Neither side is right. But when the law becomes an ass, people will disrespect it. That's what it IS.
The problem is a little more subtle; your phrasing mistakes a law for The Law. More exactly, the problem is that that when some laws specifically start becoming asinine, it starts eroding respect for the rule of law in general. Unfortunately, short sighted corporate boards don't seem to have the required range of foresight to anticipate major social shifts resulting from their policies.
The life expectancy of a corporation absent the rule of law is minus several seconds.
I'm not convinced it's the best idea to conflate disagreeing with current scientific teachings, and unintelligence.
I will conceed "stupidity" overstates the case for dramatic effect; I suspect "irrationality" is a larger cause, although the poll can be read to place "ignorance" as an additional source of blame. On the other hand, I've done rather better in life since I reduced my underestimation of my own ability to be an idiot. On the gripping hand, disagreement with current scientific orthodoxy is best backed up at the very least with statistically rigorous data.
Are those who disagree with evolution wrong? Maybe.
Maybe? At this point I leave you to the November 2004 National Geographic, available at your local library.
Yes, but I'm not familiar with any religions that claim that nuclear power is the devil's work.
Any religions, no. Any rednecks, yes. And that was the very phrase one used, leaving aside her amazing southern accent. I elected not to mention that I was majoring in nuclear engineering at the time, but merely left the conversation and vicinity as quickly the outer limits of good manners permitted.
and then figure that we'll eventually come to terms with there being no good alternatives to nuclear.
This strikes me as wildly optimistic, given that after almost a century and a half, Gallup polls show only a little more than a third of the US has "come to terms" with the Theory of Evolution. A good business plan will assume they will continue this way. "No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
And most of our electricity, of course, doesn't come from fossil fuels.
A "quick" summary of US energy use is available here. The 2003 mix was "coal-fired plants accounted for 53% of generation, nuclear 21%, natural gas 15%, hydroelectricity 7%, oil 3%, geothermal and "other" 1%." Total production was about 3.8 PWh, or about 13 quad out of about 100 quad total use.
So, it is worth noting that while the US electricity is still principally fossil based, it is also mainly coal based; our known coal reserves are the world's largest. Electric-based systems suggest a transition method.
IMHO, the gripping hand is that electric powered cars don't seem as promising long-term as using biodiesel storage of solar power-- which makes electric development mostly a dead-end detour, aside from the chance of getting better laptop batteries.
Moral of the story, folks: Never include any code or content subject to outside license restrictions (whether GPL or otherwise) in something done for your boss without getting the boss' informed consent!
Daimou has indicated that the manager led him to understand the code would remain his, providing such consent, so do emphasize: "...in WRITING."
Zeroth: I am not a lawyer. You need to be talking to one. Before close of business tomorrow.
First off, there's the issue of your ownership of your original code. Given your description of your IP contract and with only an oral agreement to say that the code was to remain yours, you're pretty well screwed unless the responsible manager admits to that. Talk to a lawyer to make sure, and learn from this to get such agreements that modify written contracts in writing.
Second, there's the issue of the company being able to patent it. If you did not publish the patentable parts before coming to work at the company (weakening any patentability claim), this would appear to be legal and unstoppable, again barring an honest manager or you recieving divine intervention in the form of Perry Mason. Same as above.
Third, there's the question of copyright of the code you've written itself. Again: neither written agreement nor honest manager = bend over; all the source is belong to them.
Fourth, and much less straightforwardly, there's the question of the LICENSE for the code you've written. I'll assume the lawyer you visited merely laughed at you during the initial consultation, and you got screwed in the above three legal issues. Here's where things get less pleasant for the company.
The code you started with was licensed under the GPL. As such, they can choose to distribute it under the GPL, provided they make a GPL-use-is-free exception with regard to their brand new patent. (Their attorney may have to work on the fine print, there, given the nature of the GPL). Call this scenario "4-A".
