Seriously? Do you think everybody in the world should be subject to the laws of all 196 countries in the world? The only way the US could get its claws on a foreign national residing in his own native country would be rendition or kidnapping. I doubt Canada would extradite a Canadian citizen to the US. The response would probably be something like "are you fucking kidding me?".
Actually, the dialogue would go like this:
Rightscorp: "We're suing this guy for copyright infringement."
U.S.: "Okay."
fnj: "You can't extradite him!"
U.S.: "No one asked to. It's a civil suit."
fnj: "No kidnapping either!"
Rightscorp: "Gracious, no. We just want money."
fnj: "Canada will resist any attempts to extradite or kidnap its citizens!!"
U.S.: "... we're going to stand over there now."
Doxing is releasing private information to the public. Names and addresses are not private information. Drama queens have tried to redefine this in vain attempts to control who gets to use the information they've already provided online.
Eg: John Doe posts a blog entry loaded with clickbait fallacy under his real name, looking for a reaction to boost his lack of self esteem and gain e-prestige, but wasn't ready for criticism. When his post doesn't quite get the attention he was looking for, some type his name into a search engine and find his address and telephone and post this already public information on some forum. If he gains a lot of notoriety, some will go further, armed with the already public info to pick away at what else may be public, but not published like his name and address. Rather than address his shoddy argument, he claims he was 'doxed' instead, ignoring the fact it was his fault for associating his real name with his post in the first place.
In both cases, it is done to harass and threaten the poster, with the explicit statement, "I know where you live" and the implicit statement "and therefore could attack you in person." It is done by people who want to silence others, because they cannot respond to their arguments substantively and have to resort to calling them "clickbait fallacy" posted by "drama queens".
But, at the end, there is just no purpose for universe colonization once we have reached the point we are able to make the journey to a solar system distant from ours by three light-years. We would have reached the point we can sustain life into the void without the Sun's energy for long periods of time and we are able to travel in mass on such a ship (required by the necessity of genetic diversity to survive as a spiece). What else is then needed?
Resources. Sustaining life for long periods of time without the Sun's energy merely requires a good energy storage system - for example, batteries that power a flashlight at night. At some point, you need fresh batteries - or fuel for your reactors, heavy metals for manufacturing, etc.
Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel
Patents are routinely issued on inventions that are obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering. For example, contributors to FFmpeg have disassembled and documented plenty of video codecs.
"Obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering" means obvious to someone who has seen the invention, taken it apart, figured out how it works, etc. And duh, once you've studied something in intimate detail, of course it's going to be obvious. That's irrelevant though - the question for patents is whether the invention was obvious at the time of invention, before anyone got to see what the inventor did.
rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement
And in a lot of cases, the royalty isn't "small" at all because the inventor wants to exclude a category of products from the market entirely. Think of when the late Steve Jobs promised that Apple was prepared to go "thermonuclear" on Android.
Good point - that's why we don't have any Android devices on the market.
/posted from my Android tablet
Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want
Kickstarter is not a patronage system. If it was, then we'd have Neal Stephenson locked in a dungeon.
In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.
It doesn't take "wealthy patrons" to produce a work expressing a viewpoint. Anyone who owns a personal computer and a year of Internet access can self-produce and self-publish a work in plenty of forms, such as the written word, a podcast, an animated video, or even a video game.
Yes, and because they hold copyright in that work, they can charge for copies and prevent others from re-publishing it without paying royalties. If there was no copyright, they'd take that year, self-produce and self-publish, and the next day, everyone would have a copy for free, and they'd have no income from that year of work.
Or, conversely, as I said, they would have only published that work for their patron, who paid them in advance to create it, under a contract where they couldn't publish it anywhere else. Artists gotta eat, man.
The idea was that copyright and patents encouraged people to share information so that it wouldn't be lost. The entire point was to get the works into the public domain at some point.
Your second sentence is correct, but your first is not. Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel, rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement. Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want (since no one would pay artists royalties) with exclusive contracts between the patron and artist preventing the artist from ever making a copy. In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.
