"Second, there are currently no scientific theories that explain the development of life as well as evolution does. It is the most widely accepted theory by a huge margin"
So what? The most widely accepted theory in science many years ago was that the world was flat.
"theories of life arising from similar building-block molecules through purely random processes can be challenged by recent findings in the fossil record and by molecular biology"
If we can't duplicate with intent that which is theorized to occur through purely random processes, then that should tell you all you need to know right there. The next thing someone is gonna say is that their AMD64 X2 CPU came about via "natural selection". Get your head of your ass and read the first part of Psalms 14:1,
"The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said."
People just need to do it (tell) and fight it under this letter being a clear violation of the 1st Ammendment.
The reason people don't fight this is because people don't know how often this is happening because the people that get these letters are chicken shit to acknowledge their existance and fight them.
"As for TiVo, they still (for now) have one big advantage for me: I'm a DirecTV subscriber, and TiVo is the only device that will record the digital signal instead of the analog conversion. When DirecTV starts offering their own DVRs, I'll probably start using it instead. I love my TiVo and MythTV, but the most important thing to me is seeing what I watch in its glorious original quality."
That's the software PVR killer for me also, along with a couple other things:
The DirecTV TiVOs have DUAL TUNER capabilities. To get the same with other DIGITAL satellite/cable TV, I'd have to get multiple sat/cable boxes hooked up to stupid IR blasters.
Price. The DirecTV TiVO/DVRs with DUAL TUNERS are $100 each installed. A homebrewed PVR doesn't come close to that price, not to mention upkeep.
A friend of mine asked my opinion on a DVD he was about to purchase. At my suggestion he came to my house and watched it. He subsequently decided it wasn't worth purchase.
So in effect I have deprived artists and studios of potential income too.
Hi. I'm an attorney for the RIAA. Could I please have your real name and address? My process server has a present for you.
"In the meantime, I threatened filing a motion for summary judgment on behalf of Ms Chan". That frightened off the RIAA legal hit men and the complaint against her was dropped.
Instead of threatening to file, try filing it next time.
Why do these defendents' attorneys think they have to walk on flowers, when the plaintiffs' attorneys are lauching mortar attacks?
In this case, we have the opposite. The uploader is saying "Hey, you wanna have a file?" and the RIAA member is simply saying "OK".
Not really.
The RIAA member is asking what files do you have available. And the uploader is saying this is what I got. The uploader is not soliciting, per se, potential downloaders.
(As an aside, I do not think that the RIAA member ever says "OK", downloads, and verifies the defendents have what they claim to have.
The only "proof" the RIAA has I believe are logs that show the defendent claims to have files that infringe on their copyright. An interesting defense would be to state that these files did not contain what the titles suspect the RIAA believes they contain. The problems with any defense are those inherent with tort law:
Can't plead the 5th ammendment unless you suspect your testimony might cause criminal charges to be filed against you. And even if you do suspect they might, and you do plead the 5th, a "negative inference" can be had.
No court appointed attorney. If the plaintiff has deep pockets, they can bleed the defendent in attorney fees. WORST PART: If the tables were reversed and "you" were the RIAA and the RIAA was "you", you wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning for this same reason.
Finally, even though we know the RIAA is on a fishing expedition with these lawsuits, the problem still is that if you did it, committing perjury in Federal Court is not worth it. The $3,000 range settlement is far less painful than risking being exposed for categorically lieing under oath to the Court.
This is not entrapment.
Again, I agree. But, as I stated, for different reasons.
>Before they sue anyone, simply have one of their employees download a few songs to their private PC from the defendant's system.
>There you go. Actual distribution. Actual copyright infringment. Known date and time.
I'm no legal expert, but that sounds like entrapment to me.
This is a civil trial -- there is no "pleading the 5th ammendment", no "court appointed attorney if you cannot afford one", and no "guilty beyond reasonable doubt."
Only law enforcement or government agents can entrap. That John Q Public induced/encouraged Suzy Q Public to commit a crime is no defense for Suzy Q Public.
And even then, entrapment can only be claimed during a criminal trial, not under tort law.
You don't need to prove anything. The person that is irritating you just has to not have deep pockets.
From the article:
Another way to raise barriers is through expensive litigation. The cost of going to court is so high that it easily can sap away the assets a young company. This is why it is such an effective tool for large corporations with deep pockets. Suits, even under the most frivolous conditions, can foist debilitating legal expenses on any potential contender without a hundred million dollars in venture backing (and even then as the original MP3.com - who had $300 million in backing - found out before it went out of business).
