Actually - you most likely do have to lift my print off the glass - most fingerprint ID systems store the print data encrypted to prevent just this kind of problem. Also - lifting my print off the glass generally won't work either - since newer systems will use a 3-d representation and will look for deformation of the finger to match. I'm not saying fingerprints are a great system of identification - jut that these issues are not part of the real problem.
I am a lawyer - although products liability is not my area of concentration. If we ignore for the moment the fact that software developers almost never have any liability when their products fuck up. It is very doubtful that any court would let Google escape liability simply by putting BETA in the corner. If you make a product and offer it to the public - substantially as a non-experimental product - you will be held liable. The courts generally look, not at technicalities, but at the substance of the transaction
A lot of this guys figures seem questionable. He estimates - 10% of cold called customers stay on the line to chat and then he estimates that it takes 5 minutes to close a sale and to come up with his break even profit point of.50 per sale he seems to plan on everyone of the 10% who stay to chat - also buying. As anyone who has done even a little sales work knows - these figures don't map to real life. Add in the language / accent difficulty of Indian or Chinese telemarketers and the whole thing sounds like a business plan that's going to fail to me - Consultants and Groups get paid to create hysteria - and well... Mission accomplished!
That is absolutely not true - the US Constitution is very clear about who it protects from abuse by the Government - The constitution says "No Person" - not "No Citizen" - not "No US Resident" - NO PERSON. If the US government is holding PEOPLE in violation of the constitutions protections WHEREVER - it is unconstitutional. The constitution reaches the actions of the US government regardless of the WHERE or the WHO.
I am a lawyer - although copyright and IP are not my main area - but one of the problems any GPL violation suit is going to have is damages. Courts like to measure damages in money and if you're claim is that he stoled the thing that I was giving away and didn't offer to give it away too - well - lots of courts will ask - where are your damages? Exactly how much money did it lose you? I understand that there are other issues that are important to the community and the authors - but courts like to see actual damages to a plaintiff. Let me be clear - I'm not saying you can't win a suit for violation of the GPL (maybe someone already has - I don't know) but the issue of damages will be a hard on for a court to deal with. Believe it or not - courts don't like to rule on strictly technical violations.
In the end the only system that works - is user pays. The solution is not to make the information available free - but the recognize the value of an increased user base that results from LOWER prices. So - instead of charging a select few hundreds of dollars - they might be able to publish to hundreds of thousands for just a few dollars each.
I am a lawyer - although First Ammendment is not my area of practice - but it's important to recognize that your ability to say anything you want is much more severly limited than just Slander, Libel ect. The First Amend. only protects your speech from GOVERNMENT intrusions. Private intrusions are not covered - for an important example - you can be fired for just about any speech your employer doesn't like. There are exceptions - e.g. certain speech is protected under the National Labor Relations Act and you can;t be fired for that - but Coke doesn't need to prove that you revealed a trade secret to fire you. They can fire you for saying you thought "Million Dollar Baby" was a great movie (it is btw).
I am a lawyer - although this is not in my area of concentration. This is not a First Amendment case. No governmental body if attempting to silence the press here. It's a case about the privilege to not testify to confidential information. As a society we have carved out some communication that are privileged and need not (as a rule) be disclosed in court proceedings. PRIVATE communications between you and your Lawyer, Doctor, Priest are as a rule privileged. We privileged them because we want to encourage open, honest communications with these people - not chilled by the fear of compelled disclosure. Some states - CA among them - also extend limited privilege to reporters. If as a society we think it's important to encourage open honest - and importantly verifiable - communications with reporters - we need to extend this privilege to them. If you think so - write your congressman. Also - since most litigation takes place in state courts - write your state legislators and ask them.
Actually - you are not taking this point far enough. You are correct to point out that wind energy generation has been found to have a significant effect on the local environment (mostly temperature variation at the ground). So, don't assume that these solar panels will be any different - if all of a suddend every roof top had a 10'X14' black panel - what would the environmental effect be?
Re:Sooner or later, this flag will no longer wave.
on
Broadcast Flag in Trouble
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I am a lawyer (although litigation is not my area). The general rule is that standing to bring a case requires more than the generalized injury that all citizens suffer (The thinking goes that congress is charged with addressing that sort of generalized injury). If the courts find that consumer groups (weak - because we are all consumers - thus the injury is generalized) and libraries (stronger) don't have standing, then the most likely plaintiffs will be hardware manufacturers - who can point to added costs. Are there any manufacturers who have voiced opposition to the flag? If not a good plaintiff may be hard to find. Courts have held that in some cases - bascially no one has standing.
