This 'sex by surprise' nonsense is bullshit peddled by Assange's lawyer (much like this Gitmo nonsense). Read up on what he is actually charged with. Pretty much everything you said is false.
Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.
According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.
When he was later interviewed by police in Stockholm, Assange agreed that he had had sex with Miss A but said he did not tear the condom, and that he was not aware that it had been torn. He told police that he had continued to sleep in Miss A's bed for the following week and she had never mentioned a torn condom.
On Wednesday 18 August, according to police records, Miss A told Harold and a friend that Assange would not leave her flat and was sleeping in her bed, although she was not having sex with him and he spent most of the night sitting with his computer. Harold told police he had asked Assange why he was refusing to leave the flat and that Assange had said he was very surprised, because Miss A had not asked him to leave. Miss A says she spent Wednesday night on a mattress and then moved to a friend's flat so she did not have to be near him. She told police that Assange had continued to make sexual advances to her every day after they slept together and on Wednesday 18 August had approached her, naked from the waist down, and rubbed himself against her.
The following day, Miss W phoned Assange and arranged to meet him late in the evening, according to her statement. The pair went back to her flat in Enkoping, near Stockholm. Miss W told police that though they started to have sex, Assange had not wanted to wear a condom, and she had moved away because she had not wanted unprotected sex. Assange had then lost interest, she said, and fallen asleep. However, during the night, they had both woken up and had sex at least once when "he agreed unwillingly to use a condom".
Early the next morning, Miss W told police, she had gone to buy breakfast before getting back into bed and falling asleep beside Assange. She had awoken to find him having sex with her, she said, but when she asked whether he was wearing a condom he said no. "According to her statement, she said: 'You better not have HIV' and he answered: 'Of course not,' " but "she couldn't be bothered to tell him one more time because she had been going on about the condom all night. She had never had unprotected sex before."
Doesn't this term refer to a modification which allows you to install software other than the software approved by the manufacturer? There is a hack to accomplish this on the Xbox 360 but it is not what this guy was accused of performing. The hack he offered was to modify the disk drive to play copied disks. It has no use outside of piracy and playing "backups.' Unsigned homebrew software still doesn't run using that hack.
This is without getting into the fact that the Library of Congress rule specifically applies to smart phones only.
That isn't how the 'share' functionality on news sites work. It shares a link to the story with the headline and the first few sentences, not the entire article.
The FBI isn't claiming copyright (it is public domain). They are referring to criminal laws which apply specifically to the use of the FBI seal. Wikipedia actually has the relevant laws cited on the image page.
But even if GE was within their rights to circumvent the dongles, it would still be illegal for them to give the software solution to anyone else -- even if the present ruling stands and the recipient would be allowed to break the protections themselves.
Actually, a key part of the ruling is that GE did NOT break the protections themselves.
MGE cites no evidence that a GE/PMI
employee or representative was responsible for altering the Pacret and Muguet
software such that a dongle was not required to use the software. Without
proving GE/PMI actually circumvented the technology (as opposed to using
technology already circumvented), MGE does not present a valid DMCA claim.
See id. (“[T]he DMCA targets the circumvention of digital walls guarding
copyrighted material (and trafficking in circumvention tools), but does not
concern itself with the use of those materials after circumvention has occurred.”).
I don't think so. The ruling specifically touches on this:
Here, MGE has not shown that bypassing its dongle infringes a right
protected by the Copyright Act. MGE’s dongle merely prevents initial access to
the software. If no dongle is detected, the software program will not complete
the start-up process. However, even if a dongle is present, it does not prevent
the literal code or text of MGE’s copyrighted computer software from being freely
read and copied once that access is obtained; there is no encryption or other form
of protection on the software itself to prevent copyright violations. Because the
dongle does not protect against copyright violations, the mere fact that the
dongle itself is circumvented does not give rise to a circumvention violation
within the meaning of the DMCA.
IANAL, but I don't believe you can apply this same logic to DeCSS
The part where he ruled circumventing a Dongle to use software you are legally entitled to use is not illegal is good.
But, GE was illegally using software which it did not have the rights to use with of without the Dongle, which the judge said is OK. This part of his ruling is bad.
The judge did not say it was okay, only that MGE failed to provide sufficient proof of damages (they tried to claim damages against the total revenue of the division and not just revenue related to servicing MGE UPS products)
but I did read the analysis of the plan on Ars (link) and their conclusions are far more favorable to consumers and less favorable to industry groups than the Slashdot summary suggests.
It really wasn't voluntary. Go back and read Google's disclosure again. They were under investigation by Germany on the matter. They originally told the investigators that they don't collect any payload data. Not satisfied, Germany demanded Google audit the data they had stored at which point Google fessed up to saving all the payload data. Really the only voluntary part was announcing it to public in a positive light instead of waiting for the news to break independently.
