But it doesn't require particular hardware, any general purpose computing hardware with an appropriate display and sensors will do. It doesn't matter how they're implemented or what they're made of. The hardware could be made of condensed dark matter with darkenergytronic circuits and this patent would still apply.
Yes, and? That's still tied to hardware, and therefore this is false:
This patent covers math, and not just math, but an idea.
This patent explicitly requires a touch screen and a processor. It would not cover thinking about the idea, writing the idea down on a pad of paper, using a pad of paper to write out pseudocode to perform the functions, etc. While the patent may include math, it also includes specific hardware elements and is therefore not just math or just an idea.
You have a software-only touch screen? What do you touch it with if it's not tangible?
General Purpose Computing Devices should not count as the apparatus in "Method and Apparatus For ___" that all software patents use as a loophole.
Why not? Bearing in mind that a general purpose computing device won't help with novelty or nonobviousness, why should it not be a good limitation that anchors an otherwise abstract idea?
... Except that you didn't bear that in mind:
I can implement this slide to unlock bullishit on paper: A greeting card, for example. It's implemented on my damn door, Already. Those are examples of hardware tied to the software. The idea of sliding to unlock something is not new or innovative. Applying it to general purpose computing devices with general purpose touch input screens whereby dragging or "sliding" is a well understood, non inventive input method is asinine, obvious at best.
You're confusing three different statutes. Patent eligibility is under 35 USC 101 and defines what subject material is potentially patent eligible - processes, machines, articles of manufacture, compositions of matter. You're trying to conflate a rule under that with 35 USC 102 or the requirement of novelty, or 35 USC 103 or the requirement of nonobviousness. There's no need to do that, and it muddies the waters - 35 USC 101 is specifically about whether something has patent eligible subject matter, period. A wheel, for example, is neither new nor nonobvious, but it's definitely a machine. Similarly, a process that is implemented on a computer is definitely a process, regardless of how new or old the computer is. Those considerations come next, under the other two statutes.
The software patents were supposed to depend on some specific hardware capability that was unique to the hardware, not re-implementable on every other device with a damn touch screen and CPU -- Say, in a factory where software controls a special robotic arm.
Says who? The Supreme Court hasn't, and neither has Congress.
Personally, I think all the software patents should be tossed out. Even if the software depends on some specific hardware construction, then the specific hardware construction should be what's patentable -- There are no needs for software patents. Software is just a recipe made of math.
Recipes are also patent-eligible subject matter, provided they're new and nonobvious (the latter being the really tough one for any combination of existing food components).
But here, you get to the right place:
To put it another way: If it's so damn general purpose that I can create op-codes and "run" the software on graph paper with my mind being the "apparatus" following pen-up, pen-down, erase, and compare instructions, then it shouldn't be patentable. Patents were never meant to stop people from thinking!
That's exactly right, and that's the reason why abstract ideas and algorithms aren't patentable. It's also the reason why laws of nature aren't patentable - you can't patent the law of gravity, even if it was just newly discovered, because you can't get an injunction to keep people from being bound by it. Similarly, you can't get an injunction to stop someone from thinking.
But this patent requires hardware. You can't possibly infringe it by thinking, because your mind is not a touch screen connected to a computer processor - and broad generalizations of what it means to be a "processor" aside, the patent is limited to computer processors. You can do your graph paper version all you want, and you'll never ever infringe the patent. It doesn't attempt to stop you from thinking, so it doesn't run into that perfectly-valid thoughtcrime justification.
MATH IS NOT FUCKING PATENTABLE YOU IDIOTS! STOP ALLOWING SOFTWARE PATENTS SINCE THEY ARE JUST MATH.
Software patents that are just math are not allowed. You'll see that this one involves hardware, which is not just math*.
*unless you're saying that all hardware can be abstracted as mathematical relationships, and are therefore arguing that all machines are unpatentable too?
yeah sure, that would apply __IF__ this patent was tied to some hw. if it were, it wouldn't be a problem and nobody would have to care about it either.
You have a software-only touch screen? What do you touch it with if it's not tangible?
MATH IS NOT FUCKING PATENTABLE YOU IDIOTS! STOP ALLOWING SOFTWARE PATENTS SINCE THEY ARE JUST MATH.
