What happens when this kind of call for money hits the US legal system? don't judges just give the prosecuting lawyers a hard stare and say "don't be silly, come back tomorrow with a sensible figure" It really depends on the source of the damages figure. In this case, the fine is statutory - supplied by U.S. Law.
Normally damages come from some objective calculation of value (2 weeks of work costs me $5700 for instance), then you work in hospital bills (in the U.S. that's always more than it should be - but that's the healthcare system, not the lawyers) so we hit say... 6000 dollars for an x-ray, an ankle brace, and off work 2 weeks. Then, you add on punative damages. Punatives are recovery as punishment - it's about instructing municipal entities that leaving sidewalks in dangerous condition is bad. The Supreme Court has placed the limit for punatives around 2-3X the base damages - so here.. at most $18,000 + $6,000 = maybe $24,000. Jurries often exceed this - especially when the plaitiff is cute, fragile, or otherwise sympathy attracting. That's when the judge steps in and lowers the damages to within what is "reasonable" within our legal system.
It's good to bear in mind that punative damages, and damage calculations generally are heavily policy driven - the ammounts in question are meant to shape the society we live in, not to simply reflect the cold facts of harm.
Now, finally, imagine exactly the same thing, except that AllOfMP3.com just happens to be storing the file for you instead of you doing it for yourself (note: it's still your file, because you bought it). How is that any different? It's not, therefore it would still be absurd for it to be illegal! Yes, no imagine I bought 50 lbs of good high quality sticky weed in Amsterdam (where it's legal), then I transfer that LEGAL product to the U.S. where it's illegal.. is it absurd that they arrest me?
What about counterfit bills which can be legally produced outside the U.S. and brought in. What if the foreign state (sea land) dosen't recognize copyright and you download 10,000 songs.. is it then still legal to bring these otherwise LEGAL and LEGITIMATE products in the region you aquired them wherever you want?
I don't think the RIAA's argument is absurd. It's a cop-out to try to dismiss it as such. There are significant legal issues involved, not the least of which is the questionable power invested in the Russian agency which negotiated with AllofMp3 to create an agreement which is binding on U.S. companies.
Those who want to blast the U.S. courts for daring to seek power over a foreign country may want to check with their ideologue about the blantant hypocracy inherent in an argument that demands that the RIAA members submit to Russian authority to govern the WORLD WIDE distribution of their copyrighted material, but denies them a court in which to challenge the deal.
A positive side-effect, probably, will be a more concerned (security-wise) user-base and better practices from the management side of Apple.'" Yehp, incluiding folks like my Dad, who will avoid apples since they have known security issues anyway, and MS is the standard. So.. he'll make sure the fortune 500 company he acts as CTO for remains on Microsoft.
We just had this argument last night.. great to see so much "support" from the alternative OS community.
We need modern propaganda to fix this problem. We didn't go to the moon because the public was enthralled with the concept at day 1, the russians put a visible audible orbitng bill-board up that said "Hi, I'm better than you" and we decided we were gonna hike up our pants and beat those red bastards so hard they'd forget Iron Joe's real name.
JFK got on board, movies were shown in classrooms, science reels played at movie theaters and on TV. There was a vibrant interest in space travel because there was a full court press to PUSH space travel. Then came Regan/Bush. They didn't care about travel so much - Regan wanted to put lasers up there to deal with terrestrial threats, Bush thought he was a wacko. Clinton didn't do much more.. and it's unclear what Bush II's legacy will be.
I think once the civilian space flight groups start to invest money into advertising and intrest creation things may start to turn. I'm just praying we don't end up with Moonbase Coke! and Starbase Budweiser (where everyone but the pilot is REALLY flying), and of course Port Microsoft.. but no one trusts the seucrity there.:)
Well, its actually a good lesson in investing and gambling... no such thing as a sure thing. So.. let me get this straight he (1) made an investment of 600$ +/- (2) attempted to capitalize on his investment, but failed and then (3) got a full refund.
