I'm not saying people shouldn't shop around. I'm not even saying that people shouldn't price compare right there in the store. But using a store's own free wi-fi to undercut them.......man, that's low rent.
I know, I know. Slashdot being the Libertarian hands off paradise that it is I can already hear the replies. "If you don't want people using it to compete against you, don't offer it" etc etc. Mercenary culture in action.
Supply and demand only works efficiently when entities have a motivation to work towards the equilibrium price. In the event of a shortage, economic theory goes, the producers will be keen to create more supply because sales are going unfulfilled even though the entity is able to charge a higher price.
OPEC has figured out over the years that the above is not quite accurate. What we are seeing here (with rent and other goods such as new console releases) is that the producers have figured out that human behavior does not track with the economic models. If you sell your item at an artificially high cost and cause a "shortage", people will still pay it. And not only will they pay it, but they will line up and wait for their chance to pay it. Thus the producers are left with zero incentive to increase supply and lower what they can charge.
What is missing is the element of "greed", that is entities that want to get as many customers and market share as they can. If an oligargy takes over and they decide they are content with 95 percent occupancy and the current rate of return, then why would they add a lot of new capacity quickly? Doing so would just fuck up a good thing.
No. The rate might not be too low. The rate might actual be the correct rate. Just because people aren't willing, or able, to work for that rate, does not mean that it is possibly or the correct decision to increase the labor's wage.
And in my opinion this story is a good example of the markets working properly.
Consumers are willing to pay a certain amount for a good.
The previous workers have better opportunities, and are deciding to stop working for the lower wage.
The producers have accepted this, still want to produce the good, and have instead found other ways to ensure the cost of production meets the ability to sell it at a price that consumers are willing to pay.
1) Not being able to fill jobs at a given pay rate is the *classic* economic sign that the wages offered are too low. One of the farmers in the article said that people were not willing to move to the country to farm. This is further the classic case on non-incentivized labor. That quote says they know exactly what the problem is, the producers just aren't willing to remedy it with higher wages.
Personal commentary: They've been use to paying immigrant labor depressed wages for decades. Maybe they just believe that fruit pickers "shouldn't make that much" and the Mexicans are being uppity.
2) And you know what the consumer price cap for strawberries is? Please inform us, what is the price elasticity co-efficient of produce? And if indeed the farmers were to pay $3 - $5 an hour more for labor, how much exactly would that add to the price-per-unit of the goods?
First slaves, then "family farms", then Mexicans, and now possibly machines. From it's early days in the U.S. farmers have looked for ways to depress labor costs This trend continues today. The article linked to is filled with lazy quasi-economics and farmer fear mongering. One is well served to look outside the industry and it's participants to understand its true economics.
.......your wife doesn't sound academically qualified to be the sole instructor for your child. I say that as someone with two advanced degrees (I do not consider myself able to teach every topic at a high school level either). Now granted this presumably won't be an issue for awhile......say 7 or 8 years. And the obvious retort to this is that there will be a curriculum that she can teach from etc. But without the subject mastery, her ability would be hindered to offer further explanation when your child hits a snag. In short your wife would be one of those teachers that we all had who is reliant on reading verbatim from the "Instructor's Edition". Is that good education? Is that what you want for your kid?
If your wife wants to stay involved, she can bake brownies for the class.
The standard contained in the Federal Rules of evidence is that an individual who "knew or should have known" about pending litigation is obligated to preserve evidence to the extent they are able. Most states have adopted these rules as their own although I don't know for sure about this specific state.
The late 2012 letter, while Indeed a letter and not a summons, is still sufficient to trigger the rules of evidence.
Exactly what he knew, when, and what the sanctions if any should be are up to the judge. In this case it sounds like the judge may also have a history with the Plaintiffs. That helps too.
The accused is not bound to preserve any and all possessions that might be discoverable in litigation at a later date after even a rumour that the accused will become a party in a suit.
Evidence does not exist before probable cause defines the scope of what will constitute evidence, only after a motion to preserve evidence is filed.
1) When he received the notice to preserve evidence, the clock started running there and violations of civil rules became sanctionable.
2) Probable cause does not exist in civil cases.
Well, it's a little more than "probably". They have to show a preponderance of evidence. It's not enough to say, "this guy's a big movie fan and had 200gig of downloads every month and never rented a movie or went to a theater, so he probably was pirating movies".
Preponderance of the evidence is a 51 percent standard......i.e. "more likely than not".
Barring any statutorily necessary elements of the Plaintiff's claims, if the jury finds that to be sufficient then the dude can be found liable. It's all circumstantial, certainly. But I have guys doing decades of prison time based on circumstantial evidence, and that was "beyond a reasonable doubt". With what you lay out above, I could *easily* see a jury making a few key inferences and finding liability in that.
