Disclaimer: I may or may not actually believe any of what I'm saying here. It's just my turn to be devil's devil's devil's advocate (and clearly cayenne8 and I will solve the world's problems in this thread:)
If I were born with a horrible genetic problem, is it up to YOU to support me and my problems, when you and your family are healthy?
It's not up to me, TheoMurpse, by myself. I think that's what gives your argument strength, that you say, "Is it up to YOU" as opposed to, "Is it up to SOCIETY COLLECTIVELY . .." The second statement seems plausible, while the first seems unreasonable for sure. Isn't that what human society is for ("village to raise a child" and all that)?
Govt. . . . isn't there to support you or take care of you.
To me, that sounds (1) selfish, and (2) like a "fuck off and die" argument. Think about it this way: there are limited resources on the planet. Every dollar you earn is a dollar you are taking from everyone else (because you are depriving anyone else from earning that dollar). It is arguable that there aren't very many "un-owned" resources left in the world, so you can't exactly say that there are sources of wealth a poor, uneducated person actually has a shot at grabbing first.
Robin Hood is an admirable figure for a reason: he is the part of each human that hasn't been corrupted by greed yet. The "I shouldn't have to help anyone that I don't want to help" argument (which it looks like you were making with your argument about being born with a horrible genetic problem) is the greedy part of human nature, and the part that I hope people rise above one day. "Freedom" comes into this because you're prioritizing your financial liberty over someone else's real liberty (the freedom to live when, without society's help one would surely die due to health care costs)
Final disclaimer: I'm neither a trained philosopher, policymaker, or economist. I'm a linguist-mathematician-law-student. I'm make no claims as to the strength of any of these broad arguments.
This being slashdot and seeing the country as a whole is poised to start the process of picking out next president by choosing which socialist candidate's plan to nationalize the medical sector is best.... but I'm shocked anyway. Sorry, but if you actually don't want your freedom why don't you just go somehere already practicing socialism instead of working to hose the last best hope for liberty left on the planet?
Time to play the Devil's Advocate: You seem to be laboring under the idea that the only freedom in the world is freedom to select how your money (is there really anything such as "your" money in a closed system where everyone's actions affects all other humans?) is spent. What about the freedom to not have to worry about crushing medical debt for some injury a huge insurance company refuses to pay for even though you need the money and you paid your premiums?
Fuck those fire stations man, I want my liberty (you know, liberty to not die in a fire). Goddamn police, I want my liberty (you know, liberty to not be murdered). Holy shit I can stand this sonofabitch roads I get to drive on for free, what an infringement on my liberty (you know, the one to actually be able to drive somewhere in my car). Goddamnit the taxes I pay are such a crushing burden and fuck my fellow man. If I can't spend my last red cent on a Britney Spears inflatable doll, then Amerikkkuh is failing and I want my freeeeduuuuumb!!!!!
There are many kinds of freedom, not just the freedom to spend what you've temporarily taken from the commons.
1. It really couldn't happen because it would violate more than a few international agreements.
I don't know the entire text of international agreements like GATT and the Berne Convention, but I suppose it wouldn't violate those agreements to apply certain policies to domestic companies and artists.
To help facilitate a baseline for obvious, allow the general public to submit their obvious ideas at no charge (no need to check this overwhelming amount of info - but keep it handy for posterity).
Just to point out (but doesn't invalidate your suggestion), the standard for "non-obviousness" in patent prosecution is the PHOSITA ("person having ordinary skill in the art"), not the layperson. We care whether an invention would be obvious to an average PHOSITA, not an average layperson.
Incidentally, we don't care if one other person comes up with an idea; we care if the average person would have. Thus, just one other person submitting in a given timeframe would fail to inform the PTO about non-obviousness. Two geniuses coming up with an invention doesn't make it "obvious." However, a great proportion of PHOSITAs inventing the same thing in the timeframe would be a strong indication of obviousness.
Ideas aren't really worth that much. If anything, its the implementation of the ideas that is worth something.
Which is why, I suppose, there is an enablement requirement and a written description requirement for getting a patent. The patent must state the "best mode" for practicing the patent. Thus, the implementation of an idea is there in the patent, and that is what the patent covers.
Thankfully your safe from coffee being outlawed as it isn't a threat to the rope industry.
For those who don't recognize this, this is a reference to the allegations that marijuana was illegalized because hemp was a threat to the cotton and paper industries. It is salient to note that the first real complaints of marijuana were regarding how it made Mexicans commit crimes.
