You always have to consider the failure modes of the device. If one flywheel fails, you're likely to have a driver who will suddenly have a car that handles much differently. Imagine coming up to a line of cars at a red light, and suddenly your car goes light on the brakes and pulls suddenly to one side. That ain't a car that I want to own.
You speak of "the law" as if it were some decree from a tyrant. In the United States, it's evolved from the opinions of countless legislators and judges, appointed by the people (by election or indirectly). This isn't how "the law" sees this: this is how the population sees it. Without "the law" that you so resent, you'd be hunkered down behind a mud wall in your hovel trying to hold back the hoards. Law and civilization go hand-in-hand.
If you want to get technical, the constitution does not confer a right of privacy. It protects you from "unreasonable" searches and seizures. What is reasonable, and what is unreasonable is decided by judges. They are the ones that fashioned the concept of an expectation of privacy, and they did that to enlighten us as to what was a reasonable search by the government.
Laws reflect our morality; they do not define it. If you want to talk about morality, then you'd be better off not speaking of the constitution or using terms such as an "expectation of privacy". By using that language you enter the legal realm.
And if to be a lawyer is to be a cretin, then I certainly am a cretin.
This is exactly correct. When you drive your car from your driveway to a publicly-controlled street, you are implicitly agreeing to be subject to all of the regulations of the state. Can the state stop you and search the trunk of your car without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed? The answer is no, because there you have an expectation of privacy. Can the police note the color and license plate of your car as it passes by some physical location? Absolutely, because anyone can do that and in that respect you have no expectation of privacy.
This isn't a question of constitutional law. This is a question of the laws of California. Unless state law says otherwise, the police get to make such surveillances. Are you angry about it? Well, there are certain things you can do:
1. Talk to your state representative about getting a law passed that stops the activities you don't like. 2. Write your police chief (or whoever is your elected official that decides this stuff) and tell him that he's not getting your vote. 3. Start a movement for a constitutional amendment and try to get enough people to care to pass it. (Good luck.) 4. Take a different mode of transportation. (Bus, bicycle, helicopter, a pied, etc.) 5. Ride with somebody else or take a cab.
This forum is a voice for lots of people who speak very loudly about something they claim to care about (constitutional rights) but know practically nothing about it.
"That opens the prospect of a new generation of bug zappers that kill only certain insects or just females rather than males."
It'll take the sci-fi people about six months to take off with this. Here's the opening script:
(Boy wanting to get rid of his old girlfriend): "Hey babe! Why don't you get out of the car and come inside to my place? See, it's safe: I'm walking inside..." (Girl with innocent look): "Sure..."
(Policeman standing in front of laser-burnt pile on floor with girly bits of cloth sticking out): "So, what exactly happened here?" (Boy): "I swear it was an accident! I only installed it this morning! I didn't know..."
Why aren't there more e-books? Is it because there aren't the resources needed to produce them inexpensively?
Folks: if people wanted e-books, then the industry would have come up with a machine to produce them. Henry Ford didn't do anything special except notice the huge demand in the public for automobiles. If there was a demand for e-books, someone would have pulled a Henry Ford and invented a way to produce them inexpensively too.
I think there's no demand principally because it's hard to read e-books on a computer display due to display issues. Writing is high contrast and susceptible to visual perceptions of pixellation. People don't see the lack of definition in a scenic image, but the eye does notice the wanderings of the edges of black letters against white backgrounds. When was the last time that you chose to receive a paper by fax? 300dpi is about the minimum that I can stand to read, and on a piece of paper that works out to be 2200 x 3000 pixels. How many devices are you aware of that have that resolution and are larger than 7 x 10 inches (18 x 25 cm)?
If you add to that other issues of convenience, I think you'll have your reasons why e-books haven't yet taken off. To read a book, you spend about three seconds in picking it up off the shelf and opening it. To read an e-book, you grab your tablet/computer/whatever, power it up, find your application for reading the book, and swipe through the screens until you reach the right spot. With a book, I can thumb through the pages to find my place, and I can insert a bookmark (or put my sticky notes if I have more than one.) With my e-book app, I probably get one bookmark. I can write and highlight in a book with a pen. I might be able to highlight in the app, and if I can then I have to remember the command for doing that and the gesture for marking out what I want to highlight. If I use books, I can put as many open books out on the table as will fit. If I use the usual e-book app, I can't look at more than one book at a time.
