Yeah, I think my reaction would be different if it were Microsoft. I guess because AFAIK Apple hasn't done things like spending the past several years engaging in direct and deliberate sabotage of competing operating systems and applications. They haven't been in the practice of damaging international standards bodies to push through bogus standards in order to maintain a near monopoly of one of their products.
I don't know, I'm sure Apple doesn't really want to get into the business of deciding what's a good/useful application vs. what's crap. Supposedly someone bought it by accident or something and was very displeased.
I would bet that Apple just decided that nothing good was going to come of it, but there was plenty of room for potential problems. Imagine you ran a store, and there was a particular problem that caused even one of your customers some grief, and after looking into it, you realized the product was complete crap and would only cause you bad publicity. Wouldn't you consider pulling that product from your shelf?
I've got a message for Apple, quite simple - I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I want on my iPhone, or any other computing device I own.
Ok, you have the capability to decide for yourself, but what it you don't have the technical ability? Like, what if it turns out that Super Monkey Ball is tracking you throughout your day, and relaying that information back to someone? In that case, even if you knew that, how would you disable Super Monkey Ball from having access to your location?
Sure, I'd prefer that Apple provide me with the tools to guard my own privacy, but failing that, I'm not going to get into a huff until we see some examples of how they actually use this blacklist. If they're really just disabling some malware from having access to my location, I won't really complain. The second they use it for anything else, it'll be a different story.
But it mostly comes from right wing journalists with a huge following, who build up this whole mythology of the "Liberal Elite" conspiring to screw over the U.S., with outlets like the NY Times as their media lapdogs.
I don't know about that. I see the term most often used by bloggers who want to deride sources of information that are considered more reliable than their own weblog.
But then I also see it being used (I think validly) as a means of lumping together the, what, 4 media companies who own every piece of music, every movie, and every television station. I mean, think about that for a second. Most of what you see and hear is being controlled and pushed on you by 4 companies. There has been evidence that these companies collude and work together. They fund the news and the art that shapes our culture, and they don't fund things that they perceive as endangering their business interests.
It's not about right-wing or left-wing. It's about money. There's a lot of money being put into the NY Times, FOX News, ABC News, etc. And that money isn't being put into those organizations out of altruism, it's being put in to make money and protect their other business interests.
It seems like it's one thing to rearrange Olympic Events in order to show the popular Events in prime-time. It's another to edit and reorder the events (little 'e') within a given Olympic Event. Like is it ok to rearrange the order of appearance in one of the gynastics events because you think it will make for better TV? If so, would it be ok for NBC to edit a basketball game so it looks like there are more baskets made toward the end of the game, in order to make it all more exciting?
Seems to me like it's just an issue of where you draw the line. Obviously a certain level of editing would be unacceptable.
I actually set my expectations low, cranked my IQ down and set suspension of disbelief to high. After all it's Indy Jones, you're not supposed to be thinking too much.
I don't mean this as an attack on you, but I *hate* when people say that about movies. "Hey, it's just a fun movie. Turn your brain off and have fun!" No. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but only when a movie earns it. A good movie (even if it's just a fun movie) sucks you in and makes you to suspend your disbelief. If you have to put effort into suspending your disbelief, then the movie isn't doing its job. If you have to fight with yourself to ignore the stupidity, then it's just a bad movie.
Now believe me, I don't nit-pick. I loved the first Matrix movie, the first Indiana Jones. The original Star Wars trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, the recent Batman movies and old Superman movies (1&2). I could go on and on, and all of these movies have their problems. There are things that are physically impossible, and plenty of unexplained plot-holes that you can catch if you're looking at them with a particularly critical eye.
BUT!!! If you watch them in a state of mind that's neutral, I think you'll probably find them to be enjoyable without trying (ok, the Superman movies haven't aged that well). But beyond the enjoyability factor, each of them also has a certain degree of depth and quality. It's clear that they were crafted by some people will skill and talent, and there's some mythological value. They're commenting on our world, our times, our society. They're revealing things about what we think about heroism and life. They wouldn't be enjoyable if they weren't successfully pushing some serious psychological buttons.
So when people think "these sorts of movies are fun, just turn off your brain", I think it's missing the point, and it's being overly-dismissive of the value of *good* fantasy/adventure stories. You shouldn't have to turn off your brain. The movie should convince you to forgive a couple flaws because, ignoring those flaws, it's a damn good piece of work.
So back to the topic at hand: Lucas is currently a crappy film-maker. It seems like he didn't used to be, but he is now. The latest Indiana Jones doesn't earn the suspension of disbelief necessary to forgive its faults. Even before the fridge gets nuked, there's the magnetic crap, the overly-convenient rocket-train, and a nuclear test site that's overly-accessible without warning signs. Not a damned thing in the movie made sense, the characters weren't believable, and the story didn't fit into the Indiana Jones universe.
I think part of the problem is the Lucas has bought into the idea that it's good to make movies where you "turn your brain off and have fun." So rather than making anything good, he makes movies filled with precocious children, lame actions scenes, and characters literally yelling, "Wooohooo!" It's all retarded, and we should just stop giving the man the benefit of the doubt.
