and if it really does become an issue they can renounce citizenship later.
Are you aware there is a fee of somewhere around $10,000 USD to renounce your citizenship, plus any back taxes and penalties you may owe? Also, you are required to file U.S. tax returns even if you make ZERO income if you have any money at all in a non-U.S. bank account. The U.S. is one of the few countries that requires you to file tax returns in that case even if you don't owe any taxes. And they have been enforcing this rule: a lot of Canadians found themselves owing huge amounts of money in penalties to the IRS for failing to file these returns even though they didn't owe any U.S. taxes, and many of these people didn't consider themselves to be U.S. citizens and weren't even aware that the U.S. considered them to be citizens till they got their tax bill.
I don't know how it works in the US, but the Canadian government cannot refuse a Canadian citizen entry into the country. That's a very good thing.
Effectively they can by revoking citizenship, which they can do for security reasons. There has to be a hearing, of course; a customs officer can't do that unilaterally, but the end result can be Canadian citizens being denied entry into Canada.
"Ignorance is no excuse."...ahem...even if there's no possible, reasonable, or legal way of ever knowing.
I believe the phrase is "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." It means that if you willfully commit an act, and that act happens to be illegal, then you are criminally liable even if you didn't know the act in question is illegal. That is to say, you don't have to have to form an intent to break the law, you merely have to form an intent (and act on that intent) to commit some action, and that action has to be illegal.
What's at issue here isn't ignorance of the law, but ignorance of the facts, and that, oftentimes, is an excuse. Although possession of child pornography is illegal in most jurisdictions, almost all the statues generally say something along the lines of "it is unlawful to knowingly possess...". There is a very practical reason for this: absent the word "knowingly", anyone could simply e-mail anyone else some images that are illegal, and the recipient could be criminally liable for possession even if they hit the delete key immediately upon seeing it. Defendants could e-mail such images to prosecutors and judges and said prosecutors and judges would be guilty of the same crime the defendant is accused of.
So it is very relevant here whether or not the owners, administrators, or employees of the data storage service knew that they were storing child pornography.
From my understanding, the government will have to show that:
A) That the purpose (or at least one purpose of the site) was to aid copyright infringement (or other illegal thing)
B) That this guy knew about the purpose, even if he tried to pretend he didn't.
I'm guessing that they won't have any problem convincing a jury of (A), and he emailed someone a screenshot of his computer watching a pirated video on MEGAVIDEO.COM, so I don't think they'll have much trouble with part (B), either.
I don't think they have to prove actual knowledge if your activities facilitated the crime. I think they need only prove a lesser "subjective test": that is "would a reasonable person have known that their work was facilitating crime?". This kind of reasonable person test is commonly used so that people can't use a "blind eye" defense. Willfully turning a blind eye to criminal activity doesn't absolve you if you were actively participating.
Isn't a programmer an employee doing what he is requested to do - and anyway making programmes does not infringe copyright laws.
Not directly, but it does facilitate infringement which is what is needed in a conspiracy charge. It's similar to working as receptionist for a hit man or something like that. If your job activities facilitate crime, you can be charged.
Because nobody with bad intentions defies FAA guidelines.
No, but at least they could be caught and stopped for defying those regulations hopefully before they do too much damage. If you don't even have those regulations in place, then you can't really do anything but watch and wait for them to do something more serious.
First sale doctrine doesn't obligate Ubisoft to honor the key.
Exactly right! What a lot of people don't understand is that the First Sale Doctrine is a defense not an offense. In other words, if you buy a copyrighted item, like a book, and resell it, the First Sale Doctrine protects you from getting successfully sued by the copyright holder for doing so. In other words, it is a defense. It does not however, put any obligations on the publisher to provide any support to ensure that these later customers can use the product. I'm not saying Ubisoft is doing the right thing here, but this really has nothing to do with the First Sale Doctrine.
Classified information is purely a product of the government. They can't just classify information produced by citizens (citation: the first fucking ammendment, you dumbass crank).
Actually they can and have done so in the past, primarily in the field of cryptography, a field for which quantum computers might have important applications, so his fears are not unfounded.
I do not know about Maryland in specific, but I have an Aunt that is a Guardian Ad Litem for children in another state. As soon as CPS is involved, you as a parent are essentially fucked.
Actually, it's the kids who are fucked. Sometimes literally, as children are much more likely to be sexually abused in a foster home than by real parents. (That's not to say MOST foster parents abuse kids; they don't. Most are very good people. But kids are statistically more likely to be abused in that way by non-parental guardians than by parents.)
