I agree and I did miss that. On buyer/seller, I was thinking of the store's responsibility when buying (possibly hot or counterfeit) used CD's. Taking ID's and SSN's on end-user buyers here would be asinine.
Likely the merchants are all hearing rumors and are so pissed they'll believe anything, and then tell all their customers the tallest tales to enlist support. I bet the manager was wrong, which goes to show you not to get legal advice from used CD sellers.
* But... if hypothetically Chicago did enact an ordinance requiring ID collection, I would guess that it would be enforceable. Unfortunately, "that's stupid" is not enough to overturn a law, you need a specific provision of law or constitution. There's a chance it could be invalidated as utterly irrational. Fortunately, an ordinance like that would be political suicide -- they'd rather have the voters happy with a few extra crooks running around.
I hope this is not perversely seen as a troll; if anything my tone is more moderate than that of many others.
I'm not a fan of President Bush, although I do respect the office. I do not believe most of the 9/11 rumors I have heard because on closer examination they are as thin as typical conspiracy theories. Finally, and most importantly, I live 3 miles from the Pentagon and saw the airplane pass overhead at about 500 feet and crash and explode. I want to know every last detail of what happened and do not give a damn who it may embarrass.
But that's not possible, not even by half. Why do we still not have a 9/11 commission? The wisdom is there: gov't simply does better with independent auditors. The precedent is there: commissions were appointed for the Oklahoma City bombing, the Kennedy assassination, even the Challenger tragedy, in a fraction the time. And the opportunity is... passing.
The administration has barely attempted to justify the delay. The only justification I can think of is national security, but have heard no details, or any reason the commission should not have been collecting data and testimony on nonsensitive topics. The trail is growing cold.
If you want to fault the administration on something, hold off on the conjecture and focus on the concrete. The commission question we have front and center is compelling. Sure I have various suspicions, but we don't even have a commission report to beat up on!
I hope the commission is a good nonpartisan issue that will move forward. Choosing Henry Kissinger to start was... um... counterintuitive and wasted even more time. I know it's trite, but "Let's roll."
Before someone goes off-topic into strange theories of international law and jurisdiction, there are several international conventions to which Russia is a signatory thus at least on paper they do agree to enforce reciprocal protections. Both you and the vendor may have broken Russian law. I know Russia has much more dire threats.
Note that by signing on to those conventions, the countries consent to participation. This is a different matter from jurisdiction when you commit a crime abroad. For purchasing those CD's, your being an American would be beside the point; they'd be able to prosecute you. (Unless you are also a diplomat.)
China is the most notorious example of a country disregarding international copyright and pissing off the U.S., the source of so much of the material. And I can see why: they are a poor country with more to gain than lose by ignoring copyright. China purports to be mending its ways as participation in int'l trade becomes ever more important to it.
...they imposed a similar requirement on pawn shops, that they get ID and I think even take a Polaroid. The reason of course was to make it harder for either thief or merchant to fence stolen goods. There was some controversy because of the expense, and I'm sure someone had to have complained about privacy. It does seem intrusive, but so are the burglars that feed this thriving market. Good idea? Bad idea? I'd like to see more information first. Legal idea? I think so.
Who is "they"? I thought it was by local ordinance, the city of Chicago, maybe Cook County. You can find out from an affected merchant or City Hall. They *might* be online.
Oh hey, I'm right. Check for more news on this, especially challenges anyone has raised.
Anyway, extending a pawn shop reg to used DVD stores is not much of a stretch, so perhaps this is the City again. It sounds legal and reasonable under the City's police powers but, again, intrusive. Although the basic idea is OK, I imagine the fight would go to just how much information is collected. The details are critical. Don't forget to contact your aldermen and the mayor's office if you need to.
If it was, to offer a refund is quite generous. Generally, they have no obligation to offer a refund, open box or closed, unless they are at fault. Merchants are more leery of open box returns for obvious reasons -- fraud and difficulty reselling the item. Defective media, that's different, but even there your beef is with the manufacturer: the merchant is not necessarily required to act as go-between. Custom is that many or most companies do state exchange/refund policies more generous than their minimum commercial code obligations, and that's a reason we prefer them.