Software patents that are just math are not allowed. You'll see that this one involves hardware, which is not just math*.
*unless you're saying that all hardware can be abstracted as mathematical relationships, and are therefore arguing that all machines are unpatentable too?
But:
(i) Microsoft's trademark application was December 2010, while Apple's was May 2010; and
(ii) Microsoft's trademark registration was on the supplemental register, while Apple's is on the principal register. Unlike the principal register, the supplemental register gives no presumption of ownership, distinctiveness, or validity.
The problem is, the DCMA shouldn't be settling this, the MARKET should be. If i default on a subsidized phone, its a civil matter, take it up with the courts.
You are correct that it's a civil matter, but incorrect that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act doesn't apply - it also includes civil infringement and penalties. But yes, the cops shouldn't be coming after you.
You may be confused by the submitter's use of "illegal" - that term refers both to criminal acts and non-criminal acts that are still violations of the law (trademark infringement, patent infringement, parking in a handicapped zone, etc.).
"after 1/26/13, for any new mobile phone you purchase, you'll have to fulfill your contract, or break the law to unlock it."
That doesn't make sense. You own it or you don't. I own my iPhone, but in return for a reduced price I have agreed to use the carriers service. If I do not fulfill my agreement the penalty is financial, not the return of the merchandise.
That would depend on what the contract that you agreed to says. If the contract says that the penalty for breach is transfer of ownership of the phone back to the carrier, and you agree to that contract, then yeah, penalty is return of the merchandise.
Wayne Rasanen's Decatxt chording keyboard may be new and exciting to him, and he says has a patent on it so apparently the USPTO found it novel and original, but it's not the first chording keyboard by many long shots.
Subby, does his patent claim all implementations of chording keyboards, and in fact, the very concept of a chording keyboard? Or does it claim his one implementation? Because his implementation is novel and original - have you ever seen such an uncomfortable looking device? - and as long as he's not trying to claim ownership of the entire concept of chording, his patent could well be narrow enough to be valid. So, how about rather than injecting your FUD, you either link to the patent or stop whining about things you haven't read?
He might still be alive if he'd been suitably charged with copyright infringement and threatened with a few months in prison max, instead of a prosecutor pushing for conviction on charges which carry a higher sentence than rape or murder. Maybe not, it's a tricky area.
Come on, let's not get into FUD here. He was charged with 30 counts, each of which had much lower sentences than rape or murder. The maximum total of all 30, if they were consecutive, was more than the minimum sentence for rape or murder, but it was far lower than the similar maximum, consecutive sentence for 30 counts of rape or murder.
There's no evidence that Ortiz' actions pushed him to suicide
There's corpus delicti, the fact is that he did commit suicide while being harassed by Ortiz. She had the motive, the means, and the opportunity,
Also, you're using that term incorrectly. Corpus delicti refers to the doctrine that before someone can be convicted of committing a crime, it must be proven that a crime occurred. A dead body is not, in and of itself, proof of a crime. People die every day, for many non-criminal reasons. That he felt he was harassed is also not proof of a crime. Plenty of people feel harassed or stressed for many non-criminal reasons. That he even committed suicide, due to his frustration and despair at what his lawyers were telling him, is also not proof of a crime. You need to actually prove that a crime occurred, rather than just inferring one from a result.
Or, in logical terms, "If [someone committed murder], then [there's a dead body]" or A->B may be true, but the converse - "if [there's a dead body], then [someone committed murder]" or B->A is not necessarily true. And your only evidence of murder is the dead body, which means you haven't proven anything.
There's no evidence that Ortiz' actions pushed him to suicide
There's corpus delicti, the fact is that he did commit suicide while being harassed by Ortiz. She had the motive, the means, and the opportunity,
The motive? I assume you have some proof, since you're accusing her of wanting to kill him.
As for means and opportunity, since he committed suicide, by definition, he had the means and opportunity.
If she were anyone else but a federal prosecutor, she would be in custody right now, she would have been indicted, with a mugshot and fingerprints filed at the county jail.
Under what statute? Contrary to Slashdot belief, "I don't like you" isn't actually a valid criminal statute. This happened in Massachusetts, so the relevant code is the Massachusetts penal code, MGL Part IV. I'd start looking in the "crimes against the person" part, but good luck finding one that applies.