I think this is as good a case as any to support short copyright terms. Star Wars should have become public domain 10 years ago, and filmmakers with talent should be allowed to have a go at making a new Indiana Jones story.
Yeah, geeze, reading through this thing again, I don't recommend that anyone RTFA. This guy is a serious blow-hard who won't get to the point under any circumstances. He basically side-tracks for several paragraphs just to complain about IE even though it doesn't really help illustrate anything.
I don't find this distinction you (and the author) are trying to push about "copy" as in "copy-editor" vs. "copy" as in "xerox copy". He seems to want this distinction to say that laws at the time were only meant to prevent re-publishing the work, but I think it's pretty much common sense either way. If you look at our use of writing (which is what copyright was developed for) we wouldn't expect someone to be sued for making a xerox copy for himself of a magazine in a public library. We think it's a conventional idea, on the other hand, that someone would be sued for copying a CD. Obviously something has changed. Clearly media industries have managed to redefine our concept of copyright for recorded materials.
Yes, you could cite every little law that reflects this change in conceptualization of "copyright", but the problem is that the concepts are wrong. If our understanding of copyright was set right, then laws would have to change, or there would be a change in enforcement, or else you'd see jury nullification on cases where copyright is being abused.
I guess it makes sense for someone writing a rigorous book to go through that kind of minutiae and even go on useless excursions for the sake of filling space, and so my complaints about the article are arguably invalid. But for the short attention span theater that is the Internet, I think my post did a fine job of illustrating the same basic problems. Having now read the article, I wouldn't change my post if I could.
Yeah, I tried, but the general writing style was pretty bad and boring. Maybe I'll give it another go if it actually has interesting information in it.
'd argue that the growth of piracy is not only due to the increased ease, thanks to computers and the internet, but also due to the perceived fairness. After all, copyright is supposed to be a social contract where we allow the creator to profit from their creations so that we can enrich our own culture.
Yup. I feel like it's time for me to jump in with my standard copyright spiel: The problem with copyright right now is that the common modern conception is out of line with why it was created. It was created as a ploy to encourage writers to write books. The idea was to say, "If you write a book, you get a few years to profit from it before other publishers can poach your work." So the purpose was to provide a limited benefit to the creator of a work in order to encourage creation, the intended end being to promote the common good.
Some time later, the whole thing got re-conceptualized into guaranteeing the creator a *right* to have control over his/her own creation. Many people now imagine that this was the original intent of copyright-- that authors have some kind of God-given inalienable right to control their own work absolutely and for the rest of time, and "copyright" is intended to guarantee authors that right. Later, people even forgot about the authors and passed that right only to the corporations who "own" the stories and characters. The famous case is Disney, which ironically has fed off of older public domain characters and stories while insisting that they retain perpetual rights to their own characters. Still, copyright wasn't intended to be this "right" to control all possible incarnations and derivative works for all time, because art has always reused common stories and characters.
But still, copyright was treated as protection against *other publishers* printing and selling copies. After all, it was unimaginable that some individual would make millions of copies of the work and distribute them for free. Of course, the Internet comes along and that exact unimaginable thing happens. So then, when the business model of the big media companies gets threatened, suddenly "copyright" again becomes something more than it was intended to be. Suddenly now it's not just the perpetual right to decide when the creation is published and sold, but it's also the right to control any time that the work is evoked in any situation at any time by any person. A "copy" is now a nebulous concept, so instead you need a license to read the book, to listen to the music, to watch the movie, etc. But copyrights were never really intended to be used against individuals for *reading* a book, but only against people/companies who would republish the book.
So even though the intent of copyright was to place the common good above the greed of publishers who wished to poach works that they hadn't invested in, it's now seen as an inalienable right that exists, by nature, above the common good. Further, it's being used by greedy publishers to harm the arts by stifling use of old characters and stories, in order to put off the need to invest in new ventures by milking the old ones.
I agree that this seems like it could be very helpful, but...
I don't know, when I looked at it, my first reaction was, "It looks like we've finally reinvented the newsgroup." Maybe this will be better and have more advantages, but if we start down this road, then websites will really have to start using some kind of standardized protocol for Snowl to talk to, or else Snowl will only be useful on certain website software that it was designed to handle.
So now you're talking about taking the web forums, which replaced newsgroups by offering a web interface, and coming up with standardized protocols that allow you to bypass the web part and use it like application-driven messaging.
It's still interesting in that it allows you to put all your information through one central point, which would then allow you to track everything together. But I don't know. I'm starting to think maybe we need to re-evaluate why we have so many different media of communication, and see if some of that can be pared down.
I think part of the problem is just not knowing what is going to pop up as "relevant". Honestly, I don't care very much about my personal emails from 5 years ago, but I might care about my work e-mails. When some client comes to me and says, "What? You've been doing that for 5 years? Why are you doing that? I never told you to do that!", it's helpful if you can whip out their original e-mail and say, "I'm just doing what you said right here."
