So if I'm, let's say, a "legitimate businessman" operating in Vancouver, my American associates can set up a perl script to tip me several hundred thousand times for my hit single, "That Truckload Of Ganja I Sent Over The Border Last Friday"?
While that seems improbable now given the current scale of your operation, I hope you've thought this issue through, preferably in consultation with your lawyer.
The understandable desire for privacy at some point must collide with the legal restrictions intended to prevent money laundering, which make anonymous transactions of a certain size all but impossible. These restrictions are pretty much here to stay.(*)
Likewise, if you're wondering why you can't send money to someone in Colombia with PayPal, it's not because X.com is filled with navel-gazing Americans who couldn't give a whoop for the rest of the world, but because there are serious legal restrictions on international cash transfers, and X.com will need to think long and hard about what kinds of services they can offer without running afoul of these restrictions.
(* While I'm sure I will get blasted for saying so, the simple truth is that nothing -- nothing -- roots out organized crime like mandatory reporting of large cash transactions.For those who'd rather deal with organized crime than with the government, there are a number of countries in Africa and Latin America that are currently trying that particular experiment.)
(FADE IN to MY OFFICE. I'm THE BOSS, lounging in my leather chair behind my expansive desk. A TECH GUY enters, holding a piece of PAPER.)
TG: Erm, Mr. Boss, sir, I have that Internet policy you asked for. (Offers PAPER to BOSS.)
BOSS (inspecting PAPER): It says here that we won't read our employees' e-mail.
TG: Erm, yes, sir.
BOSS: So if I suspect that one of my employees is embezzling, or selling our secret formula for Slashdot Cola to my competitors, or tipping off friends about likely changes in our stock price, I can't look at files on the computer that was bought with the stockholders' money to find out?
TG: Erm, well, sir, I don't want to play Big Brother.
BOSS: Then go work at the Mickey D's drive-through. You're fired.
(MY OFFICE, one week later. TECH GUY #2 enters, holding another PAPER.)
TG2: Erm, Mr. Boss, sir, I have that revised Internet policy you asked for. (Offers PAPER to BOSS.)
BOSS (inspecting PAPER): It says here that we won't read our employees' e-mail unless we reasonably suspect that they're doing some forbidden thing.
TG2: Erm, yes, sir.
BOSS: So if I suspect that one of our employees is embezzling, and I find out that he is embezzling, and I fire him, he can still sue us for breach of contract, alleging that even though he really was embezzling, I didn't have enough information to form a reasonable suspicion that would allow me to look at his e-mail? Which, by the way, is stored on the computer which was bought with the shareholders' money?
TG2: Erm, well, sir,...
BOSS: Thanks so much. You're fired. Have a great day.
(MY OFFICE, one week later. TECH GUY #3 enters, holding yet another PAPER.)
TG2: Erm, Mr. Boss, sir, I have that second revised Internet policy you asked for. (Offers PAPER to BOSS.)
BOSS (inspecting PAPER): It says here that we can read our employees' e-mail for any reason at any time. Won't our employees think that we're playing Big Brother, and be angry and resentful?
TG3: I'll blather on to them about EEOC guidelines. Besides, all our competitors have the same policy. What choice do our employees have?
Self-congratulatory sarcasm aside, I checked my source, and, in fact, Windows 2000 does use DLLs. However, it implements some sort of file protection which is intended to avoid the "DLL hell" associated with overwriting of DLLs. See this description. How this is implemented, or whether this works, I don't know.
Look at a PSX game now, they look the same as 4 years ago.
Actually, they don't, because Sony has improved the libraries provided to licensed developers significantly. Compare, for example, the first Tomb Raider with Syphon Filter. There are, of course, limits to Sony's ability to tweak its code.
PCs are upgradable, consoles not, which means your pc can grow with you, your console cannot.
Not to be disagreeable, but I don't think most people upgrade PCs that much, particularly their CPUs. And how many PCs made x years ago have an AGP connection?
