I don't care much for OS X, or anything else, really, because there's been so little progress in all sorts of UIs as implemented for so long. The CLI in particular needs to be rethought from the beginning, and needs to take into consideration the improved technologies and UI principles available; it's still too much like a teletype.
However, in regards to some of your immediate problems:
One is leaving my home directory and finding my way to the Macintosh HD, which takes exactly one click with Finder and I've never been able to do in the Terminal.
In the terminal, type:
cd/
To change folders in the terminal, type
cd
then a space, and then the path of the folders you want to go to.
/
is the root of the file hierarchy, and normally corresponds in OS X to your boot drive. Other volumes can be found in
/Volumes
Whatever the path to your home folders , you can always refer to it with a tilde character, i.e.
~
Thus to get to your Desktop folder from anywhere, type
cd ~/Desktop
The folder containing the one you're currently in will always be referred to as
..
Thus, to get from your Desktop folder to your home folder, you could type
cd..
(remember, that's just two periods).
To find out the path of the folder you're currently in, type
pwd
(which stands for 'print working directory,' much like how 'cd' stands for 'change directory').
When I read a man page, I can't figure out how to drop back into a prompt without scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.
Downloading? Maybe, but probably not where the episode hasn't been aired in the US yet.
Uploading? Almost certainly not. Each purported fair use has to stand on its own. Thus, uploading can only be a fair use if the distribution is by itself fair, regardless of whether or not the downloaders are engaged in a fair use. You cannot gain protection as an uploader just because the downloaders are protected.
Since BT always does both, it's a really crappy thing for people to use if they're claiming fair use.
But in every case, the proper thing to do is to conduct a fair use analysis by examining the relevant factors in the circumstances involved. The factors can be found at 17 USC 107.
Trivial analogies and blanket statements (e.g. "home taping is always fair use (not true) so downloading must be fair use too) is not the way to go about this.
HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't been toying with this for a while. I recall reading an essay in The Art of Human Computer Interface Design by Alan Kay, IIRC, who was at Apple at the time (this would've been the late 80's), describing basically the same thing. He called them bins, to distinguish them from folders.
It's been about five years since I read it, and I don't have a copy handy, so perhaps someone could make sure that I'm attributing it to the right person?
The concept of "free speech" as enshrined in the American constitition is about peoples' rights to express unpopular / dissenting opinions.
First, I'm talking about the natural human right of free speech. Second, just as an author exercises his free speech to write a book, so too does someone exercise their right of free speech to reproduce it.
It flies in the face of logic to say that "free speech" also implies a blanket "right" to distribute material over P2P networks; e.g. in violation of copyright law.
I didn't say that it did. I said that there is a natural right of free speech, and that it is greater than the artificial regime of copyright which is merely a restriction on the speech of others, and not a right itself to speak.
This being the case, copyright is unacceptable unless there is some compelling reason to limit free speech. There can be such reasons, just as there might be reasons to do likewise with regards to obscenity, child pornography, some expressive conduct, libel, etc.
These reasons should be constantly rexamined to see if they are sufficient to justify copyright at all, and if so, the current degree of copyright in force.
However, I think that copyright is a good idea -- if it's done right. I.e. if it is limited to that degree that is sufficiently compelling in the light of the great interest in not restricting speech at all.
I think you're reading a more extreme position into my statement than I have.
As for the Constitution, so what? Free speech is a human right; they've got it in Hong Kong, even if their government infringes on it quite a lot.
Surely the nature of the content doesn't matter, or else it wouldn't be free speech for the originator.
Copyright is a negative right, like a negative easement. It is not a right to speak (e.g. if it is obscene or child pornography or libel or a national secret) but only a right to prevent others from speaking. Likewise, a copyright holder can't authorize others to speak, he can only refrain from pursuing such speakers as infringers.
It's a lot like patents, where you can frequently see blocking patents arise. I.e. A invents something and patents it, and B invents an improvement to A's invention, and patents it. A's patent prevents B from using his improvement, and B's patent prevents A from using the improvement. But they both have patents, and the patents will expire.
