We already have a "Preventing Cyberstalking" bit of legislation that has been given extra teeth. ahref=http://www.eff.org/effector/19/02.phprel=url 2html-23949http://www.eff.org/effector/19/02.php> Clearly someone expects stalkers to be punished. Of course, the EFF describes it as "an attack on anonymous speech," but no matter how great the EFF may be, its people can be just as knee-jerk as anyone else. This is one of those knee-jerk moments, IMO.
This phenomena isn't limited to Korea -- the Chinese do it, and so do gamers in the U.S. ahref=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/56/16r el=url2html-23949http://www.escapistmagazine.com/i ssue/56/16> If the folks at Linden Lab can encourage their users to cause another user to implode and get himself banned, I don't see how we're too far from mob behavior stemmning from the web in the U.S.
Settling a case does not create precedent. It may establish that Blizzard will fold on this specific issue, but it does not create any kind of binding precedent or persuasive precedent in any U.S. court of law.
This should be interesting to see how it develops, but I don't think the "OMG They'll get sued if they ever close the servers!" sentiment echoed at some of the links Zonk posted is going to happen...yet.
While SOE is facilitating the trade of virtual chattels for real-world dollars, and apparently taking a transaction fee (like IGE and other online sellers), as things stand right now, the EULA/TOS is what will presumably control these issues. Ever since Blizzard won its case against the bnetd project, and in many, many previous cases about clickwrap agreements, shrinkwrap agreements, etc. these kinds of cases are going to be controlled by the rights agreed to under the EULA/TOS.
This isn't to say that U.S. courts may find future EULAs to be fully or partially unenforceable, but I don't have a crystal ball. Additionally, while some judges like Judge Posner have recognized that the law needs to address virtual worlds and consider where we're going in regards to the rights of avatars and virtual chattels, keep in mind that Posner in particular comes from an economic view of law. To that extent, I find it hard to believe that any changes in how we regard virtual chattels will come out in favor of massive liability for game companies if they close the server.
It's great for theoretical wanking (could players individually, or as a class, petition a bankruptcy court to appoint someone to administer the game servers to protect their property) but quite honestly, without de-throning the EULA, or without specific EULAs being found unenforceable, this won't be a problem on the legal end as things are right now.
Heh, look forward to seeing that added content sometimes in 2006. I Blizzard's content rollout department can barely be described as "glacial" without being too nice.
...especially for any attorney or layperson who lent their talents to the software for translating EULAs. The big question is whether it would be the equivalent of the practice of law. Additionally, would a service like this be the equivalent of beginning an attorney-client relationship between the end-user and the people who helped create and distribute the software?
Quite honestly, I don't know. Like most issues where IT and the law merge, it's a murky area at best. The U.S. legal system is woefully inadequately equipped to handle complex IT litigation, largely because our judges aren't necessarily the most computer-savvy folks on the planet. I've always been a big advocate of creating a separate court system for IT issues, similar to how there are separate patent courts.
At any rate, it just sounds like hassle waiting to happen.
Basically, the case of NYT v. Sullivan requires that defamation plaintiffs prove that malice existed in the publication. It's a malicious or reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statements made.
It's nice to see the courts supporting the First Amendment online. Let's hope that decisions like these continue.
You're right, the field itself is untested and our abilities and infrastructures to manage/test are both woefully unproven and possibly inadequate.
On the testing side, perhaps computer models can project possible outcomes. I do know that lab research in the field is growing at a rapid pace (I spent two years in Grant & Contract Admin. at a research university), but even that kind of data collection cannot fully predict what happens when a GMO is released into the wild. However, biotech goes beyond that. Development of synthetic materials, etc. can be done with rather benign organisms in a controlled, lab environment. I think that to invalidate biotech as a new scientific path because of potentially harmful agricultural and animal hybrids would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
In regards to infrastructure to regulate and control biotech, it will only take time and effort to craft laws and form regulating commissions who can adequately monitor such efforts. The field of biotech law is as changing and understaffed as infotech law. Both fields have a large influx of law students (I'm beginning my 1L this fall...going the IT route), and I'm sure that in the next few years, we'll see more action towards this.
I certainly don't think we should run headlong into a new field like this without the proper precautions. Doing so would be similar to early atomic research from the Manhattan Project and beyond.
