The fans won't want to read this low-quality capture
The normal fans, perhaps. The equivalent of the sports "fans" who will root for their home baseball team on TV when they catch it. You're not considering the rabid "otaku/trekkie" grade fanatics, equivalent to those who go to Chicago Cubs away away games, shirtless in 40 degree rain storms, with their torsos painted with a team logo.
Such Otaku will, of course, be ready to transcribe it so that others won't have to strain their eyes. Which I fully intend to take advantage of, as soon as "lay motionless and pathetic as a toy" starts turning up search results. Patience is a virtue; as such, I will have nothing to do with it.
On the other hand, I don't think this will notably affect sales, even after the Otaku Character Recognition (TM) text file version gets out. I believe those who would read the on-line copy mostly fall into to groups: utterly impatient fans, who are rabid enough that they'll buy a copy anyway; and those so cheap they'd read it in the bookstore, or borrow it from a friend or library, rather than buy it.
You yourself are saying how bad it is to do the VERY things that the people you are ripping on are doing. Get a clue buddy. Racisim is about creating a group and singling them out for something.
Incorrect. Racism is about prejudice or discrimination against a group identified based on an inborn characteristic, generally ethnicity; not judgment based on voluntary affiliations. The Confederacy was a political association; its degree of racial identity is merely a side effect of its underlying racist principles. To give a sloppy approximation, "All neo-Confederates are White Southerners, but not all White Southerners are neo-Confederates". If ObsessiveMathsFreak had been assigning the blame to Rednecks, you might have a point. As is... no.
However, OMF's was slightly inaccurate to blame the streak of Jingoism in the Republican party on the neo-Confederate elements; I believe that Republican tendency clearly dates back at least to the time of Theodore Roosevelt, and arguably had roots all the way back through the Grant presidency. While the trend in the 20th century was a rise in Xenophobia in the Republicans and a fall in the Democrats, it has had solid roots in all of America's major parties. Blaming the social conservatism of the Republicans on the neo-Confederates might have more solid basis, but I'd judge that it took until the Carter Presidency to solidly push this group into the Republican balliwick.
Still... these political elements are an albatross around the neck of the United States.
The point is that the GPL is so obviously-enforceable, that there is no need to test it.
More exactly, the GPL license is so legally solid under US copyright law, no-one has yet been suicidal enough to see a court case challenging its validity to the end. Serious legal brainpower went into the development of the GPL; invariably, challengers within reach of US civil jurisdiction have settled by complying with the license terms. Challenging the GPL is almost as silly as going to trial before a judge after you try to mug the City Chief of Police during his press conference in the front lobby of police headquarters.
Eventually, the GPL will be tested, more likely than not by someone who is simply willing and able to lose a few thousand bucks just to make sure there is such a court precedent.
I'm amazed that the far-right fundie Christian crazies don't actually align with the far-right fundie Muslim crazies. After all, they want pretty near the same thing and the fundie Muslim crazies can do a better job of the abortion clinic bombings, and cheaper. Why not just outsource?
Mainly because the Islamists are still holding a grudge about those Crusades around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries over who got to keep Jerusalem. There are secondary factors, but most tie by a pretty short string to that bloody city.
YOU CAN'T BUY EXPLOSIVES WITHOUT PROPER LICENSING/PERMITS/ETC
Gasoline is available on almost every street corner; the fumes are explosive, and no licensing is required.
Mixing in Potassium chlorate or Sodium chlorate will make an explosive slurry; both are hard to purchase in quantities enough to make a serious bomb (IE, one that does more than kill you), but can be manufactured without massive difficulty using salt, water, a couple pieces of graphite, and an old computer power supply.
But you know what, let's pretend that explosives are widely available.
Right, so it's OK for USA to teach its kids about explosives? Imagine the outcry if someone heard about a similar program taking place, say, in Iran. I can already see the headline we would be getting: "Iran training dozens of kids into becoming terrorists with an expertise in explosives."
This is because far too many training areas in Iran (Imam Ali, Bahonar, Crate Camp, Fateh Qani-Hosseini, etc.) focus on training civilians in the military application of explosives. This is focused on the engineering applications of explosives. That said, I wonder how the people running the Explosives Camp would react if someone sponsored 20 or so poor, black, inner city kids with known gang affiliations but no arrest record for a few weeks at the camp.
