Divide the people interested in music into three groups (obviously this is a massive simplification and leaves out many other groups, but it's sufficient for our purposes): Group A - The people who wanted to buy the music when it came out, and were therefore paying customers before Group B - The people who wanted to buy the music when it started playing on the radio and only didn't because the track wasn't yet available Group C - People who pirate music instead of buying.
Split up like that it's clear that an increase in sales can come from people in group B buying music who previously didn't. As long as there are a large enough number of people in group C who are not also in group B - i.e. a large enough number of people who pirate music rather than buying it for reasons other than the date that the tracks go on sale - there could be theoretically be a large increase in sales without any fall in piracy and without showing anything about the pirates (other than that claims that this was the reason for their piracy were false).
To show that pirating music does not reduce sales you would need a fall in piracy without a consequent increase in sales. Personally I suspect that if pirated music were suddenly to become impossible or risky to obtain there would be an increase in sales. Of course this wouldn't show that every act of piracy is a lost sale but I don't know anyone who's seriously arguing that who doesn't have a vested interest (normally increased damages in court) for exaggerating the effects of piracy.
This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
You're right, of course. This will have no significant effect on piracy. It likely will, however, increase sales, once again demonstrating that piracy and sales are only vaguely related, and certainly not in the simple, direct way that people often assume.
I don't quite see how this will demonstrate that piracy and sales are only vaguely related. Surely all it shows is that piracy is not the only factor influencing sales? I assume that by the "simple, direct way" you mean the idea that every pirated track means a lost sale; I would dispute that that is in fact a common assumption but even if it were I don't see how this would show it to be false.
My thing is that the songs are still vastly too expensive. I'm sorry, but a dollar for something that's played on the radio damn near constantly as is is too much. Alternatively, if you're a band that's been around for a long time, your discography is NOT worth $500 to me. It's worth maybe $10. If you had a flattr account, I'd be all over clicking you repeatedly. But you don't. If you came to town, I'd pay to go to the concert. But you don't. Most places skip over Winnipeg, Manitoba. You're not worth the $50 in gas, hotel bills, and hours of driving for me to see you in a neighbouring province or in the USA.
So until you give me an option other than highway robbery, I'll take my song how I can get it and listen to it the whole 5 times a month maybe that it comes up in my MP3 player.
Quoted in full because it is such a perfect illustration of the point I was making in my GP post.
I would bet all the money in my pockets on the fact that the AC who posted this would not in fact pay for that 1 dollar track if it was less expensive, will not buy it if it is on special offer, and will not buy it in the future if inflation makes the 99c price tag effectively lower. The goalposts, which I would wager have already moved a substantial distance toward the horizon, would simply reveal themselves to be yet more mobile. 50c would still be "highway robbery", or the concert would be too expensive, or too far away, or on an inconvenient day; and the Flattr account if it ever comes into being will be dismissed as not actually getting any money to the artists themselves, or as too inconvenient, or as too risky to be trusted with credit card details. The explanations will still be made with great emotion and conviction, as in the parent, no matter how unbelievable they become, because that way they can make this about righteous indignation over the greed and mistakes of the record companies and pretend that it isn't actually about their own meanness and selfish desire not to pay for something when they can get it for free.
My point exactly. People have grown accustomed to pirating music and therefore getting it for free. In some cases, certainly, this was due to particular mistakes made by the record companies; I would argue that in many cases it was simply due to the allure of being able to get music for free and not get caught, but the cause is now immaterial. The pirates now expect to be able to get all the music they want for free, with no consequences, and there is no change in the media companies' business model that can compete with that. For all the moral posturing and purported justifications I believe that it comes down to the very simple fact that pirates don't want to pay for music and will not pay for music again unless the supply of free downloads dries up.
In the longer term and more generally, of course, there is a significant advantage to paying for music, since the advent of widespread piracy threatens to put out of business some of the musicians that many would consider the most worth supporting, such as the highly trained musicians that make up classical orchestras. That, though, is an advantage that accrues to society rather than to the individual, and is therefore unlikely to factor in the "should I personally pay for this particular track" calculation.
Amusing as the parent's post is it does make a serious point: the record companies are changing their business model - they're doing it slowly and reluctantly, but nonetheless they are doing it. Here's my prediction of the reaction:
- This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
- "The record wasn't available yet" will persist as a reason for piracy for a year or so among people who could have taken advantage of this
- Pirates who previously used this justification will move onto another
Why points 2 and 3? Because the vast majority of "explanations" that are given by pirates are post-facto justifications and actually have no significant connection to the real reason that they pirate, which is that it means that they can get music for free and they probably won't get caught.
It takes a special type of arrogance to post a completely incorrect comment, while calling other commenters "idiots" for getting it right, when there's a link to a nice, simple explanation of the concept in the comment you're replying to.
As well as the Swedish legal system having a good reputation, it is also a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights - the same convention that would prevent extradition from the UK if there are fears of torture or execution, or if he wouldn't receive a fair hearing. I know nothing of Swedish jurisprudence but it may be that he will have as much protection from extradition to the US in Sweden as in the UK.
I don't normally bother to reply to these sort of posts, but: why on Earth did you think this comment was a good idea? You, by your own admission, didn't bother to read the article and clearly didn't understand what was being tested from the summary. What makes you feel qualified to criticise? Are you really so arrogant that you feel comfortable condemning something as "first year psychology shit" when you don't even know what it is, you haven't bothered to find out what's being studied, and the researchers are almost certainly vastly more qualified than you?
See the other replies (or you could even go crazy and actually read the article) if you're interested in finding out why everything you wrote was pointless.
I took a very similar inference from the Slashdot post. My thought pattern was basically this: The article describes what sounds like a safe conviction; the wife had been concerned about her husband and had put her fear into writing, she was later murdered and her husband was convicted on the basis of a range of evidence including the fact that he had, apparently, been researching ways to kill her. There was no procedural impropriety in how the police obtained this, and he advanced no alternative explanation (from the sounds of things his defence was based on all-but admitting the crime and claiming diminished responsibility, so the reason that there was no alternative explanation seems probably to be that he had, in fact, been researching how to kill her). In this context Timothy's question "what if searches for devious, undetectable methods of murder were in everyone's history?" reads to me like a suggestion that we should all put similar things in our search history, presumably in order to make it worthless as a piece of evidence in similar trials. While I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is a statement that "condones" murder it does seem to be an attempt to interfere with the course of justice by deliberately damaging otherwise usable evidence. I was rather shocked by the tone of the summary.