Without a *prior* contract in place, anything anyone sends to you in the mail is yours, free and clear. This is due to an old mail fraud scam, where you'd send someone magazines, or books, or whatever, and then bill them for services rendered. Shrinkwrap licenses Well.. unless they were to pull out some kind of unjust enrichment/ contract implied in fact claim, basically throw themselves at the judge's feet and decalre that no reasonable person would expect a lap top to be free - and that they would suffer serious financial harm if the bloggers were allowed to keep the laptops - which they probably got at a steep discount and wrote off out of petty cash.
So, yeah, they're screwed - but they could make it embarrasing for themselves.
Where does it say that? No, they come across as "this matter is of sufficient concern to Jobs that he needs to hire a lawyer", nothing more and nothing less. allow me to refer you to the first reply which asked me that: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=213828&cid=173 81666
Maybe eventually, you'll also learn not to jump to conclusions. Pot, kettle, black?
Why full disk encryption and not just the home directory?? Maybe things are so mixed up on Windows that you need full disk, but on OS X, Linux, and other Unixes it should be sufficient to encrypt only the home directory of users. Sure, until some idiot user notices that placing his files in root makes them load marginally faster.. or on a share.. or in a memory dongel.. or in his e-mail.. stupid users... they ruin everything.
Seriously though, the less tech-saavy employees can be counted on to screw up through ignorance, and the tech-saavy will work around it because "they've got a good reason." People don't follow rules that aren't enforced - and on a PC that means all or nothing.
-GiH
Still think it's a pretty silly solution, but I can understand why it might appeal.
This has that sick feeling of a joke a tech threw out on the table to show a beurocrat that he was being stupid - only to have the beaurocrat say "we can do that!"
Still, I wish them well with their (even yet slower) technology.
The privilige is a defense against torts for tortious interference, assault, battery, and false imprisonment.
As a company you don't really want to depend on it to mitigate your liability, and it'll probably save you money to just eat the lost product instead of lawyer's fees. Companies like wal-mart tend to use it more than others. Also places with high-priced items.
One of the points to remember in all this, is that backdating shares may not be illegal. This creates a nest of issues that are hard to untangle for the layman (I'm not even going to try to figure out if the options were forged, whether proper notice was given, and what law applies to Apple's incorporation - since it varries state to state).
What I will say, is that it is hardly unusual for an executive to take his pay in stock options. 85 Mil. in stock [granted, more than I will ever see] is saddly in the bracket of normal compensation for a company that is seeing such good times as apple is currently enjoying.
Reasonable? No. Illegal? That is far less clear.
As was point out to me previously though, I am coming at this from the assumption of innocence, which isn't necesarily the right position to take. I'd like to think about it some more...
I don't think anyone is blaming for seeking protection. You, however, using the word "abuse", seem to already have determined that he did nothing wrong. Point! My bad.
Yeah yeah yeah - lawyer.. evil.. tell it to the birmingham five.. or any black kid attending school in the south.. or anyone who was arrested and found not guilty due to lack of evidence.
Oh.. right.. slashdot.. I mean *hiss* *woosh* "I have altered our arrangement" *hiss* *woosh*
How or why did you interpet that comment as an attempt to prove wrong doing? I read that comment and came to the same conclusion you did, it was more then likely for protection purposes. I read through the first few replies, includings such gems as:
yay, another company who's CEO's rob shareholders
What?? Are you saying that Steve Jobs makes more than $1 [wikipedia.org] a year? and
Shakespeare was right......need to kill all the lawyers.
An AC replies:
I think it pretty clearly states that there must be "cause to believe that the person detained in fact committed, or attempted to commit theft of store property." It's absolutely right that this is not a very strong burden of proof, but it STILL doesn't cover the majority of shoppers. In most cases there IS no cause to believe a theft has occurred. Suspecting everybody by default doesn't seem like a tenable position.