Sorry, in case it needs to be said, my last example in my last post (dumping rat poison into someone's food) was not meant to be equated with "saying something mean to a random teenager". It's just meant to be an extreme example of where pleading ignorance doesn't excuse reckless actions, even if the defendant is truly ignorant.
However, I agree that the bar should be set somewhat high in those cases. The action must be egregious. For example, if I put something gross-tasting (but harmless) in a sandwich as prank, and then it turns out you're allergic to that gross-tasting thing and you die, then maybe I shouldn't be prosecuted. But if they can prove that I knew your were allergic, then maybe I should be. But it should more or less hinge on whether it can be proven to the satisfaction of a jury that I knew enough that I *should have* expected a bad/deadly result.
Yeah, my post was slightly tongue-in-cheek. There are loads of problems there, including that a person with low enough wages won't be able to live off of 7.5 hours worth of pay.
But still, it's an interesting sort of question, and I don't think it can be dismissed so easily.
Well I really have no idea about the particulars of the case, what Lori Drew knew, what the police can or can't prove, etc. But yeah, I'm assuming that prosecution on this sort of thing should be very very rare, and AFAIK might already be covered under other sorts of laws (I mentioned manslaughter as a candidate, but like I said, I'm not a lawyer).
But even though I think a teenager should be able to weather a break-up, I could easily imagine a teenager who is psychologically fragile enough that a break-up would cause suicide. Teens are overly-dramatic after all, and break-ups can be traumatizing no matter how healthy/strong you are.
Further, I can easily imagine one person knowing another to the extent that they would be quite sure in expecting a particular event would drive that person to hurt themselves or others. Proving it adds a layer of difficulty, and judging whether that person should reasonably have expected the outcome is part of why we have juries.
But my general feeling is, it's possible to be so reckless and vicious with your treatment of someone that it should be punishable. In the example I gave (harassing the neighbor's suicidal child and then providing a means of suicide), it seems to me that I shouldn't be able to wash my hands of it as easily as saying, "Well I didn't think he'd actually kill himself." Because in that case, I think a person should know better.
And this isn't an unusual concept in law. I can't dump rat poison into your food and then absolve myself from all charges by saying, "Well I didn't *think* is was a legal dose. That was just meant to make him a little ill as a prank." I mean, if people buy my story, they might not charge me with murder, but I'll still get charged with *something*.
Europe manages to be competitive with the US and yet we work less hours and (due to exchange rates) usually get paid more.
Last time I went to Europe, it seemed like Europe manages to be competitive economically by selling to Americans, catering to American tourists, and working for American-owned companies...?
while we think working 15 hour days is ridiculous, let's keep in mind that a lot of people in China pray for any employment... remember that China's population is measured in BILLIONS- there's just not enough work to go around.
If there's not enough work to go around, then how come people have to work 15 hours a day to do it?
It's called working on a salary - the expectation is to do the job, and get paid for doing the job.
There's at least some truth to this. I'm the sort of guy who had chosen to take jobs that work 60-hour work-weeks while espousing the idea that people shouldn't have to work more than 35 hours a week. In short, a hypocrite (I guess).
Now these 60-hour work-week jobs didn't pay any overtime. They were technically 40-hour work-week jobs (9 to 5), but I was told in the interview that it was a salaried position, and I might have to work additional hours. That's just the way it was-- they were willing to pay me $X for me to complete Y tasks per day, or in some cases for me to be there "for as long as everyone else is". I took the job understanding that.
And typically those jobs aren't the worst jobs to have. Janitors get paid by the hour, and people who make a decent living tend to work on salary.
That being said, I still think that the entire human race should try to move towards working less, and leading more balanced lives. I'm not convinced that we don't have the means to accomplish that while still feeding and clothing ourselves. On the other hand, I don't know what mechanism could be employed successfully to get the entire human race to do that, especially given that we (as a race) haven't managed to figure out appropriate mechanisms to feed and cloth ourselves as it is.
He's partially responsible for their exposure, but the men themselves are also partially responsible for exposing themselves. But ultimately, Fortuny is not responsible for their lives, their actions, etc. He is not responsible for keeping their secrets. If they want their secrets kept, they should keep them instead of sending them to anonymous people over the Internet.
I know where I draw the line between "innocent victim" and "deserves whatever they get", and the men in this story are just nowhere near either of these. They're not innocent, they're arguably not victims, and nobody particularly deserves having their personal lives spread on the Internet, which as I've said, is unfortunately a punishment that is far-reaching and indefinite.
And yes, I think this is a punishment, because these guys were obviously doing things that they themselves don't believe is appropriate. Sending these e-mails back to their wives and families would have been an asshole move, but perhaps they might have deserved that in some way. These emails being on the Internet where they can never be erased from public record is extremely unfortunate. But I when the chickens come home to roost, I have a hard time blaming the guy who opened the gate and let them back in.
Yeah, what I'm really saying is there should be some way to prosecute this sort of thing in extreme cases, where that sort of thing is provable, the actions are deliberate, direct, and reckless. Hell, maybe you could even make it so it only protects children.
