He may have been a kid when he wrote it, but he sure as hell caused adult sized damage. If you're smart enough to write something like the Blaster worm, you're smart enough to understand the harm it will cause, no matter how young you are.
How many dollars of damage did he cause? How much prison time would somebody who stole that much get? Hell, a member of DrinkOrDie got 41 month (three years and change). That's for just putting software on the Internet! This jerk gets about half that for deliberately causing harm! I hope the idiot judge gets every computer virus known to man.
Do you think the MPAA and RIAA should stand idly by and not care when people download and enjoy (or hate) for free all of their products?
No, I don't think that. I do think that the potential damages and settlement amounts are vastly disproportionate to the gravity of the offence. This is the Internet equivilent of a speeding ticket, the damages should be at that level.
Taxpayer funded information should be freely avaiable to every citizen. We have paid for this information with our taxes. We should not have to pay twice.
A court has acted to limit the powers of government. The government has one job, and one only-ensuring that nobody's person or property is harmed without their consent.
Robot war machines let democracies exersize their will without actually having to dirty yourself with the experience of war.
Whether or not thats a good thing, I don't know.
As a young man of draft age (20) I say anything that decreases the chances of me going into combat is a good thing.
Even the crashing of a plane into the Pentagon was not a terrorist act, since the point was to attack a military target. The victims families might not like it applied to their family members, but those civilians killed on the plane were what is termed "collateral damage" in what was a military attack by definition.
Even if we use your defination of terrorism, wouldn't the fact that the plane was a civilian plane make crashing it terrorism? Civilian hostages were taken.
Also, maybe it's just me, but doesn't 40 GB or 80 GB seem awfully small for the storage of feature-length HD video? We're talking what, 10-20 movies at best?
If the MPAA gets its way, you'll be renting these movies, not buying them.
If Apple really does tie the Mac Mini to online movies, how long do you really think it will take before a)Dell, Gateway, et al sell tiny PCs and b)Walmart et al offer Microsoft DRMed movies for download? Apple may become the major player set-top/computer market, like it is in the MP3 player market, but it won't be the only player by any stretch of the imagination.
In other words, even though he didn't have to enact number portability and increased spectrum usage, he did because it would be good for citizens. Sounds pretty good to me!
Those things are nice, and I'd like an FCC chairman who enacted them and respected the Constitution, but I'd rather have someone who respected the Constitution than Powell, even if that someone didn't do those things.
I can't believe this got 4 stars-about a B. From the article: The shuffle's value is interesting. Though the $99 price for the 512MB player ($149 for 1GB) is low, it isn't unique. For example, the 512MB SanDisk Digital Audio Player can be found for $99 and has a functional navigation window, voice recording, and FM radio. Of course, it isn't as tiny, light, or sleek as the iPod shuffle. So if you want a low-cost player that stores just hundreds (as opposed to thousands) of songs and don't need to see what's playing, the iPod shuffle is a very good choice.
How many people look real close at someone else's MP3 player? I think functionality matters more than aesthetics. If you can pay the same price, and get a player with more features, why wouldn't you? To me, the highest the iPod Shuffle can go is 3 stars (a C) due to the sheer lack of value. Looks like Apple's Reality Disortion Field is at work...
What they did was wrong, and whether or not you personally were offended isn't the point.
You're right, whether or not I or anyone else was offended isn't the point. The point is whether or not the Consitution give the federal government the power to regulate television content, when said content isn't liableous or slanderous. It doesn't, and there is a part of the Constitution that could be taken to forbid such regulation.
Freedom of speech is in the Constitution, cellphone number portability, do not call list, and WiFi are not. I think it's better to have officials who respect the Constitution than officials who do what's popular.
You do realize that comparing the maximum possible sentence for one crime to the sentence actually meeted out in a specific instance of a different crime is truly an apples-to-oranges comparison, right?
Now, if you were comparing maximum sentences for different types of crimes, or were comparing the sentence of the average copyright infringer to that of the average rapist, you might be on your way to a point. However, just because some lawyer somewhere once got his guilty client a light sentence doesn't mean that suddenly all sentences everywhere must be reduced or else the system as a whole is unsupportably unfair.
(The system may in fact be incredibly unfair, but you need more than one second-hand anecdote about a completely different crime)
Actually, I think prison for any nonviolent crime is incredibly unfair, unless we institute some serious prison reform. As it stands now, prison is a violent place, and only violent people deserve to go there. It is a place where rape is a commonplace occurence, ignored by the authorities. Only the absolute dregs of society deserve to be put in that environment, certainly not copyright infringers, or tax cheats, or people like that.
If not, these guys are idiots. If they don't get any consideration for pleading guilty, they should at least try to fight. Who knows, they might get jury nullification.
These guys could get 5 years?! My Corrections professors told the class about somebody who got 1-2 years for date rape. Under what system of morality is copyright infringement worse than drugging somebody and raping them?
