How can posting a list of files possibly be illegal?
That is all that Suprnova ever did.
That's also all that Napster ever did. Say, whatever happened to Napster anyway?
I suggest you look up some information about contributory and vicarious infringement, and how they're applied. Because printing a list can indeed be an illegal act, even in free countries.
Meh. Anything to get Cellucci out of Massachusetts is worth it IMO; sorry y'all got stuck with him.
Perhaps you'd like to take Romney off our hands too?
Various entities (several computer software vendors come to mind, and not just the usual suspects, either) have been pushing for changes at WIPO regarding copyright law
WIPO is one important organization. But don't forget WTO (which has its TRIPS Agreement), of course that the USTR will frequently engage in bilateral arrangements outside of our multilateral ones, so as to promote short term US interests and damn the diplomatic fallout.
Yeah, basically. Grokster has been quite successful in not being sued into oblivion because they designed their software around the Napster and Sony cases.
They avoid being in a position where they can get knowledge of an infringement whilst materially contributing to it, and just making the software isn't sufficient to show knowledge. And they deliberately avoid having the right or ability to control their users.
This basically is done by being highly decentralized. The people running their supernodes are still liable -- but since Grokster carefully avoids touching them, the company doesn't care.
BT as a technology is not in danger from these suits. The people who are neck deep in involvement with its nefarious uses, however, are. No way around that, save for jurisdictional avoidance (which is inconvenient at a minimum). And users are always responsible for their own actions.
Congress will have a very hard time abridging this right for the 95% of the world who are not covered by US law.
At this point I would like to introduce you to the Hon. Robert B. Zoellick, US Trade Representative. He's the guy that threatens other countries so that they do what we want them to do.
It has to be a material contribution. That is, not an insignificant one.
There is a difference between saying that 'people sell drugs in Crackton and Bumtown' and saying that 'John Doe sells drugs at 1 Main Street, Crackton, between the hours of 9 and 5, and here's his phone number and a letter of introduction.'
The difference is not always a bright line matter -- but it's there, and courts can generally find it since they're used to dealing with these sorts of things.
On a related note, I find that people here often have difficulty with some important legal concepts such as intent, reasonability, materiality, etc. Here is an essay that I think helps with this. You may find it interesting.
The infringement is in the actual copying, to tangible media, and there is no mechanism that I know of to remotely disable someone's burner, so the "ability to control" is not there.
The infringements are distribution by the people who upload, and reproduction by the people who download. With BT, pretty much everyone is both kinds at once.
And tangible media includes RAM (see the MAI v. Peak case, which is widely followed) so as a general rule, following e.g. Napster, you have the right and ability to control if you can kick people or files off of the portion of the network that you're involved with.
It could be argued that removing the torrent would also stop the copying, but that could be argued as being several steps removed from the actual act of copying.
But it's the actual act of distribution, so there you go.
By the same logic, the sale of blank CDs should also be banned (and burners).
No, because the issue is right and control as to the infringement. Selling someone a burner or not isn't control over infringement. Only if you could control their use of it, would it be.
Controlling people's use of a network is fairly easy, however. Networks of these types aren't standalone things, really. You'll note that the way Grokster et al avoid vicarious liability is to make sure that the network is designed so that they cannot ban users or files no matter how much they want to.
The "directly profited from it" is easy - there is no direct profit from hosting a torrent file - it actually costs you resources.
Yeah, but direct doesn't mean all that direct. More 'attributable to.' Napster profited by using the infringement there as a draw for users who could then see ads, or who could be charged for other services that were planned, etc. No one would use Napster, as it was, if they were 100% legal. So that's enough.
Whether the school (or site) as a whole makes a profit is irrelevant to the question of whether any particular use qualifies as exempt.
I would disagree. You can probably be held liable for providing free resources for infringement if you're using that somehow to profit elsewhere.
Soyes, it is quite legal to share files in Sweden, thank you.
I'll take your word for it, though Finland isn't Sweden, last I heard.
please show me one attempt at prosecution for less than $1000 of downloads
Remember: only criminal actions are prosecuted, or require that threshold. Civil actions are brought by plaintiffs, not the state, and have no threshold. Infringements as to a work with no commercial value whatsoever still permit statutory damages that could go as far up as $150,000 per work.