The problem, though, is surely one of scale; Ubuntu, hardly the most popular operating system around, has an estimated 12m users according to Wikipedia. It would only take a small proportion of those to sue for relatively modest damages in order to make Ubuntu unviable. Microsoft and Apple would, if anything, be more vulnerable due to the use of their systems in business.
Obviously allowing the companies to exclude liability against the end-user would not be a solution since the result would simply be that all liability would be excluded as a matter of course.
What might be more practical is an industry regulator with the power to levy fines after a hearing. Aggrieved users could complain to the regulator which could then investigate and assess a penalty that would discourage reoffending without sending companies bankrupt. This is largely the system in place for a variety of other industries, such as telecoms, which have the same problem of ensuring accountability for negligence without opening them up to a claim from each of their millions of users in the case of a breach.
That's a pretty big statement to make. Imports from Asian companies with deliberately depressed exchange rates have kept inflation artificially low for a long time. A trade embargo would increase the cost of doing business for domestic companies which had to buy more expensive components and equipment and the cost of purchases for consumers who had to buy more expensive goods manufactured elsewhere. It would mean massive inflation over a very short period of time, which would be compounded by the expense of restarting domestic manufacturing. Just the fact that the Yuan is overvalued against the dollar by an estimated almost 50% (source: the Economist) could mean price increases of 25% or more on many items (once some of the overvaluation is written off as transport costs and profit). This would take place over a couple of weeks as warehouses emptied, and would conceivably be followed by shortages and massive arbitrage, further inflating prices. The result would be enormous inflation, conceivably higher than at any time in the last century. Double that if foreign countries - notably China - reacted by dumping their record stocks of US dollars. This would be coming at a time when the economy is already sluggish and when there is no possibility of taking advantage of the inevitable large fall in the dollar to export goods more competitively since world demand is massively depressed. And that's even assuming the countries you want to trade with don't get sucked into the embargo arms-race you've started by the embargo with China.
Sensationalist? Yes, a little, but not an incredible prediction. My point is that the economy does, in a very real way, depend on "that shit".
Surely the GP's proposal would, at least on one understanding, be beneficial to the functioning of the market?
There are, to my mind, two constructions of what the GP said. The first is the narrow suggestion that customers should be eligible for a refund if software doesn't match the designers claims. Given that the existence of a free market relies on the dissemination of accurate information, preventing the creator of software from making exaggerated claims to sell their product would seem entirely consistent with the creation of market-based competition. Some people will claim that this is a problem that "the market" can solve itself - but when the customer has no economic redress this can only happen through some postulated dissemination of information among consumers, which requires a consumer base that is for some reason motivated to write fair and balanced reviews of the products they buy for no personal remuneration. It also takes no notice of the inbalance between the ability of a big company to project its message and that of the individual consumer.
The second, wider construction would be that a software creator should be liable for any damage or loss caused by the use of his software. On the one hand this could be said to encourage responsible authoring. On the other hand, though, it has to be borne in mind that software is not like physical products. Imposing liability could lead to quite enormous sums being paid by companies that have behaved responsibly while those which have been reckless need only provide a refund; a small, subtly bug that could escape even careful testing is often more insidious and damaging than a major one and the damage caused could be effectively limitless in the case of a very widely used program. Furthermore, it is effectively impossible in practice to create an operating system or similarly complex program without introducing some sort of bug; creating liability for software authors to third parties would make fundamental software an impossible area to work in. This would obviously not be in the best interests of anyone.
It's not a silly question. Surgeons do in fact have a special right to operate that isn't available to ordinary people. If you perform elective surgery and make mistakes such as they are killed you would not be able to rely on them having given consent in order to escape liability for manslaughter. A surgeon would be able to and any liability would sound only in negligence. The question here is whether there should be an additional requirement that the surgeon be in a fit state to perform the surgery before this protection would arise.
Would that really be helpful? A lecture is good for giving an overview and for learning something in the first place but not much good for revision or reference; it takes a lot longer to listen to a lecture than read the equivalent in a book, it's harder to find exactly what you want and the lecturer probably doesn't footnote his speech. If you wanted to take an exact copy of the lecture - which I personally would find less helpful than taking my own notes, not to mention much more work - a transcript would probably be more useful.
I disagree also with your last statement. The inability to concentrate or work at something that is becoming more and more common comes surely from over-simplification rather than an overly high level of difficulty. There is value in doing something hard - it helps to improve a person's intelligence, memory and general mental acuity. The last thing we need to do is to make things easier for people who are already suffering the negative effects of an overly-simplified education and lifestyle. They need to be challenged if they are to learn to respond to challenges.
-The European Convention on Human Rights, which is what you're probably talking about, isn't part of EU jurisprudence. -The ECHR was ratified by the UK in 1953, and has shaped UK law since then. It is not a recent influence, although recourse to the ECHR is easier since the 1998 Human Rights Act -The ECHR was drafted largely by English lawyers and draftsmen, and the UK had a great deal of influence. As a result it contains very little that was not drawn from already-existent English law. -The rights conferred are such crazy things as the right to life, to freedom from torture, freedom from slavery, the right to a fair trial and protection from retrospective criminalisation. It was largely a response to the inhuman activities of the Nazis during and immediately prior to World War II; the courts have regard to this and avoid applying it to trivial cases as this is clearly not its reason for being.
I'm afraid that that simply isn't true. Reasonable is not be defined as "lawful", and logical consideration makes it clear that to say that it is would be an absurdity; the function of a defence of self defence being to make what would otherwise be unlawful lawful, it would make no sense for legality to be a prerequisite.
Stabbing an intruder with a locking knife (which is, I assume, what a "lockback" is - I'm not familiar with the term) will not necessarily mean the force used was not reasonable. (Note two things: that a locking knife is not an illegal item or a registrable item under UK law, and that the concept of reasonableness is not the same as the concept of proportionality, although clearly the force used against the person will be a big factor in determining how much force it would be reasonable for him to use in defence). Neither is shooting someone necessarily unreasonable, and there are cases in which a defence of self-defence has been accepted when the attacker was shot. Your choice of phrasing, however, does lead to two situations where the force would seem likely to have been unreasonable; stabbing a person to death is only going to be reasonable in dire circumstances, and shooting 'an intruder' encompasses many situations where the danger would not even nearly justify a deadly response.
