It's a good thought, but defamation wouldn't apply. Defamation as defined in any given legal dictionary, is:
"communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person."
This can be published (libel) or spoken (slander).
Defamation couldn't apply to the mp3 notice because the false communication was not with a third party. You couldn't sue me for slander if I told you that you were a pedophile. Only if I told your boss that you were a pedophile. Also your reputation has to be harmed by the lie. If I tell your boss that you are a pedophile (and you are not, in fact a pedophile- truth is an absolute defense to defamation), and he shrugs his shoulders, then no dice. If he fires you after I tell him and proceeds to tell the community so you can never get a job, well then we have defamation. The mislabled mp3 file didn't harm the recipient in any such manner.
Lying to a customer violates all sorts of Uniform Commercial Code provisions and other state laws. Obviously, I can't sell you a glass ring and claim it's a diamond. But the UCC generally doesn't apply to what are considered illegal dealings (such as copyright infringement). In other words, good luck trying to sue Jay and Silent Bob for selling you Oregano when they told you it was weed.
Yes, it's stupid, but it's also an error. I asked their customer service department about the paradox and they responded this morning below.
-FC
Dear Mailblocks Customer,
Our apologies, we picked up an old version of our TOS when we went live. We will NOT be allowing 3rd parties to send unsolicted email to our userbase. Please check the site this evening for the updated and correct TOS. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.
Thank you for using Mailblocks. If we can be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us.
I meant outdated as it's applied to the Internet. When the bill was passed, it was never intended to reach into a technology that wasn't even contemplated in its current format. The law is not outdated for faxes, as you indicated. And besides, I think the stretching of the current law is commendable. That was my point.
You said:
...it's not a huge stretch to extend 47 USC 227 through the common law (precedent).
And I said:
....it's neither bad nor unusual to innovate legal arguments.
I rarely get to argue this hard with someone with whom I'm in complete agreement.
True, the connection between fax and email may not be 100 % analogous, but in a country where law evolves according to precendence, it's neither bad nor unusual to innovate legal arguments.
We've lamented the fact that legislation regarding the Internet is either ill-conceived (e.g., digital copyrights) or non-existant (e.g., anti-spam protection). As an attorney, I'd much rather apply an outdated law to a contemporary situation and rely on the good sense of a judge or jury than apply a law that was badly written which limits maneuverability for myself or my clients.
Until we get legislators who understand the technology, we can (hopefully) look forward to this kind innovation from the judiciary to get what is fair. In this case- $539.
Westlaw and Lexis are very savvy business enterprises. Through deals with the ABA and/or my individual law school (I'm not sure which), I was required to take instructional classes from both Westlaw and Lexis representatives on how to use their services. Both systems are provided free for law students, as well. Law students form dependencies on Westlaw and Lexis very early, and many rely on the much speedier web interfaces to legal research over the cumbersome task of trudging through dozens of dusty law books (Note to/.ers: Can you blame us? Both services are fantastic from and end-user perspective).
By the time you graduate, you're hooked. The thought of going back to manual research would be like asking an engineer to go back to his Commodore 64. Icky.
I don't think you can blame Wetslaw or Lexis for being shrewd about this. Besides, all the information is available offline in law libraries. It's just in a format that puts you at a decided disadvantage.
There must be an incredible sense of pride at having been associated with a series responsible for so many high quality spinoffs (Next Generation, Enterprise, etc). What did Trek have that other TV shows didn't to make it so ripe for evolution/adaptation into other series? Do you like/dislike any of the series in particular?
Isn't that what his supercomputer Deep Thought did to forge the space ship on the planet Kricket, thus causing the eventual near destruction of Life, the Univers and Everything?
1. Contractual: you signed a contract saying you wouldn't disclose confidential information and agree to forfeit some predetermined fine if caught. Powerful companies like LucasFilms can convince wannabe production assistants to sign practically anything.