More nonviolent "criminals" in jail. Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people should be put in an environment in which they will get beaten up, raped, and, when they get out, will be unable to get a job that involves either asking "Do you want frys with that?" prositution selling drugs.
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He may have been a kid when he wrote it, but he sure as hell caused adult sized damage. If you're smart enough to write something like the Blaster worm, you're smart enough to understand the harm it will cause, no matter how young you are.
I can't agree with that. People are individuals. They should only be punished for wrongs they individualy commit
How many dollars of damage did he cause? How much prison time would somebody who stole that much get? Hell, a member of DrinkOrDie got 41 month (three years and change). That's for just putting software on the Internet! This jerk gets about half that for deliberately causing harm! I hope the idiot judge gets every computer virus known to man.
No, I don't think that. I do think that the potential damages and settlement amounts are vastly disproportionate to the gravity of the offence. This is the Internet equivilent of a speeding ticket, the damages should be at that level.
Taxpayer funded information should be freely avaiable to every citizen. We have paid for this information with our taxes. We should not have to pay twice.
How high were the prices? They must have been really high if Sony got sued in Japan. Suing isn't very common there.
Now let's see if they learn from it.
A court has acted to limit the powers of government. The government has one job, and one only-ensuring that nobody's person or property is harmed without their consent.
As a young man of draft age (20) I say anything that decreases the chances of me going into combat is a good thing.
Even if we use your defination of terrorism, wouldn't the fact that the plane was a civilian plane make crashing it terrorism? Civilian hostages were taken.
The first time that Chinese haven't just pirated what they couldn't afford. ;-)
If the MPAA gets its way, you'll be renting these movies, not buying them.
If Apple really does tie the Mac Mini to online movies, how long do you really think it will take before
a)Dell, Gateway, et al sell tiny PCs
and
b)Walmart et al offer Microsoft DRMed movies for download?
Apple may become the major player set-top/computer market, like it is in the MP3 player market, but it won't be the only player by any stretch of the imagination.
Those things are nice, and I'd like an FCC chairman who enacted them and respected the Constitution, but I'd rather have someone who respected the Constitution than Powell, even if that someone didn't do those things.
From the article:
The shuffle's value is interesting. Though the $99 price for the 512MB player ($149 for 1GB) is low, it isn't unique. For example, the 512MB SanDisk Digital Audio Player can be found for $99 and has a functional navigation window, voice recording, and FM radio. Of course, it isn't as tiny, light, or sleek as the iPod shuffle. So if you want a low-cost player that stores just hundreds (as opposed to thousands) of songs and don't need to see what's playing, the iPod shuffle is a very good choice.
How many people look real close at someone else's MP3 player? I think functionality matters more than aesthetics. If you can pay the same price, and get a player with more features, why wouldn't you? To me, the highest the iPod Shuffle can go is 3 stars (a C) due to the sheer lack of value. Looks like Apple's Reality Disortion Field is at work...
You're right, whether or not I or anyone else was offended isn't the point. The point is whether or not the Consitution give the federal government the power to regulate television content, when said content isn't liableous or slanderous. It doesn't, and there is a part of the Constitution that could be taken to forbid such regulation.
Freedom of speech is in the Constitution, cellphone number portability, do not call list, and WiFi are not. I think it's better to have officials who respect the Constitution than officials who do what's popular.
Oh, well. Boring existance is better than nonexistance.
They could go with the public defender. A slim chance is better than no chance.
Sorry, I forgot to attribute-the post I was replying to is here, by fizbin.
Now, if you were comparing maximum sentences for different types of crimes, or were comparing the sentence of the average copyright infringer to that of the average rapist, you might be on your way to a point. However, just because some lawyer somewhere once got his guilty client a light sentence doesn't mean that suddenly all sentences everywhere must be reduced or else the system as a whole is unsupportably unfair.
(The system may in fact be incredibly unfair, but you need more than one second-hand anecdote about a completely different crime)
Actually, I think prison for any nonviolent crime is incredibly unfair, unless we institute some serious prison reform. As it stands now, prison is a violent place, and only violent people deserve to go there. It is a place where rape is a commonplace occurence, ignored by the authorities. Only the absolute dregs of society deserve to be put in that environment, certainly not copyright infringers, or tax cheats, or people like that.
If not, these guys are idiots. If they don't get any consideration for pleading guilty, they should at least try to fight. Who knows, they might get jury nullification.
These guys could get 5 years?!
My Corrections professors told the class about somebody who got 1-2 years for date rape. Under what system of morality is copyright infringement worse than drugging somebody and raping them?
Wanna bet?
More nonviolent "criminals" in jail.
Hey, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people should be put in an environment in which they will get beaten up, raped, and, when they get out, will be unable to get a job that involves either
asking "Do you want frys with that?"
prositution
selling drugs.