Alternatively, for a "4-B" scenario, they may do a clean-room rebuild to remove any GPL code-- although they could retain any code you had written and that they thus now own. They'll need someone to comprehensively spec out what you've written, someone (and you'd be the most convenient choice) to separate the raw code lines of what you've written from the GPL parts, and a sacrificial virgin coder (IE, one who's never seen the original) to redevelop the code from the specs and the trimmings that you wrote. There might also need to be a reviewer for the spec (ideally two, a lawyer and a code expert to agree that it's legally sufficiently vague to not infringe, and sufficiently clear to produce the desired product); it might also possible for you to serve on the spec review team.
For a "4-C" scenario, they can simply put their code and their patent on the shelf, and wait for someone to try doing something similar, and use their happy patent to sue them.
And of course there's the "4-D" scenario, where they do a non-legal release without the GPL or a clean-room rebuild.
As I noted, you need a lawyer, ideally with expertise in both contract law and IP. With his contract expertise, he might be able to convincingly threaten a case over the manager's breach of promise. With his IP expertise, he also can politely enlighten them as to the immensely sharp teeth involved in the GPL, to deter them from a "4-F" scenario. (Let him decide the most diplomatic way of explaining that since you already feel screwed over, you would be disposed to help make sure that they felt the GPL's teeth.) He could then enquire as to whether they thought the product valuable enough to justify the time and expense of reverse engineering. If it's a Google-killer search app, they may think it is; but from what you've said, probably not, ruling out a 4-B scenario. This leaves 4-A and 4-C.
The only disincentive for 4-C I can think of is the ill-will doing such will provide. There's plenty that can spread easily enough. You might be able to make it much harder for them to get new hires by telling this happy anecdote about them at your Alma Mater. You can also spread word about how they're changing from a software developer to a litigation company. However, a lawyer is in the best position to judge the impacts of any other agreements on what you'll be able to tell, and to decide the most effective to
I think an important distinction between a blogger and a journalist is that the latter has had some form of formal training (college, internship, etc) and should consequently know something about what is proper and legal (responsibility-in-reporting, liability) to write.
I believe such distinction is lacking basis in case law. Specifically, I will note that correspondents for the dead-tree version of your favorite supermarket tabloid are considered journalists by the courts, with all the protections due thereto. (And pronouncing rulings like that is why judges need strong stomachs.)
Libertarians usually have the attitude of live and let live, hands off, and let it be. Until it's their ox that's being gored. Then they want the gubmint to step in with guns ablazing.
Er, not in my experience. Libertarians, big fans of the 2nd that they are, generally say "If anything calls for guns ablazing, it's going to be my guns ablazing."
That's total bullshit. Republican or democrat, the government's job is to protect and serve the people.
Was that falling for a troll, or a counter-troll? Perhaps you might have noticed that this was titled "The Libertarian Response"? Libertarians are neither Republicans nor Democrats. They're a different political party entirely, generally agreeing with liberals on issues pertaining to the individual (such as drugs, abortion, and so on), and agreeing with the conservatives on economic issues (such as fiscal responsibility (Bush aside), corporate regulation, and the minimum wage).
Commonly, libertarians make a distinction between the personal and economic aspects of liberal thought; the popular Nolan Chart makes the political spectrum a plane, rather than a line.
Or, as I usually put it: in legislative sessions, the Conservatives sit to the right, the Liberals sit on the left, and the Libertarians are the baboons swinging from the chandeliers. (And it's suprising how many Libertarians will cheerfully agree with that description when asked....)
The libertarian position stated was a trifle extreme... but does thus highlight the problems with the libertarian's more extreme free-market faction.
Fair enough. So a blogger could get constitutional protections. At what point is a person spouting offline different than a blogger spouting off online? If a blogger says it out loud, are they no longer protected? If a non-blogger prints something online, are they suddenly protected, even if their efforts would not normally be protected offline?
