I repeat my post from the previous posting of this story because the other story never made it to the front page:
Defamation has two absolute defenses. Both of them can be determined without knowing the identity of the anonymous posters.
The judge absolutely should have respected the anonymity of the individuals until the two absolute defenses were exhausted.
If the statements were TRUE or if the statements were not statements of fact, but of opinion, no defamation took place. The speakers should remain anonymous until they are absultely needed to stand behind their actions. The judge does not need the defendents' identities to judge the authenticity of these defenses as long as they are proffering them (through the ACLU). They are questions of fact that judges determine every hour of every day, and the identities of the accused have no bearing on the outcome.
This talk about getting people on the internet to "think about what they say" is code for silencing whistleblowers and people that speak about corporations and their leaders in unflattering, but nondefamatory and fully legal ways. Precedent continuing in this fashion will absolutely chill free speech and is unconstitutional
Defamation has two absolute defenses. Both of them can be determined without knowing the identity of the anonymous posters.
The judge absolutely should have respected the anonymity of the individuals until the two absolute defenses were exhausted.
If the statements were TRUE or if the statements were not statements of fact, but of opinion, no defamation took place. The speakers should remain anonymous until they are absultely needed to stand behind their actions. The judge does not need the defendents' identities to judge the authenticity of these defenses as long as they are proffering them (through the ACLU). They are questions of fact that judges determine every hour of every day, and the identities of the accused have no bearing on the outcome.
This talk about getting people on the internet to "think about what they say" is code for silencing whistleblowers and people that speak about corporations and their leaders in unflattering, but nondefamatory and fully legal ways.
I regret to inform any new Slashdot readers that the comments period at the Library of Congress has been well expired. They had public hearings regarding those comments in May, and even the post-hearing-comment-rebuttal-comment window has passed.
All that's left to do now is wait. Virtually all the scheduled opportunities for public comment (read: your rare chance to not be ignored) have passed, as most slashdot readers probably know.
What this thread should provide an opportunity for Slashdot readers to do, is organize and take action should the LOC rule in Big Copyright's favor. We have until October 28th to prepare, and once the ruling comes down, anyone interested in the enrichment of the public domain and the rights to fair use of copyrighted material needs to be ready to stage an information campaign the likes of which has never been seen.
Prepare fliers and protests. Get ordinary people's attention focused on why this abuse of the limited copyright monopoly harms them. I'm trying to compile an HTML archive of important documents and arguments that can inform people about their relationship to copyright and it's place in society. Burn stuff like this to CD and distribute it near theaters, video rental shops, Kinko's, or other areas where people are likely to be in a receptive mood regarding their rights as individuals. If you're interested in knowing the URL when my compilation is done, send me an email with 'dmca' in the subject line.
Make the argument heard, because if the LOC rules to delete fair use and copyright expiration, we have the hardest argument yet to make to change what will be the status quo.
When the supreme court refuses to hear a case without comment, the lower courts decision is binding in its jurisdiction, but there is no nationwide precedent set.
So in another federal district, a similar case could be heard and decided differently, and there would be discord that the supreme court would be more likely to resolve.
Of course, as has been mentioned, this is just the appeal of the Preliminary Injunction, so the trial hasn't even taken place yet. It's not surprising that the SC didn't rule on it since it was a reasonable decision.
Under traditional copyright law, the copyright and the work-embodied-in-a-medium are seperate entities.
Thus, they sent you a copy of the work to do with as you wish, but they did not send you the copyright (a metaphysical property). They still retain that.
A close reading of the law seems to indicate that DC is not in violation of the law, just a victim of it.
(a)... the mailing of unordered merchandise or of communications prohibited by subsection (c) of this section constitutes an unfair method of competition and an unfair trade practice in violation of section 45(a)(1) of title 15.
He argues that this subsection identifies DC's mailing of the packages (which actually may really be Wired's or Forbes's mailing), to be an unfair trade practice, etc.
But what is subsection c?