"Attack of the 50-foot woman" might be interesting. The problem is that the copyright holder is not showing this movie anywhere - going public domain would fix that.
Here is the movie on Google Play, and here it is on Amazon streaming. By "not showing this movie anywhere", maybe you meant "not showing this movie anywhere for free"?
The "rounded corners" were not a utility patent -- it was a design patent, and only one element of it.
Yes, it was included in a design patent, but it shouldn't have been -- at least not in a way that allowed Apple to beat up Samsung over rounded corners. Rounded corners on a device you slip in your pocket are purely functional.
But the specific radius of curvature is not functional, since you can have many different design choices there while still having non-sharp corners.
I notice that all your links are to poorly made YouTube videos. Taking the first one, the links you claim back you up are actually just links to more YouTube videos, a document on Google Docs that is unverifiable, a seemingly unrelated WaPo editorial about a spat between journalists and bloggers, and a Gamasutra article that they clearly state was written by community member and not their own staff and which seems to be mostly irrelevant.
Aside: what the hell is up with that? Linking to a 15 minute YouTube video that, by definition, takes 15 minutes to sit through, rather than a five page article that can be skimmed in two? And the videos don't even use the medium to show graphics or charts - they're generally just some talking head in front of their computer's webcam. Are the pundits of this new generation illiterate, and can't simply write down what they want to say? Or are they assuming that their audience is illiterate?
When the news came out? THIRTEEN gaming sites issued THE EXACT SAME STORY about how they didn't need gamers and that gamers were "dead".
Actually, one issued the story and then others responded to it, many of them jumping on the same bandwagon. It's like seeing something in the NYTimes, then subsequently the WaPo saying, "The NYTimes reported X. We believe X'."
I mean, hell, if you're going to call that a conspiracy, then you just issued a similar story, so mark it up to 14.
According to Wikipedia*, #notyourshield was largely a sockpuppet sham.
Being personally acquainted with at least one of the #NotYourShield folks, they definitely aren't all sockpuppets.
Those are not inconsistent statements. You believe that the number of sockpuppets was less than 100%. GP says that according to wiki, it's greater than 50%. If it turns out anywhere within that range, it's still bad.
Brianna Wu was caught subsequently did admit to using at least one sockpuppet (twitter handle was BROLOLZ). Other ones, the evidence doesn't definitively prove anything, but are highly suspicious. Hopefully the FBI is taking it seriously.
Gosh, you're right, these sure are harassing tweets:
Drake Harper @BROLOLZ Oct 20
Deeply concerned about how Dragon's Crown perpetuates rape culture, bro.
Drake Harper @BROLOLZ Oct 20
Contemplating my white male privilege while playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
I'm sure the FBI will be cracking down on Wu any day now.
It can also note that disseminating parties may be liable for any damages to Sony that could arise. They need to prove damages though, and there's a lot of news sources involved. Will they do a reverse class-action suit or something?:P
No, but they could sue them collectively under a joint and several liability argument, saying "we were damaged by $X... feel free to figure out which of you pays which percentage of that amongst yourselves," based on a theory that by linking to each other in the articles, they were acting in concert. That wouldn't require proving which individual new source is responsible for which damage.
Has there been any indication that newspapers and such are going to publish full scripts or anything like that? They might report on leaked scripts and torrents containing said scripts, but that's not what a newspaper is going to be interested in.
I think it was one of the Gawker media sites that posted a full (and amusingly terrible) powerpoint presentation from the leaked stuff, full of marketing and distribution plans.
Mod parent up! (crap, I had points left yesterday....:)
Parent makes the important point: There's existing SCOTUS case law for this, and Sony's legal-ish threats and demand for press et al to refrain from looking at embarrassing things wouldn't stand up in a stiff breeze, much less in a lower court.
Frankly I'm kind of surprised to see a relatively experienced lawyer such as Boies make a demand like this, even if he is a distinguished douchebag. Usually lawyers like him are concerned about appearances, and making laughable demands that evoke a Streisand effect is bad for business.
