Of course, the problem with your analysis is that the Supreme Court has interpreted "the Heads of Departments" language to refer to departments with cabinet level heads, i.e., the Department of Commerce (See Freytag). The director of the PTO is not the head of a department in the Constitutional sense, because the PTO is part of the Department of Commerce.
Last time I checked, hearsay was not admissible as evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. FRE 801 and 802. We can rely on Clark Peterson's statement that he had a conversation with "someone" at WotC. But the contents of that conversation are pure hearsay.
The reason it's not admissible is that there's no way to gauge the reliability of the hearsay. As we've discussed before, we don't know who provided information about the GSL and the OGL spiking. We don't know that person's level of familiarity with the GSL. Clark Peterson, your primary source, won't reveal his source (which makes Mr. Peterson a secondary source for the contents of the GSL). And moreover, your primary source has been urging people to withhold judgment until all the information was available.
And I'm not accusing you of suppressing anything. I'm simply pointing out that your presentation is one side of the story. There's another side, that in all fairness, should be presented with it. That's not trying to hinder the real truth from coming out. That's presenting all the facts. If you're right, and WotC is going to adopt an "us or them" approach, then that will come out in time. If, however, some miscommunication has occurred, then what you've been reporting is not the real truth.
Your problem is that you're not willing to give WotC enough rope to hang themselves.:) I'm content to wait until I have confirmation of their misconduct before I pull the lever (as it were).
As long as you continue posting one sided views based on speculation and conjecture as if they were God's own truth, I'll keep coming back here and posting the facts that are available. I'm not a fan of relying on hearsay and innuendo. It's bad for business.
Think of it as keeping you honest.
That said, my patience is not infinite, and is beginning to wear thin. I'm personally inclined to give them till Friday, but I can understand that some folks are neither as optimistic nor as accepting of human failing as I am. As they say, never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and miscommunication.
I should be so lucky as to be a shill for WotC. It'd probably mean my job would be more fun. But I'm not. Nor am I an eager fanboy. I am a person who thinks that the truth is important, though. I don't like seeing people make decisions without all of the facts. Too often, that kind of thing gets others hurt. So it really pisses me off to see people propagating rumors about others which are based on less than a full understanding of the facts. As I see it, neither you, nor I, have all the facts. Until we do, we shouldn't be making accusations. But as I said, as long as you're going to present one side of the story, I'm happy to keep coming back here and posting the other.
WotC solicited questions regarding its policy from its own posters and from posters at ENWorld. WotC has promised answers to those questions will be posted soon.
So wait, you're allowed to make inferences based on information from outside the threads on enworld, but I'm not allowed to use other statements to make my own inferences? That's absurd.
The information about the d20 STL may not be dispositive of the issues concerning what the GSL says about making OGL product. But it is certainly relevant to the question of how well understood the GSL is among the people working at WotC. Mr. Rouse's lack of familiarity with its terms is not necessarily indicative of secrecy. More likely, it is indicative of a lack of familiarity with the document. If Scott Rouse, WotC's Senior Brand Manager is not familiar with the full import and terms of the GSL, then how can anyone be certain that the person talking with Clark Peterson was familiar with the full import and terms of the GSL. Hell, let's assume that you were correct when you said Clark Peterson spoke with Scott. Given that we already have evidence that Scott Rouse does not know how the GSL plays with the d20 STL, what evidence to YOU have that he understands what the GSL says about the OGL.
WotC can't "put one over" on people like me, because people like me are withholding judgment until the facts are out. Once I'm in possession of all the relevant facts, I'm more than capable of taking my dollars elsewhere. But unlike some people, I'm going to wait until I'm sure that WotC's representatives actually know what they're talking about. Mr. Rouse received a number of questions from the folks at Enworld late yesterday. Because he has prior professional commitments this week, he won't be able to answer them until later this week. Once those questions are answered, I'll be more than happy to break out the torches and pitchforks (and cancel my 4e pre-orders), if its warranted. But until then, there's insufficient evidence upon which to act.
You don't know WHO Clark Peterson spoke to. You're jumping to conclusions that as yet, are utterly unsupported by facts. Yes, the evidence presented so far points to some kind of termination of the d20 STL. It also points to some kind of provision to prevent publishers from simultaneously producing content for 3.xe and 4e. However, what's not clear, and where there's an absolute dearth of evidence, is whether the basis for that is the expiration of the d20 STL.
