I've been working in IT for various kinds of media companies, and in a lot of cases, there are people whose entire jobs are centered around using Adobe apps. You could throw Adobe CS3 on any system and any OS, and those people would still be able to do their jobs just fine. The OS doesn't matter.
As one of the people whose entire jobs is frequently (but not always) centered around using Adobe apps, I'd respectfully disagree.
System level stuff is important. Using InDesign on my mac and then switching over to InDesign on my PC, I'm constantly reminded of how blatantly deceptive and outright evil Windows' font management can be. Same thing applies to lots of other little issues - particularly color management, open/save dialogues, troubleshooting, etc... It's a million little things but can they add up to a significant loss in productivity when working on a platform you're not as comfortable with. I remember a PC-savvy friend who had to take a Photoshop class on a mac. He was constantly dumbfounded that he had to go to View|Screen Mode in order to cover the desktop. He simply couldn't deal with the fact that each image was in its own window, for some reason. I don't get the issue myself (since the ugly gray background covers up any other applications and just gets in my way when switching between them), but it's just another anecdotal example.
As far as using their own OS as a single incorporated platform, they've got enough other issues to make it unfeasible. Where do you think people using Adobe products get their content? All too often, from people using Office. So, their hypothetical distribution has to include an office suite which can accurately and correctly render Office documents - not too tough, you may say but yet more work (particularly when you consider the aforementioned cross-platform font issues which need to be accommodated for and Word's lovely revisions features, support for a gazillion different versions, etc...). From there, you start taking on a million other currently hypothetical applications (none of which are actually a part of Adobe's core business) and end up with a bloated beastly conglomeration which would be nightmarish to develop and support.
Re:The problem with the idea of a casual MMO
on
Tabula Rasa Goes Live
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· Score: 5, Insightful
While I'm sure we all share the utmost respect for your memories of imaginary deeds, I personally disagree with the notion that the level of inconvenience is the ultimate level of difficulty. I'd rather enjoy a brief, challenging scenario/quest/mission/run/raid/whatever than a lengthy, tedious, repetitive one.
While the atmospheric value of lengthy and demanding preparations is clearly illustrated by your post... does that actually make it fun (with fun being the traditional reason for playing games)? For some, sure. For others, not so much.
It's the simplest and most overused method of scaling difficulty. It doesn't matter whether you're walking for hours to get to the right zone (or back for supplies), collecting hundreds of drops for a recipe or just killing ten rats repeatedly until you can get to the level where you're magically allowed to kill ten dire rats. I am truly saddened by the fact that difficulty is most typically made "hardcore" through excessive annoyance.
It's still purely artificial inflation - exactly the type that you claim to despise. I don't care whether you consider it "hardcore" or not, there's plenty of room to accommodate multiple levels of commitment to imaginary universes.
While appealing, I think there's actually more to it than that. Off the top of my head, I'd add responsibility to the list.
Publishing information which has no particular value and puts someone's safety at risk - even though it may be factually correct - is irresponsible and not an example of protected journalism. By your own, sole standard of "factually correct", a simple list of names and their SSNs would qualify as journalism and therefore deserve protection.
I'm sure the next person who comments could come up with yet another entirely reasonable criteria. And then the one after that...
You can see where this is going, right?
So, chief amongst our many standards are factual veracity, responsibility, fear, surprise, an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope and nifty red hats...
The quote in TFS implies a similar issue. This is not as much a monumental success for blog[i]gers[/i] as it is for blog[i]ging[/i].
The quote says that text is possibly protected, regardless of format. While I approve wholeheartedly of that notion, it also implies that for any text to be considered protected as journalism, it needs to meet an nebulously-defined standard of "content and intention." I also happen to agree with that as well but I can see how others might not share that opinion. Most bloggers, even after this decision, still fall under the same unprotected, non-informative, masturbatory umbrella as before - the medium itself just got a little official recognition.
Naturally I point out the emphasis and manage to screw it up. Oops.
