I'm not defending the music industry in these posts. What I'm attacking is the hypocrisy of people that pretend that infringing copyright is somehow noble or virtuous. It's not. People do it (and I'm not condemning them for doing it), and they should just admit that it's not a nice thing to do. You wouldn't want people to do it to your mother. You especially wouldn't want people to do it to your mother if she was asking them to stop.
Copyright infringement is theft, pure and simple. If I create a work, and you copy it for your own enjoyment without compensating me, then you have deprived me of my just due. You have withheld from me what is rightly mine. Just because you stole it so quickly I never had a chance to hold on to it, does not transform the loss from theft into something else.
I front costs in expectation of a later revenue stream. Just because my costs are sunk does not mean you don't deprive me of anything when you take my work and use it for your benefit without compensating me.
That being said, I'm not sitting here condemning file sharers. I'm just asking them to own up to doing something that is not the moral equivalent of scaling the barricades to free the slaves. It's music, people, not bread.
If you enjoy the music, you owe something to the people that provide you with that music. We (me included) don't all pay every debt we owe. That's understandable, but it's not right.
I did read it. I just don't believe you're as independent of the music hype as you claim. Most who claim to be above the hype are not. You might succumb to a different brand of hype, but it's probably still hype.
Good for you! Say it loud and proud! You steal and you don't care!
I mean, those bums force you to like their music, what with all their marketing and whatnot. But you'll show them you can't be controlled! You'll steal Britney's latest instead of buying it.
P2P (I suppose you mean file sharing) increases music sales? That's the biggest, fattest, baldest, and funniest lie that/. can't seem to kick.
Come on, people. You like free music. Admit it. Stop trying to pretend you have the best interests of the music industry at heart and you're only trying to help them sell more music if only they'd let you.
You're stealing. You steal. It's theft. It's wrong. You do it anyway. Just be honest for once.
What's that? Oh right, you know all kinds of people that downloaded a few MP3s and then bought the album. For every one of those, I can name three people that haven't bought a CD since Napster went beta.
The music industry is the most focus-grouped, consumer tested industry this side of politics. They know *exactly* how much downloads hurt music sales. If downloads and filesharing really fattened the bottom line, they would be making it easy for you instead of sending Ulrich goons to break your knees.
People do things and some of those things are wrong. Here's the justification for stealing music: it's easy, it's free, it makes you happy, and you really don't care whether or not the music industry or the artists get paid. End of story, end of rationalization.
Criminal jursidiction is different. In America, it is basically, however we can grab you. If they can wrestle you to the ground and drag you to America, the American legal system has jurisdiction. Case in point: Manuel Noriega. George Bush (the elder), sent a team to Panama to drive Noriega out of his bunker with bad music. They succeeded and Noriega was brought back to the US. He was tried and convicted of drug trafficking charges.
As a practical matter, America generally respects borders and doesn't just charge in and arrest people. For example, we Marc Rich was hanging out in Switzerland, but we never arrested him. The reason for this is that other regimes get seriously ticked off when other countries perform military or police actions within their borders. So America only does it when they have permission from the country (which almost never happens-- if the host country is amenable, extradition is the way to go) or when we're going after the rulers of the country (i.e. Panama and Afghanistan).
Like I said, it's simple. If you choose to sell to Americans, you're subject to suit in America surrounding for matters arising from that sale. You make it sound like when Americans choose to order your product, you have no choice but to ship to them.
If you have a UK website that caters to everyody on the planet, including Americans, you are subject to suit in America for your torts arising from that site. If, though, you have a site that is directed exclusively at local UK customers, you would not be subject to suit in America.
As for Kazaa, the issues is not whether or not Kazaa software is contraband. It's not an import/export question. The issue is whether Kazaa, by its actions, is commiting vicarious or contributory copyright infringement. Customs has nothing to do with this question.
Under US law, what Kazaa is doing is analagous to shooting a bullet over the border. The issue is not whether the bullet is illegal to import. The issue is that the bullet injures people in America. Kazaa can't hide behind the border, and Americans can go after them for what they're doing in America.