You refer to the "maximum force" that is permitted as possession of a cricket bat. This is a confusion of two different terms. Force is what is excused by self defence. Possession of illegal weaponry is not (unless the creation of acquisition of the weapon was a response to the threat - a rare situation but one which does occur, as in the case of the man who succeeded in a claim of self defence after fashioning molotov cocktails to defend his home from rioters). If the force used is unreasonable, in the eyes of a jury, given the situation as you perceived it, then the defence of self-defence will fail whether you used a gun, a cricket bat or a cardboard tube. If the jury considers the force used to have been reasonable in the circumstances then they will acquit, even if the force was applied with a dangerous weapon. In this case, of course, there may well be separate charges of possessing a dangerous weapon.
Regarding the duty to retreat, I am not sure to what statute you are referring - my knowledge of 16th-century legislation is somewhat flaky. However there is no duty to retreat in modern English law and there is ample caselaw supporting that fact (e.g. R v Bird 81 Cr App R 110).
From the context in which it was said it would appear that the comparison to fingerprints and DNA was not that they are more trusted but rather that they should always be checked and the police should always try to identify the people in them.
The first point you make is true, at least if you consider non-custodial sentencing to be lax, although I don't agree with you that it's a bad thing; in the UK at least prison governors have repeatedly stated that imposing short custodial sentences leads to increased reoffending because it disrupts the person's life, often leaving them unemployed and homeless on their release, but doesn't give them enough time inside to receive useful training or counselling. The second point, though, is the one I really wanted to respond to, as it is a complete untruth. UK law, to summarise enormously, allows anyone to respond to a perceived threat with a reasonable amount of force. It also accepts that people cannot be expected to weigh the amount of force required exactly in the heat of the moment and therefore gives them a great deal of leeway. What's more, the CPS guidelines, as well as containing the general proposition that prosecution should only be undertaken where it is in the public interest, also states that "it is important to ensure that all those acting in good faith to defend themselves, their family, their property, or in the prevention of crime or the apprehension of offenders are not prosecuted for their actions". It is only where the degree of force used is manifestly disproportionate (as in the case some time ago of a 20-something-year-old man who was pushed on the shoulder by a pensioner and "defended himself" by punching the man to death) or where it has crossed the line from self-defence to vigilantism that a prosecution will even be begun, let alone a conviction secured. The tabloid media regularly stir up controversy by claiming that people are being prosecuted for defending themselves from violent criminals. I am yet to encounter a single case of this nature in which a person has been sentenced for what was in actuality self defence (take, for example, the Tony Martin case, portrayed by the tabloids as reasonable self defence, but where even a cursory inspection of the case report shows that the killing was pre-meditated and that his claims in court had been shown to be untrue; or the recent case where the media claimed a man had been imprisoned for defending his family, but where the "defence" took place after all danger had passed, when the father had rounded up some friends, armed himself and beaten the assailant almost to death on the street). Repeated Government reviews have come to the same conclusion; there is simply no foundation to the claim that victims are prosecuted for reasonable self defence.
True, but I'm referring more to large businesses. If a company makes $100 million in profit one year, and $150 million in profit the next year, but they were expected to make $175 million in profit, the market completely disregards the fact that they grew and their stock dives.
Why? Because they didn't hit some arbitrary expectation of growth? Because they were greedy, but not greedy enough? That's what I was referring to.
That's because stock prices aren't based on current profits, they're based on predicted future profits and future growth - you're buying to sell in the future, and so you're deciding not the highest price you would be willing to pay for the company as-is, but the highest price you can pay and still sell for a profit after a period of time. If a company doesn't post a profit as large as expected it's mostly irrelevant that it did better than the year before, or that it still made a decent profit; its value in the future has dropped and that's what stock prices are based on.
Regarding the extract, all I can really say is what I said before: the meanings of different parts of the statute will be defined either by case law or by other statutes and are not immediately apparent. I don't live in the US and I don't subscribe to any case law databases that cover New Jersey so unfortunately I can't give you an example, but when the judge is interpreting the different parts of the article he will be bound by previous interpretations. If it would be helpful I can dig out a few examples that illustrate my point. As I said, though, that's not the real issue. The most important point is that when the judge interprets the law his interpretation will be recorded by the court reporter, as will his reasoning and the arguments made by counsel for both sides. If either side feels the interpretation was incorrect they can then send all this to a higher court, where a number of more experienced judges will make a ruling on whether or not it's correct. If the task of construing the law were given to the jury either this would have to be abandoned or the principle of jury deliberations being secret would have to be compromised - and even then there's no guarantee that the jury will be able to explain cogently the reason for their decision. I see the system of the judge interpreting the law while subject to the oversight of the superior courts as an important part of due process; while in an everyday situation a person has to decide for himself what is and isn't lawful, if he is prosecuted he should be tried as far as possible against what is, in fact, the law, and not against what a group of people with no experience of statutory construction think it is.
Responding to your point about ignorance of the law being no excuse, this is an often misunderstood dictum. What it doesn't mean is that every person is assumed to know the law. It comes - I think - from John Selden, who said "ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse that every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him". It's a rule born of practicality: if ignorance of the law could be an excuse then no-one could ever be convicted. That said, though, I shall try to respond to the substance of your point. There is, I think, a difference between what is done in the courtroom when determining the law and what a person does on the street. On the street one is concerned chiefly with broad principles: it is illegal to steal; it is illegal to commit an assault and so forth. In the courtroom that won't do (at least, not in a common law jurisdiction; the situation is a little different in mainland Europe). Where a person is accused of a crime the only yardstick that can fairly be used to measure his conduct is the law as enacted, and this yardstick must be the same for everyone.