The negative nature of copyrights et al is also evident, not just in all the literature, and in well-drafted license agreements, but also in that not all works are eligible for copyright, or even if they are, don't get a copyright for some reason.
Remember, free speech is a very broad right. It is NOT limited to political speech. Any expression will suffice, basically.
No, distribution is merely an exercise of freedom of speech, and that's a natural right.
This right is partially, temporarily, waived by society in order to further other societal interests, but the previous poster's point remains a good one: what are these interests that are so compelling as to justify an infringement on free speech?
We should never assume that copyright is inevitable. Rather, we should consider it critically and always reassess whether it is desirable at all, and if so, to what extent.
On my windows box the cmd key maps to the windows button, iirc. But I hate that, so I remap it to the control button, which is the closest thing there is to a real command button.
The ADB/USB adapter is the Griffin iMate -- it's just a little deal that sits inline. Supports ADB mice as well, I understand, though I've never tried that. Doesn't seem to need drivers.
You know, those ADB keyboards are easy to find on ebay, are relatively cheap, and can be easily used on modern systems with an ADB/USB adapter. I have a shelf of Apple Extended Keyboard II's and I've been using them for ages and still do.
The problem is doing something that warrants a C&D in the first place.
This of course is one option, but it's not necessarily the best. Some C&D's are not legally enforcible; just because someone says to not do something, that doesn't always mean that they're right. Thus it's useful to consider other options as well.
Have a policy on your site that you'll remove infringing content if its reported, and make the facility to do so readily available on your index page, and you're golden.
Actually, no. In fact, that tends to increase your legal exposure, and could result in an immediate lawsuit instead of a comparatively friendlier C&D. Following the requirements of 17 USC 512 to the letter -- which means making some arrangements long in advance -- is the way to do it. Likewise, one might take care to otherwise avoid liability by carefully limiting your behavior to what's legal without unduly interfering with your goals.
1) If it's a C&D and not a 512 Takedown Notice, then there's nothing that guarantees you'll get one. A plaintiff sends C&D's in the hope that it'll cost less for them than immediately preparing a lawsuit. But these days, it's hardly unusual to get sued right out of the gate. That you can't ignore.
2) You have to do what the C&D says to avoid the risk of a lawsuit by the sender (though there is also the chance that you can ignore it and still not get sued). Likewise with 512 Takedown Notices. This costs you effort at least, and may significantly impair what you were doing.
3) 512 Takedown Notices are probably the best, since you can't be sued if you're eligible to receive them, until you have received it and have not complied with it in accordance with the statute. But you have to do some advance work to be eligible to receive them, and virtually no one outside of businesses bothers, even though it's pretty easy and protects against some, but not all, liability.
Not all federal laws are criminal. For example patent laws are federal, but they are not criminally enforcible. AFAIK the DoJ doesn't care about patent infringement one bit.
You know when they wrote "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness"? They really ment, "Life, Liberty, and Property"
No, that's not true. First, Tom Jefferson was perfectly capable of cribbing 'property' from Locke if he wanted to. He deliberately did not because he didn't believe there was a natural right to property.
And you know, Movies and whatnot are one's property
No, they're not.
And again, Jefferson would have disagreed with you as well. Google for his letter to Isaac McPherson, and skip down to the bit where he discusses the nature of the patent system, property rights, etc. The same concepts extend to copyright as well.
and it is the governments job to make sure that people have the right to control their own property.
No, it's not.
The government MAY get involved in this, but there's nothing at all that says that they have to all the time.
Oh sure -- I would greatly doubt that a criminal prosecution could stand on indirect infringement, even aside from the issue of willfulness.
But a lot of people don't seem to realize that there are long-established criminal penalties for some infringement, and that's what I was responding to.
Re:lokitorrent is still illegal
on
LokiTorrent vs. MPAA
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
1) They are not reproducing or distributing the work (the work is never on their servers).
I agree. But it is important that someone is doing this; you need a direct infringement to have a contributory or vicarious infringement.