You're right. The 14th Amendment's due process clause does not apply to the federal govennment. That does not, however, mean we're out of luck when the feds discriminate between similarly situated citizens. The fifth amendment's due process clause (which applies to the federal government) has been held to grant equal protection. See Bolling v. Sharpe. Bolling was decided the same day as Borwn v. Board of Ed., which declared segregation in public schools a violation of the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. Bolling involved D.C. schools, which are not subject to equal protection restrictions. The Bolling court held that equal protection is an example of due process, and so the federal government must give you equal protection as part of its obligation to give you due process. And the children of D.C. rejoiced.
From the Fifth Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Jursidiction is really not that complicated here. If you avail yourself of the benefits of doing business in America, then you are subject to the laws of America. Everybody likes to pretend these are novel issues, but American courts don't find them to be that difficult.
What follows is a repost of my two-secondprimer on personal jurisdiction on the internet:
American civil procedure provides for jurisdiction over foreign companies that do business in America. The theory is that if you come to America and avail yourself of our markets, resources, society, labor, and laws, you are bound to obey our laws. This does not mean that you can be sued in New York if you offer goods for sale in China and some American happens to buy them while on vacation in Beijing. It does mean, though, that if you knowingly advertise in America, ship goods to America, or provide services to American clients, you can be sued in America for violating American law.
On the Internet, this analysis is a little complicated because websites are accessed internationally, and it is difficult to detect what country people are really browsing from. Still, efforts can be made to exclude certain jurisdictions. For example, Lindows.com [lindows.com] used to have a message [google.com] on their website that refusing to do business in Washington state. This is because they were trying to avoid being dragged into court by MSFT in Washington state.
There is plenty of caselaw on this emerging area of law:
A Blue Note jazz club in Missouri was sued by the Blue Note jazz club in New York. A NY court held that the Missouri club's website, though viewable from NY, did not create jurisdiction in NY because the club was a strictly local Missouri operation. (Bensuan Rest. Corp. v. King, 126 F.3d 25)
Likewise, Cybersell of Arizona sued Cybersell of Florida for trademark infringement and was denied jurisdiction because Cybersell of Florida was not really offering its services to Arizonans. (Cybersell, Inc. v. Cybersell, Inc., 130 F.3d 414)
OTOH, Zippo (the company that makes lighters) sued Zippo.com (a company that provided fast news updates) in Pennsylvania. Since Zippo offered its news service to netizens across the land, including PA, they were adjuged to be doing business in PA and thus were amenable to suit.
As the cases make clear, there is a sliding scale that stretches from (1) passive website relating to local activities to (2) interactive website offering services to anybody across the land. Elcomsoft sounds a lot more like Zippo than it does the Blue Note jazz club in Missouri. If they are offering their services to Americans and offering downloads to Americans, they have to expect that they might be sued by Americans in America.
IAAL, and while this tutorial won't help you read a contract or understand license issues, it serves a useful though narrow purpose. This tutorial will actually help you begin to parse briefs, which is useful for understanding legal battles featured in the news.
It's more than just entertainment. There is social utility in lay people understanding the legal arguments presented in a case.
You write about corporations giving up rights and taking the bad with the good, but law doesn't work that way. EULA limitations are not restricted to corporations. If we restrict EULAs for corporations, we restrict them for everybody. If we justify restricting EULAs as a "cost of incorporation", then small, unincorporated ISVs (like shareware many authors) end up taking the bad (restricted right to form contracts) without getting the good (liability shield).
EULA restrictions are either justifiable or they're not. If they are, we don't need to hide behind "cost of incorporation" excuses".
As for whether a kid can contract with the ISV, that problem is solved by agency law. If you as the parent give your kid the power to install the software on your behalf, the kid is your agent for that process, which includes agreeing to usual, necessary contracts, including EULAs. If you don't believe me, have your kid brother sign your credit card contract and then try to claim you're not bound by the terms of that contract.
Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1)
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2)
the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3)
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4)
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors
As a lawyer, I can tell you that lawyers often wish their clients spoke to them sooner than they did. The earlier you consult, the more pain you save yourself later. Of course, this has to be balanced against the costs of consultation (money, time, delay, complication).
Generally, if you think legal action is reasonably likely, get a lawyer immediately. Make no statements, write no correspondence without the advice of counsel. It will all be used against you if you go to litigation.
