One point I'd like to clarify here is that before everyone goes into sticker-shock over $300k, understand that we're talking about more than bandwidth and hardware expenses. According to what I can see on the wayback machine, the website had a large amount of content. It was not a dubiously popular online business card and photo album. There were updated articles and stories every day. So, how did that content get organized into a website? Did Richard just turn on cheap hosting while the sherrifs demonstrated their web design and organizational skizzles? Maybe that's what they're trying now (from the looks of it) but at the time I would wager that Running Wolf bore the burden of translating police blotter feeds and random user requests into a website that was effectively a news portal.
Also, I don't think the PD imprisoned Richards, impounded his equipment, and charged him with 4 felonies so rapidly over a simple bruised ego. If the website was so important to their infrastructure, prosecuting Richard into the stone age won't bring it back. The important thing I see them doing is confiscating the equipment. Outside of spite, that would serve them no purpose unless there was data on the equipment they hoped to recover (apparently as quickly as possible). This implies that they were relying solely on Richard's free website to house all of their data, and they needed it back just to take care of business. So, if it was their data, shouldn't they have had backups? No seriously, I mean hard copies so you can get your job done during a power failure.. They obviously relied on the workings of the website desperately.
So, here's the rub. You just don't imprison people over shutting down a volunteer website. The PD can't claim to have any investment in the venture, since they never invested a wooden nickel. The PD may have volunteered their content, but Richards was vested with no responsibility of guarding that content with his freedom as a citizen. We could easily replace Richards in this story with Geocities. Sherrifs find nifty WSYWIG content manager and start a free website on geocities. Sherrifs post their nifty web address on cop cars and trust all of their content to this website. Geocities shuts off their account automatically for any odd reason, and all hell breaks loose.
The only other thing Richard had that the PD could chafe over needing was the domain name. but it's only a name. It only has value because of the promotion and acceptence of the website itself. Again, they could have just as easily came to rely on Geocities web and email addresses, printing them on police cars and letterhead. That wouldn't entitle them to any kind of squatting rights over the geocities.com domain, or to have geocities officials arrested on nutty criminal charges.
The truth is that the Police Department was simply freeloading the whole time. When the dust settles they aren't out a shiny penny, just all of their convenient functionality and a contact address or two. Richards is out 3 years of work, all expenses involved whatsoever (whether $300k or what) and a very real possibility of 20 years in prison with even more fines. The PD are the scam artists, not the web design firm.
The way I see it, they essentially sweet talked their way into free room and board at someone's house, and eventually raised hell over all the heartache involved at being kicked out. "But all my letterhead has this address. But all my belongings are here and I refuse to take them anywhere else. Maybe I forgot to get my name on the lease at any point, put people come here to see me not you, so it's my house. I'll now arrest you for not handing over the keys and leaving while you had the chance." It reminds me of that movie "Pacific Heights" with Micheal Keaton.
I'm sorry to ask but, don't most people who record things from TV and then trade them online just record the raw signal that the TV is given in the first place? AFAIK that is a lot easier and more reliable to re-encode than the analog signal leaving the component out on the TV set. I think that's what Microsoft's UltimateTV does as well.
Furthermore, hassles of this type will probably just drive more people to obtain modified Xboxes and get all their TV shows online and forsake the "broadcast" model entirely. Forget schedules, commercials, broadcast flags, just download all the episodes and watch them at your convenience:/
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PURPLE BOXING GLOVES?!
Did you do any fact checking before you turned this in?
One point I'd like to clarify here is that before everyone goes into sticker-shock over $300k, understand that we're talking about more than bandwidth and hardware expenses. According to what I can see on the wayback machine, the website had a large amount of content. It was not a dubiously popular online business card and photo album. There were updated articles and stories every day. So, how did that content get organized into a website? Did Richard just turn on cheap hosting while the sherrifs demonstrated their web design and organizational skizzles? Maybe that's what they're trying now (from the looks of it) but at the time I would wager that Running Wolf bore the burden of translating police blotter feeds and random user requests into a website that was effectively a news portal.
Also, I don't think the PD imprisoned Richards, impounded his equipment, and charged him with 4 felonies so rapidly over a simple bruised ego. If the website was so important to their infrastructure, prosecuting Richard into the stone age won't bring it back. The important thing I see them doing is confiscating the equipment. Outside of spite, that would serve them no purpose unless there was data on the equipment they hoped to recover (apparently as quickly as possible). This implies that they were relying solely on Richard's free website to house all of their data, and they needed it back just to take care of business. So, if it was their data, shouldn't they have had backups? No seriously, I mean hard copies so you can get your job done during a power failure.. They obviously relied on the workings of the website desperately.
So, here's the rub. You just don't imprison people over shutting down a volunteer website. The PD can't claim to have any investment in the venture, since they never invested a wooden nickel. The PD may have volunteered their content, but Richards was vested with no responsibility of guarding that content with his freedom as a citizen. We could easily replace Richards in this story with Geocities. Sherrifs find nifty WSYWIG content manager and start a free website on geocities. Sherrifs post their nifty web address on cop cars and trust all of their content to this website. Geocities shuts off their account automatically for any odd reason, and all hell breaks loose.
The only other thing Richard had that the PD could chafe over needing was the domain name. but it's only a name. It only has value because of the promotion and acceptence of the website itself. Again, they could have just as easily came to rely on Geocities web and email addresses, printing them on police cars and letterhead. That wouldn't entitle them to any kind of squatting rights over the geocities.com domain, or to have geocities officials arrested on nutty criminal charges.
The truth is that the Police Department was simply freeloading the whole time. When the dust settles they aren't out a shiny penny, just all of their convenient functionality and a contact address or two. Richards is out 3 years of work, all expenses involved whatsoever (whether $300k or what) and a very real possibility of 20 years in prison with even more fines. The PD are the scam artists, not the web design firm.
The way I see it, they essentially sweet talked their way into free room and board at someone's house, and eventually raised hell over all the heartache involved at being kicked out. "But all my letterhead has this address. But all my belongings are here and I refuse to take them anywhere else. Maybe I forgot to get my name on the lease at any point, put people come here to see me not you, so it's my house. I'll now arrest you for not handing over the keys and leaving while you had the chance." It reminds me of that movie "Pacific Heights" with Micheal Keaton.
I'm sorry to ask but, don't most people who record things from TV and then trade them online just record the raw signal that the TV is given in the first place? AFAIK that is a lot easier and more reliable to re-encode than the analog signal leaving the component out on the TV set. I think that's what Microsoft's UltimateTV does as well. Furthermore, hassles of this type will probably just drive more people to obtain modified Xboxes and get all their TV shows online and forsake the "broadcast" model entirely. Forget schedules, commercials, broadcast flags, just download all the episodes and watch them at your convenience :/