I suppose it does reinforce the lesson that authority should be mistrusted.
True, unfortunately, it also reinforces the lesson that mistrusting authority can get your kids taken away, even if only temporarily. This can be very traumatic for many kids.
No, freedom of speech is the freedom to offend (or rather, "criticize") your government.
That's absolute poppycock. I can't fathom how you were modded up to +5. According to your logic, in the US, if the Democrats are in power, no one is allowed to criticize Republicans and vice versa because they're not the governing party. Political debate, which is at the heart of free speech, would become impossible.
Or for that matter, the sound of a phone ringing. I mean literally ringing, with a real metal bell inside. Sure you can get that as a ringtone, and I've used it as one for a while, but a real authentic ringing phone seems to be a thing of the past.
you comment is completely wrong. Any court would first ask, why the fuck are you suing here when the action took place in another country, when you answer that you did sue there they would throw your case out, potentially with costs awarded to who you were suing. If this sort of thing was allowed companies and especially patent troll type companies would be launching suits all over the world to try to cash in as much as they could.
But if the files are being shared on Bittorrent, they're being made available to every country in the world, and these could all be regarded as separate instances of infringement.
Well, if the files are shared on Bittorrent, then they are being made available to Americans, so most definitely yes! Certainly if the rights holder is American which most are.
No, the Canadian ISP is required to give the subscriber information to the rights holder, who may be American. With that information, the rights holder could then sue in a U.S. court.
While Canadian law does indeed cap infringement awards at $5000, there's no reason the rights holders can't sue in U.S. courts where there is no such limit. Once the ISP reveals the identity, which they are required to do under Canadian law, nothing limits what the rights holder can do with that information. Canadian courts may not comply with judgements of U.S. courts, but if the defendant has any assets in the U.S. or travels there, they could be at risk.
How did that process compare to using one of the technological solutions to get around Netflix's IP geolocation?
I opened the account long before Netflix existed, so it wasn't for that purpose. Since I still don't have Netflix, I can't offer an A/B comparison of the difficulty levels.
1)- NO READ-ONLY MODE
Unlike CDs, which are read only without giant hoops to jump through, there's no write-protect switch for thumb drives, or ability to trivially make them read-only.
That's a very good point. Floppy disks had write protect tabs, and the 3.5" ones had a little write protect slider switch. I don't know why thumb drive manufacturers don't include a similar feature on their drives. I think there'd be a real market for such a thing.
DNS trickery, proxies, VPN, etc. are all very easy to set up, technologically. Try opening a U.S. bank account tied to a U.S. address as somebody who is not a U.S. resident. Good luck.
I live in Canada (near the border), I have P.O. Box on the U.S. side and I have a bank account in a U.S. bank. I had no trouble opening it, and I use it to pay for many purchases I make from the U.S. (I can often get much better travel deals through sites like Priceline when I use a credit card with a U.S. billing address.)
So, I don't know what difficulty you're alluding to.
It sounds like it is implicit in this law that ISPs are now required to keep records of IP address assignments in the event they are later given a notice of suspected copyright infringement so they can pass it along to their customers. Is this true, or does the law only apply to ISPs that already have this information? I understand most ISPs probably already to keep this information, but does this new law mean that they now have to? And what constitutes an ISP? If I use the free WiFi at Starbucks, do they need to keep my personal info in case I'm later accused of infringing copyright? What about the public library if I have to use my userid to log in? What about universities?
Force manufacturers to install these kits on ALL cars. Tax liquor produces to cover the costs. Done.
Seriously? Innocent people should be required to have technology on their property which ensures they are complying with the law? Domestic violence is a huge problem in our country, so why not mandate all homes come equipped with video cameras to make sure people aren't beating their wives and/or children? Drugs are a problem in our country, so why not mandatory drug testing for all citizens? While we're at it, lets mandate devices in all our computers to make sure we're not violating copyright or child pornography laws?
I was suspicious of the U.S. allegations that the North Korean government was behind it when the North Koreans denied it was them. If you're going to hack somebody to make a political statement, it makes no sense to later deny that you were involved. Someone might be trying to make it look like North Korea, but I seriously doubt they were directly involved in this.
Slashdot Mirror
and if it really does become an issue they can renounce citizenship later.