Ortiz certainly scared Swartz, but that's her job
It's not her job to scare someone to death.
Her job is to promote justice, not to cater to the media industry by being their scarecrow.
She had no way of knowing that he'd commit suicide, unless you're saying that it was foreseeable... and if you are, then you're also alleging that many other people knew about his imminent suicide, and so many other people failed in their duty, most importantly, his lawyers and doctors. But you aren't calling for their blood, I notice...
And where's your evidence for this foreseeability and intentional harassment to cause him to commit suicide? Do you have a post three weeks ago from someone saying "gosh, Ortiz is going to drive him to commit suicide," or a post from Ortiz saying "I just can't wait until you commit suicide" or even a post from Swartz saying "if this keeps up, I'll commit suicide"? No, of course not. No one saw this coming, so it's unreasonable to accuse Ortiz of some psychic-level magic powers based purely on your own hindsight.
A man who had previously written about his struggles with depression. There's no evidence that Ortiz' actions pushed him to suicide, so you're really asking for ridiculously high punishments without any evidence that the person is guilty and without due process, a far cry from justice.
In fact, the exact same argument you're making could be made about Swartz' own lawyers, who said that he was facing 30 years in prison and that the minimum cost to defend himself would be $1.5 million. Neither of those are statistically true, particularly in this case where there was no breaking and entering, no trade secret theft, and most importantly, no factual disputes: Swartz certainly wasn't going to argue that he never downloaded those documents from JSTOR, that he didn't change his MAC address when he was blocked, and that he didn't hook his laptop up to one of MITs network closets. So, right there, all of your major discovery costs disappear, and you're simply making a legal argument. The cost would be closer to $50-100 thousand, still not a drop in the bucket, but an order of magnitude different from what his own lawyer was scaring him with. Similarly, those 30 years would be applied only if the court didn't impose the sentences concurrently, and statistically, he'd be more likely to get 3-5 years tops. Again, an order of magnitude different.
Ortiz certainly scared Swartz, but that's her job. His own attorneys, who actually had a duty to protect him, were the ones who failed to reassure him. Why aren't you calling for their disbarment?
Is disbarment the correct punishment for applying the law that Congress wrote and failing to use discretion to ignore offenses?
Yes. Your move.
You don't care about justice, the fundamental concept that punishment should be related to one's own actions rather than the result on others, or the constitutional requirement of due process, and feel that your desire for retribution should trump any such considerations. Your move. Specifically, to a different country that's more in line with such beliefs, like North Korea.
Do you feel better now? Is 35 years in prison plus a $1 million fine the correct punishment for using a script to download documents?
Is disbarment the correct punishment for applying the law that Congress wrote and failing to use discretion to ignore offenses? Do you understand what "discretion" even means, if you insist that it be mandatory and punishment be applied if it's not used? Do you understand what "hypocrisy" means?
If that's the prosecutor's reaction, she is certainly not competent for the job she does, she should be fired and the bar association should start an investigation on her.
I think disbarment would be the proper solution. That would be the right level of punishment in her case. She demonstrated very plainly that she doesn't have the understanding of law needed to work on it professionally.
So, you're saying you're in favor of ridiculously high punishments that have no relationship to what the accused did?
Fire Carmen Ortiz, Steve Heymann, and perhaps Scott Garland.
Disbar and bring charges against Ortiz and Heymann for Attorney Misconduct. Also hit them with Involuntary Manslaughter.
Sue JSTOR for violations of FOIA requests. Sue them for theft, and perhaps racketeering. Also sue them under the anti trust laws for price fixing.
Sue MIT as well, for contributory negligence.
Change the terminology. There should be no language anywhere in the laws that equate copying with theft. This crime of "data theft" should be called "data copying".
Change the deals, and the laws. No private publisher should have any legal grounds for locking away research paid for by the public.
If any of this seems over the top, consider how over the top the accusations and threats against Swartz were.
No, it seems over the top because it's clear you have no idea what those actions, charges, and torts you're talking about are. What grounds would you have to disbar Ortiz and Heymann over? Your reference to "attorney misconduct" requires a lot more than just "I don't like them" - look specifically in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the ABA Model Rules of Ethics and find something they actually violated. And involuntary manslaughter? Let's be honest - you don't even know what that means. It simply doesn't apply here.
