"Bulk?" Well in that case it still wasn't spam. "Bulk" means sending identical form-letter emails to a whole bunch of people. That didn't happen here. Instead, this was a situation of Jack Thompson sending an excessive number of emails sequentially, each written from scratch (not a copy of the one before it), to relatively few people.
The fact that the CAN-SPAM act in particular may not apply doesn't change the widely accepted definition of spam.
But the "widely accepted definition" isn't the one that's relevant to this discussion. The Senator threatened to invoke the CAN-SPAM Act, which means that definition is the relevant one.
"Stop sending me spam or I will not support your bill" sounds dangerously close to "send me $ or I will not support your bill"
That's an interesting point. However, note that the Senator didn't make it conditional; he had already made his decision before sending that email, and the previous email simply asked Jack Thompson to desist without stating or implying an offer in return. Therefore, I think this is less an issue of bribery and more an issue of spite: what it really sounds like is "I've decided to stop supporting your bill because you pissed me off!"
What the fuck does "free speech" have to do with harrassment and theft of service?
What part of "But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment" did you not understand, dumbass?
Failing at reading comprehension and embarrassing yourself by wrongfully insulting the writer while you're at it -- who's the moron now? LOL!
You're not the only one who realized that. I suppose you got modded up instead of me because I titled my post "Jack Thompson is right." Oh well.
Anyway, I think all that means is that the Senator would be incorrect to prosecute him under the CAN-SPAM Act. I bet Jack Thompson could still be prosecuted under some other anti-harassment law. Even if it is about legislation, if it's more harassing than it is political then it stops being protected speech.
Ol' Jack spammed the entire membership of the Florida Bar (all Florida lawyers) asking for personal stories about how other members have been "unfairly" targeted by the Florida Bar.
Similarly to what I noted above, that is likewise not spam -- at least in the legal "CAN-SPAM Act" sense -- because the emails weren't sent for a commercial purpose. Instead, it would be a different sort of offense (e.g. regular harassment via email).
The only way it would have been spam is if he'd asked for the purpose of collecting the stories into a book (and then selling it) or something like that.
Spam is commercial email. This is email about a pending legislative action, and thus Jack Thompson has the right to send it because he has a right to free speech.
But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment.
Besides, there's nothing that says the Senator has to listen to him -- that's what filters are for! Let Jack Thompson write to/dev/null to his heart's content.
I believe that the general issue had more to do with phorm intercepting pages on the ISP's side and re-writing them to insert material before re-serving them to you.
WTF?! Even ignoring all the privacy issues everyone else is talking about, isn't that still blatantly illegal? It's copyright infringement! By modifying the web page, Phorm is creating a derivative work, and that requires permission of the copyright holder.
It might have slipped your attention, that Time Warner having a monopoly on broad-band in certain regions is not government enforced.
Even in places where Time Warner's monopoly isn't "government enforced" in the sense of prohibiting competition, the government was still responsible for its existence by giving Time Warner (or cable companies that were bought by Time Warner) subsidies, right-of-way, etc. when the cable networks were initially being built. This allowed Time Warner to become incumbent in a market with huge barriers to entry (insurmountable except with government assistance) and thus a natural monopoly.
Only if the EULA is upheld, that is. The typical EULA should be declared null and void by any reasonable court, for several reasons (contract of adhesion, doctrine of first sale, etc.).
Um. Your first statement makes about as much sense as saying, "Yes, 1+1 = 2, thus 1+2= 2!"
Wow, you're right! That's because I accidentally wrote "opt-in" when I meant "opt-out." Oops! Corrected version:
No, that's exactly why [opt-out] is good -- if the copyright holder can't be bothered to identify himself, why should he still retain the privilege of controlling the book?
No, that's exactly why opt-in is good -- if the copyright holder can't be bothered to identify himself, why should he still retain the privilege of controlling the book?
Of course, opt-out with short copyright terms would be better...
For an easy example: look at the kid in Georgia a few years back who got 10 years (since overturned by a change in legislation) for receiving oral sex from a girl a couple of years younger.
They changed the law so subsequent people wouldn't be charged with a crime, but that didn't overturn his conviction ex-post-facto, if I recall. I don't remember if they ever actually fixed his problem or not.
Plenty of people try to go for statements like "it snowed in Atlanta, so global warming must be BS"; though of course a statement like that ignores the global aspect of global warming.
Worse than that, it ignores the local aspect too. Unusual snow in Atlanta (which hasn't happened, by the way -- one snowstorm per year, which is what we've had so far, is pretty normal) not only fails to refute global warming, but actually supports it because increasing atmospheric energy implies increased volatility and extremes of weather. Extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme rain, extreme drought -- all of it is an expected and predicted consequence of global warming.
And seriously, there is something about digital cameras that seem to encourage it.
It's because the digital pics don't need to be developed. Zero cost, and no jollies for the perv (or censorship/reporting to authorities by the prude) at the photo store.
I 'obtain' millions of records about customer data from a financial institution, and brand it with the words "stealing customer data"-- and this is a dishonest use of language?