This post refers to a conservative Globe columnist who slightly rewrote an urban legend that was e-mailed to him and submitted it as his column; when he was found out, the Globe suspended him for a few months. Why this is "censorship" is left as an exercise for the reader.
Suppose I give my friends checks which we both know are bad and which they will use to buy goods. I wrote the checks, so they're speech. They demonstrate the weakness of the payment systems of the various vendors whose goods I've acquired. Why isn't my passing of bad checks protected by the Constitution?
The discussion in "Fight Club" alludes to a legal doctrine called the Hand Formula, first enunciated by Judge Learned Hand in United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947). In that case, the court considered whether a barge owner whose barge broke from from its moorings and damaged other ships while drifting was negligent for not taking precautions against that possibility. He held that a barge owner was negligent when the cost of taking precautions was less than the "expected value" of the damage:
Since there are occasions when every vessel will break from her moorings, and since, if she does, she becomes a menace to those about her; the owner's duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) The probability that she will break away; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if she does; (3) the burden of adequate precautions. Possibly it serves to bring this notion into relief to state it in algebraic terms: if the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B less than PL.
If you understand this, you understand 95% of American negligence law.
I think you've just hit on the big legal problem here, though: Judge Kaplan has MADE UP FACTS.
Out of thin air.
Which finding of fact which has actual significance to Kaplan's opinion do you contend to be false? Delete Kaplan's suggestions that the 2600 bunch are somehow unsavory, and the opinion's still there.
(1) Factually false speech is not outside the First Amendment. If it were, the government could prohibit photos doctored for artistic reasons, films which purport to depict historic events but do so inaccurately, books with typos, etc., etc.
It is constitutional to outlaw passing bad checks is illegal because to pass a bad check is a form of larceny, not because the government has some overriding interest in ensuring the accuracy of written documents. Likewise, libel suits are constitutional because libel causes unwarranted damage to another's reputation. (Falsehoods which don't damage reputations -- e.g., "Bob likes vanilla ice cream" when he really doesn't -- aren't libel.)
(2) The DMCA is arguably content neutral in that there does not seem to be any reason to believe that it would prohibit other code which has the same expressive content as DeCSS but which does not actually perform the function of unlocking CSS (for instance, a program which graphically demonstrated the method of encryption used by CSS).
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
Go read Part III of Kaplan's opinion. Kaplan agrees that computer code serves an expressive function as well as other functions -- that is, code is speech, and it's other things too.
(Simplifying greatly here:)
The Supreme Court has said that some laws which prohibit/punish things that are both speech and non-speech are constitutionally OK. Burning a draft card during the Vietnam War was certainly a form of speech. But in O'Brien, the Court held that the law against destroying draft cards is OK because it serves the significant purpose of making the draft system work, and the law is not aimed at punishing speech (it's "content neutral").
The anti-flag burning laws, on the other hand, are not OK because they are not content-neutral. It's OK, for example, to burn the Canadian flag, but not the American flag.
Kaplan holds that the DMCA is more like the no-destroying-draft-cards law than the anti-flag burning law, and therefore it's constitutionally OK. You might disagree with this part of Kaplan's analysis, but you can't say that "code is speech therefore we win." (If you disagree, explain why laws against passing bad checks could ever be constitutional.)
And remember, those cows exist in nature. It's not like they're bred on giant "farms" by "farmers" such that the population of cows is artificially large.
If there were, hypothetically, a continental land mass covered with ice at either pole this would be a real problem. Luckily, there are only six continents.
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but it's also used for valuable other purposes, and therefore on balance it should be legal."
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but its distribution is technically permitted by the DMCA, and therefore it's legal."
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but you can't ban DeCSS without violating constitutional principle X, and therefore it must be legal."
But you can't argue that DeCSS is not used in significant part for piracy. That's simply not true. The defendants' suggestion that is true is more than a little disingenuous.
I refer you to pages 49-80 of the PDF version of the opinion (Part III, and particularly Part III.B), in which the judges discusses in some detail the constitutional arguments raised by defendants. In particular, I refer you to the paragraph on p. 63 or thereabouts (immediately prior to III.B.2, "Prior Restraint") in which he explains the scope of his ruling. I'm not saying he's right, but he certainly didn't punt the issue.