Like, let's say for example that I'm talking to my neighbor, and I find out his son has been seeing a psychiatrist because he's suicidal. He's already attempted suicide, but he called his parents to tell them he was committing suicide. The parents know that I know this, because they explicitly told me.
So now, the next day, this kid is over at my house at a party, and someone witnesses me telling him repeatedly (unprovoked) that he's worthless and no-good, that his parents would be better off without him, etc. He's visibly upset, and I walk out of the room, leaving him in my study, alone. Oh, and there's an unlocked cabinet where my guns are prominently displayed. The witness also knows that I mentioned the cabinet in my conversation with him, and mentioned that it was unlocked.
2 minutes later, everyone hears the gunshot.
Now, doesn't it seem to you that they should be able to prosecute me for *something*. It seems at least like it might be comparable to involuntary manslaughter, where you can be prosecuted for creating a situation where a reasonable person could expect death. For manslaughter, I don't think it's even necessary that I expect it will end in death, but only that a reasonable person would expect that. IANAL, though, and don't know whether a manslaughter charge could possible hold up, given that it's a case of suicide, but I do feel like it should be a crime to knowingly effect a child in this way.
Oh, of course. After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Sorry, but that sort of line has a little more weight when you're talking about the government actively going into your house or your personal belongings. This is a case where a private citizen is reporting on the behavior he sees from other people. They got caught doing something they didn't want to get caught doing, fine. That happens. Nobody likes it when it happens to them, and that's all understandable. But if you're going to blame the consequences of your actions on the guy who caught you, you're kind of missing the point.
None of this means Fortuny is a "good guy". He might be a total asshole. But that doesn't make him responsible for these men's actions.
No - it could not have in any stretch of imagination been the one sole contributing factor to the death. A straw on the camels back? Perhaps. But I think that anyone can clearly see the failure of logic in charging someone for a felony for placing a straw on the camels back, when there is in fact a bulging load there already.
I think it really depends. For example, what if it could be proven that Lori Drew knew that Megan Meier was emotionally fragile, and given what she knew, could have reasonably expected that her actions would lead Megan Meier to kill herself? What if it could be demonstrated that Lori Drew mounted this campaign of harassment specifically for the purpose of causing Megan Meier the sort of emotional damage that she knew was likely to cause the girl to hurt herself? What if there was evidence that Lori Drew's aim was specifically to prod Megan Meier into committing suicide?
I'm not sure any of these things are illegal, but it seems reasonable to me that they would be. If they aren't at all illegal, I think they probably should be.
On the other hand if none of that can be proven, then no, I don't think it can be illegal to merely be "the straw that broke the camel's back". Otherwise, you could be punished for anything that could be considered emotionally damaging, if the person you said it to happened to kill himself/herself afterward.
Any other logical fallacies you'd like to apply?...[snip]...The problem is that last time I checked, trying to hook up with people on craigslist wasn't wrong--in fact, you might notice a large portion of the site specifically dedicated to that purpose.
um... I don't know... does this qualify as a bandwagon fallacy? "Lots of people are doing it, so it can't be wrong"?
Anyway, if there's nothing wrong with it, then why are people claiming that Fortuny has ruined people's lives? You can't really ruin someone's life by disclosing that they've done something that is considered to be "acceptable". If there's absolutely no problem with what these men are doing, then making their behavior public shouldn't be considered a "punishment".
Maybe the world wouldn't be such a hard place if there weren't so many assholes out there trying to prove how hard it can be.
Maybe the world wouldn't be such a fucked up place if there weren't so many people refusing to be accountable for their own actions.
Ok, I'm glad to have finally found AL who can comment. So here are my questions. Would it matter legally who he sent the e-mail to? It seems to me like it probably should. For example, if I send an e-mail to a reporter, then any expectation of privacy would be less reasonable than if I sent the e-mail to my wife (I would think, but I don't know whether this would have any legal weight).
Now personally, I don't think it's very reasonable for anyone to expect complete privacy in any e-mail that's not encrypted. It's insecure, and often various people have some level of access to your email (whether you know it or not). Mostly, I figure that when you send an e-mail, the metaphorical equivalent (for your metaphor) would be picking your nose on a street corner and hoping that, if anyone sees you, they wont know who you are and won't care enough to look into it. But my view there is rather more paranoid than most, so I'm not sure whether it's what's intended by the word "reasonable".
But back to your nose-picking metaphor. So let's say for the sake of argument that you can't sue me for catching you pick your nose at a political rally, but you can sue me if I'm spying on you and I catch you picking your nose in your own bedroom. Correct? Well what if you invite me into your bedroom specifically to observe you picking your nose, or you send me a picture you took of yourself, picking your nose in your own bedroom with the doors closed?
But beyond that, here's what interests me: do you have an expectation of privacy when communicating with someone else? If Angelina Jolie decides to publish a book and includes a love letter from Brad Pitt, could he sue her for some kind of invasion of privacy? Or copyright infringement? That's the issue that interests me. Do I have the right to publish my communications with others, assuming that the records of the communications were obtained legally?