If I go into a store, walk around for 5 minutes in plain view of every employee in the store, grab an item, walk to the counter, purchase it and walk out, there is ZERO cause to believe I have stolen anything. Just because the burden of proof is less doesn't mean there's NO burden. Sure, but that's an oversimplification of the issue. Yes - if you walk into a small store, stay in clear view, conduct normal buisiness, and then are stopped by the guy who just took your money - that's harrasment and is probably outside the privilige. If, on the other hand, you walk into a busy store, brows down long aisles outside the direct view of the door clerk, purchase and item or three, and then go to leave - there is sufficient time out of view to construct a "general" suspicion of theft - such that it would not be cause for a police officer to search you, but sufficient that a store clerk can search your bag.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe the privilege would extend to your private possesion (pants pockets, backpack, purse) but the plastic bag with a the reciept in it - sure. This is largely because the SCOTUS has ruled in the past that there is no assumption of privacy - since you just had all the purchased items out on display where they were picked up one by one, examined, listed on a bill, and payment is given to a store employee. You can quickly recover your right to privacy (famously by leaving the store with recently purchased underwear, only to have them pulled out on the street by a nosy store clerk searching for stolen goods), but within the store on the same visit as the purchase - they're pretty safe.
-GiH Foregoing statements were quickly whipped off - errors exist and generalizations were made.
While Apple has said CEO Steve Jobs did not profit from the stock-option backdating, Jobs has reportedly hired his own attorney to deal with the SEC and Justice Department." I hate it when comments like this come across as proof of wrong-doing. In buisiness I learned that you're a fool to act without the advice of a lawyer. As a law student I'm coming to understand that you're a damn fool to deal with the gov't without someone there to advise you.
The purpose of a lawyer is to look after your interests while you conduct your business - they can warn you of impending trouble - and can nip a long drawn out investigation that will result in no arrests or charges right in the budd.
It's stupid to blame someone for seeking protection from abuse.
Oh, just as a guess, because people are more likely to Shoplift from stores than from the U.S. gov't?
There's a common law doctrine that allows them to detain you on reasonable suspicion. This has been repeatedly upheld to include "general" suspicion such as in the case of a door clerk checking every bag. Your right to privacy isn't pierced becahse there's nothing private in your bag - unless the material there is somehow mystically transformed between the check-out line and the door.
As a law student, I'll certify to the limits of my knowledge of the issues that wikipedia is a good source for getting "a sense" of the law. Here's a good example. The shopkeeper's privlege is NOT statutory, it is part of the common-law tradition which is used in almost the entire United States (I believe Louisiana is on purely statutory system, but I'm not stopping to check, so don't quote me on that).
From the Article:
A store owner holds the common law shopkeeper's privilege, under which he is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time, with cause to believe that the person detained in fact committed, or attempted to commit theft of store property. The shopkeeper's privilege, although recognized in most jurisdictions, is not as broad a privilege as that of a police officer's, and therefore one must pay special attention to the temporal element -- that is, the shopkeep may only detain the suspected criminal for a relatively short period of time. So, to sumarize - most store owners and employees granted the task (ie managers and security guards) can require that you stop and allow them to examine your person for goods when there is a reason to do so. This has been upheld even in cases involving "general" suspicion, where a guard checks every person or random persons on their way out.
Since the guard would have the legal right to retain your presence under reasonable circumstances (can't gang tackle you on your way out) if you respond by threatening violence, you are subject to a suit for: (dun dun duh dun!) Common Assault.
A quick guide to tortious assualt can be found - Here
As a note to the officer above, these are both tortious acts, not criminal - hence no requirement for a statute. They can be governed by common law which is more permissive and allows (broad brush stroke here) only cash damages.
-GiH
The previous statements are nuance deprived - see your lawyer for details.
So I called Circuit City from the parking lot the other day. One of the floor reps had just given me that "I don't have any in stock... right now and I certaintainly haven't seen any in back but if you want a wii, try calling the switchbaord."
So I did. The poor operator (I think they may have been screwing with her) was really frazzled. I said I was calling about the Wii, and she said really sharply "We don't have any", will you have some soon? "I can't say." If I wanted to get one, is there a special key word? "No, we don't have any! No Wii's!!" Okay... well.. what about the PS3? >pause Hmm?
They got 10 in, I was number 14 on the list.. bleh.