Unfortunately, parent is incorrect regarding the SCOTUS case law. Not the AC's fault, though - Eugene Volokh's quoted in the article and makes the same mistake. The case law refers specifically to publishing (actually re-playing) an illegally intercepted phone conversation on a matter of great public interest (specifically public teachers union negotiations with the school board). It explicitly says that its holding doesn't apply to trade secrets, private matters, or gossip... and what's the issue here? Trade secrets, private matters, and gossip.
Boies may be a douchebag, but he's a douchebag who actively practices law and apparently reads the cases in full, unlike the good Professor Volokh, who has never actually practiced.
If Sony keeps doing it, their documents will be forever alive in the form of magnet links, formerly torrent file sharing technology.
Regardless, those documents will be floating around torrent sites, even if they do nothing. The horse has left the barn.
But this isn't about trying to actually keep the information under wraps - this is about trying to get some financial recompense. Like, someone let the horse out, and your neighbor suddenly has a sale on fresh horse meat... You're not getting your horse back, but maybe you should get a portion of their unlawfully gained profits.
In particular, the material includes both material under copyright, as well as trade secrets. Copyright law doesn't include a safe harbor for "but I'm a newspaper" or a generic "first amendment!" defense - while papers could publish short excerpts of the leaked info under fair use (17 USC 107), for news or commentary purposes, they could not, say, publish the entire script to the new Bond movie, relying on a defense of "well, we didn't steal it, and the first amendment says we can publish anything we want because we're the media."
Going further, many states' trade secret laws actually include explicit provisions about publishing trade secrets that were obtained unlawfully, even if you weren't the person who originally stole them. And while terrible law professor Eugene Volokh thinks that the Bartnicki case has a first amendment exemption, he's clearly never actually read it - SCOTUS specifically said that it doesn't apply to trade secrets, but for matters of public interest. Now, that may apply to things like Sony's CEO's salary, but it likely doesn't apply to things like advertising campaign plans or product release strategies.
So, if the media publishes the unlawfully obtained trade secrets or publishes the material under copyright in a way that exceeds the bounds of fair use, then they may be financially liable for Sony's damages. That doesn't put the horse back in the barn, since it's gone, man, but it does at least help pay for the new horse (and maybe a better lock).
Some monitors are make to be viewed landscape, and when rotated have horrible view angles.
I found some at work where the view angle was so bad, only one eye would get a good picture, while the other eye showed a faded & discolored image. Rubber-necking around would find a small sweet spot for viewing.
For programmers in CA, normally they are non-exempt, although I'm sure many skirt around it. My understanding is if you want a favorable equity package, you'll accept exempt status. If you want an hourly wage and a life, you declare non-exempt.
Both the Department of Labor and the courts disagree with your assessment.
The actual job duties themselves, not the job title, not the method of payment (hourly vs salary), and not the contract, determine if an individual worker is exempt from overtime rules.
This has been challenged time and time again in the courts. The concept of a "working foreman" is often mentioned since management is exempt from overtime. If the individual can show that at least half the time is spent on non-management tasks they are not exempt. If you spend 49% of your time or less doing management tasks you are not exempt. Even if your job title is "Managing Director", even if your contract calls you an exempt worker.
Although you are correct about the fact that the job duties matter, rather than the simple title, and you are correct about the fact that companies will give you a title, declare that you're salaried and therefore exempt, and try all sorts of other tricks to avoid paying overtime, you're wrong about one crucial thing - there's also an exemption for programmers:
Computer workers may be exempt under any of the "white collar exemptions," as bona fide executive or administrative employees. (See, FLSA Coverage.) For example, a "network administrator" may be performing administratively exempt job duties. There are, in addition, some special rules which apply to employees who work with computers and permit them to be classified as exempt even if they don't meet the usual requirements for exempt executives or administrators. However, there are special provisions which exempt some computer employees who might not otherwise qualify as "professionally" exempt. These include systems analysts, programmers (who "write code"), or software engineers. More specifically, the special computer employee exemption applies to workers who apply systems analysis techniques and procedures to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications, or who design, develop, test or modify computer systems or programs based on user or design specifications.
