I'm not convinced that OCR quality is good enough today to store the books as ASCII text. You're going to be doing a lot of work making the scan, and you don't want to do that work all over again in 10 years, when the quality of OCR will have increased drastically. Besides, in 10 years the book will have further deteriorated, making the job of reading the characters even harder, at the least.
I'm a relatively succesful independent author. Part of my success is due to the fact that if you want my content, the easiest way to get it is by buying it from me. Take away my control over my content and I'll make less profit, and ultimately produce less content.
Let's see. You produce less content, which I don't read anyway, because I don't pay for books. Maybe now that the content you've already created is free, I can start reading it. Meanwhile, with your new free time, you get a job fixing potholes or curing cancer, or installing operating systems, or whatever else it is you can do.
No, this private corporation is not deciding the outcome of the election. However, yes, they are assisting both dominant parties in the notion that third parties have no place. So, they are not choosing the outcome of this election, except that they are explicitly stating "elect one of these two".
The corporation is run by the two major parties. What else would you expect them to do?
Actually the law requires them to pass along the takedown notice to their customer who's allegedly infringing, then to take the site down if the customer doesn't respond defending themselves. The ISP is most certainly not required to forward along personal details to the complaintant without a warrant, the RIAA has kindly established this for us by abusing the DMCA, that's why all their suits are now filed as John Doe suits.
These ISPs were European. The whole point was that there wasn't a DMCA in the first place. If there had been, the ISPs would have ignored the non-DMCA compliant emails, and almost surely wouldn't have given the account details without a subpoena or counterclaim being filed.
iSPs can't and shouldn't be expected to police their customers, and laws or copyright treaties such as the DMCA which place them into the position of having to do so must be changed...
Actually, the whole point of this study is that it's worse in countries without the DMCA.
Compared with these Safe Harbour provisions, the European legislation leaves
plenty of room for doubt and misguided judgement by providers. There are no
criteria to validate complaints and counter notices and there are no arrangements
for the hand-over of customer data, besides general privacy principles that do allow
voluntary hand-over. More-over there is no obligation in Europe to inform the
customer and there are no legal guarantees to protect the freedom of speech.
Currently an ISP risk paying a huge fine under the European Guideline for Electronic Trade if they don`t remove copyrighted materials (if they can reasonably know it's copyrighted).
I see. You guys just need to pass a DMCA like we have here in the US.
I would still disagree that it's a tax issue though. The cause for action makes it pretty clear that it's about a state organization making political contributions through an intermediary (the CPD) and about use of state resources for partisan purposes. It's about violations of the Arizona State Constitution rather than tax statutes.
You're right. I was confusing this with the argument someone else was making in a different thread.
And when it comes down to it, they're probably right with regard to the third debate at ASU. I just don't think that justifies them trespassing on Washington University's property, and with regard to the Libertarian candidate I would think he should agree.
One last point. Badnarik is claiming this is "civil disobedience". But civil disobedience is the refusal to obey an unjust law. It refusing to disobey a just law (trespassing), in order to give yourself a little bit of publicity.
The tax law issue DOES justify this particular kind of trespassing, period (retaliatory force, not initiation of force).
Taxation is the initiation of force. Trespassing on someone's property because they refused to pay taxes is the initiation of force.
Look at it this way, they steal LOTS of taxes (my taxes are my property, and I have SPECIAL rights when they get wasted on politics!
The government "steals" taxes, not the CPD, and certainly not Washington University, whose property Badnarik was trespassing on.
They have wasted $40 million on their own conventions in addition to what they're wasting on these "debates"!) so they trespassed first.
The CPD is not the government. Washington University is not the government. If anything, Arizona State University is the government, but that's not whose property Badnarik was trespassing on.
Fine, the candidate's trespassing was, in a perfect world, wrong, and I'm a horrible-hypocrite.
I'm not accusing you of being a hypocrite, unless of course you are Badnarik.
Look at the results -- the media, try as they might, were almost-unable, for a moment, to ignore the LP and Green candidates.
This has received very little coverage, and the little coverage it did receive focussed more on the trespassing and much less on the request for a temporary restraining order, which is much more legitimate. Who knows, maybe the judge in Arizona will even grant the TRO. Now that will probably make some headlines (especially if it manages to disrupt or delay the debate).
Is that a bad thing??
I think hypocrisy is a bad thing, yes. You shouldn't try to spread your message that the government should stop taxing people and respect property rights by trespassing on the property of of school which happen to be supporting an organization which is allegedly engaging in tax evasion.