To return, at last, to the Brian Aitken case, I would make one observation: his case is, at least according to Fox, being prepared for an appeal on a point of law - presumably the one that has caused this furore. While it is unfortunate, if there was a misdirection, that he has been convicted, and without meaning in any way to trivialise what must be a very difficult experience for him, that's how it should work: the number of cases in which the law is misapplied is tiny, but when it is there is a procedure to correct it. If the jury were permitted to make decisions on the law they may not make the same one that the judge would make. In this case that may well mean that they would have made the correct decision. But in other cases - I would say a lot of cases - it would mean that the wrong decision would be made, and innocent people would thereby be convicted. And without the benefit of recorded argument and an explanation of the decision there could be no appeal.
I have to say you made me laugh with the start of your reply - perhaps I do get a little too irritated by the commenters here who are interested only in pretending to know everything. In my defence their real life equivalent - students protesting about something they don't understand - have been marching around my town recently burning things and fighting the police..
I agree that the judiciary is generally the least- well, I wouldn't say corrupt because I don't really think the politicians are generally corrupt, but the most honest. Being appointed for life means not having to do whatever wins you the support of the lowest common denominator, I suppose, and the fact that they're at the pinnacle of a very competitive profession means they tend to know what they're talking about. There was a judge in this country - Lord Denning MR - who was very famous (until, unfortunately, he became famous for some racist remarks) for his view that "someone's got to be trusted - let it be the judges"; possibly not the most ridiculous of ideas. In some ways you (the US, I mean) are a bit closer to that than us, with your Supreme Court able to strike down laws; but then again your constitution bends to the political wind when necessary. A confirmation, I suppose, of the standard view among legal academics that it's impossible really to constrain the Government's power through legal means if the political will becomes opposed to the constraints.
I apologise if you thought I was flaming you; my comments certainly do not constitute what I would consider a "flame". I simply find it infuriating when people attempt to make proclamations on subjects they know little or nothing about, as though a few minutes of internet research qualified them to comment in a meaningful way. It's what Finkielkraut calls the "crisis of democracy"; the idea that because everyone is equally 'valuable' as a person so too are their comments and opinions equally valuable, and that it is somehow undemocratic to say that a person who is less experienced or knowledgeable on a particular subject will not have an opinion that is as valuable as that of an expert. It is a problem, I think, that is greatly aggravated by the internet, which tends to encourage the misapprehension that just because someone has access to information, they are able to use it expertly. (I'm not trying to call you unintelligent or refer to you personally here - I speak in the abstract.)
Regarding the points you raise, I would start with your characterisation of my "argument from authority"; I'm not a debater and I don't know precisely how these terms are used, but surely it is not a logical fallacy to claim, as I did, that a system that has stood the test of time and been developed by a great many men of enormous learning is unlikely to suffer from a flaw that can be found by someone after a moment's research? That, it seems to me, is not an argument from authority so much as the mere recognition that authority exists; I would point out that I did not say you were wrong because the system is venerable, I explained why I thought you were wrong in the preceding paragraph - my point was that a sensible starting point when considering the highly developed work of educated and intelligent men is the assumption that you are unlikely to know better than them.
Regarding the discussions between counsel and the judge, my point is this. When the direction is written there is a discussion between three people (at a minimum): the judge, who has had the benefit of a full legal education and at least 7 years in practice, and counsel for both sides, who are likely to be of similar standing. The most likely outcome of this is that the law will be stated correctly; if there is no agreement then, while the judge will ultimately write the direction as he sees fit, the discussion will have been recorded by the court reporter and the unhappy counsel can send it to a higher court when making an application to appeal. I'm afraid I don't quite see your objection to this, particularly in the light of the comment that the paragraph; are you suggesting that the judiciary is corrupt and that superior judges will "close ranks" and uphold decisions that are wrong on the law?
In terms of people making up their minds on what is and isn't the law, I think we are at cross purposes. I was not suggesting that every action a person takes should be verified by a judge to ensure its legality - of course people must make up their own minds about the legality of their own intended actions. But in a trial it is a very different matter, and it is not simply a matter of efficiency; it is only fair that the law by which a person is judged should be the law as it stands, not as it has been misconstrued by a layman. I'm not sure, by the way, that I would call my view of the law "utopian" - I could level plenty of criticisms. But after reading a great many judgements my respect for the good sense of the judiciary has been increased, not decreased. It is my experience that the majority of "absurd" judicial decisions are in fact sensible and reasonable decisions that have been misreported or fabricated.
Finally, surely the ridiculous variation in awards of damages by juries is another reason not to entrust to them any more than the finding of fact? Over here (the UK) damages are normally determined by judges for precisely this reason - juries have no experience in assessing damages and come up with outlandish and incomprehensible figures that almost always require an appeal, at which point the figure is normally just changed by a judge anyway!
As I pointed out, there is a check on this - the parties may appeal on a point of law, which will then be examined by a higher court, and if the direction is found wanting it will be changed and the decision in the case may be declared unsafe.
Judges' directions to juries are not simply invented in a few seconds and scrawled on a napkin. They are very often directions that have been confirmed as correct by higher courts and are repeated verbatim to ensure the law is properly stated. Where they are not, they are scrutinised and agreed by counsel before the judge delivers them to the jury. And as I have said, they are subject to review by more senior judges.
This is not a way to game due process, it is due process. The alternative would mean that people with no legal education would make up their own minds on what is and isn't the law. Even the most simple of trials would be farcical, as the decision could be changed by just a couple of jurors who had misunderstood the law - and what of the more complex areas of law and policy, like the extent to which economic loss should be recoverable, or the effect of intoxication on criminal intent? Anyone who's ever been to a law class will have seen that a great many areas of the law are by necessity complex - putting the legal decision in the hands of the jury would create a legal lottery. And all this would be beyond review by the higher courts, since jurors could not be expected to describe the exact law they have chosen to apply (which often requires 5 or more pages of complex explanation from a judge) and so no higher court would be able reliably to divine the reason for the decision or say whether it was in error.
If I may risk being impertinent, it seems to me that you are trying to criticise a system of which you know nothing. Given that, it would perhaps not be unreasonable for you to assume that the old and well-respected system is sound rather than expecting your uninformed opinions to expose hitherto unseen problems. This rather reminds me of a post I made recently in which I suggested that the main problem with people using the internet to learn is that it leads to the idea that someone can be knowledgeable after a few minutes on Wikipedia. I'm afraid it's rather more difficult than that.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose it's the nearest substitute for the much-needed "-1 Too Informative".
