Oh yeah... don't even THINK about giving out insider trading tips. Don't speak them, don't write them, don't mouth them... don't even use sign language. Do you find it interesting that Martha Stewart isn't "Taking the First"? Hmm, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone "taking the First."
The reason why this current system 'only just sustains' smaller artists/writers/etc. is because 'this system' allows conglomerates to amass all the copyrights. That's why, unless you are Mariah Carey or Metallica, you are dirt fucking poor. "Only just sustains" = gives only enough money for ramen noodles. Any 'small' artist would be better off without copyright. Same thing goes for patents, too. Anyway, inventions and works of art are like kids... people are gonna make them, regardless of whether they get paid to do so or not. And like kids, most the things they make are worthless, stupid, and annoying.
There are dozens of exceptions. I'll give you a few:
1. You are not allowed to advertise fraudulently.
2. You are not allowed to reveal national secrets.
3. You are not allowed to violate a gag order given by a court.
4. You are not allowed to perform someone's song publicly unless you pay a fee.
5. You are not allowed to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. (sorry, couldn't resist)
6. You are not allowed to speak on my lawn. Ever.
7. You are not allowed to show obscene material in public. You are not even allowed to LOOK at kiddie porn.
8. You are not allowed to give away trade secrets of your employer.
9. You are not allowed to incite illegal activity.
10. Defamation is not protected speech. If you defame me, you cannot use the first amendment as a defense.
Oh, there are plenty of others, but those are 10 nice, good ones. BTW I've read the First Amendment, as well as thousands of supreme court cases interpreting it. Now, if you're one of those people who believe the Constitution is not meant to be applied to real-life facts, then what can I say. Sorry, but you live in the real world.
People who think the first amendment gives a flying rat's ass about spam are either morons, ignorami, or non-lawyers.
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit," wrote Chief Justice
Warren Burger in a 1970 decision. "We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or
otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another."
Chief Justice Burger, U.S. Supreme Court
ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT.,
397 U.S. 728 May 4, 1970.
Of course, the spammer, in his infinite wisdom, would most likely retort: "but we're not the vendors, we're just working for them!"
No, the first amendment does not "guarantee you the right to speek" or even allow you to communicate to whomever you want to. Speech can be regulated. Commercial speech (which is what spam is) is the 2nd most regulated form of speech behind obscenity. Advertisers are not allowed to "speak" many things. They're not allowed to blurt out faslities or misleading information. The first amendment is flushed right down the toilet when commercial speech comes into play. And rightfully so. Don't get me wrong, I love freedom of speech, but you do NOT have the right to say whatever you want. I can give you a list of 10 things (not even including 'fire' in a crowded theater) that you cannot say, even if you're wearing a t-shirt that has the first amendment printed on it. Freedom of speech issues come down to political speech, unpopular speech (i.e. nazis), and obscene speech. Commercial speech is one step above obscenity and 1.5 steps above kiddie porn.
Most importantly, a content-neutral time/place/manner restriction on speech (i.e. no fucking spam) is very easy for the government to enforce. The first amendmend steps right aside and doesn't argue at all.
So let's say it takes five seconds to recognized and delete one message. That's not really significant, is it? But if you do the math, for someone who receives 100 per day, at minimum wage it works out to over $300 per year!
Ok, but someone who is getting paid minimum wage isn't gonna be docked for those wasted 500 seconds each day. Frankly, they should be. Then people would start caring more about spam and we would get a blue-collar army to rise up and get some real anti-spam laws passed.
Or, make it known to management (i.e. the ones who pay the people minimum wage) that spam is causing them to lose 500 seconds of productivity a day per worker, which means $300 in lost annual revenue for each worker they are employing. Maybe if all managers knew that, they'd be more inclined to throw money at the legislators to solve the spam problem. The only way to solve a problem in america is to throw money at it (it being those who can make laws to fix the problem). I know that sounds cynical, but if you think I'm wrong about that, please take your head out of your ass.
The only reason we have these GNU freeware licenses is because of the copyright system. The OSS programs themselves don't exist because of copyright. If those GNU licenses were not there, then microsoft could pack linux up in a fancy box, sell it, and sue anyone who continues to share it freely.