The fact is that lawyers are pros at protecting the interests of their clients in highly contentious/litigious settings. You are not. If there's anything on the line, you'll be glad to have somebody advising you and protecting your interests.
BTW, Nolo.com is a great resource. I highly recommend it. It is not a substitute for a lawyer in any complex situation, especially one that contemplates actual, contentious litigation. Still, it had great information on a wide variety of topics and can help give you the knowledge to interact with a lawyer intelligently.
Standard Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. Get (and pay for) a lawyer familiar with your specific facts and circumstances if you want legal advice.
Respondeat superior is not so easily defeated. Tilly is not a janitor. It is his job to develop software. His boss is on the hook for his actions toward that end. If he develops software and incorporates GPL code, he does so as part of his job, which is producing useful software. If his employer claims that software was developed by Tilly as part of his job (and they have to claim this or else they have no claim to own that software), then they have to accept that his actions in fulfilling that job function acrue to them in both benefit and liability.
A better analogy is that if a janitor orders cleaning products even though he has no purchasing authority, the company will be on the hook to buy those products if the product suppliers reasonably believed that the janitor had the authority.
Tilly, as his agent's employer, created derivative works from GPL code. If he accepted the GPL, that derivative work is covered by the GPL.
It is very unlikely a court would find his acceptance of the GPL ineffective. If he was acting on his employer's behalf in creating the code, then he was acting on his employer's behalf in accepting the GPL. If he was not acting as his employer's agent at the time, then his employer's claim of ownership over the code is worthless. They can't have it both ways.
Still, Tilly is in a bind. His employer's remedy after losing this code is to seek compensation from Tilly. Such a claim would be pretty weak, but they could give him quite a bit of legal trouble.
Email is incredibly useful as evidence. In much large litigation, perhaps half of the documents submitted as evidence are email.
Courts aren't like the movies. In real litigation, the parties don't have many fights about whether a document is what it purports to be. They have fights on how to interpret the document, but not about whether it really came from the CEO or not.
The reason for this is that email is largely self-authenticating. Most litigation involves at least one party that is a company. All but the smallest companies keep track of their email automatically. When the request for documents comes in, IT does a keyword search, dumps a bunch of emails to a CD-ROM and hands it to the lawyers. The lawyers filter the emails and hand over the relevant ones to the other side. The lawyers keep their clients reasonably honest.
If a plaintiff comes up with an email that the other side doesn't have a record of sending, they'll have a battle over whether it is real. Both sides present evidence and the jury or the judge makes a decision as to whether it's an authentic document or not.
In a company of any decent size, the person keeping track of emails and other documents is not important enough to have his or her ass on the line. If they are asked to forge or destroy documents, they'll either refuse or else they'll be extremely willing to talk about it. If there is ever a trial over Enron, we'll see a parade of paralegals, secretaries and mailroom clerks testifying about shredding documents until 3am every night. These things have a way of getting out.
So: If a sysadmin forged a bunch of emails from the CEO, the court would either let the jury decide if the emails were real or, if it their authenticity were very clear, rule on the issue before trial. It would be up to the CEO and his attorney to show the court why these aren't real. If the sysadmin gets caught forging, he probably goes to jail for a little bit.
Legally, offshore servers are of limited value. If you are subject to jurisdiction in the US and a court orders you to cough up the email, you must cough it up. It does not matter where you store it, especially if you have electronic access to those servers in the US.
I represented an American investment bank that was stiffed on a deal with a foreign company. The fact that many of the relevant documents were scattered throughout Asian offices of various companies made little difference in our ability to force our opposition to produce many boxes of documents, including email stored on off-shore servers.
I'm not sure why you would try to detect if your customers are being subpoenaed. Why would you disallow your own customers to download their own documents? If you think you're helping them by refusing to allow them to comply with a subpoena, you're mistaken. Companies that intentionally put themselves in the position of losing control of their own documents to avoid legal process will not be treated kindly by courts. I can think of little better news than opposing counsel coming to me with a sob story about how his client's agent refuses to turn over the documents. In the case of third-party subpoenas, such tactics would quickly result in mounting sanctions.
I can see reasons for getting documents offshore. From a legal perspective, though, this does not do much good. I hope your service wins a lot of customers. I can't wait to litigate against somebody dumb enough to hide his documents in this manner.