This is the same sort of fuzzy logic we see with USA possessing nuclear weapons and yet demanding that Iran be prevented from ever having any.
So, a president who is a deranged religious fanatic, and surrounded by other religious fanatics with no sense of restraint... no, wait, that doesn't work. Oh... and who has said he considers the very existence of a particular country sufficient grounds for the use of nuclear weapons! Yeah, the US is in a particularly lousy position to argue it at the moment, but yes, I do think that nuclear weapons should be kept out of the hands of completely unrestrained lunatics whose view of history is massively delusional and counterfactual.
I agree that there might be an element of cronyism involved
The problem is not the lack of jail time per se, but the perception of cronyism — and thereby, that rules do not apply equally to all — that itself undermines the rule of law; the perception that law applies equally to all is one reason Joe Average accepts its restraint.
And I can't actually believe QUAYLE WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER!
Probably not; he also supported the Project for the New American Century; without replacing both Bush and Cheney, I don't think too much would have changed.
There was U.S. Grant, who was the greatest military leader of his time -- and the worst head of state of all time.
Any of Robert E. Lee's contemporaries (including Grant) would have disputed you about the former, and both Warren G. Harding and Nero Claudius Caesar could challenge on the latter.
Granting the commutation is unquestionably Kosher by the constitution
Almost. While commutation has been traditionally held within the power, if you check the text, the president is authorized to grant "Reprieves and Pardons". Checking the dictionary, reprieves are only delays, and Libby hasn't been pardoned outright. =)
Libby was neither tried for, nor convicted of "high crimes against the government," but rather of "perjury" and "obstruction of justice" (the same two crimes that Bill Clinton was impeached for, by the way.)
I'll agree with your characterization of the offens, and it's a half-decent point. Unfortunatly for that comparison, impeachment is only the indictment, such as was handed down by the grand jury Fitzgerald oversaw, not the trial itself. Bill Clinton was acquitted at his Senate trial; Scooter Libby was convicted in Federal court by a jury of his peers.
While I disapprove of the clemency, I'd have had less problem with it if after (say) a moderate 30 or 90 days in the slammer, President Bush had commuted the rest of the sentence as excessive. I'd have had far less problem if President GW Bush had not been one of the stingiest users of "the Benign Power" in decades. As is, this seems nothing but cronyism, potentially to continue concealment of crimes by others. This undermines the already precarious belief in the rule of law; BAD MOVE.
Abuses like the Libby case and the Mark Rich case may fuel efforts for a Constitutional amendment limiting pardons, or allowing them to be overturned. I'd imagine an amendment that lets a massive super-majority of Congress (like 75%) override a pardon might not be a bad idea.
I despute the merit of that suggestion, based on what I know of the constitutional convention debates on the issue. The thought was that the President being able to give a swift and certain pardon might facilitate the quieting of rebellions, and (political cronies aside), those who make it all the way through the official DOJ pardon vetting process are generally deserving. "The quality of mercy is not strained"; excessive additional limits seem seem both uncharitable and unwise.
I have a counterproposal (if you're going to amend the constitution): modify the pardon power, so that therafter the president may still use one to exempt anyone from "indictment, trial, judgment or punishment," but that whoever accepts such pardon or clemency shall still suffer "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" (while allowing that anyone may refuse such pardon or clemency when proferred). This limits the usefulness of the pardoning of political cronies (since they're effectively banned from the political game ever after), without excessively limiting the potential role in society for rehabilitated criminals who now benefit from the rare exercise of "the benign power".
Doesn't the oath say "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?". I'd say the second bit covers omissions.
I just recently talked about this with my brother-in-law (a retired lawyer, no longer practicing; misunderstandings are probably my fault, IAmNotALawyer). If you check the law, the crime of perjury requires someone "willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true". The statement has to be deliberate, and the person has to know it was false. Thus, "it all depends on the meaning of what is is" — Clinton believed his statement to be literally true; the prosecutor didn't feel he could prove a willful falsehood.
BUT although not clearly a crime, it was clearly a violation of the oath he took to tell the "whole truth", ergo a violation of his duty as a lawyer and thus an officer of the court. So, Clinton lost his law license..
Myself, I feel both Clinton's impeachment by the House and his acquittal by the Senate were nevertheless appropriate. A question of Perjury is a serious matter, and a trial is appropriate... for a trial can clear as well as convict.