I agree though, that there's comparatively little criminal enforcement of copyright law. IMO there shouldn't be any, and it should be decriminalized.
For their $3,000 settlement offer, that works out to be about 50 cents for all the DVD's and CD's I've gotten.
I would imagine that part of the deal is that you destroy or hand over the unlawfully made copies.
I don't really agree with you there. For starters, because I don't see that the Court ever mentioned a test for substantive uses in Sony. Here's what they did say:
Unless a commodity "has no use except through practice of the patented method," the patentee has no right to claim that its distribution constitutes contributory infringement. "To form the basis for contributory infringement the item must almost be uniquely suited as a component of the patented invention." "[A] sale of an article which though adapted to an infringing use is also adapted to other and lawful uses, is not enough to make the seller a contributory infringer. Such a rule would block the wheels of commerce."...
Accordingly, the sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes. Indeed, it need merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses....
The question is thus whether the Betamax is capable of commercially significant noninfringing uses. In order to resolve that question, we need not explore all the different potential uses of the machine and determine whether or not they would constitute infringement.
(citations omitted)
You are probably thinking of the dissent, which said:
I therefore conclude that if a significant portion of the product's use is noninfringing, the manufacturers and sellers cannot be held contributorily liable for the product's infringing uses. If virtually all of the product's use, however, is to infringe, contributory liability may be imposed; if no one would buy the product for noninfringing purposes alone, it is clear that the manufacturer is purposely profiting from the infringement, and that liability is appropriately imposed....
The Court has adopted an approach very different from the one I have outlined.
Of course, even the dissent admitted that the Court "never addresses the amount of noninfringing use that a manufacturer must show to absolve itself from liability as a contributory infringer." Though this is probably because, as I said, no actual uses need be shown; only possible uses. The dissent recognizes this: "The Court explains that a manufacturer of a product is not liable for contributory infringement as long as the product is "capable of substantial noninfringing uses." Such a definition essentially eviscerates the concept of contributory infringement. Only the most unimaginative manufacturer would be unable to demonstrate that a image-duplicating product is "capable" of substantial noninfringing uses." (citations omitted)
So anyway, I tell you what; could you post some quotes, maybe with pinpoint cites, regarding this, if you're sticking to your guns.
I would put the.torrent file in the same class as a hyperlink - it points to other material, rather than containing the other material.
So?
The issue is, for contributory infringement, whether it materially contributes to the infringement of another, with the knowledge of the infringement. As for vicarious infringement, whether the party had the right and ability to control the infringement, and directly profited from it.
Both could include pointers. In fact, Napster merely maintained a database of pointers that permitted downloaders that wanted to reproduce works to find uploaders that provided access to copies, thus distributing them. Napster never hosted anything, however.
Sony simply says that the capability of the technology for infringement, where it's capable of substantial noninfringing uses, isn't enough by itself to impute knowledge for contributory infringement. If you can show knowledge by some other means, however, Sony is no obstacle to liability.
Most torrent sites make it clear that postings of torrents by users are the property/responsability of the user, not the site
That's irrelevant. The issue is simply as it is described above. Generally, a mere disclaimer won't absolve one of liability for one's own illegal actions.
What next - try to break down the "common carrier" status of ISPs? Oops, they've tried that, too. Damn!
ISPs aren't common carriers, IIRC. Their protection from liability largely derives from some important precedents and statutory safe harbors such as 17 USC 512 or 47 USC 230. (which ironically are parts of the DMCA and CDA respectively, showing that those acts weren't all bad -- just mostly bad)
They are located in Finland, of course, where US Copyright Law doesn't apply. So it's legal for them to offer files for downloading.
No, it's probably illegal for them to do so under Finnish law. Your statement is rather dumb. It's akin to saying that because laws in the US prohibiting murder are not in effect in Finland, that you can murder people freely over there. That's not how it works.
And, of course, in the US it's legal to download files.
Downloading is a form of reproduction, and reproduction is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder per 17 USC 106.
Cases discussing this include Napster (downloaders were direct infringers), Intellectual Reserve (viewing a website involved downloading it, a reproduction, and was unauthorized, ergo infringing), and both build on MAI (putting data into RAM or other computer memory is a reproduction that may be infringing).