If you look at Mr. Rouse's comments in this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=211767), you'll see that he is uncertain about the full effect of the 4e GSL. Initially, Mr. Rouse said:
There will be no d20 STL in 4e but the d20 system trademark will still be used on our books. and other products as a mark of compatibility. This is what I said that I believe the OP was referring to.
There is no "without cause" termination clause in the d20 STL. The only way for us to stop it's use is to find cause to terminate through a violation of the community standards for example or b) update the license and essentially nullify it's use at a certain date e.g. version v.x this license will expire in January 2008. We have never stated that we would do b).
Even if we did kill the license and stop future use past products would likely be grandfathered in and allowed to continue to be sold using the mark as they were legitimately made under the license.
Go back and read the STL and let me know if you disagree. The OP should of done that or consult a lawyer before stating opinion as fact.
Shortly thereafter, he came into possession of additional information, requiring a retraction:
Well as we have announced more about the GSL I stand corrected. Use of the d20 STL will end on June 6th 2008 as it will be replaced by a d20 GSL. The books and PDFs with the old red and black logo will need to be updated without the logo after 2008.
It's pretty clear that the precise terms of the GSL are not yet fully understood by WotC's brand managment personnel. I suspect this is because the 4e team was so excited to finally get the eagerly awaited license back from legal that they announced before they understood all the terms. As a result, miscommunication is occurring. Until Mr. Rouse and WotC's lawyers have a chance to discuss all of the terms and confirm that they mean what they say and reach the intended result, statements from WotC personnel aren't necessarily accurate.
In my response, I never referred to "some" publisher. I think I accurately described Clark Peterson's involvement. He was communicating with WotC, as the head of Necromancer Games, a publishing company. There is nothing disingenuous in stating that he is, in fact, a publisher. The fact that he is an attorney may, or may not, add to his credibility among certain audiences. Indeed, his status as an attorney may have suggested lines of questioning to him that may not have occurred to another publisher. Moreover, the individual responding to those questions may not have been fully prepared to answer.
I promise I'm not stalking you (for those arriving late to the party, Mxyzplk and I have been discussing this on Enworld for a bit).
Looking back at Clark Peterson's post about the source for his information, he did not indicate that it had come from Scott Rouse (WotC's Senior Brand Manager). Instead, Clark says "By the way, this info was from Wizards." I'm sure Clark was doing his best to obtain accurate information. However, we do not currently know who was on the other end of the phone and the extent of that person's familiarity with the actual terms of the GSL.
So while its true that Mr. Peterson knew what he was talking about when he asked his questions, it's not yet clear whether the person with whom he was speaking was fully informed when giving the answers to those questions. Moreover, it's not entirely clear that WotC as an entity had fully considered the potential impact of such a decision on publishers who do not currently make products under the d20 STL. Based on more recent posts from Linnae Foster (one of WotC's Brand Managers), it appears that one of the provisions WotC is relying on to enforce this move is the termination clause of the d20 STL. This at least suggests that the goal is not to force OGL publishers into the GSL, but to require those seeking to profit from 4e to let go of 3.xe.
Sure sounds terrible, doesn't it. Of course, Wizards of the Coast did NOT make the announcement Mxyzplk claims they did.
Instead, a publisher posted on one of the www.enworld.org forums that he had had a conversation with someone at WotC and that this was his understanding of what the new license does. The individuals at WotC who responded did make comments that suggest that such a policy may be part of their new GSL, however there have also been indications that they are backing away from that position. Of course, since no one has actually seen the new license, no one knows precisely what is permitted and prohibited.
An announcement is expected today, which should clarify the issue.
The trick here is that over the past 15 years, the Supreme Court has been cutting back on Congress' ability to meddle in the affairs of the States. One way that has been done is strictly applying the Constitution's rules for when Congress can act. Formerly, one of Congress' favorite tricks was to use its power to regulate commerce between the states to impact anything that had moved or could move in interstate commerce. The Supreme Court trimmed that back by actually requiring the regulated behavior be connected to interstate commerce.
They also pared back Congress' ability to enact laws under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. Section 5 provides that "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." One of the things Congress had done with Section 5 was to abrogate the States' sovereign immunity against certain kinds of suits. The Supremes killed that technique by requiring that Congress first demonstrate that the regulation was designed to remedy long-standing invidious discrimination. Only if Congress shows that the abrogation of sovereign immunity is required to address long-standing, invidious discrimination will the Constitution permit a suit against the state.