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Yeah, I think my reaction would be different if it were Microsoft. I guess because AFAIK Apple hasn't done things like spending the past several years engaging in direct and deliberate sabotage of competing operating systems and applications. They haven't been in the practice of damaging international standards bodies to push through bogus standards in order to maintain a near monopoly of one of their products.
I don't know, I'm sure Apple doesn't really want to get into the business of deciding what's a good/useful application vs. what's crap. Supposedly someone bought it by accident or something and was very displeased.
I would bet that Apple just decided that nothing good was going to come of it, but there was plenty of room for potential problems. Imagine you ran a store, and there was a particular problem that caused even one of your customers some grief, and after looking into it, you realized the product was complete crap and would only cause you bad publicity. Wouldn't you consider pulling that product from your shelf?
I've got a message for Apple, quite simple - I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself what I want on my iPhone, or any other computing device I own.
Ok, you have the capability to decide for yourself, but what it you don't have the technical ability? Like, what if it turns out that Super Monkey Ball is tracking you throughout your day, and relaying that information back to someone? In that case, even if you knew that, how would you disable Super Monkey Ball from having access to your location?
Sure, I'd prefer that Apple provide me with the tools to guard my own privacy, but failing that, I'm not going to get into a huff until we see some examples of how they actually use this blacklist. If they're really just disabling some malware from having access to my location, I won't really complain. The second they use it for anything else, it'll be a different story.
But it mostly comes from right wing journalists with a huge following, who build up this whole mythology of the "Liberal Elite" conspiring to screw over the U.S., with outlets like the NY Times as their media lapdogs.
I don't know about that. I see the term most often used by bloggers who want to deride sources of information that are considered more reliable than their own weblog.
But then I also see it being used (I think validly) as a means of lumping together the, what, 4 media companies who own every piece of music, every movie, and every television station. I mean, think about that for a second. Most of what you see and hear is being controlled and pushed on you by 4 companies. There has been evidence that these companies collude and work together. They fund the news and the art that shapes our culture, and they don't fund things that they perceive as endangering their business interests.
It's not about right-wing or left-wing. It's about money. There's a lot of money being put into the NY Times, FOX News, ABC News, etc. And that money isn't being put into those organizations out of altruism, it's being put in to make money and protect their other business interests.
It seems like it's one thing to rearrange Olympic Events in order to show the popular Events in prime-time. It's another to edit and reorder the events (little 'e') within a given Olympic Event. Like is it ok to rearrange the order of appearance in one of the gynastics events because you think it will make for better TV? If so, would it be ok for NBC to edit a basketball game so it looks like there are more baskets made toward the end of the game, in order to make it all more exciting?
Seems to me like it's just an issue of where you draw the line. Obviously a certain level of editing would be unacceptable.
I actually set my expectations low, cranked my IQ down and set suspension of disbelief to high. After all it's Indy Jones, you're not supposed to be thinking too much.
I don't mean this as an attack on you, but I *hate* when people say that about movies. "Hey, it's just a fun movie. Turn your brain off and have fun!" No. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but only when a movie earns it. A good movie (even if it's just a fun movie) sucks you in and makes you to suspend your disbelief. If you have to put effort into suspending your disbelief, then the movie isn't doing its job. If you have to fight with yourself to ignore the stupidity, then it's just a bad movie.
Now believe me, I don't nit-pick. I loved the first Matrix movie, the first Indiana Jones. The original Star Wars trilogy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Spiderman, the recent Batman movies and old Superman movies (1&2). I could go on and on, and all of these movies have their problems. There are things that are physically impossible, and plenty of unexplained plot-holes that you can catch if you're looking at them with a particularly critical eye.
BUT!!! If you watch them in a state of mind that's neutral, I think you'll probably find them to be enjoyable without trying (ok, the Superman movies haven't aged that well). But beyond the enjoyability factor, each of them also has a certain degree of depth and quality. It's clear that they were crafted by some people will skill and talent, and there's some mythological value. They're commenting on our world, our times, our society. They're revealing things about what we think about heroism and life. They wouldn't be enjoyable if they weren't successfully pushing some serious psychological buttons.
So when people think "these sorts of movies are fun, just turn off your brain", I think it's missing the point, and it's being overly-dismissive of the value of *good* fantasy/adventure stories. You shouldn't have to turn off your brain. The movie should convince you to forgive a couple flaws because, ignoring those flaws, it's a damn good piece of work.
So back to the topic at hand: Lucas is currently a crappy film-maker. It seems like he didn't used to be, but he is now. The latest Indiana Jones doesn't earn the suspension of disbelief necessary to forgive its faults. Even before the fridge gets nuked, there's the magnetic crap, the overly-convenient rocket-train, and a nuclear test site that's overly-accessible without warning signs. Not a damned thing in the movie made sense, the characters weren't believable, and the story didn't fit into the Indiana Jones universe.
I think part of the problem is the Lucas has bought into the idea that it's good to make movies where you "turn your brain off and have fun." So rather than making anything good, he makes movies filled with precocious children, lame actions scenes, and characters literally yelling, "Wooohooo!" It's all retarded, and we should just stop giving the man the benefit of the doubt.