What is illegal is to offer more than $1000 worth of them for uploading.
You're probably thinking of the threshold for CRIMINAL copyright infringement. I assure you, aside from getting that wrong too, you're still breaking the law even if you only do so to a lesser degree.
Well, actually it only requires that the technology be capable of substantial non-infringing uses. It doesn't matter if no one actually engages in them, though it's always easier to make the case if you have examples to point to.
Also, the servers holding the torrent files are not breaking any laws.
No, they probably are. If they're in the US, they're pretty likely contributory and/or vicarious infringers, though much depends on the specific facts involved. While you're not mistakenly reading Sony too narrowly, you need to not read it too broadly either. I suggest also reading the Napster decision.
No, they were promised in order to get the Constitution ratified, but they didn't get ratified themselves instantly.
In fact, the Bill of Rights had twelve amendments, only ten of which were ratified. One more of them finally got ratified about ten years ago, and is the 27th amendment. The other original proposed amendment is still languishing, and will probably never be ratified.
I can understand plain English. It is you that cannot.
17 USC 1201(a) says, in pertinent part:
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title....
[T]o "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner;
This tells us that if you have the authority of the copyright owner, decryption is not a form of circumvention. If you do not have that authority, then decryption would be a form of circumvention. And circumvention, not decryption per se, is what's illegal.
The latter clause refers to 'the copyright owner' and 'an encrypted work.' It therefore appears that the the copyright owner in question is the person that owns the copyright of the encrypted work. This makes sense given the wording of the statute. It is supported by the legislative history of the statute.
By your logic, every movie studio in the world would have free cracking rights to gain access to every cable companys boxes because they transmit movies
No. You evidently have no grasp on logic, and probably no idea what logic even is.
A copyright owner can only authorize acts that otherwise would be circumventions as to the works it itself holds the copyrights to. Thus, leaving aside other laws, it would not be a violation of 1201 for Disney to descramble a broadcast of of a Mickey Mouse cartoon. It WOULD be a violation of 1201 for Disney to descramble a broadcast of a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Here's a nickel -- come back when you've got a clue.
Besides which, civil copyright infringement uses a preponderance of the evidence standard. So as long as it is even marginally more likely that the works being traded are the ones in question, and not whatever random noise would happen to have the same checksum, you're still liable for it. And who would seriously be so stupid as to think that people are trading around noise, with filenames that match movies and such?
What's up with all these people who think they can game the system? Don't they realize that it's never going to work?
But no one would try to decrypt the client. The thing you're encrypting is the traffic -- which consists of the works of the people circumventing the decryption. And since they're the copyright holders, they're allowed.
I hate to break it to you, but copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. It doesn't matter what your intent was. The best you can hope for, if you absolutely had no idea that you broke the law, is that you won't get sued for very much. But you can still get sued.
1) Contributory Infringement If you materially contribute to the infringement of another, knowing of the infringement, then you are liable for it.
2) Vicarious Infringement If you have the right and ability to control another's infringement, and you profit from it (even indirectly), then you are liable for it.
This is how they got Napster -- which also wasn't involved in distribution or reproduction (those were the infringements of the users), but was nevertheless held responsible.
I guess they should attack any file transferring program no-matter how benign it is?
Well, the mere fact that a technology could be used for infringement, if it is also capable of potential, substantial noninfringing uses, isn't enough to impute knowledge, so contributory infringement fails. And if the software is entirely in the hands of another, then you, the developer, cannot prevent them from infringing, so vicarious infringement fails.
But if you had actual knowledge, or if you could take down links to infringing trackers, etc., then you probably are an indirect infringer.
These are not novel theories -- they've been around for a long time, and have been applied a lot.
Congress has amended the Constitution 17 times before.
I count 27 amendments, and Congress cannot amend the constitution by itself -- 3/4 of the states have to ratify it. This is why there are several amendments that passed through Congress and failed to be ratified by the states, and became moot. The most recent was probably the ERA.
Also don't forget the power of treaties.
Treaties have the same power as federal law, but are not always self executing. So what. Congress can pass federal laws anyway.