Clearly, Congress hasn't been able to show a longstanding history of invidious discrimination.
Nevertheless, I'm not sure that the statute is necessary to reach the desired goal. The 5th amendment prohibits the state from taking property without due compensation. It has been incorporated through the 14th Amendment to apply to State governments. If the state is taking your IP, I would think that you'd have a cause of action for a violation of the 5th. And fortunately, you don't need Congressional permission to sue your state for violating your constitutional rights.
1) I'm not sure how relevant it is either. Apparently, the young men were standing on top of a railing around the enclosure. There's been some suggestion that they may have been throwing things at the tiger or dangling into the enclosure. Clearly, they did something to provoke the tiger, since she hasn't done anything like this before . . . .
2) It's unlikely that his possibly criminal activity will reduce his damages. Realistically, to prove negligence based on criminal conduct, you've got to show two things. First, you have to show that the law exists to protect a certain class of people from a certain type of harm. Then, you have to show that you fall into that class and that the harm is of the type the law was intended to prevent. Here, I think the anti-harassment laws were intended to protect the endangered species, rather than the human beings. Although, once you've pissed off a tiger, you've become an endangered species.
I'm aware of the distinction, but, like you, I'm not sure which one California uses. I didn't want to bog down my comment with a brief digression that would only interest law geeks. As you said, the net result here, probably the same.
That's why there are lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit.
The lawyer for the dead kid will push for the full amount. The Zoo's lawyer will argue that the kid was more negligent than the zoo and therefore, his family should get nothing.
Sadly, in this case, I think the zoo's negligence is greater. They're just "lucky" that there is a way to blame the kid at all. Imagine the response if the tiger had jumped out and mauled a 1st grade class.
Yes, the zoo was negligent. It should have known the safe parameters for a tiger enclosure.
However, in the law, there's a doctrine called comparative (or contributory negligence). This means that where two people are negligent and one gets hurt, his or her recovery is reduced by his or her own proportion of the fault.
F'rex: A jury looks at this situation and says "Boy, the zoo sure was negligent, they should have built a higher wall. But boy, did this guy act stupidly, entering the enclosure and taunting that tiger. We're going to split the fault between them. And his total economic worth (over the rest of his life) was $800,000 (since he clearly wasn't that bright)."
Then the judge comes along and says--"okay, the award is $800,000.00. But the moron was 50% at fault. Therefore, his family gets $400,000.00."*
* Actually, in some states, he gets nothing, because his fault was not less than that of the other idiot.
But you can't argue that the zoo's not at least partially at fault. It clearly had an enclosure that wasn't adequately designed to keep the tigers in. The fact that the person who got hurt provoked the tiger doesn't lessen the fact that the enclosure failed to do what it was supposed to do.
Sadly, these organizations tend to ally themselves with the "conservative" party in the United States. They also tend to self-designate as "conservative."
And frankly, I've seen "conservatives" take the principle of "personal responsibility" to the point of blaming people rear-ended in car accidents for having made the decision to get out on the highway. Personal responsibility is a great way to convince people that the victims of your conduct don't deserve to be compensated./rant
You're entirely overlooking the deterrent purposes of penal punishment. The punishments for armed robbery are higher because armed robberies are more likely to turn into murders than spamming. By punishing armed robberies more severely than, say unarmed robberies, the state is saying "this is bad behavior. Don't do it!"
While we can argue about whether deterrence actually works, that's the purpose. It has nothing to do with thought crimes. It has to do with serving the purpose of criminal punishment--preventing future crimes.
The four basic principles behind our system of criminal punishments are: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Retribution is an easy one. It's society's need to inflict suffering on the person who hurt it. Rehabilitation is pretty simple too. Take the broken person and try to fix them. The last two are a little more complex. Incapacitation works by taking the known criminal and diverting them away from society at large. If the criminal is locked in an 8'x 8' steel box, he or she cannot hurt anyone on the outside. Deterrence is simply the use of the criminal's example to convince others not to engage in the same or similar conduct.
Finally, punishing criminals for what they're thinking when they commit a crime is nothing new. It's what has always differentiated between murder and manslaughter. A murder is a homicide committed with "malice aforethought." It's punished more harshly solely based on what the murderer was thinking when he committed the crime. That's not a thought crime. That's recognizing that people who mean to kill are more dangerous than those who accidentally do so.
