the concept of "freedom of speech" is closely aligned with "making every file search as simple and stress-free as a Hamas hostage negotiation"
Well, does he value the simplicity of searching so much? He should have tried Spotlight in MacOS. ComparingVista to Linux re search is like comparing Hamas to Fatah re hostages.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/13/sonys-rootkit-infrin.html Close examination of the rootkit that Sony's audio CDs attack their customers' PCs with has revealed that their malicious software is built on code that infringes on copyright. Indications are that Sony has included the LAME music encoder, which is licensed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which requires that those who use it attribute the original software and publish some of the code they write to use the library. Sony has done none of this.
So, based on the proposed bill - how much of Sony would have been auctioned of I wonder...
Actually yes, playing WoW is so much more comfortable because of no the need to constantly remember where a CD now is - that I stopped buying CDs altogether...
fter just four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony, a jury found that Jammie Thomas was liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 24 the 24 recordings at issue in the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, after finding that the infringement was "willful," out of a possible total of $150,000 per song. The grand total? $222,000 in damages.
who do you trust for backwards compatibility in a year or two?
Well, not MS, for sure. Almost each time someone from outside the company sends me some stupid MS Visio file, I need to find "who has latest Visio?", ask him to convert to PDF and send back to me. Funny, but time consuming.
Should Apple reduce its price on any Apple-branded product within fourteen (14) calendar days of the date of purchase, you may request a refund of the difference between the price paid and the current selling price. An original purchase receipt is required, and you must request your refund within fourteen (14) calendar days of the price reduction.
Sun: First, Sun did not approach NetApps about licensing any of Sun's patents and never filed complaints against NetApps or demanded anything. NetApps first approached StorageTek behind the cover of a third party intermediary (yes, it sounds weird, doesn't it?) seeking to purchase STK patents. After Sun acquired STK, we were not willing to sell the patents, We've always been willing to license them. But instead of engaging in licensing discussions, NetApp decided to file a suit to invalidate them.... The rise of the open source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors.
NetApp: In January 2006, Sun renewed the discussions with NetApp, represented that it had "inherited StorageTek's disk virtualization patent portfolio," and continued to assert that NetApp infringes patents within this portfolio. These discussions continued into 2007, and at no time did Sun withdraw the accusation that NetApp infringes the `639, `667, and `185 patents.
Sun guy contradicts himself. "Never demanded anything" and "always been willing to license" do not fit together. Licensing means demanding fee. NetApp says they do not use technology covered in Sun patents, still Sun is "always willing to license" it.
NetApp's words are from "establishing controversy" part of the claim. There are also more dates and email cited in the PDF. If NetApp is lying, then no actual controversy exists between the parties and non-infrigment claims should be dismissed I guess. That's why I think they are true. Anyway, we'll see. Current Sun's words are just slogans mostly. Let's see what they'll say in response to the court.
BigCo wants your money, but also access to your patents, so the cross-licensing negotiation begins. You try to identify patents that cover their products, and they try to identify patents that cover yours. In the end, you balance how much of your revenue their patents cover, and how much of their revenue your patents cover. The little guy usually loses. Ironically, patents on your super-special technology often don't cover any of BigCo's products, so "miscellaneous" patents may be more important than the ones you thought were so valuable. BigCo has so many patents that it's hard to examine them all, so they will do a statistical analysis showing how many patents they have that might apply to you. Why not save the lawyers fees and just assume that some percentage does apply? (NetApp was in a cross-licensing negotiation with a large semiconductor company, and since we don't design or manufacture chips, we got them to remove those patents from their analysis.)
Don't patents ever protect your good ideas?! In theory, they should, but in practice it doesn't usually work that way. Suppose your small company wants to protect its ideas against a big company. Filing suit will accelerate the cross-licensing negotiation, and you'll probably end up paying. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Patent battles between small companies work poorly because they are so expensive and take so long. Better to fight it out in the marketplace. Big companies suing small companies have a harder time than you'd imagine, because the courts recognize that an incorrect decision, especially against a startup, can cause irreversible damage. Courts are reluctant to impose injunctions, even if the patents really do apply. In the case of two big companies, both almost always violate each other's patents, so they end up cross licensing. (I'm not saying that patents never help to protect good ideas. If someone steals your patented idea, it's perfectly reasonable to go after them. I'm just saying that it seldom works out as well as you might hope.)
I know that some people are so frustrated with the patent system that they want nothing to do with it. The problem is, there's no good way to opt-out.
