It depends upon what the couple are suing Google for.
You are right that trespass seems like the easiest case. However, they could also be claiming a cause of action such as invasion of privacy, and more specifically the sub-prong of publication of private facts. For this cause of action, whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy as to what was published is at stake.
Other causes of action for invasion of privacy are misappropriation of one's name or image for commercial gain; intrusion upon seclusion or privacy; and publication of facts placing one in a false light (or something along those lines). But it doesn't appear from the facts that any of these could be made out (but the facts are just about nonexistent).
Calm down! Have you ever been to Slashdot before? Wouldn't Slashdot be protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? You know, that law which is discussed on Slashdot on a weekly basis.
Of course, I don't recommend people violating copyright laws. Actually, I recommend the opposite.
By the way, this new Slashdot posting system with preview and submit absolutely sucks. It takes forever to enter a comment.
Landlines suck, deal with it. I use a cell phone, and Skype where I can call most of the damn world free for $9.95 a month. Why would I want to use a landline, so I can pay a fortune and get a lot of calls from telemarketers?
They could just raise the price of the Wii. Or is that too difficult for them to figure out? If the demand is greater than the supply, then raise price. Did they fail intro to macroeconomics or something?
If people bitch then they don't have to buy it and Nintendo can go back to selling in Europe.
This is the stupidest sentance I have read all day. No protection from the police but I can't use my gun to defend myself from the police...I really don't get this!
Well actually you often can defend yourself against a known police officer attempting to make an improper arrest. The majority rule is that nondeadly force may be used to resist such (as opposed to an unknown police officer where deadly force might be justified).
However, the Model Penal Code (which some states are likely to follow) takes the position that force cannot be used to resist one known to be a police officer.
There are also cases holding that although only "reasonable" nondeadly force may be used to resist a technically unlawful arrest, there is no limit to the force that may be employed in self-defense against deadly force by the arresting officer. (E.g., People v. Dallen (1913) 21 Cal.App. 770, 775 [132 P. 1064]; Adams v. State (1912) 175 Ala. 8 [57 So. 591]; State v. Smithson (1933) 54 Nev. 417 [19 P.2d 631].
Yeah, sorry but that's not right. Copying copyrighted material is a violation of U.S. law (without a license).
The rights of a copyright holder are listed in 17 USC 16:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords; (2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work; (3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; (4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly; (5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and (6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
I'd point out that while McCain's tax records don't show an extremely rich man, his wife is filthy stinking rich (from Anheuser-Busch bottle distributor money I believe).
3. Wow the deal with the U.S. visa sucks. I was surprised since Australians don't need visas to visit the U.S., but I looked it up and you are right, since your stay in U.S.+Canada+Mexico was longer than 90 days. That is pretty stupid, but I guess they need proof you are leaving within 90 days. Otherwise someone could just go back and forth between the U.S. and Canada to avoid having to get a visa.
Plus side of getting the visa would have been you could have come and visited the U.S. I need to get off my lazy ass and go visit Canada, since I've never been there (it's difficult to get myself to go to Canada when I can go to Mexico and beaches for the same amount). I'm thinking of getting a backpack with a U.S.A. flag emblem since the Canadians like to travel with Maple Leaf ones. That way everyone will know to hate me.
According to Memory Alpha "the Directive states that members of Starfleet are not to interfere in the internal affairs of another species, especially the natural development of pre-warp civilizations, either by direct intervention, or technological revelation."
These are humans (thus the same species), so no problems. We can conquer, destroy and/or commit genocide like we have done with other aboriginal humans.~
Also important to note that while prong 1 uses "community standards" prong 3 uses a "national standard."
So some small town might find that according to their standards the work appeals to the prurient interest, but as long as it has some serious value according to national standards it will be okay (therefore you can look at stuff from California and New York which tend to be much more liberal obviously).
Under this standard most porn is okay (yeah) (except child porn and what I'd guess would have to be some extremely hardcore porn - I'll leave that to you to imagine though).
Also, important to note that while Congress can restrict the sale and distribution of obscenity it cannot criminalize one from possessing it in the privacy of his or her own home (except for child porn which they can though amazingly some Supreme Court Justices dissented on that).
So if the FCC goes overboard on what needs to be blocked, I'm guessing it would be unconstitutional (since the internet isn't like television where they can control things more) and someone like the ACLU would definitely challenge it. I'm not great with First Amendment law, anyone know if there are arguments for them to block more under First Amendment doctrines.
On another note, maybe they can get China to help them figure out how to censor better. They've taken a lot of U.S. technologies. Now they can reciprocate.~.
I don't think this is a good example of why patent laws need to be changed.
