However, I would contend that a runtime is far more than a library, and it would seem that you can't include GPLv3 code into an Apache codebase, so the question is whether Google kept the license boundaries between the Java-sourced GPLv3 code and the Dalvik compiler/runtime. i.e. They were not allowed to incorporate pieces of the GPLv3 code into Dalvik itself. Recompiling the GPLv3 code with the Dalvik compiler would not violate the GPL, though, because the compiler is merely a tool and does not imply any license restrictions on the code it's used to compile.
Otherwise you could only use gcc to compile GPL code, which clearly is not the case in practice.
If he didn't mean they should negotiate a Java license with Sun, why did he say:
...we need to negotiate a license for Java under the terms we need.
How you could possibly interpret that statement as meaning anything other than "we need to negotiate a license" is beyond me. I may not like Oracle's aggressiveness in pursuing the issue, but I can't read this email as being anything other than an acknowledgement that Google needs a license.
Now don't get me wrong. Google could have later used the GPL version of Java safely, but they didn't have that option back then. Plus there's the question of whether you're allowed to use pieces of a GPL piece of software, such as the Dalvik compiler and core runtime with a Dalvik-compiled copy of the Java code for it's libraries and packages.
I would contend that they're well within the GPL, provided that the Dalvik code was also released under the GPL. However, if the Dalvik core isn't under GPL, then they've got the issue of mixing GPL and non-GPL code to muddy the waters, and maybe that's the angle Oracle is playing.
On the flip side, most downloaded applications and games in the '80s were way under a megabyte in size. So although the modems were slow, it really didn't take more than a few hours to do a download.
So I call bullshit. I and most "bit heads" I knew downloaded software and games voraciously in our university days from the BBS systems of the day. What was different is that each of us would download something different, copy it to multiple floppies, and we'd each have a copy.
If you are indeed being inundated with furniture ads, it would seem that the companies doing the advertising missed the point: to advertise and win your business before you bought your couch. After all, unless you're obscenely rich and compulsive about having new things, it's probably going to be a few years before you buy another one!
But I suspect it's more that now that you have a thing, you're noticing other people do, too. Back when I was a kid, my Dad had the car repainted a brownish-rust colour, because he thought it was rare/unusual. But as soon as he had the paint job done, suddenly he started seeing similarly coloured vehicles all over the place.
Did the other vehicles get repainted to spite him? No, he just hadn't paid attention before.
if they can't identify the videos, how are they supposed to count the video views?
*baffled*
...whereby the collecting society would not get an annual lump sum for the contested videos, but a fixed fee each time copyright-protected videos are watched.
Servers are more secure than desktops in the Linux arena primarily because there is no idiot user sitting in front of the keyboard to click "Ok" when malware tries to install itself. Also, servers aren't typically used for surfing and downloading, so the malware doesn't get a chance to try to install itself.
Only once since I started programming in the late '70s have I seen a machine that was infected without the intervention of a user disabling the anti-virus or installing pirated/downloaded software. Once.
If they can't even get the registration system working, how the hell do they expect the general population of DNS servers to deal with a flood of spurious TLDs?
The whole concept is bass-ackwards compared to the design of TLDs and should never have been approved in the first place.
Why is this "insightful"? The only reason they're at the negotiation table is the judge in the case ORDERED them to talk. It doesn't indicate anything about a change of policy or mindset on behalf of either party.
Clearly anyone who tells the CEO something can't or shouldn't be done can't be doing so because of technical limitations, but simply because they don't share the CEO's brilliant business savvy.
</SARCASM>
Actually I am completely serious. The whole argument that Java is under copyright control for the SYNTAX of the language is so asinine that the ONLY reason I can see anyone positing the question to the courts is to get confirmation that it's NOT allowed. The odds of winning such an argument are so astronomically thin and go against history so dramatically that no one in their right mind, from lawyer to CEO, could think they have a chance of winning such a point.