I think this is as good a case as any to support short copyright terms. Star Wars should have become public domain 10 years ago, and filmmakers with talent should be allowed to have a go at making a new Indiana Jones story.
Yeah, geeze, reading through this thing again, I don't recommend that anyone RTFA. This guy is a serious blow-hard who won't get to the point under any circumstances. He basically side-tracks for several paragraphs just to complain about IE even though it doesn't really help illustrate anything.
I don't find this distinction you (and the author) are trying to push about "copy" as in "copy-editor" vs. "copy" as in "xerox copy". He seems to want this distinction to say that laws at the time were only meant to prevent re-publishing the work, but I think it's pretty much common sense either way. If you look at our use of writing (which is what copyright was developed for) we wouldn't expect someone to be sued for making a xerox copy for himself of a magazine in a public library. We think it's a conventional idea, on the other hand, that someone would be sued for copying a CD. Obviously something has changed. Clearly media industries have managed to redefine our concept of copyright for recorded materials.
Yes, you could cite every little law that reflects this change in conceptualization of "copyright", but the problem is that the concepts are wrong. If our understanding of copyright was set right, then laws would have to change, or there would be a change in enforcement, or else you'd see jury nullification on cases where copyright is being abused.
I guess it makes sense for someone writing a rigorous book to go through that kind of minutiae and even go on useless excursions for the sake of filling space, and so my complaints about the article are arguably invalid. But for the short attention span theater that is the Internet, I think my post did a fine job of illustrating the same basic problems. Having now read the article, I wouldn't change my post if I could.
Yeah, I tried, but the general writing style was pretty bad and boring. Maybe I'll give it another go if it actually has interesting information in it.
'd argue that the growth of piracy is not only due to the increased ease, thanks to computers and the internet, but also due to the perceived fairness. After all, copyright is supposed to be a social contract where we allow the creator to profit from their creations so that we can enrich our own culture.
Yup. I feel like it's time for me to jump in with my standard copyright spiel: The problem with copyright right now is that the common modern conception is out of line with why it was created. It was created as a ploy to encourage writers to write books. The idea was to say, "If you write a book, you get a few years to profit from it before other publishers can poach your work." So the purpose was to provide a limited benefit to the creator of a work in order to encourage creation, the intended end being to promote the common good.
Some time later, the whole thing got re-conceptualized into guaranteeing the creator a *right* to have control over his/her own creation. Many people now imagine that this was the original intent of copyright-- that authors have some kind of God-given inalienable right to control their own work absolutely and for the rest of time, and "copyright" is intended to guarantee authors that right. Later, people even forgot about the authors and passed that right only to the corporations who "own" the stories and characters. The famous case is Disney, which ironically has fed off of older public domain characters and stories while insisting that they retain perpetual rights to their own characters. Still, copyright wasn't intended to be this "right" to control all possible incarnations and derivative works for all time, because art has always reused common stories and characters.
But still, copyright was treated as protection against *other publishers* printing and selling copies. After all, it was unimaginable that some individual would make millions of copies of the work and distribute them for free. Of course, the Internet comes along and that exact unimaginable thing happens. So then, when the business model of the big media companies gets threatened, suddenly "copyright" again becomes something more than it was intended to be. Suddenly now it's not just the perpetual right to decide when the creation is published and sold, but it's also the right to control any time that the work is evoked in any situation at any time by any person. A "copy" is now a nebulous concept, so instead you need a license to read the book, to listen to the music, to watch the movie, etc. But copyrights were never really intended to be used against individuals for *reading* a book, but only against people/companies who would republish the book.
So even though the intent of copyright was to place the common good above the greed of publishers who wished to poach works that they hadn't invested in, it's now seen as an inalienable right that exists, by nature, above the common good. Further, it's being used by greedy publishers to harm the arts by stifling use of old characters and stories, in order to put off the need to invest in new ventures by milking the old ones.
Rant over. And no, I didn't RTFA.
I agree that this seems like it could be very helpful, but...
I don't know, when I looked at it, my first reaction was, "It looks like we've finally reinvented the newsgroup." Maybe this will be better and have more advantages, but if we start down this road, then websites will really have to start using some kind of standardized protocol for Snowl to talk to, or else Snowl will only be useful on certain website software that it was designed to handle.
So now you're talking about taking the web forums, which replaced newsgroups by offering a web interface, and coming up with standardized protocols that allow you to bypass the web part and use it like application-driven messaging.
It's still interesting in that it allows you to put all your information through one central point, which would then allow you to track everything together. But I don't know. I'm starting to think maybe we need to re-evaluate why we have so many different media of communication, and see if some of that can be pared down.
I think part of the problem is just not knowing what is going to pop up as "relevant". Honestly, I don't care very much about my personal emails from 5 years ago, but I might care about my work e-mails. When some client comes to me and says, "What? You've been doing that for 5 years? Why are you doing that? I never told you to do that!", it's helpful if you can whip out their original e-mail and say, "I'm just doing what you said right here."
As a European I must say this made me laugh.
Good. It was supposed to.