2. Lost revenue - did releasing the preview to aintitcool, a very popular site among earth-bound Jedi, have the *foreseeable* effect of hurting potential revenues? Potential revenues is purely mathmatical, but somewhat arbitrary. Multiply X% of aintitcool users who would be turned off by a mediocre review by the per ticket revenue for LucasFilms. In a civil trial, X is determined by a jury, generally.
3. Lost Property - Consider how much just one of those still shots with Lucas' comments would go for on eBay. Multiply.
If a copyright owner can find a way to only impair the piracy of her copyrighted work on a P2P network, she will have no liability. A copyright owner who does more will still be liable.
If you think about it, this shifts the burden entirely on the P2P user.
The Congressman is correct when he states that there is no way that Record Companies can drag 150 million downloaders into court. What this legislation does is allow the record companies to take matters into their own hands and then see who has the stones to come back and sue the record company if they go too far.
Think about it: If a company sends a virus to your computer that wipes out all mp3 files, whether legitimate or not, are you going to sue the record companies? I don't know about any other/.ers out there, but I certainly can't afford my own in-house counsel. If I get my files wiped out, I'll curse, I'll scream, I'll rant on this website (for damned sure), but I won't be able to afford a suit.
I think the record companies are betting on this. Much like the way they do business in general, they'll just sit back and make everything and everyone come to them.
Brilliant. I think barring a class action suit or a really rich person who gets a vital business document wiped out, the companies are pretty safe from anybody watchdogging excessive vigilantism.
Although....how ironic would it be if Shawn Fanning came back to sue the very companies that killed Naptser? Almost makes me want to take up a pre-emptive collection.
Amen. Is it me, or does everyone else feel like it's a language for 3 year olds?
Kids "R" Us used this language well before the prime of chat rooms. Know why? Because they spent millions of dollars in branding research learning that when you use letters and abbreviations in the place of actual words, it put the user squarely in the context of a toddler.
Heaven help us when AOL figures out a way to make the "R" backwards. Or gives a percentage warning whenever you use a word over 5 characters long. It's only a matter of time.
Patent and IP Law is exceptionally hot these days in the press, and the patent officers both in the US and worldwide endure significant criticism. We've seen coverage of patents that are groundbreaking as well as patents for the ethically obscure (read: human gene patenting, HIV medication), the mundane, the obvious (JPEG) and the downright silly (/. had a story, and forgive my forgetting the link, about a gentleman who had patented a particular was to sit on a playground swing).
My question: out of any 100 patents you review on any given day, how many: 1. really impress you as having widespread industry implications; whiz-bang innovations 2. are rejected 3. are rejected for being completely asinine 4. implicate an ethical debate
In this entertaining book packed with fascinating tidbits, Parsons explores the science behind such basic cooking methods as chopping, mixing, frying, roasting, boiling, and baking. You'll learn why soaking beans can't offset their gaseous effects, why green vegetables shouldn't be cooked under a lid for long, which fruits you can buy unripe and which you should buy fully ripened, which thickener to choose for your turkey gravy, which piecrust is foolproof for a beginner.
But you're forgetting about the thousands of very elderly or uneducated people that these folks bilk for millions of dollars a year by confusing their victims and/or misrepresenting their products.
Any industry with that collective moral barometer won't feel too badly about the prospect of costing a few people some cell phone minutes.
Suffice it to say that there wouldn't be telemarketers if they weren't able to convert some of these cold calls into wads of cash. No one operates a call center at a loss.
If I see a TV commercial where some guy with a pocket protector laments "I killed a judge with my sloppy coding", then I am moving to another planet.
That's funny stuff right there.
Agreed, the article is alarmist and, in no small way, an exaggeration. I suspect that with enough economic modeling, we could come up with a $60B price tage for watching Martha Stewart:
Opportunity cost of not doing something worth a damn X
The cost of materials to build the lacquered, mother-of-pearl bird feeder X
17 failed attempts to build said bird feeder X
The number of idiots who actually try to build it (when they don't realize it was created on a bluescreen by ILM- much like Martha herself) X
Number of hours wasted asking someone for help at Home Depot who couldn't build a bird feeder if his uncle were Bob Villa X.......