This was originally posted on ThinkProgress but I will post it here to put that 35 years into perspective for those who don't quite get it.
... But you won't bother to clear up the misleading implication that this was over one charge. How many counts was he facing? 13. If we apply the same number to the various "comparisons" you listed, they'd all be in the range of 100-400 years. 35 looks a lot more reasonable when it's *actually* in perspective, no?
What are you smoking? Distributing 13 files should be punished more harshly than selling nuclear weapon designs or killing somebody? Apparently a human life is worth about 4 file transfers. I'd hate to have you on my death panel.:)
Committing 13 crimes may (provided the sentences aren't applied concurrently) be punished more harshly than committing only 1 crime? Heavens to Betsy!
"You should rephrase your question to note that JSTOR's opinion was only "none" *after* getting all of Swartz's hard drives, a cash settlement, and an apology."
JSTOR should've been thanking him for hard testing their equipment and it seems finding a flaw for free. None of what transpired was illegal as the information was publicly paid for, obtained via public methods, in a public area.
MIT would no doubt argue about that classification of their network closet.
You're also leaving out the part where this was explicitly against the ToS and accordingly, his access wasn't legal.
What kind of punishment do you think Aaron Swartz deserved? When answering, please remember that JSTOR's opinion was "none".
You should rephrase your question to note that JSTOR's opinion was only "none" *after* getting all of Swartz's hard drives, a cash settlement, and an apology.
No, we are blaming a prosecutor for abusing her authority and bullying a citizen in order to promote herself and in the process of doing that, which is illegal and immoral by itself, contributing to the causes that pushed him to suicide.
What did the prosecutor do that was illegal? Cite a statute, or withdraw your slander.
The prosecutor could have used discretion and gone for a lesser charge, or even a nolo proseque agreement, and probably should have... But we can disagree with her decision without simultaneously spreading malicious lies.
This was originally posted on ThinkProgress but I will post it here to put that 35 years into perspective for those who don't quite get it.
... But you won't bother to clear up the misleading implication that this was over one charge. How many counts was he facing? 13. If we apply the same number to the various "comparisons" you listed, they'd all be in the range of 100-400 years. 35 looks a lot more reasonable when it's *actually* in perspective, no?
Plus, what you leave out is that these would have been concurrent, not consecutive... So 3-5 years, tops.
If you honestly believe that the prosecutors were wrong and should have used their discretion here, as I do, then there's no need to lie or make false comparisons.
The moral of the story? Don't talk to the the police. Don't help them. Don't believe anything they tell you, it is perfectly legal for them to lie to you. Don't sign anything. Don't volunteer any information, even if you think it's helpful. You do one thing and one thing only: Ask for a lawyer over and over... and even then, it has happened, that the police send in the DA and tell you "here's a lawyer" and you admit everything while they're taping. It's legal, and it's been done. Fuck the police, they are not your friends, they are there to arrest you.
Most of what you say is true, except for the one about the DA. I am a lawyer, and we studied that case in my professional responsibility class - that defendant's statements were suppressed, and the DA was disbarred. You frequently can trust the bar overseers: one benefit of our adversarial system is that since the other side's lawyer is trying to fark you, and your lawyer is trying to fark them, the neutral party really does end up pretty neutral. Just don't trust the cops. They're always on the other side.
Manual of Patent Examining Procedure; 706.03(a) Rejections under 35 USC 101 III
A rejection on the ground of lack of utility is appropriate when... (2) an assertion of specific and substantive utility for the invention is not credible. Such a rejection can include the more specific grounds of inoperativeness! Such as inventions involving perpetual motion.
But, also in the MPEP, examination focuses on the claims and the specific elements listed in said claims, not on what some Slashdot summary describes the patent as, or even an allegation of awesome results in the patent abstract or summary. And if you read the claims, they're for a specific design of bike pedal, but don't claim anything about increased efficiency or spectacular results: they simply claim this odd design for a pedal.
So, under a 35 USC 101 analysis, is it a machine? Yes. Does it have a use in pedaling a bike? Yes. The end.