Just to clarify: Although Java is technically free because it was released under the GPL, it's not free because in practice all the enhancements and changes to the core code and syntax come through the management and control of the consortium. So although you can make your own changes to the GPL code, I don't know of any way to get those changes upstream without going through the feature committees.
Java is a bit of a special animal. Sun conceived and promoted it as a community resource, but with a "branding" committee to ensure compatibility across deployments (one of THE primary goals of the Java ecosystem.)
I've never heard of anyone being charged for a Java runtime or compiler, so in the sense of beer, it's free.
But in terms of theoretical software freedom ala GPL? No, it's not free -- it's managed by the consortium.
I'm ok with that, even from the theoretical perspective. Because when the primary goal is portability, there has to be a steward of some sort to test compatibility and ensure portability.
That said, Oracle seems to be determined to try to seize the product line back as a proprietary thing, and I don't believe that's going to work. Even if they prove they have the necessary copyright/patent control in court, there are a lot of OTHER companies who contributed THEIR patents and copyrights to the Java framework, such as HP's patents on springs-and-struts layout managers that are used by the GUI framework.
Personally I believe Oracle is pushing the question of copyright on Java as a means of getting it clarified by the courts that languages are not copyrightable, rather than in any actual hope of winning such a claim. Because if they win such a claim, they're immediately subject to the copyrights of the C/C++ like syntax from which Java derives, and would effectively kill Java completely. Oracle and the rest of the consortium members won't want that, so it has to be a case of "we want to make sure no one ever tries to copyright a language again."
So the CBC is partially funded by tax payer dollars. And the BBC is funded by radio and television license fees. I'm not sure what Australia does, or other Commonwealth countries. But state/citizen/tax/license funded media has a long history.
Big, complex systems have big, complex code. It doesn't matter whether you use Java, COBOL, C#/.Net, C++, or a host of other languages. Sooner or later you have to map a bazillion communications formats and layouts into objects, manipulate them, and persist them. That takes code. That takes time. That takes complexity.
If you don't realize that yet, you haven't been programming long enough for enterprise systems.
If Dalvik is killed, there is always the option of porting the official Oracle produced Java stack to Android with little or no effort. Personally I think this is what Oracle is after -- they want royalties and for Android to pay for their Java branding, the same as IBM does with their stack and Websphere, or a host of other vendors that use Java.
Where this might be more of an issue is if Oracle continues to demand that only Java ME can be deployed to portable devices like Android. Now that would be short sighted of Oracle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oracle Java isn't open source.
Nor are the Oracle database, IBM DB/2 UDB, Sybase ASE, and a host of other products that get deployed on Linux stacks. That doesn't stop people from using them; to most potential customers (i.e. Smartphone vendors) having to pay an Oracle fee would just be a cost of doing business, the same as paying for the various wireless patents they use. And the odds are the expense wouldn't be onerous.
Sure there will be much crying and gnashing of teeth, but the vendors will pay rather than give up Android entirely. They have too much invested already.
the network is divided into little islands of technologies controlled by one specific company or another
You mean like any other internet services you locate and access via domain name?
I hate to break it to you, but the whole point of the internet at it's inception was publishing data and point-to-point communications. Concepts like peer-to-peer are relatively new, and the idea of generic data streams such as XML objects delivered over HTTPS links is radically new technology in internet terms.
Even the so called "web" was originally nothing more than a document and image delivery technology. Capabilities like sound, video, CSS, etc. are all relatively new when compared to the lifespan of the internet.
When people say the internet is "threatened" by anything other than rampant blocking and censorship, I just have to laugh. People coming up with new uses for the existing technology isn't a threat -- it's evolution. Its the way of things, and sometimes that means older technologies like the gopher protocol die.
It's entirely possible Apple and the rest of the "app" vendors are on to something, and I happen to be someone who believes they are. Browsers are too limiting in their functionality and too flaky in their performance to compare to a custom UI app written with the platform in mind that just happens to use something like SOAP over HTTPS to talk to the server instead of actual HTML.