And that's what the article and thread are discussing - programmers. Here is the fact sheet from the DOL. If you:
are compensated either on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $455 per week or, if compensated on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour; and
are employed as a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer or other similarly skilled worker in the computer field,
if threats are judged from the perspective of a reasonable recipient, rather than the intent of the sender, then the "oh, everyone makes death threats online, they'd never follow through" defense fizzles away.
Uh, you mean the opposite? If you can demonstrate that there really is an internet subculture where "everyone makes death threats", then surely you have demonstrated that at least in that subculture no reasonable recipient would interpret them literally? Assuming the "threat" is made within the context of that subculture, that is. Reasonableness has to be context dependent, after all.
If the recipient is another person in that subculture, sure. So, no, screaming "I'll kill you, n00b" during a CoD deathmatch wouldn't be considered a real threat, but sending death threats over Twitter to a journalist or developer would be.
It's perfectly relevant. You have no more right to restrict what a person says any more than you have to dictate fashion (though the censors are trying to do that also). Their dogma is no better than Sharia law. All you are doing is validating *The devil made me do it* defense. That's not a good idea, but it does keep the slaves from rebelling, so maybe it is good idea, huh? Who wants a bunch of unruly untouchables around?
Yes, that's exactly it: preventing someone from making threats is no better than Sharia law.
Anyway, since we're in Crazytown and you're clearly the Mayor, there's no need to keep discussing this.
If that's the way it has to be, Then I insist that short skirts and exposed cleavage incite rape, and we can just accept that free will does not exist, that we are compelled to act by one's words or appearance. Some pigs will just have to be a little less equal.
Would you like to try again, but with a comment that makes sense and is in some way relevant to the thread, rather than just ranting about biatches accusing you of harassment?
I don't even know where to start with this one... The first amendment - like anything written in the Constitution is absolute. It has to be. If it weren't then we could all ignore any law we choose and even ignore rulings of the Supreme Court because their powers are based on the same document. So either the Constitution is absolute or it is not - but you can't have it both ways.
However, even with that I don't see how it matters... The bill of rights is supposed to keep us from the Federal Government taking too many rights and amassing too much power (and in doing so has given the federal government way too much power - just as the opponents of the bill of rights originally feared). It should have absolutely no influence in a court case between two individuals.
Peter.
I don't know why this got "insightful" points. Let's see... First, the free speech protections in the first amendment have never been absolute: from yelling fire in a crowded theater to threatening to kill someone, there have always been reasonable limits. In fact, no limitation in the Bill of Rights is absolute - we don't allow prison inmates to have guns, you can't practice your human sacrifice-based religion, etc.
Second, this has nothing to do with "a court case between two individuals." See the title, Elonis vs. United States? That's a criminal conviction - Elonis is appealing because he was convicted of a crime. And the government certainly has "influence in a court case" where the government is one of the parties.
At least your signature seems to be correct. So there's that.
This case has nothing to do with whether "rap lyric threats" are free speech, but whether convicting someone for making a threat should require that the accused intended to make a threat, or whether a reasonable person who received the message would interpret it as an intentional threat. The former is very difficult to prove and a simple disclaimer would obviate it: "oh, those were just rap lyrics when I said 'I'm coming to your house this evening to cut your throat, you biatch.' Ha ha ha!"
The wider implication is in the area of cyberbullying and online death threats - if threats are judged from the perspective of a reasonable recipient, rather than the intent of the sender, then the "oh, everyone makes death threats online, they'd never follow through" defense fizzles away.
I'm male so I'm not really an expert on Barbie but, everything I have ever seen and heard about "her" indicates that she's an unrealistic rich girl (or gold digger) that is obsessed about her body and possessing things and that the only thing she really encourages young girls to be is trophy wives with maybe an interesting side job for fun.
(i) Announces self as male;
(ii) Admits self lacks knowledge in a particular field;
(iii) Makes wild generalizations anyway.
There's a reason they call it "mansplaining", y'know.
Slashdot Mirror
Seriously? Do you think everybody in the world should be subject to the laws of all 196 countries in the world? The only way the US could get its claws on a foreign national residing in his own native country would be rendition or kidnapping. I doubt Canada would extradite a Canadian citizen to the US. The response would probably be something like "are you fucking kidding me?".
