I agree. Nullsoft's giveaway of the software would appear to be binding.
I suspect the legal test would be whether Nullsoft had actual or apparent authority to do what it did.
If it had actual authority to release this sort of software as GPL'd under its arrangements with AOL, the inquiry is over: the software's GPL'd (unless someone knows of some way to revoke the GPL? I haven't taken a look at it lately).
Even if not, the software may still be GPL'd if Nullsoft had "apparent authority" to GPL it. (I.e., it's GPL'd unless someone not knowing the details of Nullsoft's arrangements with AOL would nevertheless have substantial reasons to believe that Nullsoft had no authority to do what it was doing. By way of example, the stereo salesman who gives you 50% off probably has apparent authority to give you that price, unless he suggests that you pay him in cash in the parking lot, in which case you have reason to suspect that he's not acting with authority from his boss.) Given that many corporations have released software under GPL-like licenses, it's hard to imagine that Nullsoft didn't have apparent authority to do what it did.
Some of the comments above scare me. Here's the real scoop:
When a case is "settled," as the linked article tells us that this case was, it almost always means that the plaintiff -- the person or entity who brought the case -- agreed to voluntarily dismiss their case with prejudice in exchange for something they want, often money. Dismissal "with prejudice" means the plaintiff can't refile the case. (If the plaintiff were able to refile the case, it would make the settlement worthless to the defendant.)
A voluntary dismissal is usually entered automatically by the clerk of the court. A dismissal in connection with a settlement therefore does not reflect any judge's opinion on the merits of a case, and has no value as precedent.
The following things are not true or are nonsensical:
It's a good way for the judge to "honorably" state their disgust, which is probably the case here (the case wasn't ruled on, it settled, and even a dismissal by a judge does not express disgust for the lawsuit)
The *judge* has the final decision... hence res judicata. Judges aren't supposed to tell plaintiffs their arguements are full of @#$& (this case was settled, but in the real world judges quite properly throw out cases all the time before juries hear them, see Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) and 56 for details of how this happens in federal courts)
'prejudice' here means a pre-trial decision (as before, there was no decision, and anyway the term has nothing to do with trials)
It['s] good to see that these things, for the most part, are being dealt with properly by the courts (the court had nothing to do with it here, it settled)
The case WILL NOT BE allowed another trial unless another judge throws the original finding of prejudice excessively premature (there was no first trial, there was no "finding" of prejudice)
The case CAN be pursued... the problem is getting the decision of one judge changed by another. Few judges like to make "precedence" like that (the judge made no decision here; beyond that, I have no idea what this guy means)
This does prevent future claims. Prejudice is used to prevent "me too" cases. That situation is what class-action suits are for. A case dismissed "Without Prejudice" allows new evidence to be ADDED to the original, giving the plaintiff(s) a chance to build their case. In these cases, the judge is telling the plaintiff that they're probably right, but for the wrong reasons. (take this out back and shoot it)
If you're up, around and posting to Slashdot, it's no wonder the officers were acquitted.
Grim humor aside, police mistreatment of minorities is a serious issue. Your time would be well spent considering how you might do something more serious to address that issue than posting anonymously to discussions of object oriented programming, which serves only to make you look ridiculous.
... he died of natural causes in 1984, aged 92. He did spend seven years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau, though. The Wiesenthal Center's site has more about Niemoller.
Props to the original poster for including the line about Communists -- it's frequently omitted, probably because people find it embarrassing.
Architecture critic Jane Holtz Kay has written a book, "Asphalt Nation," about the unnoticed impact of cars in our lives. One observation in particular has stuck with me:
Our auto-dependent mobility denies the child's. Across America children and young people are the victims of declining transit services, suffering not only from the debasement of walking and bicycling by the car but also from its depletion of public transportation. This deprivation extends throughout adolescence. In all but a dozen or so cities, the streetcar or bus taking the teenager to a lively urban core beyond the limits of the everyday has atrophied or disappeared. Walkers or even bicyclists who traveled freely to school, sports, or friends in times past can no longer make their way without peril. Sidewalks are few, cars many; even the mall is asphalt wrapped. . ..