And wouldn't you know it -- that's exactly the model I've been coding towards ever since I first parsed and XML document and realized just how powerful the concept was. Once XSDs came out, I was absolutely convinced it was the way forward for communications and user interfacing.
But rather than focus on one vendor's toolkits or one particular (and limited) technology like SOAP, I stick to the most basic of building blocks instead of relying on frameworks because I know from practical experience that it's a hell of a lot quicker and easier to adapt simple, basic code than it is to port a framework -- especially between languages and platforms.
Installable Java applications and web-delivered applets in the browser hit every platform out there except iOS. If there is one flaw in Apple's tactics, it's to ignore the ubiquity of Java as a non-traditional standard. Microsoft seems to be making the same mistake with their phone/tablet alternatives. The only one making a really smart move in this realm is Android -- and it shows in the overseas market share.
People who think Apple is going to dominate the 'net because of the iPhone and iPad are making a horrible mistake if they think a proprietary OS with only one vendor is ever going to achieve that kind of market dominance. Apple was first to "real" market (though not the first to create such technology), and they've played their hand remarkably well. But outside North America, Android is winning.
And if you think Java based application and applet stacks are a "threat" to the internet, let me just remind you once again of the core philosophy of Java in a distributed web-aware world:
If by "push for standards" you mean "lock in to proprietary iOS", then yes, Apples supports standards.
If you're talking about their recent retreat on IPv6 support, then no, Apple does not support standards.
Both Apple and Microsoft support standards when it suits their list of checklist customer requirements, and do their damndest to lock in their customer base once they've gotten sign-off on the initial deployment.
Hell, even companies like IBM, Oracle, Sybase, et. al. try to lock people and companies in with proprietary extensions to "standards" like JEE and SQL by providing unique add-ons their competitors don't have. It's the nature of business to try to keep your customers.
Some just play dirtier than others. And from what I see, Apple plays amongst the dirtiest of all, suing for "patent infringement" by competitors instead of negotiating patent agreements, while they try to lay claim to the most basic of user input metaphors that should never have been allowed to be patented in the first place.
I mean, seriously, what is so creative about using a finger gesture to unlock a phone or tablet? What is so mind-bogglingly complex about "stroke up" that it deserves a patent? What's next -- claiming that finger gestures are somehow inherently different than mouse gestures?
I better shut up now. I'm probably giving them ideas.:P
Actually, they are engaged in a criminal act: receipt of stolen property.
Not that AT&T is taking possession of the stolen property, but they are receiving service payments because of the stolen property.
To follow along with the car analogies, it's like someone using a stolen car to provide taxi services. While the driver is in possession of the stolen vehicle, the taxi company itself is also culpable because their business is profiting from the theft.
god revealed to them that it dislikes the smell of vehicle exhaust and is angrily heating up the planet as a result
Actually, it's more like they all missed out on the events of Revelations and we're now in the phase where the devil rules the world and he's heating it up to comfy hell-like temperatures.:P
If you're going to take on an issue that strikes fear in the blood-pumps (not hearts) of multi-trillion dollar industries, they are going to spend some of those trillions trying to paint you a fool in the eyes of the public.
Anyone who thought it would be easy wasn't getting into the fight with their eyes open. All you have to do is look at the way medical cannabis is legal in many states, while the DEA continues to claim there is no medical use for cannabis to realize that going up against the status quo is, at best, "frustrating."
I took so long to post a comment on this thread because there was a lot of reading and digging to do before I was willing to comment. I've been burned by too many inflammatory "news" articles that paint their own spin on things and present the facts in an extremely biased way. I don't like being led by the nose; I'd rather be informed by the news, do my own digging, and reach my own conclusions.
I agree with Facebook on this one, as well as Oracle and host of others.
The way I read the legislation, it's intended to provide something akin to whistle-blower protection. If an ISP finds a user doing something illegal and reports them to police, they're protected from prosecution for turning over the evidence and/or laying the charges. It also explains why the provider participation is voluntary -- some providers like Facebook have people monitoring for abuse and illegal activity, but not all do, and by making it voluntary, the government and law enforcement can't force ISPs to start doing such policing.