This morning, NetApp filed an IP (intellectual property) lawsuit against Sun. It has two parts. The first is a "declaratory judgment", asking the court to decide whether we infringe a set of patents that Sun claims we do. The second says that Sun infringes several of our patents with its ZFS technology.
How did we get here?
Like many large technology companies, Sun has been using its patent portfolio as a profit center. About 18 months ago, Sun's lawyers contacted NetApp with a list of patents they say we infringe, and requested that we pay them lots of money. We responded in two ways. First, we closely examined their list of patents. Second, we identified the patents in our portfolio that we believe Sun infringes.
With respect to Sun's patent claims, our lawsuit explains that we do not infringe, and - in fact - that they are not even valid. As a result, we don't think we should be paying Sun millions of dollars.
On the flip side, our suit points out that Sun's ZFS appears to infringe several of NetApp's WAFL patents. It looks like ZFS was a conscious reimplementation of our WAFL filesystem, with little regard to intellectual property rights. Here's what creators of ZFS have to say: "The file system that has come closest to our design principles, other than ZFS itself, is WAFL... the first commercial file system to use the copy-on-write tree of blocks approach to file system consistency." One of the first patents I filed at NetApp describes this "copy-on-write tree of blocks" technique in detail.
We filed suit against Sun because after we pointed out the WAFL patents, their lawyers stopped getting back to us. The first part of our suit is a declaratory judgment. It's complicated, but the basic idea is that Sun claims we infringe their patents, so we are requesting a trial to show that's not true. In essence, a declaratory judgment calls their bluff. It allows us to force a legal conclusion, rather than leaving this threat hanging over our heads. The second part is a complaint against Sun for infringing several WAFL patents with ZFS.
I have not seen a talk by Mark, but I've seen Microsoft's modus of operandi. There will be a conflict between MS and an honest MS employee, sooner or later. How it will be resolved -- this is another question...
This is 2006 article. But I definetely feel uncomfortable seeing so much laptops on each flight I take. Doubt that laptops will be banned though - what such a move would do to business travelers?
The unfortunate consequence is being unable to know whether a part relates or not to another part makes it impossible to know, when you delete a part, if you are going to corrupt the document or not.
If this is not a proof of a defective design, then what defective design is?
One more case: Red Hat vs SCO
on
SCO Loses
·
· Score: 1
There is also a case that Red Hat has brought against SCO. It was put on hold pending IBM outcome, but it is still there, SCO has some more answers to produce...
Well, I agree with you almost on everything. For mere $50 Microsoft has bought itself a huge and nice dirty and lasting PR campaign. But MS lost my business as a result. That (SCO saga) was just a last straw, but still.
But yes, my business has gone to Apple, not to Linux... On the other hand, the company I work for started to support (as in making products for) Linux as a platform. And it is a very conservative company, it was Solaris and Windows only for 10 years or so...
Darl knew perfectly well SCO has no copyrights
on
SCO Loses
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Judge sums it up as follows:
On January 4, 2003, McBride received an email from Michael Anderer, a consultant for SCO retained to examine its intellectual property. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 12. Anderer stated that the APA "transferred substantially less" of Novell's intellectual property than Novell owned. Anderer noted that Santa Cruz's "asset purchase" from Novell "excludes all patents, copyrights, and just about everything else." Id. Anderer cautioned that "[w]e really need to be clear on what we can license. It may be a lot less than we think."
On February 4, 2003, McBride contacted Christopher Stone, Vice Chairman of Novell, and stated that he wanted Novell to "amend" the APA to give SCO "the copyrights to UNIX." Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17; id. Ex. 18 ("Stone Dep." at 108-09). Then, on February 25, 2003, McBride twice called a Novell employee in business development, David Wright, and said, "SCO needs the copyrights." Wright passed on McBride's request to Novell's in-house legal department. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 13. McBride's request was memorialized in an email written that day by a Novell in-house attorney, Greg Jones. Id.
Also early in 2003, McBride and Chris Sontag of SCO contacted Greg Jones regarding the UNIX copyrights. Id. Ex. 8 ("Decl. Greg Jones") at 13, 14; Decl. Christopher S. Sontag 6. McBride stated that "the asset purchase agreement excluded copyrights from being transferred" and that it was a "clerical error." Jones Dep. at 182. On February 20, 2003, Chris Sontag also sent a draft letter to Novell that sought to clarify the parties' rights under the APA. Decl. Christopher S. Sontag Ex.