Sorry, in case it needs to be said, my last example in my last post (dumping rat poison into someone's food) was not meant to be equated with "saying something mean to a random teenager". It's just meant to be an extreme example of where pleading ignorance doesn't excuse reckless actions, even if the defendant is truly ignorant.
However, I agree that the bar should be set somewhat high in those cases. The action must be egregious. For example, if I put something gross-tasting (but harmless) in a sandwich as prank, and then it turns out you're allergic to that gross-tasting thing and you die, then maybe I shouldn't be prosecuted. But if they can prove that I knew your were allergic, then maybe I should be. But it should more or less hinge on whether it can be proven to the satisfaction of a jury that I knew enough that I *should have* expected a bad/deadly result.
Yeah, my post was slightly tongue-in-cheek. There are loads of problems there, including that a person with low enough wages won't be able to live off of 7.5 hours worth of pay.
But still, it's an interesting sort of question, and I don't think it can be dismissed so easily.
Well I really have no idea about the particulars of the case, what Lori Drew knew, what the police can or can't prove, etc. But yeah, I'm assuming that prosecution on this sort of thing should be very very rare, and AFAIK might already be covered under other sorts of laws (I mentioned manslaughter as a candidate, but like I said, I'm not a lawyer).
But even though I think a teenager should be able to weather a break-up, I could easily imagine a teenager who is psychologically fragile enough that a break-up would cause suicide. Teens are overly-dramatic after all, and break-ups can be traumatizing no matter how healthy/strong you are.
Further, I can easily imagine one person knowing another to the extent that they would be quite sure in expecting a particular event would drive that person to hurt themselves or others. Proving it adds a layer of difficulty, and judging whether that person should reasonably have expected the outcome is part of why we have juries.
But my general feeling is, it's possible to be so reckless and vicious with your treatment of someone that it should be punishable. In the example I gave (harassing the neighbor's suicidal child and then providing a means of suicide), it seems to me that I shouldn't be able to wash my hands of it as easily as saying, "Well I didn't think he'd actually kill himself." Because in that case, I think a person should know better.
And this isn't an unusual concept in law. I can't dump rat poison into your food and then absolve myself from all charges by saying, "Well I didn't *think* is was a legal dose. That was just meant to make him a little ill as a prank." I mean, if people buy my story, they might not charge me with murder, but I'll still get charged with *something*.
For lack of better words?
Europe manages to be competitive with the US and yet we work less hours and (due to exchange rates) usually get paid more.
Last time I went to Europe, it seemed like Europe manages to be competitive economically by selling to Americans, catering to American tourists, and working for American-owned companies...?
while we think working 15 hour days is ridiculous, let's keep in mind that a lot of people in China pray for any employment... remember that China's population is measured in BILLIONS- there's just not enough work to go around.
If there's not enough work to go around, then how come people have to work 15 hours a day to do it?
It's called working on a salary - the expectation is to do the job, and get paid for doing the job.
There's at least some truth to this. I'm the sort of guy who had chosen to take jobs that work 60-hour work-weeks while espousing the idea that people shouldn't have to work more than 35 hours a week. In short, a hypocrite (I guess).
Now these 60-hour work-week jobs didn't pay any overtime. They were technically 40-hour work-week jobs (9 to 5), but I was told in the interview that it was a salaried position, and I might have to work additional hours. That's just the way it was-- they were willing to pay me $X for me to complete Y tasks per day, or in some cases for me to be there "for as long as everyone else is". I took the job understanding that.
And typically those jobs aren't the worst jobs to have. Janitors get paid by the hour, and people who make a decent living tend to work on salary.
That being said, I still think that the entire human race should try to move towards working less, and leading more balanced lives. I'm not convinced that we don't have the means to accomplish that while still feeding and clothing ourselves. On the other hand, I don't know what mechanism could be employed successfully to get the entire human race to do that, especially given that we (as a race) haven't managed to figure out appropriate mechanisms to feed and cloth ourselves as it is.
He's partially responsible for their exposure, but the men themselves are also partially responsible for exposing themselves. But ultimately, Fortuny is not responsible for their lives, their actions, etc. He is not responsible for keeping their secrets. If they want their secrets kept, they should keep them instead of sending them to anonymous people over the Internet.
I know where I draw the line between "innocent victim" and "deserves whatever they get", and the men in this story are just nowhere near either of these. They're not innocent, they're arguably not victims, and nobody particularly deserves having their personal lives spread on the Internet, which as I've said, is unfortunately a punishment that is far-reaching and indefinite.
And yes, I think this is a punishment, because these guys were obviously doing things that they themselves don't believe is appropriate. Sending these e-mails back to their wives and families would have been an asshole move, but perhaps they might have deserved that in some way. These emails being on the Internet where they can never be erased from public record is extremely unfortunate. But I when the chickens come home to roost, I have a hard time blaming the guy who opened the gate and let them back in.
Yeah, what I'm really saying is there should be some way to prosecute this sort of thing in extreme cases, where that sort of thing is provable, the actions are deliberate, direct, and reckless. Hell, maybe you could even make it so it only protects children.