I'm sorry? You're saying that they have absolute power now because it is in someone else's power to grant it to them in the future, which they've never done, nor show any likelihood of doing, and which is dubious anyway.
Honestly, that's a pretty stupid attempt to save face. Give up guy.
Slashdot Mirror
You didn't limit your statement to Slovenia, of course. The rule of thumb on /. is that we generally talk about US law.
As for Slovenia, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised.
How can posting a list of files possibly be illegal?
That is all that Suprnova ever did.
That's also all that Napster ever did. Say, whatever happened to Napster anyway?
I suggest you look up some information about contributory and vicarious infringement, and how they're applied. Because printing a list can indeed be an illegal act, even in free countries.
I agree completely. Without your support I will never be able to buy a house, four cars, and three children. Then where will I be?
Meh. Anything to get Cellucci out of Massachusetts is worth it IMO; sorry y'all got stuck with him.
Perhaps you'd like to take Romney off our hands too?
Various entities (several computer software vendors come to mind, and not just the usual suspects, either) have been pushing for changes at WIPO regarding copyright law
WIPO is one important organization. But don't forget WTO (which has its TRIPS Agreement), of course that the USTR will frequently engage in bilateral arrangements outside of our multilateral ones, so as to promote short term US interests and damn the diplomatic fallout.
Yeah, basically. Grokster has been quite successful in not being sued into oblivion because they designed their software around the Napster and Sony cases.
They avoid being in a position where they can get knowledge of an infringement whilst materially contributing to it, and just making the software isn't sufficient to show knowledge. And they deliberately avoid having the right or ability to control their users.
This basically is done by being highly decentralized. The people running their supernodes are still liable -- but since Grokster carefully avoids touching them, the company doesn't care.
BT as a technology is not in danger from these suits. The people who are neck deep in involvement with its nefarious uses, however, are. No way around that, save for jurisdictional avoidance (which is inconvenient at a minimum). And users are always responsible for their own actions.
Congress will have a very hard time abridging this right for the 95% of the world who are not covered by US law.
At this point I would like to introduce you to the Hon. Robert B. Zoellick, US Trade Representative. He's the guy that threatens other countries so that they do what we want them to do.
We really don't have that hard a time. Sorry.
It has to be a material contribution. That is, not an insignificant one.
There is a difference between saying that 'people sell drugs in Crackton and Bumtown' and saying that 'John Doe sells drugs at 1 Main Street, Crackton, between the hours of 9 and 5, and here's his phone number and a letter of introduction.'
The difference is not always a bright line matter -- but it's there, and courts can generally find it since they're used to dealing with these sorts of things.
On a related note, I find that people here often have difficulty with some important legal concepts such as intent, reasonability, materiality, etc. Here is an essay that I think helps with this. You may find it interesting.
The infringement is in the actual copying, to tangible media, and there is no mechanism that I know of to remotely disable someone's burner, so the "ability to control" is not there.
The infringements are distribution by the people who upload, and reproduction by the people who download. With BT, pretty much everyone is both kinds at once.
And tangible media includes RAM (see the MAI v. Peak case, which is widely followed) so as a general rule, following e.g. Napster, you have the right and ability to control if you can kick people or files off of the portion of the network that you're involved with.
It could be argued that removing the torrent would also stop the copying, but that could be argued as being several steps removed from the actual act of copying.
But it's the actual act of distribution, so there you go.
By the same logic, the sale of blank CDs should also be banned (and burners).
No, because the issue is right and control as to the infringement. Selling someone a burner or not isn't control over infringement. Only if you could control their use of it, would it be.
Controlling people's use of a network is fairly easy, however. Networks of these types aren't standalone things, really. You'll note that the way Grokster et al avoid vicarious liability is to make sure that the network is designed so that they cannot ban users or files no matter how much they want to.
The "directly profited from it" is easy - there is no direct profit from hosting a torrent file - it actually costs you resources.
Yeah, but direct doesn't mean all that direct. More 'attributable to.' Napster profited by using the infringement there as a draw for users who could then see ads, or who could be charged for other services that were planned, etc. No one would use Napster, as it was, if they were 100% legal. So that's enough.
Whether the school (or site) as a whole makes a profit is irrelevant to the question of whether any particular use qualifies as exempt.
