What money will you use to pay for a lawyer to help you with the lawsuit? If you have a good case, plantiff's lawyers will sue for a commision - (no reward, no $$$). Also, you don't have to be broke to go with a public defender.. they are available at your request, but they have dozens of cases more to deal with than a paid lawyer, much less support from interns and legal aids, and are therefore less often succesful.
Heh, I won't say it was intended to be a serious post - but the sentiment behind it was serious. MS is threatening customers with liability for patent infringement directly, in order to force them to buy novell's support through MS. They make money from Novell for the software, and from the client on its way to Novell. If it didn't involve threats of litigation it would be a fine system for doing buisiness - instead it barrity and probably could be construed as a conspiracy to intentionally interfere with buisiness/contracts of red hat and the other linux distros that provide service and support contracts.
What you see above your post is called an analogy - it compares the first coupling to the second in order to prove a point - protection money is being paid.
I also like your suggestion - looking back over my past posts this week, I'd be up quite a bit.
* No insult intended to the mother, but this kind of spam stuff happens (just like that Nigerian Prince that was put in jail and needs money to get out, btw, did he ever manage to get out?:). Actually.. (gotta admit this is kind of embarassing), I'm the guy who actually took all the money he was going to use to escape.. and then called the nigerian gov't and told them what was up. I know, horrible, believe me I feel bad about it every day as I slip into my golden covered sauna to enjoy my daily rubbing of the entire body by nubile young women.
She's accountable for the debts of her infant (under 21 in common-law.. no clue about her state) children - and debts can usually be recovered from parents until you turn 26. The distinction is that she didn't commit the act, and therefore the tort is against her children - but the payment will probably come from her finances.
The system works by errosion - legislatures throw shit on top, and lawyers weather it back down.
MS can sue those who uses linux. This isn't normally a problem for software owners because the EULA indemnifies (takes on legal responsability) for the software's content. Those users who buy SuSE need not worry, but those who use either free (as in beer) GPL software will bear that liability personally. I don't know if Red Hat indemnifies its clinets, but I would like to believe they do.
This means that while MS can bring coercive preasure on clients to cease using those versions of Linux which remain true to the GPL intent, and therefore opposed to MS's proprietary "open" schemas, there isn't much that the open source community can do back except counter sue MS directly. This is a good and noble thing, but it dosen't shelter the users. This whole buisiness smells very foul, it has a familiar stench of "leverage and burn" that MS has used before.
The mob also gave reprieves to families to show the public they were not cold hearted killers. I don't think the mob considered/s it a mercy to leave the mom but kill the kids. Quite the opposite really.
IANAL, so is it possible for the RIAA to continue the suit against the kids, get some sort of settlement, and then re-sue the mom for the same thing? Or what about jumping back and forth between suing the mom, dismissing the case without prejudice, suing the kids, dismissing that case without prejudice and starting the sequence all over again? While I'm not certain (law student, limited experience) I believe your answer is: Yes they could do that - and the court would eventually get pissed, dismiss with prejudice, and it would be dead.
What I think it is more likely that they will pursue the claim against her children, and then try to collect from her. Unless she is far more wealthy than she appears, bankruptcy probably follows from that.
OTOH, a diverse pool of litigants can have the same effect in aggregate by filing lawsuit after lawsuit to which you must respond or risk summary judgement, further, prevailing on a particular issue of against one does not guarantee prevailing on the same issue against another. (Or, when the claims are common, they can institute a common action and pool resources.) And its a lot harder to make a deal with a diverse pool to completely remove the threat of litigation once its perceived in the marketplace and becomes a drag on your product. My gutt tells me there isn't enough money in the OSS community to protect customers from Microsoft - they will gladly spend too much in a bid to maintain dominance.
This is a gross oversimplification of a very complex and technical area of law called choice of law or conflict of laws. The phrase "their acts take effect here" is meaningless; you could just as easily argue that their acts took effect in Russia since that's where payment is received. Yes, you're right. I did say "Quick," which I intended to denote that it was not thorough. I think that recent case law indicates that the S.D.N.Y. will rule that internet purchases take place at both the point of origin, and the point of sale - but I don't want to get technical to the point where I'm speaking only to people who already understand the issue, and I didn't want to spend too much time writing a forum post.