Either way, the DMCA is a silly excuse. I assume the cause was ignorance.
Good thing parroting disinformation never happens here.
Don't get me wrong, I can't stand lazy journalists. Some simply copy press releases into their stories. It is galling when you catch them at it. As soon as you have some expertise in an area, or even read enough, news that previously looked credible falls apart.
That's a reason to be very distrustful of reporting on legal proceedings. It is so easy to blow the details, especially if you're being lobbied by one side or the other and not trying to hard in the first place. Making deadline becomes everything.
There are some great reporters, learn their names, follow them if they change employment. Linda Greenhouse at the Times is a superb legal reporter, and a very good writer for everyone. Here is her 12/11/02 report on a free speech and cross burning case (this has more in common with the DMCA than you might think!).
It's an accurate statement of the DMCA, which requires "willfulness" a legal term for a criminal state of mind well beyond "merely offering." No other sigficance.
I'm picturing a strip search of this poor guy looking for copies of illegal software. Not pretty.
Prosecuting him for talking about math would be esp. scary for free speech. I think most of the Justices would choke on that.
The prelim motion on jurisdiction and free speech and other stuff and multiple briefs and lengthy judge's opinion are all on the Elcomsoft page of the EFF site. Enjoy. (They really aren't hard to read.)
(2) The state will normally appeal a court's decision a law is invalid, rather than waste time and money bringing and losing multiple prosecutions; there is also a political price from losing repeatedly;
(3) In certain circumstances one can seek a declaratory judgment which sets forth the rights of the parties before a violation is alleged; thus if Elcomsoft wanted to market its products in the States and was leery of prosecution (with good reason) it could pre-emptively challenge the law.
(4) A law can also be challenged as unconstitutional "on its face" by anyone with standing, usually aided by a civil rights group;
(5) There are probably other salient points that aren't occurring to me.
But as I've prattled on elsewhere, the validity of the DMCA is not placed in doubt. The practicality is; if because of its wording it leads to acquittals, the state will not want to use it.
In the end, the jury honed in on the question of willfulness, that is, Elcomsoft's knowledge and intent. It appears all the rest of the elements were satisfied. Fair use and copyright violations were not relevant, intent to violate the law was. I believe the DMCA uses the term willfulness to describe a violation, which means ignorance actually is an excuse.
The cited C|net article:
Because both the defense and prosecution agreed that ElcomSoft sold software designed to crack copyright protections, the case essentially turned on ElcomSoft's state of mind during the period it was offering the software.
After much wrangling among attorneys over the definition of the word "willful," the judge told jurors that in order to find the company guilty, they must agree that company representatives knew their actions were illegal and intended to violate the law. Merely offering a product that could violate copyrights was not enough to warrant a conviction, the jury instructions said.
I heard about a guy who timed his code to the speed of rotating drum memory so that "impossible" loops would work. It made the code a tad difficult for others to maintain after he retired.
Wow. You are (1) quick and (2) relevant. Why aren't there more like you?
I really did look for this on my own; like a dolt I went to the NASA site, and here I practically grew up in Pasadena. I forwarded this to my rocket friend, thanks.
Yes, I figured these would be your true colors. I think you'll find the system less corrupt if you engage it more, it's not so simple as some vast conspiracy to co-opt the government.
Jury foreman Dennis Strader said the jurors agreed ElcomSoft's product was illegal but acquitted the company because they believed the company didn't mean to violate the law.
Ignorance is not an excuse is the old expression, true, but it's not complete -- you still have to break the law. Here, willfulness was required, a conscious violation of the law. The jury appears to have decided the prosecution failed to prove this element, esp. where the law was confusing. A normal case, no nullification.
I would like to hear what exactly the engineers did. I have a feeling it was the interplanetary version of whacking your TV set to stop the whine.