I would agree with you if it were true that it was a private matter. However, it is funded and controlled by the CPD, which is a government organization.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private organization created by the two major political parties.
Also, it's not a "television show" in the sense that it's filmed in a studio under the auspices of a specific network. It is open to any broadcaster (though subject to innumerable governmental regulations I'm sure), and no broadcaster owns the "content," only their specific instance of the content that they captured on their equipment.
What makes you think it's open to any broadcaster? It's open to any broadcaster that the CPD invites.
I fail to see how it can be construed as anything but a public matter.
I think you're confused about what the CPD is.
I'm not sure where your tax comment comes in. Nobody has accused anybody of evading taxes in this issue.
OK, you're definitely confused about what theh CPD is. The whole point of the lawsuit is that the CPD is receiving tax benefits as a charity, but charities aren't allowed to support any particular political candidate.
The defendent is a government entity after all.
Read the cause for action. Or just realize that you can't sue the government in the first place, unless the government lets you. The defendants are ASU, a publically funded educational institution, and CPD, a non-profit organization.
Which is why if you don't want your content being taken down, you shouldn't use a free hosting provider. Then, if they take your content down without doing some basic fact checking, they have to worry about a lawsuit from you.
I can either invest in lawyers to investigate every claim, or drop a few customers with an "ask no questions" policy.
Which is easier for the smaller ISP to administer and live by?
By far the easiest method would be to autoreply with the address where DMCA takedown notices are accepted, mentioning that they must include a statement of accuracy made under penalty of perjury.
While it's fantastic to see this suddenly-hyperactive respect for property rights from non-Libertarians
Actually, if I were forced to pick a party, I'd probably choose the Libertarian party. My philosophies come closest to theirs. It's just this hypocrisy and stupid behavior that turns me off from them.
it's also a fact that diminishing property rights aren't much of a problem for universities. Candidates rarely trespass, and when they do nothing happens.
Sounds like more rationalization to me.
OTOH, there's plenty of silence when "emminent domain" takes an old lady's home for Donald Trump's casino...
So we're back to two wrongs make a right again?
Yes, it's ok to step on the university's property if that's the only way to force the biased media to notice -- it's tough but the university will survive.
It's OK... But it should be illegal? Or it's only OK because it's the University property, and if it were the Libertarian Party's propery then it'd be an altogether different story?
The tax law issue would NOT justify trespassing if the BIpartisan commission would accept process-service at their Washington, DC headquarters. They didn't, and called guards instead, hence the arrests that night.
The tax law issue doesn't justify trespassing. Period.
We, on the contrary, deny the right of any government to do these things, and hold that where governments exist, they must not violate the rights of any individual: namely, [...] (3) the right to property -- accordingly we oppose all government interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain, and support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation.
Nowhere in that statement do I see "unless the property owner is allowing someone on the property who doesn't pay their taxes". In fact, what I see is:
All rights are inextricably linked with property rights. Our bodies are our property every bit as much as is justly acquired land or material objects. We further hold that the owners of property have the full right to control, use, dispose of, or in any manner enjoy, their property without interference. We condemn government efforts to regulate. We demand an end to the taxation of privately owned real property.
This is outright hypocrisy, plain and simple.
The speech component is shorthand (always dangerous here) for their refusal to even have Cobb in the *audience*
The University has the right to allow anyone they want on their property. Cobb didn't even have a ticket, he was obviously trespassing. At least Nader had a ticket when he tried to get into the debates in 2000.
It's hypocritical because libertarians claim to be opposed to the government getting involved in private matters such as television show production. Flashing a court order and trespassing on someone else's property just because they won't let you appear in their television show doesn't seem to me to be the libertarian way, regardless of whether or not the people running that television show happen to be evading taxes.
If the bipartisan group loses their tax-status (which also imparts an unfair official depiction of lack-of-bias, because they've lied plenty of times in the media about that very issue!) we'd be happy
As would I. I just don't think trespassing is the best way to obtain that result, and I think it's hypocritical. I think the adage is that two wrongs don't make a right.
but at the moment serving their asses with a nice lawsuit gives my side an excuse to get-arrested (and therefore FORCE the biased news media to notice we exist) and property-rights have little to do with it.
So you believe that anyone serving a lawsuit doesn't need to respect property rights?
It's a tax-law (and free-speech, as if that still exists outside special "zones"...) issue.
I fail to see the free speech issue, unless you mean Kerry and Bush's free speech rights to engage in a debate. Yes, there might be a tax law issue, but I don't see how that justifies trespassing.
More than likely, if he is legally capable of serving papers, there is no trespass where no forced (break a physical object open) entry occurs.