Teenagers drive while parents shudder. The media records the death and mutilation of the gun culture, but the car culture is statistically more threatening. According to figures from the Federal Highway Administration and the Justice Department, an adolescent suburban male is more likely to be killed by an automobile than his urban peer by a gun.
An excerpt from Chapter 1 is available online if you're interested.
Gore never said he "invented" the Internet. What Gore actually said was the following: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."(*)
There are of course grounds for dispute here: ARPAnet dates to '69, Gore entered Congress in '77. On the other hand, the vast bulk of the growth in the Internet occurred after '77. The question is, then, whether any new government initiative after '77 (as opposed to government programs already in place at that time) can fairly be credited with creating the Internet as we know it today, and if so what if anything did Gore have to do with it?
I suppose some reporter could actually investigate this question -- for all I know, Gore wasn't telling the truth. This would actually require work, however, so don't expect to see this story any time soon. It's easier to run the "I invented the Internet" soundbite, and then ponderously wonder why Gore (!) can't tell the truth.
(*) The details can be found at a site called The Daily Howler, which covers journalists' misreporting of politics. Keeping in mind that the site is run by a college classmate of Gore's, it's pretty nonpartisan -- it regularly defends GOP candidates against the media -- and worth a look. The story on Gore and the Internet is here.
[M]ost executives nowadays are compensated by bonuses and options now, not skyrocketing salaries. Shareholders prefer to link salary to performance.
If only the interlocking directorates of corporate boards would let them. Executive compensation Graef Crystal has recently noted that
the system isn't working, for if it were, there would be a high correlation between the amount of pay a CEO earns and the performance of his company. Yet the correlation is so low as to be almost non-existent. We constantly encounter CEOs whose performance has faltered, but whose pay has remained the same or has even gone up.
While I don't have any idea whether it's technically a trademark violation, I wish the developers had chosen a name that wasn't simply a variation on VMWare. "FreeMWare" is currently a misleading name in that it suggests that it can do everything that VMWare can do -- which I understand is not presently the case. And even if it could, the name itself suggests an unnecessary hostility to the existence of a commercial product. Names are free; there's no reason not to pick something original.
To my knowledge, no one with any power to implement such a tax (e.g., a committee of the House or Senate or of a state legislative body, a President or a governor) has ever made such a proposal. It's therefore a waste of time to talk about it. Bringing it up only serves the purpose of offering those who are so inclined an opportunity to vent rage at the government.
ObTopic:
I've been hearing lately that the government wants to place a tax on outgoing email because more people are writing email than postal mail.
This makes no sense at all. While (I think) the post office may be running a slight surplus at the moment, it has not been a substantial source of government revenue in this century. In any event, the cost of delivering first class letters sent by ordinary joes/janes is substantially subsidized by bulk rate mail, so to the extent people send e-mail instead of first class postal mail, the government is actually farther ahead by a few pennies.
Suggested substitute topic: In order to make Area 51 even more secret, the government is considering deleting the number 51 from the official list of positive integers. Discuss among yourselves.
... this is a fairly hard question of the law of federal jurisdiction. A number of federal laws limit the jurisdiction of the courts. If you'd like to see a few, search the U.S. Code with the search term
'no court shall have jurisdiction'
or
'shall not be subject to judicial review'
IIRC, however, most of these provisions only limit the sort of remedy which the court may order (e.g., courts can award damages but can't enter injunctions), or require that certain administrative procedures be taken prior to suit (e.g., "no court has jurisdiction unless the plaintiff has jumped through hoops 1 through n"). (There are exceptions, however -- see 22 U.S.C. 2778.)
Whether this particular restriction is constitutional is a harder problem, as it would seem to foreclose all avenues of relief for violation of a constitutional right. It's not a foregone conclusion, however.
That's funny, I haven't owned a TV in [BIGNUM] years... There's nothing on TV except [favorite show]... I personally prefer to spend my time engaged in [favorite activity]... It's disgusting that people watch TV when they could be [favorite activity]... When I tell people I don't watch TV, they [express shock, throw fish, etc.]... How tragic that others fail to see how wrong they are and cannot be as [intellectual, life-affirming, socially daring] as I am.
If you thought the vegetarians were fun, just wait until you meet the TV-phobes.