Actually, the dialogue would go like this:
Rightscorp: "We're suing this guy for copyright infringement."
U.S.: "Okay."
fnj: "You can't extradite him!"
U.S.: "No one asked to. It's a civil suit."
fnj: "No kidnapping either!"
Rightscorp: "Gracious, no. We just want money."
fnj: "Canada will resist any attempts to extradite or kidnap its citizens!!"
U.S.: "... we're going to stand over there now."
Doxing is releasing private information to the public. Names and addresses are not private information. Drama queens have tried to redefine this in vain attempts to control who gets to use the information they've already provided online.
Eg: John Doe posts a blog entry loaded with clickbait fallacy under his real name, looking for a reaction to boost his lack of self esteem and gain e-prestige, but wasn't ready for criticism. When his post doesn't quite get the attention he was looking for, some type his name into a search engine and find his address and telephone and post this already public information on some forum. If he gains a lot of notoriety, some will go further, armed with the already public info to pick away at what else may be public, but not published like his name and address. Rather than address his shoddy argument, he claims he was 'doxed' instead, ignoring the fact it was his fault for associating his real name with his post in the first place.
In both cases, it is done to harass and threaten the poster, with the explicit statement, "I know where you live" and the implicit statement "and therefore could attack you in person." It is done by people who want to silence others, because they cannot respond to their arguments substantively and have to resort to calling them "clickbait fallacy" posted by "drama queens".
But, at the end, there is just no purpose for universe colonization once we have reached the point we are able to make the journey to a solar system distant from ours by three light-years. We would have reached the point we can sustain life into the void without the Sun's energy for long periods of time and we are able to travel in mass on such a ship (required by the necessity of genetic diversity to survive as a spiece). What else is then needed?
Resources. Sustaining life for long periods of time without the Sun's energy merely requires a good energy storage system - for example, batteries that power a flashlight at night. At some point, you need fresh batteries - or fuel for your reactors, heavy metals for manufacturing, etc.
Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel
Patents are routinely issued on inventions that are obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering. For example, contributors to FFmpeg have disassembled and documented plenty of video codecs.
"Obvious to one skilled in the art of reverse engineering" means obvious to someone who has seen the invention, taken it apart, figured out how it works, etc. And duh, once you've studied something in intimate detail, of course it's going to be obvious. That's irrelevant though - the question for patents is whether the invention was obvious at the time of invention, before anyone got to see what the inventor did.
rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement
And in a lot of cases, the royalty isn't "small" at all because the inventor wants to exclude a category of products from the market entirely. Think of when the late Steve Jobs promised that Apple was prepared to go "thermonuclear" on Android.
Good point - that's why we don't have any Android devices on the market.
Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want
We have working patronage systems now.
Kickstarter is not a patronage system. If it was, then we'd have Neal Stephenson locked in a dungeon.
In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.
It doesn't take "wealthy patrons" to produce a work expressing a viewpoint. Anyone who owns a personal computer and a year of Internet access can self-produce and self-publish a work in plenty of forms, such as the written word, a podcast, an animated video, or even a video game.
Yes, and because they hold copyright in that work, they can charge for copies and prevent others from re-publishing it without paying royalties. If there was no copyright, they'd take that year, self-produce and self-publish, and the next day, everyone would have a copy for free, and they'd have no income from that year of work.
Or, conversely, as I said, they would have only published that work for their patron, who paid them in advance to create it, under a contract where they couldn't publish it anywhere else. Artists gotta eat, man.
The idea was that copyright and patents encouraged people to share information so that it wouldn't be lost. The entire point was to get the works into the public domain at some point.
Your second sentence is correct, but your first is not. Without patents, the information wouldn't be lost, it would be tied up as trade secrets, forcing every competitor to reinvent the proverbial wheel, rather than simply paying a small royalty to the first inventor and going on to invent the next improvement. Without copyright, art would only be created under patronage systems where the wealthy commission works that they want (since no one would pay artists royalties) with exclusive contracts between the patron and artist preventing the artist from ever making a copy. In addition to restricting the number of works, this would also restrict the number of viewpoints, as only those wealthy patrons' desired works would be created.