Slashdot Mirror
Normally damages come from some objective calculation of value (2 weeks of work costs me $5700 for instance), then you work in hospital bills (in the U.S. that's always more than it should be - but that's the healthcare system, not the lawyers) so we hit say... 6000 dollars for an x-ray, an ankle brace, and off work 2 weeks. Then, you add on punative damages. Punatives are recovery as punishment - it's about instructing municipal entities that leaving sidewalks in dangerous condition is bad. The Supreme Court has placed the limit for punatives around 2-3X the base damages - so here.. at most $18,000 + $6,000 = maybe $24,000. Jurries often exceed this - especially when the plaitiff is cute, fragile, or otherwise sympathy attracting. That's when the judge steps in and lowers the damages to within what is "reasonable" within our legal system.
It's good to bear in mind that punative damages, and damage calculations generally are heavily policy driven - the ammounts in question are meant to shape the society we live in, not to simply reflect the cold facts of harm.
-GiH
What about counterfit bills which can be legally produced outside the U.S. and brought in. What if the foreign state (sea land) dosen't recognize copyright and you download 10,000 songs.. is it then still legal to bring these otherwise LEGAL and LEGITIMATE products in the region you aquired them wherever you want?
I don't think the RIAA's argument is absurd. It's a cop-out to try to dismiss it as such. There are significant legal issues involved, not the least of which is the questionable power invested in the Russian agency which negotiated with AllofMp3 to create an agreement which is binding on U.S. companies.
Those who want to blast the U.S. courts for daring to seek power over a foreign country may want to check with their ideologue about the blantant hypocracy inherent in an argument that demands that the RIAA members submit to Russian authority to govern the WORLD WIDE distribution of their copyrighted material, but denies them a court in which to challenge the deal.
-GiH
We just had this argument last night.. great to see so much "support" from the alternative OS community.
-GiH
Parent said he just happened to be in the store when they came out of the back room. No line.. no wait.
-GiH
We need modern propaganda to fix this problem. We didn't go to the moon because the public was enthralled with the concept at day 1, the russians put a visible audible orbitng bill-board up that said "Hi, I'm better than you" and we decided we were gonna hike up our pants and beat those red bastards so hard they'd forget Iron Joe's real name.
:)
JFK got on board, movies were shown in classrooms, science reels played at movie theaters and on TV. There was a vibrant interest in space travel because there was a full court press to PUSH space travel. Then came Regan/Bush. They didn't care about travel so much - Regan wanted to put lasers up there to deal with terrestrial threats, Bush thought he was a wacko. Clinton didn't do much more.. and it's unclear what Bush II's legacy will be.
I think once the civilian space flight groups start to invest money into advertising and intrest creation things may start to turn. I'm just praying we don't end up with Moonbase Coke! and Starbase Budweiser (where everyone but the pilot is REALLY flying), and of course Port Microsoft.. but no one trusts the seucrity there.
-GiH
Where is the risk in that again?
-GiH
So, yeah, they're screwed - but they could make it embarrasing for themselves.
-GiH
Troll on friend.. troll on.
Maybe eventually, you'll also learn not to jump to conclusions. Pot, kettle, black?-GiH
I suspect we'll hear an argument that it was an innocent mistake, and that the records were altered to make it "legal."
Oh well.. so much for innocence.
-GiH
Seriously though, the less tech-saavy employees can be counted on to screw up through ignorance, and the tech-saavy will work around it because "they've got a good reason." People don't follow rules that aren't enforced - and on a PC that means all or nothing.
-GiH
Still think it's a pretty silly solution, but I can understand why it might appeal.
Still, I wish them well with their (even yet slower) technology.
-GiH
The privilige is a defense against torts for tortious interference, assault, battery, and false imprisonment.
As a company you don't really want to depend on it to mitigate your liability, and it'll probably save you money to just eat the lost product instead of lawyer's fees. Companies like wal-mart tend to use it more than others. Also places with high-priced items.
-GiH
What I will say, is that it is hardly unusual for an executive to take his pay in stock options. 85 Mil. in stock [granted, more than I will ever see] is saddly in the bracket of normal compensation for a company that is seeing such good times as apple is currently enjoying.
Reasonable? No. Illegal? That is far less clear.