Like, let's say for example that I'm talking to my neighbor, and I find out his son has been seeing a psychiatrist because he's suicidal. He's already attempted suicide, but he called his parents to tell them he was committing suicide. The parents know that I know this, because they explicitly told me.
So now, the next day, this kid is over at my house at a party, and someone witnesses me telling him repeatedly (unprovoked) that he's worthless and no-good, that his parents would be better off without him, etc. He's visibly upset, and I walk out of the room, leaving him in my study, alone. Oh, and there's an unlocked cabinet where my guns are prominently displayed. The witness also knows that I mentioned the cabinet in my conversation with him, and mentioned that it was unlocked.
2 minutes later, everyone hears the gunshot.
Now, doesn't it seem to you that they should be able to prosecute me for *something*. It seems at least like it might be comparable to involuntary manslaughter, where you can be prosecuted for creating a situation where a reasonable person could expect death. For manslaughter, I don't think it's even necessary that I expect it will end in death, but only that a reasonable person would expect that. IANAL, though, and don't know whether a manslaughter charge could possible hold up, given that it's a case of suicide, but I do feel like it should be a crime to knowingly effect a child in this way.
Oh, of course. After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.
Sorry, but that sort of line has a little more weight when you're talking about the government actively going into your house or your personal belongings. This is a case where a private citizen is reporting on the behavior he sees from other people. They got caught doing something they didn't want to get caught doing, fine. That happens. Nobody likes it when it happens to them, and that's all understandable. But if you're going to blame the consequences of your actions on the guy who caught you, you're kind of missing the point.
None of this means Fortuny is a "good guy". He might be a total asshole. But that doesn't make him responsible for these men's actions.
No - it could not have in any stretch of imagination been the one sole contributing factor to the death. A straw on the camels back? Perhaps. But I think that anyone can clearly see the failure of logic in charging someone for a felony for placing a straw on the camels back, when there is in fact a bulging load there already.
I think it really depends. For example, what if it could be proven that Lori Drew knew that Megan Meier was emotionally fragile, and given what she knew, could have reasonably expected that her actions would lead Megan Meier to kill herself? What if it could be demonstrated that Lori Drew mounted this campaign of harassment specifically for the purpose of causing Megan Meier the sort of emotional damage that she knew was likely to cause the girl to hurt herself? What if there was evidence that Lori Drew's aim was specifically to prod Megan Meier into committing suicide?
I'm not sure any of these things are illegal, but it seems reasonable to me that they would be. If they aren't at all illegal, I think they probably should be.
On the other hand if none of that can be proven, then no, I don't think it can be illegal to merely be "the straw that broke the camel's back". Otherwise, you could be punished for anything that could be considered emotionally damaging, if the person you said it to happened to kill himself/herself afterward.
Any other logical fallacies you'd like to apply?...[snip]...The problem is that last time I checked, trying to hook up with people on craigslist wasn't wrong--in fact, you might notice a large portion of the site specifically dedicated to that purpose.
um... I don't know... does this qualify as a bandwagon fallacy? "Lots of people are doing it, so it can't be wrong"?
Anyway, if there's nothing wrong with it, then why are people claiming that Fortuny has ruined people's lives? You can't really ruin someone's life by disclosing that they've done something that is considered to be "acceptable". If there's absolutely no problem with what these men are doing, then making their behavior public shouldn't be considered a "punishment".
Maybe the world wouldn't be such a hard place if there weren't so many assholes out there trying to prove how hard it can be.
Maybe the world wouldn't be such a fucked up place if there weren't so many people refusing to be accountable for their own actions.
Ok, I'm glad to have finally found AL who can comment. So here are my questions. Would it matter legally who he sent the e-mail to? It seems to me like it probably should. For example, if I send an e-mail to a reporter, then any expectation of privacy would be less reasonable than if I sent the e-mail to my wife (I would think, but I don't know whether this would have any legal weight).
Now personally, I don't think it's very reasonable for anyone to expect complete privacy in any e-mail that's not encrypted. It's insecure, and often various people have some level of access to your email (whether you know it or not). Mostly, I figure that when you send an e-mail, the metaphorical equivalent (for your metaphor) would be picking your nose on a street corner and hoping that, if anyone sees you, they wont know who you are and won't care enough to look into it. But my view there is rather more paranoid than most, so I'm not sure whether it's what's intended by the word "reasonable".
But back to your nose-picking metaphor. So let's say for the sake of argument that you can't sue me for catching you pick your nose at a political rally, but you can sue me if I'm spying on you and I catch you picking your nose in your own bedroom. Correct? Well what if you invite me into your bedroom specifically to observe you picking your nose, or you send me a picture you took of yourself, picking your nose in your own bedroom with the doors closed?
But beyond that, here's what interests me: do you have an expectation of privacy when communicating with someone else? If Angelina Jolie decides to publish a book and includes a love letter from Brad Pitt, could he sue her for some kind of invasion of privacy? Or copyright infringement? That's the issue that interests me. Do I have the right to publish my communications with others, assuming that the records of the communications were obtained legally?