Re:Sooner or later, this flag will no longer wave.
on
Broadcast Flag in Trouble
·
· Score: 5, Informative
I am a lawyer - and that's not the way it works. The legal concept of Res Judicata (Litterally - the thing is judged). Prevents parties who are unhappy with the results of a legal suit from refiling the case between the same parties based on facts arising out of the same events. So if they lose in the D.C. Circuit (which, unlike most circuits, has nationwide jurisdiction) they can't just try again in another circuit. They can, of course, apply for an en banc rehearing and after that to the US Supreme Court.
There is an important distinction to be made here: It is not a violation of the DCMA to break the copy protection of the disk. It is a violation to traffic in devices that have as their primary purpose circumvention of copy protection
The full title of the law is - "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001". See it's an acronym. Some smart guys in Washington must have the job of figuring out names for these acts that are clever acronyms.
I am a lawyer - and while parody or satire may be a defense to copyright infringement - this does not seem to be a copyright case. It also doesn't really seem to be an "Identity theft" case - at least not a criminal one. There is, in my opinion, no identity theft here. The defendant did not defraud anyone by his masquerade. The general rule is - you can use any name you like as long as you do not use it to commit fraud. Since, most likely, the defendant simply used the plaintiff's name to obtain a free e-mail account or else paid for the account using his own money - there is no fraud on the e-mail provider. I would have to read the case to figure out what exactly the complaint is - but from the article - I can see nothing really actionable.
Victor Laszlo: And what if you track down these men and kill them? What if you murdered all of us? From every corner of your Republic, thousands would rise to take our places. Even Nazis can't kill that fast.
Major Strasser:
Herr Laszlo, you have a reputation for eloquence which I can now understand. But in one respect you are mistaken. You said the enemies of the Reich could all be replaced. But there is one exception, no one could take your place in the event anything unfortunate shoudl occur to you while you were trying to escape.
Common carrier laws only apply to companies who are common carriers - meaning they provide transmission services to the public. And only apply to them in their capacity as common carriers. To the extent they are personally putting content out - they are not protected. E.g. - BellSouth is safe from responsibility from what I put on my web site that is in their network - but they have full responsibility for what is on the BellSouth site.
A little thing called the anti-trust laws prevents the studios from colluding and capping the salaries of stars. And a little thing call the well tested market system says the stars are worth the money that are paid - and if you watch carefully - you will see that when they stop being worth it - they stop getting paid it.
I am a lawyer - so let me put this to rest. Unless you get a judge who just hates the plaintiff, this kind of small mistake in a demand letter won't mean anything. The judge will assume that the defendant knew the correct address and will have expected them to react accordingly. I know the movies and popular press make the law seem hyper-technical - but really there are fairly flexible and won't let little errors like this cause problems.
I hate to double post but...
These sites are running up against the exact thing that brought down Napster. The Napster Court held that running a centralized database that allows users to find and download infringing files is contributory copyright infringement. If there is some technical diffrence here - we were just running a database th.at allows users to find files that allows them to download infringing files - well, I don't think the courts will care.
The Kazaa people were smarter - they decentralized the database and thus - no contributory copyright infringment
These sites are running up against the exact thing that brought down Napster. The Napster Court held that running a centralized database that allows users to find and download infringing files is contributory copyright infringement. If there is some technical diffrence here - we were just running a database that allows users to find files that allows them to download infringing files - well, I don't think the courts will care.
I think there is a high level of hysteria about this issue of you being responsible for someone using your link to download child porn. Remember - the criminal standard is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". I am an attorney and I work for a District Attorney (although criminal law is not my area) and we would be extremely unlikely to prosecute anyone for child porn without finding actual images in the defendant's possession.
I don't think that you would be liable for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent someone from growing pot in your basement. I am a lawyer - but criminal law is not my area of specialty. I am fairly sure that criminal responsibility (as opposed to civil liability) would require either actual knowledge or "Willful Ignorance". The general rule is that you are not expected to foresee the criminal acts of others.
It's only a matter of time before the government knows everything that we do. Think about it - cameras everywhere, massive databases tracking every purchase, every phone call and every e-mail. Combine all the data with sophisticated pattern analysis software and essentially the government will know everything - where you go, who you see & what you do. It's unstoppable. Inevitable.
