*
I wouldn't be surprised if this whole lawsuit defendant and plaintiff was a giant farce by the RIAA.
The geek in court is out-brained and out-gunned.
1 Choose a lawyer as you would a oncologist -
what you need is an experienced and responsible advocate whose only interest is in seeing you through a very difficult time.
2 Even the very best can spend a lifetime in practice and get no closer to the Supreme Court than the Gray Line bus tour.
You need to think very, very hard before pinning all your hopes on the constitutional questions that seem so seductive - and so easily resolved - on Slashdot.
3 The calliope, brass band, elephants, clowns and dancing bear have no place in the federal courtroom.
It shows a fundamental disrespect for the setting and the legal process. It pisses off the judge and jury.
It buries your defense under a ton of shit.
4 The geek tends to construct over-elaborate and implausible scenarios that come across as the fast-talker's big con in court.
Many things are possible in this world, but some things are more likely than others - and that is all a civil jury has to decide.
4 Fair Use has a specific - statutory - definition. It can suggest an approach to questions like time-shifting. But there are limits:
If you are not a licensed distributor, you have no business feeding content to the P2P nets.
The geek's investment in hardware and a broadband connection does not give him the right to free digital download copies of everything Pixar.
40% of the jury pool may not even have a broadband connection - or will have opted out of the P2P culture for other reasons - and in a deep recession that number can easily grow much larger.
5 If an award of statutory damages is the most likely outcome in your case, the time to settle is now.
The copyright owner has the exclusive right of distribution. The damages are assessed according to a statutory formula. He doesn't have to prove how badly he has been harmed.
You can take the UNC and Harvard study into the Congressional hearing. It's place in the courtroom is far less clear.
Considering Harvard's performance in Tenenbaum, I wouldn't be quaking in my boots if did come in.
If it does come in, the others probably will too. The only peer review that ultimately matters in court is that of the jury.
Media Sentry, the company that does the dirty work, is unlicensed as an investigator.
That only matters in cases and in jurisdictions where a "license" is required. The world of the forensics investigator is far removed from that of Spade and Archer.
Tenenbaum said flatly that MediaSentry had got it right:
Tenenbaum admitted that the screenshots captured by MediaSentry in August 2004, showing over 800 song files in his KaZaA shared folder, were accurate representations of the contents of that folder.Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it
The money is going directly to the RIAA pockets. Be a man, declare bankruptcy and fuck the RIAA.
You are assuming that the federal court judgment can be discharged in a bankruptcy proceeding - a proceeding that has clearly been initiated and contrived to escape the verdict.
But I saw that the judge's rationale was that plaintiffs had asked the defendant "are you liable" and he said "yes". It seems to me that when that question was asked, all of the defense lawyers should have levitated out of their seats screaming "Objection!"
In which case, the judge simply asks the attorney to rephrase his question or withdraw it.
It's a "harmless error." Changes nothing.
By that time Tennebaum had buried his defense six feet under and paved it over with cement.
Instead, over and over, Tenenbaum admitted under oath that he used KaZaA, LimeWire, and other peer-to-peer software to download and distribute music to others unknown. "This is me. I'm here to answer. "I used the computer. I uploaded and downloaded music. This is how it is. I did it," he testified before a packed courtroom, whose spectators included an all-star cast of Harvard Law School copyright scholars: Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey, and Jonathan Zittrain.
"Are you admitting liability for all 30 sound recordings" on which the record labels brought suit, asked the plaintiffs' attorney Tim Reynolds. "Yes," said Tenenbaum.
Tenenbaum then admitted that he "lied" in his written discovery responses, the ones in which he denied responsibility.
"Why did you lie at that point?" asked Tenenbaum's attorney, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson. "It was kind of something I rushed through," responded Tenenbaum. "It's what seemed the best response to give." At the time he gave the admittedly false discovery responses, Tenenbaum testified that he was being advised by his mother Judith, a family law attorney who works for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
During Tenenbaum's testimony, plaintiffs' attorney Tim Reynolds walked Tenenbaum methodically through the evidence, extracting scores of one, two, and three-word admissions that he did exactly what plaintiffs have accused him of doing.