Don't get it mixed up. Free software doesn't exist BECAUSE of copyright. Free software has to have these "free licenses" in order to keep it free BECAUSE of the shitty ass copyright system. Get rid of ALL copyright (none, zero, not even 14 year terms) and the world will work just fine. Freeware will flourish, because everything WILL be freeware. The only thing microsoft should be able to charge for is autographed copies of CDROMS and instruction manuals... signed by bill gates himself.
Go look it up in a dictionary. I'm an English major. I may know jack shit about physics, math, programming, or science, but I know how to speak. Obligate is very much English, and you should feel obligated to go back to elementary school.
Re:Decision has interesting implications
on
Still More Sex.com
·
· Score: 1
Well, IANAL, but I am taking the bar exam tomorrow:) I should be studying, but ya know, I'm burnt the fuck out at this point, so I'm just gonna relax today and screw around on the computer, eat twinkies, and smoke a few cigars.
The district court nevertheless rejected Kremen's conversion claim. It held that domain names, although a form of property, are intangibles not subject to conversion. This rationale derives from a distinction tort law once drew between tangible and intangible property: Conversion was originally a remedy for
the wrongful taking of another's lost goods, so it applied only to tangible property.
So, the district court didn't say it wasn't property, but that it was intangible property that the tort of conversion doesn't apply to. [incidentally, conversion doesn't only apply to the taking of someone's "lost" goods... yeah, they are "lost" after they are taken, but that's an awkward, if not stupid, way for the district court to have put it.]
The common law tort of conversion is somewhat like stealing... it is the act of interfering with the ownership of another's movable or personal property without authorization or justification, especially depriving them the use and possession of such property.
The big thing here was that some courts and the Restatement 2nd of Torts seem to imply that an intangible can be converted ONLY IF it is embodied in a 'writing' somewhere. But most courts don't follow that logic, and those who do follow it do it illogically. Judge Kozinski (so glad he wrote this!) cited the example of the court that said laundry delivery routes are not subject to conversion. Ok, but they were probably written down somewhere. Anyway, this case is only saying that intangible property can be converted, regardless of whether it is written down on a peice of paper (or in a rolodex - several pieces of paper).
Yes, there is the copyright case cited here, A & M Records, Inc. v. Heilman, 75 Cal. App. 3d 554 (1977), which applied the tort to a defendant who sold bootlegged copies of musical recordings. The court held broadly that "such misappropriation and sale of the intangible property of another without authority from the owner is conversion." This is the only copyright case cited in the case, and by no means does the case base its holding on this logic. In that case the guy was selling bootlegs. Surely that interferes with the ownership rights of the copyright holder. Is downloading a song of kazaa conversion? I don't think so, and would argue most certainly not, but regardless, that's not what that case was about.
... In rejecting the tangibility requirement, FMC echoes Payne's holding that personal property of any species may be converted.
Basically, Judge Kazinski (who is about the only Judge out there who knows what he's talking about when it comes to tech stuff) is saying property doesn't have to be a pure chattel to be converted. You've always been able to convert a promissory note, for example. That's somewhat intangible, as it's merely a negotiable instrument. Most courts have thrown out the old "tangibile property only" requirement for a conversion claim. The ONLY holding of this case is that a domain name can be converted, whether you want to call it tangible, intangible, or intangible embodied in a writing somewhere. The converter, therefore, can be held liable. Here, Network Solutions is liable as the converter.
In my opinion, this is just like being able to sue your bank for conversion (which you can) if it pays one of your checks to a person who is not entitled to enforce the instrument (i.e. a thief). This is basically what happened in this case. Network solutions was the bank, Cohen was the forger, and The plaintiff, Kremen, should be able to sue Network Solutions in conversion.
If we did a "post questions for bruce perens and he'll answer what he feels like here" thread, it would be a total mess. He'd feel obligated to answer a lot of questions, and that would mean short answers for nearly everything. Doing it this way, with the highest modded questions being given to him, and then giving him time to respond, is the best way to do it. Besides, it's the way all slashdot interviews are done. I'm sure we've done plenty of official interviews with people who read slashdot regularly (in fact, didn't one of the DoJ lawyers admit to reading slashdot quite often?). Only the best questions (i.e. mine) should be given the time to be modded up to +5 and then sent off for answering. Letting the interviewee pick the questions lets them censor themselves, and that's not good... in fact that's bullshit. "hey bill gates, read this thread and answer the questions you want!" Would you expect any good questions to be answered (even though bill, unlike bruce, is probably adverse to most of our questions... hostile witness if you will).