"Another way to raise barriers is through expensive litigation. The cost of going to court is so high that it easily can sap away the assets a young company. This is why it is such an effective tool for large corporations with deep pockets. Suits, even under the most frivolous conditions, can foist debilitating legal expenses on any potential contender without a hundred million dollars in venture backing (and even then as the original MP3.com - who had $300 million in backing - found out before it went out of business)."
The only way to combat the frivilous lawsuit is to be anonymous. Never let them find out who you are. Frivilous lawsuits can't really punish the person whose identity isn't known.
Nice. You already have them convicted. I'd sure want you on my jury, if I were these alleged perpetrators. NOT.
You might want to try "allegedly broke the law" next time.
Unstability KILLED Palm for me
on
Palm's Mistakes
·
· Score: 1
The primary problem I had with a Palm Device (Treo 650) is that is was tremendously unstable.
It would reboot/freeze up several times a day. And from reading posts by other users, I wasn't alone by any means.
I ended up returning the Treo after a few days and sticking with my Nokia 6620 for now. The Treo was far better in theory, but I am unwilling to tolerate a phone/PDA that is not rock-solid.
"If you're facing a civil suit, and you're truly not responsible for the damage being claimed, and your evidence supports that, just go to trial. No need to hire an expensive lawyer, no need to engage in costly stalling tactics. Get the first hearing date available on the venue's docket, demand a jury trial, waive *nothing*, and prevail on the basis of the preponderance of evidence."
That is very risky advice.
Preponderance of evidence means if it's more likely than not (i.e., 51% likely) you did it, then you are found liable -- no "guilty beyond reasonable doubt". And if you are found liable, it could mean a financially-devastating judgement against you. And the "jury trial" advice is very risky too: There are a lot of idiot jurors out there -- I'd rather take my chances with a trial by a judge who probably is a little smarter!
That's like someone giving you a choice: Flip a coin -- heads you pay a huge, crippling penalty, tails you don't, or just pay smaller fine that hurts but doesn't destroy you.
"Exactly what kinda attorny do you think she got? The message here is simple, the court WILL spank both sides if they misbehave."
Who do you think got spanked harder?
The mother paying, let's say, $2,500 for her attorney's retainer. (= getting beaten over the head with a baseball bat a couple dozen times)
The RIAA having to pay their "heavy handed" attorney say $10,000 but getting no damages because the case was dismissed with prejudice. (= getting a slap on the wrist.)
Their spankings were not even in the same ballpark. The only way to punish the xxAA/attorneys for filing frivolous lawsuits is for some judge to hit them with sanctions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range.
"When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it is a lot easier for the defendant to countersue for attorney fees, which I suspect they will in this case. The award is not automatic, but likely."
Not true.
Getting awarded legal fees is UNlikely.
All the xxAA's attorneys have to show is that they filed the lawsuit in "good faith". That is a very low burden to achieve. With logs that showed the person's IP, date, time, etc., a slick "bigshot" xxAA attorney can make that case pretty convincingly.
And if not, they can tie the case up in court for years and bleed the potential person that is sueing them for attorney damages.
"I'm not even sure that the RIAA can afford so many lawsuits. Sure, they're a multi-billion dollar "co-op" organization "defending" artists, but each lawsuit costs them something. Even with in-house legal staff, there are still filing fees, follow-up costs, and the like. I'm assuming their return-on-investment is calculated by how many people they assume will stop pirating their music out of fear of lawsuits? So they're assuming that they'll be seeing a return from people buying more albums because they are afraid to pirate because the RIAA sues pirates? Confusing."
They care afford it.
Most of these attorneys are on a contingency basis. The xxAA hire (or the "big gun" attorneys hired by the xxAA turn over the inital wave of defendents to) low-quality, inexpensive, local attorneys who file "boiler plate" lawsuits against defendents in their area. They get a list of potential infringers are told to "Sue away" and anything they get is theirs. It's just like carpet-bombing or trying to catch tuna with dolphin-unsafe nets. The vast majority settle upfront. Those that don't settle (very, very few) and want to fight it in court have costly "big gun" attorneys (from the local council) with a lot of experience take over.
The xxAA makes no money on these suits and aren't making any pretenses that they are.
Their goal is simply this: Scare as many potential pirates as possible into not pirating their product. Make it tremendously painful to those that get caught. Reduce piracy to an acceptable level. A few geeks trading music on IRC via XDCC and the Usenet is acceptable. Everyone and their Grandmother NaPsTeRiNg and BiToRrEnTiNg music a la carte with a click of the mouse is not an acceptable level.
She still is out for her attorney fees, which are probably in the thousands of dollars; the judge refused to award her those.