"You used KaZaA to download music, right?"
"You used LimeWire to get music without paying for it, right?"
"Your goal was to obtain the maximum amount of music with the minimum amount of wasted effort, right?"
"Yes." "I did." "Yes, I did," Tenenbaum said calmly, over and over and over, in response to Reynolds' questions.
Tenenbaum admitted that the screenshots captured by MediaSentry in August 2004, showing over 800 song files in his KaZaA shared folder, were accurate representations of the contents of that folder.
He admitted that he listened to his copies of all 30 songs he is accused of downloading and distributing--negating Nesson's suggestion that some of them were actually fake files, "spoofs" put on peer-to-peer networks by copyright owners to frustrate users trying to obtain music for free.
And Tenenbaum accepted all of the conclusions of plaintiffs' computer forensics expert, Dr. Douglas Jacobson, as true. "I trust he's a competent professional," said Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it.
Game developers aren't obliged to fill quotas; all they have to do is make good games. Does anyone really care about what video game characters look like? These folks need to examine their priorities.
The developer's first priority is sales.
The U.S. in a very short time will have a Hispanic majority. It will be an increasingly complex multiracial - multicultural - society in which the white is in the minority.
The Wii prospers in large part because it targets non-traditional gamers. Women, the elderly, and so on.
You punch up 911 when you first smell the smoke - not when your house has burnt down to ashes.
In a way, this gives me some more confidence in CentOS, insofar as the rest of the admins were willing to "break glass in case of emergency" and deal with Davis' erratic leadership
it looks like CentOS is working on decentralizing their leadership so we don't get issues like this and the delayed 5.3 release because a key member was getting married.
I am not convinced that decentralized leadership is leadership.
You need someone strong enough and knowledgeable enough to hold all the pieces together no matter what. You need a clear line of succession.
1. If the health of the company and their product is absolutely dependent on the well being of Lance, then they should have done everything they could to keep this story quiet, as it is embarrassing.
Substitute OSX or Win 7.
Watch from some safe distance the purple-faced geek shifting into high gear, frothing at the mouth and about to burst an artery.
Note the double standard and profit from the experience.
I think Nesson wants to take this one to the Supremes. Tennenbaum didn't have a chance with the current interpretation of the law (basically "copyright infringement is bad, mmmkay?"), so he's trying to shake things up.
The Supremes accept maybe 120 cases a year for oral argument.
You can a lifetime in practice and never get closer to the Supreme Court than the Gray Line bus tour.
The "current interpretation of the law" is that the geek with a broadband connection is not entitled to his free media fix - the digital download copy of The Transformers
Nor is he entitled to flood the P2P nets with his own DiVX rips. The unlicensed wholesale distribution.
I don't own any real property (land). And a 2 million dollar judgement is unpayable. I'd be dead before I pay-off even a quarter that amount. That's why I'd laugh at the absurdity
You will be paying off the judgment in installments based on your present and future ability to pay.
The geek life-style you've enjoyed permanently down-sized.
The inheritance from dear old aunt Agatha - the big win in the state Lotto? Those have become daydreams for the guy in the next cubicle.
If the guy left a card to contact him, I'd probably send him some cash to buy a couple of beers with. After all, he could have stolen all my stuff, not left a note, and left no sign of forced entry
My Dad greeted trespassers on his farm with a Remington 12 gauge and a load of buckshot.
That's great for the very stereotypical creepy, mustachioed child molester, but ever-increasingly the phrase, "sex offender" has nothing to do with children at all.
There are times when I think the geek has disconnected from reality.
* Level one (low risk); * Level two (medium risk); and * Level three (high risk).
Level 1 offenders are required to register for a minimum of twenty years, and level 2 and 3 offenders for life. Police and law enforcement have access to information on all sex offenders (levels 1, 2 and 3). However, under the law, information on level 1 (low-risk) offenders is not available on the public website. Only level 2 and 3 offenders are listed on the public website
A Level 1 offender means that the court has determined that there is a low risk to commit another sex crime. A Level 2 offender means that the court has determined that there is a moderate risk to commit another sex crime. A Level 3 offender means that the court has determined that there is a high risk to commit another sex crime.