Slashdot Mirror
But it doesn't require particular hardware, any general purpose computing hardware with an appropriate display and sensors will do. It doesn't matter how they're implemented or what they're made of. The hardware could be made of condensed dark matter with darkenergytronic circuits and this patent would still apply.
Yes, and? That's still tied to hardware, and therefore this is false:
This patent covers math, and not just math, but an idea.
This patent explicitly requires a touch screen and a processor. It would not cover thinking about the idea, writing the idea down on a pad of paper, using a pad of paper to write out pseudocode to perform the functions, etc. While the patent may include math, it also includes specific hardware elements and is therefore not just math or just an idea.
You have a software-only touch screen? What do you touch it with if it's not tangible?
General Purpose Computing Devices should not count as the apparatus in "Method and Apparatus For ___" that all software patents use as a loophole.
Why not? Bearing in mind that a general purpose computing device won't help with novelty or nonobviousness, why should it not be a good limitation that anchors an otherwise abstract idea?
I can implement this slide to unlock bullishit on paper: A greeting card, for example. It's implemented on my damn door, Already. Those are examples of hardware tied to the software. The idea of sliding to unlock something is not new or innovative. Applying it to general purpose computing devices with general purpose touch input screens whereby dragging or "sliding" is a well understood, non inventive input method is asinine, obvious at best.
You're confusing three different statutes. Patent eligibility is under 35 USC 101 and defines what subject material is potentially patent eligible - processes, machines, articles of manufacture, compositions of matter. You're trying to conflate a rule under that with 35 USC 102 or the requirement of novelty, or 35 USC 103 or the requirement of nonobviousness. There's no need to do that, and it muddies the waters - 35 USC 101 is specifically about whether something has patent eligible subject matter, period. A wheel, for example, is neither new nor nonobvious, but it's definitely a machine. Similarly, a process that is implemented on a computer is definitely a process, regardless of how new or old the computer is. Those considerations come next, under the other two statutes.
The software patents were supposed to depend on some specific hardware capability that was unique to the hardware, not re-implementable on every other device with a damn touch screen and CPU -- Say, in a factory where software controls a special robotic arm.
Says who? The Supreme Court hasn't, and neither has Congress.
Personally, I think all the software patents should be tossed out. Even if the software depends on some specific hardware construction, then the specific hardware construction should be what's patentable -- There are no needs for software patents. Software is just a recipe made of math.
Recipes are also patent-eligible subject matter, provided they're new and nonobvious (the latter being the really tough one for any combination of existing food components).
But here, you get to the right place:
To put it another way: If it's so damn general purpose that I can create op-codes and "run" the software on graph paper with my mind being the "apparatus" following pen-up, pen-down, erase, and compare instructions, then it shouldn't be patentable. Patents were never meant to stop people from thinking!
That's exactly right, and that's the reason why abstract ideas and algorithms aren't patentable. It's also the reason why laws of nature aren't patentable - you can't patent the law of gravity, even if it was just newly discovered, because you can't get an injunction to keep people from being bound by it. Similarly, you can't get an injunction to stop someone from thinking.
But this patent requires hardware. You can't possibly infringe it by thinking, because your mind is not a touch screen connected to a computer processor - and broad generalizations of what it means to be a "processor" aside, the patent is limited to computer processors. You can do your graph paper version all you want, and you'll never ever infringe the patent. It doesn't attempt to stop you from thinking, so it doesn't run into that perfectly-valid thoughtcrime justification.
I fail to see how the slide to unlock on my phone has anything to do with hardware.
Erm...
Here is a simple suggestion.
MATH IS NOT FUCKING PATENTABLE YOU IDIOTS! STOP ALLOWING SOFTWARE PATENTS SINCE THEY ARE JUST MATH.
Software patents that are just math are not allowed. You'll see that this one involves hardware, which is not just math*.
*unless you're saying that all hardware can be abstracted as mathematical relationships, and are therefore arguing that all machines are unpatentable too?
yeah sure, that would apply __IF__ this patent was tied to some hw. if it were, it wouldn't be a problem and nobody would have to care about it either.
You have a software-only touch screen? What do you touch it with if it's not tangible?
Here is a simple suggestion.
MATH IS NOT FUCKING PATENTABLE YOU IDIOTS! STOP ALLOWING SOFTWARE PATENTS SINCE THEY ARE JUST MATH.