Re:"eightythree" TM infringing on TI-83?
on
Tiqit Handheld PC
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Intel tried and failed to enforce trademarks on numbers when it lost its suits against rival chipmakers who were stamping their chips 486. And so the Pentium was created instead of the 586.
Under that precedent, TI doesn't really have much of a case. Of course, I am not TI's lawyer or your lawyer, so go get a lawyer if you want an answer to rely upon.
You misunderstand the requirements for search warrants. Police do not need to show they have exhausted other avenues before they can get a search warrant. All that is required is a showing of probable cause to suspect criminal activity, a description of what is searched for and the location to be searched, and a neutral judge's signature.
I would argue this is a victory for government surveilance because you might not need a warrant to grab emanating light. (The S.Ct. has held that you do need a warrant to detect and interpret emanating heat to catch marijuana growers using lamps in their basements, but who knows how they'd come out on this one in the current political climate.) Once your screen has been read using this method, police can use the eavesdropped data to show probable cause to obtain a search warrant.
Also, warrants are not much protection against surveilance. Government surveillance for prosecution requires warrants. Government surveillance for information technically requires a warrant but in practice there's no compelling reason for the government to follow that requirement. As a citizen, your only real remedy to unauthorized searches is the exclusion of evidence found during those searches. This means that if the police kick in your door without a warrant, they probably cannot use the drugs they find in your apartment as evidence to prove a criminal charge that you are a dealer. OTOH, if they just want to use that knowledge to lean on you, there's not much stopping them from doing that. If data is obtained solely for intelligence/defense purposes, the warrant requirement is toothless.
You're connected to a central AOL server. Your IM goes from your box to AOL to your messaging partner. His or her messages come back by the reverse route. If AOL goes down, so does your conversation. This is why AOL could (given lots of resources) read AIM traffic, something it claims not to do (I actually believe them on this one).
The Jungle Book came out 1899, so it would have expired under the 1909 copyright act, which provided for 28 years of copyright plus a renewal term of another 28 for a total of 56 years. Kipling's copyright thus expired in 1955. IMDB says the Jungle Book came out in 1967.
This appears to be an error on the author's part, unless I misremember the copyright provisions. (It's been a couple years since I thought about copyright terms from that far back).
As it says at the bottom of the page, "Comments are owned by the Poster." Presumably, though, when you click submit, you grant to Slashdot a non-exclusive license to copy your comment in Slashdot. Price charged for the end-product is not normally a term read into such agreements, and it is unlikely a court would read such a limitation into such an agreement.
Still, I am not your lawyer. Seek legal advice, and don't rely on what I've written above. (YMMV)
Charles James, the head of DOJ's antitrust division, was a played a significant role in the formulation and enforcement of the DOJ's antitrust policy under Reagan. It was Reagan's DOJ that walked away from the IBM antitrust case. It's no surprise Charles James is using his prosecutorial discretion to avoid putting the screws to MSFT.
The day Bush won, US v. MSFT was essentially over.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not defending the music industry in these posts. What I'm attacking is the hypocrisy of people that pretend that infringing copyright is somehow noble or virtuous. It's not. People do it (and I'm not condemning them for doing it), and they should just admit that it's not a nice thing to do. You wouldn't want people to do it to your mother. You especially wouldn't want people to do it to your mother if she was asking them to stop.
Copyright infringement is theft, pure and simple. If I create a work, and you copy it for your own enjoyment without compensating me, then you have deprived me of my just due. You have withheld from me what is rightly mine. Just because you stole it so quickly I never had a chance to hold on to it, does not transform the loss from theft into something else.
I front costs in expectation of a later revenue stream. Just because my costs are sunk does not mean you don't deprive me of anything when you take my work and use it for your benefit without compensating me.
That being said, I'm not sitting here condemning file sharers. I'm just asking them to own up to doing something that is not the moral equivalent of scaling the barricades to free the slaves. It's music, people, not bread.
If you enjoy the music, you owe something to the people that provide you with that music. We (me included) don't all pay every debt we owe. That's understandable, but it's not right.
I did read it. I just don't believe you're as independent of the music hype as you claim. Most who claim to be above the hype are not. You might succumb to a different brand of hype, but it's probably still hype.