IMHO (I am not a lawyer; I am not a conventional reporter; I am not a cabbage...), blogging would tend to become journalism if regularly addressing a factual topic or topics of public interest. Of course, this begs the terms "regularly", "topic or topics" and "of public interest", which I will now proceed to ignore. As for the speech versus publishing protections, I understand those already are made for conventional journalists; discussing information once published is fine, but if you mention facts you haven't published/broadcast, you can be subpoenaed over those. An interesting challenge in a grey area here might be to set up as a town crier, yelling out the news at the top of your lungs at noon each day, and try to get protection under the Shield Law. As for what degree of protection is offered when first starting to put things on line.... that seems to be a very gray area.
Then there's the OTHER issue; is TS immune from being sued for publishing trade secrets?
They're not immune, but I suspect you mean to ask if such a suit has any merit. (I could file a lawsuit against you when court opens tomorrow for damages resulting from you being paisley, but it would make for a very short trial, a profoundly irritated judge, and grounds for a nice countersuit on your part.)
It seems clear that there was disclosure, by someone who had reason to know that the information came from a source who had a duty to maintain secrecy. It also seems clear that the info did qualify as a trade secret. So, yeah, it seems to have some merit. But an obvious question is, does the 1st amendment freedom of the press interest outweigh the arguably limited value of the trade secrets thus exposed? And this is why a judge earns a paycheck, and probably the jury gets called in, too.
Why does it even matter that bloggers are or aren't journalists? If they were, are they immune from subpoenas?
That is rather the point: yes. More exactly, under the California State Constitution, journalists and publishers are immune in many cases from being held in contempt of court (and thus jailed or fined) for failure to comply with a subpoena to reveal their sources. (An exception is recognized where this would interfere with a criminal defendant's US 6th Amendment right to a fair trial.)
From what I can see, journalists are not immune to subpoena, they're immune from the consequences of telling a judge "no" when they get a subpoena for the identity of an anonymous source. The judge can still issue the subpoena in hopes that the journalist will comply (perhaps after getting permission from the source), but can't do squat if the journalist refuses.
Of course, if you look up Article 1, Section 2, it is clearly delineated that newspaper, magazine, wire service, TV, and radio journalists and publishers are protected. On the other hand, it is not clear if a blogger falls into any of these categories-- which were written into the constitution before blogging became big. A strict constructionist judge might well say "no, bloggers are fair game", while a more interpretive judge might well say, "they seem to be delineating a category here that bloggers appear to fit into; hands off." And this is why we have appeals courts, and why appeals judges buy ibuprofen in bulk. =)
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I just read case law for entertainment.
Given that there will never be another time in human history when no one has a gun, would you rather that only the people most likely to want to shoot you with their gun were able to carry?
Given that there will never be another time in human history when no one has a gun, would you rather that only the people most likely to shoot you with their gun were able to carry?
My immediate family?
More seriously, with gun control, I can see merits on both sides of the arguement. Gun control legislation will never remove all of the guns from the violent criminals on the streets. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that no regulation should be attempted, as regulation may at least make it more difficult for criminals to obtain guns. On the gripping hand, any such regulation should bear in mind the US tradition (enshrined in the 2nd and 10th Amendments) of maintain final authority and the means to enforce it in the hands of the American people, and consider the balance the social gain of regulation with the social harm of erosion of this authority.
Getting back to the original topic, this proposed legislation appears far stupider than most gun control proposals. With most gun control laws it's clear that they will reduce the number of guns in criminal circulation over time. With this law, it's not clear that it will have any impact on those who commit E-bay fraud, and may be prohibitively inconvenient for the bulk of ordinary sellers.
Public TV has been the only place besides Sci-fi channel to air the show.