I'm well aware of the felony murder rule, you arrogant prick.
But the point is that the risk of harm to others is much greater in the case of an armed robbery than in a spamming. Surely, you'll concede such a simple point.
Since a part of the purpose of criminally punishing people is to deter others from engaging in the same or similar conduct, does it not make sense to punish more severely the conduct that, if emulated, poses a substantial risk of escalating into a murder?
But perhaps my point was too subtle for you.
Crimes with guns==dangerous and bad. Crimes with email==bad.
Hmmm. What is "the one that poses a substantial and unavoidable chance of someone getting killed when it all goes south," Alex.
Come on. Wrap your head around this: Armed robberies often involve people getting shot and killed. Spam, to the best of my knowledge never killed anyone.
And in most (94% or higher) states, the only death qualified felonies (if any) are homicides and rape (especially the rape of children). Spam is simply not in the same ballpark as other crimes.
Now that's not to say that I don't think a good public flogging wouldn't be in order, on the way to the prison . . . . But the death penalty for what is essentially a victimless crime? No.
--AC
In the interest of fairness, I should mention that under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, it is a capital offense to grow pot. To be death qualified, you've got to grow lots and lots and lots of pot (like 200,000 plants). But that shouldn't be the law either.
Actually, from TFA, I get the impression that he nabbed a total of $5900 worth of property from several different users.
Also, its theft because he's taking something (data) for which someone (the other users) paid value. In the process, he gets value for which he did not pay, and also denies the others the value that they paid.
Sure, an admin can create a new virtual item, but that doesn't balance things between him and his victims.
From the summary, it's clear that the individual was fraudulently obtaining access information to other people's accounts. He was then using that information to access their accounts and "steal" data for which they had paid real money.
As a result, he obtained the value of the data without paying for it. Moreover, he also prevented his victims from enjoying the value of the data they'd purchased.
This is really a pretty simple wire fraud situation. The only interesting part about it is that instead of stealing money out of a bank account (or obtaining a deed to a piece of property), he's stealing virtual furniture that someone else already paid for. The net effect, however, is the same. The victim is denied the benefit of something for which he or she paid actual money.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the problem with your analysis is that the Supreme Court has interpreted "the Heads of Departments" language to refer to departments with cabinet level heads, i.e., the Department of Commerce (See Freytag). The director of the PTO is not the head of a department in the Constitutional sense, because the PTO is part of the Department of Commerce.
--AC
Last time I checked, hearsay was not admissible as evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. FRE 801 and 802. We can rely on Clark Peterson's statement that he had a conversation with "someone" at WotC. But the contents of that conversation are pure hearsay.
:) I'm content to wait until I have confirmation of their misconduct before I pull the lever (as it were).
The reason it's not admissible is that there's no way to gauge the reliability of the hearsay. As we've discussed before, we don't know who provided information about the GSL and the OGL spiking. We don't know that person's level of familiarity with the GSL. Clark Peterson, your primary source, won't reveal his source (which makes Mr. Peterson a secondary source for the contents of the GSL). And moreover, your primary source has been urging people to withhold judgment until all the information was available.
And I'm not accusing you of suppressing anything. I'm simply pointing out that your presentation is one side of the story. There's another side, that in all fairness, should be presented with it. That's not trying to hinder the real truth from coming out. That's presenting all the facts. If you're right, and WotC is going to adopt an "us or them" approach, then that will come out in time. If, however, some miscommunication has occurred, then what you've been reporting is not the real truth.
Your problem is that you're not willing to give WotC enough rope to hang themselves.
--AC
As long as you continue posting one sided views based on speculation and conjecture as if they were God's own truth, I'll keep coming back here and posting the facts that are available. I'm not a fan of relying on hearsay and innuendo. It's bad for business.
Think of it as keeping you honest.
That said, my patience is not infinite, and is beginning to wear thin. I'm personally inclined to give them till Friday, but I can understand that some folks are neither as optimistic nor as accepting of human failing as I am. As they say, never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence and miscommunication.
I should be so lucky as to be a shill for WotC. It'd probably mean my job would be more fun. But I'm not. Nor am I an eager fanboy. I am a person who thinks that the truth is important, though. I don't like seeing people make decisions without all of the facts. Too often, that kind of thing gets others hurt. So it really pisses me off to see people propagating rumors about others which are based on less than a full understanding of the facts. As I see it, neither you, nor I, have all the facts. Until we do, we shouldn't be making accusations. But as I said, as long as you're going to present one side of the story, I'm happy to keep coming back here and posting the other.