(c) No mailer of any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, shall mail to any recipient of such merchandise a bill for such merchandise or any dunning communications.
(BTW, Dunning: To make consistent demands for payment. m-w.com)
Has DC sent anyone a bill for their CueCat? Have they made consistet demands for payment? I haven't heard of such a thing.
In this case they have not violated the law, and complaints to the postal service will be ignored.
That does not mean, however, that they are not subject to subsection b:
b) Any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, may be treated as a gift by the recipient, who shall have the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender.
In other words, it's yours, but they didn't break any law. Save your fingerpads on this one.
the factor of being raised apart nulls out the nurturing aspect.
Unless the two children's sex were disguised from the parents (I would suggest that's an impossible task), there is no way to remove the nurture variable from your "separated at birth" experiment.
Imagine separating them at birth, and then treating one of them as the opposite gender until they are old enough to work it out on their own. I bet you'd have one distorted personality. You may not end up with a boy that doesn't know he's a boy, but he would probably exhibit feminine personality traits despite himself.
I also find it hard to believe that anybody is born with a personality, much less a M-B result.
Gender is mostly a societal construct, and with it comes elements of your personality. You aren't born with your gender, you discover it after everyone spends time treating you like a [boy/girl] and your hormones concur. If we were all born with our gender, we'd all act just as masculine/feminine as each other.
His point is that nobody is inherently a hacker. That's a gift that's given to you by your environment, and the environment is not giving that gift to women (because, while society is great at screwing us all up, it's certainly unfair to women).
You're misuse of science to attack "political correctness" comes off as misinformed propaganda.
Not to be a complete schill for handspring, but isn't your visor's display a little bit bigger than the rio?
Read my post above... since you already own a visor, the choice isn't $500+ or a Rio, it's $269 or a Rio, and it's possible that the springboard beats it on convenience and useability (does the Rio have a touch screen?).
Think about it. For the springboard mp3 player to meet your approval, it would have to be priced at $0! The springboard is a marginal cost, the visor's price is already sunk and you already (hopefully) acknowledge that the price you paid for the visor was for its PDA functions and upgradeability.
Minor clarification: using copyrighted works without permission is not necessarily illegal (fair use is one defense), and occasionally is explicitly legal in the copyright code. See chapter 10, 1008.
In fact, that whole chapter is an interesting read, I highly recommend it.
What they're doing is creating an application, using the Everquest IP
Which flavor of IP? Copyright, trademark, patent or trade secret?
switch (IP) {
case ("copyright") :
It is not a violation of copyright to
reverse engineer computer code. If it is
done in a double-blind fashion,
copyright is moot.
case ("trademark") :
Don't use the Everquest name to market
the product, or explicitly and
consistently disclaim that Verant/Sony
has no affiliation and does not condone
the product.
case ("patent") :
Well if it is patented, you're up a
creek. I don't think it's patented,
though, because I don't think it's
patentable. I'd be happy to be
demonstrated wrong.
case ("trade secret") :
It isn't a secret if you published it.
Even with a no reverse-engineering
clause in the EULA, because that's a
legally weak argument (and that's an
understatement.)
}
(what happens if someone downloads the emulator, gets hold of a load of Nazi content and creates "Holocaust Everquest"? Shouldn't the owners have the right to prevent that?)
Only in that the product would clearly be a misappropriation of their trademark. Call it GEORGE-3D and you're off the hook.
I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source.
If you ported it, you own the copyright, you've got control of the code. This can be challenged by Andover, perhaps by saying that a translation of their work violates their copyright like a translation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into Icelandic would be, and they may win, but only because you didn't do it in a double-blind fashion. Let's just say you wouldn't necessarily lose.
Yes but what about using a proprietary protocol to open up a competing service without compensating the protocol developers?
Is it patented? If not, then the protocol developers have no legal right to compensation for implementations of the protocol. I suspect that the "protected" ideas in Everquest code are not patentable, so they are fair game.
If this protocol has restrictions then they should be honored.
