I'm not stupid enough to buy it... the problem is that most people are.
Before most people understand what DRM does, they will have already bought into it. The infrastructure will already be in place. This means that a bigger and bigger part of the market will be using this stuff. My choices for non-DRM content will shrink to the point where I have little choice but to but to purchase DRMed content if I want to consume ANY mainstream culture.
This will not be the fault of my own stupidity, but it will be the result of a "stupid market".
Upon closer inspection of the article, it looks like Hardley Earley is not doing any suing. I think part of the confusion comes from the fact that Health Advocate and Healthcare Advocates seem to be 2 different companies, as explained (poorly) in the article.
Law firms rarely sue people. They do file lawsuits and represent people who are suing or being sued, but that is something quite different.
It says a lot about the quality of editing at slashdot, when the very first sentence of a summary is completely wrong... and remains so for 5 hours after it was posted.
To be liable, you have to make a clear expression or take affirmative steps to foster infringement. That purpose of fostering infringement has to be proven with evidence.
Bram Cohen is not guilty. Tim Berners-Lee is not guilty. Settle down.
We hold that one who distributes a
device with the object of promoting its use to infringe
copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative
steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the
resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
...
In sum, this case is significantly different from Sony and
reliance on that case to rule in favor of StreamCast and
Grokster was error. Sony dealt with a claim of liability
based solely on distributing a product with alternative
lawful and unlawful uses, with knowledge that some users
would follow the unlawful course. The case struck a
balance between the interests of protection and innovation by
holding that the product's capability of substantial lawful
employment should bar the imputation of fault and consequent
secondary liability for the unlawful acts of others.
MGM's evidence in this case most obviously addresses a
different basis of liability for distributing a product open
to alternative uses. Here, evidence of the distributors'
words and deeds going beyond distribution as such shows
a purpose to cause and profit from third-party acts of
copyright infringement. If liability for inducing infringement
is ultimately found, it will not be on the basis of
presuming or imputing fault, but from inferring a patently
illegal objective from statements and actions showing
what that objective was.
Not to imply that an online dictionary is anywhere to look for the truth, but you chose to link it...
Usage Note: As the principal meaning of the preposition ad suggests, the homo of ad hominem was originally the person to whom an argument was addressed, not its subject.
Saying that someone is stupid is not an ad hominem argument. Saying that someone is wrong BECAUSE they are stupid would be.
It is an objective fact that the vandalism started in earnest after the Slashdot posting of the article. Engaging in the logical fallacy of ad hominem does not change the facts any, as much as you may wish otherwise.
I did no such thing. "Ad hominem" is when you are replying to someone else's argument. I am not replying to their argument. I am making my own argument, which is that they are stupid.
I support this argument by examining their actions: 1) They failed to plan for the inevitable. 2) They refuse to acknowledge this failure and instead pass it off to the perceived immaturity of slashdotters. A link from any other high-traffic website would have created the same problems.
Not foreseeing that this would happen proves that the LA Times knows nothing about the internet. The opportunity to post pornography on the website of one of the biggest newspapers in the country would certainly never be overlooked by the Beavis and Buttheads of the world.
Say you hire me to print some out some copyrighted pictures. I have you sign an indemnification agreement. A year later, the person who owns the copyright sues me for copyright infringement.
I can seek to enforce our indemnification agreement. But what happens if I can't find you? What happens if you don't have any money?
What happens is that I still get drug into court, and I am still liable to the copyright owner, regardless of whether I can enforce our indemnity agreement.
If you could avoid all liability by getting an indemnity agreement, you would be able to cause all kinds of grave harm and avoid responsibility by having a destitute person agree to indemnify you... that's not how it works.
Again, IANAL, but the statute applies to possession with a limited exception for accidental posession that is limited to having three or fewer photos, immediately informing law enforcement about them and making a good faith effort to destroy them. Anything beyond 3 and intent isn't part of the equation.
What statute are you talking about? The only Georgia statute I found in my cursory search (OCGA 16-2-100.2) requires that the act be "intentional or willful". This means, the accused had to know that it was child pornography when he accessed it.
The statute does not require possession at all. The illegal act is "transmission". If that transmission was not "intentional or willful" then there is no crime.
Sorry to burst your neocon bubble.
Why do you assume he is a neocon?
The vast majority of laws that Congress passes are pursuant to the Commerce Clause, not the Copyright Clause.
We've got a society in which celebrates asshole fucking while at the same time freaks out over a photo of a naked 2 year old splashing in a wading pool.
I don't know what society you are in, but here in Georgia asshole-fucking only recently became legal... and that required a US Supreme Court case.
America is largely a society of prudes, and victimless crimes do suck.
The cache is merely evidence of the crime, not the crime itself.
I was going to argue that intentionally displaying the image on your own screen would qualify as possession, but this whole discussion of possession looks to be irrelevant for this case.
