True, but entirely irrelevant as to whether they can or should get paid. Rights aren't created based on how much money someone spends.
Microsoft wants to get a return on their investment.
Also true, and also irrelevant. Rights aren't created based on how badly someone wants them.
Therefore, Microsoft has a right to get paid for someone taking/consuming/using what they produce.
There's something here, and that something is sales contract law. If someone buys Microsoft products, Microsoft has a right to payment. The operative word is if. Ordinary citizens are under no duty to buy Microsoft. There is, therefore, no corresponding right that Microsoft has to be paid simply for doing work. See Hohfeld analysis for more information.
My point to the OPP was that right is a pretty strong word, and he shouldn't go throwing around the phrase 'intellectual property rights' so sloppily. IP rights come from copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and trade dress law, and a little from privacy and publicity law. They don't come from sales contract law, which is what he (and you) seem to be saying.
When talking about 'intellectual property' rights, let's be more clear.
It's purpose is to enforce Microsoft's Intellectual Property Rights. And what right is that? There are really only two -- the right to be paid for Windows, and the right to not have to support Windows that has not been paid for.
Let's start with the first 'right': the right to be paid. Simply put, there is no such right. You won't find it anywhere in the laws of the United States. No one is required by law to buy Windows from Microsoft (certain public offices notwithstanding). While it is true that external factors (ease-of-use, company policy, etc) strongly compel purchasing decisions, those factors are not legal, and do not create a 'right' of payment.
Now, the second 'right': the right to receive support. Again, there is no such legal right. True, there are implied warranties of merchantability, but these can be expressly disclaimed by an EULA. Let's take a look at the XP Home Edition EULA:
15. LIMITED WARRANTY FOR SOFTWARE ACQUIRED IN THE US AND CANADA. Microsoft warrants that the Software will perform substantially in accordance with the accompanying materials for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of receipt. If an implied warranty or condition is created by your state/jurisdiction and federal or state/provincial law prohibits disclaimer of it, you also have an implied warranty or condition, BUT ONLY AS TO DEFECTS DISCOVERED DURING THE PERIOD OF THIS LIMITED WARRANTY (NINETY DAYS). AS TO ANY DEFECTS DISCOVERED AFTER THE NINETY-DAY PERIOD, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF ANY KIND.
YOUR EXCLUSIVE REMEDY. Microsoft's and its suppliers' entire liability and your exclusive remedy for any breach of this Limited Warranty or for any other breach of this EULA or for any other liability relating to the Software shall be, at Microsoft's option from time to time exercised subject to applicable law, (a) return of the amount paid (if any) for the Software, or (b) repair or replacement of the Software, that does not meet this Limited Warranty and that is returned to Microsoft with a copy of your receipt. You will receive the remedy elected by Microsoft without charge, except that you are responsible for any expenses you may incur (e.g. cost of shipping the Software to Microsoft).
So there you have it. They don't have to support their software, ever. If Windows breaks, they have to (a) refund your money, or (b) give you a replacement. They do not have to (c) fix the broken software. Just to make sure you understand that this is their only obligation, they include
16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. The Limited Warranty that appears above is the only express warranty made to you and is provided in lieu of any other express warranties or similar obligations (if any) created by any advertising, documentation, packaging, or other communications. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Software and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Software, and the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content through the Software or otherwise arising out of the use of the Software.
Microsoft has no duty to support Windows. You have no right to receive support for Windows. The main reason Microsoft supports their software is because it's buggy and they don't want people to use something else.
Normally I wouldn't reply to my own post, but I've just read the KSR petition to the Supreme Court for review. The exact question they would like answered:
Whether the Federal Circuit has erred in holding that a
claimed invention cannot be held "obvious", and thus
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. 103(a), in the absence of
some proven "'teaching, suggestion, or motivation' that
would have led a person of ordinary skill in the art to
combine the relevant prior art teachings in the manner
claimed."
As I posted above, courts often look to such suggestions when deciding nonobviousness. The question here is whether the statute requires them to find a suggestion to combine. KSR is arguing that the Federal Circuit says you are required, while the Supreme Court (and seven other circuit courts) say you aren't. For what it's worth, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
For those of you out there who are wondering what the '1952 patent law' really says (you know, so you have some ammunition to argue from), here it is:
A patent may not be obtained . . . if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. 35 U.S.C. 103(a) (2000) (emphasis added).