Ethically, maybe, but probably not. The restrictions are technological means to eek out compensation from an invention, not an entitlement. The restrictions are merely an indication that the developers (acutally owners) desire privity, but it doesn't grant them any moral or legal right to that privity. They are not entitled to compensation or even consideration. It would be the nice thing to do, but Verant isn't exactly interested in being friends with these developers.
Talk with them don't ignore or antagonize them, that just creates bad blood.
The bad blood existed with the first EULA that made people "agree" not to reverse engineer their product. Verant intimated their own bad faith in that EULA, and telegraphed that their intention is to provide a monopoly service and they'll make sure that you'll never compete with them. Seeing as the only true barrier to entry in the Everquest server market is economic, they needed to make it more legally intricate to protect their monopoly. They are discovering that this sleight-of-hand is insufficient to protect a monopoly in a free market. Patents are pretty much they only way to do it, because otherwise once something is published, people have a right to disassemble it, see how it works, and reimplement it if it is not patent[ed/able].
Never ignore any legal document sent in any way.
If it was sent via email, explicitly ignore it, unless it was signed by a trusted authority. We cannot allow the justice system to degrade to the point that any anonymous legal document is binds you just because the internet makes it easy to send out a C&D demand.
At the worst just reply saying your lawyers are looking into it or something.
You're right, this might be the worst. The best reply, unless the C&D was sent via registered mail to a specific recipient, is "mv threatening_email/dev/null"
It isn't stealing service, it is providing a competing service.
Stealing service: using Verant's servers without compensating Verant. End users, not market competitors, steal service.
Competing service: providing an alternate service. End users choose one among many competing services, increasing the incentive for each competing service provider to enhance their service.
Sound anything like market competitors for open source service providers (Red Hat, slackware, Corel, etc.)? This is the central idea behind free markets, and using the DMCA to shelter an anti-competitve monopoly is probably not entirely legal.
That doesn't mean a company like Verant cant try to get away with it and succeed--the people they are fighting in court need to be dedicated to their cause, or Verant basically wins by forfeit. If the server emulator developers expect a court action, they need lawyers preparing their defense today, and really aught to think about a preemptive strike. Take the offensive, get a declaratory judgement.
Why was the judge hesitant to see the unconstitutionality of the law? He said that "Congress has resolved this clash in the DMCA and in the Plaintiff's favor."
Isn't that his job? Can you fathom how he justifies this backwards view of the judicial-legislative relationship?
More specifically, what is the legal standard for adressing Judicial bias at the appeals level. Do you think there is enough evidence and circumstance surrounding Kaplan's behavior, rulings and/or personal history to have the trial reheard? What options are presented to the defense in the event that a trial judge has bias, and will will 2600/EFF pursue this on appeal?
The time is past for proving things. The appeals court only deals in questions of law. Unless the case is sent back to trial, there will be only legal arguments and interpretation from now on.
I would like to take this moment to point out that a good number of dinosaurs were actually herbivores.
Oh? How many dinosaurs were there? Because I haven't heard much good science about dinosaurs since I was in the third grade.
Mr. science, wouldn't the population of carnivorous dinosaurs have increased as the population of herbivors increased? It's seen all the time today. Are you suggesting that the predator-prey cycles hadn't been invented yet? Or that the carnivorous dinosaurs didn't eat their hebivorous relatives?
Or, are you just confusing the number of species with the actual population?
You can eat what you like, as long as you stay in denial of how that meat came to be on your plate. I find my friends can barely drive past a poultry farm for the stench, much less imagine waling into one and observing the harvesting of the meat crop.
Slashdot Mirror
I repeat my post from the previous posting of this story because the other story never made it to the front page:
Defamation has two absolute defenses. Both of them can be determined without knowing the identity of the anonymous posters.
The judge absolutely should have respected the anonymity of the individuals until the two absolute defenses were exhausted.