People have had hundreds of years coming up with the form of books: it will be a few more years before the e-book and tablet people will better it.
The asteroids that pose a threat will fall into two classes: those already in solar orbit and those that come from outside the influence of the Sun. The ones orbiting the Sun have had billions of years to impact the earth (and other planets), and thus the probability of a harmful event is so close to zero that it isn't worth bothering about. Those coming from outside will not be seen until they are too close to the Earth to change their path. They'll look like a dim and brightening star, not really moving against the sky due to a lack of a transverse path. If an Eiffel Tower-sized object isn't detected until it hits, exactly how would we detect an object that is truly a threat to humanity?
In other words, this is a case of a real problem with no practical solution. It makes great politics, though, as lots of people are afraid of the unknown and are willing to throw money at government-sponsored flying saucer detectors.
We should lock all legislators in until they pass laws without errors. We should make passenger pilots who fly badly fly more until their passengers like them. We should make the weekend drunk drive a lot more until he can drive safely. We should make the butcher who can't keep his refrigerator cold enough work until his customers stop getting sick.
There are wonderful ways of dealing with incompetence. They are sometimes called: elections, dismissals, suspensions and firings. You can't force stupid people to be not stupid, and you can't force competence on the incompetent.
"Who would host top secret documents on a web server, so any clown with HTTrack can download them all?"
A government agency that wants a straw man to distract the public from other activities they are doing. I'm not worried about what Snowden is disclosing. I'm worried about what Snowden didn't get his hands on.
You're comments would make sense, except that (1) the cistern is already filled with a highly-toxic substance (crude oil, natural gas, hydrogen sulfide, etc.) and (2) that the water will not (should not) end up in the drinking water supply. If the cistern were leaky, it would have already leaked out the stuff the drillers are trying to extract. That and drinking water tends to be closer to precipitation in its flowing travels to the sea.
My point is that no matter what is happening to the environment, there will be someone to blame it on their disfavored entities. In this case, I suspect it's environmentalists in California who want to exploit the fact that there is a drought there this year.
Like it or not, petroleum products are here to stay. There are too many car owners around that would be peeved if their gasoline was made expensive, and too many users of natural gas that would have to change their furnaces and water heaters to something else (also more expensive).
... and damned if you don't. One more round for the environmental version of the peanut gallery.
The great thing about the watershed is that it renews itself every year. If we take a small portion of what comes in rainfall every year and inject it into a fracking well, the next year we'll pretty much be back to where we started.
If the glaciers on the planet melt, then we have too much water. If we put it down fracking wells, then we'll have too little!
It's like watching the wardrobe of the latest movie actress. She puts in on, then she takes it off. She puts something else on, then she takes it off. Ad nauseum.
Oh, no... I can hear it now: "I have a right to carry one of these if I want to!"
Considering that a "gun" is defined in a stereotypical law as something that has a muzzle and fires a projectile, it probably is legal to carry one... if you can lift the silly thing!
The sporting goods store will announce it to their customers.... as the only gun that cooks its target so you don't have to!
That's pretty much right. Generally speaking, parents don't get to give away their children's rights. The problem here is that everyone assumes that a parent will act in the interests of their child. I can assure everyone that money paid in child support does not reach the child in many cases.
The State of Kansas has a very simple test for the obligation of child support: you contributed your DNA to the conception of a child, then you're its parent. Although that is convenient for the state as a test that works most of the time, it does not work all of the time.
All of this begs the question: what is (are) the act(s) that a person chooses under the bounds of their liberty that obligates them to child support? Having sex? Carrying a child to term? Not having an abortion? Signing a contract?
I think in this case the State of Kansas is right: people should not be able to toss away their obligations to their (future) children by signing a contract. Now if the terms of that contract required the mother to pay the child support owed by the sperm donor, then that would be enforceable...
Although this was a declaratory judgment action filed by the potential infringer, it would still have had to give the patent holder sufficient access to the information needed to evaluate whether or not infringement had occurred. That's true of any respondent in any civil action: the plaintiff has to lay out enough of its cards to allow the respondent to make a defense. The potential infringer here would have had to identify the products and services at risk, and give the patent holder sufficient information to argue infringement. If the patent holder did not care to show that infringement, that's his right.