Again in March 2003, McBride called Stone to ask him if Novell would "give him some changes so he could have the copyrights." Christopher Stone Dep. at 248-49. Ralph Yarro, Chairman of SCO, requested an in-person meeting with Stone. In that meeting, on May 14, 2003, Yarro told Stone that he wanted Novell to amend the APA to give SCO the copyrights. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17 at 4; Stone Dep. at 137-8. Stone refused. Id. On May 19, 2003, McBride called Stone and Joe LaSala, Novell's General Counsel, and again requested that Novell convey the copyrights to SCO. McBride said, "we only need you to amend the contract so that we can have the copyrights." Stone Dep. 249-250. Stone made notes in June 2003 memorializing both conversations. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17. E. SCOsource Initiative
In approximately this same time frame, in January 2003, SCO launched its SCOsource initiative, which was an effort to obtain license fees from Linux users based on claims to Unix System V intellectual property. McBride commented that "SCO owns much of the core UNIX intellectual property, and has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights."
People buy SCO stock certificates for keepsakes.
on
SCO Loses
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· Score: 1
20 seconds recording is fair use. That means "this thing" belongs to the girl, not to the theater. Even 7/11 probably does not say "All items that you carry inside our shop we consider ours, we are just too lazy to distinguish between yours and ours items. Anything found in your pocket - you will be prosecuted. Do not worry though: no case - no trial. Most probably.". How long will it take 7/11 to go out of business with such a policy?
Why should the theater owner be responsible for policing patrons who are clearly violating the law? Is it his job to seize the camera and examine the recording to make sure it complies with copyright laws? Should they have to do this for everyone in a 2100 person auditorium who decides to whip out a cell phone with a camera and snap shots of the screen?
What you are actually saying - they want to take my money and do not want to do any extra brain or leg work for it. Good. Pretty reasonable. They even managed to get the laws passed that are most convinient to *them*. I feel really happy for my brothers.
But what I do not undestand still is - why should I give them my money on *these* conditions? My sister got attacked like this - I'm not getting my kids to those Transformers. Or this "not responsible for anything" theater. They have no obligation to treat patrons like a human beings? Good. Now explain me why I should be a patron. If they see empty showrooms starting immediately - how long would it take them to find a means to distinguish between pirates and fair use? A day?
I am not so much interested in the letter of the law in this case (sure MPAA has bought enough congresspeople to have all the laws they like). What I am interested in: how can they *dare* to use it in a case like discussed, against their own paying customers?
If my sister was attacked like this, law or no law, I would never visit this theater myself again and would never take my kids to see those Transformers. No DVDs either. And if each of us remembered that we are all children of the same Father, these guys would have seen empty show rooms starting immediately. How long would it have taken them to find a means distinguish between pirates with camcoders and customers with camcoders in that case? A day?
The theater and others involved can't guess intent. Sure, they had the "discretion" to not do anything, but why is that in their lap? How are they to decide who's going to upload movies and who is "recording a 20 second clip to get their little brother excited"? The only alternative is to make it all legal, and that doesn't make any sense either.
Question is - why I should care? 20 second clip to show to a little brother is (or "was"? should be, anyway) perfectly legal "fair use". You do not want to have a discretion? Good. But if you've pulled me out in the middle of the show because you are lazy to make a discretion - I want my ticket fee back and I want a compensation of the time I've spent watching your show according to my hourly rate. They want to be lazy - fine with me. Just let *them* pay for consequences.
if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Probably not true, but first of all - how do you know if you have anything to hide? To state this you should:
1. Know all the facts of your own life. Are you sure this girl was 21?
2. Know the law in the books. How many infractions are codified in your state's Vehicle Code? Check please. See what I mean?
3. Know clarifications given by precedents to the law in the book. These change daily.
4. Know how 1, 2 and 3 will be decided by a court in your case.
1, 2 and 3 are impossible in practice. 4 is impossible even in theory. Court decisions are not deterministic. There is always a probability that you will be found guilty, even if you feel "you have nothing to hide". More data is collected about you - the higher is this probability... And it grows exponentially as a function of amount of data. Simple mathematics.
Slashdot Mirror
the concept of "freedom of speech" is closely aligned with "making every file search as simple and stress-free as a Hamas hostage negotiation"
Well, does he value the simplicity of searching so much? He should have tried Spotlight in MacOS. ComparingVista to Linux re search is like comparing Hamas to Fatah re hostages.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/13/sonys-rootkit-infrin.html
Close examination of the rootkit that Sony's audio CDs attack their customers' PCs with has revealed that their malicious software is built on code that infringes on copyright. Indications are that Sony has included the LAME music encoder, which is licensed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which requires that those who use it attribute the original software and publish some of the code they write to use the library. Sony has done none of this.