Some things to note:
Courts look at the differences between the invention as a whole and the prior art. Individual parts and pieces may have been invented before, but the combination may not be obvious. Courts look to things like whether there was some teaching or motivation to combine the ingredients.
The comparison takes place at the time the invention was made, not right now when we have the benefit of hindsight. As has already been linked to, see the story of Columbus' Egg for why we want to do this.
The person who is analyzing the differences is a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA). The difference between a transistor and a vaccuum tube may be obvious to an electrical engineer, but not to an architect. Lawyers fight over this skill level in litigation.
Think about a (perhaps not so) hypothetical suit over the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peanut butter was known, jelly was known, and bread was known. Was there some published motivation to combine them (or more generally to combine nut spreads with fruit preserves on an edible substrate)? The court would likely look to contemporaneous cookbooks. The fact that it's obvious in hindsight helps make the sandwich such a good idea, but was it obvious at the time (using only the knowledge of cooking at that time)? The defendant will argue that it was, the plaintiff that it wasn't. What's the skill level of the PHOSITA? Probably pretty low -- anyone who cooks likely qualifies.
These are the sorts of questions courts (and patent examiners) ask when evaluating obviousness.
Ob comment: applying all this law to TFA, some of the Federal Circuit's possibly strange statements start to make sense. Perhaps even the statement from TFA, that "a combination of preexisting, off-the-shelf components in which each component performs exactly the same function that it had been known and was designed to perform" is not necessarily obvious.
Although I know it's bad form on/. to actually get both sides of any story, I thought I'd post SWIFT's official corporate position on the matter. See here.
Read Justice Breyer's dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The whole thing, including the Appendix (which really shocked the hell out of me). I quote: "the value of a 95-year copyright is more realistically estimated . . . as 99.996% of the value of a perpetual copyright." More juicy tidbits if you follow the link.
Subject to sections 107 through 122, the owner of copyright under this title has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following: . . . in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. 17 U.S.C. 106(6) (emphasis added).
Webcasters already fall under this provision (as do satellite radio companies). Lots of other people don't -- for a list of exemptions, see 17 U.S.C. 114(d).
On the other hand, if they've got all your dirty secrets anyway, you're already boned. Might as well toss a few bombs while you still can. This kind of oppression can breed terror as much as stop it.
Any time someone claims Windows is more secure than Linux, ask them this: If Windows is so secure, why are the AV companies pushing harder at the market for Windows AV products than for Linux?
That means that so long as the last requirement (both parties give something up) is met, that click-through agreements are valid for EULA purposes.
Not necessarily. Valid consideration also requires that both parties know (to a large extent, if not exactly) what they are giving up. For instance, I am giving up $50, and you are giving up an afternoon to mow my lawn. The terms are clear. One might argue that some click-through EULAs don't meet that requirement. To wit: Microsoft gives up a copy of Windows XP Downloadable, and I'm giving up $199 (and a whole bunch of other things I don't know about). The obvious counterargument is, duh, read the EULA before you agree to it. Which brings us back to this case.
I suppose the guy might have a case against DirecTV's and their lawyers for fraud and breach of contract. They did knowingly enter an agreement they had no intention of respecting, and it's obviously caused this guy financial harm.
With no copyrights, Microsoft could take FSF software, change it, and sell the result without releasing source code. RMS would not be pleased.
True, but try this on for size:
With no copyrights, RMS (or anyone else for that matter) could take Microsoft software, make lots of copies, and sell it for less than Microsoft. Windows for $1, anyone?
Who do you think wins that battle, Microsoft or RMS?
You think they would sue the ones actually responsible for making this all happen, you know, the fucking government?
Under settled principles of sovereign immunity, the United States, as sovereign, is immune from suit, save as it consents to be sued. United States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596, 608 (1990) (internal quotes omitted). A necessary corollary of this rule is that when Congress attaches conditions to legislation waiving the sovereign immunity of the United States, those conditions must be strictly observed, and exceptions thereto are not to be lightly implied. Block v. North Dakota, 461 U.S. 273, 287 (1983).