Are you aware there is a fee of somewhere around $10,000 USD to renounce your citizenship, plus any back taxes and penalties you may owe? Also, you are required to file U.S. tax returns even if you make ZERO income if you have any money at all in a non-U.S. bank account. The U.S. is one of the few countries that requires you to file tax returns in that case even if you don't owe any taxes. And they have been enforcing this rule: a lot of Canadians found themselves owing huge amounts of money in penalties to the IRS for failing to file these returns even though they didn't owe any U.S. taxes, and many of these people didn't consider themselves to be U.S. citizens and weren't even aware that the U.S. considered them to be citizens till they got their tax bill.
I don't know how it works in the US, but the Canadian government cannot refuse a Canadian citizen entry into the country. That's a very good thing.
Effectively they can by revoking citizenship, which they can do for security reasons. There has to be a hearing, of course; a customs officer can't do that unilaterally, but the end result can be Canadian citizens being denied entry into Canada.
"Ignorance is no excuse." ...ahem...even if there's no possible, reasonable, or legal way of ever knowing.
I believe the phrase is "Ignorance of the law is no excuse." It means that if you willfully commit an act, and that act happens to be illegal, then you are criminally liable even if you didn't know the act in question is illegal. That is to say, you don't have to have to form an intent to break the law, you merely have to form an intent (and act on that intent) to commit some action, and that action has to be illegal.
What's at issue here isn't ignorance of the law, but ignorance of the facts, and that, oftentimes, is an excuse. Although possession of child pornography is illegal in most jurisdictions, almost all the statues generally say something along the lines of "it is unlawful to knowingly possess...". There is a very practical reason for this: absent the word "knowingly", anyone could simply e-mail anyone else some images that are illegal, and the recipient could be criminally liable for possession even if they hit the delete key immediately upon seeing it. Defendants could e-mail such images to prosecutors and judges and said prosecutors and judges would be guilty of the same crime the defendant is accused of.
So it is very relevant here whether or not the owners, administrators, or employees of the data storage service knew that they were storing child pornography.
From my understanding, the government will have to show that: A) That the purpose (or at least one purpose of the site) was to aid copyright infringement (or other illegal thing) B) That this guy knew about the purpose, even if he tried to pretend he didn't. I'm guessing that they won't have any problem convincing a jury of (A), and he emailed someone a screenshot of his computer watching a pirated video on MEGAVIDEO.COM, so I don't think they'll have much trouble with part (B), either.
I don't think they have to prove actual knowledge if your activities facilitated the crime. I think they need only prove a lesser "subjective test": that is "would a reasonable person have known that their work was facilitating crime?". This kind of reasonable person test is commonly used so that people can't use a "blind eye" defense. Willfully turning a blind eye to criminal activity doesn't absolve you if you were actively participating.
Isn't a programmer an employee doing what he is requested to do - and anyway making programmes does not infringe copyright laws.
Not directly, but it does facilitate infringement which is what is needed in a conspiracy charge. It's similar to working as receptionist for a hit man or something like that. If your job activities facilitate crime, you can be charged.
the only way that anybody is protected is if a large percentage of the cellphone population *is* opted in.
You sound like one of those pro-vaccine people. Do you want our phones to all get autism?
Because nobody with bad intentions defies FAA guidelines.
No, but at least they could be caught and stopped for defying those regulations hopefully before they do too much damage. If you don't even have those regulations in place, then you can't really do anything but watch and wait for them to do something more serious.
First sale doctrine doesn't obligate Ubisoft to honor the key.
Exactly right! What a lot of people don't understand is that the First Sale Doctrine is a defense not an offense. In other words, if you buy a copyrighted item, like a book, and resell it, the First Sale Doctrine protects you from getting successfully sued by the copyright holder for doing so. In other words, it is a defense. It does not however, put any obligations on the publisher to provide any support to ensure that these later customers can use the product. I'm not saying Ubisoft is doing the right thing here, but this really has nothing to do with the First Sale Doctrine.
Classified information is purely a product of the government. They can't just classify information produced by citizens (citation: the first fucking ammendment, you dumbass crank).
Actually they can and have done so in the past, primarily in the field of cryptography, a field for which quantum computers might have important applications, so his fears are not unfounded.
I do not know about Maryland in specific, but I have an Aunt that is a Guardian Ad Litem for children in another state. As soon as CPS is involved, you as a parent are essentially fucked.
Actually, it's the kids who are fucked. Sometimes literally, as children are much more likely to be sexually abused in a foster home than by real parents. (That's not to say MOST foster parents abuse kids; they don't. Most are very good people. But kids are statistically more likely to be abused in that way by non-parental guardians than by parents.)