Slashdot Mirror
While that seems improbable now given the current scale of your operation, I hope you've thought this issue through, preferably in consultation with your lawyer.
For those who don't know, attempting to evade the reporting laws in this way is called "structuring," and is itself illegal.
Actually, the country you are thinking of is trying both at the same time.
Likewise, if you're wondering why you can't send money to someone in Colombia with PayPal, it's not because X.com is filled with navel-gazing Americans who couldn't give a whoop for the rest of the world, but because there are serious legal restrictions on international cash transfers, and X.com will need to think long and hard about what kinds of services they can offer without running afoul of these restrictions.
(* While I'm sure I will get blasted for saying so, the simple truth is that nothing -- nothing -- roots out organized crime like mandatory reporting of large cash transactions.For those who'd rather deal with organized crime than with the government, there are a number of countries in Africa and Latin America that are currently trying that particular experiment.)
It's even creepier when you realize that the company was founded by two gents named Iewlett and Qackard.
Not true.
In general, you cannot escape legal responsibility for your agent's bad acts by willfully blinding yourself to them.
TG: Erm, Mr. Boss, sir, I have that Internet policy you asked for. (Offers PAPER to BOSS.)
BOSS (inspecting PAPER): It says here that we won't read our employees' e-mail.
TG: Erm, yes, sir.
BOSS: So if I suspect that one of my employees is embezzling, or selling our secret formula for Slashdot Cola to my competitors, or tipping off friends about likely changes in our stock price, I can't look at files on the computer that was bought with the stockholders' money to find out?
TG: Erm, well, sir, I don't want to play Big Brother.
BOSS: Then go work at the Mickey D's drive-through. You're fired.
(MY OFFICE, one week later. TECH GUY #2 enters, holding another PAPER.)
TG2: Erm, Mr. Boss, sir, I have that revised Internet policy you asked for. (Offers PAPER to BOSS.)
BOSS (inspecting PAPER): It says here that we won't read our employees' e-mail unless we reasonably suspect that they're doing some forbidden thing.
TG2: Erm, yes, sir.
BOSS: So if I suspect that one of our employees is embezzling, and I find out that he is embezzling, and I fire him, he can still sue us for breach of contract, alleging that even though he really was embezzling, I didn't have enough information to form a reasonable suspicion that would allow me to look at his e-mail? Which, by the way, is stored on the computer which was bought with the shareholders' money?
TG2: Erm, well, sir, ...
BOSS: Thanks so much. You're fired. Have a great day.
(MY OFFICE, one week later. TECH GUY #3 enters, holding yet another PAPER.)
TG2: Erm, Mr. Boss, sir, I have that second revised Internet policy you asked for. (Offers PAPER to BOSS.)
BOSS (inspecting PAPER): It says here that we can read our employees' e-mail for any reason at any time. Won't our employees think that we're playing Big Brother, and be angry and resentful?
TG3: I'll blather on to them about EEOC guidelines. Besides, all our competitors have the same policy. What choice do our employees have?
BOSS: You'll go far in this company, Jenkins.
Self-congratulatory sarcasm aside, I checked my source, and, in fact, Windows 2000 does use DLLs. However, it implements some sort of file protection which is intended to avoid the "DLL hell" associated with overwriting of DLLs. See this description. How this is implemented, or whether this works, I don't know.
Actually, they don't, because Sony has improved the libraries provided to licensed developers significantly. Compare, for example, the first Tomb Raider with Syphon Filter. There are, of course, limits to Sony's ability to tweak its code.
PCs are upgradable, consoles not, which means your pc can grow with you, your console cannot.
Not to be disagreeable, but I don't think most people upgrade PCs that much, particularly their CPUs. And how many PCs made x years ago have an AGP connection?
I understand that Xbox is based on the Windows 2000 platform, which I understand is not based on DLLs.
Oh, crap. Will you take a post-dated check?