Never try and predict what the 12 geniuses in the box will or will not do.
Defendant received notice of this lawsuit at the beginning of October 2012. []Defendant, however, did not destroy the hard drive until “late February 2013.” [] Thus, almost five months passed between the time that Defendant learned of the lawsuit and Defendant’s destruction of the hard drive. Had Defendant truly wished to hide adverse information, the Court finds it unlikely that Defendant would have waited nearly five months to destroy such information. Instead, Defendant’s continued use of the hard drive for the months after he learned of the litigation suggests that the hard drive contained no information to hide at all, or that Defendant did not intend to hide any such information.
That's one interpretation. Another has been suggested earlier in this forum that he chalked it up to a scare tactic and didn't think anything had come of it. If this case goes to depositions then more will be revealed about that.
You have this backwards. The accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise (the wishes of copyright holders notwithstanding). The burden of proof is thus upon Malibu Media to prove he knew about their intent to sue before he had the drive recycled.
Personally I would say a mailed notice from Comcast is insufficient - lots of us have gotten those, whether correctly or in error, and nothing has happened. So it's insufficient to act as a notice to preserve evidence. I'd say a certified notification letter which must be followed through with an actual lawsuit or settlement is the minimum. Another party should not have the power to compel me to modify my behavior (hang onto equipment I'd otherwise throw out) for the mere cost of a 49 cent stamp.
1) Civil court is not a case of "guilty or innocent". It is a manner of "liable or not liable" and to what degree.
2) It is not accurate that the Defendant had no burden. This was a discovery abuse motion. The initial burden is on Malibu to prove that a violation of evidence rules occurred (this is a low and easily met burden). *After* they have met that burden, the burden shifts to the Defendant to put on any defenses or to refute the assertion.
3) The rules of evidence state that one has committed discovery abuse if evidence is disposed of after someone "knew or should have known" that litigation was pending. Yes, attorneys many times make threats. Yes most of the time they are just talking noise. But don't kid yourself. A notice to preserve evidence *is* enforceable. The recipient ignores it at their own peril.
If the plaintiff can't show that there was (not say that there probably was) evidence on the drive, then the court should bloody well assume there wasn't (assumption of innocence and all that nonsense....)
This is a civil case. "Innocent until proven guilty" does not apply. Instead the issue is one of "liable or not liable". Further it is not a binary yes / no but rather a percentage of fault scale. Subject to notable exceptions the Plaintiff must prove that the Defendant is liable via a preponderance of the evidence (51% or more).
Thank goodness the judge doesn't understand technology or that defendant would have been screwed.
"Yes your honor, hard drives are merely mysterious magical containers of stuff with no alternative method of recovery."
From a tactical standpoint the defendant avoided default. Sure he may have saved himself from them seeing exactly what he had downloaded. However he isn't out of the woods yet as other sanctions are possible. For example the Plaintiff could secure jury instructions that the jury is to assume that there was pirated material on the drive. Or the judge could hand down discovery sanctions such as fines, limits on what discovery the Defendant can do, etc.
I would expect that the Plaintiffs will explore these avenues soon enough.
Start by evaluating what you have and whom you wish to keep it away from. If you have classified data that a national security apparatus wants, do what a poster up-thread suggested and keep it offline (also, stay the hell away from me). If your data is less sensitive, then evaluate your security posture using a multi-tiered approach. Assume all routers can be compromised and treat them as the first line of defense. Evaluate where you data sits (cloud based versus local) and how it is transferred (encrypted versus non). Evaluate your own work flows in determining how the data is potentially vulnerable.
You can build your own fortress unto yourself if you want to, but at the end of the day even if you're sharing with other fortress entities you will still end up having to send data across untrusted lines. Some of those lines are run by people who don't have your privacy interests at heart. So knowledge and common sense are still your best defenses.
When I can have multiple monitors going, with legal research on one screen and MS Word on the other, and am able to type text quickly with a reasonable keyboard......then I'll believe the desktop / laptop is dying.
Until then tablets and smart phones are for surfing the web, putzing around on facebook, and doing minor work tasks. Productivity is still the domain of the PC.
Use to be that a person owed a dog no better treatment than they did a chair or silverware. The idea of animals as mere "chattel" has been slowly chipped away at over time. As people have come to view animals as having a higher status than a bookshelf, the law has slowly moved the same way. Animal abuse is generally a crime everywhere. Further the state can take away animals from people who mistreat them.......the same is not true for one who "mistreats" their wooden desk, no matter how public and violent the act may be.