Well, from what I've read he's a party to the suit so he's not legally capable of serving papers, but if that jurisdiction has such a law I guess he's within his rights to use it.
Until I see such a law under that jurisdiction though, I'll assume this was just the hypocritical publicity stunt it appears to be.
Even though it's not the property of the debate commission, it's being used under the permission of the property owner. This seems like a very minor quibble. The bottom line is, it's certainly not Badnarik's property.
They may be a private entity, but they're using public property, namely airwaves and university grounds. So, the assertion that they should be free to regulate who takes part in the debates as they please is fallacious. Public resources equals public responsibility.
I think you've taken that too far, though. Yes, airwaves (and some university grouns) are public property, but that shouldn't give the government the right to regulate it any way they see fit. Should the government be able to say that Ralph Nader must appear in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions, because hey, he's a smart guy, and Jeopardy is broadcast over the public airwaves? I think that goes to far.
I'd like to see the government mandate that the broadcast networks (that use public airwaves) broadcast at least one 90 minute Presidential debate to which all candidates who are on enough ballots to have a technical chance of winning are invited to. If the major candidates don't want to show up, fine, let it be a 90 minute third-party candidate commercial. If no one shows up, just broadcast dead silence for 90 minutes. That'll show em:).
Also, in the wider picture, though technically the legality might be on the side of the CPD, what is the moral thing here?
Well, realistically, I'm much more interested in a one on one debate between the two candidates than I am in a free-for-all with 6 or 7 of them. I think the moral thing to do is to have both.
Is it right that third party candidates can not debate the major candidates in ANY venue?
I've heard this mentioned before, but is this an actual law? That's certainly not a moral (or Constitutional) law, if it actually exists. But I was under the impression that the major candidates simply refuse to debate the third party candidates (perhaps by contractual agreement, but not through an actual law against it).
Is it right that badnarik and cobb have to get ARRESTED before someone will hear anything about them from the mainstream media?
No less right than it is that I'd have to get arrested for people to hear my slashdot post.
Do you really think that _private_ TV stations should be FORCED to run free ads for all presidential candidates, just because they chose to donate some free ads to their favorite one?
Network television stations certainly should, because they're using the public airwaves. I'm opposed to the government forcing main party candidates to debate with third party ones, and opposed to any law against two main party candidates debating each other, but viable third party candidates should be receiving free air time, because the airwaves are a public good, not a private commodity.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not convinced that OCR quality is good enough today to store the books as ASCII text. You're going to be doing a lot of work making the scan, and you don't want to do that work all over again in 10 years, when the quality of OCR will have increased drastically. Besides, in 10 years the book will have further deteriorated, making the job of reading the characters even harder, at the least.
I'm a relatively succesful independent author. Part of my success is due to the fact that if you want my content, the easiest way to get it is by buying it from me. Take away my control over my content and I'll make less profit, and ultimately produce less content.
Let's see. You produce less content, which I don't read anyway, because I don't pay for books. Maybe now that the content you've already created is free, I can start reading it. Meanwhile, with your new free time, you get a job fixing potholes or curing cancer, or installing operating systems, or whatever else it is you can do.
Ya know what, sounds good to me.
No, this private corporation is not deciding the outcome of the election. However, yes, they are assisting both dominant parties in the notion that third parties have no place. So, they are not choosing the outcome of this election, except that they are explicitly stating "elect one of these two".
The corporation is run by the two major parties. What else would you expect them to do?
These were European companies, so the DMCA doesn't apply.
What if you have your laptop plugged in most of the time? Is it better to just take the battery out? Or should you leave it in?
Actually the law requires them to pass along the takedown notice to their customer who's allegedly infringing, then to take the site down if the customer doesn't respond defending themselves. The ISP is most certainly not required to forward along personal details to the complaintant without a warrant, the RIAA has kindly established this for us by abusing the DMCA, that's why all their suits are now filed as John Doe suits.
These ISPs were European. The whole point was that there wasn't a DMCA in the first place. If there had been, the ISPs would have ignored the non-DMCA compliant emails, and almost surely wouldn't have given the account details without a subpoena or counterclaim being filed.
iSPs can't and shouldn't be expected to police their customers, and laws or copyright treaties such as the DMCA which place them into the position of having to do so must be changed...
Actually, the whole point of this study is that it's worse in countries without the DMCA.
Well, in any case apparently these were non-US hosting providers. I was assuming the ISPs had OCILLA protections, but they don't.
Currently an ISP risk paying a huge fine under the European Guideline for Electronic Trade if they don`t remove copyrighted materials (if they can reasonably know it's copyrighted).