I actually agree with your point. I personally believe this should never have been patented. I was just playing devil's advocate (no pun intended).
I think that the legal definition of the word 'obvious' does leave at least some room for it to be argued, however flimsy. I'm just saying that the people behind this are not quite as far out in left field as it seems at first glance. They're playing the game in accordance with the internal logic. It just happens to be abstracted to the point where it looks completely ridiculous unless you have all the information - at which point it only looks mostly ridiculous.
The whole thing is still a big stinking pile of crap... just a slightly less aromatic pile than it sounds to the casual observer, relatively speaking. Not much of a consolation, perhaps, but there you have it.
Almost by definition, something is obvious if it is apparent without further explanation. However, like the many tests of "reasonableness" in law, obviousness is in the eye of the beholder and depends on context. Defining an accurate, repeatable, qualitative test that determines whether something is or is not obvious in general is impossible.
(My emphasis added above.)
One thing I've learned in lengthy 'discussions' (... and by 'discussions', I really mean 'arguments') with a group of law grads is that legal definitions of words are a very limited subset of the real world definition. Many words mean exactly one specific thing. No matter how much nuance or implication you can attach to a word in the English language, these things do not apply in Legal English. I can't tell you how many times I simply sat there, agape, as these people were explaining to me that simple words do not have the same meanings that I have attributed to them for my entire life.
The trick is, these magic keywords are sprinkled throughout the text without any indication... so unless you know beforehand that the word "obvious" doesn't really mean "obvious", but rather "something which would be put together in exactly the same way by someone of average skill in the art with the same components at their disposal." (Note: That definition is from memory, rather than a factually accurate quote. It may be off but I cba to look it up.)
Not necessarily any old web developer, given a database of user information, would create a 1-click purchase system (thankfully!) and therefore it's arguably not obvious, in Legal English. Whether or not you agree, that's the logic. It may be internalized, bizarro-world, insane troll logic with little to no bearing on the real world but there is some sort of consistency to it, however twisted.
The story was told through a series of terminals - sometimes in seemingly random snippets of logs, sometimes in direct communications from the various AIs on the ship. It's your basic "Boy meets AIs, Aliens invade AIs' ship, AI becomes self-aware, AI uses boy to overthrow both the shackles of the alien invaders and the other AIs running various systems of the ship" story. It's actually pretty engaging,. I found myself looking forward to the next terminal even more than the action itself at some points.
All three and major mods are available (Free with a capital F) for mac, linux and PC at http://source.bungie.org/ and Marathon 2: Durandal - arguably the best of the bunch - is coming to XBLA, courtesy of Freeverse.
I mean, it's not like Games Workshop actually sells games. They sell miniatures.... Except for Blood Bowl, of course. That game is two shots of high-proof awesome.
Important note: Blood Bowl - along with Necromunda, Mordheim and some of the other Specialist Games which essentially got axed - did not require a huge investment in miniatures. One team per person is enough to play. A full collection (one of absolutely every possible legal team configuration) would probably be less than 200 miniatures (although I can't be arsed to figure it out exactly at the moment).
. . . I don't think it's a good move and I would be reluctant to see why we are going to that step.
Sentence structure important, it is. No with no sense make.
While I don't think it's what he intended, he's saying that he is unwilling to see the logic behind something he disagrees with. His words are either refreshingly candid or, much more likely, poorly phrased.
While I can understand that people can get caught off their guard and the occasional sentence may come out incorrectly, the guy's a state senator. Isn't the ability to formulate a comprehensible statement a rather crucial part of statesmanship?
Depending upon the GP's level of comfort, that may or may not actually be legible. blkbllr clearly knows his shit, so I'll defer to him on any details, but if you're looking for a slightly simpler - although less factually accurate - explanation:
Any invention is assumed to be made up of previously invented components, combined in some fashion. Part of the test to see if a particular combination of components is obvious is the TSM method described by the parent.