I would disagree. You can probably be held liable for providing free resources for infringement if you're using that somehow to profit elsewhere.
Soyes, it is quite legal to share files in Sweden, thank you.
I'll take your word for it, though Finland isn't Sweden, last I heard.
please show me one attempt at prosecution for less than $1000 of downloads
Remember: only criminal actions are prosecuted, or require that threshold. Civil actions are brought by plaintiffs, not the state, and have no threshold. Infringements as to a work with no commercial value whatsoever still permit statutory damages that could go as far up as $150,000 per work.
I agree though, that there's comparatively little criminal enforcement of copyright law. IMO there shouldn't be any, and it should be decriminalized.
For their $3,000 settlement offer, that works out to be about 50 cents for all the DVD's and CD's I've gotten.
I would imagine that part of the deal is that you destroy or hand over the unlawfully made copies.
(citations omitted)
You are probably thinking of the dissent, which said:
Of course, even the dissent admitted that the Court "never addresses the amount of noninfringing use that a manufacturer must show to absolve itself from liability as a contributory infringer." Though this is probably because, as I said, no actual uses need be shown; only possible uses. The dissent recognizes this: "The Court explains that a manufacturer of a product is not liable for contributory infringement as long as the product is "capable of substantial noninfringing uses." Such a definition essentially eviscerates the concept of contributory infringement. Only the most unimaginative manufacturer would be unable to demonstrate that a image-duplicating product is "capable" of substantial noninfringing uses." (citations omitted)
So anyway, I tell you what; could you post some quotes, maybe with pinpoint cites, regarding this, if you're sticking to your guns.
I would put the .torrent file in the same class as a hyperlink - it points to other material, rather than containing the other material.
So?
The issue is, for contributory infringement, whether it materially contributes to the infringement of another, with the knowledge of the infringement. As for vicarious infringement, whether the party had the right and ability to control the infringement, and directly profited from it.
Both could include pointers. In fact, Napster merely maintained a database of pointers that permitted downloaders that wanted to reproduce works to find uploaders that provided access to copies, thus distributing them. Napster never hosted anything, however.
Sony simply says that the capability of the technology for infringement, where it's capable of substantial noninfringing uses, isn't enough by itself to impute knowledge for contributory infringement. If you can show knowledge by some other means, however, Sony is no obstacle to liability.
Most torrent sites make it clear that postings of torrents by users are the property/responsability of the user, not the site
That's irrelevant. The issue is simply as it is described above. Generally, a mere disclaimer won't absolve one of liability for one's own illegal actions.
What next - try to break down the "common carrier" status of ISPs? Oops, they've tried that, too. Damn!
ISPs aren't common carriers, IIRC. Their protection from liability largely derives from some important precedents and statutory safe harbors such as 17 USC 512 or 47 USC 230. (which ironically are parts of the DMCA and CDA respectively, showing that those acts weren't all bad -- just mostly bad)
BTW - love your sig.
Thanks. It's all true, too.
They are located in Finland, of course, where US Copyright Law doesn't apply. So it's legal for them to offer files for downloading.
No, it's probably illegal for them to do so under Finnish law. Your statement is rather dumb. It's akin to saying that because laws in the US prohibiting murder are not in effect in Finland, that you can murder people freely over there. That's not how it works.
And, of course, in the US it's legal to download files.
Downloading is a form of reproduction, and reproduction is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder per 17 USC 106.
Cases discussing this include Napster (downloaders were direct infringers), Intellectual Reserve (viewing a website involved downloading it, a reproduction, and was unauthorized, ergo infringing), and both build on MAI (putting data into RAM or other computer memory is a reproduction that may be infringing).
What is illegal is to offer more than $1000 worth of them for uploading.
You're probably thinking of the threshold for CRIMINAL copyright infringement. I assure you, aside from getting that wrong too, you're still breaking the law even if you only do so to a lesser degree.
That's all it takes - see the Betamax decision.
Well, actually it only requires that the technology be capable of substantial non-infringing uses. It doesn't matter if no one actually engages in them, though it's always easier to make the case if you have examples to point to.
Also, the servers holding the torrent files are not breaking any laws.