A plaintiff always bears the burden of proof in showing that he is entitled to the relief requested from the court. For patent infringement, that means showing a patent has been infringed.
The only reason this is in the news is because the appellate court (the CAFC) screwed it up one time, and the Supreme Court had to make a return to sanity.
That's 700 people who probably already had a compromised health. These statistics never say how many would have kicked the bucket the following week due to a Rhinovirus, liver failure, etc.
To the authors of the study: don't feed me a line of BS about how many lives could be saved by non-use of Flu medications, unless you're going to prove how many lives were actually saved. Your study is being tossed in the trash can, where it deserves to be.
Well, Anonymous, I was oversimplifying it for the purposes of understanding the concept a bit, but your position is flat-out wrong.
Go read 17 U.S.C. 106. (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106) There you'll find that the author of "literary, musical, dramatic... or other audiovisual works" has an exclusive right to "reproduce the copyrighted work" (106(1)) and to "perform the copyrighted work publicly" (106(4)). Fair use does apply to certain "fair" uses such as for a non-commercial scholarly purpose, but in determining whether a use is fair the factor of "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" must be considered. If I wrote my play and I set the script out for you to view, you could take pictures for an investigatory purpose (my ex wants to claim it as part of her part of her property in divorce) or copy the pages for a critical purpose (a literary critic wants to release an article prior to the performance of the play). As it would directly impinge upon the potential market, any unauthorized production of the play would negatively affect my potential market, and would not be a fair use. (See 17 U.S.C. 107(4).)
Your arguments regarding the 9th amendment are difficult to understand. Are you suggesting that because the right to copy is not enumerated in the constitution, that we all have the right to copy whatever the hell we want? Congress and the courts seem to disagree with your view. Specifically for the Aereo case, I think you'll have a hard time arguing that the retransmission of video is an unenumerated right protected by the 9th Amendment. The people in the days of George Washington et. al. didn't have their eyes fixed upon their T.V.'s on the weekend, you know...
I'm not offering legal advice, but from a quick look it appears that Aereo's activities might be protected under 17 U.S.C. 111(a)(3) or another part of that section. That strengthens my view that Aereo will win.
There isn't a statute prohibiting that (that I know of), but that really doesn't matter. Even if ABC used only its own content, the minute that it broadcasted those in-house productions over the public spectrum it would be granting those in the broadcast market implied licenses and exposing those productions to fair uses covered by the statute.
Now if it broadcasted those productions (or the productions of others) over a closed network (cable, encrypted satellite channel, etc.) then it could restrict its market by contract. That's a different situation than this one. All Aereo is doing is taking advantage of the fact that ABC has broadcasted its content to the public over the public airwaves.
The rule that you refer to is an administrative rule. Statutory law trumps the rules of the FCC, bud.
There are plenty of cases where a person is granted an "implied license" to a copyright. If you bought a DVD, then you have an implied license to perform the work for yourself and for others in a non-commercial setting. You don't get to start your own movie theater with your DVD, you understand, but you do get to watch the DVD in front of your own display with your residents and/or family. The license comes from the purchase or rental that you make, not from signing a contract. The point is, it doesn't matter how ABC got its license: it isn't the copyright holder with the right to sue without acquiring an ownership right.
It may be that ABC would be granted a right to enforce the copyright under a formal exclusive license, but even then it would not have any more right to sue than the original copyright holder. It can't take unto itself legal rights that were not granted to the original copyright holder. Even then, it would still have granted the broadcasting market an implied license to watch and forward the material, and could not take away the fair use rights of those in the market. Ruling for Aereo.
ABC does not own the content that it broadcasts: it licenses it from the original authors/producers. That license permits it to distribute the content over the airwaves with the payment of a fee.
Think about it this way. Suppose I wrote a play. I would have both (1) a right to prevent others from copying my written work (the script) and (2) a right to prevent others from performing that play if they got a copy of the script. If I permit a playhouse to perform the play, that playhouse can limit the viewing of the licensed performance to those inside the building. Here, ABC is broadcasting its content to the public: it's like a playhouse that has no walls that anyone from the street can enjoy. The playhouse's recourse is to perform the play inside an enclosed building, and ABC's recourse is arguably to distribute its content to those under contract, which it cannot do over the public airwaves.