This legislation does not set me off like SOPA did. It still needs some work and some loopholes need to be closed, but it's not an obvious ploy backed by the *AA like SOPA was.
Unlike private individuals who file complaints or charges, when a company does it, someone will sue, just on the off chance of a payout. This legislation explicitly makes such lawsuits null and void, enabling the providers to report on abusive and illegal users without fear of being stuck with a multi-year lawsuit as a result.
Note that the legislation doesn't make it very clear whether such evidence collected without a warrant can be used in a court case, or if it can only be used as evidence for obtaining a warrant. Hopefully it's the latter, because that's the one loophole I really, really don't like: the idea of providers doing the policing without oversight in an attempt to do an end-run around protections against unwarranted search and seizure.
Another loophole that needs to be clarified is that the report and charges could ONLY be filed with American authorities against American citizens and/or people/businesses operating on American soil. If this is another attempt to subjugate the world to US law, it needs to be shit-canned.
I know this is not the case in Canada. The RCMP can NOT refuse to let you file a complaint, though they may well warn you that it's unlikely to result in an investigation or criminal charges if that's their assessment of your complaint.
But Canadian authorities can not and will not outright REFUSE to let you file a complaint unless you're drunk and ignorant or clearly in need of mental health treatment. It's part and parcel of Charter of Rights legislation that demands equal and fair treatment from the law and from government.
Nor have I ever known anyone in the US who was similarly rejected when they filed a complaint. But I DO know of SEVERAL cases where the charges were dropped by the accuser after they "reconciled" with the stalking ex.
That's one big difference here in Canada. Once you file a complaint, it's in police hands. You can NOT drop the charges because you aren't LAYING the charges -- the police do.
Slashdot Mirror
Using Apache-licensed software from a GPLv3 code base is perfectly legal:
http://www.apache.org/licenses/GPL-compatibility.html
However, I would contend that a runtime is far more than a library, and it would seem that you can't include GPLv3 code into an Apache codebase, so the question is whether Google kept the license boundaries between the Java-sourced GPLv3 code and the Dalvik compiler/runtime. i.e. They were not allowed to incorporate pieces of the GPLv3 code into Dalvik itself. Recompiling the GPLv3 code with the Dalvik compiler would not violate the GPL, though, because the compiler is merely a tool and does not imply any license restrictions on the code it's used to compile.
Otherwise you could only use gcc to compile GPL code, which clearly is not the case in practice.
If he didn't mean they should negotiate a Java license with Sun, why did he say:
How you could possibly interpret that statement as meaning anything other than "we need to negotiate a license" is beyond me. I may not like Oracle's aggressiveness in pursuing the issue, but I can't read this email as being anything other than an acknowledgement that Google needs a license.
Now don't get me wrong. Google could have later used the GPL version of Java safely, but they didn't have that option back then. Plus there's the question of whether you're allowed to use pieces of a GPL piece of software, such as the Dalvik compiler and core runtime with a Dalvik-compiled copy of the Java code for it's libraries and packages.
I would contend that they're well within the GPL, provided that the Dalvik code was also released under the GPL. However, if the Dalvik core isn't under GPL, then they've got the issue of mixing GPL and non-GPL code to muddy the waters, and maybe that's the angle Oracle is playing.
On the flip side, most downloaded applications and games in the '80s were way under a megabyte in size. So although the modems were slow, it really didn't take more than a few hours to do a download.
So I call bullshit. I and most "bit heads" I knew downloaded software and games voraciously in our university days from the BBS systems of the day. What was different is that each of us would download something different, copy it to multiple floppies, and we'd each have a copy.
When the links are slow, you gotta go parallel. :D
If you are indeed being inundated with furniture ads, it would seem that the companies doing the advertising missed the point: to advertise and win your business before you bought your couch. After all, unless you're obscenely rich and compulsive about having new things, it's probably going to be a few years before you buy another one!