Software patents that are just math are not allowed. You'll see that this one involves hardware, which is not just math*.
*unless you're saying that all hardware can be abstracted as mathematical relationships, and are therefore arguing that all machines are unpatentable too?
But Microsoft trademarked their store design too, and had it granted in 2011. This looks much like return fire, and not an opening shot.
http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85194406&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch
But:
(i) Microsoft's trademark application was December 2010, while Apple's was May 2010; and
(ii) Microsoft's trademark registration was on the supplemental register, while Apple's is on the principal register. Unlike the principal register, the supplemental register gives no presumption of ownership, distinctiveness, or validity.
The problem is, the DCMA shouldn't be settling this, the MARKET should be. If i default on a subsidized phone, its a civil matter, take it up with the courts.
You are correct that it's a civil matter, but incorrect that the Digital Millenium Copyright Act doesn't apply - it also includes civil infringement and penalties. But yes, the cops shouldn't be coming after you.
You may be confused by the submitter's use of "illegal" - that term refers both to criminal acts and non-criminal acts that are still violations of the law (trademark infringement, patent infringement, parking in a handicapped zone, etc.).
"after 1/26/13, for any new mobile phone you purchase, you'll have to fulfill your contract, or break the law to unlock it."
That doesn't make sense. You own it or you don't. I own my iPhone, but in return for a reduced price I have agreed to use the carriers service. If I do not fulfill my agreement the penalty is financial, not the return of the merchandise.
That would depend on what the contract that you agreed to says. If the contract says that the penalty for breach is transfer of ownership of the phone back to the carrier, and you agree to that contract, then yeah, penalty is return of the merchandise.
Wayne Rasanen's Decatxt chording keyboard may be new and exciting to him, and he says has a patent on it so apparently the USPTO found it novel and original, but it's not the first chording keyboard by many long shots.
Subby, does his patent claim all implementations of chording keyboards, and in fact, the very concept of a chording keyboard? Or does it claim his one implementation? Because his implementation is novel and original - have you ever seen such an uncomfortable looking device? - and as long as he's not trying to claim ownership of the entire concept of chording, his patent could well be narrow enough to be valid. So, how about rather than injecting your FUD, you either link to the patent or stop whining about things you haven't read?
He might still be alive if he'd been suitably charged with copyright infringement and threatened with a few months in prison max, instead of a prosecutor pushing for conviction on charges which carry a higher sentence than rape or murder. Maybe not, it's a tricky area.
Come on, let's not get into FUD here. He was charged with 30 counts, each of which had much lower sentences than rape or murder. The maximum total of all 30, if they were consecutive, was more than the minimum sentence for rape or murder, but it was far lower than the similar maximum, consecutive sentence for 30 counts of rape or murder.
There's no evidence that Ortiz' actions pushed him to suicide
There's corpus delicti, the fact is that he did commit suicide while being harassed by Ortiz. She had the motive, the means, and the opportunity,
Also, you're using that term incorrectly. Corpus delicti refers to the doctrine that before someone can be convicted of committing a crime, it must be proven that a crime occurred. A dead body is not, in and of itself, proof of a crime. People die every day, for many non-criminal reasons. That he felt he was harassed is also not proof of a crime. Plenty of people feel harassed or stressed for many non-criminal reasons. That he even committed suicide, due to his frustration and despair at what his lawyers were telling him, is also not proof of a crime. You need to actually prove that a crime occurred, rather than just inferring one from a result.
Or, in logical terms, "If [someone committed murder], then [there's a dead body]" or A->B may be true, but the converse - "if [there's a dead body], then [someone committed murder]" or B->A is not necessarily true. And your only evidence of murder is the dead body, which means you haven't proven anything.
There's no evidence that Ortiz' actions pushed him to suicide
There's corpus delicti, the fact is that he did commit suicide while being harassed by Ortiz. She had the motive, the means, and the opportunity,
The motive? I assume you have some proof, since you're accusing her of wanting to kill him.
As for means and opportunity, since he committed suicide, by definition, he had the means and opportunity.
If she were anyone else but a federal prosecutor, she would be in custody right now, she would have been indicted, with a mugshot and fingerprints filed at the county jail.