...for decades. I do recall it on the 5AM slot on the local CBS affiliate back when I was watching Saturday morning cartoons. After seeing "The Horns of the Nimon" (this would have been about the mid-70's or so, putting me about age six), I decided I'd be happier watching the "Mission: Magic" reruns that the local ABC station was still running, followed by the reruns of "Around the World in 80 Days" on NBC. Fresher fare started showing up around 7:30 AM, but the best stuff was on earliest-- cancelled good stuff got rerun by the locals for a few years, and it was new to me.
The local CBS gave up on it too in favor of reruns about when the local PBS affiliate discovered that Dr. Who fans made enthusiastic (if daftly dressed) volunteers and generous donors to educational television, and joined the bandwagon of PBS stations showing it.
offering copies of copyrighted material for others when you don't have the distribution right is copyright infringement. downloading what's offered isn't.
Don't kid yourself; both the offering and downloading are copyright infringement under US law. (In Canada and other jurisdictions, of course, the law may permit the latter for personal use, but I wouldn't know. I am neither lawyer nor Canadian, ay?) The latter is mainly more difficult to track down and prosecute. So, even while allofmp3.com may be unprosecutable until the loophole gets plugged, US end users may still be prosecutable.
The reason the RIAA has been going after the uploaders first is partly that it's an easier way to kill the filesharing ecology with the present legal tools they have, and partly that suing your potential customers is a business model of last resort before bankruptcy.
...but are these "three online publishers" journalists?
I'll vote 'No.'
Merriam-Webster online appears to disagree; "journalist":
1 a : a person engaged in journalism; especially : a writer or editor for a news medium b : a writer who aims at a mass audience
News about Apple is still News, and while a blog is not a traditional medium, it nonetheless is a medium. Perhaps a judge will also disagree with you. From the circuit court CDA decision (eventually upheld by SCOTUS):
"As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion."
It can also be correspondingly argued that the Internet is the most participatory form of the press yet developed. Of course, the quote is not from the SCOTUS, which would make it directly applicable. However, it is from a federal court bench ruling; judges in other jurisdictions don't always conform, but do generally wake up from their naps, especially if SCOTUS upheld the ruling cited.
Of course, the California journalist's shield is not absolute, even for ink-and-paper journalists, and it may be on that basis that the judge plans to compell response... but that wasn't what you were saying. It would be sad if "All the News That's Print to Fit" outfits like the Weekly World News were more protected than pro-am's like these guys were.
PVP's 7 days a week for about a year or so now. Ever check the archives?
Archives don't tell everything. He's been late for more than one daily deadline, and even IIR occasionally missed at day outright-- but made it up later, which is why the archives has no holes. That wouldn't cut it for a newspaper, and won't make it here. The rules require posting of a strip by Midnight PST, no excuses.
Kurtz has a shot, and I'd be astonished if he's in the first half of the losers, but while I think he'll might make it to the top 10, I don't think he'll take the money. I'd bet on Troop; the man demonstrably can't stop putting out his comic even when he tries. =)
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The problem is a little more subtle; your phrasing mistakes a law for The Law. More exactly, the problem is that that when some laws specifically start becoming asinine, it starts eroding respect for the rule of law in general. Unfortunately, short sighted corporate boards don't seem to have the required range of foresight to anticipate major social shifts resulting from their policies.
The life expectancy of a corporation absent the rule of law is minus several seconds.
I will conceed "stupidity" overstates the case for dramatic effect; I suspect "irrationality" is a larger cause, although the poll can be read to place "ignorance" as an additional source of blame. On the other hand, I've done rather better in life since I reduced my underestimation of my own ability to be an idiot. On the gripping hand, disagreement with current scientific orthodoxy is best backed up at the very least with statistically rigorous data.
Are those who disagree with evolution wrong? Maybe.
Maybe? At this point I leave you to the November 2004 National Geographic, available at your local library.
Any religions, no. Any rednecks, yes. And that was the very phrase one used, leaving aside her amazing southern accent. I elected not to mention that I was majoring in nuclear engineering at the time, but merely left the conversation and vicinity as quickly the outer limits of good manners permitted.