Good for you! Say it loud and proud! You steal and you don't care!
I mean, those bums force you to like their music, what with all their marketing and whatnot. But you'll show them you can't be controlled! You'll steal Britney's latest instead of buying it.
P2P (I suppose you mean file sharing) increases music sales? That's the biggest, fattest, baldest, and funniest lie that /. can't seem to kick.
Come on, people. You like free music. Admit it. Stop trying to pretend you have the best interests of the music industry at heart and you're only trying to help them sell more music if only they'd let you.
You're stealing. You steal. It's theft. It's wrong. You do it anyway. Just be honest for once.
What's that? Oh right, you know all kinds of people that downloaded a few MP3s and then bought the album. For every one of those, I can name three people that haven't bought a CD since Napster went beta.
The music industry is the most focus-grouped, consumer tested industry this side of politics. They know *exactly* how much downloads hurt music sales. If downloads and filesharing really fattened the bottom line, they would be making it easy for you instead of sending Ulrich goons to break your knees.
People do things and some of those things are wrong. Here's the justification for stealing music: it's easy, it's free, it makes you happy, and you really don't care whether or not the music industry or the artists get paid. End of story, end of rationalization.
As a practical matter, America generally respects borders and doesn't just charge in and arrest people. For example, we Marc Rich was hanging out in Switzerland, but we never arrested him. The reason for this is that other regimes get seriously ticked off when other countries perform military or police actions within their borders. So America only does it when they have permission from the country (which almost never happens-- if the host country is amenable, extradition is the way to go) or when we're going after the rulers of the country (i.e. Panama and Afghanistan).
If you have a UK website that caters to everyody on the planet, including Americans, you are subject to suit in America for your torts arising from that site. If, though, you have a site that is directed exclusively at local UK customers, you would not be subject to suit in America.
As for Kazaa, the issues is not whether or not Kazaa software is contraband. It's not an import/export question. The issue is whether Kazaa, by its actions, is commiting vicarious or contributory copyright infringement. Customs has nothing to do with this question.
Under US law, what Kazaa is doing is analagous to shooting a bullet over the border. The issue is not whether the bullet is illegal to import. The issue is that the bullet injures people in America. Kazaa can't hide behind the border, and Americans can go after them for what they're doing in America.
From the Fifth Amendment:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
What follows is a repost of my two-secondprimer on personal jurisdiction on the internet:
American civil procedure provides for jurisdiction over foreign companies that do business in America. The theory is that if you come to America and avail yourself of our markets, resources, society, labor, and laws, you are bound to obey our laws. This does not mean that you can be sued in New York if you offer goods for sale in China and some American happens to buy them while on vacation in Beijing. It does mean, though, that if you knowingly advertise in America, ship goods to America, or provide services to American clients, you can be sued in America for violating American law.
On the Internet, this analysis is a little complicated because websites are accessed internationally, and it is difficult to detect what country people are really browsing from. Still, efforts can be made to exclude certain jurisdictions. For example, Lindows.com [lindows.com] used to have a message [google.com] on their website that refusing to do business in Washington state. This is because they were trying to avoid being dragged into court by MSFT in Washington state.
There is plenty of caselaw on this emerging area of law:
As the cases make clear, there is a sliding scale that stretches from (1) passive website relating to local activities to (2) interactive website offering services to anybody across the land. Elcomsoft sounds a lot more like Zippo than it does the Blue Note jazz club in Missouri. If they are offering their services to Americans and offering downloads to Americans, they have to expect that they might be sued by Americans in America.
IAAL, and while this tutorial won't help you read a contract or understand license issues, it serves a useful though narrow purpose. This tutorial will actually help you begin to parse briefs, which is useful for understanding legal battles featured in the news.
It's more than just entertainment. There is social utility in lay people understanding the legal arguments presented in a case.
You write about corporations giving up rights and taking the bad with the good, but law doesn't work that way. EULA limitations are not restricted to corporations. If we restrict EULAs for corporations, we restrict them for everybody. If we justify restricting EULAs as a "cost of incorporation", then small, unincorporated ISVs (like shareware many authors) end up taking the bad (restricted right to form contracts) without getting the good (liability shield).