--AC
WotC solicited questions regarding its policy from its own posters and from posters at ENWorld. WotC has promised answers to those questions will be posted soon.
--AC
So wait, you're allowed to make inferences based on information from outside the threads on enworld, but I'm not allowed to use other statements to make my own inferences? That's absurd.
The information about the d20 STL may not be dispositive of the issues concerning what the GSL says about making OGL product. But it is certainly relevant to the question of how well understood the GSL is among the people working at WotC. Mr. Rouse's lack of familiarity with its terms is not necessarily indicative of secrecy. More likely, it is indicative of a lack of familiarity with the document. If Scott Rouse, WotC's Senior Brand Manager is not familiar with the full import and terms of the GSL, then how can anyone be certain that the person talking with Clark Peterson was familiar with the full import and terms of the GSL. Hell, let's assume that you were correct when you said Clark Peterson spoke with Scott. Given that we already have evidence that Scott Rouse does not know how the GSL plays with the d20 STL, what evidence to YOU have that he understands what the GSL says about the OGL.
WotC can't "put one over" on people like me, because people like me are withholding judgment until the facts are out. Once I'm in possession of all the relevant facts, I'm more than capable of taking my dollars elsewhere. But unlike some people, I'm going to wait until I'm sure that WotC's representatives actually know what they're talking about. Mr. Rouse received a number of questions from the folks at Enworld late yesterday. Because he has prior professional commitments this week, he won't be able to answer them until later this week. Once those questions are answered, I'll be more than happy to break out the torches and pitchforks (and cancel my 4e pre-orders), if its warranted. But until then, there's insufficient evidence upon which to act.
--AC
You don't know WHO Clark Peterson spoke to. You're jumping to conclusions that as yet, are utterly unsupported by facts. Yes, the evidence presented so far points to some kind of termination of the d20 STL. It also points to some kind of provision to prevent publishers from simultaneously producing content for 3.xe and 4e. However, what's not clear, and where there's an absolute dearth of evidence, is whether the basis for that is the expiration of the d20 STL.
If you look at Mr. Rouse's comments in this thread (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=211767), you'll see that he is uncertain about the full effect of the 4e GSL. Initially, Mr. Rouse said:
Shortly thereafter, he came into possession of additional information, requiring a retraction:
It's pretty clear that the precise terms of the GSL are not yet fully understood by WotC's brand managment personnel. I suspect this is because the 4e team was so excited to finally get the eagerly awaited license back from legal that they announced before they understood all the terms. As a result, miscommunication is occurring. Until Mr. Rouse and WotC's lawyers have a chance to discuss all of the terms and confirm that they mean what they say and reach the intended result, statements from WotC personnel aren't necessarily accurate.
--AC
A further reply is necessary.
In my response, I never referred to "some" publisher. I think I accurately described Clark Peterson's involvement. He was communicating with WotC, as the head of Necromancer Games, a publishing company. There is nothing disingenuous in stating that he is, in fact, a publisher. The fact that he is an attorney may, or may not, add to his credibility among certain audiences. Indeed, his status as an attorney may have suggested lines of questioning to him that may not have occurred to another publisher. Moreover, the individual responding to those questions may not have been fully prepared to answer.
--AC
Hi Mxyzplk,
I promise I'm not stalking you (for those arriving late to the party, Mxyzplk and I have been discussing this on Enworld for a bit).
Looking back at Clark Peterson's post about the source for his information, he did not indicate that it had come from Scott Rouse (WotC's Senior Brand Manager). Instead, Clark says "By the way, this info was from Wizards." I'm sure Clark was doing his best to obtain accurate information. However, we do not currently know who was on the other end of the phone and the extent of that person's familiarity with the actual terms of the GSL.
So while its true that Mr. Peterson knew what he was talking about when he asked his questions, it's not yet clear whether the person with whom he was speaking was fully informed when giving the answers to those questions. Moreover, it's not entirely clear that WotC as an entity had fully considered the potential impact of such a decision on publishers who do not currently make products under the d20 STL. Based on more recent posts from Linnae Foster (one of WotC's Brand Managers), it appears that one of the provisions WotC is relying on to enforce this move is the termination clause of the d20 STL. This at least suggests that the goal is not to force OGL publishers into the GSL, but to require those seeking to profit from 4e to let go of 3.xe.