If the statements were TRUE or if the statements were not statements of fact, but of opinion, no defamation took place. The speakers should remain anonymous until they are absultely needed to stand behind their actions. The judge does not need the defendents' identities to judge the authenticity of these defenses as long as they are proffering them (through the ACLU). They are questions of fact that judges determine every hour of every day, and the identities of the accused have no bearing on the outcome.
This talk about getting people on the internet to "think about what they say" is code for silencing whistleblowers and people that speak about corporations and their leaders in unflattering, but nondefamatory and fully legal ways. Precedent continuing in this fashion will absolutely chill free speech and is unconstitutional
Defamation has two absolute defenses. Both of them can be determined without knowing the identity of the anonymous posters.
The judge absolutely should have respected the anonymity of the individuals until the two absolute defenses were exhausted.
If the statements were TRUE or if the statements were not statements of fact, but of opinion, no defamation took place. The speakers should remain anonymous until they are absultely needed to stand behind their actions. The judge does not need the defendents' identities to judge the authenticity of these defenses as long as they are proffering them (through the ACLU). They are questions of fact that judges determine every hour of every day, and the identities of the accused have no bearing on the outcome.
This talk about getting people on the internet to "think about what they say" is code for silencing whistleblowers and people that speak about corporations and their leaders in unflattering, but nondefamatory and fully legal ways.
I made the same mistake
Corley and 2600 are being charged with trafficking, which has no such effective date. The ban on trafficking was effective immediately.
I regret to inform any new Slashdot readers that the comments period at the Library of Congress has been well expired. They had public hearings regarding those comments in May, and even the post-hearing-comment-rebuttal-comment window has passed.
All that's left to do now is wait. Virtually all the scheduled opportunities for public comment (read: your rare chance to not be ignored) have passed, as most slashdot readers probably know.
What this thread should provide an opportunity for Slashdot readers to do, is organize and take action should the LOC rule in Big Copyright's favor. We have until October 28th to prepare, and once the ruling comes down, anyone interested in the enrichment of the public domain and the rights to fair use of copyrighted material needs to be ready to stage an information campaign the likes of which has never been seen.
Prepare fliers and protests. Get ordinary people's attention focused on why this abuse of the limited copyright monopoly harms them. I'm trying to compile an HTML archive of important documents and arguments that can inform people about their relationship to copyright and it's place in society. Burn stuff like this to CD and distribute it near theaters, video rental shops, Kinko's, or other areas where people are likely to be in a receptive mood regarding their rights as individuals. If you're interested in knowing the URL when my compilation is done, send me an email with 'dmca' in the subject line.
Make the argument heard, because if the LOC rules to delete fair use and copyright expiration, we have the hardest argument yet to make to change what will be the status quo.
Yes, but it is not a bining precedent nationwide, just in the lower court's jurisdiction.
When the supreme court refuses to hear a case without comment, the lower courts decision is binding in its jurisdiction, but there is no nationwide precedent set.
So in another federal district, a similar case could be heard and decided differently, and there would be discord that the supreme court would be more likely to resolve.
Of course, as has been mentioned, this is just the appeal of the Preliminary Injunction, so the trial hasn't even taken place yet. It's not surprising that the SC didn't rule on it since it was a reasonable decision.
Under traditional copyright law, the copyright and the work-embodied-in-a-medium are seperate entities.
Thus, they sent you a copy of the work to do with as you wish, but they did not send you the copyright (a metaphysical property). They still retain that.
A close reading of the law seems to indicate that DC is not in violation of the law, just a victim of it.
... the mailing of unordered merchandise or of communications prohibited by subsection (c) of this section constitutes an unfair method of competition and an unfair trade practice in violation of section 45(a)(1) of title 15.
(a)
He argues that this subsection identifies DC's mailing of the packages (which actually may really be Wired's or Forbes's mailing), to be an unfair trade practice, etc.
But what is subsection c?
(c) No mailer of any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, shall mail to any recipient of such merchandise a bill for such merchandise or any dunning communications.
(BTW, Dunning: To make consistent demands for payment. m-w.com)
Has DC sent anyone a bill for their CueCat? Have they made consistet demands for payment? I haven't heard of such a thing.