The previous practice is to try to tell if an average professional in the field ("one of ordinary skill in the art") who had the same components would put them together in the same way in order to solve the same problem. If so, the 'invention' is not patentable because it is obvious.
(Please let me know if that is too much of a simplification to be considered remotely accurate.)
1. How is it that this law firm gets paid for the privilege of drafting our laws? Before anyone hits the reply button, what makes you think this is some kind of pro-bono cause for the law firm? The likelihood this is some kind of charitable effort is miniscule. What makes you think citizens preferences will win over the corporate interests?
Mintz Levin is the same firm that made a boatload on a huge class-action suit against big tobacco a few years back. This is most certainly not charitable work. Not that it should be an absolute criteria of whether you agree with their approach or not, but they are doing this as a part of their business. That's what they do.
-The Law has been abstracted and complicated to such a degree that the above-average (slashdotters are certainly capable) is not qualified or considered capable of writing one.
I have this argument with my ex (who is about to graduate from Law School) all the time. I'm perpetually astounded that the average citizen (not to mention those below average) is responsible for adhering to a set of laws which is so convoluted that even our best and brightest have to train diligently and dramatically alter the very way in which they think just to be capable of arguing either side of an issue.
How the Hell is an average person ever expected to understand whether any action they take is lawful when its legality can only be determined after the fact, in court and based upon innumerable external variables up to and including the transitory whims of the judge? It's really completely insane.
..restrict damages that patent holders can receive for infringement lawsuits...
I really like the sound of that. It seems to me like it's probably the most overdue thing here. Patents are there to protect the little man from being run over by big companies. Not to allow big companies an extra avenue to milk millions out of the industry by patent-sitting. If the amount of money you could get from having patents was dramatically reduced, it's entirely possible some of the nonsense in the industry right now might start to thin a little.
The problem is, if they reduce the damages enough to protect the little guy, they're removing the deterrent that prevents the big guy from just flagrantly violating the patent and going on his merry, cash-strewn way.
Why wouldn't a big guy steal a little guy's idea if the penalty for doing so was less than the money they'd make from stealing it? Sort of like when auto companies compare the cost of a recall for a deficient car vs. the cost of getting sued by not issuing a recall and just letting people die.
The problem with that is does that make it ok to put up copyrighted stuff then? . ..
No, not at all. Whether the people who posted the copyrighted material did the wrong thing was never in question. They're not the ones getting sued, however, because they don't have the money to make it worthwhile.
The DMCA does, however, exempt YouTube from contributory or vicarious infringement charges when someone else did the actual infringement, as I understand it.
Remember who the suit is against. The users who are posting copyrighted works are not part of the suit. Viacom is claiming that YouTube is the one who is infringing against copyright. It seems pretty clear that the users are flagrantly violating copyright law, but they're not the ones in question.
I'm not a lawyer or anything, but it seems easier (from a tech perspective) for YouTube to control what's going on it's site than Viacom policing all sites. Even if they had a little button there that said, "flag this video for copyright infringement", that might be enough? again, I'm not a lawyer...
. . . Neither are the vast majority of people watching clips on YouTube. With copyright law being so labyrinthine and thoroughly beyond the understanding of the average person, how is a reporting system supposed to work accurately? "Flag this video as inappropriate" is easy by comparison. Viewers can see "nekkid_folks_getting_it_on.mpg" and identify it as porn. The same does not hold true for copyrighted material - even when being monitored by the copyright owners themselves, as proven by Viacom's false positives.
Google's response accurately states that, under the DMCA, it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to identify infringing material and report it to the hosting site.
As far as which is easier, it's a complete wash, I think. Viacom has an essentially infinite number of sites to monitor and YouTube has an infinite number of copyrights to filter. Neither solution is going to result in thorough, timely, accurate filtering.
The fact that they make money should have absolutely nothing to do with it, since the DMCA does not say, "if you make money, this clause does not apply."
That's not part of the DMCA, but that is a factor in determining whether use of copyrighted material is a vicarious or contributory infringement.