It seems to be taken as a near-universal trusims that copyright is necessary to foster the arts and 'creativity,' while patents are necessary to stimulate the sciences and the 'innovation' of new ideas. In other words, without intellectual property monopoly rights (be they temporary or perpetual) humanity will cease to create anything (other than marijuana plants and dirty laundry). To many of us, OSS (and namely the success of Linux--the official #2 threat to Microsoft, from their own mouth) is proof enough that the "intellectual property bargain" truism is nothing but a falsity. A falsity that hinders innovation, creativity, the arts and the sciences. From reading some of your interviews, I get the impression that you feel the same way. I think we can all agree that copyright terms are ridiculously and unconstitutionally lengthy (Eldred notwithstanding), but do you think these IP monopolies need to exist in the first place? Could you elaborate on what your views of copyrights/patents (IP laws in general, not just software patents) are and should be?
Well yeah, when you execute a lot of people (guilty or innocent, they all die the same), you get pretty good at it, so it gets fairly simple. Texas has mastered the art. In fact, I don't even think it's that messy anymore.
Why is everyone (not just everyone here, but everyone collectively) always so quick to jump on medicines?
There's nothing wrong with amphetamines, unless you're injecting crap you got from a guy named Spike next to a dumpster behind a 7-11 at 3am. Adderall, Dexedrine, etc. work very well. They should be a last resort, to be sure, but being productive and flipped out on prescription speed is better than being unproductive and tired. That stuff works much better than caffeine (which actually makes you more jittery and doesn't improve concentration at all; only wakefullness). You don't know what concentration IS until you've snarfed down 40mg of Adderall and read a few hundred pages of extremely uninteresting stuff. Warning: you might get the urge to clean your apartment incessantly.
Just thinking out loud to myself here. I thought good cyphertext is as close to random as possible, and thus can't be compressed. Or can you compress the file first, then encrypt it? I am no expert on this (obviously) so I could be totally pulling this from my ass. Anyone know how this works?
Jury nullification is a real thing, but it is nost certainly not firmly enshrined in the American legal system. The american legal system hates the very notion of it. It is mistrial time were a lawyer to tell the jury (i.e. in closing arguments) about jury nullification, and the bottom line is if juries are free to decide issues of law, then there are no laws.
But, jury nullification itself is not a valid reason for a new trial, unlike, say, 3rd party interference w/ jury deliberations. Jury nullification should only be used in criminal trials, IMO, and only a last resort to a very wrongful, oppressive prosecution (when the state is trying to make an example of someone). Jury nullification in civil trials, such as to ignore the assumption of risk defense to 'stick it to those evil tobacco companies' is just not right, IMHO.
So, I weigh less on the West coast than the East
on
Gravity Map of Earth
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Seems one weighs more in california than in new york. Am I the only one who has a great idea for a new 'guaranteed' weight-loss plan to sell on ebay? [running to the US patent office....]
Jury nullification sounds neat in theory but it never happens. A lawyer isn't even allowed to tell the jury about it. Jury nullification basically means anarchy, because the jury is supposed to base its decision on the law. That's what jury charge is. You can't say "here is the law, base your decision on it... or don't." If the jury decision is totally out of line, the loser can typically move for JNOV and have the verdict disregarded.
The way the People decide the laws is not to ignore them, but to elect those who will properly create them.
That being said, some laws are simply irremovable. Drug laws are such an example. Draconian copyright laws, while a new phenomenon, may very well be too. In a criminal case based on such a law, I feel jury nullification is not improper. But it's not ideal, either. Jury nullification is never a good thing. There are proper ways to get bad laws removed - either elect those who will revoke the laws and pass new ones, or get the law found unconstitutional and toss it out.
Shareholders own the corporation, but not the corporation's assets and liabilities. The CDs would be corporate assets. This is like saying since you own a few shares of Microsoft stock, you can freely walk into MS WHQ in Redmond, WA and go stomp on Bill Gate's desk, because it is YOUR property. Go try it and see how "your" security guards treat you.
the key word there is "had." That being said this idea is so wrong from so many aspects i don't know where to start, but let's just say it doesn't work.