2) They could claim that they do not know of the infringement. They do not download the file, verify the content, and screen it themselves. They allow others to connect ans use their servers without content verification.
I suggest taking a look at the Napster opinion.
First, the issue is one of actual or constructive knowledge -- that is, whether they knew or should have known. The mere capability of their site to infringe won't result in knowledge being imputed towards them under Sony. But their active operation of it may. And furthermore, their knowledge from other sources can be held against them.
Probably the best form of actual knowledge is if they're informed of the infringing materials by the copyright holder; failure to take them down would result in a fatal combination of knowledge and contribution.
But if they have other sufficient knowledge, that'll get them too. And I suspect that it can be found that they do have or should have had knowledge even without having actually exhaustively verified each and every file.
3) I'm not sure how that site is run, but I imagine that it would be easy to claim that they do not directly benefit from an infringement. That is, if someone were to post a bittorrent to an infringing file, there is no payment to or from Lokitorrent. Some places have donation pages and such, but that isn't benefiting from an infringement.
No, not really. It has to be attributable.
If you rent space to a pirate for a flat fee, it's not a direct benefit. If you rent space to a pirate for a share of his profits, then it is a direct benefit.
If your ad views go up based on the number of users you've got actively using the site, and you use infringing materials to draw in users, that's a direct benefit. That's exactly how Napster was found liable for vicarious infringement.
I think that old white male technophobes that sit on the bench won't give the benefit of the doubt to such a site
That's true. If you are flouting the law left and right, you are not going to be treated nicely by the court. After all, such a person is an asshole. If he's genuinely not liable, it won't matter. But if the only thing helping him is the indulgence of the court, and he hasn't been a good guy, he's not going to have a good time.
Anyway, I'd suggest reading how the law is applied ALL the time in this sort of situation. I don't care what your 'read of how the law should be applied' is. It's not connected to reality. It's just your personal fantasy.
I care about how it routinely does get applied. And having read a lot of cases, I'm inclined to think that torrent sites are screwed.
Actually, it is frequently a crime. Check out 17 USC 506 for a good example. Been a crime since the 1890's, IIRC.
And torrent sites are significantly different from Grokster in that they actively maintain a site, which is not the same as writing software and letting people use it. If you have a site, you can stop contributing, and you're more likely to have knowledge. If you make software and don't touch the network, you never have knowledge while contributing at the same time.
Napster actively ran a network -- they're most like these torrent sites. And they got destroyed.
Re:lokitorrent is still illegal
on
LokiTorrent vs. MPAA
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The strategy is the same as if you were to sue Google for providing links to torrent files
No, not at all.
Google is registered with the Copyright Office as a service provider and generally qualifies for the protection offered by 17 USC 512.
Lokitorrent is not registered, and anyway probably isn't eligible anyway.
The law is that you are liable for copyright infringement if:
1) You directly infringe on a copyright by, e.g. reproducing it or distributing it.
2) Someone else directly infringes on a copyright, and you materially contribute to that infringement, while knowing of the infringement.
3) Someone else directly infringes on a copyright, and you have the right and ability to control their infringement, and you directly benefit from the infringement.
Lokitorrent is probably a contributory infringer -- providing links to torrents, tracking, etc. contributes to the direct infringements of the users, and they probably know that infringement is going on.
If they can remove their links et al, and derive some benefit that is sufficiently tracable to them (e.g. using them to get more traffic than they otherwise would, then selling ad space) then they're probably a vicarious infringer too.
The aforementioned 512 provides a great defense to this, but there are requirements for eligibility for most of it. There are affirmative steps needed to get it, and you can't be as contemptuous of the law as most of the people in the scene seem to be either, frankly.
As it stands now, if the Lokitorrent folks are in US jurisdiction, they're quite screwed. They have no real defense. What they need the $30 grand for, I can't imagine.
International law generally makes treaties binding regardless of the domestic law of any signatory state.