Not all twiddle-the-computer exercises work out well. NASA is not one to dwell on failure, but they'll hand-deliver a press release to your door for great news. E.g., I read that contact with one of the Viking landers was lost years ago after someone sent bad data to its antenna tracking system. The lander was very late in its lifespan, but would you like to have been the guy who did it? We've found reasons to keep in touch with even the Voyagers (or should I say V'gers?), as well as the nearly 4x too old Galileo.
I asked a friend about the Galileo problem, and the heck do you fix something from thousands or millions of miles away? It's very difficult he replied, and if aero/astro people are like him in general, these are bright folks.
Most of his experience had been with trying to figure out why solar arrays in orbit weren't doing their job, where the problem turned out to be not a loose wire but defective engineering (not his:).
Texas is #1 in U.S. executions and so is of particular interest for a capital trial. The show is the kind of thing I'd like to see, and Frontline is pretty level-headed, but not if it were possibly damaging to a life/death decision. So I'd like to see it but don't think they should do it.:)
Maybe it is semantics, but a law the jury refuses to enforce is no law at all. Regardless, the jury does not have that right, except in the abstract.
FIJA is very misinformed and misinforming. The "power" argument is like saying I have the "power" to steal bread with my invisibility cloak. OK, true as a matter of fact not law, because no one can catch me. Is the point that stealing is not my right then "moot"?
If even mentioning this supposed power during voir dire or during deliberations gets to booted off the jury, what kind of power is that? In truth, nullification is an abuse that it would be more damaging to root out that to try to discourage. Not much of an endorsement.
Do read through the other stuff I dug up and posted, particularly the 2nd Circuit decision I blockquoted. These other sources are probably more lucid than I.
The MAOI angle I had not heard. These drugs have nasty interaction with certain other drugs and chemicals, and are really last-resort drugs clinically where a patient will tolerate or respond to nothing else.
And, yes, its mechanism appears to overlap the SSRI's somehow.
I think the post-SSRI generation will arrive soon.
P.S. Oh yeah -- for the glassy eyed readers, MAOI = monoamine oxidase inhibitor, such as Nardil. The oxidase enzyme breaks up neurotransmitter, so by inhibiting it the idea is to force the neurotransmitters to stick around longer, prolonging their postsynaptic effects. Unfortunately, the MAOI side effects are probably the harshest of all antidepressants.
Ouch. An airline once tried to stop me from boarding because of confusion over the time zones, claiming I'd missed my flight by 24 hours. Fortunately it was their mistake and I caught it. It would help if we not only adopted 24-hour time but also a universal time standard (old-fashioned "Greenwich time" has a fancier name now, Coordinated Universal Time?).
I guess here the Ann Arbor moviegoers are technically at fault, though you'd expect the theater to realize a problem was brewing. On the other hand, this way they maybe sold more tickets. But hey, standing out in the cold is more fun than the movie, isn't it? The theater should charge them for letting them do it twice.:)
Have you heard of the Risks Digest? They accumulate and comment on tech snafus like this, and I'm *sure* they must have more than a few AM/PM. I subscribe to their digest, very educational.
Is that seriously the best response you can manage?
I've been clear that I don't necessarily know what the rules should be, but I do know what they are right now. I actually went to a lot of trouble to try to explain it, instead of just calling someone a butthead and leaving it at that. "The jury has the right, NAY, THE DUTY" to do its job properly, not to go off on its "high horse" to undermine democratically enacted laws. That's the real insult to democracy, and you are the one with pretensions ("nay"?). If you are called to serve, remember to refuse to take any oath to uphold the law.
It makes the prospects for life on Europa just that much more promising.
Seems like a long way to go for food!;-)
I have to second whoever cited the Andromeda Strain. How do we know the critters weren't buried there years ago on purpose by hostile aliens, a time bomb set to go off when we got too curious....
I know we've seen this scifi plot 100 times. But how do we know these tired plots weren't buried there years ago on purpose by hostile aliens, a time bomb......
Slashdot Mirror
I agree and I did miss that. On buyer/seller, I was thinking of the store's responsibility when buying (possibly hot or counterfeit) used CD's. Taking ID's and SSN's on end-user buyers here would be asinine.