Ok this idea is so incredibly stupid for so many reasons, but ignoring all the reasons already stated as to why this does not work, just think about this. If the RIAA bought 51% of the stock (which, if this is a public company, the RIAA could do), it would own the company, would appoint directors, and you can expect the corporation to start acting differently once that happens. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the company then merged with the RIAA.
Civil law does have a much easier burden of proof to meet. Preponderance of the evidence is "more likely than not" but that does not mean "only half" the jurors are needed for a verdict. Not even "more than half" (i.e. 7 of the 12 jurors).
The jury is told what standard of proof must be used in the jury charge. They are told to answer the questions based on whether a party has met the preponderance of the evidence burden of proof in a civil trial, or the beyond a reasonable doubt BoP in a criminal trial. There is also a "clear and convincing" intermediate standard, but let's just ignore that for now. In a civil trial, here in Texas state court you need 10 of the 12 jurors to answer in your favor to get a verdict. In a criminal trial, it must be unanimous. Of course, Copyright suits, both civil and criminal, would be brought in Federal court (or subsequently removed thereto). There the jury is somewhere between 6-12 members in civil trials and usually 12 in criminal trials, and in both criminal and civil cases the verdict must be unanimous.
It is most definitely easier to get a jury verdict in a civil trial than in a criminal one (as the party with the burden of proof), but only half of the jury can never win a case for anyone, even if the burden of proof requires only a showing of preponderance of the evidence.
Just one answer: Billable hours. Very simple. Unlike the DOJ lawyers, the civil lawyers are paid by their clients (i.e. RIAA)solely to bring these lawsuits. The DOJ lawyers have (government) salaries and are not paid by result. An interview with lawyers from the RIAA "civil side" would not be interesting at all. Either they'd come right out and say "we're doing it because they're paying us very well" (unlikely) or they'd just bullshit thier way around any question, using words like "theft" and "stealing" and "billions of dollars in lost industry profits." Maybe I have a narrow attention span, but I don't find that interesting at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh yeah... don't even THINK about giving out insider trading tips. Don't speak them, don't write them, don't mouth them... don't even use sign language. Do you find it interesting that Martha Stewart isn't "Taking the First"? Hmm, I don't think I've ever heard of anyone "taking the First."
The reason why this current system 'only just sustains' smaller artists/writers/etc. is because 'this system' allows conglomerates to amass all the copyrights. That's why, unless you are Mariah Carey or Metallica, you are dirt fucking poor. "Only just sustains" = gives only enough money for ramen noodles. Any 'small' artist would be better off without copyright. Same thing goes for patents, too. Anyway, inventions and works of art are like kids... people are gonna make them, regardless of whether they get paid to do so or not. And like kids, most the things they make are worthless, stupid, and annoying.
There are dozens of exceptions. I'll give you a few:
1. You are not allowed to advertise fraudulently.
2. You are not allowed to reveal national secrets.
3. You are not allowed to violate a gag order given by a court.
4. You are not allowed to perform someone's song publicly unless you pay a fee.
5. You are not allowed to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. (sorry, couldn't resist)
6. You are not allowed to speak on my lawn. Ever.
7. You are not allowed to show obscene material in public. You are not even allowed to LOOK at kiddie porn.
8. You are not allowed to give away trade secrets of your employer.
9. You are not allowed to incite illegal activity.
10. Defamation is not protected speech. If you defame me, you cannot use the first amendment as a defense.
Oh, there are plenty of others, but those are 10 nice, good ones. BTW I've read the First Amendment, as well as thousands of supreme court cases interpreting it. Now, if you're one of those people who believe the Constitution is not meant to be applied to real-life facts, then what can I say. Sorry, but you live in the real world.
People who think the first amendment gives a flying rat's ass about spam are either morons, ignorami, or non-lawyers.
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit," wrote Chief Justice Warren Burger in a 1970 decision. "We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another." Chief Justice Burger, U.S. Supreme Court ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT., 397 U.S. 728 May 4, 1970.
Of course, the spammer, in his infinite wisdom, would most likely retort: "but we're not the vendors, we're just working for them!"