= $60 Billion each show
You get the idea.
The point of the article (and arguably the only positive way to spin it) is to demonstrate that hurried programming *does* have its costs. What it ignores is that these costs are often more than returned by speedy innovation.
The article brings to mind organizations like the ACLU who find themselves protecting some of the worst people out there (white supremacists, drug dealers, etc) in order to fight for the Bill of Rights.
In the end, I think/.ers and other techies who fight for privacy will not, in the greater scheme of things, be villified for appearing to protect terrorists for the sake of safe email accounts. That's a shortsighted argument. If the FBI wants extra powers to fight the bad guys, they should have no qualms about fighting for those powers in Congress or in our Court System.
That's the great thing about our system. It's supposed to have the same rules for everybody.
Yes, the proposed expansions of "spying powers" by the government is a threat to civil liberties, and yes, Brits should raise hell with their MPs to insure that it doesn't pass (or to at least let them know that some people are concerned about this).
But the proposal, it should be stressed, is expanding the number of agencies who have access to this data. That is, a series of British agencies already collect the data.
This battle should've been fought years ago. Our current political environment is not conducive to stuffing the data collection genie back in the bottle.
An attorney friend of mine is using floppy disks (the original, floppy variety) to store documents in an obsolete word processing format of all his confidentail data. If subpoenaed, he will be required to turn in the disks, and it will be up to opposing counsel to decipher them.
I told him it was a cute idea, until his version of the obsolete software craps out and he's left with his entire record base in an unreadable format.
It would seem to me that having a corporate or government OS monoculture is not necessarily an evil thing. M$ aside, I wonder how realistic it is for businesses to advocate using different software and OS for each department. Doesn't that promote institutional incompatability to some extent.
I guess there is some precendent (most graphics departments use Mac even if the rest of the company uses Windows). I just don't follow it as a strong argument in Mr. Nader's letter.
Unfortunately, I think the victory will be shortlived. Replay TV users can basically ftp television shows to each other's consoles. Neat feature, but it probably makes the entertainment powers-that-be soil themselves with fear ("Holy Cow! That's file swapping! Quick, get me Legal on the phone").
Rather than work with Replay TV or TiVo, it will only be a matter of time before the TV industry reps files for litigation that will require Replay TV to monitor their users for uncopyrighted or illegally disseminated materials, and prevent their transmission.
After all, it worked to get rid of Napster, didn't it?
I like the idea, personally (as long as I have already bought my unadulterated copies).
What I find most compelling about the idea is the ability for the movie industry to release a film and then correct errors in later editions. If a scene makes no sense or an actor sucks dead air, why not use Lucas' cinematic magic wand to correct or delete the problem in version 2.0?
Now for homework, I want everybody to think of the top edit they would make to an already released film. Personally, I would have made the Titanic sink within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Wishful thinking....
Yes, kudos to Mr. Spitzer for finally doing something about spammers. His litigation may make some of the more egregious, mass spammers think twice before trying to force-feed our Inboxes with herbal viagara and penny stocks.
But here is the HOWEVER.
With technology regulation a) not particularly well defined on the books, and b) almost always implemented the *wrong* way (DCMA?), I have little doubt that many legitmate newsletters and mailing lists will get hit by Mr. Spitzer's shrapnel. There are plenty of Attorneys General out there who are not quite so intelligent as sheep (let alone, Mr. Spitzer), and will follow New York's example to the detriment of legitimate mailers.
Damn. Another message for teen sex in my Inbox. Heck, maybe it's worth it....
Slashdot Mirror
It's a good thought, but defamation wouldn't apply. Defamation as defined in any given legal dictionary, is:
"communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person."
This can be published (libel) or spoken (slander).
Defamation couldn't apply to the mp3 notice because the false communication was not with a third party. You couldn't sue me for slander if I told you that you were a pedophile. Only if I told your boss that you were a pedophile. Also your reputation has to be harmed by the lie. If I tell your boss that you are a pedophile (and you are not, in fact a pedophile- truth is an absolute defense to defamation), and he shrugs his shoulders, then no dice. If he fires you after I tell him and proceeds to tell the community so you can never get a job, well then we have defamation. The mislabled mp3 file didn't harm the recipient in any such manner.