Which only goes to prove what I have always wrote about these big corporations that decide to use the civil lawsuit to punish those that they even remotely suspect of infringing on their copyrights:
Be anonymous. Don't even let these corrupt "sue them all and let the courts sort out the guilty from the innocent" corporations (e.g., RIAA, MPAA, DirecTV) even suspect you of engaging in piracy of their products. Because if you get sued, you automatically and always* LOSE. They could care less if for every 10 guilty people they sue, that 1 innocent is wrongly sued. Whether it's your time (going pro-se), money (paying an attorney to defend against these charges) or the damages you may be found liable for, you LOSE.
* There is one exception. The only person who doesn't lose is he who is judgement-proof. That is a person that lives paycheck-to-paycheck and has no property (house/car). You can't get blood from a turnip, and there is no debtor's prison in the US. However, live the American Dream and you are a valid target.
Slashdot Mirror
So what? The most widely accepted theory in science many years ago was that the world was flat.
So what?
If we can't duplicate with intent that which is theorized to occur through purely random processes, then that should tell you all you need to know right there. The next thing someone is gonna say is that their AMD64 X2 CPU came about via "natural selection". Get your head of your ass and read the first part of Psalms 14:1,
Not really. They just aren't blind to the fact that perhaps science isn't correct in this case.
Science once thought the earth was flat and that everything was made of earth, air, water or fire.
People just need to do it (tell) and fight it under this letter being a clear violation of the 1st Ammendment.
The reason people don't fight this is because people don't know how often this is happening because the people that get these letters are chicken shit to acknowledge their existance and fight them.
# ping -f narus.com
"As for TiVo, they still (for now) have one big advantage for me: I'm a DirecTV subscriber, and TiVo is the only device that will record the digital signal instead of the analog conversion. When DirecTV starts offering their own DVRs, I'll probably start using it instead. I love my TiVo and MythTV, but the most important thing to me is seeing what I watch in its glorious original quality."
That's the software PVR killer for me also, along with a couple other things:
A friend of mine asked my opinion on a DVD he was about to purchase. At my suggestion he came to my house and watched it. He subsequently decided it wasn't worth purchase.
So in effect I have deprived artists and studios of potential income too.
Hi. I'm an attorney for the RIAA. Could I please have your real name and address? My process server has a present for you.
"In the meantime, I threatened filing a motion for summary judgment on behalf of Ms Chan". That frightened off the RIAA legal hit men and the complaint against her was dropped.
Instead of threatening to file, try filing it next time.
Why do these defendents' attorneys think they have to walk on flowers, when the plaintiffs' attorneys are lauching mortar attacks?
In this case, we have the opposite. The uploader is saying "Hey, you wanna have a file?" and the RIAA member is simply saying "OK".
Not really.
The RIAA member is asking what files do you have available. And the uploader is saying this is what I got. The uploader is not soliciting, per se, potential downloaders.
(As an aside, I do not think that the RIAA member ever says "OK", downloads, and verifies the defendents have what they claim to have.
The only "proof" the RIAA has I believe are logs that show the defendent claims to have files that infringe on their copyright. An interesting defense would be to state that these files did not contain what the titles suspect the RIAA believes they contain. The problems with any defense are those inherent with tort law:
Finally, even though we know the RIAA is on a fishing expedition with these lawsuits, the problem still is that if you did it, committing perjury in Federal Court is not worth it. The $3,000 range settlement is far less painful than risking being exposed for categorically lieing under oath to the Court.
This is not entrapment.
Again, I agree. But, as I stated, for different reasons.
This is a civil trial -- there is no "pleading the 5th ammendment", no "court appointed attorney if you cannot afford one", and no "guilty beyond reasonable doubt."
And there is no entrapment.
Only law enforcement or government agents can entrap. That John Q Public induced/encouraged Suzy Q Public to commit a crime is no defense for Suzy Q Public.
And even then, entrapment can only be claimed during a criminal trial, not under tort law.
Sucks, huh?
Ah, but can you prove that in court?
You don't need to prove anything. The person that is irritating you just has to not have deep pockets.
From the article:
The only way to combat the frivilous lawsuit is to be anonymous. Never let them find out who you are. Frivilous lawsuits can't really punish the person whose identity isn't known.
"ya know it's probably a civil lawsuit..."
There may be a civil lawsuit in the works to, but when the articles contains such phrases as:
It makes me tend to believe there's a little criminal mixed in with the tort.
"Gee, someone broke the law..."
Nice. You already have them convicted. I'd sure want you on my jury, if I were these alleged perpetrators. NOT.