And in the US, some treaties are self-executing, and some require legislation to have effect here. None of that matters with regards to whether other parties to the treaty feel we're bound by it. And IIRC, we're pretty unusual in that respect.
Also international copyright law is not all that complicated, and has comparatively little bearing on a suit such as this.
ISPs have no such thing. Courts may be generous and accept a similar argument, but really what ISPs rely upon are the exceptions to copyright infringement in 17 USC 512. However, if you're going to try to use this to shield yourself, you need to carefully go through the entire thing and take the steps necessary to comply with those portions of it you're eligible for.
So if I'm a mafia don, and I order a hit on someone, is that also something that free countries must permit, presumably as a form of free speech?
If so, then I think that you'll have a hard time finding any places that are free.
If not, then where is the dividing line? What is the rule that produces these results, and how might we apply it in other situations?
On a related note, if I set up a website, and I allowed anyone to upload or download software to it, and I knew exactly what was being uploaded and downloaded, and I advertised the website as a place to trade warez, and I provided other assistance, such as u/d ratio monitoring for users, etc. but I never personally uploaded or downloaded any of the software, do you think that I ought to get in trouble? Why?
I normally post here, MacNN, Ars, and once in a while on k5.
In fact, I just had to change the.sig on Friday. Before that, for years, it had read:
-- I support anonymous posting. This and all my other posts are in the public domain. I am not a lawyer./., with its stupid 120 character limit made me dump the anonymous posting bit.
upon notification of claimed infringement as described in subsection (c)(3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity
This however can be very, very broad. I've seen cases where ISPs had to remove entire newsgroups. A US-based torrent site would pretty likely end up having to remove most of its links in short order.
in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent
And this one requires being really blind to the contents of the index. If it's only spidering torrents then the commonality of infringement by means of torrent will probably work against them, since this prong involves imputed knowledge -- that is, that they fail unless they didn't even have a reason to know something was infringing.
Google is so large, with its approach of indexing everything, that it, can make a better case for itself. More focused search engines would have difficulty.
This is why I said: I'd be impressed if you could run a torrent site like suprnova that was popular and useful while still staying within the boundaries of the law.
I think that they could set up a site that was lawful, but I think it would not be popular or useful since it would only be able to link to legal torrents as soon as the notifications rolled in, if not earlier.
Feel free to have a go at it, however. We can see how it all plays out in the end.
If you're concerned about what they're posting links to, you need to read 17 USC 512(d), (c)(2), (c)(3), and (i)-(k).
If you're concerned about what users are uploading to their site, you need to read 17 USC 512(c), (g), and (i)-(k).
THOSE set forth the applicable criteria. There's a lot of them, and they're not terribly complex but long enough that I didn't feel like posting them here.
What you've posted would not qualify at all. The protection doesn't run to an entity that walks like a search engine and quacks like a search engine. It runs to entities that fall within the statute and take the affirmative steps necessary to comply with it.
This having been all done, I'd be impressed if you could run a torrent site like suprnova that was popular and useful while still staying within the boundaries of the law.
No, IIRC. Napster users would provide files for download and send a list to the centralized Napster index of what those files were. Then downloaders would connect to the index to find files to download, and having found one, make a direct connection to the appropriate user. Infringing files never crossed through Napster's hardware. But Napster was directly involved in establishing connections so that people could infringe with one another.
More modern networks attempt to get around this by having users host the indicies. This just shifts more liability on the users, and away from the developers, but that's about the best you could hope for.
If its legal to list files in Slovenia, then there is no reason why Supernova should shut down just because its illegal to list files in the usa.
Well, we don't know if that's the sole reason that they did shut down. It could be that it's not legal there, or that they had some exposure to liability elsewhere, or that they were abducted by aliens. We don't know yet.
Finally, you never answered the part of my post about Google listing links to copyrighted software. Should Google be held accountable for that or not?
Google is a search engine -- it's eligible for the safe harbor under 17 USC 512(d), provided they comply with the applicable provisions of 512. Congress set up this section of the law just to protect various kinds of ISPs since there was a serious concern that they'd be liable for a lot of things otherwise.