Microsoft, in the past and at present, has used OEM contracts as their major tool for consolidating their hold on the industry. Their OEM agreements have contained such provisions as "if you want preferred pricing, you can't sell computers that run any other operating system." Only for very, very large computer makers such as Dell and HP -- where Microsoft wants to be because there's huge volume -- do they relax these demands. The likelihood of Microsoft offering Apple an OEM contract is extremely low if MS thought it would be a threat.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist; Apple is one of the few companies that in any sense can be called a competitor for Microsoft. If Apple seeks an OEM contract, Microsoft may be faced with the choice of Apple threatening them in the marketplace, or Apple threatening them in the courts. With an OEM contract, they get paid; without, they just spend money to defend themselves.
Patent protection is not necessary to have an "effective" copy prevention mechanism. So we'll just discount that one off the bat.
No; however, it is one way to "require a process with the authority of the copyright owner to gain access to the work." Which is my point; in the context of the DMCA, "effective" does not mean what the dictionary says it does; it only means what the Law says it does. (Welcome to the Wonderland of Law.) Patent and trade secret would seem to be two ways for protection to qualify.
If you believe an alternate interpretation is more appropriate, please elaborate on your understanding of the DMCA's definition of "effective" in 17 USC 1201.
Why didn't the CCA go for the kill? They would have had a much stronger case than trade secret protection.
My guess is that lawyers are a cautious bunch. They do not want an explicit ruling saying CSS does not qualify as an "effective" tool, which would be an obvious defense if they attempted a direct DMCA charge. Ergo, they tried for the lower risk maneuver of trying trade secret law first.
On the other hand, CSS did at one point qualify as a trade secret. However, due to reverse engineering, it has since lost its secrecy — as the judge eventually ruled. If they had won the case on a trade secrets basis, they could have gotten court orders so that anyone who used, uploaded, or downloaded the DeCSS code via US network computers (and possibly other jurisdictions) to cease&desist, and possibly even gotten them to forfeit the computer they used to do it.
Trade secrets law allowed for a possibly bigger win, and would not make a loss completely final. This is also probably why they dropped the case when they did; with that ruling, appeals would risk some other judge adding "CSS is ineffective" to the ruling -- which (in the dictionary sense) is pretty much what they were told by the cryptographic experts they consulted when they were developing the standards.
As it stands right now, the CSS system has not been declared ineffective. So anyone who dares to violate it does so at their own risk.
Correct. However, I(AmNotALawyer) argue that such a case looks very possible, as the DVD-CCA's position has been badly weakened, and that the DVD-CCA risk that if they have to bring a case. And, given the nature of the modern business world, and the nature of corporations to try anything for a profit that they can at least argue is legal (until it's explicitly ruled otherwise)... I suspect it's only a short matter of time before someone tries.
But knowing that the TPB has opened with it being a haven for child pornography in mind, I can't say I'm pleased.
Well, as others have noted, they're certain to remove stuff that blatantly unlawful; they note on each picture's page how to email them a notice about illegal pictures (although the link could be better crafted). Or do you have other reason to believe this was their specific intent?
A more interesting question is whether they will be maintaining IP logs of where images come from, so as to turn over for criminal investigation. If they do, they'll doubtless be subpoenaed (and seized) by all sorts of places, which won't make the Bay very happy; if they don't they'll be accused of helping the kiddie porn distributers, and get lynched in the public arena. Bad choice.
Alternatively, they might be planning to be infested with kiddie porn, take it down promptly, and turn over the source IPs from the logs routinely to the police, in the hopes of using their own sleazy reputation to help stamp out the pedophile scum of the internet.
Piratebay keep acting like they are untouchable and the guardians of censorship, but it just seems they are trying to push the boundaries until thy get caught.
Should have been obvious. They're now a political party; "acting untouchable" and "trying to push the boundaries until they get caught" seems to follow that naturally these days.
In England 17 is legal. The legal age varies a lot. In some countries it is higher- in some countries it is lower.
The legal age for getting laid is not the legal age for being photographed nude, which is what's (mostly) in question here. The latter is pretty consistently 18, anywhere that it's set. Which is almost everywhere.
The model's apparent age varies a lot too. How can you trust what looks like a 14 year old isn't really an under developed or made up 18 year old?