It's telling that all your examples are from decades ago.
10 years ago Hong Kong was ruled by Britons. Less than 10 years ago, Macau was still being run by the Portuguese. Oh, and Americans are running Iraq right now.
If I preform Hamlet on stage, my performance is copyrighted the moment I do it. If I don't want you to video tape it, then copyright would be on my side.
Not unless you also videotape the performance. 17 USC 102 requires that your performance (the "original work of authorship") be recorded ("fixed in a tangible medium of expression") before you can exercise any sort of copyrights against other filmers.
Similarly, if a television show were broadcast over the airwaves but not stored by the filmer/broadcaster/whoever himself, you could record the broadcast and distribute it all you wanted (seeing as how the "work" isn't fixed and thus not copyrighted).
As far as the law is concerned there is a difference between "infringing freedom of speech" and ignoring freedom of speech and prosecuting for some other aspect of what you are doing.
That's where the law has gone: for example, you can't ban flag burning because of its offensive nature, but you can ban flag burning if it's part of a "no burning shit outdoors" ban to protect public safety. Legislative intent is important: if the goal is to affect free speech, it's not constitutional, but if the infringement upon speech is incidental to a narrowly tailored law to accomplish a compelling (is it a "compelling"-standard test for free speech? I forget...) government interest, then it is constitutional.
The person I originally responded to was using the literal text of the First Amendment to defend a position (the precise quote was: "The word implies a 'complete' right, absolute freedom of speech."). I merely pointed out flaws in that reasoning reductio ad absurdum.
I completely agree with what you're saying. Basically, the First Amendment may restrict a government action on certain grounds, but there may be alternative, constitutional grounds for restricting the same action. And this is why being a justice on the US Supreme Court is hard; it's not as straightforward as my original post's parent (GGP?) implied.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." I believe you are explicitly incorrect. The first amendment clearly says that no law may be passed abridging freedom of speech.
Surely you cannot be suggesting that the First Amendment gives me the right to practice a religion that requires human sacrifice in contravention of murder statutes simply because there is no murder statute in the Constitution!
Taking this into consideration, can you understand why the First Amendment right to freedom of speech isn't 100% absolute? Should I not then be allowed to brand all my crappy software "Google" with their logo? Should I not then be allowed to freely distribute any copyrighted material to anyone, since it's merely free expression? Should I not then be allowed to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater, or point a megaphone at my neighbor's house and shout through it at all hours of the day?
Clearly the First Amendment says Congress cannot prohibit what I've just suggested, since they are all speech activities that Congress is, by the First Amendment, not allowed to abridge.
You're right, and now that you mention it, that's one of the questions I missed on my crimlaw final a year ago. I guess I never learn... And I was just using "sua sponte" for its literal meaning, not its legal sense, but point taken. Thanks.
I think a big part of the popularity of the e-readers is because it's just another gadget. Folks will come up with plenty of rationalizations as to why they need it or how it's so superior to a book.
Tell me about it! My little rationalization is that I have to carry around sixty fucking pounds of textbooks every day, composed primarily of cases available to me for free in PDF format. Clearly I'm just aching for a gadget and not for a solution to a problem.;)
Not reporting a crime and concealing a crime are vastly different: If you witness a murder, you do not (in general) have a responsibility to go report the crime to the police. You have a legal duty if you are subpoenaed, but not to go to the police and report it sua sponte. What I mean to say is this: There is no such general crime as "failure to report a crime." (There may be a duty to report a felony committed on federal property or something like that; I do not know every legal exception in the US.)
I can't break into your house, take photos of you torrenting the new Linkin Park CD, and use that as evidence in court.
I haven't taken Evidence yet (next semester), but I think you can use that as evidence. If I understand correctly, the prohibition on evidence acquired through unlawful search and seizure is a constraint upon the State, not upon the private individual.
Would a lawyer care to chime in and correct me if I'm wrong? I can't find relevant information in the Federal Rules of Evidence, so I suspect the prohibition comes from the Bill of Rights itself and needs no provision in the FRE.
I repeat, there may be a legitimate need to regulate the traditional investigators (think Dr. Watson or "Maltese Falcon"), who may sometimes hurt or otherwise unduly interfere with the subject of the investigation.
But to apply the same regulation to MediaSentry or, indeed, to (paid) spam-fighters, whose investigations are limited to the virtual world entirely, is completely bogus.
