Maybe, once they have this order in hand, they can seize the RIAA's main headquarters building. After all, that would create great publicity, which is what all these lawsuits is about.
It's the RIAA's stubborn refusal to pay a single cent in exoneration that puts them at the top of the list of most evil organizations ever!
Is this another V-chip fiasco? The government is convinced everybody needs it. Almost nobody wants their access to information filtered or restricted. And the costs and complications go up for everybody regardless of whether they ever wanted or need it in the first place.
Perhaps this is all evidence of a new trend in law: How The Internet Changes Everything!
In the SCO versus IBM + The Entire Linux Community, Groklaw provided a full-time forum for commentary and suggestions, and Slashdot covered the subject often. Among all the First Posts and other chaff must have been more than a few nuggets of wisdom.
In the fight of The RIAA versus The Entire Civilized World, this is taken yet another step further. While IBM was as technically savvy as its opponent, lawyers (apologies to Ray), Judges (no apologies to too many of them still, but some are getting it finally), and most users aren't very knowledgeable about computers, software, the Internet, the law, and what it all means. Neither is the RIAA knowledgeable in these areas, as they are too often making very evident.
Because of widespread interest in the subject, along with a general dislike of big business in general, there is a collaboration here the likes of which couldn't have ever happened even a few short years ago. The RIAA has thousands more enemies than they've yet sued, all of whom are willing to contribute what bit of knowledge they have to bring that lying (we're only doing this for the poor starving artists) colossus down. And because of their identical, boilerplate cases, they only have to lose on one point to lose them all! And its the Internet that's making all this possible. People communicate in ways they never could before.
Students, among other things, also have a lot of time on their hands, and a great ire when they think they've been wronged. That's a volatile mix that the RIAA may soon wish they'd left alone. Suing grandmothers (unless it happens to be Neville Longbottom's Gram) is safer than motivated students just looking for the next cause celeb.
All in all, I'd say the RIAA has made yet another major misstep. Maybe this will be their last one, since if successful, the students will provide the roadmap to kill all of these cases where they should be killed -- at the illegal, unethical, ex parte stage. If so, the world will be a better place for you and me (lyric used under Fair Use provisions).
The real problem is that the RIAA doesn't have to win in court to hurt you. They only have to run your legal bills up into the tens of thousands of dollars for daring to defy them in not accepting their extortionaire "settlement" demand (a nonnegotiable offer is a demand), and then fight tooth and nail to avoid paying your lawyer's fees when they cut and run.
This is the problem with the legal system. At minimum, these tactics should be thrown out of court as SLAPP suits.
This happened in an SF story long before 2001. I don't recall the author, but he talked of the Vacuum Breather's club, and how the longest time was over 2 minutes -- and how the protagonist had gotten "the worst sunburn of his life" during the 30 or so seconds of his own experience.
Also, while not recalling the specific reference, my memory seems to remember an Analog Magazine (why don't we have good SF magazines like that one any longer) science fact article on how you don't immediately explode when exposed to vacuum.
So I'm calling Prior Art on all of this. Not my prior art, but that Prior Art exists.
Microsoft desperately needs this guys -- or somebody -- to rewrite the Visual Studio.NET/2003/2005 into something usable. Considering how easy the VS 5/6 help files were to use, I've never understood how they were able to take such a giant leap back into almost complete un-usability. One is ready to believe conspiracy theories regarding that MS has a secret state in all the VS manual publishers who try to explain what Microsoft itself doesn't!
similarly to the US policy of not invading countries that...(b) could up a fight,
Iraq had an elite, well-equipped, army of their own. They are probably in the top 5 or so of countries that could put up a fight. And they didn't, preferring to be smacked down convincingly instead.
Sir Elton John didn't say anything about file shareing. Now go RTFA.
Sir Elton said we should shut down the entire Internet for five years, because it was destroying music as he knows it. That includes every independent selling or sharing their music over the Internet. That includes Web-Radio. That includes filesharing.
He seems to feel that independent artists like Chip Davis (Mannheim Steamroller), Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells, Ommadawn), and every kid who can't afford a record studio, but can afford a personal computer and a bit of software, should be SOL when it comes to music, as he wants it. Because Sir Elton is a Luddite (his own admission) and has no use for the Internet and all it brings, he sees no reason that anyone else should either. F-You, Elton!
Doesn't 25 seconds qualify as fair use for commentary? This was only 20 seconds.
And just what was the theater's stake in this? Someone taping the whole movie likely doesn't hurt them directly at all. You're either going to see the movie in the theater, or your not, and having it on BT seldom changes that decision (unless it's really bad, and you don't go waste your money as a result). Seems like a huge downside in publicity for the theater, given how quickly comments have bloomed here on this topic. And I doubt the theater gets any significant reward for this arrest.
The real question to my mind here is: who is bearing the cost of this prosecution? I doubt the theater is paying for it itself.
If a country really wanted to rip the music industry a new one, they'd institute a reasonable 5 year copyright term for all new recordings. How many old albums are still in the top 10,000 after 4 years anyway.
And once it went out of copyright there, it would be cut free out into the world.
Talk about something to really scare the record companies.
Will they now threaten Germany, as they've threatened Russia (no WTO until AllOfMP3 is destroyed), and Sweden (raid The Pirate Bay, or else we won't like you)?
What this decision says that's really important is that file sharing isn't the big deal the RIAA affiliated companies -- and Elton John -- make it out to be. And the losses due to a few files shared isn't HUGE AMOUNTS OF DOLLARS, like the RIAA sues for. And that there are other crimes that are far more damaging to society than guaranteeing a profit forever (Sonny Bono Copyright Extension into Eternity Act) for an old industry in a new age. And that the public prosecutors don't work for free for the record industry any longer.
