B&O is just like Bose. While their products are undoubtedly beautiful, they charge a huge amount of money for poor performance. Judging from the photos of this, it looks like it has a speaker firing up towards the UFO-shaped thingie in order to spread the sound in a circular fashion- sort of like those old hassock-style floor fans.
If you really want a speaker that performs in a similar manner and you're not afraid to build it yourself, take a look at:
http://www.agora.dk/users/ole.thofte/conus1.htm
This is the Conus I speaker by Ole Thofte- he estimates that it costs about $85 to build, and it should sound as good or better than the $8,000 B&O speaker. And as for the little microphone? If you get some books and a few pieces of test equipment, you can take care of this yourself at a very low price. Either that or you have an extra $7,915 to hire a professional to do setup and placement for you.
Also, the acoustic lens is nothing new. I just looked it up in the Audio Cyclopedia, and while there was no date of origin, the Cyclopedia is copyrighted 1959, so the acoustic lens is at least 44 years old. This is just another example of tarting up old technology and trying to pass it off as something new. This kind of snakeoil is not unusual in high-end audio.
What's sad is that if you want a decent stereo and not pay a fortune for it these days, you have to build it yourself. Speakers sold at the big box electronics stores are not good (including Bose; if you don't believe me, go Google for some performance specs on them. Your $20 computer speakers probably have more accurate reproduction), a quick comparison with "good" speakers leaves no doubt, whether you're an audiophile or not. As for me, I dropped about $250 to build a pair of full-range ribbon loudspeakers with wonderfully flat response. Could have built them for less, a lot of the price was for two types of exotic wood I wanted to use. Anyone seriously interested in good sound should skip this overpriced crap and check out the DIY forums on the Internet. You really can set up a wonderful system for well under $1,000.
Yes, a tort can also be a crime. For example, an intentional tort, such as false imprisonment, is both a crime *and* can also be sued for civilly.
The important thing to remember is that there is a big difference between criminal and civil actions. The RIAA cannot bring a criminal action against you, but they certainly can bring a civil one.
Since no one has mentioned it yet...
on
Hamvention
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Before the inevitable joke comes, yes, you can run Linux with Amateur Radio! Go take a look at:
http://radio.linux.org.au/
And there are many other sites, too. I disagree with what someone stated earlier about being both into computers and amateur radio taking it too far. Believe it or not, there's a lot of overlap between the two. Hams often spend a lot of time tweaking their stations, building stuff, and completely customizing their equipment. Sound familiar to anyone on Slashdot?
I think this was a mistake. In a way, it makes sense, because the amount they settled for is less than what it would have cost to defend them. I'm sure this is the biggest reason they took the deal.
What they should have done is not bothered hiring attorneys at all, appeared pro se, and then taken it to a jury trial and turned it into a circus. Believe me, that scenario would have the RIAA shaking in their boots. There would be massive publicity, the RIAA would have been completely trashed before it was over and no one would have cared who won in the end. This is their nightmare scenario, and if anyone else out there gets sued, don't take the easy road with settlement. Go in there and humiliate the RIAA.
Do you think you could use one of those business reply envelopes (postage to be paid by addressee) to send your junk mail offers back via the ISS and thereby really stick it to that bank that keeps offering you the 0.01% VISA card?
If you're as outraged by "Patriot II" as most people here seem to be, go get a copy of "It Can't Happen Here," by Sinclair Lewis. Though written in 1935, it draws some spooky parallels to what's going on right now.
If there's no regime change in November 2004, I'm going to put my plans in action for leaving the country. There are better places to live, and if you're young enough and skilled/educated, you can jump through their immigration hoops and get a passport. You know, like what a whole lot of Germans did in the 30s.
I don't know if everyone here realizes it, but subpoenas are a vital part of the legal system. Not to defend the RIAA, but they're just doing what they're entitled to do, and what literally millions of others have done in their cases.