No, they probably are. If they're in the US, they're pretty likely contributory and/or vicarious infringers, though much depends on the specific facts involved. While you're not mistakenly reading Sony too narrowly, you need to not read it too broadly either. I suggest also reading the Napster decision.
114,137 is a low UID now? Damn.
Mine would be lower, but I didn't sign up until they stopped allowing non-anonymous posts w/o accounts.
No, they were promised in order to get the Constitution ratified, but they didn't get ratified themselves instantly.
In fact, the Bill of Rights had twelve amendments, only ten of which were ratified. One more of them finally got ratified about ten years ago, and is the 27th amendment. The other original proposed amendment is still languishing, and will probably never be ratified.
17 USC 1201(a) says, in pertinent part:
This tells us that if you have the authority of the copyright owner, decryption is not a form of circumvention. If you do not have that authority, then decryption would be a form of circumvention. And circumvention, not decryption per se, is what's illegal.
The latter clause refers to 'the copyright owner' and 'an encrypted work.' It therefore appears that the the copyright owner in question is the person that owns the copyright of the encrypted work. This makes sense given the wording of the statute. It is supported by the legislative history of the statute.
By your logic, every movie studio in the world would have free cracking rights to gain access to every cable companys boxes because they transmit movies
No. You evidently have no grasp on logic, and probably no idea what logic even is.
A copyright owner can only authorize acts that otherwise would be circumventions as to the works it itself holds the copyrights to. Thus, leaving aside other laws, it would not be a violation of 1201 for Disney to descramble a broadcast of of a Mickey Mouse cartoon. It WOULD be a violation of 1201 for Disney to descramble a broadcast of a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Here's a nickel -- come back when you've got a clue.
Surely everyone can agree that downloading a DVD rip of, say, Shrek 2 and selling copies of it on ebay for "cheEp" is horrendously immoral and wrong.
I would not agree that it is immoral or wrong. Illegal, perhaps unwise, but not immoral.
Besides which, civil copyright infringement uses a preponderance of the evidence standard. So as long as it is even marginally more likely that the works being traded are the ones in question, and not whatever random noise would happen to have the same checksum, you're still liable for it. And who would seriously be so stupid as to think that people are trading around noise, with filenames that match movies and such?
What's up with all these people who think they can game the system? Don't they realize that it's never going to work?
But no one would try to decrypt the client. The thing you're encrypting is the traffic -- which consists of the works of the people circumventing the decryption. And since they're the copyright holders, they're allowed.
2: Intent.
I hate to break it to you, but copyright infringement is a strict liability offense. It doesn't matter what your intent was. The best you can hope for, if you absolutely had no idea that you broke the law, is that you won't get sued for very much. But you can still get sued.
1) Contributory Infringement
If you materially contribute to the infringement of another, knowing of the infringement, then you are liable for it.
2) Vicarious Infringement
If you have the right and ability to control another's infringement, and you profit from it (even indirectly), then you are liable for it.
This is how they got Napster -- which also wasn't involved in distribution or reproduction (those were the infringements of the users), but was nevertheless held responsible.
I guess they should attack any file transferring program no-matter how benign it is?
Well, the mere fact that a technology could be used for infringement, if it is also capable of potential, substantial noninfringing uses, isn't enough to impute knowledge, so contributory infringement fails. And if the software is entirely in the hands of another, then you, the developer, cannot prevent them from infringing, so vicarious infringement fails.
But if you had actual knowledge, or if you could take down links to infringing trackers, etc., then you probably are an indirect infringer.
These are not novel theories -- they've been around for a long time, and have been applied a lot.
What exactly makes you think that those work?
Congress has amended the Constitution 17 times before.
I count 27 amendments, and Congress cannot amend the constitution by itself -- 3/4 of the states have to ratify it. This is why there are several amendments that passed through Congress and failed to be ratified by the states, and became moot. The most recent was probably the ERA.
Also don't forget the power of treaties.
Treaties have the same power as federal law, but are not always self executing. So what. Congress can pass federal laws anyway.
No, it would just mean we'd have to renegotiate.
I'm sorry? You're saying that they have absolute power now because it is in someone else's power to grant it to them in the future, which they've never done, nor show any likelihood of doing, and which is dubious anyway.
Honestly, that's a pretty stupid attempt to save face. Give up guy.