Rather than being part of the safe harbor clause, money is part of the definition of whether something is infringement or not. The financial benefit is important on a different level of the issue and is still relevant.
I am pretty sure YouTube works on a reporting system for decency issues.
I'm concerned about the ability of YouTube to filter indecent content as weakening their case as well, but I think there's one saving grace.
Porn is easy to spot. Copyright infringement is not.
Copyright law is far beyond the capacity of the average (or even above average) person. We send our best and brightest off for 3 years of indoctrination in order to have enough of a grasp of the issue that they can argue any particular possible case either way, depending upon who they are representing. Hopefully the court will be able to understand that YouTube is really completely incapable of accurately filtering copyright infringement despite the fact that they are entirely filtering indecent content.
Excellent post, but I think you missed one option, bolded below:
The law: Copyright violator puts material on website without proper rights to do so. Copyright holder complains to website operator. Website operator immediately takes down material or files a counter-claim explaining why this is not an infringement. Courts, whatever follow.
To be honest, I can't recall who, if anyone, followed that correctly or incorrectly in this case. Just a small note on the process.
The real point, however, is what disturbs me.
Viacom's complaint is exactly what's stated in the headline--that they CAN'T POSSIBLY track all the content they want taken down. They want to shift the burden of policing to the website operator.
IANAL but I have spent a lot of time discussing the details of this with a 3rd-year law student with a copyright class fresh in her mind.
My primary argument is that the website operator can't possibly police all the 3rd party content they handle either. If this does get taken to Congress rather than the courts, are we looking at a possible amendment which will effectively kill the notion of user-generated content. A site like slashdot would suddenly be legally responsible for accurately reviewing every comment posted, if you take the approach to its logical extreme. Currently there are different standards for search engines vs. hosting services but any amendment could even blur those lines further as well.
I wish I could say that I have enough faith in our legislative branch to see the obvious logistical impossibility of forcing every website operator to constantly monitor the tubes. . . well. . . You can see how well that will turn out.
1. There are obviously beings who are born sociopaths, which no amount of positive socialization or negative reinforcement can temper. 2. There are obviously beings who are born moral/ethical, which no amount of negative socialization can remove.
How are these two assertions obvious?
You can't prove something as fact ("He's bad and no amount of positive or negative reinforcement can temper that") with negative proof ("That's true because he's always been bad and always will be."). All it takes is one good choice by your 'bad' person and this is proven to be false. No matter how many bad choices he makes, it is still just a theory which hasn't been disproven yet.
Additionally, there is no way of observing whether a person is making immoral choices through their actions. There's always the matter of doubt as to whether the person was actively deciding to do what was bad or simply trying to do what was good and failing.
Saying that bad brain chemistry absolves someone from any responsibility for any particular action is a dangerous thing. Similarly, people who make good decisions deserve praise for their decision itself, rather than praise for being the puppet of 'good' brain chemistry.
Outcome != probability. I, personally, prefer to think of biology as a factor in probability - with bad biology increasing the likelihood that a bad person will make bad choices, but each individual making their own decision whenever presented with a choice. Practically speaking, sometimes the odds are skewed to the point where they're insignificant enough to call it obvious in everyday conversation, but not for idealogical proofs.
Slashdot Mirror
As one of the people whose entire jobs is frequently (but not always) centered around using Adobe apps, I'd respectfully disagree.
System level stuff is important. Using InDesign on my mac and then switching over to InDesign on my PC, I'm constantly reminded of how blatantly deceptive and outright evil Windows' font management can be. Same thing applies to lots of other little issues - particularly color management, open/save dialogues, troubleshooting, etc... It's a million little things but can they add up to a significant loss in productivity when working on a platform you're not as comfortable with. I remember a PC-savvy friend who had to take a Photoshop class on a mac. He was constantly dumbfounded that he had to go to View|Screen Mode in order to cover the desktop. He simply couldn't deal with the fact that each image was in its own window, for some reason. I don't get the issue myself (since the ugly gray background covers up any other applications and just gets in my way when switching between them), but it's just another anecdotal example.