Lying to a customer violates all sorts of Uniform Commercial Code provisions and other state laws. Obviously, I can't sell you a glass ring and claim it's a diamond. But the UCC generally doesn't apply to what are considered illegal dealings (such as copyright infringement). In other words, good luck trying to sue Jay and Silent Bob for selling you Oregano when they told you it was weed.
Hope this helps.
-FC
Yes, it's stupid, but it's also an error. I asked their customer service department about the paradox and they responded this morning below.
-FC
Dear Mailblocks Customer,
Our apologies, we picked up an old version of our TOS when we went live. We will
NOT be allowing 3rd parties to send unsolicted email to our userbase. Please
check the site this evening for the updated and correct TOS. We apologize for
any confusion or inconvenience.
Thank you for using Mailblocks. If we can be of further assistance, please don't
hesitate to contact us.
Regards,
The Mailblocks Team
I meant outdated as it's applied to the Internet. When the bill was passed, it was never intended to reach into a technology that wasn't even contemplated in its current format. The law is not outdated for faxes, as you indicated. And besides, I think the stretching of the current law is commendable. That was my point.
...it's not a huge stretch to extend 47 USC 227 through the common law (precedent).
....it's neither bad nor unusual to innovate legal arguments.
You said:
And I said:
I rarely get to argue this hard with someone with whom I'm in complete agreement.
-FC
True, the connection between fax and email may not be 100 % analogous, but in a country where law evolves according to precendence, it's neither bad nor unusual to innovate legal arguments.
We've lamented the fact that legislation regarding the Internet is either ill-conceived (e.g., digital copyrights) or non-existant (e.g., anti-spam protection). As an attorney, I'd much rather apply an outdated law to a contemporary situation and rely on the good sense of a judge or jury than apply a law that was badly written which limits maneuverability for myself or my clients.
Until we get legislators who understand the technology, we can (hopefully) look forward to this kind innovation from the judiciary to get what is fair. In this case- $539.
-FC
Westlaw and Lexis are very savvy business enterprises. Through deals with the ABA and/or my individual law school (I'm not sure which), I was required to take instructional classes from both Westlaw and Lexis representatives on how to use their services. Both systems are provided free for law students, as well. Law students form dependencies on Westlaw and Lexis very early, and many rely on the much speedier web interfaces to legal research over the cumbersome task of trudging through dozens of dusty law books (Note to /.ers: Can you blame us? Both services are fantastic from and end-user perspective).
By the time you graduate, you're hooked. The thought of going back to manual research would be like asking an engineer to go back to his Commodore 64. Icky.
I don't think you can blame Wetslaw or Lexis for being shrewd about this. Besides, all the information is available offline in law libraries. It's just in a format that puts you at a decided disadvantage.
-FC
"The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems."
Agreed. Any episode with a catapaulted kitty should have made the top 25 easily.
Incidentally, for those of you with Bravo on cable, Inside the Actor's Studio will be airing a special with the main voices from the Simpson's.
Sunday at 8/7pm. http://www.bravotv.com/
Must....ready....TiVo.....
-FC
There must be an incredible sense of pride at having been associated with a series responsible for so many high quality spinoffs (Next Generation, Enterprise, etc). What did Trek have that other TV shows didn't to make it so ripe for evolution/adaptation into other series? Do you like/dislike any of the series in particular?
Thanks. We're big fans here.
-FC
Isn't that what his supercomputer Deep Thought did to forge the space ship on the planet Kricket, thus causing the eventual near destruction of Life, the Univers and Everything?
Sigh. No new ideas.
-FC
Anyone else think its funny that CNN, the child company of AOL/Time Warner, did not put the nomoreaolcds.com url in the story?
-FC
Several types of damages:
1. Contractual: you signed a contract saying you wouldn't disclose confidential information and agree to forfeit some predetermined fine if caught. Powerful companies like LucasFilms can convince wannabe production assistants to sign practically anything.