Point me to a statute that explicitly recognizes the right of a private citizen to bring suit against the NSA for this kind of thing, and then we'll continue the discussion. (The Fourth Amendment might be used, in conjunction with Article III section 2 and 28 U.S.C. 1331 or 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(2), but there's a tricky issue of standing to be resolved. Without at least some evidence of the NSA spying on the plaintiff individually, there's no way to support a claim of actual injury, and the case will be dismissed on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.)
Because lawyers will argue 69 different reasons why something should (or shouldn't) be done. If they can get the case thrown out under the state secrets privilege, the issue of whether the room exists or not will never see the (legal) light of day. It would be a big dodge for the government.
Well, a lot of problems can be traced back to lack of education. The solution to AIDS is obvious.
In Kwazulu-Natal province, South Africa, up to 40% of mothers giving birth have AIDS. Link. Education won't help them. Most AIDS babies die before they reach 5 years old. Education won't help them either. About 10% of babies develop AIDS from their mother while in the womb, another 20% during birth, and another 15% from breastfeeding. Link. Most third-world mothers can't afford to be on antiretroviral medication through her pregnancy. The biggest reduction comes from peri-natal treatment, where a $4 pill (nevirapine) can cut AIDS transmission from mother to child in half.
Education costs a lot of money, and its effect on preventing HIV/AIDS depends ultimately on a decision each educated person will voluntarily make. Most likely with a naked person in front of them. On the other hand, you've got a 50% shot at saving a life outright by spending $4.
Of course, as you point out, all of this is academic if the medicine/computers can't get to the children. Spend a few billion dollars to topple the corrupt governments first. If the US government had spent half of what they did in Iraq fighting African corruption and bringing in medicine and food, thousands of lives would have been saved rather than lost.
Check out H.R. 2795 on Thomas. Especially Chapter 32, "Post-Grant Opposition Procedures". It gives anyone the right to challenge a patent claim's validity within 9 months of issue, provided evidence is presented and a fee is paid. Different people can simultaneously challenge different claims, if needed.
"Drivers" providing uniform data access to the resources
Business logic
Application logic
Client logic
Business logic would use the driver API, making data requests that were resource-neutral. In other words, the business logic didn't care where the data came from, only that it got what it asked for. Different business functions were isolated, and each presented its own API to the applications. The APIs themselves conformed to a specification. That way, apps written by different developers could perform the same business functions without recoding everything. The applications made requests of the business logic according to the spec, then presented the results to the clients for formatting (web, RSS, PDF, whatever). Uniform data structures were used throughout.
You may not need that level of sophistication, but it sure as heck helped us prototype, isolate employee functions and skills, etc etc. It allowed us to run multiple OSes (Windows, Linux, Solaris) and multiple languages (.NET, VB, and Java) together seamlessly. It also helped when doing architecture, since it forced us to think about what a particular piece of code was really doing. Under our scheme, PHP would be layer 4, and HTML layer 5, so we would separate them. You could just as easily use PHP to generate XML, for example.
Back in the 2600 case over the DeCSS source code the courts said that it was effectively illegal to link to something illegal.
That's not what they said. The Second Circuit said that it was illegal for Corley to link to sites he knew contained DeCSS. They were balancing First Amendment rights against the obvious restraint on speech that the DMCA required in its "shall not offer to the public" language. Their reasoning was that the DMCA, specifically 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2), "served substantial governmental interests and was unrelated to the suppression of free expression." Read their entire opinion here, especially the discussion section, III(B)(2). In other words, if you want to link to bomb-making instructions, Corley doesn't apply. You might be in trouble for other reasons (I don't know, I'd have to do research), but not because of the DeCSS case.
What does this mean for Google? Well, if they 'know' that they're linking to something that a law prevents them from linking to (note that such a law is, a priori, a restraint on speech, and can be challenged on First Amendment grounds), then Corley says they might be in trouble.
Oops! Sorry, my bad. I was quoting Martin Niemoeller, because it seemed appropriate at the time. Strangely enough, it still does. How much does your own government have to resemble Nazi Germany before Godwin's law no longer applies?
For anyone who thinks that animation is far-fetched, you have to see America: from Freedom to Fascism, a new movie by Aaron Russo. I went to a pre-screener on Tuesday night. I already knew most of what was in the movie, but seeing it all together is scary as hell. The pizza ordering ad was in the movie, and it's on their website.