You might want to try "allegedly broke the law" next time.
The primary problem I had with a Palm Device (Treo 650) is that is was tremendously unstable.
It would reboot/freeze up several times a day. And from reading posts by other users, I wasn't alone by any means.
I ended up returning the Treo after a few days and sticking with my Nokia 6620 for now. The Treo was far better in theory, but I am unwilling to tolerate a phone/PDA that is not rock-solid.
"If you're facing a civil suit, and you're truly not responsible for the damage being claimed, and your evidence supports that, just go to trial. No need to hire an expensive lawyer, no need to engage in costly stalling tactics. Get the first hearing date available on the venue's docket, demand a jury trial, waive *nothing*, and prevail on the basis of the preponderance of evidence."
That is very risky advice.
Preponderance of evidence means if it's more likely than not (i.e., 51% likely) you did it, then you are found liable -- no "guilty beyond reasonable doubt". And if you are found liable, it could mean a financially-devastating judgement against you. And the "jury trial" advice is very risky too: There are a lot of idiot jurors out there -- I'd rather take my chances with a trial by a judge who probably is a little smarter!
That's like someone giving you a choice: Flip a coin -- heads you pay a huge, crippling penalty, tails you don't, or just pay smaller fine that hurts but doesn't destroy you.
The US tort system is messed up.
"Exactly what kinda attorny do you think she got? The message here is simple, the court WILL spank both sides if they misbehave."
Who do you think got spanked harder?
Their spankings were not even in the same ballpark. The only way to punish the xxAA/attorneys for filing frivolous lawsuits is for some judge to hit them with sanctions in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range.
"When a case is dismissed with prejudice, it is a lot easier for the defendant to countersue for attorney fees, which I suspect they will in this case. The award is not automatic, but likely."
Not true.
Getting awarded legal fees is UNlikely.
All the xxAA's attorneys have to show is that they filed the lawsuit in "good faith". That is a very low burden to achieve. With logs that showed the person's IP, date, time, etc., a slick "bigshot" xxAA attorney can make that case pretty convincingly.
And if not, they can tie the case up in court for years and bleed the potential person that is sueing them for attorney damages.
So in other words: "Don't hold your breath."
"I'm not even sure that the RIAA can afford so many lawsuits. Sure, they're a multi-billion dollar "co-op" organization "defending" artists, but each lawsuit costs them something. Even with in-house legal staff, there are still filing fees, follow-up costs, and the like. I'm assuming their return-on-investment is calculated by how many people they assume will stop pirating their music out of fear of lawsuits? So they're assuming that they'll be seeing a return from people buying more albums because they are afraid to pirate because the RIAA sues pirates? Confusing."
They care afford it.
Most of these attorneys are on a contingency basis. The xxAA hire (or the "big gun" attorneys hired by the xxAA turn over the inital wave of defendents to) low-quality, inexpensive, local attorneys who file "boiler plate" lawsuits against defendents in their area. They get a list of potential infringers are told to "Sue away" and anything they get is theirs. It's just like carpet-bombing or trying to catch tuna with dolphin-unsafe nets. The vast majority settle upfront. Those that don't settle (very, very few) and want to fight it in court have costly "big gun" attorneys (from the local council) with a lot of experience take over.
The xxAA makes no money on these suits and aren't making any pretenses that they are.
Their goal is simply this: Scare as many potential pirates as possible into not pirating their product. Make it tremendously painful to those that get caught. Reduce piracy to an acceptable level. A few geeks trading music on IRC via XDCC and the Usenet is acceptable. Everyone and their Grandmother NaPsTeRiNg and BiToRrEnTiNg music a la carte with a click of the mouse is not an acceptable level.
She still is out for her attorney fees, which are probably in the thousands of dollars; the judge refused to award her those.
Which only goes to prove what I have always wrote about these big corporations that decide to use the civil lawsuit to punish those that they even remotely suspect of infringing on their copyrights:
* There is one exception. The only person who doesn't lose is he who is judgement-proof. That is a person that lives paycheck-to-paycheck and has no property (house/car). You can't get blood from a turnip, and there is no debtor's prison in the US. However, live the American Dream and you are a valid target.
Looks like they still want $29 for Opera for my series 60 Nokia cellphone.
No it wasn't. Netscape Navigator was. Now Mozilla FireFox is.
MSIE was never the best browser.
- Medical insurance for employees
- Research & Development
- Lawyers
- Employee Salaries
- Chip fabrication plants
- "Golden parachutes" for CEOs
I'm sure there are a lot more.You talk big, but if you tried that, he would kick the shit out of you.