2. Lost revenue - did releasing the preview to aintitcool, a very popular site among earth-bound Jedi, have the *foreseeable* effect of hurting potential revenues? Potential revenues is purely mathmatical, but somewhat arbitrary. Multiply X% of aintitcool users who would be turned off by a mediocre review by the per ticket revenue for LucasFilms. In a civil trial, X is determined by a jury, generally.
3. Lost Property - Consider how much just one of those still shots with Lucas' comments would go for on eBay. Multiply.
-FC
If a copyright owner can find a way to only impair the piracy of her copyrighted work on a P2P network, she will have no liability. A copyright owner who does more will still be liable.
/.ers out there, but I certainly can't afford my own in-house counsel. If I get my files wiped out, I'll curse, I'll scream, I'll rant on this website (for damned sure), but I won't be able to afford a suit.
If you think about it, this shifts the burden entirely on the P2P user.
The Congressman is correct when he states that there is no way that Record Companies can drag 150 million downloaders into court. What this legislation does is allow the record companies to take matters into their own hands and then see who has the stones to come back and sue the record company if they go too far.
Think about it: If a company sends a virus to your computer that wipes out all mp3 files, whether legitimate or not, are you going to sue the record companies? I don't know about any other
I think the record companies are betting on this. Much like the way they do business in general, they'll just sit back and make everything and everyone come to them.
Brilliant. I think barring a class action suit or a really rich person who gets a vital business document wiped out, the companies are pretty safe from anybody watchdogging excessive vigilantism.
Although....how ironic would it be if Shawn Fanning came back to sue the very companies that killed Naptser? Almost makes me want to take up a pre-emptive collection.
-FC
Amen. Is it me, or does everyone else feel like it's a language for 3 year olds?
Kids "R" Us used this language well before the prime of chat rooms. Know why? Because they spent millions of dollars in branding research learning that when you use letters and abbreviations in the place of actual words, it put the user squarely in the context of a toddler.
Heaven help us when AOL figures out a way to make the "R" backwards. Or gives a percentage warning whenever you use a word over 5 characters long. It's only a matter of time.
Sigh.
-FC
You can also sign up for an internet faxing service that delivers faxes to emails, and let your email client handle the SPAM filtering work for you.
Check out efax.com, for example.
-FC
Patent and IP Law is exceptionally hot these days in the press, and the patent officers both in the US and worldwide endure significant criticism. We've seen coverage of patents that are groundbreaking as well as patents for the ethically obscure (read: human gene patenting, HIV medication), the mundane, the obvious (JPEG) and the downright silly (/. had a story, and forgive my forgetting the link, about a gentleman who had patented a particular was to sit on a playground swing).
My question: out of any 100 patents you review on any given day, how many:
1. really impress you as having widespread industry implications; whiz-bang innovations
2. are rejected
3. are rejected for being completely asinine
4. implicate an ethical debate
Many Thanks,
-FC
How to Read a French Fry by Russ Parsons
From the review: And for the more contemplative
The Supper of the Lamb by Robert Farrar Capon
It blends science, wisdom and religion (but not in an oppressive way- promise) into a phenomenal book. Try it; you'll thank me.
-FC
But you're forgetting about the thousands of very elderly or uneducated people that these folks bilk for millions of dollars a year by confusing their victims and/or misrepresenting their products.
Any industry with that collective moral barometer won't feel too badly about the prospect of costing a few people some cell phone minutes.
Suffice it to say that there wouldn't be telemarketers if they weren't able to convert some of these cold calls into wads of cash. No one operates a call center at a loss.
Ick.
-FC
If I see a TV commercial where some guy with a pocket protector laments "I killed a judge with my sloppy coding", then I am moving to another planet.
.......
That's funny stuff right there.