Now, if ABC owns the original rights in what it broadcasts, the story is different. In that case it can sue as the holder as the copyright, rather than the holder of merely a license. Even then, arguably ABC has granted everyone with access to broadcasted content an implied license to view it, and forward the content to another location as apparently Aereo does. What Aereo would then be doing is merely a "fair use" of that broadcasted content, which is specifically permitted by the copyright statutes.
Isn't it curious: do we really know more now than before Snowden made his "revelations"? We already knew that the NSA was snooping in our "metadata" and in all kinds of international traffic. So who now protests what the NSA does? Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Australia, India and Brazil. All countries with strong ties to the U.S.; all countries who have cooperated or can be presumed to have cooperated with the intelligence-gathering of the U.S. in the past. Why don't we hear the protestations of China, of North Korea, or of neutral countries like Spain?
Isn't it curious: the NSA "contractor" plugs in his portable drive into the evil network and, like Princess Leia, carries off the plans to the intelligence-gathering form of the Death Star for the Rebels while being undetected. Who would you pick to act such a part? Perhaps a young, geeky-looking guy -- oh, and let's make him white so we can avoid negative colorations of the the U.S. (and other countries') minorities...
Isn't it curious: the NSA "contractor" escapes the control of the possessor of the information. He supposedly knows all of the right contacts to gain "amnesty" in a foreign country. He lands in Russia rather than in a more neutral country... and Russia does have strong ties to the U.S. now, don't they? He who "betrayed" the NSA sips expensive wines and eats caviar under the protection of a country that really shouldn't care less what happens to him, right?
When the grass grows high in the forestland, sometimes the keepers of the forest execute a controlled burn. They intentionally start a fire in the grass so they can have the resources to keep it under control, rather than wait for some future accident to cause a crisis. I suspect that here the grass is public opinion, and Mr. Snowden is the match put into the grass.
Mr. Snowden does not deserve amnesty: he already has it.
Slashdot Mirror
You always have to consider the failure modes of the device. If one flywheel fails, you're likely to have a driver who will suddenly have a car that handles much differently. Imagine coming up to a line of cars at a red light, and suddenly your car goes light on the brakes and pulls suddenly to one side. That ain't a car that I want to own.
You speak of "the law" as if it were some decree from a tyrant. In the United States, it's evolved from the opinions of countless legislators and judges, appointed by the people (by election or indirectly). This isn't how "the law" sees this: this is how the population sees it. Without "the law" that you so resent, you'd be hunkered down behind a mud wall in your hovel trying to hold back the hoards. Law and civilization go hand-in-hand.
If you want to get technical, the constitution does not confer a right of privacy. It protects you from "unreasonable" searches and seizures. What is reasonable, and what is unreasonable is decided by judges. They are the ones that fashioned the concept of an expectation of privacy, and they did that to enlighten us as to what was a reasonable search by the government.
Laws reflect our morality; they do not define it. If you want to talk about morality, then you'd be better off not speaking of the constitution or using terms such as an "expectation of privacy". By using that language you enter the legal realm.
And if to be a lawyer is to be a cretin, then I certainly am a cretin.
This is exactly correct. When you drive your car from your driveway to a publicly-controlled street, you are implicitly agreeing to be subject to all of the regulations of the state. Can the state stop you and search the trunk of your car without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed? The answer is no, because there you have an expectation of privacy. Can the police note the color and license plate of your car as it passes by some physical location? Absolutely, because anyone can do that and in that respect you have no expectation of privacy.
This isn't a question of constitutional law. This is a question of the laws of California. Unless state law says otherwise, the police get to make such surveillances. Are you angry about it? Well, there are certain things you can do:
1. Talk to your state representative about getting a law passed that stops the activities you don't like.
2. Write your police chief (or whoever is your elected official that decides this stuff) and tell him that he's not getting your vote.
3. Start a movement for a constitutional amendment and try to get enough people to care to pass it. (Good luck.)
4. Take a different mode of transportation. (Bus, bicycle, helicopter, a pied, etc.)
5. Ride with somebody else or take a cab.
This forum is a voice for lots of people who speak very loudly about something they claim to care about (constitutional rights) but know practically nothing about it.
No. It's supposed to work day AND night. That's its advantage.
"That opens the prospect of a new generation of bug zappers that kill only certain insects or just females rather than males."
It'll take the sci-fi people about six months to take off with this. Here's the opening script:
(Boy wanting to get rid of his old girlfriend): "Hey babe! Why don't you get out of the car and come inside to my place? See, it's safe: I'm walking inside..."