This strikes me as wildly optimistic, given that after almost a century and a half, Gallup polls show only a little more than a third of the US has "come to terms" with the Theory of Evolution. A good business plan will assume they will continue this way. "No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
A "quick" summary of US energy use is available here. The 2003 mix was "coal-fired plants accounted for 53% of generation, nuclear 21%, natural gas 15%, hydroelectricity 7%, oil 3%, geothermal and "other" 1%." Total production was about 3.8 PWh, or about 13 quad out of about 100 quad total use.
So, it is worth noting that while the US electricity is still principally fossil based, it is also mainly coal based; our known coal reserves are the world's largest. Electric-based systems suggest a transition method. IMHO, the gripping hand is that electric powered cars don't seem as promising long-term as using biodiesel storage of solar power-- which makes electric development mostly a dead-end detour, aside from the chance of getting better laptop batteries.
Daimou has indicated that the manager led him to understand the code would remain his, providing such consent, so do emphasize: "...in WRITING."
Zeroth: I am not a lawyer. You need to be talking to one. Before close of business tomorrow.
First off, there's the issue of your ownership of your original code. Given your description of your IP contract and with only an oral agreement to say that the code was to remain yours, you're pretty well screwed unless the responsible manager admits to that. Talk to a lawyer to make sure, and learn from this to get such agreements that modify written contracts in writing.
Second, there's the issue of the company being able to patent it. If you did not publish the patentable parts before coming to work at the company (weakening any patentability claim), this would appear to be legal and unstoppable, again barring an honest manager or you recieving divine intervention in the form of Perry Mason. Same as above.
Third, there's the question of copyright of the code you've written itself. Again: neither written agreement nor honest manager = bend over; all the source is belong to them.
Fourth, and much less straightforwardly, there's the question of the LICENSE for the code you've written. I'll assume the lawyer you visited merely laughed at you during the initial consultation, and you got screwed in the above three legal issues. Here's where things get less pleasant for the company.
The code you started with was licensed under the GPL. As such, they can choose to distribute it under the GPL, provided they make a GPL-use-is-free exception with regard to their brand new patent. (Their attorney may have to work on the fine print, there, given the nature of the GPL). Call this scenario "4-A".
Alternatively, for a "4-B" scenario, they may do a clean-room rebuild to remove any GPL code-- although they could retain any code you had written and that they thus now own. They'll need someone to comprehensively spec out what you've written, someone (and you'd be the most convenient choice) to separate the raw code lines of what you've written from the GPL parts, and a sacrificial virgin coder (IE, one who's never seen the original) to redevelop the code from the specs and the trimmings that you wrote. There might also need to be a reviewer for the spec (ideally two, a lawyer and a code expert to agree that it's legally sufficiently vague to not infringe, and sufficiently clear to produce the desired product); it might also possible for you to serve on the spec review team.
For a "4-C" scenario, they can simply put their code and their patent on the shelf, and wait for someone to try doing something similar, and use their happy patent to sue them.
And of course there's the "4-D" scenario, where they do a non-legal release without the GPL or a clean-room rebuild.
As I noted, you need a lawyer, ideally with expertise in both contract law and IP. With his contract expertise, he might be able to convincingly threaten a case over the manager's breach of promise. With his IP expertise, he also can politely enlighten them as to the immensely sharp teeth involved in the GPL, to deter them from a "4-F" scenario. (Let him decide the most diplomatic way of explaining that since you already feel screwed over, you would be disposed to help make sure that they felt the GPL's teeth.) He could then enquire as to whether they thought the product valuable enough to justify the time and expense of reverse engineering. If it's a Google-killer search app, they may think it is; but from what you've said, probably not, ruling out a 4-B scenario. This leaves 4-A and 4-C.