The "Computer Pornography and Child Exploitation Prevention Act" in Georgia doesn't even use the word possession, but rather it outlaws "transmitting or causing to be transmitted" child pornography.
There certainly is a difference between {looking at pornoggraphic websites, some of which happen to be kiddie porn} and {collecting kiddie porn}.
If you collect kiddie porn and keep it in your closet, you have possessed it.
If you buy kiddie porn, take it home and then burn it, you have possessed it.
It is the same thing, as long as you knew that it was kiddie porn when you acquired it. If you did not know that it was kiddie porn, then you didn't possess the required state of mind to commit the crime.
If they showed that he knew what they were and downloaded them intentionally, then he is guilty, regardless of whether he knew they would stay on his harddrive.
This is no different than borrowing someone else's kiddie porn magazine and reading it. Even if it's temporary, you intentionally had possession at some point. That makes you guilty.
Whether he knew the copies would remain on his computer is irrelevant if he intentionally accessed them, knowing they were pornographic images of children.
If there was no evidence that he intentionally accessed them, knowing what they were, then he should get off.
John Lewis is a rare American hero. He repeatedly exercised his constitutional rights, knowing full well that he would be physically beaten for it... and won!
Yet he doesn't try to feed off of his accomplishments in the civil rights movement. He just goes to Washington and keeps fighting for freedom.
For me, that puts him right up there with the Founding Fathers. If only more Congresscritters were like him... oh yeah, he's my representative too.
Slashdot Mirror
You...just shouldn't be stupid as to buy it :)
I'm not stupid enough to buy it... the problem is that most people are.
Before most people understand what DRM does, they will have already bought into it. The infrastructure will already be in place. This means that a bigger and bigger part of the market will be using this stuff. My choices for non-DRM content will shrink to the point where I have little choice but to but to purchase DRMed content if I want to consume ANY mainstream culture.
This will not be the fault of my own stupidity, but it will be the result of a "stupid market".
We stopped breeding years ago. These days we just clone ourselves. It's necessary to counteract the high self-absorption rate.
Upon closer inspection of the article, it looks like Hardley Earley is not doing any suing. I think part of the confusion comes from the fact that Health Advocate and Healthcare Advocates seem to be 2 different companies, as explained (poorly) in the article.
Law firms rarely sue people. They do file lawsuits and represent people who are suing or being sued, but that is something quite different.
It says a lot about the quality of editing at slashdot, when the very first sentence of a summary is completely wrong... and remains so for 5 hours after it was posted.
It is plugins like Flash and Java that launch the popups now. If you disable Java and Flash, you will find that you no longer get popups.
You can use the Flashblock extension to run only the flash animations that you want to run.
No it isn't. It's not even a copyright problem. What, now I need an extra license if somebody's visiting and they want to check their mail?
No shit. The worst they could do to you is probably cancel your service.
If you get caught committing copyright infringement, the penalty could be as high as $150,000 per copy, depending on the circumstances.
Pretty big difference.
This ruling supports the principle that people can do what they want with their own desktop, even if it covers up someone's advertising.
Today it's an evil adware company. But tomorrow, it could be the AdBlock project.
Don't lose sight of the forest for the trees.
The trademark issue is significant. But my freedom to do what I want with my computer is more important.
Bram Cohen is not guilty. Tim Berners-Lee is not guilty. Settle down.
Read the opinion.
We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.
In sum, this case is significantly different from Sony and reliance on that case to rule in favor of StreamCast and Grokster was error. Sony dealt with a claim of liability based solely on distributing a product with alternative lawful and unlawful uses, with knowledge that some users would follow the unlawful course. The case struck a balance between the interests of protection and innovation by holding that the product's capability of substantial lawful employment should bar the imputation of fault and consequent secondary liability for the unlawful acts of others.
MGM's evidence in this case most obviously addresses a different basis of liability for distributing a product open to alternative uses. Here, evidence of the distributors' words and deeds going beyond distribution as such shows a purpose to cause and profit from third-party acts of copyright infringement. If liability for inducing infringement is ultimately found, it will not be on the basis of presuming or imputing fault, but from inferring a patently illegal objective from statements and actions showing what that objective was.
In my experience reading supreme court cases through law school, it tends to go like this:
Ginsburg - liberal
Souter - liberal
Stevens - liberal
Breyer - liberal
O'Connor - conservative/swing
Kennedy - conservative/swing
Rhenquist - conservative
Scalia - conservative
Thomas - conservative
My kids will learn to love cold weather and Molson Beer.
Yes, and Firefox already blocks popups by default.
The end of free Internet content will come when Web browsers start blocking online advertisements by default, a DoubleClick executive has warned.
Not to imply that an online dictionary is anywhere to look for the truth, but you chose to link it...