The only thing we can do - is legalize everything. Not murder or theft - but all the low victim crimes - prostitution, drugs, sodomy, euthanasia & so on. Every change you get - even if it makes your stomach hurt - vote to legalize everything
The networks can't offer torrents directly from their web sites - because it would violate their contracts with the local affiliates. Under your plan - the networks get ad revenue but the local stations don't. It may someday come to that - but not until the complex contractual relationships are worked out to ensure that all the stakeholders get a piece of the pie
Slashdot Mirror
Actually - you most likely do have to lift my print off the glass - most fingerprint ID systems store the print data encrypted to prevent just this kind of problem. Also - lifting my print off the glass generally won't work either - since newer systems will use a 3-d representation and will look for deformation of the finger to match. I'm not saying fingerprints are a great system of identification - jut that these issues are not part of the real problem.
I am a lawyer - although products liability is not my area of concentration. If we ignore for the moment the fact that software developers almost never have any liability when their products fuck up. It is very doubtful that any court would let Google escape liability simply by putting BETA in the corner. If you make a product and offer it to the public - substantially as a non-experimental product - you will be held liable. The courts generally look, not at technicalities, but at the substance of the transaction
A lot of this guys figures seem questionable. He estimates - 10% of cold called customers stay on the line to chat and then he estimates that it takes 5 minutes to close a sale and to come up with his break even profit point of .50 per sale he seems to plan on everyone of the 10% who stay to chat - also buying. As anyone who has done even a little sales work knows - these figures don't map to real life. Add in the language / accent difficulty of Indian or Chinese telemarketers and the whole thing sounds like a business plan that's going to fail to me - Consultants and Groups get paid to create hysteria - and well... Mission accomplished!
That is absolutely not true - the US Constitution is very clear about who it protects from abuse by the Government - The constitution says "No Person" - not "No Citizen" - not "No US Resident" - NO PERSON. If the US government is holding PEOPLE in violation of the constitutions protections WHEREVER - it is unconstitutional. The constitution reaches the actions of the US government regardless of the WHERE or the WHO.
I am a lawyer - although copyright and IP are not my main area - but one of the problems any GPL violation suit is going to have is damages. Courts like to measure damages in money and if you're claim is that he stoled the thing that I was giving away and didn't offer to give it away too - well - lots of courts will ask - where are your damages? Exactly how much money did it lose you? I understand that there are other issues that are important to the community and the authors - but courts like to see actual damages to a plaintiff. Let me be clear - I'm not saying you can't win a suit for violation of the GPL (maybe someone already has - I don't know) but the issue of damages will be a hard on for a court to deal with. Believe it or not - courts don't like to rule on strictly technical violations.
In the end the only system that works - is user pays. The solution is not to make the information available free - but the recognize the value of an increased user base that results from LOWER prices. So - instead of charging a select few hundreds of dollars - they might be able to publish to hundreds of thousands for just a few dollars each.
I am a lawyer - although First Ammendment is not my area of practice - but it's important to recognize that your ability to say anything you want is much more severly limited than just Slander, Libel ect. The First Amend. only protects your speech from GOVERNMENT intrusions. Private intrusions are not covered - for an important example - you can be fired for just about any speech your employer doesn't like. There are exceptions - e.g. certain speech is protected under the National Labor Relations Act and you can;t be fired for that - but Coke doesn't need to prove that you revealed a trade secret to fire you. They can fire you for saying you thought "Million Dollar Baby" was a great movie (it is btw).
I am a lawyer - although this is not in my area of concentration. This is not a First Amendment case. No governmental body if attempting to silence the press here. It's a case about the privilege to not testify to confidential information. As a society we have carved out some communication that are privileged and need not (as a rule) be disclosed in court proceedings. PRIVATE communications between you and your Lawyer, Doctor, Priest are as a rule privileged. We privileged them because we want to encourage open, honest communications with these people - not chilled by the fear of compelled disclosure. Some states - CA among them - also extend limited privilege to reporters. If as a society we think it's important to encourage open honest - and importantly verifiable - communications with reporters - we need to extend this privilege to them. If you think so - write your congressman. Also - since most litigation takes place in state courts - write your state legislators and ask them.
Actually - you are not taking this point far enough. You are correct to point out that wind energy generation has been found to have a significant effect on the local environment (mostly temperature variation at the ground). So, don't assume that these solar panels will be any different - if all of a suddend every roof top had a 10'X14' black panel - what would the environmental effect be?
I am a lawyer (although litigation is not my area). The general rule is that standing to bring a case requires more than the generalized injury that all citizens suffer (The thinking goes that congress is charged with addressing that sort of generalized injury). If the courts find that consumer groups (weak - because we are all consumers - thus the injury is generalized) and libraries (stronger) don't have standing, then the most likely plaintiffs will be hardware manufacturers - who can point to added costs. Are there any manufacturers who have voiced opposition to the flag? If not a good plaintiff may be hard to find. Courts have held that in some cases - bascially no one has standing.