Under what statute? Contrary to Slashdot belief, "I don't like you" isn't actually a valid criminal statute. This happened in Massachusetts, so the relevant code is the Massachusetts penal code, MGL Part IV. I'd start looking in the "crimes against the person" part, but good luck finding one that applies.
Ortiz certainly scared Swartz, but that's her job
It's not her job to scare someone to death.
Her job is to promote justice, not to cater to the media industry by being their scarecrow.
She had no way of knowing that he'd commit suicide, unless you're saying that it was foreseeable... and if you are, then you're also alleging that many other people knew about his imminent suicide, and so many other people failed in their duty, most importantly, his lawyers and doctors. But you aren't calling for their blood, I notice...
And where's your evidence for this foreseeability and intentional harassment to cause him to commit suicide? Do you have a post three weeks ago from someone saying "gosh, Ortiz is going to drive him to commit suicide," or a post from Ortiz saying "I just can't wait until you commit suicide" or even a post from Swartz saying "if this keeps up, I'll commit suicide"? No, of course not. No one saw this coming, so it's unreasonable to accuse Ortiz of some psychic-level magic powers based purely on your own hindsight.
So, you're saying you're in favor of ridiculously high punishments that have no relationship to what the accused did?
The consequence of what Carmen Ortiz did was that a man died.
Harassing someone to the point of suicide is a crime, there are precedents for that.
A man who had previously written about his struggles with depression. There's no evidence that Ortiz' actions pushed him to suicide, so you're really asking for ridiculously high punishments without any evidence that the person is guilty and without due process, a far cry from justice.
In fact, the exact same argument you're making could be made about Swartz' own lawyers, who said that he was facing 30 years in prison and that the minimum cost to defend himself would be $1.5 million. Neither of those are statistically true, particularly in this case where there was no breaking and entering, no trade secret theft, and most importantly, no factual disputes: Swartz certainly wasn't going to argue that he never downloaded those documents from JSTOR, that he didn't change his MAC address when he was blocked, and that he didn't hook his laptop up to one of MITs network closets. So, right there, all of your major discovery costs disappear, and you're simply making a legal argument. The cost would be closer to $50-100 thousand, still not a drop in the bucket, but an order of magnitude different from what his own lawyer was scaring him with. Similarly, those 30 years would be applied only if the court didn't impose the sentences concurrently, and statistically, he'd be more likely to get 3-5 years tops. Again, an order of magnitude different.
Ortiz certainly scared Swartz, but that's her job. His own attorneys, who actually had a duty to protect him, were the ones who failed to reassure him. Why aren't you calling for their disbarment?
Yes. Your move.
You don't care about justice, the fundamental concept that punishment should be related to one's own actions rather than the result on others, or the constitutional requirement of due process, and feel that your desire for retribution should trump any such considerations. Your move. Specifically, to a different country that's more in line with such beliefs, like North Korea.
Sorry, I remembered wrong, it wasn't 50 years, just 35 years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, restitution, forfeiture and a fine of up to $1 million.
Do you feel better now? Is 35 years in prison plus a $1 million fine the correct punishment for using a script to download documents?
Is disbarment the correct punishment for applying the law that Congress wrote and failing to use discretion to ignore offenses? Do you understand what "discretion" even means, if you insist that it be mandatory and punishment be applied if it's not used? Do you understand what "hypocrisy" means?
If that's the prosecutor's reaction, she is certainly not competent for the job she does, she should be fired and the bar association should start an investigation on her.
I think disbarment would be the proper solution. That would be the right level of punishment in her case. She demonstrated very plainly that she doesn't have the understanding of law needed to work on it professionally.
So, you're saying you're in favor of ridiculously high punishments that have no relationship to what the accused did?
There are a lot of hypocrites in here.
What should happen next?
If any of this seems over the top, consider how over the top the accusations and threats against Swartz were.
No, it seems over the top because it's clear you have no idea what those actions, charges, and torts you're talking about are. What grounds would you have to disbar Ortiz and Heymann over? Your reference to "attorney misconduct" requires a lot more than just "I don't like them" - look specifically in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the ABA Model Rules of Ethics and find something they actually violated. And involuntary manslaughter? Let's be honest - you don't even know what that means. It simply doesn't apply here.