I suppose it does reinforce the lesson that authority should be mistrusted.
True, unfortunately, it also reinforces the lesson that mistrusting authority can get your kids taken away, even if only temporarily. This can be very traumatic for many kids.
Can you please cite some examples of this harm? Thank you in advance.
No, freedom of speech is the freedom to offend (or rather, "criticize") your government.
That's absolute poppycock. I can't fathom how you were modded up to +5. According to your logic, in the US, if the Democrats are in power, no one is allowed to criticize Republicans and vice versa because they're not the governing party. Political debate, which is at the heart of free speech, would become impossible.
Or for that matter, the sound of a phone ringing. I mean literally ringing, with a real metal bell inside. Sure you can get that as a ringtone, and I've used it as one for a while, but a real authentic ringing phone seems to be a thing of the past.
you comment is completely wrong. Any court would first ask, why the fuck are you suing here when the action took place in another country, when you answer that you did sue there they would throw your case out, potentially with costs awarded to who you were suing. If this sort of thing was allowed companies and especially patent troll type companies would be launching suits all over the world to try to cash in as much as they could.
But if the files are being shared on Bittorrent, they're being made available to every country in the world, and these could all be regarded as separate instances of infringement.
Well, if the files are shared on Bittorrent, then they are being made available to Americans, so most definitely yes! Certainly if the rights holder is American which most are.
No, the Canadian ISP is required to give the subscriber information to the rights holder, who may be American. With that information, the rights holder could then sue in a U.S. court.
While Canadian law does indeed cap infringement awards at $5000, there's no reason the rights holders can't sue in U.S. courts where there is no such limit. Once the ISP reveals the identity, which they are required to do under Canadian law, nothing limits what the rights holder can do with that information. Canadian courts may not comply with judgements of U.S. courts, but if the defendant has any assets in the U.S. or travels there, they could be at risk.
Interesting statement considering that U.S. banks don't allow accounts to be set up with PO Box addresses.
Interesting statement since my bank (which was then Wachovia and is now Wells Fargo) did.
How did that process compare to using one of the technological solutions to get around Netflix's IP geolocation?
I opened the account long before Netflix existed, so it wasn't for that purpose. Since I still don't have Netflix, I can't offer an A/B comparison of the difficulty levels.
1)- NO READ-ONLY MODE Unlike CDs, which are read only without giant hoops to jump through, there's no write-protect switch for thumb drives, or ability to trivially make them read-only.
That's a very good point. Floppy disks had write protect tabs, and the 3.5" ones had a little write protect slider switch. I don't know why thumb drive manufacturers don't include a similar feature on their drives. I think there'd be a real market for such a thing.
DNS trickery, proxies, VPN, etc. are all very easy to set up, technologically. Try opening a U.S. bank account tied to a U.S. address as somebody who is not a U.S. resident. Good luck.
I live in Canada (near the border), I have P.O. Box on the U.S. side and I have a bank account in a U.S. bank. I had no trouble opening it, and I use it to pay for many purchases I make from the U.S. (I can often get much better travel deals through sites like Priceline when I use a credit card with a U.S. billing address.)
So, I don't know what difficulty you're alluding to.
It sounds like it is implicit in this law that ISPs are now required to keep records of IP address assignments in the event they are later given a notice of suspected copyright infringement so they can pass it along to their customers. Is this true, or does the law only apply to ISPs that already have this information? I understand most ISPs probably already to keep this information, but does this new law mean that they now have to? And what constitutes an ISP? If I use the free WiFi at Starbucks, do they need to keep my personal info in case I'm later accused of infringing copyright? What about the public library if I have to use my userid to log in? What about universities?
Force manufacturers to install these kits on ALL cars. Tax liquor produces to cover the costs. Done.
Seriously? Innocent people should be required to have technology on their property which ensures they are complying with the law? Domestic violence is a huge problem in our country, so why not mandate all homes come equipped with video cameras to make sure people aren't beating their wives and/or children? Drugs are a problem in our country, so why not mandatory drug testing for all citizens? While we're at it, lets mandate devices in all our computers to make sure we're not violating copyright or child pornography laws?
I was suspicious of the U.S. allegations that the North Korean government was behind it when the North Koreans denied it was them. If you're going to hack somebody to make a political statement, it makes no sense to later deny that you were involved. Someone might be trying to make it look like North Korea, but I seriously doubt they were directly involved in this.