I suspect they'll probably axe some of these by mistake; EG, from models like Melissa Ashley (warning: NSFW!). Similarly, they may not remove all the pictures of random high school teen bimbos flashing their anatomy for admirers, since at the other extreme some 14-year olds may really "look like she's 19, officer!!!", and the claim of being underage will not be credible without further evidence.
But yeah... I think they're going to need a better method for getting notices about illegal images than getting emailed (too many unneeded bytes over the wire per notice), and I suspect they're going to need to add what they mean by "illegal" to the FAQ.
Meanwhile, however, I've around fifty gigabytes of random (legally downloaded) pr0n pictures I could upload to help with their server's stress test once I leave work....
It's not a law; it's a proposed contract amendment. However, if enforced to the extreme, the effect would be the same, since they'd have to ban the DVD drive.
Did he win in court because he pointed out the license agreement didn't prohibit this usage, or did he win on other grounds?
They won fair and square, and the judge commented on their efforts to stay within the agreement to boot. And yeah, "unfair and tortorus interference" is more or less what the quote from the company president in TFA boils down to.
That only works if you do business in Finland. If you do business in just about any other country (particularly in the US) the judge is going to look at you funny and tell you that you have a fool for a lawyer.
IAmNotALawyer; I just argue with them. The DMCA says
a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Processes or treatments only need authority if protected by trade secret law or by patent. The CSS algorithm processes were (AFAIK) not protected by patent, but by trade secret. The California Court of Appeals has ruled that it is no longer a secret in a case the DVD-CCA was a party to; they dropped their case after that ruling and did not appeal. I cannot imagine any argument that the DVD-CCA could bring before any US judge (aside from a large suitcase filled with cash) that would cause him to overlook that ruling under basic stare decisis. Ergo, the workings of CSS are no longer protected.
So, on what basis would you argue that decoding a DVD "requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner"?
Slashdot Mirror
It's called school.
A mildly Neanderthal school board can be helpful; mentioning that someone wants a book to be banned is an easy way to induce kids to read something.
The fans won't want to read this low-quality capture
The normal fans, perhaps. The equivalent of the sports "fans" who will root for their home baseball team on TV when they catch it. You're not considering the rabid "otaku/trekkie" grade fanatics, equivalent to those who go to Chicago Cubs away away games, shirtless in 40 degree rain storms, with their torsos painted with a team logo.
Such Otaku will, of course, be ready to transcribe it so that others won't have to strain their eyes. Which I fully intend to take advantage of, as soon as "lay motionless and pathetic as a toy" starts turning up search results. Patience is a virtue; as such, I will have nothing to do with it.
On the other hand, I don't think this will notably affect sales, even after the Otaku Character Recognition (TM) text file version gets out. I believe those who would read the on-line copy mostly fall into to groups: utterly impatient fans, who are rabid enough that they'll buy a copy anyway; and those so cheap they'd read it in the bookstore, or borrow it from a friend or library, rather than buy it.
It is happily embeded in canned soups, frozen foods and all sorts of other things like the breakfast cereal that is supposed to be good for you
Soup? Care to name brands? Looking at the can on my desk about to become lunch,
Progresso, by the by. (Didn't notice the MSG when buying it; ah, well, it's only on my "prefer to avoid" rather than "must avoid" list.)You yourself are saying how bad it is to do the VERY things that the people you are ripping on are doing. Get a clue buddy. Racisim is about creating a group and singling them out for something.
Incorrect. Racism is about prejudice or discrimination against a group identified based on an inborn characteristic, generally ethnicity; not judgment based on voluntary affiliations. The Confederacy was a political association; its degree of racial identity is merely a side effect of its underlying racist principles. To give a sloppy approximation, "All neo-Confederates are White Southerners, but not all White Southerners are neo-Confederates". If ObsessiveMathsFreak had been assigning the blame to Rednecks, you might have a point. As is... no.
However, OMF's was slightly inaccurate to blame the streak of Jingoism in the Republican party on the neo-Confederate elements; I believe that Republican tendency clearly dates back at least to the time of Theodore Roosevelt, and arguably had roots all the way back through the Grant presidency. While the trend in the 20th century was a rise in Xenophobia in the Republicans and a fall in the Democrats, it has had solid roots in all of America's major parties. Blaming the social conservatism of the Republicans on the neo-Confederates might have more solid basis, but I'd judge that it took until the Carter Presidency to solidly push this group into the Republican balliwick.
Still... these political elements are an albatross around the neck of the United States.