This is part of the process called "discovery," where the sides get to collect information about each other for a suit. Technically, a subpoena IS part of a legal process. You generally don't get to serve one unless you already have a case pending in court. That's why it is backed up by the power of the court. If you comply with a subpoena, no problem. If you refuse to comply, you can be found in contempt of court. If you have a problem with the subpoena, you take it to the judge hearing the case.
And that's what happened here. Verizon didn't like the ruling, so they've been appealing it to higher levels in the court system, and I'm assuming that the rest of the case is being continued until this matter is resolved.
This is just a strategic move on the part of the RIAA. They really don't believe that they're going to get any money out of these people. They knew that going in. What they're trying to do here is intimidate both ISPs and users. However, if they think this is going to stop piracy, they're wrong. I can think of a lot of ways to share music without using the Internet, and I'm not the only one.
If they manage to drive file sharing off the Internet, file sharing is just going to pop up in another format. Until they start charging a price only modestly above margin for CDs, this isn't going to end. Has anyone noticed that DVDs are tending to be much cheaper than CDs? And we all know that movies (and DVDs, for that matter) are *much* more expensive to produce than music. Right now, the RIAA is in the middle of learning a very painful lesson about economics and markets. They're lashing out at what they perceive to be the problem, but it's not going to work.
If everyone really wants to get rid of spam, do what I do. With every delievery, I forward it to my free "spam" account on Yahoo. Then I either send in a bogus order or ask them a lot of pointless questions about their product.
A number of people here have mentioned the extremely low response rate to spam. This is what allows it to survive. Imagine if their response rate went up something like 5000%, but 99% of those were fake, but realistic responses. This would *instantly* kill the profit motive. More staff will be required to process the fake orders/replies, and they'll have a devil of a time weeking out the true from the false responses. Eventually, the profitability scale will tip, and that is when spam will end. No program, list or change in technology is going to stop spam until everyone stands up and gives it right back to them.
If the law is on your side, you hammer the law. If the facts are on your side, you hammer the facts. If neither the law or the facts are on your side, your hammer the table.
After reading through this complaint, I think they're hammering the table.
Another thing that hasn't been discussed yet is the claim in the article that the anti-spammers are going to try to discover information about the spammers. Personally, I see a big fight over these being trade secrets, and they might not come out after all. Depends on the judge and Florida's discovery laws.
The RIAA is coming up against a traditional black market. If a desired good is either unavailable or extremely expensive, then a lower cost replacement will undoubtedly be the one purchased. Considering the high cost of gasoline, if I could get, say 10,000 gallons and put a tank on my corner and sell it for $1.00 a gallon, what do you think that would do to the station selling it for $1.66? No one would care as long as it made their cars run.
Without enacting a lot of laws, police actions, whining, and their other garbage, all the RIAA has to do is lower their prices. If they can price CDs marginally above their cost, the piracy would be crippled. There are other ways to make money- a lot of bands I'd like to see play maybe 12 dates across the country each year, and not always in my neighborhood. If they toured more frequently, yes, I would pay $20-$30 for a show and probably buy food and a t-shirt, too. They just need to change their business model. Make CDs cheap and affordable (the way 45s used to be) and make up the rest with promotions. This used to work, and there's no reason why it won't again.
Yeah, but just how durable is this chip? I personally took offense at the magnetic strip on my driver's license, and it just so happened that my ID had an unfortunate "accidental" experience with a large, powerful electromagnet.
If I get one of these new java IDs forced on me, it might just be "accidentally" directly exposed to 1500 watts of RF. Maybe "accidentally" take a spin on the turntable in the microwave, too.
So what's the point of making this stuff if the people who don't like it can easily defeat it?
Is this set DMCA compliant? Is it really OK to retransmit copyrighted material from the base station to the set?
And if it's transmitting, does this mean that, similar to corless phones, you could tune in and watch what your neighbor is watching? I suppose you won't have to climb up the pole or get a pirate card for free HBO anymore.