There are two key differences that make that situation entirely different:
Those customer records are not published. That makes the offense more like forcing someone to disclose a secret. In contrast, anything copyright applies to is necessarily published, by definition.
Those records are not used as information for information's sake like a published work would (i.e., used for entertainment, learning, etc.) The data you're talking about is generally passwords or SSNs or credit card numbers -- things that are more like keys, not poems. They represent access to some other asset, and that other asset was the real objective all along.
In other words, it is not dishonest to call your situation "stealing customer data" because it implies theft of the real property that said data allows access to.
The last is incredibly useful to deter piracy for one key reason: without any legal authority, merely contacting the owner of the credit card that paid for the game and telling them that "the game is being illegaly copied and they should probably stop that" will be remarkably effective if it's a parent that paid for the game, and their kid who's sharing it.
I assume you mean "remarkably effective" in the sense of the kid getting punished (and therefore being less likely to share other games in the future) rather than the sense of undoing the distribution of the already-shared game, right?
As an aside, I should also grumble here about my ethical issues with an institution of learning that charges $45,000/year, and intentionally limits the number of students it takes on, despite having a pool of applicants that (by their own admission) are perfectly qualified to attend.
WTF? You're complaining that they don't have infinite capacity? There's a limit to how many professors and classrooms even a $45K tuition can buy, you know!
If you are stupid enough to get stuck in the middle of an intersection, there will be cars in front of yours and your break lights will probably be on.
I was thinking about the situation where you're trying to turn left. In that case, there would be no cars in front of you (as that wasn't the blockage that prevented you from clearing) and you wouldn't have your brake (not "break," by the way) lights on (because once the oncoming traffic stops for the red light, you need to accelerate to clear the intersection).
As you were not charged with the infraction you actually committed, you can fight the ticket and, as long as the evidence shows you were not moving when the photo was taken but rather were sitting in traffic, you will win because you are innocent of the infraction.
Yeah, but because it's civil rather than criminal, the burden is on you to prove that you weren't moving rather than on the prosecution* to prove that you were. That'd be hard to do with just a picture, as there may not be visible traffic (as I mentioned above) and brake lights only mean you were slowing down, not stopped.
(*Actually you'd be arguing against a "plaintiff" in this Bill of Rights-skirting farce, but it's still really prosecution in all but name.)
What are you, stupid? "Arrange our cities" refers to "urban planning." There's nothing else it can mean!
You didn't say "... consider how to greatly reduce the need...", you want to eliminate them.
Damn you have shitty reading comprehension skills! Where did I say anything about "eliminat[ing]" cars? Nowhere! Obviously, even in cities like New York there will still be some people who drive. But the key is that most people won't have to, and that's good enough. (And don't you dare start spouting BS claiming that I said "all" people, because I didn't!)
I like my car.
Well good for you. And you know what? I like mine too! But surely even you can't be so moronic that you can't see the difference between driving along a clear mountain road and sitting in gridlock for two hours to get a block and a half!
There ain't no stinkin' way you can rearrange a city, or do anything else, that will make me glad I don't "have" to drive it.
Bullshit. Go ask residents of, say, Manhattan. Between the facts that everything's so close together, that the subway system is actually decent, and that parking is exorbitantly expensive -- if it's available at all -- you'll find that they actually, genuinely, don't want to drive!
Challenge what? First of all, there's no human witness to challenge, and a picture is unimpeachable. Second, the really fucked up thing about these automated tickets is that they're classified as civil offenses rather than criminal. That means that the standard of prosecution is "preponderance of evidence" rather than "innocent until proven guilty." If the light is red and the picture is of your car in the intersection, they'll find against you whether you were turning left or not.
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I wish you weren't an AC, and had posted earlier -- you sound like you're a lot more correct than I am!
"Bulk?" Well in that case it still wasn't spam. "Bulk" means sending identical form-letter emails to a whole bunch of people. That didn't happen here. Instead, this was a situation of Jack Thompson sending an excessive number of emails sequentially, each written from scratch (not a copy of the one before it), to relatively few people.
But the "widely accepted definition" isn't the one that's relevant to this discussion. The Senator threatened to invoke the CAN-SPAM Act, which means that definition is the relevant one.
That's an interesting point. However, note that the Senator didn't make it conditional; he had already made his decision before sending that email, and the previous email simply asked Jack Thompson to desist without stating or implying an offer in return. Therefore, I think this is less an issue of bribery and more an issue of spite: what it really sounds like is "I've decided to stop supporting your bill because you pissed me off!"
What part of "But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment" did you not understand, dumbass?
Failing at reading comprehension and embarrassing yourself by wrongfully insulting the writer while you're at it -- who's the moron now? LOL!
You're not the only one who realized that. I suppose you got modded up instead of me because I titled my post "Jack Thompson is right." Oh well.
Anyway, I think all that means is that the Senator would be incorrect to prosecute him under the CAN-SPAM Act. I bet Jack Thompson could still be prosecuted under some other anti-harassment law. Even if it is about legislation, if it's more harassing than it is political then it stops being protected speech.