Divide the people interested in music into three groups (obviously this is a massive simplification and leaves out many other groups, but it's sufficient for our purposes):
Group A - The people who wanted to buy the music when it came out, and were therefore paying customers before
Group B - The people who wanted to buy the music when it started playing on the radio and only didn't because the track wasn't yet available
Group C - People who pirate music instead of buying.
Split up like that it's clear that an increase in sales can come from people in group B buying music who previously didn't. As long as there are a large enough number of people in group C who are not also in group B - i.e. a large enough number of people who pirate music rather than buying it for reasons other than the date that the tracks go on sale - there could be theoretically be a large increase in sales without any fall in piracy and without showing anything about the pirates (other than that claims that this was the reason for their piracy were false).
To show that pirating music does not reduce sales you would need a fall in piracy without a consequent increase in sales. Personally I suspect that if pirated music were suddenly to become impossible or risky to obtain there would be an increase in sales. Of course this wouldn't show that every act of piracy is a lost sale but I don't know anyone who's seriously arguing that who doesn't have a vested interest (normally increased damages in court) for exaggerating the effects of piracy.
This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
You're right, of course. This will have no significant effect on piracy. It likely will, however, increase sales, once again demonstrating that piracy and sales are only vaguely related, and certainly not in the simple, direct way that people often assume.
I don't quite see how this will demonstrate that piracy and sales are only vaguely related. Surely all it shows is that piracy is not the only factor influencing sales? I assume that by the "simple, direct way" you mean the idea that every pirated track means a lost sale; I would dispute that that is in fact a common assumption but even if it were I don't see how this would show it to be false.
My thing is that the songs are still vastly too expensive. I'm sorry, but a dollar for something that's played on the radio damn near constantly as is is too much. Alternatively, if you're a band that's been around for a long time, your discography is NOT worth $500 to me. It's worth maybe $10. If you had a flattr account, I'd be all over clicking you repeatedly. But you don't. If you came to town, I'd pay to go to the concert. But you don't. Most places skip over Winnipeg, Manitoba. You're not worth the $50 in gas, hotel bills, and hours of driving for me to see you in a neighbouring province or in the USA.
So until you give me an option other than highway robbery, I'll take my song how I can get it and listen to it the whole 5 times a month maybe that it comes up in my MP3 player.
Quoted in full because it is such a perfect illustration of the point I was making in my GP post.
I would bet all the money in my pockets on the fact that the AC who posted this would not in fact pay for that 1 dollar track if it was less expensive, will not buy it if it is on special offer, and will not buy it in the future if inflation makes the 99c price tag effectively lower. The goalposts, which I would wager have already moved a substantial distance toward the horizon, would simply reveal themselves to be yet more mobile. 50c would still be "highway robbery", or the concert would be too expensive, or too far away, or on an inconvenient day; and the Flattr account if it ever comes into being will be dismissed as not actually getting any money to the artists themselves, or as too inconvenient, or as too risky to be trusted with credit card details. The explanations will still be made with great emotion and conviction, as in the parent, no matter how unbelievable they become, because that way they can make this about righteous indignation over the greed and mistakes of the record companies and pretend that it isn't actually about their own meanness and selfish desire not to pay for something when they can get it for free.
My point exactly. People have grown accustomed to pirating music and therefore getting it for free. In some cases, certainly, this was due to particular mistakes made by the record companies; I would argue that in many cases it was simply due to the allure of being able to get music for free and not get caught, but the cause is now immaterial. The pirates now expect to be able to get all the music they want for free, with no consequences, and there is no change in the media companies' business model that can compete with that. For all the moral posturing and purported justifications I believe that it comes down to the very simple fact that pirates don't want to pay for music and will not pay for music again unless the supply of free downloads dries up.
In the longer term and more generally, of course, there is a significant advantage to paying for music, since the advent of widespread piracy threatens to put out of business some of the musicians that many would consider the most worth supporting, such as the highly trained musicians that make up classical orchestras. That, though, is an advantage that accrues to society rather than to the individual, and is therefore unlikely to factor in the "should I personally pay for this particular track" calculation.
Amusing as the parent's post is it does make a serious point: the record companies are changing their business model - they're doing it slowly and reluctantly, but nonetheless they are doing it. Here's my prediction of the reaction:
- This will have no statistically significant effect on piracy
- "The record wasn't available yet" will persist as a reason for piracy for a year or so among people who could have taken advantage of this
- Pirates who previously used this justification will move onto another
Why points 2 and 3? Because the vast majority of "explanations" that are given by pirates are post-facto justifications and actually have no significant connection to the real reason that they pirate, which is that it means that they can get music for free and they probably won't get caught.
It takes a special type of arrogance to post a completely incorrect comment, while calling other commenters "idiots" for getting it right, when there's a link to a nice, simple explanation of the concept in the comment you're replying to.
As well as the Swedish legal system having a good reputation, it is also a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights - the same convention that would prevent extradition from the UK if there are fears of torture or execution, or if he wouldn't receive a fair hearing. I know nothing of Swedish jurisprudence but it may be that he will have as much protection from extradition to the US in Sweden as in the UK.
I don't normally bother to reply to these sort of posts, but: why on Earth did you think this comment was a good idea? You, by your own admission, didn't bother to read the article and clearly didn't understand what was being tested from the summary. What makes you feel qualified to criticise? Are you really so arrogant that you feel comfortable condemning something as "first year psychology shit" when you don't even know what it is, you haven't bothered to find out what's being studied, and the researchers are almost certainly vastly more qualified than you?
See the other replies (or you could even go crazy and actually read the article) if you're interested in finding out why everything you wrote was pointless.
I took a very similar inference from the Slashdot post. My thought pattern was basically this: The article describes what sounds like a safe conviction; the wife had been concerned about her husband and had put her fear into writing, she was later murdered and her husband was convicted on the basis of a range of evidence including the fact that he had, apparently, been researching ways to kill her. There was no procedural impropriety in how the police obtained this, and he advanced no alternative explanation (from the sounds of things his defence was based on all-but admitting the crime and claiming diminished responsibility, so the reason that there was no alternative explanation seems probably to be that he had, in fact, been researching how to kill her).