First, did anyone notice that both in the current article and the original "article" (the one solely comprised of quotes) that the sources ALL appear to be people trying to sell this stuff? Of course they think it's going to work.
That aside, the point no one has brought up yet is that having second by second analysis of your sales, et al. is completely useless UNLESS you are also able to make second by second changes to your business to compensate for them. It is sort of like having a wristwatch that displayed time in nanoseconds. Sure, nanoseconds exist, they allow very precise time measurements, and so on an so forth. But other than physics experiments, would we really use them? Not only that, but if management makes stupid decisions on a daily basis, what do you think they'll be like on a minute-to-minute one?
In my opinion, this is just more management crap that they're trying to sell to businesses. Their work has dried up from the boom years and they decided, "hey, here's a way we can do something that appears to be useful and make corporations pay a lot of money for our software and consulting!" In five years, I predict, these people will have fleeced the gullible and have moved on to the next "hot" fake trend.
I used to work for UPS back in 1991-1992 down in LA, and was one of the DIAD Techs that they had.
For what it's worth, this new model looks a whole lot better than the original. For starters, it's a lot smaller, not to mention all the wireless capabilities. You used to have to "dock" the DIADs in big metal racks and spend a lot of time getting information on and off of them each night. That took quite a bit of time.
I don't know if they still use it, but back then, the DIAD system was run under OS/2, which is why I'm still a fan of that OS.
The only thing I'm curious about is the durability of these units. The original DIADs were pretty good, however, a significant drop or other mistreatment would either knock it out or send it into "bootloader" mode. And it was a pain to have deliveries done on paper.
Anyway, this one looks pretty good- it almost makes me want to go back so I can play with them. Then again, the current carrer track is a whole lot more profitable.
Why not pay some consulting group millions of dollars to come up with one one of those new fangled names that isn't quite a name or even word? You know, like Accenture, Altria, and all the rest. It would be just one more step towards making OSS just like the corporate giants.
I'd sure like to take a look at the service agreements these people signed with AT&T and SBC. Generally, you are not responsible fraudulent acts, but it sure sounds like AT&T is trying to profit from them. Probably another good reason to dump their service.
If this happened to me, I'd just tell the collection agency to take it to court. Then I'd explain what happened to a jury. Do you really think the average person would "buy" the argument from AT&T?
Also, they should be warned that they're sitting on a customer relations/marketing disaster. How many customers are they going to lose once everyone starts hearing about these antics? Just another example of monumental corporate stupidity.
It says that this guy is getting his attorney to sue a bunch of Slashdot people for this intentional harassment.
When I scrolled through the posts, I was really looking to see if anyone here had been sued, or even contacted, about this potential suit.
So,has anyone heard anything yet? Personally, I think they'll have a hell of a time proving that anyone did anything. It might be a false threat to try to get the postal DDOS attack to stop.
I think the one you're looking for in the accounting/financial field is the 12C.
I'm a proud owner of a 1988 12C that I found in a thrift store for $2 about four years ago. I didn't even have to change the batteries until a few months ago. Incredibly well-made, efficient and I wouldn't trade it for any PDA. Also, the 12C is one of the few models they're still manufacturing.
Just remember that your tax return is your first offer to the IRS. Go ahead and deduct any and everything you think you're entitled to. If they're willing to buy it, great. If not, you get to negotiate whether it was deductible or not. Even if you're found liable for something, you can often settle for a percentage of what you owe. Just don't make stuff up or file blatant lies- that can get you in some serious trouble.
Also, if you don't want to pay a professional, just browse through the lists of forms (it's all online at irs.gov) and see if any of them ring some bells for you. If they do, download the form and instructions and throw it in there. And once you've done this, you'll know what to do next year.
Well, not exactly. I, too, learned that in my first year of law school. And yes, I made it through all three and passed the Bar, too. I should also be a CPA (hopefully) by the end of the year; amateur geek stuff is one of my hobbies, so I love Slashdot.