So, based on the proposed bill - how much of Sony would have been auctioned of I wonder...
"If someone was on hold for a long time and hung up, please send me a message with the Incident Number and I'll track down what happened. Thanks.
I am forwarding incident numbers directly to our senior level SecuROM support people, so there should not be any issues they cannot handle."
Actually yes, playing WoW is so much more comfortable because of no the need to constantly remember where a CD now is - that I stopped buying CDs altogether...
you might as well just opt for the classic black bar to begin with.
Black bars are so passe. Bluring/pixelating is better. Just don't blur your own face. Take your sheriff's photo and blur it all you like...
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071004-verdict-is-in.html
fter just four hours of deliberation and two days of testimony, a jury found that Jammie Thomas was liable for infringing the record labels' copyrights on all 24 the 24 recordings at issue in the case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded $9,250 in statutory damages per song, after finding that the infringement was "willful," out of a possible total of $150,000 per song. The grand total? $222,000 in damages.
who do you trust for backwards compatibility in a year or two?
Well, not MS, for sure. Almost each time someone from outside the company sends me some stupid MS Visio file, I need to find "who has latest Visio?", ask him to convert to PDF and send back to me. Funny, but time consuming.
http://www.apple.com/legal/sales_policies/retail_u s.html
Should Apple reduce its price on any Apple-branded product within fourteen (14) calendar days of the date of purchase, you may request a refund of the difference between the price paid and the current selling price. An original purchase receipt is required, and you must request your refund within fourteen (14) calendar days of the price reduction.
Sun: First, Sun did not approach NetApps about licensing any of Sun's patents and never filed complaints against NetApps or demanded anything. ... The rise of the open source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors.
NetApps first approached StorageTek behind the cover of a third party intermediary (yes, it sounds weird, doesn't it?) seeking to purchase STK patents. After Sun acquired STK, we were not willing to sell the patents, We've always been willing to license them. But instead of engaging in licensing discussions, NetApp decided to file a suit to invalidate them.
NetApp: In January 2006, Sun renewed the discussions with NetApp, represented that it had
"inherited StorageTek's disk virtualization patent portfolio," and continued to assert that
NetApp infringes patents within this portfolio. These discussions continued into 2007,
and at no time did Sun withdraw the accusation that NetApp infringes the `639, `667, and
`185 patents.
Sun guy contradicts himself. "Never demanded anything" and "always been willing to license" do not fit together. Licensing means demanding fee. NetApp says they do not use technology covered in Sun patents, still Sun is "always willing to license" it.
NetApp's words are from "establishing controversy" part of the claim. There are also more dates and email cited in the PDF. If NetApp is lying, then no actual controversy exists between the parties and non-infrigment claims should be dismissed I guess. That's why I think they are true. Anyway, we'll see. Current Sun's words are just slogans mostly. Let's see what they'll say in response to the court.
Yes, cross-licensing fees: your money plus access to your patent portfolio.
n t_.html
http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/06/how_the_pate
BigCo wants your money, but also access to your patents, so the cross-licensing negotiation begins. You try to identify patents that cover their products, and they try to identify patents that cover yours. In the end, you balance how much of your revenue their patents cover, and how much of their revenue your patents cover. The little guy usually loses. Ironically, patents on your super-special technology often don't cover any of BigCo's products, so "miscellaneous" patents may be more important than the ones you thought were so valuable. BigCo has so many patents that it's hard to examine them all, so they will do a statistical analysis showing how many patents they have that might apply to you. Why not save the lawyers fees and just assume that some percentage does apply? (NetApp was in a cross-licensing negotiation with a large semiconductor company, and since we don't design or manufacture chips, we got them to remove those patents from their analysis.)
Again, from NetApp's boss blog: http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/06/how_the_paten t_.html (I really like this guy, having read 2 articles):
Don't patents ever protect your good ideas?! In theory, they should, but in practice it doesn't usually work that way. Suppose your small company wants to protect its ideas against a big company. Filing suit will accelerate the cross-licensing negotiation, and you'll probably end up paying. Better to let sleeping dogs lie. Patent battles between small companies work poorly because they are so expensive and take so long. Better to fight it out in the marketplace. Big companies suing small companies have a harder time than you'd imagine, because the courts recognize that an incorrect decision, especially against a startup, can cause irreversible damage. Courts are reluctant to impose injunctions, even if the patents really do apply. In the case of two big companies, both almost always violate each other's patents, so they end up cross licensing. (I'm not saying that patents never help to protect good ideas. If someone steals your patented idea, it's perfectly reasonable to go after them. I'm just saying that it seldom works out as well as you might hope.)