In this context Timothy's question "what if searches for devious, undetectable methods of murder were in everyone's history?" reads to me like a suggestion that we should all put similar things in our search history, presumably in order to make it worthless as a piece of evidence in similar trials. While I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is a statement that "condones" murder it does seem to be an attempt to interfere with the course of justice by deliberately damaging otherwise usable evidence. I was rather shocked by the tone of the summary.
The problem, though, is surely one of scale; Ubuntu, hardly the most popular operating system around, has an estimated 12m users according to Wikipedia. It would only take a small proportion of those to sue for relatively modest damages in order to make Ubuntu unviable. Microsoft and Apple would, if anything, be more vulnerable due to the use of their systems in business.
Obviously allowing the companies to exclude liability against the end-user would not be a solution since the result would simply be that all liability would be excluded as a matter of course.
What might be more practical is an industry regulator with the power to levy fines after a hearing. Aggrieved users could complain to the regulator which could then investigate and assess a penalty that would discourage reoffending without sending companies bankrupt. This is largely the system in place for a variety of other industries, such as telecoms, which have the same problem of ensuring accountability for negligence without opening them up to a claim from each of their millions of users in the case of a breach.
The economy doesn't depend on that shit.
That's a pretty big statement to make. Imports from Asian companies with deliberately depressed exchange rates have kept inflation artificially low for a long time. A trade embargo would increase the cost of doing business for domestic companies which had to buy more expensive components and equipment and the cost of purchases for consumers who had to buy more expensive goods manufactured elsewhere. It would mean massive inflation over a very short period of time, which would be compounded by the expense of restarting domestic manufacturing. Just the fact that the Yuan is overvalued against the dollar by an estimated almost 50% (source: the Economist) could mean price increases of 25% or more on many items (once some of the overvaluation is written off as transport costs and profit). This would take place over a couple of weeks as warehouses emptied, and would conceivably be followed by shortages and massive arbitrage, further inflating prices. The result would be enormous inflation, conceivably higher than at any time in the last century. Double that if foreign countries - notably China - reacted by dumping their record stocks of US dollars. This would be coming at a time when the economy is already sluggish and when there is no possibility of taking advantage of the inevitable large fall in the dollar to export goods more competitively since world demand is massively depressed. And that's even assuming the countries you want to trade with don't get sucked into the embargo arms-race you've started by the embargo with China.
Sensationalist? Yes, a little, but not an incredible prediction. My point is that the economy does, in a very real way, depend on "that shit".
Surely the GP's proposal would, at least on one understanding, be beneficial to the functioning of the market?
There are, to my mind, two constructions of what the GP said. The first is the narrow suggestion that customers should be eligible for a refund if software doesn't match the designers claims. Given that the existence of a free market relies on the dissemination of accurate information, preventing the creator of software from making exaggerated claims to sell their product would seem entirely consistent with the creation of market-based competition. Some people will claim that this is a problem that "the market" can solve itself - but when the customer has no economic redress this can only happen through some postulated dissemination of information among consumers, which requires a consumer base that is for some reason motivated to write fair and balanced reviews of the products they buy for no personal remuneration. It also takes no notice of the inbalance between the ability of a big company to project its message and that of the individual consumer.
The second, wider construction would be that a software creator should be liable for any damage or loss caused by the use of his software. On the one hand this could be said to encourage responsible authoring. On the other hand, though, it has to be borne in mind that software is not like physical products. Imposing liability could lead to quite enormous sums being paid by companies that have behaved responsibly while those which have been reckless need only provide a refund; a small, subtly bug that could escape even careful testing is often more insidious and damaging than a major one and the damage caused could be effectively limitless in the case of a very widely used program. Furthermore, it is effectively impossible in practice to create an operating system or similarly complex program without introducing some sort of bug; creating liability for software authors to third parties would make fundamental software an impossible area to work in. This would obviously not be in the best interests of anyone.
It's not a silly question. Surgeons do in fact have a special right to operate that isn't available to ordinary people. If you perform elective surgery and make mistakes such as they are killed you would not be able to rely on them having given consent in order to escape liability for manslaughter. A surgeon would be able to and any liability would sound only in negligence. The question here is whether there should be an additional requirement that the surgeon be in a fit state to perform the surgery before this protection would arise.
Would that really be helpful? A lecture is good for giving an overview and for learning something in the first place but not much good for revision or reference; it takes a lot longer to listen to a lecture than read the equivalent in a book, it's harder to find exactly what you want and the lecturer probably doesn't footnote his speech. If you wanted to take an exact copy of the lecture - which I personally would find less helpful than taking my own notes, not to mention much more work - a transcript would probably be more useful.
I disagree also with your last statement. The inability to concentrate or work at something that is becoming more and more common comes surely from over-simplification rather than an overly high level of difficulty. There is value in doing something hard - it helps to improve a person's intelligence, memory and general mental acuity. The last thing we need to do is to make things easier for people who are already suffering the negative effects of an overly-simplified education and lifestyle. They need to be challenged if they are to learn to respond to challenges.
-The European Convention on Human Rights, which is what you're probably talking about, isn't part of EU jurisprudence.
-The ECHR was ratified by the UK in 1953, and has shaped UK law since then. It is not a recent influence, although recourse to the ECHR is easier since the 1998 Human Rights Act
-The ECHR was drafted largely by English lawyers and draftsmen, and the UK had a great deal of influence. As a result it contains very little that was not drawn from already-existent English law.
-The rights conferred are such crazy things as the right to life, to freedom from torture, freedom from slavery, the right to a fair trial and protection from retrospective criminalisation. It was largely a response to the inhuman activities of the Nazis during and immediately prior to World War II; the courts have regard to this and avoid applying it to trivial cases as this is clearly not its reason for being.
I'm afraid that that simply isn't true. Reasonable is not be defined as "lawful", and logical consideration makes it clear that to say that it is would be an absurdity; the function of a defence of self defence being to make what would otherwise be unlawful lawful, it would make no sense for legality to be a prerequisite.
Stabbing an intruder with a locking knife (which is, I assume, what a "lockback" is - I'm not familiar with the term) will not necessarily mean the force used was not reasonable. (Note two things: that a locking knife is not an illegal item or a registrable item under UK law, and that the concept of reasonableness is not the same as the concept of proportionality, although clearly the force used against the person will be a big factor in determining how much force it would be reasonable for him to use in defence). Neither is shooting someone necessarily unreasonable, and there are cases in which a defence of self-defence has been accepted when the attacker was shot. Your choice of phrasing, however, does lead to two situations where the force would seem likely to have been unreasonable; stabbing a person to death is only going to be reasonable in dire circumstances, and shooting 'an intruder' encompasses many situations where the danger would not even nearly justify a deadly response.