(Girl with innocent look): "Sure..."
(Policeman standing in front of laser-burnt pile on floor with girly bits of cloth sticking out): "So, what exactly happened here?"
(Boy): "I swear it was an accident! I only installed it this morning! I didn't know..."
Why aren't there more e-books? Is it because there aren't the resources needed to produce them inexpensively?
Folks: if people wanted e-books, then the industry would have come up with a machine to produce them. Henry Ford didn't do anything special except notice the huge demand in the public for automobiles. If there was a demand for e-books, someone would have pulled a Henry Ford and invented a way to produce them inexpensively too.
I think there's no demand principally because it's hard to read e-books on a computer display due to display issues. Writing is high contrast and susceptible to visual perceptions of pixellation. People don't see the lack of definition in a scenic image, but the eye does notice the wanderings of the edges of black letters against white backgrounds. When was the last time that you chose to receive a paper by fax? 300dpi is about the minimum that I can stand to read, and on a piece of paper that works out to be 2200 x 3000 pixels. How many devices are you aware of that have that resolution and are larger than 7 x 10 inches (18 x 25 cm)?
If you add to that other issues of convenience, I think you'll have your reasons why e-books haven't yet taken off. To read a book, you spend about three seconds in picking it up off the shelf and opening it. To read an e-book, you grab your tablet/computer/whatever, power it up, find your application for reading the book, and swipe through the screens until you reach the right spot. With a book, I can thumb through the pages to find my place, and I can insert a bookmark (or put my sticky notes if I have more than one.) With my e-book app, I probably get one bookmark. I can write and highlight in a book with a pen. I might be able to highlight in the app, and if I can then I have to remember the command for doing that and the gesture for marking out what I want to highlight. If I use books, I can put as many open books out on the table as will fit. If I use the usual e-book app, I can't look at more than one book at a time.
People have had hundreds of years coming up with the form of books: it will be a few more years before the e-book and tablet people will better it.
The asteroids that pose a threat will fall into two classes: those already in solar orbit and those that come from outside the influence of the Sun. The ones orbiting the Sun have had billions of years to impact the earth (and other planets), and thus the probability of a harmful event is so close to zero that it isn't worth bothering about. Those coming from outside will not be seen until they are too close to the Earth to change their path. They'll look like a dim and brightening star, not really moving against the sky due to a lack of a transverse path. If an Eiffel Tower-sized object isn't detected until it hits, exactly how would we detect an object that is truly a threat to humanity?
In other words, this is a case of a real problem with no practical solution. It makes great politics, though, as lots of people are afraid of the unknown and are willing to throw money at government-sponsored flying saucer detectors.
By the same theory:
We should lock all legislators in until they pass laws without errors.
We should make passenger pilots who fly badly fly more until their passengers like them.
We should make the weekend drunk drive a lot more until he can drive safely.
We should make the butcher who can't keep his refrigerator cold enough work until his customers stop getting sick.
There are wonderful ways of dealing with incompetence. They are sometimes called: elections, dismissals, suspensions and firings. You can't force stupid people to be not stupid, and you can't force competence on the incompetent.
"Who would host top secret documents on a web server, so any clown with HTTrack can download them all?"
A government agency that wants a straw man to distract the public from other activities they are doing. I'm not worried about what Snowden is disclosing. I'm worried about what Snowden didn't get his hands on.
Anonymous:
You're comments would make sense, except that (1) the cistern is already filled with a highly-toxic substance (crude oil, natural gas, hydrogen sulfide, etc.) and (2) that the water will not (should not) end up in the drinking water supply. If the cistern were leaky, it would have already leaked out the stuff the drillers are trying to extract. That and drinking water tends to be closer to precipitation in its flowing travels to the sea.
My point is that no matter what is happening to the environment, there will be someone to blame it on their disfavored entities. In this case, I suspect it's environmentalists in California who want to exploit the fact that there is a drought there this year.
Like it or not, petroleum products are here to stay. There are too many car owners around that would be peeved if their gasoline was made expensive, and too many users of natural gas that would have to change their furnaces and water heaters to something else (also more expensive).
... and damned if you don't. One more round for the environmental version of the peanut gallery.
The great thing about the watershed is that it renews itself every year. If we take a small portion of what comes in rainfall every year and inject it into a fracking well, the next year we'll pretty much be back to where we started.