To the point, you generally cannot bind someone to an agreement through silence. However, and this is a big however, if you already have an agreement with someone, it gets a lot more slippery. There are all sorts of implied contracts, modifications through the course of business dealings, and so on. It is not nearly as cut and dry as you might think.
Again, like I said, I haven't read the EULA (and don't want to, that's why I run a couple of alternate OSes) and don't know the best way to attack it. Also, please don't take any of this as legal advice, it's just a general discussion.
As for any particular cases, well, I don't know any off hand and it'd be a big research project to dredge up something exactly on point, but I know there's a large body of law about this sort of thing. If you're interested in contracts, a good place to start would be something like an Emmanuel's guide, a Nutshell, or similar. While not a walk in the park, they will give you lots of answers and point you in the right direction.
One of the biggest misconceptions out there is that when someone presents you with a contract, you are not allowed to make any changes to it. Though Microsoft may not agree to them, you can usually negotiate ANY contract provision you want, even if it's printed on a form and you have to write the changes in the margin. Contracts are very flexible, and that's so you and someone else can agree to what you want. I do not use any Microsoft products, and do not intend to. However, if I had to, I would read the EULA (and their other crap) then make all revisions I thought were appropriate, sign it, and send it to Microsoft via certified mail with a letter stating that they had 30 days to correct my revision or negotiate further terms. And if they didn't, in one month all of my terms would constitute the new agreement between me and Microsoft. Yes, this can create a new and binding contract, but do not take that as legal advice. Do some more research and carefully read your contract before taking any action. Microsoft might pick a fight if only a few people did this, but if there were hundred and thousands, well, there'd be no way for them to handle it. Any ideas?
The other point is that contracts usually get judged solely on what's contained inside of them, unless there's fraud, illegality, mistake, mutual recission, and a few other exceptions. So if you want to know what you've gotten yourself into, then RTFC. There are no state or federal laws (with a few small exceptions) that force you to agree to certain things, so it's all in the contract. And you don't need a law degree to understand them, either. Most of the legalese is shorthand so that broad concepts don't have to take pages and pages of explanation. Get a law dictionary (don't use Black's if you're a novice- it explains legal terms with legal terms, get one that uses layperson definitions) and go through it yourself. It might not be pleasant, but you'll understand more than you think you will.
That would depend on the terms contained in the license. If you don't have access to it, I'm sure you can find it online somewhere. It ought to contain a provision called "transferability" or something similar and you'll find all you need to know.
I spent a session working in the Oregon Legislature. This bill still has a long, long way to go. Even if it gets to the floor this time, it's still going to have to go over to the Senate, which is going to go through the whole process over there, joint committee, and so on.
I don't think a lot of people know that the Legislature here only meets in odd-numbered years and that they start in January and usually wrap everything up in July, hopefully by the 4th. This bill is coming out a little late, and it'll probably be rushed at the end of the session. Here's where it gets interesting- lots of strange, strange things happen late in the session when everyone wants to leave. Bills get killed, sometimes they're deliberately allowed to die for "lack of time" and all sorts of other weird stuff happens. So just watch and wait.
And software lobbyists aside (I'm sure they're swarming over on State Street) what makes this even more interesting is the severe budget crunch going on in Oregon. In a nutshell, there's no sales tax and lots of other fees and such are pretty low. This was mostly countered by the income tax, but since Oregon has the highest unemployment in the country, state revenues are in the toilet, programs are being cut, and it seems like there are almost daily protests over at the Capitol. Given that the Legislature is under a lot of pressure because of that, the multi-million dollar question is whether they're going to allow open-source to save some programs or succumb to lobbyist pressure not to. Stay tuned, this is going to be worth watching.
Punitives are dischargeable. I've done it for some of my clients. Only stuff like student loans, child/spousal support, and penalties for crimes you committed under the influence are not. If I were this guy, I'd file Chapter 7 ASAP, name the RIAA as a creditor and give them the finger. That'd be the end of the lawsuit. Of course, that isn't legal advice, and is not to be taken as such, but personally, that's what I'd do.