--AC
Sure sounds terrible, doesn't it. Of course, Wizards of the Coast did NOT make the announcement Mxyzplk claims they did.
Instead, a publisher posted on one of the www.enworld.org forums that he had had a conversation with someone at WotC and that this was his understanding of what the new license does. The individuals at WotC who responded did make comments that suggest that such a policy may be part of their new GSL, however there have also been indications that they are backing away from that position. Of course, since no one has actually seen the new license, no one knows precisely what is permitted and prohibited.
An announcement is expected today, which should clarify the issue.
--AC
The trick here is that over the past 15 years, the Supreme Court has been cutting back on Congress' ability to meddle in the affairs of the States. One way that has been done is strictly applying the Constitution's rules for when Congress can act. Formerly, one of Congress' favorite tricks was to use its power to regulate commerce between the states to impact anything that had moved or could move in interstate commerce. The Supreme Court trimmed that back by actually requiring the regulated behavior be connected to interstate commerce.
They also pared back Congress' ability to enact laws under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. Section 5 provides that "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." One of the things Congress had done with Section 5 was to abrogate the States' sovereign immunity against certain kinds of suits. The Supremes killed that technique by requiring that Congress first demonstrate that the regulation was designed to remedy long-standing invidious discrimination. Only if Congress shows that the abrogation of sovereign immunity is required to address long-standing, invidious discrimination will the Constitution permit a suit against the state.
Clearly, Congress hasn't been able to show a longstanding history of invidious discrimination.
Nevertheless, I'm not sure that the statute is necessary to reach the desired goal. The 5th amendment prohibits the state from taking property without due compensation. It has been incorporated through the 14th Amendment to apply to State governments. If the state is taking your IP, I would think that you'd have a cause of action for a violation of the 5th. And fortunately, you don't need Congressional permission to sue your state for violating your constitutional rights.
--AC
We already have a hobo farm. It's called New Jersey.
--AC
This was the quote at the bottom of the page as I read this article:
"paranoia, n.: A healthy understanding of the way the universe works."
--AC
1) I'm not sure how relevant it is either. Apparently, the young men were standing on top of a railing around the enclosure. There's been some suggestion that they may have been throwing things at the tiger or dangling into the enclosure. Clearly, they did something to provoke the tiger, since she hasn't done anything like this before . . . .
2) It's unlikely that his possibly criminal activity will reduce his damages. Realistically, to prove negligence based on criminal conduct, you've got to show two things. First, you have to show that the law exists to protect a certain class of people from a certain type of harm. Then, you have to show that you fall into that class and that the harm is of the type the law was intended to prevent. Here, I think the anti-harassment laws were intended to protect the endangered species, rather than the human beings. Although, once you've pissed off a tiger, you've become an endangered species.
--AC
I'm aware of the distinction, but, like you, I'm not sure which one California uses. I didn't want to bog down my comment with a brief digression that would only interest law geeks. As you said, the net result here, probably the same.
--AC
That's why there are lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit.
The lawyer for the dead kid will push for the full amount. The Zoo's lawyer will argue that the kid was more negligent than the zoo and therefore, his family should get nothing.
Sadly, in this case, I think the zoo's negligence is greater. They're just "lucky" that there is a way to blame the kid at all. Imagine the response if the tiger had jumped out and mauled a 1st grade class.
--AC
This is stupid.
Yes, the zoo was negligent. It should have known the safe parameters for a tiger enclosure.
However, in the law, there's a doctrine called comparative (or contributory negligence). This means that where two people are negligent and one gets hurt, his or her recovery is reduced by his or her own proportion of the fault.
F'rex: A jury looks at this situation and says "Boy, the zoo sure was negligent, they should have built a higher wall. But boy, did this guy act stupidly, entering the enclosure and taunting that tiger. We're going to split the fault between them. And his total economic worth (over the rest of his life) was $800,000 (since he clearly wasn't that bright)."
Then the judge comes along and says--"okay, the award is $800,000.00. But the moron was 50% at fault. Therefore, his family gets $400,000.00."*
* Actually, in some states, he gets nothing, because his fault was not less than that of the other idiot.
But you can't argue that the zoo's not at least partially at fault. It clearly had an enclosure that wasn't adequately designed to keep the tigers in. The fact that the person who got hurt provoked the tiger doesn't lessen the fact that the enclosure failed to do what it was supposed to do.