If you place the proper regulations and controls on biotechnolgy, then I don't see the big problem with it. If there is a way to eliminate the use of non-renewable resources (petroleum, etc.) in everyday life, then it would seem to be our obligation as a society to do so. As long as biotech agents are tested to be sure that their environmental impact is minimal or nil, then it seems to be a viable solution to the problems our planet's ecosystems face.
The main worry, I would imagine, is the use of bioengineered plants that may have an adverse long-term impact on the ecosystem it is introduced to, and the chance that biotech would be used for malignant purposes. While these are very real concerns, they exist for most forms of new, largely unexplored technology.
I just don't get the big deal here. You sign up for the passport. Get a hotmail address, use it only to sign up for the passport, give bogus personal info, and volia! You're golden.
So what if they're compiling data about what MS sites you visit? It's not like you're involved in any super seekrit NSA missions that would require you to be all hush-hush. And if you were, well, I'm pretty sure that you could find a way around it.
Sure, MS is a megalithic beast that may in fact be trying to summon the anti-christ and begin the end times, but damn...not EVERYTHING is a conspiracy. Just the Masons. And the Knights Templar. And the oil companies. And the Papacy. Ok, well, so maybe everything is a conspiracy...
That's how Kazaa works too....the search display indicates when a file is available from multiple users. It works well that way...it also resumes broken downloads much better than the Gnutella clones/skins I've seen....I guess Morpheus is just a Kazaa skin?
While Gnutella is OK, I've found two other P2P sharing services that work way better.
Check out Kazaa at http://www.kazaa.com
and Tripnosis at http://www.tripnosis.com
They're not Gnutella skins, and they tend to work better than Bearshare, Limewire, etc.
I spent four years studying English in my undergrad, and the one class that really spoke to me the most was my criticism class. Once you get to Derrida, the deconstruction guru, you learn that in this day and age, there are no new ideas, merely new spins on old techniques and ideas. While this is largely attributed to literature through the idea of free play, I think it applies to the arts as a whole.
Essentially, free play is the "riffing"(learn about jazz if you don't know what it is) on ideas of the past. Spreading art into the medium of computer generated art is just the free play available to us at this time. Without this quality within the arts, we're doomed to a life of boring, stagnant art and the death of creativity. Don't let dilletant nay-sayers steal your thunder...what you are doing is integral to the overall development of the visual arts.
you can't really blame Garriot for all the problems that Ultima 9 and UO had. Really, the company to blame is EA. EA has a habit of pushing products out the door before they're done. Obviously, UO and Ultima 9 are two great examples of this. Ultima 9's development was stalled by EA who took many of the main devs away to have them work on Ultima Online. When U9 was put back on the burner, a large portion of the original dev team was kept on Ultima Online. EA had already sunk a ton of dough into U9 and wanted to get it out the door ASAP. Hence, the largely unplayable game that U9 was.
And really, aside from EA's bungling, the players ruined Ultima Online, not Garriot.
that I bought with my Sea Monkeys, then I'd have to say it was a hoax. Those specs aren't worth a damn.
And those sea monkeys are more like brine shrimp than highly intelligent underwater kingdom-dwellers....
UGO is on it's way out. It has been for a while. Odds are that you won't see a dime from them if you don't sign the docs. Think about it. Court costs + lawyer fees - actual cash won (and paid by UGO -- it may be a tall order) = net loss for you. Of course, if you're in the same situation as people like Lowtax from SA, you're already looking at a larger net loss. It may seem lame and it's definitely unethical (they can't force you to sign an agreement to get payments they already owe you under a previous contract), but you may have to sign and take what you can get. Otherwise, you most likey won't see a dime.
But then again, I'm a huge cynic too.
...to start studying IT law. If agreements like this are passed into International Law, it could make my JD/LLM program 4 years instead of three. Not would you have to learn the intracices of US intellectual property, copyright, and cyberspace law, but the laws, rules and regulations of the other major players world-wide. Looks like I'll be holed up in a library from now until 2004.
Slashdot Mirror
That'd be Barbara Boxer. WTG, crack editing staff!