The risk that these animal rights activist face is that of setting unfavorable precedent which, under the legal concept of stare decisis, could serve as a roadblock to courts future recognitions of animal "rights". There are also a myriad of peripheral issues that such a finding would raise. If a chimp is legally considered a person, what is their citizenship? Does the U.S. Constitution apply to them? Can they vote? The list goes on.
Or just put the receiver on the desk, and waste a bit of *their* time.
That's a good way to get out of the collections department and into legal. And legal will just take out a court order for the money against you ex parte in many states.
I stopped reading here.
Note to readers: The parent post above doesn't know shit about the civil debt collection process.
Help the Russians set up a program that allows them to create a GPS system that will compete with the U.S.
or
Help the Russians set up a program that allows them to create a GPS system that will compete with the U.S........and which could be actively shut down / hacked/ sabatoged within U.S. borders if an "incident" ever arose. And which Russian "allies" are likely to sign on to use this alternative? Why China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria of course.
If all the revelations about the NSA show anything, it's that everyone is busy spying on everyone. Therefore the U.S. should presume that these stations will be used, at least tangentially, for that purpose. Note that that is not necessarily a reason to decline the request. If properly managed, it could be used by the U.S. security apparatus to better monitor and determine Russia's own capabilities. It could also be a useful way to "leak" sensitive sounding FUD back to the motherland.
Perhaps it's not a matter of 75 percent being a "threat" but rather re-allocation by using less resources on the "safe" 25 percent. Again, the targeted use of profiles, statistics, etc.
For years members of the 501st Fighting Keyboard Brigade, Slashdot Division have been droning on and on about "security theater" and the TSA's "one size fits all" approach to airline security. Mighty cries were heard across the realm about the need to use intelligence and data to truly focus on those who pose a greater threat.
Congratulations, the TSA heard your pleas and is responding accordingly.
And as the infamous Chinese curse says, "May you find what you are looking for."
Slashdot Mirror
Better: Shoot the device and then see who comes to repair / check on it.
Best: Monetize. Create a mobile app and let people place bets on which country / agency the item belongs to.
Glad I wasn't the only one concerned about that.
I'm not saying people shouldn't shop around. I'm not even saying that people shouldn't price compare right there in the store. But using a store's own free wi-fi to undercut them.......man, that's low rent.
I know, I know. Slashdot being the Libertarian hands off paradise that it is I can already hear the replies. "If you don't want people using it to compete against you, don't offer it" etc etc. Mercenary culture in action.
Supply and demand only works efficiently when entities have a motivation to work towards the equilibrium price. In the event of a shortage, economic theory goes, the producers will be keen to create more supply because sales are going unfulfilled even though the entity is able to charge a higher price.
OPEC has figured out over the years that the above is not quite accurate. What we are seeing here (with rent and other goods such as new console releases) is that the producers have figured out that human behavior does not track with the economic models. If you sell your item at an artificially high cost and cause a "shortage", people will still pay it. And not only will they pay it, but they will line up and wait for their chance to pay it. Thus the producers are left with zero incentive to increase supply and lower what they can charge.
What is missing is the element of "greed", that is entities that want to get as many customers and market share as they can. If an oligargy takes over and they decide they are content with 95 percent occupancy and the current rate of return, then why would they add a lot of new capacity quickly? Doing so would just fuck up a good thing.
No. The rate might not be too low. The rate might actual be the correct rate. Just because people aren't willing, or able, to work for that rate, does not mean that it is possibly or the correct decision to increase the labor's wage.
And in my opinion this story is a good example of the markets working properly. Consumers are willing to pay a certain amount for a good. The previous workers have better opportunities, and are deciding to stop working for the lower wage. The producers have accepted this, still want to produce the good, and have instead found other ways to ensure the cost of production meets the ability to sell it at a price that consumers are willing to pay.
1) Not being able to fill jobs at a given pay rate is the *classic* economic sign that the wages offered are too low. One of the farmers in the article said that people were not willing to move to the country to farm. This is further the classic case on non-incentivized labor. That quote says they know exactly what the problem is, the producers just aren't willing to remedy it with higher wages.
Personal commentary: They've been use to paying immigrant labor depressed wages for decades. Maybe they just believe that fruit pickers "shouldn't make that much" and the Mexicans are being uppity.
2) And you know what the consumer price cap for strawberries is? Please inform us, what is the price elasticity co-efficient of produce? And if indeed the farmers were to pay $3 - $5 an hour more for labor, how much exactly would that add to the price-per-unit of the goods?