I see. You guys just need to pass a DMCA like we have here in the US.
Sure, then when some idiot downloads this software and starts filling up their google hard drives, you can get your account shut off too!
I would still disagree that it's a tax issue though. The cause for action makes it pretty clear that it's about a state organization making political contributions through an intermediary (the CPD) and about use of state resources for partisan purposes. It's about violations of the Arizona State Constitution rather than tax statutes.
You're right. I was confusing this with the argument someone else was making in a different thread.
And when it comes down to it, they're probably right with regard to the third debate at ASU. I just don't think that justifies them trespassing on Washington University's property, and with regard to the Libertarian candidate I would think he should agree.
One last point. Badnarik is claiming this is "civil disobedience". But civil disobedience is the refusal to obey an unjust law. It refusing to disobey a just law (trespassing), in order to give yourself a little bit of publicity.
Oh yeah, and Arizona, which issued the Order to Show Cause, doesn't allow parties to the case to serve papers.
The tax law issue DOES justify this particular kind of trespassing, period (retaliatory force, not initiation of force).
Taxation is the initiation of force. Trespassing on someone's property because they refused to pay taxes is the initiation of force.
Look at it this way, they steal LOTS of taxes (my taxes are my property, and I have SPECIAL rights when they get wasted on politics!
The government "steals" taxes, not the CPD, and certainly not Washington University, whose property Badnarik was trespassing on.
They have wasted $40 million on their own conventions in addition to what they're wasting on these "debates"!) so they trespassed first.
The CPD is not the government. Washington University is not the government. If anything, Arizona State University is the government, but that's not whose property Badnarik was trespassing on.
Fine, the candidate's trespassing was, in a perfect world, wrong, and I'm a horrible-hypocrite.
I'm not accusing you of being a hypocrite, unless of course you are Badnarik.
Look at the results -- the media, try as they might, were almost-unable, for a moment, to ignore the LP and Green candidates.
This has received very little coverage, and the little coverage it did receive focussed more on the trespassing and much less on the request for a temporary restraining order, which is much more legitimate. Who knows, maybe the judge in Arizona will even grant the TRO. Now that will probably make some headlines (especially if it manages to disrupt or delay the debate).
Is that a bad thing??
I think hypocrisy is a bad thing, yes. You shouldn't try to spread your message that the government should stop taxing people and respect property rights by trespassing on the property of of school which happen to be supporting an organization which is allegedly engaging in tax evasion.
I would agree with you if it were true that it was a private matter. However, it is funded and controlled by the CPD, which is a government organization.
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private organization created by the two major political parties.
Also, it's not a "television show" in the sense that it's filmed in a studio under the auspices of a specific network. It is open to any broadcaster (though subject to innumerable governmental regulations I'm sure), and no broadcaster owns the "content," only their specific instance of the content that they captured on their equipment.
What makes you think it's open to any broadcaster? It's open to any broadcaster that the CPD invites.
I fail to see how it can be construed as anything but a public matter.
I think you're confused about what the CPD is.
I'm not sure where your tax comment comes in. Nobody has accused anybody of evading taxes in this issue.
OK, you're definitely confused about what theh CPD is. The whole point of the lawsuit is that the CPD is receiving tax benefits as a charity, but charities aren't allowed to support any particular political candidate.
The defendent is a government entity after all.
Read the cause for action. Or just realize that you can't sue the government in the first place, unless the government lets you. The defendants are ASU, a publically funded educational institution, and CPD, a non-profit organization.
Which is why if you don't want your content being taken down, you shouldn't use a free hosting provider. Then, if they take your content down without doing some basic fact checking, they have to worry about a lawsuit from you.
I can either invest in lawyers to investigate every claim, or drop a few customers with an "ask no questions" policy.
Which is easier for the smaller ISP to administer and live by?
By far the easiest method would be to autoreply with the address where DMCA takedown notices are accepted, mentioning that they must include a statement of accuracy made under penalty of perjury.
While it's fantastic to see this suddenly-hyperactive respect for property rights from non-Libertarians
Actually, if I were forced to pick a party, I'd probably choose the Libertarian party. My philosophies come closest to theirs. It's just this hypocrisy and stupid behavior that turns me off from them.
it's also a fact that diminishing property rights aren't much of a problem for universities. Candidates rarely trespass, and when they do nothing happens.
Sounds like more rationalization to me.
OTOH, there's plenty of silence when "emminent domain" takes an old lady's home for Donald Trump's casino...
So we're back to two wrongs make a right again?