... if hypothetically Chicago did enact an ordinance requiring ID collection, I would guess that it would be enforceable. Unfortunately, "that's stupid" is not enough to overturn a law, you need a specific provision of law or constitution. There's a chance it could be invalidated as utterly irrational. Fortunately, an ordinance like that would be political suicide -- they'd rather have the voters happy with a few extra crooks running around.
Likely the merchants are all hearing rumors and are so pissed they'll believe anything, and then tell all their customers the tallest tales to enlist support. I bet the manager was wrong, which goes to show you not to get legal advice from used CD sellers.
*
But
I hope this is not perversely seen as a troll; if anything my tone is more moderate than that of many others.
... passing.
... um ... counterintuitive and wasted even more time. I know it's trite, but "Let's roll."
I'm not a fan of President Bush, although I do respect the office. I do not believe most of the 9/11 rumors I have heard because on closer examination they are as thin as typical conspiracy theories. Finally, and most importantly, I live 3 miles from the Pentagon and saw the airplane pass overhead at about 500 feet and crash and explode. I want to know every last detail of what happened and do not give a damn who it may embarrass.
But that's not possible, not even by half. Why do we still not have a 9/11 commission? The wisdom is there: gov't simply does better with independent auditors. The precedent is there: commissions were appointed for the Oklahoma City bombing, the Kennedy assassination, even the Challenger tragedy, in a fraction the time. And the opportunity is
The administration has barely attempted to justify the delay. The only justification I can think of is national security, but have heard no details, or any reason the commission should not have been collecting data and testimony on nonsensitive topics. The trail is growing cold.
If you want to fault the administration on something, hold off on the conjecture and focus on the concrete. The commission question we have front and center is compelling. Sure I have various suspicions, but we don't even have a commission report to beat up on!
I hope the commission is a good nonpartisan issue that will move forward. Choosing Henry Kissinger to start was
Before someone goes off-topic into strange theories of international law and jurisdiction, there are several international conventions to which Russia is a signatory thus at least on paper they do agree to enforce reciprocal protections. Both you and the vendor may have broken Russian law. I know Russia has much more dire threats.
Note that by signing on to those conventions, the countries consent to participation. This is a different matter from jurisdiction when you commit a crime abroad. For purchasing those CD's, your being an American would be beside the point; they'd be able to prosecute you. (Unless you are also a diplomat.)
China is the most notorious example of a country disregarding international copyright and pissing off the U.S., the source of so much of the material. And I can see why: they are a poor country with more to gain than lose by ignoring copyright. China purports to be mending its ways as participation in int'l trade becomes ever more important to it.
...they imposed a similar requirement on pawn shops, that they get ID and I think even take a Polaroid. The reason of course was to make it harder for either thief or merchant to fence stolen goods. There was some controversy because of the expense, and I'm sure someone had to have complained about privacy. It does seem intrusive, but so are the burglars that feed this thriving market. Good idea? Bad idea? I'd like to see more information first. Legal idea? I think so.
Who is "they"? I thought it was by local ordinance, the city of Chicago, maybe Cook County. You can find out from an affected merchant or City Hall. They *might* be online.
Oh hey, I'm right. Check for more news on this, especially challenges anyone has raised.
Anyway, extending a pawn shop reg to used DVD stores is not much of a stretch, so perhaps this is the City again. It sounds legal and reasonable under the City's police powers but, again, intrusive. Although the basic idea is OK, I imagine the fight would go to just how much information is collected. The details are critical. Don't forget to contact your aldermen and the mayor's office if you need to.
If it was, to offer a refund is quite generous. Generally, they have no obligation to offer a refund, open box or closed, unless they are at fault. Merchants are more leery of open box returns for obvious reasons -- fraud and difficulty reselling the item. Defective media, that's different, but even there your beef is with the manufacturer: the merchant is not necessarily required to act as go-between. Custom is that many or most companies do state exchange/refund policies more generous than their minimum commercial code obligations, and that's a reason we prefer them.
Either way, the DMCA is a silly excuse. I assume the cause was ignorance.