Similarly to what I noted above, that is likewise not spam -- at least in the legal "CAN-SPAM Act" sense -- because the emails weren't sent for a commercial purpose. Instead, it would be a different sort of offense (e.g. regular harassment via email).
The only way it would have been spam is if he'd asked for the purpose of collecting the stories into a book (and then selling it) or something like that.
Spam is commercial email. This is email about a pending legislative action, and thus Jack Thompson has the right to send it because he has a right to free speech.
But all that means is that the CAN-SPAM act isn't the appropriate law to attack him with: instead, the Senator should just go for plain-old harassment.
Besides, there's nothing that says the Senator has to listen to him -- that's what filters are for! Let Jack Thompson write to /dev/null to his heart's content.
WTF?! Even ignoring all the privacy issues everyone else is talking about, isn't that still blatantly illegal? It's copyright infringement! By modifying the web page, Phorm is creating a derivative work, and that requires permission of the copyright holder.
Even in places where Time Warner's monopoly isn't "government enforced" in the sense of prohibiting competition, the government was still responsible for its existence by giving Time Warner (or cable companies that were bought by Time Warner) subsidies, right-of-way, etc. when the cable networks were initially being built. This allowed Time Warner to become incumbent in a market with huge barriers to entry (insurmountable except with government assistance) and thus a natural monopoly.
Only if the EULA is upheld, that is. The typical EULA should be declared null and void by any reasonable court, for several reasons (contract of adhesion, doctrine of first sale, etc.).
Wow, you're right! That's because I accidentally wrote "opt-in" when I meant "opt-out." Oops! Corrected version:
No, that's exactly why opt-in is good -- if the copyright holder can't be bothered to identify himself, why should he still retain the privilege of controlling the book?
Of course, opt-out with short copyright terms would be better...
They changed the law so subsequent people wouldn't be charged with a crime, but that didn't overturn his conviction ex-post-facto, if I recall. I don't remember if they ever actually fixed his problem or not.
Worse than that, it ignores the local aspect too. Unusual snow in Atlanta (which hasn't happened, by the way -- one snowstorm per year, which is what we've had so far, is pretty normal) not only fails to refute global warming, but actually supports it because increasing atmospheric energy implies increased volatility and extremes of weather. Extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme rain, extreme drought -- all of it is an expected and predicted consequence of global warming.
It's because the digital pics don't need to be developed. Zero cost, and no jollies for the perv (or censorship/reporting to authorities by the prude) at the photo store.
There are two key differences that make that situation entirely different:
In other words, it is not dishonest to call your situation "stealing customer data" because it implies theft of the real property that said data allows access to.
I assume you mean "remarkably effective" in the sense of the kid getting punished (and therefore being less likely to share other games in the future) rather than the sense of undoing the distribution of the already-shared game, right?
And that's exactly as it should be, considering that we (the People) are the boss of copyright law.
WTF? You're complaining that they don't have infinite capacity? There's a limit to how many professors and classrooms even a $45K tuition can buy, you know!
What happened to the egregiously mistaken secretary?
How unfortunate; it would be better to roll back regulations on casual, responsible drinkers of alcohol rather than those who abuse it.
I was thinking about the situation where you're trying to turn left. In that case, there would be no cars in front of you (as that wasn't the blockage that prevented you from clearing) and you wouldn't have your brake (not "break," by the way) lights on (because once the oncoming traffic stops for the red light, you need to accelerate to clear the intersection).
Yeah, but because it's civil rather than criminal, the burden is on you to prove that you weren't moving rather than on the prosecution* to prove that you were. That'd be hard to do with just a picture, as there may not be visible traffic (as I mentioned above) and brake lights only mean you were slowing down, not stopped.
(*Actually you'd be arguing against a "plaintiff" in this Bill of Rights-skirting farce, but it's still really prosecution in all but name.)
What are you, stupid? "Arrange our cities" refers to "urban planning." There's nothing else it can mean!
Damn you have shitty reading comprehension skills! Where did I say anything about "eliminat[ing]" cars? Nowhere! Obviously, even in cities like New York there will still be some people who drive. But the key is that most people won't have to, and that's good enough. (And don't you dare start spouting BS claiming that I said "all" people, because I didn't!)
Well good for you. And you know what? I like mine too! But surely even you can't be so moronic that you can't see the difference between driving along a clear mountain road and sitting in gridlock for two hours to get a block and a half!
Bullshit. Go ask residents of, say, Manhattan. Between the facts that everything's so close together, that the subway system is actually decent, and that parking is exorbitantly expensive -- if it's available at all -- you'll find that they actually, genuinely, don't want to drive!
Challenge what? First of all, there's no human witness to challenge, and a picture is unimpeachable. Second, the really fucked up thing about these automated tickets is that they're classified as civil offenses rather than criminal. That means that the standard of prosecution is "preponderance of evidence" rather than "innocent until proven guilty." If the light is red and the picture is of your car in the intersection, they'll find against you whether you were turning left or not.