Slashdot Mirror
If you really want a speaker that performs in a similar manner and you're not afraid to build it yourself, take a look at:
http://www.agora.dk/users/ole.thofte/conus1.htm
This is the Conus I speaker by Ole Thofte- he estimates that it costs about $85 to build, and it should sound as good or better than the $8,000 B&O speaker. And as for the little microphone? If you get some books and a few pieces of test equipment, you can take care of this yourself at a very low price. Either that or you have an extra $7,915 to hire a professional to do setup and placement for you.
Also, the acoustic lens is nothing new. I just looked it up in the Audio Cyclopedia, and while there was no date of origin, the Cyclopedia is copyrighted 1959, so the acoustic lens is at least 44 years old. This is just another example of tarting up old technology and trying to pass it off as something new. This kind of snakeoil is not unusual in high-end audio.
What's sad is that if you want a decent stereo and not pay a fortune for it these days, you have to build it yourself. Speakers sold at the big box electronics stores are not good (including Bose; if you don't believe me, go Google for some performance specs on them. Your $20 computer speakers probably have more accurate reproduction), a quick comparison with "good" speakers leaves no doubt, whether you're an audiophile or not. As for me, I dropped about $250 to build a pair of full-range ribbon loudspeakers with wonderfully flat response. Could have built them for less, a lot of the price was for two types of exotic wood I wanted to use. Anyone seriously interested in good sound should skip this overpriced crap and check out the DIY forums on the Internet. You really can set up a wonderful system for well under $1,000.
The important thing to remember is that there is a big difference between criminal and civil actions. The RIAA cannot bring a criminal action against you, but they certainly can bring a civil one.
http://radio.linux.org.au/
And there are many other sites, too. I disagree with what someone stated earlier about being both into computers and amateur radio taking it too far. Believe it or not, there's a lot of overlap between the two. Hams often spend a lot of time tweaking their stations, building stuff, and completely customizing their equipment. Sound familiar to anyone on Slashdot?
73, KG6JBF
What they should have done is not bothered hiring attorneys at all, appeared pro se, and then taken it to a jury trial and turned it into a circus. Believe me, that scenario would have the RIAA shaking in their boots. There would be massive publicity, the RIAA would have been completely trashed before it was over and no one would have cared who won in the end. This is their nightmare scenario, and if anyone else out there gets sued, don't take the easy road with settlement. Go in there and humiliate the RIAA.
Do you think you could use one of those business reply envelopes (postage to be paid by addressee) to send your junk mail offers back via the ISS and thereby really stick it to that bank that keeps offering you the 0.01% VISA card?
If there's no regime change in November 2004, I'm going to put my plans in action for leaving the country. There are better places to live, and if you're young enough and skilled/educated, you can jump through their immigration hoops and get a passport. You know, like what a whole lot of Germans did in the 30s.
This is part of the process called "discovery," where the sides get to collect information about each other for a suit. Technically, a subpoena IS part of a legal process. You generally don't get to serve one unless you already have a case pending in court. That's why it is backed up by the power of the court. If you comply with a subpoena, no problem. If you refuse to comply, you can be found in contempt of court. If you have a problem with the subpoena, you take it to the judge hearing the case.
And that's what happened here. Verizon didn't like the ruling, so they've been appealing it to higher levels in the court system, and I'm assuming that the rest of the case is being continued until this matter is resolved.
This is just a strategic move on the part of the RIAA. They really don't believe that they're going to get any money out of these people. They knew that going in. What they're trying to do here is intimidate both ISPs and users. However, if they think this is going to stop piracy, they're wrong. I can think of a lot of ways to share music without using the Internet, and I'm not the only one.
If they manage to drive file sharing off the Internet, file sharing is just going to pop up in another format. Until they start charging a price only modestly above margin for CDs, this isn't going to end. Has anyone noticed that DVDs are tending to be much cheaper than CDs? And we all know that movies (and DVDs, for that matter) are *much* more expensive to produce than music. Right now, the RIAA is in the middle of learning a very painful lesson about economics and markets. They're lashing out at what they perceive to be the problem, but it's not going to work.