This was originally posted on ThinkProgress but I will post it here to put that 35 years into perspective for those who don't quite get it.
... But you won't bother to clear up the misleading implication that this was over one charge. How many counts was he facing? 13. If we apply the same number to the various "comparisons" you listed, they'd all be in the range of 100-400 years. 35 looks a lot more reasonable when it's *actually* in perspective, no?
What are you smoking? Distributing 13 files should be punished more harshly than selling nuclear weapon designs or killing somebody? Apparently a human life is worth about 4 file transfers. I'd hate to have you on my death panel. :)
Committing 13 crimes may (provided the sentences aren't applied concurrently) be punished more harshly than committing only 1 crime? Heavens to Betsy!
"You should rephrase your question to note that JSTOR's opinion was only "none" *after* getting all of Swartz's hard drives, a cash settlement, and an apology."
JSTOR should've been thanking him for hard testing their equipment and it seems finding a flaw for free. None of what transpired was illegal as the information was publicly paid for, obtained via public methods, in a public area.
MIT would no doubt argue about that classification of their network closet.
You're also leaving out the part where this was explicitly against the ToS and accordingly, his access wasn't legal.
You didn't answer his question.
What kind of punishment do you think Aaron Swartz deserved? When answering, please remember that JSTOR's opinion was "none".
You should rephrase your question to note that JSTOR's opinion was only "none" *after* getting all of Swartz's hard drives, a cash settlement, and an apology.
No, we are blaming a prosecutor for abusing her authority and bullying a citizen in order to promote herself and in the process of doing that, which is illegal and immoral by itself, contributing to the causes that pushed him to suicide.
What did the prosecutor do that was illegal? Cite a statute, or withdraw your slander.
The prosecutor could have used discretion and gone for a lesser charge, or even a nolo proseque agreement, and probably should have... But we can disagree with her decision without simultaneously spreading malicious lies.
This was originally posted on ThinkProgress but I will post it here to put that 35 years into perspective for those who don't quite get it.
... But you won't bother to clear up the misleading implication that this was over one charge. How many counts was he facing? 13. If we apply the same number to the various "comparisons" you listed, they'd all be in the range of 100-400 years. 35 looks a lot more reasonable when it's *actually* in perspective, no?
Plus, what you leave out is that these would have been concurrent, not consecutive... So 3-5 years, tops.
If you honestly believe that the prosecutors were wrong and should have used their discretion here, as I do, then there's no need to lie or make false comparisons.
The moral of the story? Don't talk to the the police. Don't help them. Don't believe anything they tell you, it is perfectly legal for them to lie to you. Don't sign anything. Don't volunteer any information, even if you think it's helpful. You do one thing and one thing only: Ask for a lawyer over and over... and even then, it has happened, that the police send in the DA and tell you "here's a lawyer" and you admit everything while they're taping. It's legal, and it's been done. Fuck the police, they are not your friends, they are there to arrest you.
Most of what you say is true, except for the one about the DA. I am a lawyer, and we studied that case in my professional responsibility class - that defendant's statements were suppressed, and the DA was disbarred. You frequently can trust the bar overseers: one benefit of our adversarial system is that since the other side's lawyer is trying to fark you, and your lawyer is trying to fark them, the neutral party really does end up pretty neutral. Just don't trust the cops. They're always on the other side.
On a big screen, i want a pen, not a finger
If you have a big screen, you'd better hope your pen is huge.
I thought that, like expensive cars or guns, guys got big screen laptops because of how small their pen is.
Manual of Patent Examining Procedure; 706.03(a) Rejections under 35 USC 101 III A rejection on the ground of lack of utility is appropriate when ... (2) an assertion of specific and substantive utility for the invention is not credible. Such a rejection can include the more specific grounds of inoperativeness! Such as inventions involving perpetual motion.
But, also in the MPEP, examination focuses on the claims and the specific elements listed in said claims, not on what some Slashdot summary describes the patent as, or even an allegation of awesome results in the patent abstract or summary. And if you read the claims, they're for a specific design of bike pedal, but don't claim anything about increased efficiency or spectacular results: they simply claim this odd design for a pedal.
So, under a 35 USC 101 analysis, is it a machine? Yes. Does it have a use in pedaling a bike? Yes. The end.