I am a lawyer - and that's not the way it works. The legal concept of Res Judicata (Litterally - the thing is judged). Prevents parties who are unhappy with the results of a legal suit from refiling the case between the same parties based on facts arising out of the same events. So if they lose in the D.C. Circuit (which, unlike most circuits, has nationwide jurisdiction) they can't just try again in another circuit. They can, of course, apply for an en banc rehearing and after that to the US Supreme Court.
There is an important distinction to be made here: It is not a violation of the DCMA to break the copy protection of the disk. It is a violation to traffic in devices that have as their primary purpose circumvention of copy protection
The full title of the law is - "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001". See it's an acronym. Some smart guys in Washington must have the job of figuring out names for these acts that are clever acronyms.
I am a lawyer - and while parody or satire may be a defense to copyright infringement - this does not seem to be a copyright case. It also doesn't really seem to be an "Identity theft" case - at least not a criminal one. There is, in my opinion, no identity theft here. The defendant did not defraud anyone by his masquerade. The general rule is - you can use any name you like as long as you do not use it to commit fraud. Since, most likely, the defendant simply used the plaintiff's name to obtain a free e-mail account or else paid for the account using his own money - there is no fraud on the e-mail provider. I would have to read the case to figure out what exactly the complaint is - but from the article - I can see nothing really actionable.
Victor Laszlo: And what if you track down these men and kill them? What if you murdered all of us? From every corner of your Republic, thousands would rise to take our places. Even Nazis can't kill that fast. Major Strasser: Herr Laszlo, you have a reputation for eloquence which I can now understand. But in one respect you are mistaken. You said the enemies of the Reich could all be replaced. But there is one exception, no one could take your place in the event anything unfortunate shoudl occur to you while you were trying to escape.
Common carrier laws only apply to companies who are common carriers - meaning they provide transmission services to the public. And only apply to them in their capacity as common carriers. To the extent they are personally putting content out - they are not protected. E.g. - BellSouth is safe from responsibility from what I put on my web site that is in their network - but they have full responsibility for what is on the BellSouth site.
A little thing called the anti-trust laws prevents the studios from colluding and capping the salaries of stars. And a little thing call the well tested market system says the stars are worth the money that are paid - and if you watch carefully - you will see that when they stop being worth it - they stop getting paid it.
I am a lawyer - so let me put this to rest. Unless you get a judge who just hates the plaintiff, this kind of small mistake in a demand letter won't mean anything. The judge will assume that the defendant knew the correct address and will have expected them to react accordingly. I know the movies and popular press make the law seem hyper-technical - but really there are fairly flexible and won't let little errors like this cause problems.
I hate to double post but ...
These sites are running up against the exact thing that brought down Napster. The Napster Court held that running a centralized database that allows users to find and download infringing files is contributory copyright infringement. If there is some technical diffrence here - we were just running a database th.at allows users to find files that allows them to download infringing files - well, I don't think the courts will care.
The Kazaa people were smarter - they decentralized the database and thus - no contributory copyright infringment
These sites are running up against the exact thing that brought down Napster. The Napster Court held that running a centralized database that allows users to find and download infringing files is contributory copyright infringement. If there is some technical diffrence here - we were just running a database that allows users to find files that allows them to download infringing files - well, I don't think the courts will care.
I think there is a high level of hysteria about this issue of you being responsible for someone using your link to download child porn. Remember - the criminal standard is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". I am an attorney and I work for a District Attorney (although criminal law is not my area) and we would be extremely unlikely to prosecute anyone for child porn without finding actual images in the defendant's possession.
I don't think that you would be liable for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent someone from growing pot in your basement. I am a lawyer - but criminal law is not my area of specialty. I am fairly sure that criminal responsibility (as opposed to civil liability) would require either actual knowledge or "Willful Ignorance". The general rule is that you are not expected to foresee the criminal acts of others.
It's only a matter of time before the government knows everything that we do. Think about it - cameras everywhere, massive databases tracking every purchase, every phone call and every e-mail. Combine all the data with sophisticated pattern analysis software and essentially the government will know everything - where you go, who you see & what you do. It's unstoppable. Inevitable. The only thing we can do - is legalize everything. Not murder or theft - but all the low victim crimes - prostitution, drugs, sodomy, euthanasia & so on. Every change you get - even if it makes your stomach hurt - vote to legalize everything
The networks can't offer torrents directly from their web sites - because it would violate their contracts with the local affiliates. Under your plan - the networks get ad revenue but the local stations don't. It may someday come to that - but not until the complex contractual relationships are worked out to ensure that all the stakeholders get a piece of the pie