If the glaciers on the planet melt, then we have too much water. If we put it down fracking wells, then we'll have too little!
It's like watching the wardrobe of the latest movie actress. She puts in on, then she takes it off. She puts something else on, then she takes it off. Ad nauseum.
I just love that argument. It makes it okay to put canisters of nerve agent in the back of my pickup...
I also makes it okay to park a trailer full of manure in front of my ex's house. After all, I'm only arming myself with it; I'm not using it...
Oh, no ... I can hear it now: "I have a right to carry one of these if I want to!"
Considering that a "gun" is defined in a stereotypical law as something that has a muzzle and fires a projectile, it probably is legal to carry one ... if you can lift the silly thing!
The sporting goods store will announce it to their customers .... as the only gun that cooks its target so you don't have to!
Oh, this one's going to be ugly.
The acts of the state in making an adoption have nothing to do with contracts. It is your understanding that is wrong, achbed.
That's pretty much right. Generally speaking, parents don't get to give away their children's rights. The problem here is that everyone assumes that a parent will act in the interests of their child. I can assure everyone that money paid in child support does not reach the child in many cases.
The State of Kansas has a very simple test for the obligation of child support: you contributed your DNA to the conception of a child, then you're its parent. Although that is convenient for the state as a test that works most of the time, it does not work all of the time.
All of this begs the question: what is (are) the act(s) that a person chooses under the bounds of their liberty that obligates them to child support? Having sex? Carrying a child to term? Not having an abortion? Signing a contract?
I think in this case the State of Kansas is right: people should not be able to toss away their obligations to their (future) children by signing a contract. Now if the terms of that contract required the mother to pay the child support owed by the sperm donor, then that would be enforceable...
Although this was a declaratory judgment action filed by the potential infringer, it would still have had to give the patent holder sufficient access to the information needed to evaluate whether or not infringement had occurred. That's true of any respondent in any civil action: the plaintiff has to lay out enough of its cards to allow the respondent to make a defense. The potential infringer here would have had to identify the products and services at risk, and give the patent holder sufficient information to argue infringement. If the patent holder did not care to show that infringement, that's his right.
I'm still yawning...
The caselaw shows that the CAFC is regularly corrected by the Supreme Court every few years. It's really not that big a deal.
A plaintiff always bears the burden of proof in showing that he is entitled to the relief requested from the court. For patent infringement, that means showing a patent has been infringed.
The only reason this is in the news is because the appellate court (the CAFC) screwed it up one time, and the Supreme Court had to make a return to sanity.
That's 700 people who probably already had a compromised health. These statistics never say how many would have kicked the bucket the following week due to a Rhinovirus, liver failure, etc.
To the authors of the study: don't feed me a line of BS about how many lives could be saved by non-use of Flu medications, unless you're going to prove how many lives were actually saved. Your study is being tossed in the trash can, where it deserves to be.
I'm going to carry on as I always have. Goodbye!
Well, Anonymous, I was oversimplifying it for the purposes of understanding the concept a bit, but your position is flat-out wrong.
Go read 17 U.S.C. 106. (http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#106) There you'll find that the author of "literary, musical, dramatic ... or other audiovisual works" has an exclusive right to "reproduce the copyrighted work" (106(1)) and to "perform the copyrighted work publicly" (106(4)). Fair use does apply to certain "fair" uses such as for a non-commercial scholarly purpose, but in determining whether a use is fair the factor of "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" must be considered. If I wrote my play and I set the script out for you to view, you could take pictures for an investigatory purpose (my ex wants to claim it as part of her part of her property in divorce) or copy the pages for a critical purpose (a literary critic wants to release an article prior to the performance of the play). As it would directly impinge upon the potential market, any unauthorized production of the play would negatively affect my potential market, and would not be a fair use. (See 17 U.S.C. 107(4).)
Your arguments regarding the 9th amendment are difficult to understand. Are you suggesting that because the right to copy is not enumerated in the constitution, that we all have the right to copy whatever the hell we want? Congress and the courts seem to disagree with your view. Specifically for the Aereo case, I think you'll have a hard time arguing that the retransmission of video is an unenumerated right protected by the 9th Amendment. The people in the days of George Washington et. al. didn't have their eyes fixed upon their T.V.'s on the weekend, you know...