So it's impossible to hurt or unduly interfere with the subject of investigation over the internet? I forgot that DOSes and hacks were impossible over the net. Granted, direct physical harm is not possible, but if you DOS someone who only has VOIP, they can't call 911.
So, if somebody paid me to investigate the source of spam they were getting, I would need a license to do the work, otherwise the spamming victim would not be able to use my results to go after the spammers? Wonderful logic...
Yes, it makes perfect sense that a government would want to regulate a profession. Similarly, a person cannot practice law over the internet because one must be licensed to do so. By "practice law," I mean that one cannot do video chats as a legal representative who does not appear in court. This is just as logical as regulating the practice of law in meatspace.
I'm not saying there's a legitimate reason to regulate any business; I'm merely saying that there is just as legitimate a reason to regulate professionals who operate only in the virtual world (which exists in copper and fiber optic wiring in the real world) and professionals who operate in the non-internet world.
In typical Slashdotter fashion, I didn't RTFA. However, one way the RIAA could have dropped its case is by moving for a nonsuit, or "voluntary dismissal" in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. I assume that the suit was in federal court in TX since copyright is federal subject matter; however, had it been filed in TX state court for some reason (yippie kie yay, I'm studying law in TX), a nonsuit is still the proper avenue for the plaintiff dropping its suit without prejudice. A nonsuit/voluntary dismissal results with the case being dismissed without prejudice, which means the plaintiff can bring his claim again in a new lawsuit. One point about voluntary dismissals in federal procedure is that you only get to dismiss once. Thus, if the RIAA brings this suit again later, they can't dismiss it a second time.
Finally, from my good ol' black letter outline on Federal Civil Procedure:
If the defendant pleads a counterclaim prior to the plaintiff's motion to dismiss the complaint, the action cannot be dismissed against the defendant's objection unless the counterclaim remains pending for independent adjudication by the court. . . . As a practical matter, it is possible for a plaintiff to have its complaint dismissed, but have to defend against a counterclaim.
And just to cite what deserves citation, here is the book from which I've cited. The author is one of the nation's foremost fed civ pro academics and practitioners, and I consider her words almost beyond question.
I've also done "several" investigations of the spammers using tools like whois and nslookup. I was not licensed to perform the investigations in any state.
According to this grandma's counter-suit and more importantly to all the kudos she got from the Slashdot crowd, all of those spammers should have a good case against me...
Please, just get off your idiot horse unless you've done due diligence and researched what the law says. This isn't the common law we're talking about; this is the Texas Occupations Code. It's written down, and your sort of reductio ad absurdum argument doesn't work here.
An "investigations company" in TX is defined by the Occupations Code Sec. 1702.104 as a person engages in the business . . . or accepts employment to [do various things]. Clearly doing some research for yourself and then reporting spam companies to your ISP fails both of these avenues.
In TX, you didn't have to be licensed to perform these actions. And you know how long it took me to verify that you didn't know what you were talking about? Five minutes on the Texas Department of Public Safety's website.
And, while cyberlaw is far from settled, the defendant was in TX, and Media Sentry spied on her. Where, other than TX, did they spy on her? Basically this all comes down to the old question: if you stand just east of the Nevada-California border and shoot someone in California, did you commit murder in California or Nevada?
Windows 95 was the first time anyone even knew what a CD-ROM was...
That is so not true. My parents are not techies at all, and they had a computer with Windows 3.1 and a CD-ROM drive. I remember distinctly because my brother got a bundle of games on CDs from my aunt and uncle, and we played the games on a Windows 3.1 box. One of these games was Kings Quest VI, which came out in 1993 on CD-ROM. Need I point out that this was two full years before Windows 95 came out?
Further proof that my parents aren't techies who were/are ahead of the tech curve? They were running Windows ME until this year.
Slashdot Mirror
Robin Hood is an admirable figure for a reason: he is the part of each human that hasn't been corrupted by greed yet. The "I shouldn't have to help anyone that I don't want to help" argument (which it looks like you were making with your argument about being born with a horrible genetic problem) is the greedy part of human nature, and the part that I hope people rise above one day. "Freedom" comes into this because you're prioritizing your financial liberty over someone else's real liberty (the freedom to live when, without society's help one would surely die due to health care costs)
Final disclaimer: I'm neither a trained philosopher, policymaker, or economist. I'm a linguist-mathematician-law-student. I'm make no claims as to the strength of any of these broad arguments.