True confession: Sometimes I like to drink and smoke while eating deep-fried meat in front of the television.
If there are 2-3 persons in a house, all of whom watch a couple hours of TV a day -- counting morning shows, evening news, prime time, late night talk, VH-1 while cleaning, etc., etc. -- you can easily get to 8 person-hours of TV per day. (Two people watching TV for one hour = two "person-hours.")
Suppose I invent a "Brain Fluid Pressure Relief System" consisting of a hammer, a tap (like those used to harvest sap from maple trees) and a temporary tattoo in the shape of a bullseye (to be applied to the forehead). The patent claim will read something like:
I claim an apparatus for the relief of brain fluid pressure, comprising a hammer, a tap and a bullseye tattoo.
The fact that the claim includes the word "hammer" doesn't mean I'm claiming a patent on the hammer. To infringe my patent, the infringer would have to create an apparatus that includes each and every one of the items you claim. Without the accompanying objects, therefore, a hammer is not covered by this claim.
In general, it is not a bar to a patent that the invention in question includes some patented or unpatentable components, provided that it otherwise meets all the requirements of the patent laws.
[P.S. You guys better not rip off my neat idea. FDA approval, here I come.]
Science fiction has been censored, ignored, and dismissed as "not-serious" by academics for far too long.
Censored? Hardly. Ignored and dismissed? Doubtful. Relative to most other genre fiction, sci-fi gets a sizable amount of attention. The fantasy/sci-fi works of Poe, Lovecraft, Orwell, Italo Calvino, Vonnegut, Doris Lessing, Jorge Luis Borges and Philip K. Dick are all considered fair game by academic literary critics.
There's trash, to be sure, but there are "classics," and there is a vast middle ground between the classics and the trash.
The name for this vast middle ground -- and it is indeed vast -- is "mediocrity." There are worse things than to be a mediocre but entertaining writer, of course, but those who fall into that category shouldn't expect to become subjects of serious attention from academics.
And let's face it, much of what we now call "classic" was not perceived as such at the time. Shakespeare's Macbeth was the Friday the 13th of its day, more or less.
Er, no, it wasn't. Though Shakespeare wasn't acclaimed as the great genius of English literature during his lifetime as he is today, he was recognized by his contemporaries as a significant talent. Excepting possibly those who wanted the theatres closed altogether, I don't believe anyone at the time considered "the Scottish play" to be artistic dreck on the order of Friday the 13th.
The whole notion of claiming that someone might be entitled to "fair use" of a copy that is not legitimately owned, is absurd.
This clearly isn't so.
Suppose I am a journalist in a community where a painting by a modern artist is prominently displayed in a local museum, and I print a 2" x 2" photo of the painting in an article about a new gallery. That's certainly fair use.
Now suppose that the painting has been stolen from the museum and held as a "hostage" by a group of terrorists. These terrorists contact me to explain their point of view, and show me the undamaged painting to prove their bona fides. I print a 2" x 2" photo of the painting in the paper. Are you suggesting that's not fair use because the terrorists don't own the painting?
(Alternatively, suppose that a group of radical art critics are manufacturing counterfeits of the painting in order to prove some political point, and I print a photo of the counterfeit. That would also seem to be fair use.)
Conclusion: fair use doesn't depend on whether the source is legit.
I have an unpronounceable and uncommon four-letter last name of Slavic origin -- call it "xxxx" -- and recently registered the xxxx.net domain for use as my personal site. Only weeks later someone had registered xxxx.com and offered it for sale for $3000. I strongly suspect that they won't find any takers unless I decide for some reason that I really need it. (On the other hand, I have heard that almost all four letter dot-com domains which are plausibly words have been registered, so perhaps it will have some value to someone who really feels they need a short domain name.)
Assuming -- and this is kind of a big "if" -- the xxxx.com holders were motivated to register the name based on my registration of xxxx.net, does anyone have any idea how they found out about my registering xxxx.net? I didn't put up any content for some time after registering the site, so they clearly didn't find it by accident -- they must have (had?) some systematic way of searching such things out.
Re:The international Geek union
on
GEEK Unions?
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· Score: 3
The Idea that anyone should pay an organization a monthly fee for the privilege of mediating in contract negotiations is ridiculous!