I know that some people are so frustrated with the patent system that they want nothing to do with it. The problem is, there's no good way to opt-out.
Here is the original complaint (PDF): http://www.netapp.com/go/ipsuit/spider-complaint.p df .
... the first commercial file system to use the copy-on-write tree of blocks approach to file system consistency." One of the first patents I filed at NetApp describes this "copy-on-write tree of blocks" technique in detail.
And here is NetApp's boss blog: http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/ (quoted below):
This morning, NetApp filed an IP (intellectual property) lawsuit against Sun. It has two parts. The first is a "declaratory judgment", asking the court to decide whether we infringe a set of patents that Sun claims we do. The second says that Sun infringes several of our patents with its ZFS technology.
How did we get here?
Like many large technology companies, Sun has been using its patent portfolio as a profit center. About 18 months ago, Sun's lawyers contacted NetApp with a list of patents they say we infringe, and requested that we pay them lots of money. We responded in two ways. First, we closely examined their list of patents. Second, we identified the patents in our portfolio that we believe Sun infringes.
With respect to Sun's patent claims, our lawsuit explains that we do not infringe, and - in fact - that they are not even valid. As a result, we don't think we should be paying Sun millions of dollars.
On the flip side, our suit points out that Sun's ZFS appears to infringe several of NetApp's WAFL patents. It looks like ZFS was a conscious reimplementation of our WAFL filesystem, with little regard to intellectual property rights. Here's what creators of ZFS have to say: "The file system that has come closest to our design principles, other than ZFS itself, is WAFL
We filed suit against Sun because after we pointed out the WAFL patents, their lawyers stopped getting back to us. The first part of our suit is a declaratory judgment. It's complicated, but the basic idea is that Sun claims we infringe their patents, so we are requesting a trial to show that's not true. In essence, a declaratory judgment calls their bluff. It allows us to force a legal conclusion, rather than leaving this threat hanging over our heads. The second part is a complaint against Sun for infringing several WAFL patents with ZFS.
I have not seen a talk by Mark, but I've seen Microsoft's modus of operandi. There will be a conflict between MS and an honest MS employee, sooner or later. How it will be resolved -- this is another question...
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/03/airl ines_batteries.html
Federal reports indicate at least nine fires involving lithium batteries have happened on airplanes or in cargo destined for planes since 2005.
Oh, well...
This is 2006 article. But I definetely feel uncomfortable seeing so much laptops on each flight I take. Doubt that laptops will be banned though - what such a move would do to business travelers?
From the article:
The unfortunate consequence is being unable to know whether a part relates or not to another part makes it impossible to know, when you delete a part, if you are going to corrupt the document or not.
If this is not a proof of a defective design, then what defective design is?
There is also a case that Red Hat has brought against SCO. It was put on hold pending IBM outcome, but it is still there, SCO has some more answers to produce...
Well, I agree with you almost on everything. For mere $50 Microsoft has bought itself a huge and nice dirty and lasting PR campaign. But MS lost my business as a result. That (SCO saga) was just a last straw, but still.
But yes, my business has gone to Apple, not to Linux... On the other hand, the company I work for started to support (as in making products for) Linux as a platform. And it is a very conservative company, it was Solaris and Windows only for 10 years or so...
Judge sums it up as follows:
On January 4, 2003, McBride received an email from Michael Anderer, a consultant for SCO retained to examine its intellectual property. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 12. Anderer stated that the APA "transferred substantially less" of Novell's intellectual property than Novell owned. Anderer noted that Santa Cruz's "asset purchase" from Novell "excludes all patents, copyrights, and just about everything else." Id. Anderer cautioned that "[w]e really need to be clear on what we can license. It may be a lot less than we think."
On February 4, 2003, McBride contacted Christopher Stone, Vice Chairman of Novell, and stated that he wanted Novell to "amend" the APA to give SCO "the copyrights to UNIX." Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17; id. Ex. 18 ("Stone Dep." at 108-09). Then, on February 25, 2003, McBride twice called a Novell employee in business development, David Wright, and said, "SCO needs the copyrights." Wright passed on McBride's request to Novell's in-house legal department. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 13. McBride's request was memorialized in an email written that day by a Novell in-house attorney, Greg Jones. Id.