The only disincentive for 4-C I can think of is the ill-will doing such will provide. There's plenty that can spread easily enough. You might be able to make it much harder for them to get new hires by telling this happy anecdote about them at your Alma Mater. You can also spread word about how they're changing from a software developer to a litigation company. However, a lawyer is in the best position to judge the impacts of any other agreements on what you'll be able to tell, and to decide the most effective to
I believe such distinction is lacking basis in case law. Specifically, I will note that correspondents for the dead-tree version of your favorite supermarket tabloid are considered journalists by the courts, with all the protections due thereto. (And pronouncing rulings like that is why judges need strong stomachs.)
Er, not in my experience. Libertarians, big fans of the 2nd that they are, generally say "If anything calls for guns ablazing, it's going to be my guns ablazing."
Was that falling for a troll, or a counter-troll? Perhaps you might have noticed that this was titled "The Libertarian Response"? Libertarians are neither Republicans nor Democrats. They're a different political party entirely, generally agreeing with liberals on issues pertaining to the individual (such as drugs, abortion, and so on), and agreeing with the conservatives on economic issues (such as fiscal responsibility (Bush aside), corporate regulation, and the minimum wage).
Commonly, libertarians make a distinction between the personal and economic aspects of liberal thought; the popular Nolan Chart makes the political spectrum a plane, rather than a line.
Or, as I usually put it: in legislative sessions, the Conservatives sit to the right, the Liberals sit on the left, and the Libertarians are the baboons swinging from the chandeliers. (And it's suprising how many Libertarians will cheerfully agree with that description when asked....)
The libertarian position stated was a trifle extreme... but does thus highlight the problems with the libertarian's more extreme free-market faction.
IMHO (I am not a lawyer; I am not a conventional reporter; I am not a cabbage...), blogging would tend to become journalism if regularly addressing a factual topic or topics of public interest. Of course, this begs the terms "regularly", "topic or topics" and "of public interest", which I will now proceed to ignore. As for the speech versus publishing protections, I understand those already are made for conventional journalists; discussing information once published is fine, but if you mention facts you haven't published/broadcast, you can be subpoenaed over those. An interesting challenge in a grey area here might be to set up as a town crier, yelling out the news at the top of your lungs at noon each day, and try to get protection under the Shield Law. As for what degree of protection is offered when first starting to put things on line.... that seems to be a very gray area.
Then there's the OTHER issue; is TS immune from being sued for publishing trade secrets?
They're not immune, but I suspect you mean to ask if such a suit has any merit. (I could file a lawsuit against you when court opens tomorrow for damages resulting from you being paisley, but it would make for a very short trial, a profoundly irritated judge, and grounds for a nice countersuit on your part.)
It seems clear that there was disclosure, by someone who had reason to know that the information came from a source who had a duty to maintain secrecy. It also seems clear that the info did qualify as a trade secret. So, yeah, it seems to have some merit. But an obvious question is, does the 1st amendment freedom of the press interest outweigh the arguably limited value of the trade secrets thus exposed? And this is why a judge earns a paycheck, and probably the jury gets called in, too.
That is rather the point: yes. More exactly, under the California State Constitution, journalists and publishers are immune in many cases from being held in contempt of court (and thus jailed or fined) for failure to comply with a subpoena to reveal their sources. (An exception is recognized where this would interfere with a criminal defendant's US 6th Amendment right to a fair trial.)
From what I can see, journalists are not immune to subpoena, they're immune from the consequences of telling a judge "no" when they get a subpoena for the identity of an anonymous source. The judge can still issue the subpoena in hopes that the journalist will comply (perhaps after getting permission from the source), but can't do squat if the journalist refuses.
Of course, if you look up Article 1, Section 2, it is clearly delineated that newspaper, magazine, wire service, TV, and radio journalists and publishers are protected. On the other hand, it is not clear if a blogger falls into any of these categories-- which were written into the constitution before blogging became big. A strict constructionist judge might well say "no, bloggers are fair game", while a more interpretive judge might well say, "they seem to be delineating a category here that bloggers appear to fit into; hands off." And this is why we have appeals courts, and why appeals judges buy ibuprofen in bulk. =)
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, I just read case law for entertainment.