What's ridiculous about it? People hire intermediaries for negotiating purposes (attorneys, brokers, agents, auctioneers, group purchasing organizations, etc.) all the time.
[General rule: 90% of the complaints people have about unions would be self-evidently dismissed as ridiculous if they were directed at an entity that dealt in widgets instead of labor.]
However, these arguments have all focused on the direct economic benefits and losses that consumers have received from this situation. It is not economic losses that the public has suffered, but loss of choice.
Loss of choice is an economic loss, insofar as you would accept some amount of money as compensation for loss of choice (among word processors, etc.(*)).
Perhaps a better way of putting this is that any consumer losses are not directly measurable losses such as losses due to higher prices for particular commodities, but instead are losses arising out of indirect economic harm. (E.g., I'm forced to choose between (a) the inconvenience of not using my preferred WP, causing me to expend extra labor, and (b) the prospect of losing customers at my printing business because I can't read their documents).
(* To stave off the anti-M$ troops: Clearly some "losses of choice" are not compensable in money -- e.g., loss of freedom of religion. I think it would be an exceedingly unusual person, however, who couldn't be persuaded to switch WP programs for some sum of money.)
1. Tracking things on the internet can be a pain in the arse. Just ask the NSA - even echelon can't keep up (and that's only searching for *very* specific things).
Well, it's not like it's some big mystery who the internet retailers are. If you want to keep your business a great big secret, you aren't going to owe much in taxes anyway, because your sales will be minimal.
2. The US cannot dictate international law. The internet is a *global communications network*. Almost a billion people world-wide have access to it. Unless you can convince every country that uses the internet to follow your law, you're leaving a gaping-huge-i-can-drive-a-mac-truck-through-this hole in any legislation on the subject.
Irrelevant. If you buy an item from overseas, it has to come in through Customs, at which point the government can hold it up at will.
3. Two words: Tax Evasion.
Jeff Bezos, call your office. We may have a winner here. You'll be able to completely avoid paying sales taxes despite [whatever the forthcoming legislation ends up being called], and all you'll need to do is to enmesh your company in a massive criminal conspiracy.
The Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure contemplate that a case may be reconsidered by the original panel of judges to correct obvious errors of fact and law. The Rules also contemplate that very important cases might be reheard by the all the judges on the court ("in banc"). It's not a trick; it's just the way the process goes.
The applicable rules are quoted below in pertinent part:
Rule 40. Petition for Rehearing
(a) Time for Filing; Content; Answer; Action by Court if Granted. -- A petition for rehearing may be filed within 14 days after entry of judgment unless the time is shortened or enlarged by order or by local rule.... The petition must state with particularity the points of law or fact which in the opinion of the petitioner the court has overlooked or misapprehended and must contain such argument in support of the petition as the petitioner desires to present.... If a petition for rehearing is granted, the court may make a final disposition of the cause without reargument or may restore it to the calendar for reargument or resubmission or may make such other orders as are deemed appropriate under the circumstances of the particular case.
Rule 35. Determination of Causes by the Court in Banc
(a) When hearing or rehearing in banc will be ordered. -- A majority of the circuit judges who are in regular active service may order that an appeal or other proceeding be heard or reheard by the court of appeals in banc. Such a hearing or rehearing is not favored and ordinarily will not be ordered except... when the proceeding involves a question of exceptional importance.
(b) Suggestion of a party for hearing or rehearing in banc. - A party may suggest the appropriateness of a hearing or rehearing in banc.
Incidentally, re: "despite" -- certain of the Court's more conservative members (Scalia, Rehnquist) aren't "right" in the oft-vilified Christian Right / Moral Majority sense; they're strict constructionists to a degree who have in the past shown disdain for expansive gov't.
Without going off on a rant, this is wildly untrue. Scalia and Thomas in particular are adamantly opposed to rights to abortion or sexual privacy, and have been -- at best -- inconsistent on questions of free speech and court supervision of police conduct. If these are the friends of civil liberties, I'd hate to see the enemies.