Fuck those fire stations man, I want my liberty (you know, liberty to not die in a fire). Goddamn police, I want my liberty (you know, liberty to not be murdered). Holy shit I can stand this sonofabitch roads I get to drive on for free, what an infringement on my liberty (you know, the one to actually be able to drive somewhere in my car). Goddamnit the taxes I pay are such a crushing burden and fuck my fellow man. If I can't spend my last red cent on a Britney Spears inflatable doll, then Amerikkkuh is failing and I want my freeeeduuuuumb!!!!!
There are many kinds of freedom, not just the freedom to spend what you've temporarily taken from the commons.
14 inch dog? No wireless. Less height than a mastiff. Lame.
Incidentally, we don't care if one other person comes up with an idea; we care if the average person would have. Thus, just one other person submitting in a given timeframe would fail to inform the PTO about non-obviousness. Two geniuses coming up with an invention doesn't make it "obvious." However, a great proportion of PHOSITAs inventing the same thing in the timeframe would be a strong indication of obviousness.
Similarly, if a television show were broadcast over the airwaves but not stored by the filmer/broadcaster/whoever himself, you could record the broadcast and distribute it all you wanted (seeing as how the "work" isn't fixed and thus not copyrighted).
The person I originally responded to was using the literal text of the First Amendment to defend a position (the precise quote was: "The word implies a 'complete' right, absolute freedom of speech."). I merely pointed out flaws in that reasoning reductio ad absurdum.
I completely agree with what you're saying. Basically, the First Amendment may restrict a government action on certain grounds, but there may be alternative, constitutional grounds for restricting the same action. And this is why being a justice on the US Supreme Court is hard; it's not as straightforward as my original post's parent (GGP?) implied.
Taking this into consideration, can you understand why the First Amendment right to freedom of speech isn't 100% absolute? Should I not then be allowed to brand all my crappy software "Google" with their logo? Should I not then be allowed to freely distribute any copyrighted material to anyone, since it's merely free expression? Should I not then be allowed to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater, or point a megaphone at my neighbor's house and shout through it at all hours of the day?
Clearly the First Amendment says Congress cannot prohibit what I've just suggested, since they are all speech activities that Congress is, by the First Amendment, not allowed to abridge.
No?
No, I didn't misspell it by accident.
No, what I'm saying is that IAALS. ;) And I'm ethically required to clarify that issue, so it's not OT.
Here, allow the Best Page in the Universe to help you spot a pedo.
You're right, and now that you mention it, that's one of the questions I missed on my crimlaw final a year ago. I guess I never learn...
And I was just using "sua sponte" for its literal meaning, not its legal sense, but point taken. Thanks.
Not reporting a crime and concealing a crime are vastly different: If you witness a murder, you do not (in general) have a responsibility to go report the crime to the police. You have a legal duty if you are subpoenaed, but not to go to the police and report it sua sponte. What I mean to say is this: There is no such general crime as "failure to report a crime." (There may be a duty to report a felony committed on federal property or something like that; I do not know every legal exception in the US.)
Would a lawyer care to chime in and correct me if I'm wrong? I can't find relevant information in the Federal Rules of Evidence, so I suspect the prohibition comes from the Bill of Rights itself and needs no provision in the FRE.
I'm not saying there's a legitimate reason to regulate any business; I'm merely saying that there is just as legitimate a reason to regulate professionals who operate only in the virtual world (which exists in copper and fiber optic wiring in the real world) and professionals who operate in the non-internet world.
Finally, from my good ol' black letter outline on Federal Civil Procedure:And just to cite what deserves citation, here is the book from which I've cited. The author is one of the nation's foremost fed civ pro academics and practitioners, and I consider her words almost beyond question.
An "investigations company" in TX is defined by the Occupations Code Sec. 1702.104 as a person engages in the business . . . or accepts employment to [do various things]. Clearly doing some research for yourself and then reporting spam companies to your ISP fails both of these avenues.
In TX, you didn't have to be licensed to perform these actions. And you know how long it took me to verify that you didn't know what you were talking about? Five minutes on the Texas Department of Public Safety's website.
And, while cyberlaw is far from settled, the defendant was in TX, and Media Sentry spied on her. Where, other than TX, did they spy on her? Basically this all comes down to the old question: if you stand just east of the Nevada-California border and shoot someone in California, did you commit murder in California or Nevada?
Further proof that my parents aren't techies who were/are ahead of the tech curve? They were running Windows ME until this year.