IAAL
A number of people here have mentioned the extremely low response rate to spam. This is what allows it to survive. Imagine if their response rate went up something like 5000%, but 99% of those were fake, but realistic responses. This would *instantly* kill the profit motive. More staff will be required to process the fake orders/replies, and they'll have a devil of a time weeking out the true from the false responses. Eventually, the profitability scale will tip, and that is when spam will end. No program, list or change in technology is going to stop spam until everyone stands up and gives it right back to them.
If the law is on your side, you hammer the law. If the facts are on your side, you hammer the facts. If neither the law or the facts are on your side, your hammer the table.
After reading through this complaint, I think they're hammering the table.
Another thing that hasn't been discussed yet is the claim in the article that the anti-spammers are going to try to discover information about the spammers. Personally, I see a big fight over these being trade secrets, and they might not come out after all. Depends on the judge and Florida's discovery laws.
IAAL
Without enacting a lot of laws, police actions, whining, and their other garbage, all the RIAA has to do is lower their prices. If they can price CDs marginally above their cost, the piracy would be crippled. There are other ways to make money- a lot of bands I'd like to see play maybe 12 dates across the country each year, and not always in my neighborhood. If they toured more frequently, yes, I would pay $20-$30 for a show and probably buy food and a t-shirt, too. They just need to change their business model. Make CDs cheap and affordable (the way 45s used to be) and make up the rest with promotions. This used to work, and there's no reason why it won't again.
If I get one of these new java IDs forced on me, it might just be "accidentally" directly exposed to 1500 watts of RF. Maybe "accidentally" take a spin on the turntable in the microwave, too.
So what's the point of making this stuff if the people who don't like it can easily defeat it?
And if it's transmitting, does this mean that, similar to corless phones, you could tune in and watch what your neighbor is watching? I suppose you won't have to climb up the pole or get a pirate card for free HBO anymore.
That aside, the point no one has brought up yet is that having second by second analysis of your sales, et al. is completely useless UNLESS you are also able to make second by second changes to your business to compensate for them. It is sort of like having a wristwatch that displayed time in nanoseconds. Sure, nanoseconds exist, they allow very precise time measurements, and so on an so forth. But other than physics experiments, would we really use them? Not only that, but if management makes stupid decisions on a daily basis, what do you think they'll be like on a minute-to-minute one?
In my opinion, this is just more management crap that they're trying to sell to businesses. Their work has dried up from the boom years and they decided, "hey, here's a way we can do something that appears to be useful and make corporations pay a lot of money for our software and consulting!" In five years, I predict, these people will have fleeced the gullible and have moved on to the next "hot" fake trend.
For what it's worth, this new model looks a whole lot better than the original. For starters, it's a lot smaller, not to mention all the wireless capabilities. You used to have to "dock" the DIADs in big metal racks and spend a lot of time getting information on and off of them each night. That took quite a bit of time.
I don't know if they still use it, but back then, the DIAD system was run under OS/2, which is why I'm still a fan of that OS.
The only thing I'm curious about is the durability of these units. The original DIADs were pretty good, however, a significant drop or other mistreatment would either knock it out or send it into "bootloader" mode. And it was a pain to have deliveries done on paper.
Anyway, this one looks pretty good- it almost makes me want to go back so I can play with them. Then again, the current carrer track is a whole lot more profitable.
Why not pay some consulting group millions of dollars to come up with one one of those new fangled names that isn't quite a name or even word? You know, like Accenture, Altria, and all the rest. It would be just one more step towards making OSS just like the corporate giants.
If this happened to me, I'd just tell the collection agency to take it to court. Then I'd explain what happened to a jury. Do you really think the average person would "buy" the argument from AT&T?