Too late!
l 2html-23949http://www.eff.org/effector/19/02.php> Clearly someone expects stalkers to be punished. Of course, the EFF describes it as "an attack on anonymous speech," but no matter how great the EFF may be, its people can be just as knee-jerk as anyone else. This is one of those knee-jerk moments, IMO.
r el=url2html-23949http://www.escapistmagazine.com/i ssue/56/16> If the folks at Linden Lab can encourage their users to cause another user to implode and get himself banned, I don't see how we're too far from mob behavior stemmning from the web in the U.S.
We already have a "Preventing Cyberstalking" bit of legislation that has been given extra teeth. ahref=http://www.eff.org/effector/19/02.phprel=ur
This phenomena isn't limited to Korea -- the Chinese do it, and so do gamers in the U.S. ahref=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/56/16
Settling a case does not create precedent. It may establish that Blizzard will fold on this specific issue, but it does not create any kind of binding precedent or persuasive precedent in any U.S. court of law.
This should be interesting to see how it develops, but I don't think the "OMG They'll get sued if they ever close the servers!" sentiment echoed at some of the links Zonk posted is going to happen...yet.
While SOE is facilitating the trade of virtual chattels for real-world dollars, and apparently taking a transaction fee (like IGE and other online sellers), as things stand right now, the EULA/TOS is what will presumably control these issues. Ever since Blizzard won its case against the bnetd project, and in many, many previous cases about clickwrap agreements, shrinkwrap agreements, etc. these kinds of cases are going to be controlled by the rights agreed to under the EULA/TOS.
This isn't to say that U.S. courts may find future EULAs to be fully or partially unenforceable, but I don't have a crystal ball. Additionally, while some judges like Judge Posner have recognized that the law needs to address virtual worlds and consider where we're going in regards to the rights of avatars and virtual chattels, keep in mind that Posner in particular comes from an economic view of law. To that extent, I find it hard to believe that any changes in how we regard virtual chattels will come out in favor of massive liability for game companies if they close the server.
It's great for theoretical wanking (could players individually, or as a class, petition a bankruptcy court to appoint someone to administer the game servers to protect their property) but quite honestly, without de-throning the EULA, or without specific EULAs being found unenforceable, this won't be a problem on the legal end as things are right now.
Heh, look forward to seeing that added content sometimes in 2006. I Blizzard's content rollout department can barely be described as "glacial" without being too nice.
Granted, I wrote the articles, but discussion of EULAs and games was done just a week or so ago at Grimwell dot com.
/.
For instance, my article here about EULA validity, posted 8 days before this "new" article, and another on online sales that went up over the weekend.
Wow, color me unimpressed that this was up on someone else's site and then self-submitted to
I mean seriously. I don't self-submit my stuff. Less self-whoring please.
...especially for any attorney or layperson who lent their talents to the software for translating EULAs. The big question is whether it would be the equivalent of the practice of law. Additionally, would a service like this be the equivalent of beginning an attorney-client relationship between the end-user and the people who helped create and distribute the software?
Quite honestly, I don't know. Like most issues where IT and the law merge, it's a murky area at best. The U.S. legal system is woefully inadequately equipped to handle complex IT litigation, largely because our judges aren't necessarily the most computer-savvy folks on the planet. I've always been a big advocate of creating a separate court system for IT issues, similar to how there are separate patent courts.
At any rate, it just sounds like hassle waiting to happen.
Basically, the case of NYT v. Sullivan requires that defamation plaintiffs prove that malice existed in the publication. It's a malicious or reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of the statements made.
It's nice to see the courts supporting the First Amendment online. Let's hope that decisions like these continue.
You're right, the field itself is untested and our abilities and infrastructures to manage/test are both woefully unproven and possibly inadequate. On the testing side, perhaps computer models can project possible outcomes. I do know that lab research in the field is growing at a rapid pace (I spent two years in Grant & Contract Admin. at a research university), but even that kind of data collection cannot fully predict what happens when a GMO is released into the wild. However, biotech goes beyond that. Development of synthetic materials, etc. can be done with rather benign organisms in a controlled, lab environment. I think that to invalidate biotech as a new scientific path because of potentially harmful agricultural and animal hybrids would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In regards to infrastructure to regulate and control biotech, it will only take time and effort to craft laws and form regulating commissions who can adequately monitor such efforts. The field of biotech law is as changing and understaffed as infotech law. Both fields have a large influx of law students (I'm beginning my 1L this fall...going the IT route), and I'm sure that in the next few years, we'll see more action towards this. I certainly don't think we should run headlong into a new field like this without the proper precautions. Doing so would be similar to early atomic research from the Manhattan Project and beyond.