Where an offender is in jail or prison for a sex offense, the Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders recommends to the court which risk level should be given to an offender. Where an offender does not receive jail/prison time or receives probation plus jail/prison time, the District Attorney recommends to the court which risk level should be given to an offender. The court makes the final decision.
A sexual predator is a sex offender who has been found guilty of a sexually violent offense and who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes him or her likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses. A sexual predator must register for life.
A predicate sex offender is a sex offender who has been found guilty of two or more sex crimes. A predicate sex offender must register for life.
The Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, which took effect on April 28, 2008, requires all registered sex offenders to report to DCJS all of their internet accounts and any e-mail addresses and screen names used for the purposes of chat, instant messaging or social networking. This information is not generally available to the public. However, DCJS is allowed, upon request, to give the internet information to social networking websites that have members under the age of 18.
The Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, which took effect on April 28, 2008, requires all registered sex offenders to report to DCJS all of their internet accounts and any e-mail addresses and screen names used for the purposes of chat, instant messaging or social networking. The Act does not limit a sex offender's use of the Internet. However, if the sex offender is on probation or parole, the terms of the offender's parole or probation may limit his or her use of the Internet.
An individual, who is adjudicated, such as a youthful offender or juvenile delinquent, is not convicted of a crime and his or her records are not available to the public. As a result, he or she is not required to be registered in New York State. However, a juvenile offender, who is convicted of a sex crime, is required to register.
These links trace the strange path of a Class 3 registrant who, curiously enough, does fit the stereotype:
I thought the point of netbooks was to have a computer for accessing the internet and that's about it.
That is the network appliance.
The geek's all-time-favorite pipe dream.
The rock bottom price and specs for the XP Atom Netbook at Walmart.com is $238 with 512 MB RAM and your choice of an 8 GB SSD or a 160 GB HDD.
$348 buys an 11" screen, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB HDD.
That makes the netbook a viable budget platform for mobile media and games and pretty much everything else as well, of course - and the dual-core ATOM netbook with NVIDIA graphics is just around the corner.
Slashdot Mirror
The geek in court is out-brained and out-gunned.
1 Choose a lawyer as you would a oncologist -
what you need is an experienced and responsible advocate whose only interest is in seeing you through a very difficult time.
2 Even the very best can spend a lifetime in practice and get no closer to the Supreme Court than the Gray Line bus tour.
You need to think very, very hard before pinning all your hopes on the constitutional questions that seem so seductive - and so easily resolved - on Slashdot.
3 The calliope, brass band, elephants, clowns and dancing bear have no place in the federal courtroom.
It shows a fundamental disrespect for the setting and the legal process. It pisses off the judge and jury.
It buries your defense under a ton of shit.
4 The geek tends to construct over-elaborate and implausible scenarios that come across as the fast-talker's big con in court.
Many things are possible in this world, but some things are more likely than others - and that is all a civil jury has to decide.
4 Fair Use has a specific - statutory - definition. It can suggest an approach to questions like time-shifting. But there are limits:
If you are not a licensed distributor, you have no business feeding content to the P2P nets.
The geek's investment in hardware and a broadband connection does not give him the right to free digital download copies of everything Pixar.
40% of the jury pool may not even have a broadband connection - or will have opted out of the P2P culture for other reasons - and in a deep recession that number can easily grow much larger.
5 If an award of statutory damages is the most likely outcome in your case, the time to settle is now.
I wouldn't quite call them geeks, as a geek would be far less likely to get caught.
Excuse me for a moment. I seem to be choking on something.
One of the biggest I'd go for is proof of harm.
The copyright owner has the exclusive right of distribution. The damages are assessed according to a statutory formula. He doesn't have to prove how badly he has been harmed.
You can take the UNC and Harvard study into the Congressional hearing. It's place in the courtroom is far less clear.