EULA restrictions are either justifiable or they're not. If they are, we don't need to hide behind "cost of incorporation" excuses".
As for whether a kid can contract with the ISV, that problem is solved by agency law. If you as the parent give your kid the power to install the software on your behalf, the kid is your agent for that process, which includes agreeing to usual, necessary contracts, including EULAs. If you don't believe me, have your kid brother sign your credit card contract and then try to claim you're not bound by the terms of that contract.
Libel Resource Defense Center definition of libel.
Sec. 107. - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include -
(1)
the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2)
the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3)
the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4)
the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors
As a lawyer, I can tell you that lawyers often wish their clients spoke to them sooner than they did. The earlier you consult, the more pain you save yourself later. Of course, this has to be balanced against the costs of consultation (money, time, delay, complication).
Generally, if you think legal action is reasonably likely, get a lawyer immediately. Make no statements, write no correspondence without the advice of counsel. It will all be used against you if you go to litigation.
The fact is that lawyers are pros at protecting the interests of their clients in highly contentious/litigious settings. You are not. If there's anything on the line, you'll be glad to have somebody advising you and protecting your interests.
BTW, Nolo.com is a great resource. I highly recommend it. It is not a substitute for a lawyer in any complex situation, especially one that contemplates actual, contentious litigation. Still, it had great information on a wide variety of topics and can help give you the knowledge to interact with a lawyer intelligently.
Standard Disclaimer: This is not legal advice. Get (and pay for) a lawyer familiar with your specific facts and circumstances if you want legal advice.
Respondeat superior is not so easily defeated. Tilly is not a janitor. It is his job to develop software. His boss is on the hook for his actions toward that end. If he develops software and incorporates GPL code, he does so as part of his job, which is producing useful software. If his employer claims that software was developed by Tilly as part of his job (and they have to claim this or else they have no claim to own that software), then they have to accept that his actions in fulfilling that job function acrue to them in both benefit and liability.
A better analogy is that if a janitor orders cleaning products even though he has no purchasing authority, the company will be on the hook to buy those products if the product suppliers reasonably believed that the janitor had the authority.
Tilly, as his agent's employer, created derivative works from GPL code. If he accepted the GPL, that derivative work is covered by the GPL.
It is very unlikely a court would find his acceptance of the GPL ineffective. If he was acting on his employer's behalf in creating the code, then he was acting on his employer's behalf in accepting the GPL. If he was not acting as his employer's agent at the time, then his employer's claim of ownership over the code is worthless. They can't have it both ways.
Still, Tilly is in a bind. His employer's remedy after losing this code is to seek compensation from Tilly. Such a claim would be pretty weak, but they could give him quite a bit of legal trouble.
Email is incredibly useful as evidence. In much large litigation, perhaps half of the documents submitted as evidence are email.
Courts aren't like the movies. In real litigation, the parties don't have many fights about whether a document is what it purports to be. They have fights on how to interpret the document, but not about whether it really came from the CEO or not.
The reason for this is that email is largely self-authenticating. Most litigation involves at least one party that is a company. All but the smallest companies keep track of their email automatically. When the request for documents comes in, IT does a keyword search, dumps a bunch of emails to a CD-ROM and hands it to the lawyers. The lawyers filter the emails and hand over the relevant ones to the other side. The lawyers keep their clients reasonably honest.
If a plaintiff comes up with an email that the other side doesn't have a record of sending, they'll have a battle over whether it is real. Both sides present evidence and the jury or the judge makes a decision as to whether it's an authentic document or not.
In a company of any decent size, the person keeping track of emails and other documents is not important enough to have his or her ass on the line. If they are asked to forge or destroy documents, they'll either refuse or else they'll be extremely willing to talk about it. If there is ever a trial over Enron, we'll see a parade of paralegals, secretaries and mailroom clerks testifying about shredding documents until 3am every night. These things have a way of getting out.
So: If a sysadmin forged a bunch of emails from the CEO, the court would either let the jury decide if the emails were real or, if it their authenticity were very clear, rule on the issue before trial. It would be up to the CEO and his attorney to show the court why these aren't real. If the sysadmin gets caught forging, he probably goes to jail for a little bit.