Slashdot Mirror
However, in regards to some of your immediate problems:
One is leaving my home directory and finding my way to the Macintosh HD, which takes exactly one click with Finder and I've never been able to do in the Terminal.
In the terminal, type:
To change folders in the terminal, type then a space, and then the path of the folders you want to go to.
is the root of the file hierarchy, and normally corresponds in OS X to your boot drive. Other volumes can be found in
Whatever the path to your home folders , you can always refer to it with a tilde character, i.e. Thus to get to your Desktop folder from anywhere, type
The folder containing the one you're currently in will always be referred to as Thus, to get from your Desktop folder to your home folder, you could type (remember, that's just two periods).
To find out the path of the folder you're currently in, type (which stands for 'print working directory,' much like how 'cd' stands for 'change directory').
When I read a man page, I can't figure out how to drop back into a prompt without scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page.
Type to quit the man page.
Downloading? Maybe, but probably not where the episode hasn't been aired in the US yet.
Uploading? Almost certainly not. Each purported fair use has to stand on its own. Thus, uploading can only be a fair use if the distribution is by itself fair, regardless of whether or not the downloaders are engaged in a fair use. You cannot gain protection as an uploader just because the downloaders are protected.
Since BT always does both, it's a really crappy thing for people to use if they're claiming fair use.
But in every case, the proper thing to do is to conduct a fair use analysis by examining the relevant factors in the circumstances involved. The factors can be found at 17 USC 107.
Trivial analogies and blanket statements (e.g. "home taping is always fair use (not true) so downloading must be fair use too) is not the way to go about this.
Piles are not smart folders.
HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that Apple hasn't been toying with this for a while. I recall reading an essay in The Art of Human Computer Interface Design by Alan Kay, IIRC, who was at Apple at the time (this would've been the late 80's), describing basically the same thing. He called them bins, to distinguish them from folders.
It's been about five years since I read it, and I don't have a copy handy, so perhaps someone could make sure that I'm attributing it to the right person?
The concept of "free speech" as enshrined in the American constitition is about peoples' rights to express unpopular / dissenting opinions.
First, I'm talking about the natural human right of free speech. Second, just as an author exercises his free speech to write a book, so too does someone exercise their right of free speech to reproduce it.
It flies in the face of logic to say that "free speech" also implies a blanket "right" to distribute material over P2P networks; e.g. in violation of copyright law.
I didn't say that it did. I said that there is a natural right of free speech, and that it is greater than the artificial regime of copyright which is merely a restriction on the speech of others, and not a right itself to speak.
This being the case, copyright is unacceptable unless there is some compelling reason to limit free speech. There can be such reasons, just as there might be reasons to do likewise with regards to obscenity, child pornography, some expressive conduct, libel, etc.
These reasons should be constantly rexamined to see if they are sufficient to justify copyright at all, and if so, the current degree of copyright in force.
However, I think that copyright is a good idea -- if it's done right. I.e. if it is limited to that degree that is sufficiently compelling in the light of the great interest in not restricting speech at all.
I think you're reading a more extreme position into my statement than I have.
As for the Constitution, so what? Free speech is a human right; they've got it in Hong Kong, even if their government infringes on it quite a lot.
How is it not?
Surely the nature of the content doesn't matter, or else it wouldn't be free speech for the originator.
Copyright is a negative right, like a negative easement. It is not a right to speak (e.g. if it is obscene or child pornography or libel or a national secret) but only a right to prevent others from speaking. Likewise, a copyright holder can't authorize others to speak, he can only refrain from pursuing such speakers as infringers.
It's a lot like patents, where you can frequently see blocking patents arise. I.e. A invents something and patents it, and B invents an improvement to A's invention, and patents it. A's patent prevents B from using his improvement, and B's patent prevents A from using the improvement. But they both have patents, and the patents will expire.
The negative nature of copyrights et al is also evident, not just in all the literature, and in well-drafted license agreements, but also in that not all works are eligible for copyright, or even if they are, don't get a copyright for some reason.