From the limited facts I know, they would never win in a U.S. court. Sounds like they'll get their ass handed to them with (inequitable conduct for not submitting prior art that I'm sure they knew of since anyone whose used the internet probably knows about, etc). There are plenty of mechanisms in the law for dealing with frivolous arguments (sanctions, etc). Sounds like they might be trying to extract some money unethically from people who don't know better.
I doubt they will try to take on the big boys (Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo, etc). They wouldn't be able to afford that and they know they'd get their ass handed to them.
Anyway, this isn't a reason to redo IP laws. If anything, this is only a reason to deal better with frivolous lawsuits and threats of lawsuits (and attorney ethics). Well, I guess it is a reason to look at the execution of patent laws, as clearly examiners are patenting stuff that shouldn't be. That doesn't mean the law is bad (though I'm sure we could come up with other reasons why it is), just the execution of it in the patent office. A lot of that probably comes from the Patent Office being underfunded and having some bad policies. (or maybe just hiring idiots I guess).
Retroactive immunity? Wouldn't that be an unconstitutional taking in violation of the 5th Amendment (unless the government gave them just compensation, though I'm not sure if would be for the public)?
Of course people from China have negative things to say about their government. They aren't brainwashed like so many on Slashdot think. They just don't criticize their government in front of STRANGERS. They do in front of family and friends. I'm not a China expert, but I guess some of this may have to do with with Communism and fear, but probably a bigger reason is cultural and Confucianism.
Things need to be put in perspective. I criticize the U.S. all the time, but I find myself defending the U.S. against foreigners when I go abroad. My brother who is a bleeding heart liberal told me the same thing happens to him.
Also, China has much to criticize, but I think this is just taking everyone's focus off the problems in the U.S. (or whatever country you are from). We aren't the great country that we are taught in school (well, I think it is a great country but we have done many terrible things that we should admit to, move on and never repeat - such as the genocide of the Native-Americans, enslavement of a race of people and then discrimination against them, assassinations and coups perpetrated against democratically elected leaders, but ones who we didn't like, all the shit going on now that Slashdot talks about with our freedoms and privacy, and the list goes on).
Anyway, criticism is important. I just don't want everyone focusing only on China, as our government also needs criticism (so it will hopefully improve).
It is "just deserts." This is a very commonly misspelled word. Check out http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/misspelled_words.html or other websites by googling it.
Government ordered price freeze on lawyer fees????? Without lawyers we might live in a society where the government would do or could do such things. Good luck finding a good lawyer when you need one. Good idea, let's run all the good doctor's out of the medical field, because we think they make too much, and after that let's go after the lawyers. What other profession do you not like? We should make you the supreme leader, because clearly you have a lot of good ideas and understand how the world works.
Lawyers are bastards, but you need them. People hate lawyers, but when a company poisons ground water, then they're okay. It's like how everyone hates Congress, but often like their Congressman. Look at nations where there aren't enough. Look at the Corporate Scandals that barely go punished in Korea - there aren't enough lawyers there. It's hard to get justice in countries without enough lawyers. Who was protesting against Musharraf in Pakistan? That's right lawyers. Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 35 had legal training or were lawyers.
The rule of law is exceptionally important, and without it, I don't think a developed society could exist. Of course when lawyers step out of line, they need to be punished. A bitch slapping by the Court will probably be enough for this guy though; don't think we need to take his livelihood away from him. Some cases like this need to come up with lawyers being punished, as to provide a warning to other lawyers.
Anyway, you should calm down. Engineers and scientists are great and society needs them. But society also needs doctors, lawyers, businessmen, construction workers, policemen, and just about every other job. The system has problems, which we should try to fix, but I'll take it over the systems that a lot of other nations have any day.
Definitely agree with you that opening up your network might not be something that a cautious person wants to do. There definitely are people who do it though, and I'm pretty sure there are people at slashdot that do so.
I don't think if someone gets on your network and downloads porn you will be held responsible. You didn't do it, so there is no way you are going to jail. Of course, they might think you were the one doing it, but that's an evidentiary problem.
As to Terms of Use, that might be true. I'm not sure. However, it would be difficult for an ISP to sue a third party that logged onto the network. The owner of the internet connection agreed to and entered into a contract (the terms of use). The third party did not and so is probably not bound to them.
Have you read Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank?
The Court struck down a law taking away sovereign immunity from the states for patent infringement. Why is copyright different (I haven't researched this very much, so obviously I'm open to convincing)?
Of course, sovereign immunity is waivable. A waiver implies voluntary relinquishment (meaning the state decides to do it, not the federal government). Here the state might not want to waive its sovereign immunity.