If you place the proper regulations and controls on biotechnolgy, then I don't see the big problem with it. If there is a way to eliminate the use of non-renewable resources (petroleum, etc.) in everyday life, then it would seem to be our obligation as a society to do so. As long as biotech agents are tested to be sure that their environmental impact is minimal or nil, then it seems to be a viable solution to the problems our planet's ecosystems face. The main worry, I would imagine, is the use of bioengineered plants that may have an adverse long-term impact on the ecosystem it is introduced to, and the chance that biotech would be used for malignant purposes. While these are very real concerns, they exist for most forms of new, largely unexplored technology.
I just don't get the big deal here. You sign up for the passport. Get a hotmail address, use it only to sign up for the passport, give bogus personal info, and volia! You're golden. So what if they're compiling data about what MS sites you visit? It's not like you're involved in any super seekrit NSA missions that would require you to be all hush-hush. And if you were, well, I'm pretty sure that you could find a way around it. Sure, MS is a megalithic beast that may in fact be trying to summon the anti-christ and begin the end times, but damn...not EVERYTHING is a conspiracy. Just the Masons. And the Knights Templar. And the oil companies. And the Papacy. Ok, well, so maybe everything is a conspiracy...
That's how Kazaa works too....the search display indicates when a file is available from multiple users. It works well that way...it also resumes broken downloads much better than the Gnutella clones/skins I've seen....I guess Morpheus is just a Kazaa skin?
While Gnutella is OK, I've found two other P2P sharing services that work way better. Check out Kazaa at http://www.kazaa.com and Tripnosis at http://www.tripnosis.com They're not Gnutella skins, and they tend to work better than Bearshare, Limewire, etc.
I spent four years studying English in my undergrad, and the one class that really spoke to me the most was my criticism class. Once you get to Derrida, the deconstruction guru, you learn that in this day and age, there are no new ideas, merely new spins on old techniques and ideas. While this is largely attributed to literature through the idea of free play, I think it applies to the arts as a whole. Essentially, free play is the "riffing"(learn about jazz if you don't know what it is) on ideas of the past. Spreading art into the medium of computer generated art is just the free play available to us at this time. Without this quality within the arts, we're doomed to a life of boring, stagnant art and the death of creativity. Don't let dilletant nay-sayers steal your thunder...what you are doing is integral to the overall development of the visual arts.
you can't really blame Garriot for all the problems that Ultima 9 and UO had. Really, the company to blame is EA. EA has a habit of pushing products out the door before they're done. Obviously, UO and Ultima 9 are two great examples of this. Ultima 9's development was stalled by EA who took many of the main devs away to have them work on Ultima Online. When U9 was put back on the burner, a large portion of the original dev team was kept on Ultima Online. EA had already sunk a ton of dough into U9 and wanted to get it out the door ASAP. Hence, the largely unplayable game that U9 was. And really, aside from EA's bungling, the players ruined Ultima Online, not Garriot.
that I bought with my Sea Monkeys, then I'd have to say it was a hoax. Those specs aren't worth a damn. And those sea monkeys are more like brine shrimp than highly intelligent underwater kingdom-dwellers....
UGO is on it's way out. It has been for a while. Odds are that you won't see a dime from them if you don't sign the docs. Think about it. Court costs + lawyer fees - actual cash won (and paid by UGO -- it may be a tall order) = net loss for you. Of course, if you're in the same situation as people like Lowtax from SA, you're already looking at a larger net loss. It may seem lame and it's definitely unethical (they can't force you to sign an agreement to get payments they already owe you under a previous contract), but you may have to sign and take what you can get. Otherwise, you most likey won't see a dime. But then again, I'm a huge cynic too.
...to start studying IT law. If agreements like this are passed into International Law, it could make my JD/LLM program 4 years instead of three. Not would you have to learn the intracices of US intellectual property, copyright, and cyberspace law, but the laws, rules and regulations of the other major players world-wide. Looks like I'll be holed up in a library from now until 2004.