If you want to see it, donate on the web site. Aaron needs advertising money. Without it, the movie won't get shown, and this is a film everyone should see.
It's the only way to let us conservative Christians block porn that won't get struck down by the courts.
How about hitting the power switch, eh? Or changing the channel? Why does the government have to tell you how to live your life?
I consider Playboy's photos to be low class art. A typical porn site is not even remotely art or expressive except in the lowest, most attavistic sense.
And you are absolutely entitled to those opinions. I'm glad you have them and have expressed them, that's what free speech is truly all about. Now, let's try to be nice, and let other people have their own opinions too, OK? I know this may be hard to accept, but there really are people out there who have filthy, perverted minds, and aren't ashamed of it. It's a tragedy, to be sure. However, these people shouldn't be locked up in jails, they should simply be avoided. Just walk away. Don't invite them into your church or your home. Denounce them as perverts, molesters, and bastard heathens, the First Amendment guarantees you the right to do it. But don't pass laws criminalizing them, because the same might happen to you one day.
When the Nazis came for the communists, I said nothing; I was, of course, no communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; I was, of course, no Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I said nothing; I was, of course, no trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest.
This bill is censorship, and a direct attack on the First Amendment. It must be stopped, right now, at all costs. The US must not lose its most precious and cherished freedoms because of some whiny, irresponsible parents.
The sponsors of this bill and all its supporters are attempting to undermine the Constitution for which our nation's Founding Fathers had to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Yet they aren't pledging anything, except vague political rhetoric, and unsubstantiated promises that this bill will protect children.
Mr. Fitzpatrick's bill is dangerous, ill-conceived, and ill-planned. It deserves nothing but contempt and ridicule, and it must be swiftly defeated. Mr. Fitzpatrick himself deserves no such ill will, but I suggest that he may not be fit to lead this nation in the House of Representatives if he cannot or is unwilling to follow the Constitution as his job demands.
Slashdot Mirror
My point to the OPP was that right is a pretty strong word, and he shouldn't go throwing around the phrase 'intellectual property rights' so sloppily. IP rights come from copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and trade dress law, and a little from privacy and publicity law. They don't come from sales contract law, which is what he (and you) seem to be saying.
It's purpose is to enforce Microsoft's Intellectual Property Rights. And what right is that? There are really only two -- the right to be paid for Windows, and the right to not have to support Windows that has not been paid for.
Let's start with the first 'right': the right to be paid. Simply put, there is no such right. You won't find it anywhere in the laws of the United States. No one is required by law to buy Windows from Microsoft (certain public offices notwithstanding). While it is true that external factors (ease-of-use, company policy, etc) strongly compel purchasing decisions, those factors are not legal, and do not create a 'right' of payment.
Now, the second 'right': the right to receive support. Again, there is no such legal right. True, there are implied warranties of merchantability, but these can be expressly disclaimed by an EULA. Let's take a look at the XP Home Edition EULA:
So there you have it. They don't have to support their software, ever. If Windows breaks, they have to (a) refund your money, or (b) give you a replacement. They do not have to (c) fix the broken software. Just to make sure you understand that this is their only obligation, they include Microsoft has no duty to support Windows. You have no right to receive support for Windows. The main reason Microsoft supports their software is because it's buggy and they don't want people to use something else.As I posted above, courts often look to such suggestions when deciding nonobviousness. The question here is whether the statute requires them to find a suggestion to combine. KSR is arguing that the Federal Circuit says you are required, while the Supreme Court (and seven other circuit courts) say you aren't. For what it's worth, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.
- Courts look at the differences between the invention as a whole and the prior art. Individual parts and pieces may have been invented before, but the combination may not be obvious. Courts look to things like whether there was some teaching or motivation to combine the ingredients.
- The comparison takes place at the time the invention was made, not right now when we have the benefit of hindsight. As has already been linked to, see the story of Columbus' Egg for why we want to do this.
- The person who is analyzing the differences is a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA). The difference between a transistor and a vaccuum tube may be obvious to an electrical engineer, but not to an architect. Lawyers fight over this skill level in litigation.