Also, they should be warned that they're sitting on a customer relations/marketing disaster. How many customers are they going to lose once everyone starts hearing about these antics? Just another example of monumental corporate stupidity.
When I scrolled through the posts, I was really looking to see if anyone here had been sued, or even contacted, about this potential suit.
So,has anyone heard anything yet? Personally, I think they'll have a hell of a time proving that anyone did anything. It might be a false threat to try to get the postal DDOS attack to stop.
Does this mean that we're all inbred? I think I'm going to log off and go play my banjo with uncle grandpa for awhile.
I'm a proud owner of a 1988 12C that I found in a thrift store for $2 about four years ago. I didn't even have to change the batteries until a few months ago. Incredibly well-made, efficient and I wouldn't trade it for any PDA. Also, the 12C is one of the few models they're still manufacturing.
Also, if you don't want to pay a professional, just browse through the lists of forms (it's all online at irs.gov) and see if any of them ring some bells for you. If they do, download the form and instructions and throw it in there. And once you've done this, you'll know what to do next year.
To the point, you generally cannot bind someone to an agreement through silence. However, and this is a big however, if you already have an agreement with someone, it gets a lot more slippery. There are all sorts of implied contracts, modifications through the course of business dealings, and so on. It is not nearly as cut and dry as you might think.
Again, like I said, I haven't read the EULA (and don't want to, that's why I run a couple of alternate OSes) and don't know the best way to attack it. Also, please don't take any of this as legal advice, it's just a general discussion.
As for any particular cases, well, I don't know any off hand and it'd be a big research project to dredge up something exactly on point, but I know there's a large body of law about this sort of thing. If you're interested in contracts, a good place to start would be something like an Emmanuel's guide, a Nutshell, or similar. While not a walk in the park, they will give you lots of answers and point you in the right direction.
The other point is that contracts usually get judged solely on what's contained inside of them, unless there's fraud, illegality, mistake, mutual recission, and a few other exceptions. So if you want to know what you've gotten yourself into, then RTFC. There are no state or federal laws (with a few small exceptions) that force you to agree to certain things, so it's all in the contract. And you don't need a law degree to understand them, either. Most of the legalese is shorthand so that broad concepts don't have to take pages and pages of explanation. Get a law dictionary (don't use Black's if you're a novice- it explains legal terms with legal terms, get one that uses layperson definitions) and go through it yourself. It might not be pleasant, but you'll understand more than you think you will.
That would depend on the terms contained in the license. If you don't have access to it, I'm sure you can find it online somewhere. It ought to contain a provision called "transferability" or something similar and you'll find all you need to know.
I don't think a lot of people know that the Legislature here only meets in odd-numbered years and that they start in January and usually wrap everything up in July, hopefully by the 4th. This bill is coming out a little late, and it'll probably be rushed at the end of the session. Here's where it gets interesting- lots of strange, strange things happen late in the session when everyone wants to leave. Bills get killed, sometimes they're deliberately allowed to die for "lack of time" and all sorts of other weird stuff happens. So just watch and wait.
And software lobbyists aside (I'm sure they're swarming over on State Street) what makes this even more interesting is the severe budget crunch going on in Oregon. In a nutshell, there's no sales tax and lots of other fees and such are pretty low. This was mostly countered by the income tax, but since Oregon has the highest unemployment in the country, state revenues are in the toilet, programs are being cut, and it seems like there are almost daily protests over at the Capitol. Given that the Legislature is under a lot of pressure because of that, the multi-million dollar question is whether they're going to allow open-source to save some programs or succumb to lobbyist pressure not to. Stay tuned, this is going to be worth watching.
Punitives are dischargeable. I've done it for some of my clients. Only stuff like student loans, child/spousal support, and penalties for crimes you committed under the influence are not. If I were this guy, I'd file Chapter 7 ASAP, name the RIAA as a creditor and give them the finger. That'd be the end of the lawsuit. Of course, that isn't legal advice, and is not to be taken as such, but personally, that's what I'd do.