No, the first amendment does not "guarantee you the right to speek" or even allow you to communicate to whomever you want to. Speech can be regulated. Commercial speech (which is what spam is) is the 2nd most regulated form of speech behind obscenity. Advertisers are not allowed to "speak" many things. They're not allowed to blurt out faslities or misleading information. The first amendment is flushed right down the toilet when commercial speech comes into play. And rightfully so. Don't get me wrong, I love freedom of speech, but you do NOT have the right to say whatever you want. I can give you a list of 10 things (not even including 'fire' in a crowded theater) that you cannot say, even if you're wearing a t-shirt that has the first amendment printed on it. Freedom of speech issues come down to political speech, unpopular speech (i.e. nazis), and obscene speech. Commercial speech is one step above obscenity and 1.5 steps above kiddie porn.
Most importantly, a content-neutral time/place/manner restriction on speech (i.e. no fucking spam) is very easy for the government to enforce. The first amendmend steps right aside and doesn't argue at all.
So let's say it takes five seconds to recognized and delete one message. That's not really significant, is it? But if you do the math, for someone who receives 100 per day, at minimum wage it works out to over $300 per year!
Ok, but someone who is getting paid minimum wage isn't gonna be docked for those wasted 500 seconds each day. Frankly, they should be. Then people would start caring more about spam and we would get a blue-collar army to rise up and get some real anti-spam laws passed.
Or, make it known to management (i.e. the ones who pay the people minimum wage) that spam is causing them to lose 500 seconds of productivity a day per worker, which means $300 in lost annual revenue for each worker they are employing. Maybe if all managers knew that, they'd be more inclined to throw money at the legislators to solve the spam problem. The only way to solve a problem in america is to throw money at it (it being those who can make laws to fix the problem). I know that sounds cynical, but if you think I'm wrong about that, please take your head out of your ass.
The only reason we have these GNU freeware licenses is because of the copyright system. The OSS programs themselves don't exist because of copyright. If those GNU licenses were not there, then microsoft could pack linux up in a fancy box, sell it, and sue anyone who continues to share it freely.
Don't get it mixed up. Free software doesn't exist BECAUSE of copyright. Free software has to have these "free licenses" in order to keep it free BECAUSE of the shitty ass copyright system. Get rid of ALL copyright (none, zero, not even 14 year terms) and the world will work just fine. Freeware will flourish, because everything WILL be freeware. The only thing microsoft should be able to charge for is autographed copies of CDROMS and instruction manuals... signed by bill gates himself.
Why is there no mod down for moron?
Go look it up in a dictionary. I'm an English major. I may know jack shit about physics, math, programming, or science, but I know how to speak. Obligate is very much English, and you should feel obligated to go back to elementary school.
wow, i'm not on there?! wtf! :)
Well, IANAL, but I am taking the bar exam tomorrow :) I should be studying, but ya know, I'm burnt the fuck out at this point, so I'm just gonna relax today and screw around on the computer, eat twinkies, and smoke a few cigars.
... In rejecting the tangibility requirement, FMC echoes Payne's holding that personal property of any species may be converted.
The district court nevertheless rejected Kremen's conversion claim. It held that domain names, although a form of property, are intangibles not subject to conversion. This rationale derives from a distinction tort law once drew between tangible and intangible property: Conversion was originally a remedy for the wrongful taking of another's lost goods, so it applied only to tangible property.
So, the district court didn't say it wasn't property, but that it was intangible property that the tort of conversion doesn't apply to. [incidentally, conversion doesn't only apply to the taking of someone's "lost" goods... yeah, they are "lost" after they are taken, but that's an awkward, if not stupid, way for the district court to have put it.]
The common law tort of conversion is somewhat like stealing... it is the act of interfering with the ownership of another's movable or personal property without authorization or justification, especially depriving them the use and possession of such property. The big thing here was that some courts and the Restatement 2nd of Torts seem to imply that an intangible can be converted ONLY IF it is embodied in a 'writing' somewhere. But most courts don't follow that logic, and those who do follow it do it illogically. Judge Kozinski (so glad he wrote this!) cited the example of the court that said laundry delivery routes are not subject to conversion. Ok, but they were probably written down somewhere. Anyway, this case is only saying that intangible property can be converted, regardless of whether it is written down on a peice of paper (or in a rolodex - several pieces of paper).