Cue mass panic among freaked-out members of Christian right.
This post refers to a conservative Globe columnist who slightly rewrote an urban legend that was e-mailed to him and submitted it as his column; when he was found out, the Globe suspended him for a few months. Why this is "censorship" is left as an exercise for the reader.
Suppose I give my friends checks which we both know are bad and which they will use to buy goods. I wrote the checks, so they're speech. They demonstrate the weakness of the payment systems of the various vendors whose goods I've acquired. Why isn't my passing of bad checks protected by the Constitution?
False.
Since there are occasions when every vessel will break from her moorings, and since, if she does, she becomes a menace to those about her; the owner's duty, as in other similar situations, to provide against resulting injuries is a function of three variables: (1) The probability that she will break away; (2) the gravity of the resulting injury, if she does; (3) the burden of adequate precautions. Possibly it serves to bring this notion into relief to state it in algebraic terms: if the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B; liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by P: i.e., whether B less than PL.
If you understand this, you understand 95% of American negligence law.
Out of thin air.
Which finding of fact which has actual significance to Kaplan's opinion do you contend to be false? Delete Kaplan's suggestions that the 2600 bunch are somehow unsavory, and the opinion's still there.
It is constitutional to outlaw passing bad checks is illegal because to pass a bad check is a form of larceny, not because the government has some overriding interest in ensuring the accuracy of written documents. Likewise, libel suits are constitutional because libel causes unwarranted damage to another's reputation. (Falsehoods which don't damage reputations -- e.g., "Bob likes vanilla ice cream" when he really doesn't -- aren't libel.)
(2) The DMCA is arguably content neutral in that there does not seem to be any reason to believe that it would prohibit other code which has the same expressive content as DeCSS but which does not actually perform the function of unlocking CSS (for instance, a program which graphically demonstrated the method of encryption used by CSS).
"For the purposes of First Amendment analysis, this court finds that source code is speech."
Go read Part III of Kaplan's opinion. Kaplan agrees that computer code serves an expressive function as well as other functions -- that is, code is speech, and it's other things too.
(Simplifying greatly here:)
The Supreme Court has said that some laws which prohibit/punish things that are both speech and non-speech are constitutionally OK. Burning a draft card during the Vietnam War was certainly a form of speech. But in O'Brien, the Court held that the law against destroying draft cards is OK because it serves the significant purpose of making the draft system work, and the law is not aimed at punishing speech (it's "content neutral").
The anti-flag burning laws, on the other hand, are not OK because they are not content-neutral. It's OK, for example, to burn the Canadian flag, but not the American flag.
Kaplan holds that the DMCA is more like the no-destroying-draft-cards law than the anti-flag burning law, and therefore it's constitutionally OK. You might disagree with this part of Kaplan's analysis, but you can't say that "code is speech therefore we win." (If you disagree, explain why laws against passing bad checks could ever be constitutional.)
And remember, those cows exist in nature. It's not like they're bred on giant "farms" by "farmers" such that the population of cows is artificially large.
If there were, hypothetically, a continental land mass covered with ice at either pole this would be a real problem. Luckily, there are only six continents.
That's funny, 'cause on the planet I live on, DeCSS is used for piracy all the damn time.
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but it's also used for valuable other purposes, and therefore on balance it should be legal."
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but its distribution is technically permitted by the DMCA, and therefore it's legal."
You can argue, "DeCSS is used for piracy, but you can't ban DeCSS without violating constitutional principle X, and therefore it must be legal."
But you can't argue that DeCSS is not used in significant part for piracy. That's simply not true. The defendants' suggestion that is true is more than a little disingenuous.
I refer you to pages 49-80 of the PDF version of the opinion (Part III, and particularly Part III.B), in which the judges discusses in some detail the constitutional arguments raised by defendants. In particular, I refer you to the paragraph on p. 63 or thereabouts (immediately prior to III.B.2, "Prior Restraint") in which he explains the scope of his ruling. I'm not saying he's right, but he certainly didn't punt the issue.