Considering Harvard's performance in Tenenbaum, I wouldn't be quaking in my boots if did come in.
If it does come in, the others probably will too. The only peer review that ultimately matters in court is that of the jury.
Media Sentry, the company that does the dirty work, is unlicensed as an investigator.
That only matters in cases and in jurisdictions where a "license" is required. The world of the forensics investigator is far removed from that of Spade and Archer.
Tenenbaum said flatly that MediaSentry had got it right:
Tenenbaum admitted that the screenshots captured by MediaSentry in August 2004, showing over 800 song files in his KaZaA shared folder, were accurate representations of the contents of that folder. Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it
The money is going directly to the RIAA pockets. Be a man, declare bankruptcy and fuck the RIAA.
You are assuming that the federal court judgment can be discharged in a bankruptcy proceeding - a proceeding that has clearly been initiated and contrived to escape the verdict.
Is there any scenario in which losing this case incompetently and ending up with an outlandish fine actually works against the RIAA?
In one word:
No.
Jamie Thomas took her case twice to a jury and was twice hammered into the ground.
Tenenbaum admits to every element of the plaintiff's case. He admits to lying under oath in his depositions.
He also gets hammered into the ground.
Three juries. Three verdicts. Not the faintest breath of sympathy for the geek taking the stand.
That ought to tell you something.
But I saw that the judge's rationale was that plaintiffs had asked the defendant "are you liable" and he said "yes". It seems to me that when that question was asked, all of the defense lawyers should have levitated out of their seats screaming "Objection!"
In which case, the judge simply asks the attorney to rephrase his question or withdraw it.
It's a "harmless error." Changes nothing.
By that time Tennebaum had buried his defense six feet under and paved it over with cement.
Instead, over and over, Tenenbaum admitted under oath that he used KaZaA, LimeWire, and other peer-to-peer software to download and distribute music to others unknown. "This is me. I'm here to answer. "I used the computer. I uploaded and downloaded music. This is how it is. I did it," he testified before a packed courtroom, whose spectators included an all-star cast of Harvard Law School copyright scholars: Lawrence Lessig, John Palfrey, and Jonathan Zittrain.
"Are you admitting liability for all 30 sound recordings" on which the record labels brought suit, asked the plaintiffs' attorney Tim Reynolds. "Yes," said Tenenbaum.
Tenenbaum then admitted that he "lied" in his written discovery responses, the ones in which he denied responsibility.
"Why did you lie at that point?" asked Tenenbaum's attorney, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson. "It was kind of something I rushed through," responded Tenenbaum. "It's what seemed the best response to give." At the time he gave the admittedly false discovery responses, Tenenbaum testified that he was being advised by his mother Judith, a family law attorney who works for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
During Tenenbaum's testimony, plaintiffs' attorney Tim Reynolds walked Tenenbaum methodically through the evidence, extracting scores of one, two, and three-word admissions that he did exactly what plaintiffs have accused him of doing.
"You used KaZaA to download music, right?"
"You used LimeWire to get music without paying for it, right?"
"Your goal was to obtain the maximum amount of music with the minimum amount of wasted effort, right?"
"Yes." "I did." "Yes, I did," Tenenbaum said calmly, over and over and over, in response to Reynolds' questions.
Tenenbaum admitted that the screenshots captured by MediaSentry in August 2004, showing over 800 song files in his KaZaA shared folder, were accurate representations of the contents of that folder.
He admitted that he listened to his copies of all 30 songs he is accused of downloading and distributing--negating Nesson's suggestion that some of them were actually fake files, "spoofs" put on peer-to-peer networks by copyright owners to frustrate users trying to obtain music for free.
And Tenenbaum accepted all of the conclusions of plaintiffs' computer forensics expert, Dr. Douglas Jacobson, as true. "I trust he's a competent professional," said Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it.
Apple doesn't look for market share. A lot of companies such as Honda and BMW, don't.
Not quite true.
Companies like Apple and BMW do care about market share within their own niche markets.
They care about the size of the niche market as a whole.
You can become trapped in the niche - without enough money to pull out/build out if anything goes seriously wrong.