Yes, there is the copyright case cited here, A & M Records, Inc. v. Heilman, 75 Cal. App. 3d 554 (1977), which applied the tort to a defendant who sold bootlegged copies of musical recordings. The court held broadly that "such misappropriation and sale of the intangible property of another without authority from the owner is conversion." This is the only copyright case cited in the case, and by no means does the case base its holding on this logic. In that case the guy was selling bootlegs. Surely that interferes with the ownership rights of the copyright holder. Is downloading a song of kazaa conversion? I don't think so, and would argue most certainly not, but regardless, that's not what that case was about.
Basically, Judge Kazinski (who is about the only Judge out there who knows what he's talking about when it comes to tech stuff) is saying property doesn't have to be a pure chattel to be converted. You've always been able to convert a promissory note, for example. That's somewhat intangible, as it's merely a negotiable instrument. Most courts have thrown out the old "tangibile property only" requirement for a conversion claim. The ONLY holding of this case is that a domain name can be converted, whether you want to call it tangible, intangible, or intangible embodied in a writing somewhere. The converter, therefore, can be held liable. Here, Network Solutions is liable as the converter.
In my opinion, this is just like being able to sue your bank for conversion (which you can) if it pays one of your checks to a person who is not entitled to enforce the instrument (i.e. a thief). This is basically what happened in this case. Network solutions was the bank, Cohen was the forger, and The plaintiff, Kremen, should be able to sue Network Solutions in conversion.
If we did a "post questions for bruce perens and he'll answer what he feels like here" thread, it would be a total mess. He'd feel obligated to answer a lot of questions, and that would mean short answers for nearly everything. Doing it this way, with the highest modded questions being given to him, and then giving him time to respond, is the best way to do it. Besides, it's the way all slashdot interviews are done. I'm sure we've done plenty of official interviews with people who read slashdot regularly (in fact, didn't one of the DoJ lawyers admit to reading slashdot quite often?). Only the best questions (i.e. mine) should be given the time to be modded up to +5 and then sent off for answering. Letting the interviewee pick the questions lets them censor themselves, and that's not good... in fact that's bullshit. "hey bill gates, read this thread and answer the questions you want!" Would you expect any good questions to be answered (even though bill, unlike bruce, is probably adverse to most of our questions... hostile witness if you will).
It seems to be taken as a near-universal trusims that copyright is necessary to foster the arts and 'creativity,' while patents are necessary to stimulate the sciences and the 'innovation' of new ideas. In other words, without intellectual property monopoly rights (be they temporary or perpetual) humanity will cease to create anything (other than marijuana plants and dirty laundry). To many of us, OSS (and namely the success of Linux--the official #2 threat to Microsoft, from their own mouth) is proof enough that the "intellectual property bargain" truism is nothing but a falsity. A falsity that hinders innovation, creativity, the arts and the sciences. From reading some of your interviews, I get the impression that you feel the same way. I think we can all agree that copyright terms are ridiculously and unconstitutionally lengthy (Eldred notwithstanding), but do you think these IP monopolies need to exist in the first place? Could you elaborate on what your views of copyrights/patents (IP laws in general, not just software patents) are and should be?
Well yeah, when you execute a lot of people (guilty or innocent, they all die the same), you get pretty good at it, so it gets fairly simple. Texas has mastered the art. In fact, I don't even think it's that messy anymore.
The death penalty isn't always clean, but it is fairly simple. Then again, I am from Texas....
Why is everyone (not just everyone here, but everyone collectively) always so quick to jump on medicines?
There's nothing wrong with amphetamines, unless you're injecting crap you got from a guy named Spike next to a dumpster behind a 7-11 at 3am. Adderall, Dexedrine, etc. work very well. They should be a last resort, to be sure, but being productive and flipped out on prescription speed is better than being unproductive and tired. That stuff works much better than caffeine (which actually makes you more jittery and doesn't improve concentration at all; only wakefullness). You don't know what concentration IS until you've snarfed down 40mg of Adderall and read a few hundred pages of extremely uninteresting stuff. Warning: you might get the urge to clean your apartment incessantly.
Just thinking out loud to myself here. I thought good cyphertext is as close to random as possible, and thus can't be compressed. Or can you compress the file first, then encrypt it? I am no expert on this (obviously) so I could be totally pulling this from my ass. Anyone know how this works?