Good thing parroting disinformation never happens here.
Don't get me wrong, I can't stand lazy journalists. Some simply copy press releases into their stories. It is galling when you catch them at it. As soon as you have some expertise in an area, or even read enough, news that previously looked credible falls apart.
That's a reason to be very distrustful of reporting on legal proceedings. It is so easy to blow the details, especially if you're being lobbied by one side or the other and not trying to hard in the first place. Making deadline becomes everything.
There are some great reporters, learn their names, follow them if they change employment. Linda Greenhouse at the Times is a superb legal reporter, and a very good writer for everyone. Here is her 12/11/02 report on a free speech and cross burning case (this has more in common with the DMCA than you might think!).
No, I thought it was the Story of O.
;-)
Wait, that's something else.
You're right.
It's an accurate statement of the DMCA, which requires "willfulness" a legal term for a criminal state of mind well beyond "merely offering." No other sigficance.
Lessig is very involved in EFF, which provided very significant litigation support to Skylarov and Elcomsoft as amicus.
EFF Elcomsoft page
I'm picturing a strip search of this poor guy looking for copies of illegal software. Not pretty.
Prosecuting him for talking about math would be esp. scary for free speech. I think most of the Justices would choke on that.
The prelim motion on jurisdiction and free speech and other stuff and multiple briefs and lengthy judge's opinion are all on the Elcomsoft page of the EFF site. Enjoy. (They really aren't hard to read.)
(1) The law is imperfect (surprise)
(2) The state will normally appeal a court's decision a law is invalid, rather than waste time and money bringing and losing multiple prosecutions; there is also a political price from losing repeatedly;
(3) In certain circumstances one can seek a declaratory judgment which sets forth the rights of the parties before a violation is alleged; thus if Elcomsoft wanted to market its products in the States and was leery of prosecution (with good reason) it could pre-emptively challenge the law.
(4) A law can also be challenged as unconstitutional "on its face" by anyone with standing, usually aided by a civil rights group;
(5) There are probably other salient points that aren't occurring to me.
But as I've prattled on elsewhere, the validity of the DMCA is not placed in doubt. The practicality is; if because of its wording it leads to acquittals, the state will not want to use it.
The cited C|net article:
A lie so good it must be true?
I heard about a guy who timed his code to the speed of rotating drum memory so that "impossible" loops would work. It made the code a tad difficult for others to maintain after he retired.
Wow. You are (1) quick and (2) relevant. Why aren't there more like you?
I really did look for this on my own; like a dolt I went to the NASA site, and here I practically grew up in Pasadena. I forwarded this to my rocket friend, thanks.
Yes, I figured these would be your true colors. I think you'll find the system less corrupt if you engage it more, it's not so simple as some vast conspiracy to co-opt the government.
Jury foreman Dennis Strader said the jurors agreed ElcomSoft's product was illegal but acquitted the company because they believed the company didn't mean to violate the law.
Ignorance is not an excuse is the old expression, true, but it's not complete -- you still have to break the law. Here, willfulness was required, a conscious violation of the law. The jury appears to have decided the prosecution failed to prove this element, esp. where the law was confusing. A normal case, no nullification.
About Galileo, some tales from several years ago, mentioning the current tape problem.
:)
I would like to hear what exactly the engineers did. I have a feeling it was the interplanetary version of whacking your TV set to stop the whine.
Not all twiddle-the-computer exercises work out well. NASA is not one to dwell on failure, but they'll hand-deliver a press release to your door for great news. E.g., I read that contact with one of the Viking landers was lost years ago after someone sent bad data to its antenna tracking system. The lander was very late in its lifespan, but would you like to have been the guy who did it? We've found reasons to keep in touch with even the Voyagers (or should I say V'gers?), as well as the nearly 4x too old Galileo.
The Web is so cool: Galileo's current position
And Galileo tour guide -- the Galileo stuff at the NASA site is a little dusty.
Should we have a moment of silence with spunky Galileo burns up? Do you think the Jovians will retaliate?