You may believe so, but you will be at variance with US courts. If you interact with a US citizen in the United States, you must follow our laws or be subject to our government's courts. Of course, we can't reach out and take that money from them.. which is why we've made treaties with other governments that they will get the money for us. Our courts will do likewise for foreign courts when required by treaty.
And, of course, since AllOfMP3 depends on US customers for most of its buisiness, the ability to require that all US creditors cease to allow payment to AllofMP3 would likewise be lethal.
To look at it another way: in the US, everyone is a criminal. It is virtually impossible to go through life not breaking the myriad of federal, state, municipal, and corporate laws. Do you really want a jury of your "peers" to punish you for all the laws you've broken? Wouldn't you rather the court and your peers try to just persuade you never to commit those crimes in the future? Sure, it doesn't always work, but history has shown that a penal-based system is even LESS effective. Sure, the threat of getting caught is bigger, but that just means people work harder to not get caught, committing further crimes they would not otherwise have considered in the process. That's a fallacy.
1) Most US laws do not govern criminal action or create crimes. Most US laws deal with government policy - and things as trivial as the naming of post offices and small side streets.
2) Most US laws that do govern behavior do not carry criminal penalties - they carry fines. Speeding, fine, smoking in the wrong place? fine. Even failing to show up for a court date is only a fine unless the court date was for a criminal act.
3) Your assertion that there is a common principle and experience in US prisons is laughably naieve - each state system pursuses its own path through sentancing procedures - Liberal states like California favor correction and retraining, Texas has chain gangs. Universally, conditions in U.S. jails are safer, cleaner, and more comfortable than all but a very few european prisons (the Dutch are very good prison wardens, for example). The rest of the world is the pits (in Japan, there is no mattress, and you are expected to sit in one place facing a wall each day - all day).
It's fun to bash the U.S., but you're going to have to go against reality to stand behind your earlier statements.
Yeah, past sites that have forced companies into U.S. courts had multiple languages - the important point is that English is one of them (in a country that is not predominatly English speaking). The US$ system may be ubiquitous, but the courts have held that using US dollars means attrcting US customers.
Because possession of a.mp3 is not, in of itself, a crime. If you've legally purchased the mp3 according to the laws of that country, it's very hard for the RIAA to say, 'but they didn't pay us the money' particularly since the RIAA is the "Recording Industry Association of America" and not the "Recording Industry Association of Russia" or whichever country it may be. Now if there were a law passed saying that no mp3s may be 'imported' from another country if the RIAA hasn't been paid off, then there might be an issue with the 'importing' of the mp3 track to your computer. As I understand this issue - internet sales occour both at the point of origin (russia) and the point of sale (in the U.S.). This means that your sale has to be legal there and here.
I haven't studied internet or international law much yet though.
Check the organization that allofmp3.com claims has given them the right to do what they are doing. If the organization is legitimate, and has doucmented everything correctly, then the RIAA hasn't a leg to stand on.
If the organization is not legitimate or doesn't have the proper paperwork, the RIAA wins. Questions, (1) if the RIAA companies never ceded the right to contract their copyrights to this orginization, will U.S. courts respect the establishment of a foreign orginization given that power by law? (2) Even if that organiziation has the power to order such sales in Russia what effect if any does that have on sales conducted with U.S. citizens in the United States? (3) To what degree does AllofMp3 conduct business within the United States, and what effect does that have on the agreement AllofMP3 made with the Russian copyright group?
At the risk of being a little too tounge-in-cheek:
Yes, but what do you mean when you say "objective," or more importantly, what does the author of your quote mean? That's what I was getting at when I spoke of guiding theories for interpretation - courts will favor interpretations in the sense that the industry would use them. The objective standard does not use a reasonable person test. The judge or (rarely) jury will interpret the meaning of the words as they would be used in that form of contract. I don't assume that the "Rails" mentioned in a contract for transport would be the same if I ask you to author a web-site.
There still remains an assumption that Microsoft and Novell have found a loop-hole which would even pass an "objective person" test. This is an issues which (as I read it) is open to interpretation either way. If one reads the contract toward the original intent (again, as stated in the writing) then any loop-hole will be an accident of language and clearly opposite to the written text, if I go with a legal realist interpreation (or Law and Economics) I'll likely come out on Microsoft's side arguing that the intent statements are pre-amble and unnessential to the contract - that the contract is fair as written only if it is interpreted in favor of allowing coproations to build tools on top of GPL tools without GPLing the result, and that these hippy scum don't belong in a court of law. Okay, I tacked that last bit on just for fun.