"Attack of the 50-foot woman" might be interesting. The problem is that the copyright holder is not showing this movie anywhere - going public domain would fix that.
Here is the movie on Google Play, and here it is on Amazon streaming. By "not showing this movie anywhere", maybe you meant "not showing this movie anywhere for free"?
Yes, it was included in a design patent, but it shouldn't have been -- at least not in a way that allowed Apple to beat up Samsung over rounded corners. Rounded corners on a device you slip in your pocket are purely functional.
But the specific radius of curvature is not functional, since you can have many different design choices there while still having non-sharp corners.
It seems pretty suspiciuos that the USPO only now has started to do their jobs - just when UBER's patent-applications crossed their desks.
Something like 95% of patent applications are initially rejected. People who claim the USPTO doesn't do their jobs conveniently ignore that fact.
I notice that all your links are to poorly made YouTube videos. Taking the first one, the links you claim back you up are actually just links to more YouTube videos, a document on Google Docs that is unverifiable, a seemingly unrelated WaPo editorial about a spat between journalists and bloggers, and a Gamasutra article that they clearly state was written by community member and not their own staff and which seems to be mostly irrelevant.
Aside: what the hell is up with that? Linking to a 15 minute YouTube video that, by definition, takes 15 minutes to sit through, rather than a five page article that can be skimmed in two? And the videos don't even use the medium to show graphics or charts - they're generally just some talking head in front of their computer's webcam. Are the pundits of this new generation illiterate, and can't simply write down what they want to say? Or are they assuming that their audience is illiterate?
When the news came out? THIRTEEN gaming sites issued THE EXACT SAME STORY about how they didn't need gamers and that gamers were "dead".
Actually, one issued the story and then others responded to it, many of them jumping on the same bandwagon. It's like seeing something in the NYTimes, then subsequently the WaPo saying, "The NYTimes reported X. We believe X'."
I mean, hell, if you're going to call that a conspiracy, then you just issued a similar story, so mark it up to 14.
According to Wikipedia*, #notyourshield was largely a sockpuppet sham.
Being personally acquainted with at least one of the #NotYourShield folks, they definitely aren't all sockpuppets.
Those are not inconsistent statements. You believe that the number of sockpuppets was less than 100%. GP says that according to wiki, it's greater than 50%. If it turns out anywhere within that range, it's still bad.
Brianna Wu was caught subsequently did admit to using at least one sockpuppet (twitter handle was BROLOLZ). Other ones, the evidence doesn't definitively prove anything, but are highly suspicious. Hopefully the FBI is taking it seriously.
Gosh, you're right, these sure are harassing tweets:
Drake Harper @BROLOLZ Oct 20
Deeply concerned about how Dragon's Crown perpetuates rape culture, bro.
Drake Harper @BROLOLZ Oct 20
Contemplating my white male privilege while playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2.
I'm sure the FBI will be cracking down on Wu any day now.
It can also note that disseminating parties may be liable for any damages to Sony that could arise. They need to prove damages though, and there's a lot of news sources involved. Will they do a reverse class-action suit or something? :P
No, but they could sue them collectively under a joint and several liability argument, saying "we were damaged by $X... feel free to figure out which of you pays which percentage of that amongst yourselves," based on a theory that by linking to each other in the articles, they were acting in concert. That wouldn't require proving which individual new source is responsible for which damage.
Has there been any indication that newspapers and such are going to publish full scripts or anything like that? They might report on leaked scripts and torrents containing said scripts, but that's not what a newspaper is going to be interested in.
I think it was one of the Gawker media sites that posted a full (and amusingly terrible) powerpoint presentation from the leaked stuff, full of marketing and distribution plans.
Mod parent up! (crap, I had points left yesterday.... :)
Parent makes the important point: There's existing SCOTUS case law for this, and Sony's legal-ish threats and demand for press et al to refrain from looking at embarrassing things wouldn't stand up in a stiff breeze, much less in a lower court.