--AC
Sadly, these organizations tend to ally themselves with the "conservative" party in the United States. They also tend to self-designate as "conservative."
/rant
And frankly, I've seen "conservatives" take the principle of "personal responsibility" to the point of blaming people rear-ended in car accidents for having made the decision to get out on the highway. Personal responsibility is a great way to convince people that the victims of your conduct don't deserve to be compensated.
--AC
Actually, he does have a license.
http://www.floridabar.org/names.nsf/All/07D079003898F95585256A830051348B?OpenDocument
That links to the license for John (Jack) Bruce Thompson. His registration number is 231665.
Sorry to correct you.
--AC
Sad that so many games require Administrator access to run.
--AC
You're entirely overlooking the deterrent purposes of penal punishment. The punishments for armed robbery are higher because armed robberies are more likely to turn into murders than spamming. By punishing armed robberies more severely than, say unarmed robberies, the state is saying "this is bad behavior. Don't do it!"
While we can argue about whether deterrence actually works, that's the purpose. It has nothing to do with thought crimes. It has to do with serving the purpose of criminal punishment--preventing future crimes.
The four basic principles behind our system of criminal punishments are: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. Retribution is an easy one. It's society's need to inflict suffering on the person who hurt it. Rehabilitation is pretty simple too. Take the broken person and try to fix them. The last two are a little more complex. Incapacitation works by taking the known criminal and diverting them away from society at large. If the criminal is locked in an 8'x 8' steel box, he or she cannot hurt anyone on the outside. Deterrence is simply the use of the criminal's example to convince others not to engage in the same or similar conduct.
Finally, punishing criminals for what they're thinking when they commit a crime is nothing new. It's what has always differentiated between murder and manslaughter. A murder is a homicide committed with "malice aforethought." It's punished more harshly solely based on what the murderer was thinking when he committed the crime. That's not a thought crime. That's recognizing that people who mean to kill are more dangerous than those who accidentally do so.
--AC
I'm well aware of the felony murder rule, you arrogant prick.
;)
But the point is that the risk of harm to others is much greater in the case of an armed robbery than in a spamming. Surely, you'll concede such a simple point.
Since a part of the purpose of criminally punishing people is to deter others from engaging in the same or similar conduct, does it not make sense to punish more severely the conduct that, if emulated, poses a substantial risk of escalating into a murder?
But perhaps my point was too subtle for you.
Crimes with guns==dangerous and bad.
Crimes with email==bad.
Execution for spamming==moronic.
That better?
--AC
Hmmm. What is "the one that poses a substantial and unavoidable chance of someone getting killed when it all goes south," Alex.
Come on. Wrap your head around this: Armed robberies often involve people getting shot and killed. Spam, to the best of my knowledge never killed anyone.
And in most (94% or higher) states, the only death qualified felonies (if any) are homicides and rape (especially the rape of children). Spam is simply not in the same ballpark as other crimes.
Now that's not to say that I don't think a good public flogging wouldn't be in order, on the way to the prison . . . . But the death penalty for what is essentially a victimless crime? No.
--AC
In the interest of fairness, I should mention that under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, it is a capital offense to grow pot. To be death qualified, you've got to grow lots and lots and lots of pot (like 200,000 plants). But that shouldn't be the law either.
I think the OP's point was that we only spend 4 billion annually on cancer research, rather than cancer treatment.
--G
Actually, from TFA, I get the impression that he nabbed a total of $5900 worth of property from several different users.
Also, its theft because he's taking something (data) for which someone (the other users) paid value. In the process, he gets value for which he did not pay, and also denies the others the value that they paid.
Sure, an admin can create a new virtual item, but that doesn't balance things between him and his victims.
--AC
Not in this case, no.
From the summary, it's clear that the individual was fraudulently obtaining access information to other people's accounts. He was then using that information to access their accounts and "steal" data for which they had paid real money.
As a result, he obtained the value of the data without paying for it. Moreover, he also prevented his victims from enjoying the value of the data they'd purchased.
This is really a pretty simple wire fraud situation. The only interesting part about it is that instead of stealing money out of a bank account (or obtaining a deed to a piece of property), he's stealing virtual furniture that someone else already paid for. The net effect, however, is the same. The victim is denied the benefit of something for which he or she paid actual money.
That's theft.
--AC