But I suspect it's more that now that you have a thing, you're noticing other people do, too. Back when I was a kid, my Dad had the car repainted a brownish-rust colour, because he thought it was rare/unusual. But as soon as he had the paint job done, suddenly he started seeing similarly coloured vehicles all over the place.
Did the other vehicles get repainted to spite him? No, he just hadn't paid attention before.
if they can't identify the videos, how are they supposed to count the video views?
*baffled*
Servers are more secure than desktops in the Linux arena primarily because there is no idiot user sitting in front of the keyboard to click "Ok" when malware tries to install itself. Also, servers aren't typically used for surfing and downloading, so the malware doesn't get a chance to try to install itself.
Only once since I started programming in the late '70s have I seen a machine that was infected without the intervention of a user disabling the anti-virus or installing pirated/downloaded software. Once.
If they can't even get the registration system working, how the hell do they expect the general population of DNS servers to deal with a flood of spurious TLDs?
The whole concept is bass-ackwards compared to the design of TLDs and should never have been approved in the first place.
"Distort" the truth? Hell, they just made up some numbers and went with that as the "reasoning" for their rant.
But as usual with Greenpeace, it's 99% bullshit believed by no one except the Greenpeace faithful.
And from what I see, the Greenpeace faithful do definitely qualify as a cult, complete with wingnut behaviour.
Why is this "insightful"? The only reason they're at the negotiation table is the judge in the case ORDERED them to talk. It doesn't indicate anything about a change of policy or mindset on behalf of either party.
Clearly anyone who tells the CEO something can't or shouldn't be done can't be doing so because of technical limitations, but simply because they don't share the CEO's brilliant business savvy.
</SARCASM>
Actually I am completely serious. The whole argument that Java is under copyright control for the SYNTAX of the language is so asinine that the ONLY reason I can see anyone positing the question to the courts is to get confirmation that it's NOT allowed. The odds of winning such an argument are so astronomically thin and go against history so dramatically that no one in their right mind, from lawyer to CEO, could think they have a chance of winning such a point.
Ergo, it has to be a "devil's advocate" argument.
Just to clarify: Although Java is technically free because it was released under the GPL, it's not free because in practice all the enhancements and changes to the core code and syntax come through the management and control of the consortium. So although you can make your own changes to the GPL code, I don't know of any way to get those changes upstream without going through the feature committees.
Java is a bit of a special animal. Sun conceived and promoted it as a community resource, but with a "branding" committee to ensure compatibility across deployments (one of THE primary goals of the Java ecosystem.)
I've never heard of anyone being charged for a Java runtime or compiler, so in the sense of beer, it's free.
But in terms of theoretical software freedom ala GPL? No, it's not free -- it's managed by the consortium.
I'm ok with that, even from the theoretical perspective. Because when the primary goal is portability, there has to be a steward of some sort to test compatibility and ensure portability.
That said, Oracle seems to be determined to try to seize the product line back as a proprietary thing, and I don't believe that's going to work. Even if they prove they have the necessary copyright/patent control in court, there are a lot of OTHER companies who contributed THEIR patents and copyrights to the Java framework, such as HP's patents on springs-and-struts layout managers that are used by the GUI framework.
Personally I believe Oracle is pushing the question of copyright on Java as a means of getting it clarified by the courts that languages are not copyrightable, rather than in any actual hope of winning such a claim. Because if they win such a claim, they're immediately subject to the copyrights of the C/C++ like syntax from which Java derives, and would effectively kill Java completely. Oracle and the rest of the consortium members won't want that, so it has to be a case of "we want to make sure no one ever tries to copyright a language again."
So the CBC is partially funded by tax payer dollars. And the BBC is funded by radio and television license fees. I'm not sure what Australia does, or other Commonwealth countries. But state/citizen/tax/license funded media has a long history.
How is this insightful?