I'd classify them roughly as:
Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas: Fairly strict constructionists; generally, they'll defend the Bill of Rights w/o seeking to expand beyond original intent. For instance, they opposed a recent decision where the following sequence is grounds for suing a district: 1. Girl gets called names by boy. 2. Girl tells administrator/teacher. 3. Boy continues to call names. 4. Girl claims to be "hurt".
Boom, lawsuit -- against the boy AND the school. This is the scenario that, apparently, Ginsburg (who, IIRC, wrote the majority opinion) has no problems with... In the interests of intellectual honesty, the reader should know that this is a wild mistatement of the facts of this case, erroneous right down to the identity of the author of the majority opinion (Reagan's nominee, O'Connor). Here's O'Connor's description of the salient allegations in the case:
Petitioner alleges that her daughter was the victim of repeated acts of sexual harassment by G.F. over a 5-month period, and there are allegations in support of the conclusion that G. F.'s misconduct was severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive. The harassment was not only verbal; it included numerous acts of objectively offensive touching, and, indeed, G.F. ultimately pleaded guilty to criminal sexual misconduct. Moreover, the complaint alleges that there were multiple victims who were sufficiently disturbed by G.F.'s misconduct to seek an audience with the school principal. Further, petitioner contends that the harassment had a concrete, negative effect on her daughter's ability to receive an education. The complaint also suggests that petitioner may be able to show both actual knowledge and deliberate indifference on the part of the Board, which made no effort whatsoever either to investigate or to put an end to the harassment.
That's the conduct a majority found to be "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit" in violation of federal law. Disagree with their conclusion if you want, but get the facts straight.
Re:New... Athlon! With triple-cleaning power!
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K7 Renamed "Athlon"
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· Score: 3
The Register has recently corrected this, noting that K7 is just the standard French abbreviation for cassette.
You've got my proposal wrong. I don't propose that government mandate the use of this system; if parents want to let their kids surf without any restriction, it's fine with me. The system is premised on voluntary agreement: If some significant number of parents only want their kids to see sites that don't have X, Y, Z, etc. content, then the solution is to have some sort of contracting authority agree with publishers (Disney, etc.) that that's what they'll serve up, and to create some sort of private enforcement mechanism if these publishers don't honor their agreements. The rest of us wouldn't be obligated to censor our content to accommodate these preferences, which is what we're faced with now.
There is an issue here about the level of control parents should be permitted to exercise over their children, of course. I find it a little terrifying, for example, to think that the parents of a girl aged 13 or more could deny her access to truthful information about birth control. I don't know what the constitutional limitations are with respect to such things. I would certainly be interested in hearing about potential solutions to this problem.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect the legal test would be whether Nullsoft had actual or apparent authority to do what it did.
If it had actual authority to release this sort of software as GPL'd under its arrangements with AOL, the inquiry is over: the software's GPL'd (unless someone knows of some way to revoke the GPL? I haven't taken a look at it lately).
Even if not, the software may still be GPL'd if Nullsoft had "apparent authority" to GPL it. (I.e., it's GPL'd unless someone not knowing the details of Nullsoft's arrangements with AOL would nevertheless have substantial reasons to believe that Nullsoft had no authority to do what it was doing. By way of example, the stereo salesman who gives you 50% off probably has apparent authority to give you that price, unless he suggests that you pay him in cash in the parking lot, in which case you have reason to suspect that he's not acting with authority from his boss.) Given that many corporations have released software under GPL-like licenses, it's hard to imagine that Nullsoft didn't have apparent authority to do what it did.
When a case is "settled," as the linked article tells us that this case was, it almost always means that the plaintiff -- the person or entity who brought the case -- agreed to voluntarily dismiss their case with prejudice in exchange for something they want, often money. Dismissal "with prejudice" means the plaintiff can't refile the case. (If the plaintiff were able to refile the case, it would make the settlement worthless to the defendant.)
A voluntary dismissal is usually entered automatically by the clerk of the court. A dismissal in connection with a settlement therefore does not reflect any judge's opinion on the merits of a case, and has no value as precedent.
The following things are not true or are nonsensical:
Grim humor aside, police mistreatment of minorities is a serious issue. Your time would be well spent considering how you might do something more serious to address that issue than posting anonymously to discussions of object oriented programming, which serves only to make you look ridiculous.