Legally, offshore servers are of limited value. If you are subject to jurisdiction in the US and a court orders you to cough up the email, you must cough it up. It does not matter where you store it, especially if you have electronic access to those servers in the US.
I represented an American investment bank that was stiffed on a deal with a foreign company. The fact that many of the relevant documents were scattered throughout Asian offices of various companies made little difference in our ability to force our opposition to produce many boxes of documents, including email stored on off-shore servers.
I'm not sure why you would try to detect if your customers are being subpoenaed. Why would you disallow your own customers to download their own documents? If you think you're helping them by refusing to allow them to comply with a subpoena, you're mistaken. Companies that intentionally put themselves in the position of losing control of their own documents to avoid legal process will not be treated kindly by courts. I can think of little better news than opposing counsel coming to me with a sob story about how his client's agent refuses to turn over the documents. In the case of third-party subpoenas, such tactics would quickly result in mounting sanctions.
I can see reasons for getting documents offshore. From a legal perspective, though, this does not do much good. I hope your service wins a lot of customers. I can't wait to litigate against somebody dumb enough to hide his documents in this manner.
Intel tried and failed to enforce trademarks on numbers when it lost its suits against rival chipmakers who were stamping their chips 486. And so the Pentium was created instead of the 586.
Under that precedent, TI doesn't really have much of a case. Of course, I am not TI's lawyer or your lawyer, so go get a lawyer if you want an answer to rely upon.
You misunderstand the requirements for search warrants. Police do not need to show they have exhausted other avenues before they can get a search warrant. All that is required is a showing of probable cause to suspect criminal activity, a description of what is searched for and the location to be searched, and a neutral judge's signature.
I would argue this is a victory for government surveilance because you might not need a warrant to grab emanating light. (The S.Ct. has held that you do need a warrant to detect and interpret emanating heat to catch marijuana growers using lamps in their basements, but who knows how they'd come out on this one in the current political climate.) Once your screen has been read using this method, police can use the eavesdropped data to show probable cause to obtain a search warrant.
Also, warrants are not much protection against surveilance. Government surveillance for prosecution requires warrants. Government surveillance for information technically requires a warrant but in practice there's no compelling reason for the government to follow that requirement. As a citizen, your only real remedy to unauthorized searches is the exclusion of evidence found during those searches. This means that if the police kick in your door without a warrant, they probably cannot use the drugs they find in your apartment as evidence to prove a criminal charge that you are a dealer. OTOH, if they just want to use that knowledge to lean on you, there's not much stopping them from doing that. If data is obtained solely for intelligence/defense purposes, the warrant requirement is toothless.
Anybody know if Opera does this? I use the search box on Opera all day long. I'd rather not have to stop. Thanks.
You're connected to a central AOL server. Your IM goes from your box to AOL to your messaging partner. His or her messages come back by the reverse route. If AOL goes down, so does your conversation. This is why AOL could (given lots of resources) read AIM traffic, something it claims not to do (I actually believe them on this one).
The Jungle Book came out 1899, so it would have expired under the 1909 copyright act, which provided for 28 years of copyright plus a renewal term of another 28 for a total of 56 years. Kipling's copyright thus expired in 1955. IMDB says the Jungle Book came out in 1967.
This appears to be an error on the author's part, unless I misremember the copyright provisions. (It's been a couple years since I thought about copyright terms from that far back).
As it says at the bottom of the page, "Comments are owned by the Poster." Presumably, though, when you click submit, you grant to Slashdot a non-exclusive license to copy your comment in Slashdot. Price charged for the end-product is not normally a term read into such agreements, and it is unlikely a court would read such a limitation into such an agreement.
Still, I am not your lawyer. Seek legal advice, and don't rely on what I've written above. (YMMV)
True enough - I am told that one reason Reagan's DOJ walked away from the IBM case was that even in 1982 IBM's hegemony was starting to crumble.
Charles James, the head of DOJ's antitrust division, was a played a significant role in the formulation and enforcement of the DOJ's antitrust policy under Reagan. It was Reagan's DOJ that walked away from the IBM antitrust case. It's no surprise Charles James is using his prosecutorial discretion to avoid putting the screws to MSFT.
The day Bush won, US v. MSFT was essentially over.