First slaves, then "family farms", then Mexicans, and now possibly machines. From it's early days in the U.S. farmers have looked for ways to depress labor costs This trend continues today. The article linked to is filled with lazy quasi-economics and farmer fear mongering. One is well served to look outside the industry and it's participants to understand its true economics.
Yuuuuuuup!
(Come on bro, go easy on OP........he's got future pussy riding on this. He has to be diplomatic)
.......your wife doesn't sound academically qualified to be the sole instructor for your child. I say that as someone with two advanced degrees (I do not consider myself able to teach every topic at a high school level either). Now granted this presumably won't be an issue for awhile......say 7 or 8 years. And the obvious retort to this is that there will be a curriculum that she can teach from etc. But without the subject mastery, her ability would be hindered to offer further explanation when your child hits a snag. In short your wife would be one of those teachers that we all had who is reliant on reading verbatim from the "Instructor's Edition". Is that good education? Is that what you want for your kid?
If your wife wants to stay involved, she can bake brownies for the class.
Fuck off little AC fag. You want to have a conversation with the adults and maybe learn something, post under a real ID.
Translation: You didn't read the opinion.
The standard contained in the Federal Rules of evidence is that an individual who "knew or should have known" about pending litigation is obligated to preserve evidence to the extent they are able. Most states have adopted these rules as their own although I don't know for sure about this specific state.
The late 2012 letter, while Indeed a letter and not a summons, is still sufficient to trigger the rules of evidence.
Exactly what he knew, when, and what the sanctions if any should be are up to the judge. In this case it sounds like the judge may also have a history with the Plaintiffs. That helps too.
Not this.
The accused is not bound to preserve any and all possessions that might be discoverable in litigation at a later date after even a rumour that the accused will become a party in a suit.
Evidence does not exist before probable cause defines the scope of what will constitute evidence, only after a motion to preserve evidence is filed.
1) When he received the notice to preserve evidence, the clock started running there and violations of civil rules became sanctionable.
2) Probable cause does not exist in civil cases.
You speak of criminal sanctions, not civil. Very different burdens of proof.
Well, it's a little more than "probably". They have to show a preponderance of evidence. It's not enough to say, "this guy's a big movie fan and had 200gig of downloads every month and never rented a movie or went to a theater, so he probably was pirating movies".
Preponderance of the evidence is a 51 percent standard......i.e. "more likely than not".
Barring any statutorily necessary elements of the Plaintiff's claims, if the jury finds that to be sufficient then the dude can be found liable. It's all circumstantial, certainly. But I have guys doing decades of prison time based on circumstantial evidence, and that was "beyond a reasonable doubt". With what you lay out above, I could *easily* see a jury making a few key inferences and finding liability in that.
Never try and predict what the 12 geniuses in the box will or will not do.
Thank-you!
Spoken as someone who has actually been involved in litigation.
Defendant received notice of this lawsuit at the beginning of October 2012. []Defendant, however, did not destroy the hard drive until “late February 2013.” [] Thus, almost five months passed between the time that Defendant learned of the lawsuit and Defendant’s destruction of the hard drive. Had Defendant truly wished to hide adverse information, the Court finds it unlikely that Defendant would have waited nearly five months to destroy such information. Instead, Defendant’s continued use of the hard drive for the months after he learned of the litigation suggests that the hard drive contained no information to hide at all, or that Defendant did not intend to hide any such information.
That's one interpretation. Another has been suggested earlier in this forum that he chalked it up to a scare tactic and didn't think anything had come of it. If this case goes to depositions then more will be revealed about that.
You have this backwards. The accused is presumed innocent until proven otherwise (the wishes of copyright holders notwithstanding). The burden of proof is thus upon Malibu Media to prove he knew about their intent to sue before he had the drive recycled. Personally I would say a mailed notice from Comcast is insufficient - lots of us have gotten those, whether correctly or in error, and nothing has happened. So it's insufficient to act as a notice to preserve evidence. I'd say a certified notification letter which must be followed through with an actual lawsuit or settlement is the minimum. Another party should not have the power to compel me to modify my behavior (hang onto equipment I'd otherwise throw out) for the mere cost of a 49 cent stamp.
1) Civil court is not a case of "guilty or innocent". It is a manner of "liable or not liable" and to what degree.
2) It is not accurate that the Defendant had no burden. This was a discovery abuse motion. The initial burden is on Malibu to prove that a violation of evidence rules occurred (this is a low and easily met burden). *After* they have met that burden, the burden shifts to the Defendant to put on any defenses or to refute the assertion.