Big, complex systems have big, complex code. It doesn't matter whether you use Java, COBOL, C#/.Net, C++, or a host of other languages. Sooner or later you have to map a bazillion communications formats and layouts into objects, manipulate them, and persist them. That takes code. That takes time. That takes complexity.
If you don't realize that yet, you haven't been programming long enough for enterprise systems.
If Dalvik is killed, there is always the option of porting the official Oracle produced Java stack to Android with little or no effort. Personally I think this is what Oracle is after -- they want royalties and for Android to pay for their Java branding, the same as IBM does with their stack and Websphere, or a host of other vendors that use Java.
Where this might be more of an issue is if Oracle continues to demand that only Java ME can be deployed to portable devices like Android. Now that would be short sighted of Oracle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oracle Java isn't open source.
Nor are the Oracle database, IBM DB/2 UDB, Sybase ASE, and a host of other products that get deployed on Linux stacks. That doesn't stop people from using them; to most potential customers (i.e. Smartphone vendors) having to pay an Oracle fee would just be a cost of doing business, the same as paying for the various wireless patents they use. And the odds are the expense wouldn't be onerous.
Sure there will be much crying and gnashing of teeth, but the vendors will pay rather than give up Android entirely. They have too much invested already.
You mean like any other internet services you locate and access via domain name?
I hate to break it to you, but the whole point of the internet at it's inception was publishing data and point-to-point communications. Concepts like peer-to-peer are relatively new, and the idea of generic data streams such as XML objects delivered over HTTPS links is radically new technology in internet terms.
Even the so called "web" was originally nothing more than a document and image delivery technology. Capabilities like sound, video, CSS, etc. are all relatively new when compared to the lifespan of the internet.
When people say the internet is "threatened" by anything other than rampant blocking and censorship, I just have to laugh. People coming up with new uses for the existing technology isn't a threat -- it's evolution. Its the way of things, and sometimes that means older technologies like the gopher protocol die.
It's entirely possible Apple and the rest of the "app" vendors are on to something, and I happen to be someone who believes they are. Browsers are too limiting in their functionality and too flaky in their performance to compare to a custom UI app written with the platform in mind that just happens to use something like SOAP over HTTPS to talk to the server instead of actual HTML.
And wouldn't you know it -- that's exactly the model I've been coding towards ever since I first parsed and XML document and realized just how powerful the concept was. Once XSDs came out, I was absolutely convinced it was the way forward for communications and user interfacing.
But rather than focus on one vendor's toolkits or one particular (and limited) technology like SOAP, I stick to the most basic of building blocks instead of relying on frameworks because I know from practical experience that it's a hell of a lot quicker and easier to adapt simple, basic code than it is to port a framework -- especially between languages and platforms.
Installable Java applications and web-delivered applets in the browser hit every platform out there except iOS. If there is one flaw in Apple's tactics, it's to ignore the ubiquity of Java as a non-traditional standard. Microsoft seems to be making the same mistake with their phone/tablet alternatives. The only one making a really smart move in this realm is Android -- and it shows in the overseas market share.
People who think Apple is going to dominate the 'net because of the iPhone and iPad are making a horrible mistake if they think a proprietary OS with only one vendor is ever going to achieve that kind of market dominance. Apple was first to "real" market (though not the first to create such technology), and they've played their hand remarkably well. But outside North America, Android is winning.
And if you think Java based application and applet stacks are a "threat" to the internet, let me just remind you once again of the core philosophy of Java in a distributed web-aware world:
The network is the computer.
If by "push for standards" you mean "lock in to proprietary iOS", then yes, Apples supports standards.
If you're talking about their recent retreat on IPv6 support, then no, Apple does not support standards.
Both Apple and Microsoft support standards when it suits their list of checklist customer requirements, and do their damndest to lock in their customer base once they've gotten sign-off on the initial deployment.
Hell, even companies like IBM, Oracle, Sybase, et. al. try to lock people and companies in with proprietary extensions to "standards" like JEE and SQL by providing unique add-ons their competitors don't have. It's the nature of business to try to keep your customers.