As was point out to me previously though, I am coming at this from the assumption of innocence, which isn't necesarily the right position to take. I'd like to think about it some more...
-GiH
-GiH
Let's include all the corporate solutions and skip the most commonly used.
Dur.
-GiH
Yeah yeah yeah - lawyer.. evil.. tell it to the birmingham five.. or any black kid attending school in the south.. or anyone who was arrested and found not guilty due to lack of evidence.
Oh.. right.. slashdot.. I mean *hiss* *woosh* "I have altered our arrangement" *hiss* *woosh*
-GiH
-GiH
I could be wrong, but I don't believe the privilege would extend to your private possesion (pants pockets, backpack, purse) but the plastic bag with a the reciept in it - sure. This is largely because the SCOTUS has ruled in the past that there is no assumption of privacy - since you just had all the purchased items out on display where they were picked up one by one, examined, listed on a bill, and payment is given to a store employee. You can quickly recover your right to privacy (famously by leaving the store with recently purchased underwear, only to have them pulled out on the street by a nosy store clerk searching for stolen goods), but within the store on the same visit as the purchase - they're pretty safe.
-GiH
Foregoing statements were quickly whipped off - errors exist and generalizations were made.
The purpose of a lawyer is to look after your interests while you conduct your business - they can warn you of impending trouble - and can nip a long drawn out investigation that will result in no arrests or charges right in the budd.
It's stupid to blame someone for seeking protection from abuse.
-GiH
There's a common law doctrine that allows them to detain you on reasonable suspicion. This has been repeatedly upheld to include "general" suspicion such as in the case of a door clerk checking every bag. Your right to privacy isn't pierced becahse there's nothing private in your bag - unless the material there is somehow mystically transformed between the check-out line and the door.
Wikipedia summary of law good general overview.
-GiH
As a law student, I'll certify to the limits of my knowledge of the issues that wikipedia is a good source for getting "a sense" of the law. Here's a good example. The shopkeeper's privlege is NOT statutory, it is part of the common-law tradition which is used in almost the entire United States (I believe Louisiana is on purely statutory system, but I'm not stopping to check, so don't quote me on that).
From the Article:
A store owner holds the common law shopkeeper's privilege, under which he is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time, with cause to believe that the person detained in fact committed, or attempted to commit theft of store property. The shopkeeper's privilege, although recognized in most jurisdictions, is not as broad a privilege as that of a police officer's, and therefore one must pay special attention to the temporal element -- that is, the shopkeep may only detain the suspected criminal for a relatively short period of time. So, to sumarize - most store owners and employees granted the task (ie managers and security guards) can require that you stop and allow them to examine your person for goods when there is a reason to do so. This has been upheld even in cases involving "general" suspicion, where a guard checks every person or random persons on their way out.Since the guard would have the legal right to retain your presence under reasonable circumstances (can't gang tackle you on your way out) if you respond by threatening violence, you are subject to a suit for: (dun dun duh dun!) Common Assault.
A quick guide to tortious assualt can be found - Here
As a note to the officer above, these are both tortious acts, not criminal - hence no requirement for a statute. They can be governed by common law which is more permissive and allows (broad brush stroke here) only cash damages.
-GiH
The previous statements are nuance deprived - see your lawyer for details.
different divisions which.. history has shown.. will gladly support technology that harms the other.
-GiH
But then.. who can blame them?
Anyone want to take a ballpark guess what kind of ROI they land if every movie studio had to license Blu-Ray on every movie they released to disc?
I'm guessing (purely from the posterior region) it'd land in the Billions over the life of the product.
-GiH
So I called Circuit City from the parking lot the other day. One of the floor reps had just given me that "I don't have any in stock... right now and I certaintainly haven't seen any in back but if you want a wii, try calling the switchbaord."
So I did. The poor operator (I think they may have been screwing with her) was really frazzled. I said I was calling about the Wii, and she said really sharply "We don't have any", will you have some soon? "I can't say." If I wanted to get one, is there a special key word? "No, we don't have any! No Wii's!!" Okay... well.. what about the PS3? >pause
Hmm?
They got 10 in, I was number 14 on the list.. bleh.
-GiH