Remember, free speech is a very broad right. It is NOT limited to political speech. Any expression will suffice, basically.
No, distribution is merely an exercise of freedom of speech, and that's a natural right.
This right is partially, temporarily, waived by society in order to further other societal interests, but the previous poster's point remains a good one: what are these interests that are so compelling as to justify an infringement on free speech?
We should never assume that copyright is inevitable. Rather, we should consider it critically and always reassess whether it is desirable at all, and if so, to what extent.
On my windows box the cmd key maps to the windows button, iirc. But I hate that, so I remap it to the control button, which is the closest thing there is to a real command button.
The ADB/USB adapter is the Griffin iMate -- it's just a little deal that sits inline. Supports ADB mice as well, I understand, though I've never tried that. Doesn't seem to need drivers.
You know, those ADB keyboards are easy to find on ebay, are relatively cheap, and can be easily used on modern systems with an ADB/USB adapter. I have a shelf of Apple Extended Keyboard II's and I've been using them for ages and still do.
The problem is doing something that warrants a C&D in the first place.
This of course is one option, but it's not necessarily the best. Some C&D's are not legally enforcible; just because someone says to not do something, that doesn't always mean that they're right. Thus it's useful to consider other options as well.
Have a policy on your site that you'll remove infringing content if its reported, and make the facility to do so readily available on your index page, and you're golden.
Actually, no. In fact, that tends to increase your legal exposure, and could result in an immediate lawsuit instead of a comparatively friendlier C&D. Following the requirements of 17 USC 512 to the letter -- which means making some arrangements long in advance -- is the way to do it. Likewise, one might take care to otherwise avoid liability by carefully limiting your behavior to what's legal without unduly interfering with your goals.
The problems are that
1) If it's a C&D and not a 512 Takedown Notice, then there's nothing that guarantees you'll get one. A plaintiff sends C&D's in the hope that it'll cost less for them than immediately preparing a lawsuit. But these days, it's hardly unusual to get sued right out of the gate. That you can't ignore.
2) You have to do what the C&D says to avoid the risk of a lawsuit by the sender (though there is also the chance that you can ignore it and still not get sued). Likewise with 512 Takedown Notices. This costs you effort at least, and may significantly impair what you were doing.
3) 512 Takedown Notices are probably the best, since you can't be sued if you're eligible to receive them, until you have received it and have not complied with it in accordance with the statute. But you have to do some advance work to be eligible to receive them, and virtually no one outside of businesses bothers, even though it's pretty easy and protects against some, but not all, liability.
Not all federal laws are criminal. For example patent laws are federal, but they are not criminally enforcible. AFAIK the DoJ doesn't care about patent infringement one bit.
You know when they wrote "Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness"? They really ment, "Life, Liberty, and Property"
No, that's not true. First, Tom Jefferson was perfectly capable of cribbing 'property' from Locke if he wanted to. He deliberately did not because he didn't believe there was a natural right to property.
And you know, Movies and whatnot are one's property
No, they're not.
And again, Jefferson would have disagreed with you as well. Google for his letter to Isaac McPherson, and skip down to the bit where he discusses the nature of the patent system, property rights, etc. The same concepts extend to copyright as well.
and it is the governments job to make sure that people have the right to control their own property.
No, it's not.
The government MAY get involved in this, but there's nothing at all that says that they have to all the time.
Oh sure -- I would greatly doubt that a criminal prosecution could stand on indirect infringement, even aside from the issue of willfulness.
But a lot of people don't seem to realize that there are long-established criminal penalties for some infringement, and that's what I was responding to.
1) They are not reproducing or distributing the work (the work is never on their servers).
I agree. But it is important that someone is doing this; you need a direct infringement to have a contributory or vicarious infringement.
2) They could claim that they do not know of the infringement. They do not download the file, verify the content, and screen it themselves. They allow others to connect ans use their servers without content verification.
I suggest taking a look at the Napster opinion.