As far as using their own OS as a single incorporated platform, they've got enough other issues to make it unfeasible. Where do you think people using Adobe products get their content? All too often, from people using Office. So, their hypothetical distribution has to include an office suite which can accurately and correctly render Office documents - not too tough, you may say but yet more work (particularly when you consider the aforementioned cross-platform font issues which need to be accommodated for and Word's lovely revisions features, support for a gazillion different versions, etc...). From there, you start taking on a million other currently hypothetical applications (none of which are actually a part of Adobe's core business) and end up with a bloated beastly conglomeration which would be nightmarish to develop and support.
While I'm sure we all share the utmost respect for your memories of imaginary deeds, I personally disagree with the notion that the level of inconvenience is the ultimate level of difficulty. I'd rather enjoy a brief, challenging scenario/quest/mission/run/raid/whatever than a lengthy, tedious, repetitive one.
While the atmospheric value of lengthy and demanding preparations is clearly illustrated by your post... does that actually make it fun (with fun being the traditional reason for playing games)? For some, sure. For others, not so much.
It's the simplest and most overused method of scaling difficulty. It doesn't matter whether you're walking for hours to get to the right zone (or back for supplies), collecting hundreds of drops for a recipe or just killing ten rats repeatedly until you can get to the level where you're magically allowed to kill ten dire rats. I am truly saddened by the fact that difficulty is most typically made "hardcore" through excessive annoyance.
It's still purely artificial inflation - exactly the type that you claim to despise. I don't care whether you consider it "hardcore" or not, there's plenty of room to accommodate multiple levels of commitment to imaginary universes.
While appealing, I think there's actually more to it than that. Off the top of my head, I'd add responsibility to the list.
Publishing information which has no particular value and puts someone's safety at risk - even though it may be factually correct - is irresponsible and not an example of protected journalism. By your own, sole standard of "factually correct", a simple list of names and their SSNs would qualify as journalism and therefore deserve protection.
I'm sure the next person who comments could come up with yet another entirely reasonable criteria. And then the one after that...
You can see where this is going, right?
FYI, You're confusing the word 'priviledge' with the word 'privilege'.
The quote in TFS implies a similar issue. This is not as much a monumental success for blog[i]gers[/i] as it is for blog[i]ging[/i].
The quote says that text is possibly protected, regardless of format. While I approve wholeheartedly of that notion, it also implies that for any text to be considered protected as journalism, it needs to meet an nebulously-defined standard of "content and intention." I also happen to agree with that as well but I can see how others might not share that opinion. Most bloggers, even after this decision, still fall under the same unprotected, non-informative, masturbatory umbrella as before - the medium itself just got a little official recognition.
First quest? Sack Ten Quarterbacks.
Great, another tedious grind.
Thieves who have to count out victims on their fingers are assumed to be a bit slower and, therefore, much less dangerous.
(Ok, so it was a poor attempt after the binary reply above but that's a tough act to follow.)
Naturally I point out the emphasis and manage to screw it up. Oops.
I actually agree with your point. I personally believe this should never have been patented. I was just playing devil's advocate (no pun intended).
I think that the legal definition of the word 'obvious' does leave at least some room for it to be argued, however flimsy. I'm just saying that the people behind this are not quite as far out in left field as it seems at first glance. They're playing the game in accordance with the internal logic. It just happens to be abstracted to the point where it looks completely ridiculous unless you have all the information - at which point it only looks mostly ridiculous.
The whole thing is still a big stinking pile of crap... just a slightly less aromatic pile than it sounds to the casual observer, relatively speaking. Not much of a consolation, perhaps, but there you have it.
(My emphasis added above.)
One thing I've learned in lengthy 'discussions' (... and by 'discussions', I really mean 'arguments') with a group of law grads is that legal definitions of words are a very limited subset of the real world definition. Many words mean exactly one specific thing. No matter how much nuance or implication you can attach to a word in the English language, these things do not apply in Legal English. I can't tell you how many times I simply sat there, agape, as these people were explaining to me that simple words do not have the same meanings that I have attributed to them for my entire life.