Think about a (perhaps not so) hypothetical suit over the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Peanut butter was known, jelly was known, and bread was known. Was there some published motivation to combine them (or more generally to combine nut spreads with fruit preserves on an edible substrate)? The court would likely look to contemporaneous cookbooks. The fact that it's obvious in hindsight helps make the sandwich such a good idea, but was it obvious at the time (using only the knowledge of cooking at that time)? The defendant will argue that it was, the plaintiff that it wasn't. What's the skill level of the PHOSITA? Probably pretty low -- anyone who cooks likely qualifies.These are the sorts of questions courts (and patent examiners) ask when evaluating obviousness.
Ob comment: applying all this law to TFA, some of the Federal Circuit's possibly strange statements start to make sense. Perhaps even the statement from TFA, that "a combination of preexisting, off-the-shelf components in which each component performs exactly the same function that it had been known and was designed to perform" is not necessarily obvious.
Although I know it's bad form on /. to actually get both sides of any story, I thought I'd post SWIFT's official corporate position on the matter. See here.
Read Justice Breyer's dissent in Eldred v. Ashcroft. The whole thing, including the Appendix (which really shocked the hell out of me). I quote: "the value of a 95-year copyright is more realistically estimated . . . as 99.996% of the value of a perpetual copyright." More juicy tidbits if you follow the link.
"Slashdot: where meta-jokes get modded (+5, Funny)."
On the other hand, if they've got all your dirty secrets anyway, you're already boned. Might as well toss a few bombs while you still can. This kind of oppression can breed terror as much as stop it.
Any time someone claims Windows is more secure than Linux, ask them this: If Windows is so secure, why are the AV companies pushing harder at the market for Windows AV products than for Linux?
Not necessarily. Valid consideration also requires that both parties know (to a large extent, if not exactly) what they are giving up. For instance, I am giving up $50, and you are giving up an afternoon to mow my lawn. The terms are clear. One might argue that some click-through EULAs don't meet that requirement. To wit: Microsoft gives up a copy of Windows XP Downloadable, and I'm giving up $199 (and a whole bunch of other things I don't know about). The obvious counterargument is, duh, read the EULA before you agree to it. Which brings us back to this case.
I suppose the guy might have a case against DirecTV's and their lawyers for fraud and breach of contract. They did knowingly enter an agreement they had no intention of respecting, and it's obviously caused this guy financial harm.
True, but try this on for size:
With no copyrights, RMS (or anyone else for that matter) could take Microsoft software, make lots of copies, and sell it for less than Microsoft. Windows for $1, anyone?
Who do you think wins that battle, Microsoft or RMS?
Under settled principles of sovereign immunity, the United States, as sovereign, is immune from suit, save as it consents to be sued. United States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596, 608 (1990) (internal quotes omitted). A necessary corollary of this rule is that when Congress attaches conditions to legislation waiving the sovereign immunity of the United States, those conditions must be strictly observed, and exceptions thereto are not to be lightly implied. Block v. North Dakota, 461 U.S. 273, 287 (1983).
Point me to a statute that explicitly recognizes the right of a private citizen to bring suit against the NSA for this kind of thing, and then we'll continue the discussion. (The Fourth Amendment might be used, in conjunction with Article III section 2 and 28 U.S.C. 1331 or 28 U.S.C. 1346(a)(2), but there's a tricky issue of standing to be resolved. Without at least some evidence of the NSA spying on the plaintiff individually, there's no way to support a claim of actual injury, and the case will be dismissed on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.)
Because lawyers will argue 69 different reasons why something should (or shouldn't) be done. If they can get the case thrown out under the state secrets privilege, the issue of whether the room exists or not will never see the (legal) light of day. It would be a big dodge for the government.
In Kwazulu-Natal province, South Africa, up to 40% of mothers giving birth have AIDS. Link. Education won't help them. Most AIDS babies die before they reach 5 years old. Education won't help them either. About 10% of babies develop AIDS from their mother while in the womb, another 20% during birth, and another 15% from breastfeeding. Link. Most third-world mothers can't afford to be on antiretroviral medication through her pregnancy. The biggest reduction comes from peri-natal treatment, where a $4 pill (nevirapine) can cut AIDS transmission from mother to child in half.