Yes, it's ok to step on the university's property if that's the only way to force the biased media to notice -- it's tough but the university will survive.
It's OK... But it should be illegal? Or it's only OK because it's the University property, and if it were the Libertarian Party's propery then it'd be an altogether different story?
The tax law issue would NOT justify trespassing if the BIpartisan commission would accept process-service at their Washington, DC headquarters. They didn't, and called guards instead, hence the arrests that night.
The tax law issue doesn't justify trespassing. Period.
Nowhere in that statement do I see "unless the property owner is allowing someone on the property who doesn't pay their taxes". In fact, what I see is:
This is outright hypocrisy, plain and simple.
The speech component is shorthand (always dangerous here) for their refusal to even have Cobb in the *audience*
The University has the right to allow anyone they want on their property. Cobb didn't even have a ticket, he was obviously trespassing. At least Nader had a ticket when he tried to get into the debates in 2000.
It's hypocritical because libertarians claim to be opposed to the government getting involved in private matters such as television show production. Flashing a court order and trespassing on someone else's property just because they won't let you appear in their television show doesn't seem to me to be the libertarian way, regardless of whether or not the people running that television show happen to be evading taxes.
If the bipartisan group loses their tax-status (which also imparts an unfair official depiction of lack-of-bias, because they've lied plenty of times in the media about that very issue!) we'd be happy
As would I. I just don't think trespassing is the best way to obtain that result, and I think it's hypocritical. I think the adage is that two wrongs don't make a right.
but at the moment serving their asses with a nice lawsuit gives my side an excuse to get-arrested (and therefore FORCE the biased news media to notice we exist) and property-rights have little to do with it.
So you believe that anyone serving a lawsuit doesn't need to respect property rights?
It's a tax-law (and free-speech, as if that still exists outside special "zones"...) issue.
I fail to see the free speech issue, unless you mean Kerry and Bush's free speech rights to engage in a debate. Yes, there might be a tax law issue, but I don't see how that justifies trespassing.
More than likely, if he is legally capable of serving papers, there is no trespass where no forced (break a physical object open) entry occurs.
Well, from what I've read he's a party to the suit so he's not legally capable of serving papers, but if that jurisdiction has such a law I guess he's within his rights to use it.
Until I see such a law under that jurisdiction though, I'll assume this was just the hypocritical publicity stunt it appears to be.
No it wouldn't. As has already been said, serving papers doesn't give you the right to trespass.
Even though it's not the property of the debate commission, it's being used under the permission of the property owner. This seems like a very minor quibble. The bottom line is, it's certainly not Badnarik's property.
They may be a private entity, but they're using public property, namely airwaves and university grounds. So, the assertion that they should be free to regulate who takes part in the debates as they please is fallacious. Public resources equals public responsibility.
I think you've taken that too far, though. Yes, airwaves (and some university grouns) are public property, but that shouldn't give the government the right to regulate it any way they see fit. Should the government be able to say that Ralph Nader must appear in the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions, because hey, he's a smart guy, and Jeopardy is broadcast over the public airwaves? I think that goes to far.
I'd like to see the government mandate that the broadcast networks (that use public airwaves) broadcast at least one 90 minute Presidential debate to which all candidates who are on enough ballots to have a technical chance of winning are invited to. If the major candidates don't want to show up, fine, let it be a 90 minute third-party candidate commercial. If no one shows up, just broadcast dead silence for 90 minutes. That'll show em :).
Also, in the wider picture, though technically the legality might be on the side of the CPD, what is the moral thing here?
Well, realistically, I'm much more interested in a one on one debate between the two candidates than I am in a free-for-all with 6 or 7 of them. I think the moral thing to do is to have both.
Is it right that third party candidates can not debate the major candidates in ANY venue?
I've heard this mentioned before, but is this an actual law? That's certainly not a moral (or Constitutional) law, if it actually exists. But I was under the impression that the major candidates simply refuse to debate the third party candidates (perhaps by contractual agreement, but not through an actual law against it).
Is it right that badnarik and cobb have to get ARRESTED before someone will hear anything about them from the mainstream media?
No less right than it is that I'd have to get arrested for people to hear my slashdot post.
Do you really think that _private_ TV stations should be FORCED to run free ads for all presidential candidates, just because they chose to donate some free ads to their favorite one?
Network television stations certainly should, because they're using the public airwaves. I'm opposed to the government forcing main party candidates to debate with third party ones, and opposed to any law against two main party candidates debating each other, but viable third party candidates should be receiving free air time, because the airwaves are a public good, not a private commodity.