In this case they have not violated the law, and complaints to the postal service will be ignored.
That does not mean, however, that they are not subject to subsection b:
b) Any merchandise mailed in violation of subsection (a) of this section, or within the exceptions contained therein, may be treated as a gift by the recipient, who shall have the right to retain, use, discard, or dispose of it in any manner he sees fit without any obligation whatsoever to the sender.
In other words, it's yours, but they didn't break any law. Save your fingerpads on this one.
the factor of being raised apart nulls out the nurturing aspect.
Unless the two children's sex were disguised from the parents (I would suggest that's an impossible task), there is no way to remove the nurture variable from your "separated at birth" experiment.
Imagine separating them at birth, and then treating one of them as the opposite gender until they are old enough to work it out on their own. I bet you'd have one distorted personality. You may not end up with a boy that doesn't know he's a boy, but he would probably exhibit feminine personality traits despite himself.
I also find it hard to believe that anybody is born with a personality, much less a M-B result.
Gender is mostly a societal construct, and with it comes elements of your personality. You aren't born with your gender, you discover it after everyone spends time treating you like a [boy/girl] and your hormones concur. If we were all born with our gender, we'd all act just as masculine/feminine as each other.
His point is that nobody is inherently a hacker. That's a gift that's given to you by your environment, and the environment is not giving that gift to women (because, while society is great at screwing us all up, it's certainly unfair to women).
You're misuse of science to attack "political correctness" comes off as misinformed propaganda.
Not to be a complete schill for handspring, but isn't your visor's display a little bit bigger than the rio?
Read my post above... since you already own a visor, the choice isn't $500+ or a Rio, it's $269 or a Rio, and it's possible that the springboard beats it on convenience and useability (does the Rio have a touch screen?).
Think about it. For the springboard mp3 player to meet your approval, it would have to be priced at $0! The springboard is a marginal cost, the visor's price is already sunk and you already (hopefully) acknowledge that the price you paid for the visor was for its PDA functions and upgradeability.
c:\load -fullsuit officer.gear
Done.
c:\load -carskin viper-cop.paint
Done.
Yeah, just don't confuse those arguments unless you feel like playing Go-Bots.
Thanks, though the fall through shouldn't harm anything. They should all be evaluated regardless of the test condition.
:)
My inexperience manifests itself.
In fact, that whole chapter is an interesting read, I highly recommend it.
Which flavor of IP? Copyright, trademark, patent or trade secret?
switch (IP) {
case ("copyright") :
It is not a violation of copyright to
reverse engineer computer code. If it is
done in a double-blind fashion,
copyright is moot.
case ("trademark") :
Don't use the Everquest name to market
the product, or explicitly and
consistently disclaim that Verant/Sony
has no affiliation and does not condone
the product.
case ("patent") :
Well if it is patented, you're up a
creek. I don't think it's patented,
though, because I don't think it's
patentable. I'd be happy to be
demonstrated wrong.
case ("trade secret") :
It isn't a secret if you published it.
Even with a no reverse-engineering
clause in the EULA, because that's a
legally weak argument (and that's an
understatement.)
}
(what happens if someone downloads the emulator, gets hold of a load of Nazi content and creates "Holocaust Everquest"? Shouldn't the owners have the right to prevent that?)
Only in that the product would clearly be a misappropriation of their trademark. Call it GEORGE-3D and you're off the hook.
I take the Perl source code to Slashdot, port it to Python (this would be a good idea anyway) and don't release the source.
If you ported it, you own the copyright, you've got control of the code. This can be challenged by Andover, perhaps by saying that a translation of their work violates their copyright like a translation of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into Icelandic would be, and they may win, but only because you didn't do it in a double-blind fashion. Let's just say you wouldn't necessarily lose.
Is it patented? If not, then the protocol developers have no legal right to compensation for implementations of the protocol. I suspect that the "protected" ideas in Everquest code are not patentable, so they are fair game.
If this protocol has restrictions then they should be honored.