You refer to the "maximum force" that is permitted as possession of a cricket bat. This is a confusion of two different terms. Force is what is excused by self defence. Possession of illegal weaponry is not (unless the creation of acquisition of the weapon was a response to the threat - a rare situation but one which does occur, as in the case of the man who succeeded in a claim of self defence after fashioning molotov cocktails to defend his home from rioters). If the force used is unreasonable, in the eyes of a jury, given the situation as you perceived it, then the defence of self-defence will fail whether you used a gun, a cricket bat or a cardboard tube. If the jury considers the force used to have been reasonable in the circumstances then they will acquit, even if the force was applied with a dangerous weapon. In this case, of course, there may well be separate charges of possessing a dangerous weapon.
Regarding the duty to retreat, I am not sure to what statute you are referring - my knowledge of 16th-century legislation is somewhat flaky. However there is no duty to retreat in modern English law and there is ample caselaw supporting that fact (e.g. R v Bird 81 Cr App R 110).
From the context in which it was said it would appear that the comparison to fingerprints and DNA was not that they are more trusted but rather that they should always be checked and the police should always try to identify the people in them.
The first point you make is true, at least if you consider non-custodial sentencing to be lax, although I don't agree with you that it's a bad thing; in the UK at least prison governors have repeatedly stated that imposing short custodial sentences leads to increased reoffending because it disrupts the person's life, often leaving them unemployed and homeless on their release, but doesn't give them enough time inside to receive useful training or counselling.
The second point, though, is the one I really wanted to respond to, as it is a complete untruth. UK law, to summarise enormously, allows anyone to respond to a perceived threat with a reasonable amount of force. It also accepts that people cannot be expected to weigh the amount of force required exactly in the heat of the moment and therefore gives them a great deal of leeway. What's more, the CPS guidelines, as well as containing the general proposition that prosecution should only be undertaken where it is in the public interest, also states that "it is important to ensure that all those acting in good faith to defend themselves, their family, their property, or in the prevention of crime or the apprehension of offenders are not prosecuted for their actions". It is only where the degree of force used is manifestly disproportionate (as in the case some time ago of a 20-something-year-old man who was pushed on the shoulder by a pensioner and "defended himself" by punching the man to death) or where it has crossed the line from self-defence to vigilantism that a prosecution will even be begun, let alone a conviction secured.
The tabloid media regularly stir up controversy by claiming that people are being prosecuted for defending themselves from violent criminals. I am yet to encounter a single case of this nature in which a person has been sentenced for what was in actuality self defence (take, for example, the Tony Martin case, portrayed by the tabloids as reasonable self defence, but where even a cursory inspection of the case report shows that the killing was pre-meditated and that his claims in court had been shown to be untrue; or the recent case where the media claimed a man had been imprisoned for defending his family, but where the "defence" took place after all danger had passed, when the father had rounded up some friends, armed himself and beaten the assailant almost to death on the street). Repeated Government reviews have come to the same conclusion; there is simply no foundation to the claim that victims are prosecuted for reasonable self defence.
True, but I'm referring more to large businesses. If a company makes $100 million in profit one year, and $150 million in profit the next year, but they were expected to make $175 million in profit, the market completely disregards the fact that they grew and their stock dives.
Why? Because they didn't hit some arbitrary expectation of growth? Because they were greedy, but not greedy enough? That's what I was referring to.
That's because stock prices aren't based on current profits, they're based on predicted future profits and future growth - you're buying to sell in the future, and so you're deciding not the highest price you would be willing to pay for the company as-is, but the highest price you can pay and still sell for a profit after a period of time. If a company doesn't post a profit as large as expected it's mostly irrelevant that it did better than the year before, or that it still made a decent profit; its value in the future has dropped and that's what stock prices are based on.
Regarding the extract, all I can really say is what I said before: the meanings of different parts of the statute will be defined either by case law or by other statutes and are not immediately apparent. I don't live in the US and I don't subscribe to any case law databases that cover New Jersey so unfortunately I can't give you an example, but when the judge is interpreting the different parts of the article he will be bound by previous interpretations. If it would be helpful I can dig out a few examples that illustrate my point.
As I said, though, that's not the real issue. The most important point is that when the judge interprets the law his interpretation will be recorded by the court reporter, as will his reasoning and the arguments made by counsel for both sides. If either side feels the interpretation was incorrect they can then send all this to a higher court, where a number of more experienced judges will make a ruling on whether or not it's correct. If the task of construing the law were given to the jury either this would have to be abandoned or the principle of jury deliberations being secret would have to be compromised - and even then there's no guarantee that the jury will be able to explain cogently the reason for their decision.
I see the system of the judge interpreting the law while subject to the oversight of the superior courts as an important part of due process; while in an everyday situation a person has to decide for himself what is and isn't lawful, if he is prosecuted he should be tried as far as possible against what is, in fact, the law, and not against what a group of people with no experience of statutory construction think it is.
Responding to your point about ignorance of the law being no excuse, this is an often misunderstood dictum. What it doesn't mean is that every person is assumed to know the law. It comes - I think - from John Selden, who said "ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse that every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him". It's a rule born of practicality: if ignorance of the law could be an excuse then no-one could ever be convicted. That said, though, I shall try to respond to the substance of your point. There is, I think, a difference between what is done in the courtroom when determining the law and what a person does on the street. On the street one is concerned chiefly with broad principles: it is illegal to steal; it is illegal to commit an assault and so forth. In the courtroom that won't do (at least, not in a common law jurisdiction; the situation is a little different in mainland Europe). Where a person is accused of a crime the only yardstick that can fairly be used to measure his conduct is the law as enacted, and this yardstick must be the same for everyone.