First, the issue is one of actual or constructive knowledge -- that is, whether they knew or should have known. The mere capability of their site to infringe won't result in knowledge being imputed towards them under Sony. But their active operation of it may. And furthermore, their knowledge from other sources can be held against them.
Probably the best form of actual knowledge is if they're informed of the infringing materials by the copyright holder; failure to take them down would result in a fatal combination of knowledge and contribution.
But if they have other sufficient knowledge, that'll get them too. And I suspect that it can be found that they do have or should have had knowledge even without having actually exhaustively verified each and every file.
3) I'm not sure how that site is run, but I imagine that it would be easy to claim that they do not directly benefit from an infringement. That is, if someone were to post a bittorrent to an infringing file, there is no payment to or from Lokitorrent. Some places have donation pages and such, but that isn't benefiting from an infringement.
No, not really. It has to be attributable.
If you rent space to a pirate for a flat fee, it's not a direct benefit. If you rent space to a pirate for a share of his profits, then it is a direct benefit.
If your ad views go up based on the number of users you've got actively using the site, and you use infringing materials to draw in users, that's a direct benefit. That's exactly how Napster was found liable for vicarious infringement.
I think that old white male technophobes that sit on the bench won't give the benefit of the doubt to such a site
That's true. If you are flouting the law left and right, you are not going to be treated nicely by the court. After all, such a person is an asshole. If he's genuinely not liable, it won't matter. But if the only thing helping him is the indulgence of the court, and he hasn't been a good guy, he's not going to have a good time.
Anyway, I'd suggest reading how the law is applied ALL the time in this sort of situation. I don't care what your 'read of how the law should be applied' is. It's not connected to reality. It's just your personal fantasy.
I care about how it routinely does get applied. And having read a lot of cases, I'm inclined to think that torrent sites are screwed.
Actually, it is frequently a crime. Check out 17 USC 506 for a good example. Been a crime since the 1890's, IIRC.
And torrent sites are significantly different from Grokster in that they actively maintain a site, which is not the same as writing software and letting people use it. If you have a site, you can stop contributing, and you're more likely to have knowledge. If you make software and don't touch the network, you never have knowledge while contributing at the same time.
Napster actively ran a network -- they're most like these torrent sites. And they got destroyed.
The strategy is the same as if you were to sue Google for providing links to torrent files
No, not at all.
Google is registered with the Copyright Office as a service provider and generally qualifies for the protection offered by 17 USC 512.
Lokitorrent is not registered, and anyway probably isn't eligible anyway.
The law is that you are liable for copyright infringement if:
1) You directly infringe on a copyright by, e.g. reproducing it or distributing it.
2) Someone else directly infringes on a copyright, and you materially contribute to that infringement, while knowing of the infringement.
3) Someone else directly infringes on a copyright, and you have the right and ability to control their infringement, and you directly benefit from the infringement.
Lokitorrent is probably a contributory infringer -- providing links to torrents, tracking, etc. contributes to the direct infringements of the users, and they probably know that infringement is going on.
If they can remove their links et al, and derive some benefit that is sufficiently tracable to them (e.g. using them to get more traffic than they otherwise would, then selling ad space) then they're probably a vicarious infringer too.
The aforementioned 512 provides a great defense to this, but there are requirements for eligibility for most of it. There are affirmative steps needed to get it, and you can't be as contemptuous of the law as most of the people in the scene seem to be either, frankly.
As it stands now, if the Lokitorrent folks are in US jurisdiction, they're quite screwed. They have no real defense. What they need the $30 grand for, I can't imagine.
No, the Mac 512k came a few months later. It's a different model from the original 128k.
International law generally makes treaties binding regardless of the domestic law of any signatory state.
And in the US, some treaties are self-executing, and some require legislation to have effect here. None of that matters with regards to whether other parties to the treaty feel we're bound by it. And IIRC, we're pretty unusual in that respect.
Also international copyright law is not all that complicated, and has comparatively little bearing on a suit such as this.
The special law is 17 USC 512. It's long and a bit complex but it is very important, and worth a careful read.