Q: What does New York / U.S. law have to do with a Russian company.
A: U.S. courts have juridiction in cases where the party to be sued has "such miminal contacts" that allowing the suit would not violate traditional notions of fairness and justice. The US courts have allowed jurisdiction when it is clear that the offending company has intentionally directed buisiness into, and solicited buisiness from, the United States and her citizens.
Here allofmp3 has all the hallmarks of past cases which have succeeded - site is in english, offers prices in U.S. dollars, advertises on U.S. websites and media.
Since their acts take effect here, laws which govern the effect will rule.
Q: How will they enforce the ruling?
There are several ways - the RIAA companies could freeze allofmp3's funds with a court order, and call upon Russia (through the effect of U.S. - Russia treaties) to supply the amount demanded by the judgement. They can asses the value of AllofMp3's domain name and seek to have it sold off to cover the damages. U.S. credit cards and pay-pal could be ordered to cease making payments to allofmp.
Q: How will they get these guys in custody? Russia won't hand them over.
This is a civil case - jail time is not on the table.
Licenses are an agreement between two or more parties which are enforceable under the law. The classic definition of a contract.
Contracts do not require a signature or even a writing - spoken promises can suffice for most purposes. Every sale you've every completed is a contract with certain assumed responsabilities (default warranties) and rights (exchange of property). A Licesnse is a contract to allow another access to your property for a stated purpose/duration, etc. Tickets are also licenses - most often the terms are spelled out on the back.
Slashdot Mirror
Not a number.. 0 is a placeholder - it's no more a number than - = + pr _ (they're all on the number line too)
-GiH
If idiots were trees, the US could blanket the earth with paper for inches.
-GiH
(No, I'm not a lawyer, I'm a law student)
Heh, I won't say it was intended to be a serious post - but the sentiment behind it was serious. MS is threatening customers with liability for patent infringement directly, in order to force them to buy novell's support through MS. They make money from Novell for the software, and from the client on its way to Novell. If it didn't involve threats of litigation it would be a fine system for doing buisiness - instead it barrity and probably could be construed as a conspiracy to intentionally interfere with buisiness/contracts of red hat and the other linux distros that provide service and support contracts.
What you see above your post is called an analogy - it compares the first coupling to the second in order to prove a point - protection money is being paid.
I also like your suggestion - looking back over my past posts this week, I'd be up quite a bit.
-GiH
(Not a lawyer, just a law student).
Such a burden.
-GiH
Litigation costs make it unlikely that RIAA would move down to any scheme that resulted in smaller payouts. They'd go broke suing.
-GiH
She's accountable for the debts of her infant (under 21 in common-law.. no clue about her state) children - and debts can usually be recovered from parents until you turn 26. The distinction is that she didn't commit the act, and therefore the tort is against her children - but the payment will probably come from her finances.
The system works by errosion - legislatures throw shit on top, and lawyers weather it back down.
-GiH
This means that while MS can bring coercive preasure on clients to cease using those versions of Linux which remain true to the GPL intent, and therefore opposed to MS's proprietary "open" schemas, there isn't much that the open source community can do back except counter sue MS directly. This is a good and noble thing, but it dosen't shelter the users. This whole buisiness smells very foul, it has a familiar stench of "leverage and burn" that MS has used before.
-GiH
Yehp.. which is why it's so dangerous - spiritual violations of the GPL threaten it's long-term health.. this is something that benefits MS strongly.
-GiH
You have committed a debating foul. Penalized one "all of your credibility" for "Nazi reference."
Acting agent would like to inform you that your comment was amusing - if foul.
-GiH
-GiH
What I think it is more likely that they will pursue the claim against her children, and then try to collect from her. Unless she is far more wealthy than she appears, bankruptcy probably follows from that.
-GiH
-GiH
Good points though.
-GiH
You may believe so, but you will be at variance with US courts. If you interact with a US citizen in the United States, you must follow our laws or be subject to our government's courts.
Of course, we can't reach out and take that money from them.. which is why we've made treaties with other governments that they will get the money for us. Our courts will do likewise for foreign courts when required by treaty.
And, of course, since AllOfMP3 depends on US customers for most of its buisiness, the ability to require that all US creditors cease to allow payment to AllofMP3 would likewise be lethal.
-GiH
Customer: "Please don't hurt me."
