Like others have pointed out, I indeed did know that. I thought it was safe to assume that (a) everyone on Slashdot knew where it came from and (b) everyone knew that everyone else knew it. You have proven me wrong on (b).
Somehow, I don't think that the government fining itself in the unlikely event that it catches itself not giving me all the information it gathered on me is really a safeguard against its intrusion into my privacy. But even if it were, being able to read the government's files on me after the fact doesn't do much to protect my privacy.
Are you saying he didn't make the things we're collecting random numbers from? I only object to this being called a random number generator - it's a random number collector.
The original discussion was about "precedent" as in the legal term of art. Yes, the dictionary definition may be met in the way that you describe, but that wasn't what the question about precedent was about.
I'll watch for your comments, stories, and blog posts on the matter. I'm sure most of Slashdot is at least passingly curious about how much the RIAA is spending to harass their grandmothers.
Of course, courts will speak of people being "guilty" of, say, contributory negligence. The difference is that they are not using it as a legal term of art in those cases,* and I don't get as upset about it as I do when people speak of "plead(ing) guilty" in the civil litigation context. That's the one that really makes no sense, no matter how you slice it. At least "she knew she was guilty of copyright infringement and offered to settle" makes sense, so long as the context makes clear that no legal terms of art are being used.
You would know better than anyone on Slashdot: How many lawyers does the RIAA sic on people in cases like this? Is $500/hr/atty a reasonable estimate of what they're being billed? Running some reasonable-but-very-much-guessed numbers in my head gets me to a cost of around $3,000-4,000 to the RIAA to respond to the Rule 68 offer alone. Then again, they may be acting in a more streamlined fashion than any other corporation with a major litigation strategy, or even using in-house counsel for these suits, for all I know.
Addendum: The RIAA will probably not sue you for downloading movies. While they could, because of the sound tracks, you have a better chance of being sued by the MPAA for movies and the RIAA for mp3s. Plus, you can fit more mp3s than movies on your hard drive.
Why would you shoot the RIAA's lawyer? The chances are good that the lawyers actually working on this are junior partners in firms hired by the RIAA, with no RIAA people ever really talking to the lawyers who actually go to court for them. The RIAA talks to the "cosmic partner" (so called because nobody actually ever sees him, especially not doing any actual work), who then divvies the cases out to junior partners who work with associates to take them to court. The chances are slim that you'd be shooting anyone evil. It'd be like shooting a Microsoft internal IT guy because you don't like Vista.
Even if the RIAA took it all the way to trial and won a judgment of $8 billion dollars, it would likely still have next to no precedential effect. It's not like you can go to another court with a different defendant and say "See! We over there against that chick, so, Your Honor, you have to give us money from this guy too!" Thankfully, whatever faults it does have, the American legal system doesn't work quite like that.
Not really. First off, you don't plead guilty in civil cases such as this. Second, courts have held (see, e.g., Scosche v. Visor Gear) that Rule 68 judgments do not have a preclusive effect on litigating issues they dispose of. Therefore, the RIAA probably cannot take the Rule 68-based judgment and use it against this defendant in a future case to avoid actually litigating the issues in the future case. Numerous sources indicate that Rule 68 has the sole purpose of encouraging settlement.
Finally, the real issue that was raised and to which I responded: There is no precedential effect, no matter how you take the Rule 68-based judgment. Legal precedents are only as to issues of law. It seems that no interpretation of law was made here, and any issues that were disposed of by the judgment are factual in nature. There is no such thing as a legally binding factual precedent.
NBC's policy indeed sounds fairly reasonable. W&M's IT people and protecting students, though, may or may not be as good as you describe. I had a roommate at the Gradplex whose entire W&M internet connection was shut off early last year for a few days until he went through a process involving promising not to download unlicensed content again, at the request of one or another movie studio (or possibly the MPAA itself) after he had downloaded a movie, I believe using Bittorrent. Maybe we just get a different experience over here - it wouldn't be the first time.
I'm glad someone from the main campus chimed in. However, with the cross thing, you'll note that all of the actual thinking took place after what at least appeared to be swift kowtowing. If it wasn't caving, it sure went out of its way to look that way. The same is the case with the feathers. Other small (specifically, less than 1/5 of the endowment of W&M) state schools have taken the NCAA to court on much more contentious issues. I happen to agree with the decision on this one - it's not worth taking those two feathers to court - but that doesn't change how it looks to those on the outside.
Regardless of all that, though, let's get back to the point: Do you really think that W&M would have resisted such subpoenas if it had been given a chance?