Like you say, who knows if those video files are porn, home videos, secret business files, whatever.
You say that like those are different things. (And remember kiddies: removable external storage for your pr0n collection.)
The point is that the GPL is so obviously-enforceable, that there is no need to test it.
More exactly, the GPL license is so legally solid under US copyright law, no-one has yet been suicidal enough to see a court case challenging its validity to the end. Serious legal brainpower went into the development of the GPL; invariably, challengers within reach of US civil jurisdiction have settled by complying with the license terms. Challenging the GPL is almost as silly as going to trial before a judge after you try to mug the City Chief of Police during his press conference in the front lobby of police headquarters.
Eventually, the GPL will be tested, more likely than not by someone who is simply willing and able to lose a few thousand bucks just to make sure there is such a court precedent.
I'm amazed that the far-right fundie Christian crazies don't actually align with the far-right fundie Muslim crazies. After all, they want pretty near the same thing and the fundie Muslim crazies can do a better job of the abortion clinic bombings, and cheaper. Why not just outsource?
Mainly because the Islamists are still holding a grudge about those Crusades around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries over who got to keep Jerusalem. There are secondary factors, but most tie by a pretty short string to that bloody city.
YOU CAN'T BUY EXPLOSIVES WITHOUT PROPER LICENSING/PERMITS/ETC
Gasoline is available on almost every street corner; the fumes are explosive, and no licensing is required.
Mixing in Potassium chlorate or Sodium chlorate will make an explosive slurry; both are hard to purchase in quantities enough to make a serious bomb (IE, one that does more than kill you), but can be manufactured without massive difficulty using salt, water, a couple pieces of graphite, and an old computer power supply.
But you know what, let's pretend that explosives are widely available.
Sounds about right.
Right, so it's OK for USA to teach its kids about explosives? Imagine the outcry if someone heard about a similar program taking place, say, in Iran. I can already see the headline we would be getting: "Iran training dozens of kids into becoming terrorists with an expertise in explosives."
This is because far too many training areas in Iran (Imam Ali, Bahonar, Crate Camp, Fateh Qani-Hosseini, etc.) focus on training civilians in the military application of explosives. This is focused on the engineering applications of explosives. That said, I wonder how the people running the Explosives Camp would react if someone sponsored 20 or so poor, black, inner city kids with known gang affiliations but no arrest record for a few weeks at the camp.
This is the same sort of fuzzy logic we see with USA possessing nuclear weapons and yet demanding that Iran be prevented from ever having any.
So, a president who is a deranged religious fanatic, and surrounded by other religious fanatics with no sense of restraint... no, wait, that doesn't work. Oh... and who has said he considers the very existence of a particular country sufficient grounds for the use of nuclear weapons! Yeah, the US is in a particularly lousy position to argue it at the moment, but yes, I do think that nuclear weapons should be kept out of the hands of completely unrestrained lunatics whose view of history is massively delusional and counterfactual.
I agree that there might be an element of cronyism involved
The problem is not the lack of jail time per se, but the perception of cronyism — and thereby, that rules do not apply equally to all — that itself undermines the rule of law; the perception that law applies equally to all is one reason Joe Average accepts its restraint.
And I can't actually believe QUAYLE WOULD'VE BEEN BETTER!
Probably not; he also supported the Project for the New American Century; without replacing both Bush and Cheney, I don't think too much would have changed.
There was U.S. Grant, who was the greatest military leader of his time -- and the worst head of state of all time.
Any of Robert E. Lee's contemporaries (including Grant) would have disputed you about the former, and both Warren G. Harding and Nero Claudius Caesar could challenge on the latter.
Granting the commutation is unquestionably Kosher by the constitution
Almost. While commutation has been traditionally held within the power, if you check the text, the president is authorized to grant "Reprieves and Pardons". Checking the dictionary, reprieves are only delays, and Libby hasn't been pardoned outright. =)
Libby was neither tried for, nor convicted of "high crimes against the government," but rather of "perjury" and "obstruction of justice" (the same two crimes that Bill Clinton was impeached for, by the way.)
I'll agree with your characterization of the offens, and it's a half-decent point. Unfortunatly for that comparison, impeachment is only the indictment, such as was handed down by the grand jury Fitzgerald oversaw, not the trial itself. Bill Clinton was acquitted at his Senate trial; Scooter Libby was convicted in Federal court by a jury of his peers.