This isn't an attempt to change the precedent, this is an attempt to set one. The validity of these licenses have never been tested by the law. So there just plain is no precedent right now. This case is what will set the precedent depending on how the judge rules. It could still go either way at this point.
Not true. EULAs have been held up in other cases. Other Blizzard cases even. In fact, even if they hadn't -- this is an appeal of a ruling that already went in Blizzard's favor.
While the gist of what you are saying is correct, it is not accurate to say that "Cable companies do not pay networks to rebroadcast their signals." Cable providers pay a per-subscriber fee to the networks they carry, from a few cents to a few dollars.
I believe you're correct. I haven't read the patent, but do I subscribe to Boingo (travel weekly for work) and I've used the software in question -- it will tell the user which networks in range are Boingo affiliates, and allows them to log into those networks using their Boingo accounts, regardless of who actually operates the network in question.
Slashdot Mirror
More here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden
Actually, they made a pretty big deal about demonstrating printer support during their presentation
Pirating? Oh please! No one has stolen anything. COPIED, perhaps...
Piracy has been the term used to describe copyright infringement for hundreds of years.
We're talking about abandoned items here
Not really
It doesn't "put their info on facebook," it just scans your contacts and shows you if any of them have facebook accounts that you haven't befriended.
It's for transmitting a video signal, not necessarily watching videos.
Doesn't this term refer to a modification which allows you to install software other than the software approved by the manufacturer? There is a hack to accomplish this on the Xbox 360 but it is not what this guy was accused of performing. The hack he offered was to modify the disk drive to play copied disks. It has no use outside of piracy and playing "backups.' Unsigned homebrew software still doesn't run using that hack. This is without getting into the fact that the Library of Congress rule specifically applies to smart phones only.
The media also does loads of free work by writing articles about how X's product imports might be blocked, even though that's never happened...
Sure it has: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/22/itc_upholds_qualcomm_phone_ban/
That isn't how the 'share' functionality on news sites work. It shares a link to the story with the headline and the first few sentences, not the entire article.
Blu-ray movies have a coating that offers incredible protection from wear and tear. Pirates need to come up with a new excuse
What difference does it make even if these companies are Microsoft-backed? How does that affect the merits of their claim?
[citation needed]
http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html etc
Google has its hand in anti-trust proceedings against Microsoft as well. What goes around comes around.
The FBI isn't claiming copyright (it is public domain). They are referring to criminal laws which apply specifically to the use of the FBI seal. Wikipedia actually has the relevant laws cited on the image page.
Actually, a key part of the ruling is that GE did NOT break the protections themselves.
IANAL, but I don't believe you can apply this same logic to DeCSS
I think as a whole it is a bad ruling.
The part where he ruled circumventing a Dongle to use software you are legally entitled to use is not illegal is good.
But, GE was illegally using software which it did not have the rights to use with of without the Dongle, which the judge said is OK. This part of his ruling is bad.
The judge did not say it was okay, only that MGE failed to provide sufficient proof of damages (they tried to claim damages against the total revenue of the division and not just revenue related to servicing MGE UPS products)
but I did read the analysis of the plan on Ars (link) and their conclusions are far more favorable to consumers and less favorable to industry groups than the Slashdot summary suggests.
It really wasn't voluntary. Go back and read Google's disclosure again. They were under investigation by Germany on the matter. They originally told the investigators that they don't collect any payload data. Not satisfied, Germany demanded Google audit the data they had stored at which point Google fessed up to saving all the payload data. Really the only voluntary part was announcing it to public in a positive light instead of waiting for the news to break independently.
It doesn't matter if they have a physical presence. Research the concept of Minimum Contact (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_contacts).
Yes, that is how the law works. See LICRA v. Yahoo! for a case incredibly similar to your scenario. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LICRA_v._Yahoo!
This isn't an attempt to change the precedent, this is an attempt to set one. The validity of these licenses have never been tested by the law. So there just plain is no precedent right now. This case is what will set the precedent depending on how the judge rules. It could still go either way at this point.
Not true. EULAs have been held up in other cases. Other Blizzard cases even. In fact, even if they hadn't -- this is an appeal of a ruling that already went in Blizzard's favor.
They no longer do the boarding pass check after the metal detector.
While the gist of what you are saying is correct, it is not accurate to say that "Cable companies do not pay networks to rebroadcast their signals." Cable providers pay a per-subscriber fee to the networks they carry, from a few cents to a few dollars.
I believe you're correct. I haven't read the patent, but do I subscribe to Boingo (travel weekly for work) and I've used the software in question -- it will tell the user which networks in range are Boingo affiliates, and allows them to log into those networks using their Boingo accounts, regardless of who actually operates the network in question.
They aren't buying exclusive rights, they have exclusive rights because they created the superheroes in the first place. DC Comics is owned by WB