Some just play dirtier than others. And from what I see, Apple plays amongst the dirtiest of all, suing for "patent infringement" by competitors instead of negotiating patent agreements, while they try to lay claim to the most basic of user input metaphors that should never have been allowed to be patented in the first place.
I mean, seriously, what is so creative about using a finger gesture to unlock a phone or tablet? What is so mind-bogglingly complex about "stroke up" that it deserves a patent? What's next -- claiming that finger gestures are somehow inherently different than mouse gestures?
I better shut up now. I'm probably giving them ideas. :P
Actually, they are engaged in a criminal act: receipt of stolen property.
Not that AT&T is taking possession of the stolen property, but they are receiving service payments because of the stolen property.
To follow along with the car analogies, it's like someone using a stolen car to provide taxi services. While the driver is in possession of the stolen vehicle, the taxi company itself is also culpable because their business is profiting from the theft.
Actually, it's more like they all missed out on the events of Revelations and we're now in the phase where the devil rules the world and he's heating it up to comfy hell-like temperatures. :P
If you're going to take on an issue that strikes fear in the blood-pumps (not hearts) of multi-trillion dollar industries, they are going to spend some of those trillions trying to paint you a fool in the eyes of the public.
Anyone who thought it would be easy wasn't getting into the fight with their eyes open. All you have to do is look at the way medical cannabis is legal in many states, while the DEA continues to claim there is no medical use for cannabis to realize that going up against the status quo is, at best, "frustrating."
I took so long to post a comment on this thread because there was a lot of reading and digging to do before I was willing to comment. I've been burned by too many inflammatory "news" articles that paint their own spin on things and present the facts in an extremely biased way. I don't like being led by the nose; I'd rather be informed by the news, do my own digging, and reach my own conclusions.
I agree with Facebook on this one, as well as Oracle and host of others.
The way I read the legislation, it's intended to provide something akin to whistle-blower protection. If an ISP finds a user doing something illegal and reports them to police, they're protected from prosecution for turning over the evidence and/or laying the charges. It also explains why the provider participation is voluntary -- some providers like Facebook have people monitoring for abuse and illegal activity, but not all do, and by making it voluntary, the government and law enforcement can't force ISPs to start doing such policing.
This legislation does not set me off like SOPA did. It still needs some work and some loopholes need to be closed, but it's not an obvious ploy backed by the *AA like SOPA was.
Unlike private individuals who file complaints or charges, when a company does it, someone will sue, just on the off chance of a payout. This legislation explicitly makes such lawsuits null and void, enabling the providers to report on abusive and illegal users without fear of being stuck with a multi-year lawsuit as a result.
Note that the legislation doesn't make it very clear whether such evidence collected without a warrant can be used in a court case, or if it can only be used as evidence for obtaining a warrant. Hopefully it's the latter, because that's the one loophole I really, really don't like: the idea of providers doing the policing without oversight in an attempt to do an end-run around protections against unwarranted search and seizure.
Another loophole that needs to be clarified is that the report and charges could ONLY be filed with American authorities against American citizens and/or people/businesses operating on American soil. If this is another attempt to subjugate the world to US law, it needs to be shit-canned.
I know this is not the case in Canada. The RCMP can NOT refuse to let you file a complaint, though they may well warn you that it's unlikely to result in an investigation or criminal charges if that's their assessment of your complaint.
But Canadian authorities can not and will not outright REFUSE to let you file a complaint unless you're drunk and ignorant or clearly in need of mental health treatment. It's part and parcel of Charter of Rights legislation that demands equal and fair treatment from the law and from government.
Nor have I ever known anyone in the US who was similarly rejected when they filed a complaint. But I DO know of SEVERAL cases where the charges were dropped by the accuser after they "reconciled" with the stalking ex.
That's one big difference here in Canada. Once you file a complaint, it's in police hands. You can NOT drop the charges because you aren't LAYING the charges -- the police do.