Frankly I'm kind of surprised to see a relatively experienced lawyer such as Boies make a demand like this, even if he is a distinguished douchebag. Usually lawyers like him are concerned about appearances, and making laughable demands that evoke a Streisand effect is bad for business.
Unfortunately, parent is incorrect regarding the SCOTUS case law. Not the AC's fault, though - Eugene Volokh's quoted in the article and makes the same mistake. The case law refers specifically to publishing (actually re-playing) an illegally intercepted phone conversation on a matter of great public interest (specifically public teachers union negotiations with the school board). It explicitly says that its holding doesn't apply to trade secrets, private matters, or gossip... and what's the issue here? Trade secrets, private matters, and gossip.
Boies may be a douchebag, but he's a douchebag who actively practices law and apparently reads the cases in full, unlike the good Professor Volokh, who has never actually practiced.
If Sony keeps doing it, their documents will be forever alive in the form of magnet links, formerly torrent file sharing technology.
Regardless, those documents will be floating around torrent sites, even if they do nothing. The horse has left the barn.
But this isn't about trying to actually keep the information under wraps - this is about trying to get some financial recompense. Like, someone let the horse out, and your neighbor suddenly has a sale on fresh horse meat... You're not getting your horse back, but maybe you should get a portion of their unlawfully gained profits.
In particular, the material includes both material under copyright, as well as trade secrets. Copyright law doesn't include a safe harbor for "but I'm a newspaper" or a generic "first amendment!" defense - while papers could publish short excerpts of the leaked info under fair use (17 USC 107), for news or commentary purposes, they could not, say, publish the entire script to the new Bond movie, relying on a defense of "well, we didn't steal it, and the first amendment says we can publish anything we want because we're the media."
Going further, many states' trade secret laws actually include explicit provisions about publishing trade secrets that were obtained unlawfully, even if you weren't the person who originally stole them. And while terrible law professor Eugene Volokh thinks that the Bartnicki case has a first amendment exemption, he's clearly never actually read it - SCOTUS specifically said that it doesn't apply to trade secrets, but for matters of public interest. Now, that may apply to things like Sony's CEO's salary, but it likely doesn't apply to things like advertising campaign plans or product release strategies.
So, if the media publishes the unlawfully obtained trade secrets or publishes the material under copyright in a way that exceeds the bounds of fair use, then they may be financially liable for Sony's damages. That doesn't put the horse back in the barn, since it's gone, man, but it does at least help pay for the new horse (and maybe a better lock).
Some monitors are make to be viewed landscape, and when rotated have horrible view angles. I found some at work where the view angle was so bad, only one eye would get a good picture, while the other eye showed a faded & discolored image. Rubber-necking around would find a small sweet spot for viewing.
TLDR; doesn't work well on some monitors.
Do three sentences really merit a TLDR?
For programmers in CA, normally they are non-exempt, although I'm sure many skirt around it. My understanding is if you want a favorable equity package, you'll accept exempt status. If you want an hourly wage and a life, you declare non-exempt.
Both the Department of Labor and the courts disagree with your assessment.
The actual job duties themselves, not the job title, not the method of payment (hourly vs salary), and not the contract, determine if an individual worker is exempt from overtime rules.
This has been challenged time and time again in the courts. The concept of a "working foreman" is often mentioned since management is exempt from overtime. If the individual can show that at least half the time is spent on non-management tasks they are not exempt. If you spend 49% of your time or less doing management tasks you are not exempt. Even if your job title is "Managing Director", even if your contract calls you an exempt worker.
Although you are correct about the fact that the job duties matter, rather than the simple title, and you are correct about the fact that companies will give you a title, declare that you're salaried and therefore exempt, and try all sorts of other tricks to avoid paying overtime, you're wrong about one crucial thing - there's also an exemption for programmers:
Computer workers may be exempt under any of the "white collar exemptions," as bona fide executive or administrative employees. (See, FLSA Coverage.) For example, a "network administrator" may be performing administratively exempt job duties. There are, in addition, some special rules which apply to employees who work with computers and permit them to be classified as exempt even if they don't meet the usual requirements for exempt executives or administrators. However, there are special provisions which exempt some computer employees who might not otherwise qualify as "professionally" exempt. These include systems analysts, programmers (who "write code"), or software engineers. More specifically, the special computer employee exemption applies to workers who apply systems analysis techniques and procedures to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications, or who design, develop, test or modify computer systems or programs based on user or design specifications.