To return, at last, to the Brian Aitken case, I would make one observation: his case is, at least according to Fox, being prepared for an appeal on a point of law - presumably the one that has caused this furore. While it is unfortunate, if there was a misdirection, that he has been convicted, and without meaning in any way to trivialise what must be a very difficult experience for him, that's how it should work: the number of cases in which the law is misapplied is tiny, but when it is there is a procedure to correct it. If the jury were permitted to make decisions on the law they may not make the same one that the judge would make. In this case that may well mean that they would have made the correct decision. But in other cases - I would say a lot of cases - it would mean that the wrong decision would be made, and innocent people would thereby be convicted. And without the benefit of recorded argument and an explanation of the decision there could be no appeal.
But he was wanted for rape charges - there was a European arrest warrant in his name on charges of, among other things, rape.
I have to say you made me laugh with the start of your reply - perhaps I do get a little too irritated by the commenters here who are interested only in pretending to know everything. In my defence their real life equivalent - students protesting about something they don't understand - have been marching around my town recently burning things and fighting the police..
I agree that the judiciary is generally the least- well, I wouldn't say corrupt because I don't really think the politicians are generally corrupt, but the most honest. Being appointed for life means not having to do whatever wins you the support of the lowest common denominator, I suppose, and the fact that they're at the pinnacle of a very competitive profession means they tend to know what they're talking about. There was a judge in this country - Lord Denning MR - who was very famous (until, unfortunately, he became famous for some racist remarks) for his view that "someone's got to be trusted - let it be the judges"; possibly not the most ridiculous of ideas. In some ways you (the US, I mean) are a bit closer to that than us, with your Supreme Court able to strike down laws; but then again your constitution bends to the political wind when necessary. A confirmation, I suppose, of the standard view among legal academics that it's impossible really to constrain the Government's power through legal means if the political will becomes opposed to the constraints.
I apologise if you thought I was flaming you; my comments certainly do not constitute what I would consider a "flame". I simply find it infuriating when people attempt to make proclamations on subjects they know little or nothing about, as though a few minutes of internet research qualified them to comment in a meaningful way. It's what Finkielkraut calls the "crisis of democracy"; the idea that because everyone is equally 'valuable' as a person so too are their comments and opinions equally valuable, and that it is somehow undemocratic to say that a person who is less experienced or knowledgeable on a particular subject will not have an opinion that is as valuable as that of an expert. It is a problem, I think, that is greatly aggravated by the internet, which tends to encourage the misapprehension that just because someone has access to information, they are able to use it expertly. (I'm not trying to call you unintelligent or refer to you personally here - I speak in the abstract.)
Regarding the points you raise, I would start with your characterisation of my "argument from authority"; I'm not a debater and I don't know precisely how these terms are used, but surely it is not a logical fallacy to claim, as I did, that a system that has stood the test of time and been developed by a great many men of enormous learning is unlikely to suffer from a flaw that can be found by someone after a moment's research? That, it seems to me, is not an argument from authority so much as the mere recognition that authority exists; I would point out that I did not say you were wrong because the system is venerable, I explained why I thought you were wrong in the preceding paragraph - my point was that a sensible starting point when considering the highly developed work of educated and intelligent men is the assumption that you are unlikely to know better than them.
Regarding the discussions between counsel and the judge, my point is this. When the direction is written there is a discussion between three people (at a minimum): the judge, who has had the benefit of a full legal education and at least 7 years in practice, and counsel for both sides, who are likely to be of similar standing. The most likely outcome of this is that the law will be stated correctly; if there is no agreement then, while the judge will ultimately write the direction as he sees fit, the discussion will have been recorded by the court reporter and the unhappy counsel can send it to a higher court when making an application to appeal. I'm afraid I don't quite see your objection to this, particularly in the light of the comment that the paragraph; are you suggesting that the judiciary is corrupt and that superior judges will "close ranks" and uphold decisions that are wrong on the law?
In terms of people making up their minds on what is and isn't the law, I think we are at cross purposes. I was not suggesting that every action a person takes should be verified by a judge to ensure its legality - of course people must make up their own minds about the legality of their own intended actions. But in a trial it is a very different matter, and it is not simply a matter of efficiency; it is only fair that the law by which a person is judged should be the law as it stands, not as it has been misconstrued by a layman.
I'm not sure, by the way, that I would call my view of the law "utopian" - I could level plenty of criticisms. But after reading a great many judgements my respect for the good sense of the judiciary has been increased, not decreased. It is my experience that the majority of "absurd" judicial decisions are in fact sensible and reasonable decisions that have been misreported or fabricated.
Finally, surely the ridiculous variation in awards of damages by juries is another reason not to entrust to them any more than the finding of fact? Over here (the UK) damages are normally determined by judges for precisely this reason - juries have no experience in assessing damages and come up with outlandish and incomprehensible figures that almost always require an appeal, at which point the figure is normally just changed by a judge anyway!
As I pointed out, there is a check on this - the parties may appeal on a point of law, which will then be examined by a higher court, and if the direction is found wanting it will be changed and the decision in the case may be declared unsafe.
Judges' directions to juries are not simply invented in a few seconds and scrawled on a napkin. They are very often directions that have been confirmed as correct by higher courts and are repeated verbatim to ensure the law is properly stated. Where they are not, they are scrutinised and agreed by counsel before the judge delivers them to the jury. And as I have said, they are subject to review by more senior judges.
This is not a way to game due process, it is due process. The alternative would mean that people with no legal education would make up their own minds on what is and isn't the law. Even the most simple of trials would be farcical, as the decision could be changed by just a couple of jurors who had misunderstood the law - and what of the more complex areas of law and policy, like the extent to which economic loss should be recoverable, or the effect of intoxication on criminal intent? Anyone who's ever been to a law class will have seen that a great many areas of the law are by necessity complex - putting the legal decision in the hands of the jury would create a legal lottery. And all this would be beyond review by the higher courts, since jurors could not be expected to describe the exact law they have chosen to apply (which often requires 5 or more pages of complex explanation from a judge) and so no higher court would be able reliably to divine the reason for the decision or say whether it was in error.
If I may risk being impertinent, it seems to me that you are trying to criticise a system of which you know nothing. Given that, it would perhaps not be unreasonable for you to assume that the old and well-respected system is sound rather than expecting your uninformed opinions to expose hitherto unseen problems. This rather reminds me of a post I made recently in which I suggested that the main problem with people using the internet to learn is that it leads to the idea that someone can be knowledgeable after a few minutes on Wikipedia. I'm afraid it's rather more difficult than that.