Ethically, maybe, but probably not. The restrictions are technological means to eek out compensation from an invention, not an entitlement. The restrictions are merely an indication that the developers (acutally owners) desire privity, but it doesn't grant them any moral or legal right to that privity. They are not entitled to compensation or even consideration. It would be the nice thing to do, but Verant isn't exactly interested in being friends with these developers.
Talk with them don't ignore or antagonize them, that just creates bad blood.
The bad blood existed with the first EULA that made people "agree" not to reverse engineer their product. Verant intimated their own bad faith in that EULA, and telegraphed that their intention is to provide a monopoly service and they'll make sure that you'll never compete with them. Seeing as the only true barrier to entry in the Everquest server market is economic, they needed to make it more legally intricate to protect their monopoly. They are discovering that this sleight-of-hand is insufficient to protect a monopoly in a free market. Patents are pretty much they only way to do it, because otherwise once something is published, people have a right to disassemble it, see how it works, and reimplement it if it is not patent[ed/able].
Never ignore any legal document sent in any way.
If it was sent via email, explicitly ignore it, unless it was signed by a trusted authority. We cannot allow the justice system to degrade to the point that any anonymous legal document is binds you just because the internet makes it easy to send out a C&D demand.
At the worst just reply saying your lawyers are looking into it or something.
You're right, this might be the worst. The best reply, unless the C&D was sent via registered mail to a specific recipient, is "mv threatening_email /dev/null"
It isn't stealing service, it is providing a competing service.
Stealing service: using Verant's servers without compensating Verant. End users, not market competitors, steal service.
Competing service: providing an alternate service. End users choose one among many competing services, increasing the incentive for each competing service provider to enhance their service.
Sound anything like market competitors for open source service providers (Red Hat, slackware, Corel, etc.)? This is the central idea behind free markets, and using the DMCA to shelter an anti-competitve monopoly is probably not entirely legal.
That doesn't mean a company like Verant cant try to get away with it and succeed--the people they are fighting in court need to be dedicated to their cause, or Verant basically wins by forfeit. If the server emulator developers expect a court action, they need lawyers preparing their defense today, and really aught to think about a preemptive strike. Take the offensive, get a declaratory judgement.
You're flat wrong. See many other threads in this very discussion.
The constitution is THE law that federal powers derive from, therefore federal judges must always consider it.
He was lazy or hesitant for some reason. He certainly wasn't doing his job.
You forget that the constitution is THE LAW, which federal judges are to uphold higher than every other one.
Why was the judge hesitant to see the unconstitutionality of the law? He said that "Congress has resolved this clash in the DMCA and in the Plaintiff's favor."
Isn't that his job? Can you fathom how he justifies this backwards view of the judicial-legislative relationship?
More specifically, what is the legal standard for adressing Judicial bias at the appeals level. Do you think there is enough evidence and circumstance surrounding Kaplan's behavior, rulings and/or personal history to have the trial reheard? What options are presented to the defense in the event that a trial judge has bias, and will will 2600/EFF pursue this on appeal?
The time is past for proving things. The appeals court only deals in questions of law. Unless the case is sent back to trial, there will be only legal arguments and interpretation from now on.
I use energizer NiMH rechargeable AAAs. They last me about 2-3 weeks, and supposedly last 1000 cycles.
Unless you're talking about this.
Oh? How many dinosaurs were there? Because I haven't heard much good science about dinosaurs since I was in the third grade.
Mr. science, wouldn't the population of carnivorous dinosaurs have increased as the population of herbivors increased? It's seen all the time today. Are you suggesting that the predator-prey cycles hadn't been invented yet? Or that the carnivorous dinosaurs didn't eat their hebivorous relatives?
Or, are you just confusing the number of species with the actual population?
You can eat what you like, as long as you stay in denial of how that meat came to be on your plate. I find my friends can barely drive past a poultry farm for the stench, much less imagine waling into one and observing the harvesting of the meat crop.
But which is taking advantage of which?