Also early in 2003, McBride and Chris Sontag of SCO contacted Greg Jones regarding the UNIX copyrights. Id. Ex. 8 ("Decl. Greg Jones") at 13, 14; Decl. Christopher S. Sontag 6. McBride stated that "the asset purchase agreement excluded copyrights from being transferred" and that it was a "clerical error." Jones Dep. at 182. On February 20, 2003, Chris Sontag also sent a draft letter to Novell that sought to clarify the parties' rights under the APA. Decl. Christopher S. Sontag Ex.
Again in March 2003, McBride called Stone to ask him if Novell would "give him some changes so he could have the copyrights." Christopher Stone Dep. at 248-49. Ralph Yarro, Chairman of SCO, requested an in-person meeting with Stone. In that meeting, on May 14, 2003, Yarro told Stone that he wanted Novell to amend the APA to give SCO the copyrights. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17 at 4; Stone Dep. at 137-8. Stone refused. Id. On May 19, 2003, McBride called Stone and Joe LaSala, Novell's General Counsel, and again requested that Novell convey the copyrights to SCO. McBride said, "we only need you to amend the contract so that we can have the copyrights." Stone Dep. 249-250. Stone made notes in June 2003 memorializing both conversations. Supp. Brakebill Decl. Ex. 17. E. SCOsource Initiative
In approximately this same time frame, in January 2003, SCO launched its SCOsource initiative, which was an effort to obtain license fees from Linux users based on claims to Unix System V intellectual property. McBride commented that "SCO owns much of the core UNIX intellectual property, and has full rights to license this technology and enforce the associated patents and copyrights."
Hurry!
20 seconds recording is fair use. That means "this thing" belongs to the girl, not to the theater. Even 7/11 probably does not say "All items that you carry inside our shop we consider ours, we are just too lazy to distinguish between yours and ours items. Anything found in your pocket - you will be prosecuted. Do not worry though: no case - no trial. Most probably.". How long will it take 7/11 to go out of business with such a policy?
Why should the theater owner be responsible for policing patrons who are clearly violating the law? Is it his job to seize the camera and examine the recording to make sure it complies with copyright laws? Should they have to do this for everyone in a 2100 person auditorium who decides to whip out a cell phone with a camera and snap shots of the screen?
What you are actually saying - they want to take my money and do not want to do any extra brain or leg work for it. Good. Pretty reasonable. They even managed to get the laws passed that are most convinient to *them*. I feel really happy for my brothers.
But what I do not undestand still is - why should I give them my money on *these* conditions? My sister got attacked like this - I'm not getting my kids to those Transformers. Or this "not responsible for anything" theater. They have no obligation to treat patrons like a human beings? Good. Now explain me why I should be a patron. If they see empty showrooms starting immediately - how long would it take them to find a means to distinguish between pirates and fair use? A day?
I am not so much interested in the letter of the law in this case (sure MPAA has bought enough congresspeople to have all the laws they like). What I am interested in: how can they *dare* to use it in a case like discussed, against their own paying customers?
If my sister was attacked like this, law or no law, I would never visit this theater myself again and would never take my kids to see those Transformers. No DVDs either. And if each of us remembered that we are all children of the same Father, these guys would have seen empty show rooms starting immediately. How long would it have taken them to find a means distinguish between pirates with camcoders and customers with camcoders in that case? A day?
Question is - why I should care? 20 second clip to show to a little brother is (or "was"? should be, anyway) perfectly legal "fair use". You do not want to have a discretion? Good. But if you've pulled me out in the middle of the show because you are lazy to make a discretion - I want my ticket fee back and I want a compensation of the time I've spent watching your show according to my hourly rate. They want to be lazy - fine with me. Just let *them* pay for consequences.
Probably not true, but first of all - how do you know if you have anything to hide? To state this you should:
1. Know all the facts of your own life. Are you sure this girl was 21?
2. Know the law in the books. How many infractions are codified in your state's Vehicle Code? Check please. See what I mean?
3. Know clarifications given by precedents to the law in the book. These change daily.
4. Know how 1, 2 and 3 will be decided by a court in your case.
1, 2 and 3 are impossible in practice. 4 is impossible even in theory. Court decisions are not deterministic. There is always a probability that you will be found guilty, even if you feel "you have nothing to hide". More data is collected about you - the higher is this probability... And it grows exponentially as a function of amount of data. Simple mathematics.