ISPs have no such thing. Courts may be generous and accept a similar argument, but really what ISPs rely upon are the exceptions to copyright infringement in 17 USC 512. However, if you're going to try to use this to shield yourself, you need to carefully go through the entire thing and take the steps necessary to comply with those portions of it you're eligible for.
So if I'm a mafia don, and I order a hit on someone, is that also something that free countries must permit, presumably as a form of free speech?
If so, then I think that you'll have a hard time finding any places that are free.
If not, then where is the dividing line? What is the rule that produces these results, and how might we apply it in other situations?
On a related note, if I set up a website, and I allowed anyone to upload or download software to it, and I knew exactly what was being uploaded and downloaded, and I advertised the website as a place to trade warez, and I provided other assistance, such as u/d ratio monitoring for users, etc. but I never personally uploaded or downloaded any of the software, do you think that I ought to get in trouble? Why?
Probably not. I don't know what UQ is.
.sig on Friday. Before that, for years, it had read:
/., with its stupid 120 character limit made me dump the anonymous posting bit.
I normally post here, MacNN, Ars, and once in a while on k5.
In fact, I just had to change the
-- I support anonymous posting. This and all my other posts are in the public domain. I am not a lawyer.
upon notification of claimed infringement as described in subsection (c)(3), responds expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity
This however can be very, very broad. I've seen cases where ISPs had to remove entire newsgroups. A US-based torrent site would pretty likely end up having to remove most of its links in short order.
in the absence of such actual knowledge, is not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent
And this one requires being really blind to the contents of the index. If it's only spidering torrents then the commonality of infringement by means of torrent will probably work against them, since this prong involves imputed knowledge -- that is, that they fail unless they didn't even have a reason to know something was infringing.
Google is so large, with its approach of indexing everything, that it, can make a better case for itself. More focused search engines would have difficulty.
This is why I said: I'd be impressed if you could run a torrent site like suprnova that was popular and useful while still staying within the boundaries of the law.
I think that they could set up a site that was lawful, but I think it would not be popular or useful since it would only be able to link to legal torrents as soon as the notifications rolled in, if not earlier.
Feel free to have a go at it, however. We can see how it all plays out in the end.
No.
Google for 17 USC 512.
If you're concerned about what they're posting links to, you need to read 17 USC 512(d), (c)(2), (c)(3), and (i)-(k).
If you're concerned about what users are uploading to their site, you need to read 17 USC 512(c), (g), and (i)-(k).
THOSE set forth the applicable criteria. There's a lot of them, and they're not terribly complex but long enough that I didn't feel like posting them here.
What you've posted would not qualify at all. The protection doesn't run to an entity that walks like a search engine and quacks like a search engine. It runs to entities that fall within the statute and take the affirmative steps necessary to comply with it.
This having been all done, I'd be impressed if you could run a torrent site like suprnova that was popular and useful while still staying within the boundaries of the law.
No, IIRC. Napster users would provide files for download and send a list to the centralized Napster index of what those files were. Then downloaders would connect to the index to find files to download, and having found one, make a direct connection to the appropriate user. Infringing files never crossed through Napster's hardware. But Napster was directly involved in establishing connections so that people could infringe with one another.
More modern networks attempt to get around this by having users host the indicies. This just shifts more liability on the users, and away from the developers, but that's about the best you could hope for.
If its legal to list files in Slovenia, then there is no reason why Supernova should shut down just because its illegal to list files in the usa.
Well, we don't know if that's the sole reason that they did shut down. It could be that it's not legal there, or that they had some exposure to liability elsewhere, or that they were abducted by aliens. We don't know yet.
Finally, you never answered the part of my post about Google listing links to copyrighted software. Should Google be held accountable for that or not?
Google is a search engine -- it's eligible for the safe harbor under 17 USC 512(d), provided they comply with the applicable provisions of 512. Congress set up this section of the law just to protect various kinds of ISPs since there was a serious concern that they'd be liable for a lot of things otherwise.