Usage Note: As the principal meaning of the preposition ad suggests, the homo of ad hominem was originally the person to whom an argument was addressed, not its subject.
Saying that someone is stupid is not an ad hominem argument. Saying that someone is wrong BECAUSE they are stupid would be.
It is an objective fact that the vandalism started in earnest after the Slashdot posting of the article. Engaging in the logical fallacy of ad hominem does not change the facts any, as much as you may wish otherwise.
I did no such thing. "Ad hominem" is when you are replying to someone else's argument. I am not replying to their argument. I am making my own argument, which is that they are stupid.
I support this argument by examining their actions: 1) They failed to plan for the inevitable. 2) They refuse to acknowledge this failure and instead pass it off to the perceived immaturity of slashdotters. A link from any other high-traffic website would have created the same problems.
Not foreseeing that this would happen proves that the LA Times knows nothing about the internet. The opportunity to post pornography on the website of one of the biggest newspapers in the country would certainly never be overlooked by the Beavis and Buttheads of the world.
Blaming Slashdotters for it is even stupider.
Talk about a failure to accept responsibility!
Say you hire me to print some out some copyrighted pictures. I have you sign an indemnification agreement. A year later, the person who owns the copyright sues me for copyright infringement.
I can seek to enforce our indemnification agreement. But what happens if I can't find you? What happens if you don't have any money?
What happens is that I still get drug into court, and I am still liable to the copyright owner, regardless of whether I can enforce our indemnity agreement.
If you could avoid all liability by getting an indemnity agreement, you would be able to cause all kinds of grave harm and avoid responsibility by having a destitute person agree to indemnify you... that's not how it works.
If I sign something claiming ownership of the image, why are they liable?
Because that's what the copyright code says.
It's strict liability. As long as you are copying copyrighted material, Congress doesn't care whether you knew it was copyrighted or not.
Maybe this will spur Congress to reform the copyright code... NOT!
Again, IANAL, but the statute applies to possession with a limited exception for accidental posession that is limited to having three or fewer photos, immediately informing law enforcement about them and making a good faith effort to destroy them. Anything beyond 3 and intent isn't part of the equation.
What statute are you talking about? The only Georgia statute I found in my cursory search (OCGA 16-2-100.2) requires that the act be "intentional or willful". This means, the accused had to know that it was child pornography when he accessed it.
The statute does not require possession at all. The illegal act is "transmission". If that transmission was not "intentional or willful" then there is no crime.
Sorry to burst your neocon bubble. Why do you assume he is a neocon? The vast majority of laws that Congress passes are pursuant to the Commerce Clause, not the Copyright Clause.
We've got a society in which celebrates asshole fucking while at the same time freaks out over a photo of a naked 2 year old splashing in a wading pool.
I don't know what society you are in, but here in Georgia asshole-fucking only recently became legal... and that required a US Supreme Court case.
America is largely a society of prudes, and victimless crimes do suck.
definitely a good idea... I think the other slashdotters would enjoy having us cordoned off in our own little area.
The fact that my signature states I'm a lawyer seems to elicit hatred at times.
The cache is merely evidence of the crime, not the crime itself.
I was going to argue that intentionally displaying the image on your own screen would qualify as possession, but this whole discussion of possession looks to be irrelevant for this case.
The "Computer Pornography and Child Exploitation Prevention Act" in Georgia doesn't even use the word possession, but rather it outlaws "transmitting or causing to be transmitted" child pornography.
No.
There certainly is a difference between {looking at pornoggraphic websites, some of which happen to be kiddie porn} and {collecting kiddie porn}.
If you collect kiddie porn and keep it in your closet, you have possessed it.
If you buy kiddie porn, take it home and then burn it, you have possessed it.
It is the same thing, as long as you knew that it was kiddie porn when you acquired it. If you did not know that it was kiddie porn, then you didn't possess the required state of mind to commit the crime.
If they showed that he knew what they were and downloaded them intentionally, then he is guilty, regardless of whether he knew they would stay on his harddrive.
This is no different than borrowing someone else's kiddie porn magazine and reading it. Even if it's temporary, you intentionally had possession at some point. That makes you guilty.
Whether he knew the copies would remain on his computer is irrelevant if he intentionally accessed them, knowing they were pornographic images of children.
If there was no evidence that he intentionally accessed them, knowing what they were, then he should get off.
Hopefully they had good procedures for ensuring that none of SCO's javascript got in there.
John Lewis is a rare American hero. He repeatedly exercised his constitutional rights, knowing full well that he would be physically beaten for it... and won!
Yet he doesn't try to feed off of his accomplishments in the civil rights movement. He just goes to Washington and keeps fighting for freedom.
For me, that puts him right up there with the Founding Fathers. If only more Congresscritters were like him... oh yeah, he's my representative too.