I'm not offering legal advice, but from a quick look it appears that Aereo's activities might be protected under 17 U.S.C. 111(a)(3) or another part of that section. That strengthens my view that Aereo will win.
There isn't a statute prohibiting that (that I know of), but that really doesn't matter. Even if ABC used only its own content, the minute that it broadcasted those in-house productions over the public spectrum it would be granting those in the broadcast market implied licenses and exposing those productions to fair uses covered by the statute.
Now if it broadcasted those productions (or the productions of others) over a closed network (cable, encrypted satellite channel, etc.) then it could restrict its market by contract. That's a different situation than this one. All Aereo is doing is taking advantage of the fact that ABC has broadcasted its content to the public over the public airwaves.
The rule that you refer to is an administrative rule. Statutory law trumps the rules of the FCC, bud.
There are plenty of cases where a person is granted an "implied license" to a copyright. If you bought a DVD, then you have an implied license to perform the work for yourself and for others in a non-commercial setting. You don't get to start your own movie theater with your DVD, you understand, but you do get to watch the DVD in front of your own display with your residents and/or family. The license comes from the purchase or rental that you make, not from signing a contract. The point is, it doesn't matter how ABC got its license: it isn't the copyright holder with the right to sue without acquiring an ownership right.
It may be that ABC would be granted a right to enforce the copyright under a formal exclusive license, but even then it would not have any more right to sue than the original copyright holder. It can't take unto itself legal rights that were not granted to the original copyright holder. Even then, it would still have granted the broadcasting market an implied license to watch and forward the material, and could not take away the fair use rights of those in the market. Ruling for Aereo.
ABC does not own the content that it broadcasts: it licenses it from the original authors/producers. That license permits it to distribute the content over the airwaves with the payment of a fee.
Think about it this way. Suppose I wrote a play. I would have both (1) a right to prevent others from copying my written work (the script) and (2) a right to prevent others from performing that play if they got a copy of the script. If I permit a playhouse to perform the play, that playhouse can limit the viewing of the licensed performance to those inside the building. Here, ABC is broadcasting its content to the public: it's like a playhouse that has no walls that anyone from the street can enjoy. The playhouse's recourse is to perform the play inside an enclosed building, and ABC's recourse is arguably to distribute its content to those under contract, which it cannot do over the public airwaves.
Now, if ABC owns the original rights in what it broadcasts, the story is different. In that case it can sue as the holder as the copyright, rather than the holder of merely a license. Even then, arguably ABC has granted everyone with access to broadcasted content an implied license to view it, and forward the content to another location as apparently Aereo does. What Aereo would then be doing is merely a "fair use" of that broadcasted content, which is specifically permitted by the copyright statutes.
and if you use only reversible letters (A,T,O,I ...) then no one will know that they can only be read in the mirror during a full moon!
Isn't it curious: do we really know more now than before Snowden made his "revelations"? We already knew that the NSA was snooping in our "metadata" and in all kinds of international traffic. So who now protests what the NSA does? Great Britain, Germany, Israel, Australia, India and Brazil. All countries with strong ties to the U.S.; all countries who have cooperated or can be presumed to have cooperated with the intelligence-gathering of the U.S. in the past. Why don't we hear the protestations of China, of North Korea, or of neutral countries like Spain?
Isn't it curious: the NSA "contractor" plugs in his portable drive into the evil network and, like Princess Leia, carries off the plans to the intelligence-gathering form of the Death Star for the Rebels while being undetected. Who would you pick to act such a part? Perhaps a young, geeky-looking guy -- oh, and let's make him white so we can avoid negative colorations of the the U.S. (and other countries') minorities...
Isn't it curious: the NSA "contractor" escapes the control of the possessor of the information. He supposedly knows all of the right contacts to gain "amnesty" in a foreign country. He lands in Russia rather than in a more neutral country ... and Russia does have strong ties to the U.S. now, don't they? He who "betrayed" the NSA sips expensive wines and eats caviar under the protection of a country that really shouldn't care less what happens to him, right?
When the grass grows high in the forestland, sometimes the keepers of the forest execute a controlled burn. They intentionally start a fire in the grass so they can have the resources to keep it under control, rather than wait for some future accident to cause a crisis. I suspect that here the grass is public opinion, and Mr. Snowden is the match put into the grass.
Mr. Snowden does not deserve amnesty: he already has it.