I asked a friend about the Galileo problem, and the heck do you fix something from thousands or millions of miles away? It's very difficult he replied, and if aero/astro people are like him in general, these are bright folks.
:).
Most of his experience had been with trying to figure out why solar arrays in orbit weren't doing their job, where the problem turned out to be not a loose wire but defective engineering (not his
Yes, they're thinking the same things as you.
:)
Guess who opposes it? The prosecutor.
Texas is #1 in U.S. executions and so is of particular interest for a capital trial. The show is the kind of thing I'd like to see, and Frontline is pretty level-headed, but not if it were possibly damaging to a life/death decision. So I'd like to see it but don't think they should do it.
Oral arguments are scheduled for Jan 15.
Maybe it is semantics, but a law the jury refuses to enforce is no law at all. Regardless, the jury does not have that right, except in the abstract.
FIJA is very misinformed and misinforming. The "power" argument is like saying I have the "power" to steal bread with my invisibility cloak. OK, true as a matter of fact not law, because no one can catch me. Is the point that stealing is not my right then "moot"?
If even mentioning this supposed power during voir dire or during deliberations gets to booted off the jury, what kind of power is that? In truth, nullification is an abuse that it would be more damaging to root out that to try to discourage. Not much of an endorsement.
Do read through the other stuff I dug up and posted, particularly the 2nd Circuit decision I blockquoted. These other sources are probably more lucid than I.
Interesting! Thanks.
The MAOI angle I had not heard. These drugs have nasty interaction with certain other drugs and chemicals, and are really last-resort drugs clinically where a patient will tolerate or respond to nothing else.
And, yes, its mechanism appears to overlap the SSRI's somehow.
I think the post-SSRI generation will arrive soon.
P.S. Oh yeah -- for the glassy eyed readers, MAOI = monoamine oxidase inhibitor, such as Nardil. The oxidase enzyme breaks up neurotransmitter, so by inhibiting it the idea is to force the neurotransmitters to stick around longer, prolonging their postsynaptic effects. Unfortunately, the MAOI side effects are probably the harshest of all antidepressants.
Their is not a pronoun, but an adjective, the possessive form of they.
They is a plural pronoun. You may be confused by my references to the court because it has three judges on the panel, "they."
And of course I make my share of typos, though I did pretty well here.
Ouch. An airline once tried to stop me from boarding because of confusion over the time zones, claiming I'd missed my flight by 24 hours. Fortunately it was their mistake and I caught it. It would help if we not only adopted 24-hour time but also a universal time standard (old-fashioned "Greenwich time" has a fancier name now, Coordinated Universal Time?).
:)
I guess here the Ann Arbor moviegoers are technically at fault, though you'd expect the theater to realize a problem was brewing. On the other hand, this way they maybe sold more tickets. But hey, standing out in the cold is more fun than the movie, isn't it? The theater should charge them for letting them do it twice.
Have you heard of the Risks Digest? They accumulate and comment on tech snafus like this, and I'm *sure* they must have more than a few AM/PM. I subscribe to their digest, very educational.
I will avoid the Ann Arbor Showcase Cinemas.
Well, I see you've fallen to copying-and-pasting your private Federalist Papers. Save bytes if not breath; here's a cross-reference.
Is that seriously the best response you can manage?
I've been clear that I don't necessarily know what the rules should be, but I do know what they are right now. I actually went to a lot of trouble to try to explain it, instead of just calling someone a butthead and leaving it at that. "The jury has the right, NAY, THE DUTY" to do its job properly, not to go off on its "high horse" to undermine democratically enacted laws. That's the real insult to democracy, and you are the one with pretensions ("nay"?). If you are called to serve, remember to refuse to take any oath to uphold the law.
It makes the prospects for life on Europa just that much more promising.
;-)
Seems like a long way to go for food!
I have to second whoever cited the Andromeda Strain. How do we know the critters weren't buried there years ago on purpose by hostile aliens, a time bomb set to go off when we got too curious....
I know we've seen this scifi plot 100 times. But how do we know these tired plots weren't buried there years ago on purpose by hostile aliens, a time bomb......