W&M has a tendency to cave in, such as to the NCAA regarding the use of Indian logos and the recent temporary removal (until deep-pocket alumni demanded its return) of a cross from the on-campus Wren Chapel (for those unaware, the Christopher Wren Building is the oldest building in continuous academic use in the United States). This motion may have been decided differently had W&M been given the opportunity to be heard.;)
It looks more like idiot power user than server to me. There is no on-board remote management capability, only one CPU socket, and the RAM slots are perpendicular to the rest of the components, so it'd be tough to get good airflow in a rackmount chassis. Maybe not idiot power user, though - I suppose that a high-end workstation could potentially use interface bonding to get some mileage out of the four ethernet ports, although there is probably a better way to get the same task done.
Here is a map of reasonable GSM coverage in the USA that is far more realistic than, for instance, AT&T's attempts to convince me that they have the "largest network" in the country (which by their own map is not true as it does not cover nearly the area that Verizon and Alltel cover with their CDMA nationwide roaming plans). See that 85% of the country with no GSM coverage at all? That's where I spend 95% of my time. And even if I didn't, I wouldn't get a wireless plan that doesn't cover my parents' house. CDMA gives me digital coverage in all but the most remote parts of the country, including 4 bars at my parents' house.
My favorite part of this is that we now have two meaningless components of the version number when one was sufficient. The likelihood of a Linux 3.x is extremely low. But let's keep the 2 around just so we don't forget 1.x. Now that we have 2.6.x.y, what will it take to increment the 6?
Believe me, I wasn't thinking Verizon. Why would they ever let me have a phone that can so much as use a ringtone that I didn't get them $2.99 to choose from a library of low-grade hip-hip and Britney Spears knock-offs? And heaven forbid that I should be able to synchronize my phone's contact list using Bluetooth and any software that I didn't give Verizon $50 for. Fortunately, there are a few CDMA providers with great nationwide coverage and an attitude other than "how can we fleece our customers for a few more bucks today?" Of course, that still doesn't mean they'd freely let me hook up a crazy homespun phone and play around.
It's not surprising that it was missed in the summary, but the Neo1973 is a GSM phone. There doesn't seem to be any public word on whether a CDMA version is in the works or if it's even practicable (it's definitely possible, but getting a CDMA carrier to activate it may not be). Too bad I'm one of the many unlucky Americans to live and breathe outside GSM coverage.
Slashdot Mirror
Like others have pointed out, I indeed did know that. I thought it was safe to assume that (a) everyone on Slashdot knew where it came from and (b) everyone knew that everyone else knew it. You have proven me wrong on (b).
Somehow, I don't think that the government fining itself in the unlikely event that it catches itself not giving me all the information it gathered on me is really a safeguard against its intrusion into my privacy. But even if it were, being able to read the government's files on me after the fact doesn't do much to protect my privacy.
Are you saying he didn't make the things we're collecting random numbers from? I only object to this being called a random number generator - it's a random number collector.
Fry: (to a robot at a Bot Mitzvah) So, you don't believe in Robot Jesus?
Jewish robot: We believe that he existed, and that he was a very well-built robot, but he was not our Messiah.
The original discussion was about "precedent" as in the legal term of art. Yes, the dictionary definition may be met in the way that you describe, but that wasn't what the question about precedent was about.
I'll watch for your comments, stories, and blog posts on the matter. I'm sure most of Slashdot is at least passingly curious about how much the RIAA is spending to harass their grandmothers.
Of course, courts will speak of people being "guilty" of, say, contributory negligence. The difference is that they are not using it as a legal term of art in those cases,* and I don't get as upset about it as I do when people speak of "plead(ing) guilty" in the civil litigation context. That's the one that really makes no sense, no matter how you slice it. At least "she knew she was guilty of copyright infringement and offered to settle" makes sense, so long as the context makes clear that no legal terms of art are being used.
* - Haha, I can do it, too!
You would know better than anyone on Slashdot: How many lawyers does the RIAA sic on people in cases like this? Is $500/hr/atty a reasonable estimate of what they're being billed? Running some reasonable-but-very-much-guessed numbers in my head gets me to a cost of around $3,000-4,000 to the RIAA to respond to the Rule 68 offer alone. Then again, they may be acting in a more streamlined fashion than any other corporation with a major litigation strategy, or even using in-house counsel for these suits, for all I know.
Addendum: The RIAA will probably not sue you for downloading movies. While they could, because of the sound tracks, you have a better chance of being sued by the MPAA for movies and the RIAA for mp3s. Plus, you can fit more mp3s than movies on your hard drive.
Why would you shoot the RIAA's lawyer? The chances are good that the lawyers actually working on this are junior partners in firms hired by the RIAA, with no RIAA people ever really talking to the lawyers who actually go to court for them. The RIAA talks to the "cosmic partner" (so called because nobody actually ever sees him, especially not doing any actual work), who then divvies the cases out to junior partners who work with associates to take them to court. The chances are slim that you'd be shooting anyone evil. It'd be like shooting a Microsoft internal IT guy because you don't like Vista.