Jury nullification is a real thing, but it is nost certainly not firmly enshrined in the American legal system. The american legal system hates the very notion of it. It is mistrial time were a lawyer to tell the jury (i.e. in closing arguments) about jury nullification, and the bottom line is if juries are free to decide issues of law, then there are no laws.
But, jury nullification itself is not a valid reason for a new trial, unlike, say, 3rd party interference w/ jury deliberations. Jury nullification should only be used in criminal trials, IMO, and only a last resort to a very wrongful, oppressive prosecution (when the state is trying to make an example of someone). Jury nullification in civil trials, such as to ignore the assumption of risk defense to 'stick it to those evil tobacco companies' is just not right, IMHO.
Seems one weighs more in california than in new york. Am I the only one who has a great idea for a new 'guaranteed' weight-loss plan to sell on ebay? [running to the US patent office....]
Jury nullification sounds neat in theory but it never happens. A lawyer isn't even allowed to tell the jury about it. Jury nullification basically means anarchy, because the jury is supposed to base its decision on the law. That's what jury charge is. You can't say "here is the law, base your decision on it... or don't." If the jury decision is totally out of line, the loser can typically move for JNOV and have the verdict disregarded.
The way the People decide the laws is not to ignore them, but to elect those who will properly create them.
That being said, some laws are simply irremovable. Drug laws are such an example. Draconian copyright laws, while a new phenomenon, may very well be too. In a criminal case based on such a law, I feel jury nullification is not improper. But it's not ideal, either. Jury nullification is never a good thing. There are proper ways to get bad laws removed - either elect those who will revoke the laws and pass new ones, or get the law found unconstitutional and toss it out.
Shareholders own the corporation, but not the corporation's assets and liabilities. The CDs would be corporate assets. This is like saying since you own a few shares of Microsoft stock, you can freely walk into MS WHQ in Redmond, WA and go stomp on Bill Gate's desk, because it is YOUR property. Go try it and see how "your" security guards treat you.
the key word there is "had." That being said this idea is so wrong from so many aspects i don't know where to start, but let's just say it doesn't work.
Ok this idea is so incredibly stupid for so many reasons, but ignoring all the reasons already stated as to why this does not work, just think about this. If the RIAA bought 51% of the stock (which, if this is a public company, the RIAA could do), it would own the company, would appoint directors, and you can expect the corporation to start acting differently once that happens. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the company then merged with the RIAA.
Civil law does have a much easier burden of proof to meet. Preponderance of the evidence is "more likely than not" but that does not mean "only half" the jurors are needed for a verdict. Not even "more than half" (i.e. 7 of the 12 jurors).
The jury is told what standard of proof must be used in the jury charge. They are told to answer the questions based on whether a party has met the preponderance of the evidence burden of proof in a civil trial, or the beyond a reasonable doubt BoP in a criminal trial. There is also a "clear and convincing" intermediate standard, but let's just ignore that for now. In a civil trial, here in Texas state court you need 10 of the 12 jurors to answer in your favor to get a verdict. In a criminal trial, it must be unanimous. Of course, Copyright suits, both civil and criminal, would be brought in Federal court (or subsequently removed thereto). There the jury is somewhere between 6-12 members in civil trials and usually 12 in criminal trials, and in both criminal and civil cases the verdict must be unanimous.
It is most definitely easier to get a jury verdict in a civil trial than in a criminal one (as the party with the burden of proof), but only half of the jury can never win a case for anyone, even if the burden of proof requires only a showing of preponderance of the evidence.
Just one answer: Billable hours. Very simple. Unlike the DOJ lawyers, the civil lawyers are paid by their clients (i.e. RIAA)solely to bring these lawsuits. The DOJ lawyers have (government) salaries and are not paid by result. An interview with lawyers from the RIAA "civil side" would not be interesting at all. Either they'd come right out and say "we're doing it because they're paying us very well" (unlikely) or they'd just bullshit thier way around any question, using words like "theft" and "stealing" and "billions of dollars in lost industry profits." Maybe I have a narrow attention span, but I don't find that interesting at all.
Ditto. Not only is UT a great engineering school, but austin is a great tech town.