While I disapprove of the clemency, I'd have had less problem with it if after (say) a moderate 30 or 90 days in the slammer, President Bush had commuted the rest of the sentence as excessive. I'd have had far less problem if President GW Bush had not been one of the stingiest users of "the Benign Power" in decades. As is, this seems nothing but cronyism, potentially to continue concealment of crimes by others. This undermines the already precarious belief in the rule of law; BAD MOVE.
The President's pardon powers are absolute.
Quibble: except for cases of impeachment.
Abuses like the Libby case and the Mark Rich case may fuel efforts for a Constitutional amendment limiting pardons, or allowing them to be overturned. I'd imagine an amendment that lets a massive super-majority of Congress (like 75%) override a pardon might not be a bad idea.
I despute the merit of that suggestion, based on what I know of the constitutional convention debates on the issue. The thought was that the President being able to give a swift and certain pardon might facilitate the quieting of rebellions, and (political cronies aside), those who make it all the way through the official DOJ pardon vetting process are generally deserving. "The quality of mercy is not strained"; excessive additional limits seem seem both uncharitable and unwise.
I have a counterproposal (if you're going to amend the constitution): modify the pardon power, so that therafter the president may still use one to exempt anyone from "indictment, trial, judgment or punishment," but that whoever accepts such pardon or clemency shall still suffer "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" (while allowing that anyone may refuse such pardon or clemency when proferred). This limits the usefulness of the pardoning of political cronies (since they're effectively banned from the political game ever after), without excessively limiting the potential role in society for rehabilitated criminals who now benefit from the rare exercise of "the benign power".
Doesn't the oath say "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?". I'd say the second bit covers omissions.
I just recently talked about this with my brother-in-law (a retired lawyer, no longer practicing; misunderstandings are probably my fault, IAmNotALawyer). If you check the law, the crime of perjury requires someone "willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true". The statement has to be deliberate, and the person has to know it was false. Thus, "it all depends on the meaning of what is is" — Clinton believed his statement to be literally true; the prosecutor didn't feel he could prove a willful falsehood.
BUT although not clearly a crime, it was clearly a violation of the oath he took to tell the "whole truth", ergo a violation of his duty as a lawyer and thus an officer of the court. So, Clinton lost his law license..
Myself, I feel both Clinton's impeachment by the House and his acquittal by the Senate were nevertheless appropriate. A question of Perjury is a serious matter, and a trial is appropriate... for a trial can clear as well as convict.
First off, it may be that the visitors have a limited budget, just like anything we do does.
So, they may also be relying on gear built by the lowest bidder?
Microsoft, in the past and at present, has used OEM contracts as their major tool for consolidating their hold on the industry. Their OEM agreements have contained such provisions as "if you want preferred pricing, you can't sell computers that run any other operating system." Only for very, very large computer makers such as Dell and HP -- where Microsoft wants to be because there's huge volume -- do they relax these demands. The likelihood of Microsoft offering Apple an OEM contract is extremely low if MS thought it would be a threat.
Microsoft is a convicted monopolist; Apple is one of the few companies that in any sense can be called a competitor for Microsoft. If Apple seeks an OEM contract, Microsoft may be faced with the choice of Apple threatening them in the marketplace, or Apple threatening them in the courts. With an OEM contract, they get paid; without, they just spend money to defend themselves.
Patent protection is not necessary to have an "effective" copy prevention mechanism. So we'll just discount that one off the bat.
No; however, it is one way to "require a process with the authority of the copyright owner to gain access to the work." Which is my point; in the context of the DMCA, "effective" does not mean what the dictionary says it does; it only means what the Law says it does. (Welcome to the Wonderland of Law.) Patent and trade secret would seem to be two ways for protection to qualify.
If you believe an alternate interpretation is more appropriate, please elaborate on your understanding of the DMCA's definition of "effective" in 17 USC 1201.
Why didn't the CCA go for the kill? They would have had a much stronger case than trade secret protection.
My guess is that lawyers are a cautious bunch. They do not want an explicit ruling saying CSS does not qualify as an "effective" tool, which would be an obvious defense if they attempted a direct DMCA charge. Ergo, they tried for the lower risk maneuver of trying trade secret law first.