Think of how many luxury auto marques like Pierce-Arrow and Dussenberg went extinct during the Great Depression.
Statistically out of every 100 trials, you'll only get 2.5 juries to nullify the conviction and release the defendent.
In a civil case, there is no "conviction," only a decision for the plaintiff or the defendant.
You can't claim there has been "nullification" until you have shown that no "reasonable" jury could have found for the defendant.
You have no source for your statistics. You've made no distinction between the state and federal courts, civil and criminal law.
There were states that went "dry" before Prohibition and states that remained dry after Prohibition. Salt Lake is not Chicago.
Broadband is not universal. You might just discover that 40% of the jury pool is standing in line with the peons at Blockbuster.
The unwelcome mat.
In this August heat, I remember an arson summer of barn burnings.
In late fall, deer hunting season, working the orchards became dangerous. That couldn't go on, and so, like his neighbors he closed the land.
The exhibitionist leaves a note. The extortionist. The psychopath. It is madness to play by their rules.
Game developers aren't obliged to fill quotas; all they have to do is make good games. Does anyone really care about what video game characters look like? These folks need to examine their priorities.
The developer's first priority is sales.
The U.S. in a very short time will have a Hispanic majority. It will be an increasingly complex multiracial - multicultural - society in which the white is in the minority.
The Wii prospers in large part because it targets non-traditional gamers. Women, the elderly, and so on.
What owners of solar panels should do is to join hands and bite back the company by filing a suit for "unauthorized" use of power generated by them.
The utility's response:
"Fine. We'll disconnect your service. You can go 100% solar with local storage only. But I hear it is going to be mighty cold and dark this winter."
a modest acquaintance with English spelling and grammar wouldn't hurt
Lance Davis is AWOL for almost a year
You punch up 911 when you first smell the smoke - not when your house has burnt down to ashes.
In a way, this gives me some more confidence in CentOS, insofar as the rest of the admins were willing to "break glass in case of emergency" and deal with Davis' erratic leadership
Confidence? Confidence?
To me this story reads more like a Chinese Fire Drill
it looks like CentOS is working on decentralizing their leadership so we don't get issues like this and the delayed 5.3 release because a key member was getting married.
I am not convinced that decentralized leadership is leadership.
You need someone strong enough and knowledgeable enough to hold all the pieces together no matter what. You need a clear line of succession.
1. If the health of the company and their product is absolutely dependent on the well being of Lance, then they should have done everything they could to keep this story quiet, as it is embarrassing.
Substitute OSX or Win 7.
Watch from some safe distance the purple-faced geek shifting into high gear, frothing at the mouth and about to burst an artery.
Note the double standard and profit from the experience.
bomb the damn HQ of the riaa already, where are the terrorists when you need them? fuck them
Pursuing agendas which however perverted have a somewhat larger dimension than the geek's right to a free media fix.
Why anyone would mod up an incitement to murder is beyond me.
It reinforces the most dangerous and self-destructive stereotypes of the geek mind and culture.
I think Nesson wants to take this one to the Supremes. Tennenbaum didn't have a chance with the current interpretation of the law (basically "copyright infringement is bad, mmmkay?"), so he's trying to shake things up.
The Supremes accept maybe 120 cases a year for oral argument.
You can a lifetime in practice and never get closer to the Supreme Court than the Gray Line bus tour.
The "current interpretation of the law" is that the geek with a broadband connection is not entitled to his free media fix - the digital download copy of The Transformers
Nor is he entitled to flood the P2P nets with his own DiVX rips. The unlicensed wholesale distribution.
I don't own any real property (land). And a 2 million dollar judgement is unpayable. I'd be dead before I pay-off even a quarter that amount. That's why I'd laugh at the absurdity
You will be paying off the judgment in installments based on your present and future ability to pay.
The geek life-style you've enjoyed permanently down-sized.
The inheritance from dear old aunt Agatha - the big win in the state Lotto? Those have become daydreams for the guy in the next cubicle.
About his only defense is that he wasn't charging for the works, but that factor alone is never going to win.