The trick is, these magic keywords are sprinkled throughout the text without any indication... so unless you know beforehand that the word "obvious" doesn't really mean "obvious", but rather "something which would be put together in exactly the same way by someone of average skill in the art with the same components at their disposal." (Note: That definition is from memory, rather than a factually accurate quote. It may be off but I cba to look it up.)
Not necessarily any old web developer, given a database of user information, would create a 1-click purchase system (thankfully!) and therefore it's arguably not obvious, in Legal English. Whether or not you agree, that's the logic. It may be internalized, bizarro-world, insane troll logic with little to no bearing on the real world but there is some sort of consistency to it, however twisted.
I still think we need a [+1 Tick Reference] moderation option.
And just in case you want to see some of the storyline he's talking about. . .
http://marathon.bungie.org/Story/
The story was told through a series of terminals - sometimes in seemingly random snippets of logs, sometimes in direct communications from the various AIs on the ship. It's your basic "Boy meets AIs, Aliens invade AIs' ship, AI becomes self-aware, AI uses boy to overthrow both the shackles of the alien invaders and the other AIs running various systems of the ship" story. It's actually pretty engaging,. I found myself looking forward to the next terminal even more than the action itself at some points.
All three and major mods are available (Free with a capital F) for mac, linux and PC at http://source.bungie.org/ and Marathon 2: Durandal - arguably the best of the bunch - is coming to XBLA, courtesy of Freeverse.
Important note: Blood Bowl - along with Necromunda, Mordheim and some of the other Specialist Games which essentially got axed - did not require a huge investment in miniatures. One team per person is enough to play. A full collection (one of absolutely every possible legal team configuration) would probably be less than 200 miniatures (although I can't be arsed to figure it out exactly at the moment).
A misread title gives you, ' Altruism Reversed in Mice at MIT Lab'.
Sounds sort of like most of the people I know at MIT, actually...
Have you ever timed the Diablo 2 cinematics?
Sentence structure important, it is. No with no sense make.
While I don't think it's what he intended, he's saying that he is unwilling to see the logic behind something he disagrees with. His words are either refreshingly candid or, much more likely, poorly phrased.
While I can understand that people can get caught off their guard and the occasional sentence may come out incorrectly, the guy's a state senator. Isn't the ability to formulate a comprehensible statement a rather crucial part of statesmanship?
Oratory really is a lost art, it seems.
(Please let me know if that is too much of a simplification to be considered remotely accurate.)
Mintz Levin is the same firm that made a boatload on a huge class-action suit against big tobacco a few years back. This is most certainly not charitable work. Not that it should be an absolute criteria of whether you agree with their approach or not, but they are doing this as a part of their business. That's what they do.
I have this argument with my ex (who is about to graduate from Law School) all the time. I'm perpetually astounded that the average citizen (not to mention those below average) is responsible for adhering to a set of laws which is so convoluted that even our best and brightest have to train diligently and dramatically alter the very way in which they think just to be capable of arguing either side of an issue.
How the Hell is an average person ever expected to understand whether any action they take is lawful when its legality can only be determined after the fact, in court and based upon innumerable external variables up to and including the transitory whims of the judge? It's really completely insane.
The problem is, if they reduce the damages enough to protect the little guy, they're removing the deterrent that prevents the big guy from just flagrantly violating the patent and going on his merry, cash-strewn way.
Why wouldn't a big guy steal a little guy's idea if the penalty for doing so was less than the money they'd make from stealing it? Sort of like when auto companies compare the cost of a recall for a deficient car vs. the cost of getting sued by not issuing a recall and just letting people die.
No, not at all. Whether the people who posted the copyrighted material did the wrong thing was never in question. They're not the ones getting sued, however, because they don't have the money to make it worthwhile.