3) The rules of evidence state that one has committed discovery abuse if evidence is disposed of after someone "knew or should have known" that litigation was pending. Yes, attorneys many times make threats. Yes most of the time they are just talking noise. But don't kid yourself. A notice to preserve evidence *is* enforceable. The recipient ignores it at their own peril.
If the plaintiff can't show that there was (not say that there probably was) evidence on the drive, then the court should bloody well assume there wasn't (assumption of innocence and all that nonsense....)
This is a civil case. "Innocent until proven guilty" does not apply. Instead the issue is one of "liable or not liable". Further it is not a binary yes / no but rather a percentage of fault scale. Subject to notable exceptions the Plaintiff must prove that the Defendant is liable via a preponderance of the evidence (51% or more).
Thank goodness the judge doesn't understand technology or that defendant would have been screwed.
"Yes your honor, hard drives are merely mysterious magical containers of stuff with no alternative method of recovery."
From a tactical standpoint the defendant avoided default. Sure he may have saved himself from them seeing exactly what he had downloaded. However he isn't out of the woods yet as other sanctions are possible. For example the Plaintiff could secure jury instructions that the jury is to assume that there was pirated material on the drive. Or the judge could hand down discovery sanctions such as fines, limits on what discovery the Defendant can do, etc.
I would expect that the Plaintiffs will explore these avenues soon enough.
Disclaimer: IAAL.
Start by evaluating what you have and whom you wish to keep it away from. If you have classified data that a national security apparatus wants, do what a poster up-thread suggested and keep it offline (also, stay the hell away from me). If your data is less sensitive, then evaluate your security posture using a multi-tiered approach. Assume all routers can be compromised and treat them as the first line of defense. Evaluate where you data sits (cloud based versus local) and how it is transferred (encrypted versus non). Evaluate your own work flows in determining how the data is potentially vulnerable.
You can build your own fortress unto yourself if you want to, but at the end of the day even if you're sharing with other fortress entities you will still end up having to send data across untrusted lines. Some of those lines are run by people who don't have your privacy interests at heart. So knowledge and common sense are still your best defenses.
When I can have multiple monitors going, with legal research on one screen and MS Word on the other, and am able to type text quickly with a reasonable keyboard......then I'll believe the desktop / laptop is dying.
Until then tablets and smart phones are for surfing the web, putzing around on facebook, and doing minor work tasks. Productivity is still the domain of the PC.
Use to be that a person owed a dog no better treatment than they did a chair or silverware. The idea of animals as mere "chattel" has been slowly chipped away at over time. As people have come to view animals as having a higher status than a bookshelf, the law has slowly moved the same way. Animal abuse is generally a crime everywhere. Further the state can take away animals from people who mistreat them.......the same is not true for one who "mistreats" their wooden desk, no matter how public and violent the act may be.
The risk that these animal rights activist face is that of setting unfavorable precedent which, under the legal concept of stare decisis, could serve as a roadblock to courts future recognitions of animal "rights". There are also a myriad of peripheral issues that such a finding would raise. If a chimp is legally considered a person, what is their citizenship? Does the U.S. Constitution apply to them? Can they vote? The list goes on.
Or just put the receiver on the desk, and waste a bit of *their* time.
That's a good way to get out of the collections department and into legal. And legal will just take out a court order for the money against you ex parte in many states.
I stopped reading here.
Note to readers: The parent post above doesn't know shit about the civil debt collection process.
Help the Russians set up a program that allows them to create a GPS system that will compete with the U.S.
or
Help the Russians set up a program that allows them to create a GPS system that will compete with the U.S........and which could be actively shut down / hacked/ sabatoged within U.S. borders if an "incident" ever arose. And which Russian "allies" are likely to sign on to use this alternative? Why China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria of course.
If all the revelations about the NSA show anything, it's that everyone is busy spying on everyone. Therefore the U.S. should presume that these stations will be used, at least tangentially, for that purpose. Note that that is not necessarily a reason to decline the request. If properly managed, it could be used by the U.S. security apparatus to better monitor and determine Russia's own capabilities. It could also be a useful way to "leak" sensitive sounding FUD back to the motherland.
Perhaps it's not a matter of 75 percent being a "threat" but rather re-allocation by using less resources on the "safe" 25 percent. Again, the targeted use of profiles, statistics, etc.
For years members of the 501st Fighting Keyboard Brigade, Slashdot Division have been droning on and on about "security theater" and the TSA's "one size fits all" approach to airline security. Mighty cries were heard across the realm about the need to use intelligence and data to truly focus on those who pose a greater threat.
Congratulations, the TSA heard your pleas and is responding accordingly. And as the infamous Chinese curse says, "May you find what you are looking for."