal source code into trash.
On the other end of the equation would be the user who (by a reversal of the same informal convention) would add 3 to the 3rd char of the source code, thus returning the source code to it's original, functional state.
The most important aspect of this process is that NO WHERE IS THIS CONVENTION (ADD 3 TO CHAR 3) EXPLICITLY WRITTEN: either in the readme.txt or anywhere in the source code's comments. By not bundling any information with the source code that would enable the end users to perform the necessary operation to the code to return it to a functional state, the author is essentially distributing useless (and therefore legal) code.
Are there any legal arguments anyone can think of in response to this tactic (like intent of the author)?
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I just watched the whole thing: I have never seen such an enormous waste of CG-talent and render time on something so poorly acted, poorly written and generally inane. Conclusion: Big Waste-O-Time.
In filing a class action suit plaintiff firms take on all the risks and costs associated with the litigation. Consequently, no intelligent class action lawyer is going to file an unmeritorious suit; it's a huge waste of time with no payoff (this is also why these suits always SETTLE: the defendant knows they could never win at trial).
/.ers have speculated). And, ultimately, the winners are the consumers who get some cash compensation for Apple's false promise that they wouldn't be stuck with a dead iPod in 2 years.
The "large" (as you see them) attorneys fees are based on the many many hours spent investigating the suit (making sure its solid before filing), drafting the complaint, milling through thousands of documents during discovery, and finally using that discovery to force the company (in this case Apple) into realizing that they're cooked if they go to trial. All this has to happen before the company is going to begin to consider sitting down to discuss settlement.
In short, this case was not litigated in 10 minutes (as some
This idea reminded me of the sci-fi detective novel "Gun with Occational Music" by Jonathan Lethem which is set in a time when everyone regulates their emotions as well as their memory through specifically designed drugs such as "forgettol and acceptol." In order to remember the important aspects of their mental lives that they are continuously erasing through drug use everyone carries around personal memory units much like this stupid device which they query for answers to question like "who is this guy right in front of me? Do I like him?"
I say let memory fail; it's half the fun of reality anyway.
This is an idea I had about how hackers could legally distribute the source code to circumvention devices they've written that might be deemed illegal under the DMCA. In it's most basic form this idea calls for the adoption of an inexplict hacker convention such as "before distribution subtract 3 to char 3, before compliation add 3 to char 3". Here's the long version (warning: I'm not a lawyer AT ALL):
Prior to a hacker distributing the source code to his/her circumvention device, they would (by this informal convention) subtract 3 from the ascii value of the 3rd character in thier source code. This small, simple and easy to remember mathematical operation would almost certainly lead to either a compliation error or a runtime error of some sort; thus transforming the otherwise illegal source code into trash.
On the other end of the equation would be the user who (by a reversal of the same informal convention) would add 3 to the 3rd char of the source code, thus returning the source code to it's original, functional state.
The most important aspect of this process is that NO WHERE IS THIS CONVENTION (ADD 3 TO CHAR 3) EXPLICITLY WRITTEN: either in the readme.txt or anywhere in the source code's comments. By not bundling any information with the source code that would enable the end users to perform the necessary operation to the code to return it to a functional state, the author is essentially distributing useless (and therefore legal) code.
Are there any legal arguments anyone can think of in response to this tactic (like intent of the author)?