And that's what the article and thread are discussing - programmers. Here is the fact sheet from the DOL. If you:
then you probably are exempt from overtime.
if threats are judged from the perspective of a reasonable recipient, rather than the intent of the sender, then the "oh, everyone makes death threats online, they'd never follow through" defense fizzles away.
Uh, you mean the opposite? If you can demonstrate that there really is an internet subculture where "everyone makes death threats", then surely you have demonstrated that at least in that subculture no reasonable recipient would interpret them literally? Assuming the "threat" is made within the context of that subculture, that is. Reasonableness has to be context dependent, after all.
If the recipient is another person in that subculture, sure. So, no, screaming "I'll kill you, n00b" during a CoD deathmatch wouldn't be considered a real threat, but sending death threats over Twitter to a journalist or developer would be.
It's perfectly relevant. You have no more right to restrict what a person says any more than you have to dictate fashion (though the censors are trying to do that also). Their dogma is no better than Sharia law. All you are doing is validating *The devil made me do it* defense. That's not a good idea, but it does keep the slaves from rebelling, so maybe it is good idea, huh? Who wants a bunch of unruly untouchables around?
Yes, that's exactly it: preventing someone from making threats is no better than Sharia law.
Anyway, since we're in Crazytown and you're clearly the Mayor, there's no need to keep discussing this.
If that's the way it has to be, Then I insist that short skirts and exposed cleavage incite rape, and we can just accept that free will does not exist, that we are compelled to act by one's words or appearance. Some pigs will just have to be a little less equal.
Would you like to try again, but with a comment that makes sense and is in some way relevant to the thread, rather than just ranting about biatches accusing you of harassment?
I don't even know where to start with this one... The first amendment - like anything written in the Constitution is absolute. It has to be. If it weren't then we could all ignore any law we choose and even ignore rulings of the Supreme Court because their powers are based on the same document. So either the Constitution is absolute or it is not - but you can't have it both ways.
However, even with that I don't see how it matters... The bill of rights is supposed to keep us from the Federal Government taking too many rights and amassing too much power (and in doing so has given the federal government way too much power - just as the opponents of the bill of rights originally feared). It should have absolutely no influence in a court case between two individuals.
Peter.
I don't know why this got "insightful" points. Let's see... First, the free speech protections in the first amendment have never been absolute: from yelling fire in a crowded theater to threatening to kill someone, there have always been reasonable limits. In fact, no limitation in the Bill of Rights is absolute - we don't allow prison inmates to have guns, you can't practice your human sacrifice-based religion, etc.
Second, this has nothing to do with "a court case between two individuals." See the title, Elonis vs. United States? That's a criminal conviction - Elonis is appealing because he was convicted of a crime. And the government certainly has "influence in a court case" where the government is one of the parties.
At least your signature seems to be correct. So there's that.
The wider implication is in the area of cyberbullying and online death threats - if threats are judged from the perspective of a reasonable recipient, rather than the intent of the sender, then the "oh, everyone makes death threats online, they'd never follow through" defense fizzles away.
Girls excel at everything in school. Since the feminisation of the school system their is not a single subject that boys do not lag behind in.
Leik speeling or grammatical?
I'm male so I'm not really an expert on Barbie but, everything I have ever seen and heard about "her" indicates that she's an unrealistic rich girl (or gold digger) that is obsessed about her body and possessing things and that the only thing she really encourages young girls to be is trophy wives with maybe an interesting side job for fun.
(i) Announces self as male;
(ii) Admits self lacks knowledge in a particular field;
(iii) Makes wild generalizations anyway.
There's a reason they call it "mansplaining", y'know.