Given that there will never be another time in human history when no one has a gun, would you rather that only the people most likely to want to shoot you with their gun were able to carry?
And I repeat: "My immediate family?"
Given that there will never be another time in human history when no one has a gun, would you rather that only the people most likely to shoot you with their gun were able to carry?
My immediate family?
More seriously, with gun control, I can see merits on both sides of the arguement. Gun control legislation will never remove all of the guns from the violent criminals on the streets. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that no regulation should be attempted, as regulation may at least make it more difficult for criminals to obtain guns. On the gripping hand, any such regulation should bear in mind the US tradition (enshrined in the 2nd and 10th Amendments) of maintain final authority and the means to enforce it in the hands of the American people, and consider the balance the social gain of regulation with the social harm of erosion of this authority.
Getting back to the original topic, this proposed legislation appears far stupider than most gun control proposals. With most gun control laws it's clear that they will reduce the number of guns in criminal circulation over time. With this law, it's not clear that it will have any impact on those who commit E-bay fraud, and may be prohibitively inconvenient for the bulk of ordinary sellers.
The local CBS gave up on it too in favor of reruns about when the local PBS affiliate discovered that Dr. Who fans made enthusiastic (if daftly dressed) volunteers and generous donors to educational television, and joined the bandwagon of PBS stations showing it.
Try this one instead: "Never give ANYONE your password. If I have the need, I will break into your computer without it."
No, no, they're specifically meant for stealing porn! Remember, most technological advancement is the result of a not-so-redirected sex drive.
Don't kid yourself; both the offering and downloading are copyright infringement under US law. (In Canada and other jurisdictions, of course, the law may permit the latter for personal use, but I wouldn't know. I am neither lawyer nor Canadian, ay?) The latter is mainly more difficult to track down and prosecute. So, even while allofmp3.com may be unprosecutable until the loophole gets plugged, US end users may still be prosecutable.
The reason the RIAA has been going after the uploaders first is partly that it's an easier way to kill the filesharing ecology with the present legal tools they have, and partly that suing your potential customers is a business model of last resort before bankruptcy.
I'll vote 'No.'
Merriam-Webster online appears to disagree; "journalist":
News about Apple is still News, and while a blog is not a traditional medium, it nonetheless is a medium. Perhaps a judge will also disagree with you. From the circuit court CDA decision (eventually upheld by SCOTUS):
It can also be correspondingly argued that the Internet is the most participatory form of the press yet developed. Of course, the quote is not from the SCOTUS, which would make it directly applicable. However, it is from a federal court bench ruling; judges in other jurisdictions don't always conform, but do generally wake up from their naps, especially if SCOTUS upheld the ruling cited.Of course, the California journalist's shield is not absolute, even for ink-and-paper journalists, and it may be on that basis that the judge plans to compell response... but that wasn't what you were saying. It would be sad if "All the News That's Print to Fit" outfits like the Weekly World News were more protected than pro-am's like these guys were.
That's odd; how do you get Tivo to skip the program and only show the commercials?
It comes down to the same reason that gives so much of Slashdot so much trouble getting laid: even prostitutes have standards. =)
Archives don't tell everything. He's been late for more than one daily deadline, and even IIR occasionally missed at day outright-- but made it up later, which is why the archives has no holes. That wouldn't cut it for a newspaper, and won't make it here. The rules require posting of a strip by Midnight PST, no excuses.
Kurtz has a shot, and I'd be astonished if he's in the first half of the losers, but while I think he'll might make it to the top 10, I don't think he'll take the money. I'd bet on Troop; the man demonstrably can't stop putting out his comic even when he tries. =)