Slashdot Mirror
It's the RIAA's stubborn refusal to pay a single cent in exoneration that puts them at the top of the list of most evil organizations ever!
Actually this will only be version 2. Everyone knows that with MS it's best to wait for version 3.0 of any product.
Operating temperature < 451 F.
You know, Sheet Music has much higher compression ratio to the performance than even very low bitrate MP3. Are they howling about that as well?
Is this another V-chip fiasco? The government is convinced everybody needs it. Almost nobody wants their access to information filtered or restricted. And the costs and complications go up for everybody regardless of whether they ever wanted or need it in the first place.
In the SCO versus IBM + The Entire Linux Community, Groklaw provided a full-time forum for commentary and suggestions, and Slashdot covered the subject often. Among all the First Posts and other chaff must have been more than a few nuggets of wisdom.
In the fight of The RIAA versus The Entire Civilized World, this is taken yet another step further. While IBM was as technically savvy as its opponent, lawyers (apologies to Ray), Judges (no apologies to too many of them still, but some are getting it finally), and most users aren't very knowledgeable about computers, software, the Internet, the law, and what it all means. Neither is the RIAA knowledgeable in these areas, as they are too often making very evident.
Because of widespread interest in the subject, along with a general dislike of big business in general, there is a collaboration here the likes of which couldn't have ever happened even a few short years ago. The RIAA has thousands more enemies than they've yet sued, all of whom are willing to contribute what bit of knowledge they have to bring that lying (we're only doing this for the poor starving artists) colossus down. And because of their identical, boilerplate cases, they only have to lose on one point to lose them all! And its the Internet that's making all this possible. People communicate in ways they never could before.
Students, among other things, also have a lot of time on their hands, and a great ire when they think they've been wronged. That's a volatile mix that the RIAA may soon wish they'd left alone. Suing grandmothers (unless it happens to be Neville Longbottom's Gram) is safer than motivated students just looking for the next cause celeb.
All in all, I'd say the RIAA has made yet another major misstep. Maybe this will be their last one, since if successful, the students will provide the roadmap to kill all of these cases where they should be killed -- at the illegal, unethical, ex parte stage. If so, the world will be a better place for you and me (lyric used under Fair Use provisions).
Ray, Maybe the students are reading Slashdot, and your blog.
This is the problem with the legal system. At minimum, these tactics should be thrown out of court as SLAPP suits.
Because they were being driven respectively by:
Paris Hilton
Nicole Richie
Lindsay Lohan
Britney Spears
Wow! I can hardly wait now for it to be complete.
Also, while not recalling the specific reference, my memory seems to remember an Analog Magazine (why don't we have good SF magazines like that one any longer) science fact article on how you don't immediately explode when exposed to vacuum.
So I'm calling Prior Art on all of this. Not my prior art, but that Prior Art exists.
Sounds more like something for amusement park thrill rides.
Microsoft desperately needs this guys -- or somebody -- to rewrite the Visual Studio .NET/2003/2005 into something usable. Considering how easy the VS 5/6 help files were to use, I've never understood how they were able to take such a giant leap back into almost complete un-usability. One is ready to believe conspiracy theories regarding that MS has a secret state in all the VS manual publishers who try to explain what Microsoft itself doesn't!
Two Words: Grey Market.
And this is news why...?
Al-Qaeda lies. Wow, that's news.
Maybe everybody just doesn't want to interact with Sir Elton. He is a bit out of control in some regards.
This is just great. Now there are two ways to go extinct.
the researchers determined, the sun reaches the highest point in its orbit relative to the galactic plane, where most Milky Way stars reside.
So each time we pop our head out of our hole, aliens start taking potshots at us.
This should scare Apple shareholders for a few days at least.
Iraq had an elite, well-equipped, army of their own. They are probably in the top 5 or so of countries that could put up a fight. And they didn't, preferring to be smacked down convincingly instead.
Sir Elton said we should shut down the entire Internet for five years, because it was destroying music as he knows it. That includes every independent selling or sharing their music over the Internet. That includes Web-Radio. That includes filesharing.
He seems to feel that independent artists like Chip Davis (Mannheim Steamroller), Mike Oldfield (Tubular Bells, Ommadawn), and every kid who can't afford a record studio, but can afford a personal computer and a bit of software, should be SOL when it comes to music, as he wants it. Because Sir Elton is a Luddite (his own admission) and has no use for the Internet and all it brings, he sees no reason that anyone else should either. F-You, Elton!
And just what was the theater's stake in this? Someone taping the whole movie likely doesn't hurt them directly at all. You're either going to see the movie in the theater, or your not, and having it on BT seldom changes that decision (unless it's really bad, and you don't go waste your money as a result). Seems like a huge downside in publicity for the theater, given how quickly comments have bloomed here on this topic. And I doubt the theater gets any significant reward for this arrest.
The real question to my mind here is: who is bearing the cost of this prosecution? I doubt the theater is paying for it itself.
Of course, OO is better than Works, and free to boot. How about a download link to that?
Of course, this better not be on Dell, since Dell has promised us no crapware any longer.
And once it went out of copyright there, it would be cut free out into the world.
Talk about something to really scare the record companies.
What this decision says that's really important is that file sharing isn't the big deal the RIAA affiliated companies -- and Elton John -- make it out to be. And the losses due to a few files shared isn't HUGE AMOUNTS OF DOLLARS, like the RIAA sues for. And that there are other crimes that are far more damaging to society than guaranteeing a profit forever (Sonny Bono Copyright Extension into Eternity Act) for an old industry in a new age. And that the public prosecutors don't work for free for the record industry any longer.
Nice to hear someone say all that.