The NET [No Electronic Theft} Act of 1998 criminalized non-profit infringement.
Its vulnerability that enabled the Conficker worm to do its thing earned honors as the 'Most Overhyped Bug.'
Cornflicker was a non-event for those who had installed the patch months before the worm began to do it's thing.
If the guy left a card to contact him, I'd probably send him some cash to buy a couple of beers with. After all, he could have stolen all my stuff, not left a note, and left no sign of forced entry
My Dad greeted trespassers on his farm with a Remington 12 gauge and a load of buckshot.
The unwelcome mat.
Using admin account without password is the computer equivalent of having your door wide open and a written invitation in large script next to it.
Not as a matter of law.
Not in the opinion of the federal prosecutor or the federal judge.
But we don't lock people up for 60 years for trespassing.
There have always been places where a physical intrusion - no matter how trivial - could quite conceivably get you shot.
The online world isn't so very different.
That's great for the very stereotypical creepy, mustachioed child molester, but ever-increasingly the phrase, "sex offender" has nothing to do with children at all.
There are times when I think the geek has disconnected from reality.
Office of Sex Offender Management
Sex Offender Registry
Sex offenders are classified by risk level:
* Level one (low risk);
* Level two (medium risk); and
* Level three (high risk).
Level 1 offenders are required to register for a minimum of twenty years, and level 2 and 3 offenders for life. Police and law enforcement have access to information on all sex offenders (levels 1, 2 and 3). However, under the law, information on level 1 (low-risk) offenders is not available on the public website. Only level 2 and 3 offenders are listed on the public website
Frequently Asked Questions
A Level 1 offender means that the court has determined that there is a low risk to commit another sex crime. A Level 2 offender means that the court has determined that there is a moderate risk to commit another sex crime. A Level 3 offender means that the court has determined that there is a high risk to commit another sex crime.
Where an offender is in jail or prison for a sex offense, the Board of Examiners of Sex Offenders recommends to the court which risk level should be given to an offender. Where an offender does not receive jail/prison time or receives probation plus jail/prison time, the District Attorney recommends to the court which risk level should be given to an offender. The court makes the final decision.
A sexual predator is a sex offender who has been found guilty of a sexually violent offense and who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes him or her likely to engage in predatory sexually violent offenses. A sexual predator must register for life.
A predicate sex offender is a sex offender who has been found guilty of two or more sex crimes. A predicate sex offender must register for life.
The Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, which took effect on April 28, 2008, requires all registered sex offenders to report to DCJS all of their internet accounts and any e-mail addresses and screen names used for the purposes of chat, instant messaging or social networking. This information is not generally available to the public. However, DCJS is allowed, upon request, to give the internet information to social networking websites that have members under the age of 18.
The Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act, which took effect on April 28, 2008, requires all registered sex offenders to report to DCJS all of their internet accounts and any e-mail addresses and screen names used for the purposes of chat, instant messaging or social networking. The Act does not limit a sex offender's use of the Internet. However, if the sex offender is on probation or parole, the terms of the offender's parole or probation may limit his or her use of the Internet.
An individual, who is adjudicated, such as a youthful offender or juvenile delinquent, is not convicted of a crime and his or her records are not available to the public. As a result, he or she is not required to be registered in New York State. However, a juvenile offender, who is convicted of a sex crime, is required to register.
These links trace the strange path of a Class 3 registrant who, curiously enough, does fit the stereotype:
Dozens of sex offenders live in the Falls.l James McKinney
I thought the point of netbooks was to have a computer for accessing the internet and that's about it.
That is the network appliance.
The geek's all-time-favorite pipe dream.
The rock bottom price and specs for the XP Atom Netbook at Walmart.com is $238 with 512 MB RAM and your choice of an 8 GB SSD or a 160 GB HDD.
$348 buys an 11" screen, 2 GB RAM and a 250 GB HDD.
That makes the netbook a viable budget platform for mobile media and games and pretty much everything else as well, of course - and the dual-core ATOM netbook with NVIDIA graphics is just around the corner.