The DMCA does, however, exempt YouTube from contributory or vicarious infringement charges when someone else did the actual infringement, as I understand it.
Remember who the suit is against. The users who are posting copyrighted works are not part of the suit. Viacom is claiming that YouTube is the one who is infringing against copyright. It seems pretty clear that the users are flagrantly violating copyright law, but they're not the ones in question.
Could have been anywhere. Big money has a mighty voice. . .
It's a Mass. state holiday that gives natives an excuse not to go downtown during the madness that is the Boston Marathon.
. . . Neither are the vast majority of people watching clips on YouTube. With copyright law being so labyrinthine and thoroughly beyond the understanding of the average person, how is a reporting system supposed to work accurately? "Flag this video as inappropriate" is easy by comparison. Viewers can see "nekkid_folks_getting_it_on.mpg" and identify it as porn. The same does not hold true for copyrighted material - even when being monitored by the copyright owners themselves, as proven by Viacom's false positives.
Google's response accurately states that, under the DMCA, it is the responsibility of the copyright holder to identify infringing material and report it to the hosting site.
As far as which is easier, it's a complete wash, I think. Viacom has an essentially infinite number of sites to monitor and YouTube has an infinite number of copyrights to filter. Neither solution is going to result in thorough, timely, accurate filtering.
That's not part of the DMCA, but that is a factor in determining whether use of copyrighted material is a vicarious or contributory infringement.
Rather than being part of the safe harbor clause, money is part of the definition of whether something is infringement or not. The financial benefit is important on a different level of the issue and is still relevant.
I'm concerned about the ability of YouTube to filter indecent content as weakening their case as well, but I think there's one saving grace.
Porn is easy to spot. Copyright infringement is not.
Copyright law is far beyond the capacity of the average (or even above average) person. We send our best and brightest off for 3 years of indoctrination in order to have enough of a grasp of the issue that they can argue any particular possible case either way, depending upon who they are representing. Hopefully the court will be able to understand that YouTube is really completely incapable of accurately filtering copyright infringement despite the fact that they are entirely filtering indecent content.
To be honest, I can't recall who, if anyone, followed that correctly or incorrectly in this case. Just a small note on the process.
The real point, however, is what disturbs me.
IANAL but I have spent a lot of time discussing the details of this with a 3rd-year law student with a copyright class fresh in her mind.
My primary argument is that the website operator can't possibly police all the 3rd party content they handle either. If this does get taken to Congress rather than the courts, are we looking at a possible amendment which will effectively kill the notion of user-generated content. A site like slashdot would suddenly be legally responsible for accurately reviewing every comment posted, if you take the approach to its logical extreme. Currently there are different standards for search engines vs. hosting services but any amendment could even blur those lines further as well.
I wish I could say that I have enough faith in our legislative branch to see the obvious logistical impossibility of forcing every website operator to constantly monitor the tubes. . . well. . . You can see how well that will turn out.
How are these two assertions obvious?
You can't prove something as fact ("He's bad and no amount of positive or negative reinforcement can temper that") with negative proof ("That's true because he's always been bad and always will be."). All it takes is one good choice by your 'bad' person and this is proven to be false. No matter how many bad choices he makes, it is still just a theory which hasn't been disproven yet.
Additionally, there is no way of observing whether a person is making immoral choices through their actions. There's always the matter of doubt as to whether the person was actively deciding to do what was bad or simply trying to do what was good and failing.
Saying that bad brain chemistry absolves someone from any responsibility for any particular action is a dangerous thing. Similarly, people who make good decisions deserve praise for their decision itself, rather than praise for being the puppet of 'good' brain chemistry.
Outcome != probability.
I, personally, prefer to think of biology as a factor in probability - with bad biology increasing the likelihood that a bad person will make bad choices, but each individual making their own decision whenever presented with a choice. Practically speaking, sometimes the odds are skewed to the point where they're insignificant enough to call it obvious in everyday conversation, but not for idealogical proofs.