Education costs a lot of money, and its effect on preventing HIV/AIDS depends ultimately on a decision each educated person will voluntarily make. Most likely with a naked person in front of them. On the other hand, you've got a 50% shot at saving a life outright by spending $4.
Of course, as you point out, all of this is academic if the medicine/computers can't get to the children. Spend a few billion dollars to topple the corrupt governments first. If the US government had spent half of what they did in Iraq fighting African corruption and bringing in medicine and food, thousands of lives would have been saved rather than lost.
Phrased another way, which society would you rather live in: one with no laws against copyright infringement, or no laws against corruption?
Check out H.R. 2795 on Thomas. Especially Chapter 32, "Post-Grant Opposition Procedures". It gives anyone the right to challenge a patent claim's validity within 9 months of issue, provided evidence is presented and a fee is paid. Different people can simultaneously challenge different claims, if needed.
Business logic would use the driver API, making data requests that were resource-neutral. In other words, the business logic didn't care where the data came from, only that it got what it asked for. Different business functions were isolated, and each presented its own API to the applications. The APIs themselves conformed to a specification. That way, apps written by different developers could perform the same business functions without recoding everything. The applications made requests of the business logic according to the spec, then presented the results to the clients for formatting (web, RSS, PDF, whatever). Uniform data structures were used throughout.
You may not need that level of sophistication, but it sure as heck helped us prototype, isolate employee functions and skills, etc etc. It allowed us to run multiple OSes (Windows, Linux, Solaris) and multiple languages (.NET, VB, and Java) together seamlessly. It also helped when doing architecture, since it forced us to think about what a particular piece of code was really doing. Under our scheme, PHP would be layer 4, and HTML layer 5, so we would separate them. You could just as easily use PHP to generate XML, for example.
That's not what they said. The Second Circuit said that it was illegal for Corley to link to sites he knew contained DeCSS. They were balancing First Amendment rights against the obvious restraint on speech that the DMCA required in its "shall not offer to the public" language. Their reasoning was that the DMCA, specifically 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2), "served substantial governmental interests and was unrelated to the suppression of free expression." Read their entire opinion here, especially the discussion section, III(B)(2). In other words, if you want to link to bomb-making instructions, Corley doesn't apply. You might be in trouble for other reasons (I don't know, I'd have to do research), but not because of the DeCSS case.
What does this mean for Google? Well, if they 'know' that they're linking to something that a law prevents them from linking to (note that such a law is, a priori, a restraint on speech, and can be challenged on First Amendment grounds), then Corley says they might be in trouble.
Oops! Sorry, my bad. I was quoting Martin Niemoeller, because it seemed appropriate at the time. Strangely enough, it still does. How much does your own government have to resemble Nazi Germany before Godwin's law no longer applies?
If you want to see it, donate on the web site. Aaron needs advertising money. Without it, the movie won't get shown, and this is a film everyone should see.
How about hitting the power switch, eh? Or changing the channel? Why does the government have to tell you how to live your life?
I consider Playboy's photos to be low class art. A typical porn site is not even remotely art or expressive except in the lowest, most attavistic sense.
And you are absolutely entitled to those opinions. I'm glad you have them and have expressed them, that's what free speech is truly all about. Now, let's try to be nice, and let other people have their own opinions too, OK? I know this may be hard to accept, but there really are people out there who have filthy, perverted minds, and aren't ashamed of it. It's a tragedy, to be sure. However, these people shouldn't be locked up in jails, they should simply be avoided. Just walk away. Don't invite them into your church or your home. Denounce them as perverts, molesters, and bastard heathens, the First Amendment guarantees you the right to do it. But don't pass laws criminalizing them, because the same might happen to you one day.
The sponsors of this bill and all its supporters are attempting to undermine the Constitution for which our nation's Founding Fathers had to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Yet they aren't pledging anything, except vague political rhetoric, and unsubstantiated promises that this bill will protect children.
Mr. Fitzpatrick's bill is dangerous, ill-conceived, and ill-planned. It deserves nothing but contempt and ridicule, and it must be swiftly defeated. Mr. Fitzpatrick himself deserves no such ill will, but I suggest that he may not be fit to lead this nation in the House of Representatives if he cannot or is unwilling to follow the Constitution as his job demands.
260 megs... come on.