Even if the RIAA took it all the way to trial and won a judgment of $8 billion dollars, it would likely still have next to no precedential effect. It's not like you can go to another court with a different defendant and say "See! We over there against that chick, so, Your Honor, you have to give us money from this guy too!" Thankfully, whatever faults it does have, the American legal system doesn't work quite like that.
Not really. First off, you don't plead guilty in civil cases such as this. Second, courts have held (see, e.g., Scosche v. Visor Gear) that Rule 68 judgments do not have a preclusive effect on litigating issues they dispose of. Therefore, the RIAA probably cannot take the Rule 68-based judgment and use it against this defendant in a future case to avoid actually litigating the issues in the future case. Numerous sources indicate that Rule 68 has the sole purpose of encouraging settlement.
Finally, the real issue that was raised and to which I responded: There is no precedential effect, no matter how you take the Rule 68-based judgment. Legal precedents are only as to issues of law. It seems that no interpretation of law was made here, and any issues that were disposed of by the judgment are factual in nature. There is no such thing as a legally binding factual precedent.
Nope. It just means that one particular defendant convinced them to drop the matter for $300. No legal precedential effect.
NBC's policy indeed sounds fairly reasonable. W&M's IT people and protecting students, though, may or may not be as good as you describe. I had a roommate at the Gradplex whose entire W&M internet connection was shut off early last year for a few days until he went through a process involving promising not to download unlicensed content again, at the request of one or another movie studio (or possibly the MPAA itself) after he had downloaded a movie, I believe using Bittorrent. Maybe we just get a different experience over here - it wouldn't be the first time.
I'm glad someone from the main campus chimed in. However, with the cross thing, you'll note that all of the actual thinking took place after what at least appeared to be swift kowtowing. If it wasn't caving, it sure went out of its way to look that way. The same is the case with the feathers. Other small (specifically, less than 1/5 of the endowment of W&M) state schools have taken the NCAA to court on much more contentious issues. I happen to agree with the decision on this one - it's not worth taking those two feathers to court - but that doesn't change how it looks to those on the outside.
Regardless of all that, though, let's get back to the point: Do you really think that W&M would have resisted such subpoenas if it had been given a chance?
:hell
I think you mean "hell:", with the correct syntax.
You are almost certainly speaking from an ignorance of the facts and history involved. Read a few books on it and come back.
W&M has a tendency to cave in, such as to the NCAA regarding the use of Indian logos and the recent temporary removal (until deep-pocket alumni demanded its return) of a cross from the on-campus Wren Chapel (for those unaware, the Christopher Wren Building is the oldest building in continuous academic use in the United States). This motion may have been decided differently had W&M been given the opportunity to be heard. ;)
It looks more like idiot power user than server to me. There is no on-board remote management capability, only one CPU socket, and the RAM slots are perpendicular to the rest of the components, so it'd be tough to get good airflow in a rackmount chassis. Maybe not idiot power user, though - I suppose that a high-end workstation could potentially use interface bonding to get some mileage out of the four ethernet ports, although there is probably a better way to get the same task done.
Here is a map of reasonable GSM coverage in the USA that is far more realistic than, for instance, AT&T's attempts to convince me that they have the "largest network" in the country (which by their own map is not true as it does not cover nearly the area that Verizon and Alltel cover with their CDMA nationwide roaming plans). See that 85% of the country with no GSM coverage at all? That's where I spend 95% of my time. And even if I didn't, I wouldn't get a wireless plan that doesn't cover my parents' house. CDMA gives me digital coverage in all but the most remote parts of the country, including 4 bars at my parents' house.
My favorite part of this is that we now have two meaningless components of the version number when one was sufficient. The likelihood of a Linux 3.x is extremely low. But let's keep the 2 around just so we don't forget 1.x. Now that we have 2.6.x.y, what will it take to increment the 6?
Believe me, I wasn't thinking Verizon. Why would they ever let me have a phone that can so much as use a ringtone that I didn't get them $2.99 to choose from a library of low-grade hip-hip and Britney Spears knock-offs? And heaven forbid that I should be able to synchronize my phone's contact list using Bluetooth and any software that I didn't give Verizon $50 for. Fortunately, there are a few CDMA providers with great nationwide coverage and an attitude other than "how can we fleece our customers for a few more bucks today?" Of course, that still doesn't mean they'd freely let me hook up a crazy homespun phone and play around.
It's not surprising that it was missed in the summary, but the Neo1973 is a GSM phone. There doesn't seem to be any public word on whether a CDMA version is in the works or if it's even practicable (it's definitely possible, but getting a CDMA carrier to activate it may not be). Too bad I'm one of the many unlucky Americans to live and breathe outside GSM coverage.