On the other hand, CSS did at one point qualify as a trade secret. However, due to reverse engineering, it has since lost its secrecy — as the judge eventually ruled. If they had won the case on a trade secrets basis, they could have gotten court orders so that anyone who used, uploaded, or downloaded the DeCSS code via US network computers (and possibly other jurisdictions) to cease&desist, and possibly even gotten them to forfeit the computer they used to do it.
Trade secrets law allowed for a possibly bigger win, and would not make a loss completely final. This is also probably why they dropped the case when they did; with that ruling, appeals would risk some other judge adding "CSS is ineffective" to the ruling -- which (in the dictionary sense) is pretty much what they were told by the cryptographic experts they consulted when they were developing the standards.
As it stands right now, the CSS system has not been declared ineffective. So anyone who dares to violate it does so at their own risk.
Correct. However, I(AmNotALawyer) argue that such a case looks very possible, as the DVD-CCA's position has been badly weakened, and that the DVD-CCA risk that if they have to bring a case. And, given the nature of the modern business world, and the nature of corporations to try anything for a profit that they can at least argue is legal (until it's explicitly ruled otherwise)... I suspect it's only a short matter of time before someone tries.
But knowing that the TPB has opened with it being a haven for child pornography in mind, I can't say I'm pleased.
Well, as others have noted, they're certain to remove stuff that blatantly unlawful; they note on each picture's page how to email them a notice about illegal pictures (although the link could be better crafted). Or do you have other reason to believe this was their specific intent?
A more interesting question is whether they will be maintaining IP logs of where images come from, so as to turn over for criminal investigation. If they do, they'll doubtless be subpoenaed (and seized) by all sorts of places, which won't make the Bay very happy; if they don't they'll be accused of helping the kiddie porn distributers, and get lynched in the public arena. Bad choice.
Alternatively, they might be planning to be infested with kiddie porn, take it down promptly, and turn over the source IPs from the logs routinely to the police, in the hopes of using their own sleazy reputation to help stamp out the pedophile scum of the internet.Piratebay keep acting like they are untouchable and the guardians of censorship, but it just seems they are trying to push the boundaries until thy get caught.
Should have been obvious. They're now a political party; "acting untouchable" and "trying to push the boundaries until they get caught" seems to follow that naturally these days.
In England 17 is legal. The legal age varies a lot. In some countries it is higher- in some countries it is lower.
The legal age for getting laid is not the legal age for being photographed nude, which is what's (mostly) in question here. The latter is pretty consistently 18, anywhere that it's set. Which is almost everywhere.
The model's apparent age varies a lot too. How can you trust what looks like a 14 year old isn't really an under developed or made up 18 year old?
I suspect they'll probably axe some of these by mistake; EG, from models like Melissa Ashley (warning: NSFW!). Similarly, they may not remove all the pictures of random high school teen bimbos flashing their anatomy for admirers, since at the other extreme some 14-year olds may really "look like she's 19, officer!!!", and the claim of being underage will not be credible without further evidence.
But yeah... I think they're going to need a better method for getting notices about illegal images than getting emailed (too many unneeded bytes over the wire per notice), and I suspect they're going to need to add what they mean by "illegal" to the FAQ.
Meanwhile, however, I've around fifty gigabytes of random (legally downloaded) pr0n pictures I could upload to help with their server's stress test once I leave work....
This seems to be an odd thing for a law to do.
It's not a law; it's a proposed contract amendment. However, if enforced to the extreme, the effect would be the same, since they'd have to ban the DVD drive.
Did he win in court because he pointed out the license agreement didn't prohibit this usage, or did he win on other grounds?
They won fair and square, and the judge commented on their efforts to stay within the agreement to boot. And yeah, "unfair and tortorus interference" is more or less what the quote from the company president in TFA boils down to.That only works if you do business in Finland. If you do business in just about any other country (particularly in the US) the judge is going to look at you funny and tell you that you have a fool for a lawyer.
IAmNotALawyer; I just argue with them. The DMCA says
Processes or treatments only need authority if protected by trade secret law or by patent. The CSS algorithm processes were (AFAIK) not protected by patent, but by trade secret. The California Court of Appeals has ruled that it is no longer a secret in a case the DVD-CCA was a party to; they dropped their case after that ruling and did not appeal. I cannot imagine any argument that the DVD-CCA could bring before any US judge (aside from a large suitcase filled with cash) that would cause him to overlook that ruling under basic stare decisis. Ergo, the workings of CSS are no longer protected.So, on what basis would you argue that decoding a DVD "requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner"?