Props to the original poster for including the line about Communists -- it's frequently omitted, probably because people find it embarrassing.
There are of course grounds for dispute here: ARPAnet dates to '69, Gore entered Congress in '77. On the other hand, the vast bulk of the growth in the Internet occurred after '77. The question is, then, whether any new government initiative after '77 (as opposed to government programs already in place at that time) can fairly be credited with creating the Internet as we know it today, and if so what if anything did Gore have to do with it?
I suppose some reporter could actually investigate this question -- for all I know, Gore wasn't telling the truth. This would actually require work, however, so don't expect to see this story any time soon. It's easier to run the "I invented the Internet" soundbite, and then ponderously wonder why Gore (!) can't tell the truth.
(*) The details can be found at a site called The Daily Howler, which covers journalists' misreporting of politics. Keeping in mind that the site is run by a college classmate of Gore's, it's pretty nonpartisan -- it regularly defends GOP candidates against the media -- and worth a look. The story on Gore and the Internet is here.
If only the interlocking directorates of corporate boards would let them. Executive compensation Graef Crystal has recently noted that
He has, and the book doesn't comment on his conclusions.
While I don't have any idea whether it's technically a trademark violation, I wish the developers had chosen a name that wasn't simply a variation on VMWare. "FreeMWare" is currently a misleading name in that it suggests that it can do everything that VMWare can do -- which I understand is not presently the case. And even if it could, the name itself suggests an unnecessary hostility to the existence of a commercial product. Names are free; there's no reason not to pick something original.
ObTopic:
This makes no sense at all. While (I think) the post office may be running a slight surplus at the moment, it has not been a substantial source of government revenue in this century. In any event, the cost of delivering first class letters sent by ordinary joes/janes is substantially subsidized by bulk rate mail, so to the extent people send e-mail instead of first class postal mail, the government is actually farther ahead by a few pennies.Suggested substitute topic: In order to make Area 51 even more secret, the government is considering deleting the number 51 from the official list of positive integers. Discuss among yourselves.
Whether this particular restriction is constitutional is a harder problem, as it would seem to foreclose all avenues of relief for violation of a constitutional right. It's not a foregone conclusion, however.
Remember to suggest to CmdrTaco that he add a "Too Much Information" moderation category. Also, buy milk.
If you thought the vegetarians were fun, just wait until you meet the TV-phobes.
True confession: Sometimes I like to drink and smoke while eating deep-fried meat in front of the television.
13% of eight person-hours is "about an hour."
In general, it is not a bar to a patent that the invention in question includes some patented or unpatentable components, provided that it otherwise meets all the requirements of the patent laws.
[P.S. You guys better not rip off my neat idea. FDA approval, here I come.]
Censored? Hardly. Ignored and dismissed? Doubtful. Relative to most other genre fiction, sci-fi gets a sizable amount of attention. The fantasy/sci-fi works of Poe, Lovecraft, Orwell, Italo Calvino, Vonnegut, Doris Lessing, Jorge Luis Borges and Philip K. Dick are all considered fair game by academic literary critics.
There's trash, to be sure, but there are "classics," and there is a vast middle ground between the classics and the trash.
The name for this vast middle ground -- and it is indeed vast -- is "mediocrity." There are worse things than to be a mediocre but entertaining writer, of course, but those who fall into that category shouldn't expect to become subjects of serious attention from academics.
And let's face it, much of what we now call "classic" was not perceived as such at the time. Shakespeare's Macbeth was the Friday the 13th of its day, more or less.
Er, no, it wasn't. Though Shakespeare wasn't acclaimed as the great genius of English literature during his lifetime as he is today, he was recognized by his contemporaries as a significant talent. Excepting possibly those who wanted the theatres closed altogether, I don't believe anyone at the time considered "the Scottish play" to be artistic dreck on the order of Friday the 13th.
This clearly isn't so.
Suppose I am a journalist in a community where a painting by a modern artist is prominently displayed in a local museum, and I print a 2" x 2" photo of the painting in an article about a new gallery. That's certainly fair use.
Now suppose that the painting has been stolen from the museum and held as a "hostage" by a group of terrorists. These terrorists contact me to explain their point of view, and show me the undamaged painting to prove their bona fides. I print a 2" x 2" photo of the painting in the paper. Are you suggesting that's not fair use because the terrorists don't own the painting?