Agreed, the article is alarmist and, in no small way, an exaggeration. I suspect that with enough economic modeling, we could come up with a $60B price tage for watching Martha Stewart:
Opportunity cost of not doing something worth a damn X
The cost of materials to build the lacquered, mother-of-pearl bird feeder X
17 failed attempts to build said bird feeder X
The number of idiots who actually try to build it (when they don't realize it was created on a bluescreen by ILM- much like Martha herself) X
Number of hours wasted asking someone for help at Home Depot who couldn't build a bird feeder if his uncle were Bob Villa X
= $60 Billion each show
You get the idea.
The point of the article (and arguably the only positive way to spin it) is to demonstrate that hurried programming *does* have its costs. What it ignores is that these costs are often more than returned by speedy innovation.
-FC
The article brings to mind organizations like the ACLU who find themselves protecting some of the worst people out there (white supremacists, drug dealers, etc) in order to fight for the Bill of Rights.
/.ers and other techies who fight for privacy will not, in the greater scheme of things, be villified for appearing to protect terrorists for the sake of safe email accounts. That's a shortsighted argument. If the FBI wants extra powers to fight the bad guys, they should have no qualms about fighting for those powers in Congress or in our Court System.
In the end, I think
That's the great thing about our system. It's supposed to have the same rules for everybody.
Neat, huh?
-FC
I stand corrected. It should've been won years ago. ;)
-FC
Yes, the proposed expansions of "spying powers" by the government is a threat to civil liberties, and yes, Brits should raise hell with their MPs to insure that it doesn't pass (or to at least let them know that some people are concerned about this).
But the proposal, it should be stressed, is expanding the number of agencies who have access to this data. That is, a series of British agencies already collect the data.
This battle should've been fought years ago. Our current political environment is not conducive to stuffing the data collection genie back in the bottle.
-FC
on the same idea.
An attorney friend of mine is using floppy disks (the original, floppy variety) to store documents in an obsolete word processing format of all his confidentail data. If subpoenaed, he will be required to turn in the disks, and it will be up to opposing counsel to decipher them.
I told him it was a cute idea, until his version of the obsolete software craps out and he's left with his entire record base in an unreadable format.
-FC
It would seem to me that having a corporate or government OS monoculture is not necessarily an evil thing. M$ aside, I wonder how realistic it is for businesses to advocate using different software and OS for each department. Doesn't that promote institutional incompatability to some extent.
I guess there is some precendent (most graphics departments use Mac even if the rest of the company uses Windows). I just don't follow it as a strong argument in Mr. Nader's letter.
-FC
Unfortunately, I think the victory will be shortlived. Replay TV users can basically ftp television shows to each other's consoles. Neat feature, but it probably makes the entertainment powers-that-be soil themselves with fear ("Holy Cow! That's file swapping! Quick, get me Legal on the phone").
Rather than work with Replay TV or TiVo, it will only be a matter of time before the TV industry reps files for litigation that will require Replay TV to monitor their users for uncopyrighted or illegally disseminated materials, and prevent their transmission.
After all, it worked to get rid of Napster, didn't it?
Sigh.
-FC
I like the idea, personally (as long as I have already bought my unadulterated copies).
What I find most compelling about the idea is the ability for the movie industry to release a film and then correct errors in later editions. If a scene makes no sense or an actor sucks dead air, why not use Lucas' cinematic magic wand to correct or delete the problem in version 2.0?
Now for homework, I want everybody to think of the top edit they would make to an already released film. Personally, I would have made the Titanic sink within the first 10 minutes of the movie. Wishful thinking....
-FC
Yes, kudos to Mr. Spitzer for finally doing something about spammers. His litigation may make some of the more egregious, mass spammers think twice before trying to force-feed our Inboxes with herbal viagara and penny stocks.
But here is the HOWEVER.
With technology regulation a) not particularly well defined on the books, and b) almost always implemented the *wrong* way (DCMA?), I have little doubt that many legitmate newsletters and mailing lists will get hit by Mr. Spitzer's shrapnel. There are plenty of Attorneys General out there who are not quite so intelligent as sheep (let alone, Mr. Spitzer), and will follow New York's example to the detriment of legitimate mailers.
Damn. Another message for teen sex in my Inbox. Heck, maybe it's worth it....
-FC