Ballmer: "These are some lovely client server apps you have here, it would be a shame if something were to.. happen to them..."
Customer: "Okay.. okay, I'll pay.... I'll pay" [quiet weeping].
-GiH
You render payment from here. The place of delivery allows them to evade importation issues, not point of sale.
-GiH
what about cases like this?
Oh.. or maybe it's because your laws make it a criminal act to write about cases that are ongoing or sealed?
We have our trials, and our freedoms.
-GiH
1) Most US laws do not govern criminal action or create crimes. Most US laws deal with government policy - and things as trivial as the naming of post offices and small side streets.
2) Most US laws that do govern behavior do not carry criminal penalties - they carry fines. Speeding, fine, smoking in the wrong place? fine. Even failing to show up for a court date is only a fine unless the court date was for a criminal act.
3) Your assertion that there is a common principle and experience in US prisons is laughably naieve - each state system pursuses its own path through sentancing procedures - Liberal states like California favor correction and retraining, Texas has chain gangs. Universally, conditions in U.S. jails are safer, cleaner, and more comfortable than all but a very few european prisons (the Dutch are very good prison wardens, for example). The rest of the world is the pits (in Japan, there is no mattress, and you are expected to sit in one place facing a wall each day - all day).
It's fun to bash the U.S., but you're going to have to go against reality to stand behind your earlier statements.
-GiH
Yeah, past sites that have forced companies into U.S. courts had multiple languages - the important point is that English is one of them (in a country that is not predominatly English speaking). The US$ system may be ubiquitous, but the courts have held that using US dollars means attrcting US customers.
Jurisdiction is a very loose point of law.
-GiH
I haven't studied internet or international law much yet though.
-GiH
Even when it's simple, it's not.
-GiH
Yes, but what do you mean when you say "objective," or more importantly, what does the author of your quote mean? That's what I was getting at when I spoke of guiding theories for interpretation - courts will favor interpretations in the sense that the industry would use them. The objective standard does not use a reasonable person test. The judge or (rarely) jury will interpret the meaning of the words as they would be used in that form of contract. I don't assume that the "Rails" mentioned in a contract for transport would be the same if I ask you to author a web-site.
There still remains an assumption that Microsoft and Novell have found a loop-hole which would even pass an "objective person" test. This is an issues which (as I read it) is open to interpretation either way. If one reads the contract toward the original intent (again, as stated in the writing) then any loop-hole will be an accident of language and clearly opposite to the written text, if I go with a legal realist interpreation (or Law and Economics) I'll likely come out on Microsoft's side arguing that the intent statements are pre-amble and unnessential to the contract - that the contract is fair as written only if it is interpreted in favor of allowing coproations to build tools on top of GPL tools without GPLing the result, and that these hippy scum don't belong in a court of law. Okay, I tacked that last bit on just for fun.
-GiH
A: U.S. courts have juridiction in cases where the party to be sued has "such miminal contacts" that allowing the suit would not violate traditional notions of fairness and justice. The US courts have allowed jurisdiction when it is clear that the offending company has intentionally directed buisiness into, and solicited buisiness from, the United States and her citizens.
Here allofmp3 has all the hallmarks of past cases which have succeeded - site is in english, offers prices in U.S. dollars, advertises on U.S. websites and media.
Since their acts take effect here, laws which govern the effect will rule.
Q: How will they enforce the ruling?
There are several ways - the RIAA companies could freeze allofmp3's funds with a court order, and call upon Russia (through the effect of U.S. - Russia treaties) to supply the amount demanded by the judgement. They can asses the value of AllofMp3's domain name and seek to have it sold off to cover the damages. U.S. credit cards and pay-pal could be ordered to cease making payments to allofmp.
Q: How will they get these guys in custody? Russia won't hand them over.
This is a civil case - jail time is not on the table.
-GiH
Contracts do not require a signature or even a writing - spoken promises can suffice for most purposes. Every sale you've every completed is a contract with certain assumed responsabilities (default warranties) and rights (exchange of property). A Licesnse is a contract to allow another access to your property for a stated purpose/duration, etc. Tickets are also licenses - most often the terms are spelled out on the back.
This is all contracts 101 stuff.
-GiH
2) Law is all about opinion. (what do judges write again?)
3) He's right, grab any book on contracts and look for "meeting of the minds."
4) Impressive Trolling.
-GiH