(Alternatively, suppose that a group of radical art critics are manufacturing counterfeits of the painting in order to prove some political point, and I print a photo of the counterfeit. That would also seem to be fair use.)
Conclusion: fair use doesn't depend on whether the source is legit.
Assuming -- and this is kind of a big "if" -- the xxxx.com holders were motivated to register the name based on my registration of xxxx.net, does anyone have any idea how they found out about my registering xxxx.net? I didn't put up any content for some time after registering the site, so they clearly didn't find it by accident -- they must have (had?) some systematic way of searching such things out.
What's ridiculous about it? People hire intermediaries for negotiating purposes (attorneys, brokers, agents, auctioneers, group purchasing organizations, etc.) all the time.
[General rule: 90% of the complaints people have about unions would be self-evidently dismissed as ridiculous if they were directed at an entity that dealt in widgets instead of labor.]
Loss of choice is an economic loss, insofar as you would accept some amount of money as compensation for loss of choice (among word processors, etc.(*)).
Perhaps a better way of putting this is that any consumer losses are not directly measurable losses such as losses due to higher prices for particular commodities, but instead are losses arising out of indirect economic harm. (E.g., I'm forced to choose between (a) the inconvenience of not using my preferred WP, causing me to expend extra labor, and (b) the prospect of losing customers at my printing business because I can't read their documents).
(* To stave off the anti-M$ troops: Clearly some "losses of choice" are not compensable in money -- e.g., loss of freedom of religion. I think it would be an exceedingly unusual person, however, who couldn't be persuaded to switch WP programs for some sum of money.)
Well, it's not like it's some big mystery who the internet retailers are. If you want to keep your business a great big secret, you aren't going to owe much in taxes anyway, because your sales will be minimal.
2. The US cannot dictate international law. The internet is a *global communications network*. Almost a billion people world-wide have access to it. Unless you can convince every country that uses the internet to follow your law, you're leaving a gaping-huge-i-can-drive-a-mac-truck-through-this hole in any legislation on the subject.
Irrelevant. If you buy an item from overseas, it has to come in through Customs, at which point the government can hold it up at will.
3. Two words: Tax Evasion.
Jeff Bezos, call your office. We may have a winner here. You'll be able to completely avoid paying sales taxes despite [whatever the forthcoming legislation ends up being called], and all you'll need to do is to enmesh your company in a massive criminal conspiracy.
The applicable rules are quoted below in pertinent part:
Without going off on a rant, this is wildly untrue. Scalia and Thomas in particular are adamantly opposed to rights to abortion or sexual privacy, and have been -- at best -- inconsistent on questions of free speech and court supervision of police conduct. If these are the friends of civil liberties, I'd hate to see the enemies.
I'd classify them roughly as:
Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas: Fairly strict constructionists; generally, they'll defend the Bill of Rights w/o seeking to expand beyond original intent. For instance, they opposed a recent decision where the following sequence is grounds for suing a district:
1. Girl gets called names by boy.
2. Girl tells administrator/teacher.
3. Boy continues to call names.
4. Girl claims to be "hurt".
Boom, lawsuit -- against the boy AND the school.
That's the conduct a majority found to be "so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it effectively bars the victim's access to an educational opportunity or benefit" in violation of federal law. Disagree with their conclusion if you want, but get the facts straight.This is the scenario that, apparently, Ginsburg (who, IIRC, wrote the majority opinion) has no problems with...
In the interests of intellectual honesty, the reader should know that this is a wild mistatement of the facts of this case, erroneous right down to the identity of the author of the majority opinion (Reagan's nominee, O'Connor). Here's O'Connor's description of the salient allegations in the case:
(How this works: The French pronounce the letter K "kah", not "kay". Also, "seven" in French is "sept", and the "p" isn't pronounced.)
There is an issue here about the level of control parents should be permitted to exercise over their children, of course. I find it a little terrifying, for example, to think that the parents of a girl aged 13 or more could deny her access to truthful information about birth control. I don't know what the constitutional limitations are with respect to such things. I would certainly be interested in hearing about potential solutions to this problem.