I also think it is probably very difficult to predict that the Supreme Court would definitely grant cert, since that happens in such a small percentage of the time.
Almost positive your analysis is wrong at least partially. The 14th Amendment was indeed passed to abolish the vestiges of slavery. BUT it does much more than that, and Congress can use it to do more than that.
In Tennessee v. Lane (2004), the Court upheld a law taking away sovereign immunity from states that failed to provide adequate access for disabled citizens to courtrooms under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment.
This has nothing to do with a vestige of slavery. So you see, the Amendment is interpreted much more broadly than just slavery (as it should be since slavery is not within the text). Just because it was passed as part of Reconstruction doesn't mean its limited to that.
The Constitution is the ultimate and supreme law of the United States! So you aren't breaking the law when you go against the terms of an unconstitutional act by Congress.
I disagree. I think they are free networks. Some people leave them open purposefully so other people can use it. I think that should be the presumption. It's sending you a signal saying, connect to me, right?
You shouldn't have to physically find a person and ask if you can connect. That is ridiculous.
Assuming your goal is to get a job after graduation, you might want to check out the career services departments and their respective job placement rates for computer science students.
Don't be tricked by high rates as some school get students crappy jobs to inflate this. See where people are going to work; what companies the school has relationships with. Of course you can always get a job on your own, but this can be beneficial.
People say school doesn't matter, but I'd bet a C.S. major from Stanford doesn't have problems getting a job (if the tuition was worth it is another question though; so I guess one of the goals is to find the school that maximizes employability without being too expensive).
Of course, there are many important factors beyond employability and the C.S. department: cost, girls (very important), location, atmosphere, gut feeling, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
It depends upon what the couple are suing Google for.
You are right that trespass seems like the easiest case. However, they could also be claiming a cause of action such as invasion of privacy, and more specifically the sub-prong of publication of private facts. For this cause of action, whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy as to what was published is at stake.
Other causes of action for invasion of privacy are misappropriation of one's name or image for commercial gain; intrusion upon seclusion or privacy; and publication of facts placing one in a false light (or something along those lines). But it doesn't appear from the facts that any of these could be made out (but the facts are just about nonexistent).
Calm down! Have you ever been to Slashdot before? Wouldn't Slashdot be protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? You know, that law which is discussed on Slashdot on a weekly basis.
Of course, I don't recommend people violating copyright laws. Actually, I recommend the opposite.
By the way, this new Slashdot posting system with preview and submit absolutely sucks. It takes forever to enter a comment.
Landlines suck, deal with it. I use a cell phone, and Skype where I can call most of the damn world free for $9.95 a month. Why would I want to use a landline, so I can pay a fortune and get a lot of calls from telemarketers?
They could just raise the price of the Wii. Or is that too difficult for them to figure out? If the demand is greater than the supply, then raise price. Did they fail intro to macroeconomics or something?
If people bitch then they don't have to buy it and Nintendo can go back to selling in Europe.
Well actually you often can defend yourself against a known police officer attempting to make an improper arrest. The majority rule is that nondeadly force may be used to resist such (as opposed to an unknown police officer where deadly force might be justified).
However, the Model Penal Code (which some states are likely to follow) takes the position that force cannot be used to resist one known to be a police officer.
There are also cases holding that although only "reasonable" nondeadly force may be used to resist a technically unlawful arrest, there is no limit to the force that may be employed in self-defense against deadly force by the arresting officer. (E.g., People v. Dallen (1913) 21 Cal.App. 770, 775 [132 P. 1064]; Adams v. State (1912) 175 Ala. 8 [57 So. 591]; State v. Smithson (1933) 54 Nev. 417 [19 P.2d 631].
Copyright law is a pain in the ass.
Distributing copyrighted material is a violation.
Also, maybe there is could be contributory/vicarious infringement.
Yeah, sorry but that's not right. Copying copyrighted material is a violation of U.S. law (without a license).
The rights of a copyright holder are listed in 17 USC 16:
(1) to reproduce the copyrighted work in copies or phonorecords;
(2) to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work;
(3) to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;
(4) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works, to perform the copyrighted work publicly;
(5) in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, to display the copyrighted work publicly; and
(6) in the case of sound recordings, to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.
I'd point out that while McCain's tax records don't show an extremely rich man, his wife is filthy stinking rich (from Anheuser-Busch bottle distributor money I believe).
Plus side of getting the visa would have been you could have come and visited the U.S. I need to get off my lazy ass and go visit Canada, since I've never been there (it's difficult to get myself to go to Canada when I can go to Mexico and beaches for the same amount). I'm thinking of getting a backpack with a U.S.A. flag emblem since the Canadians like to travel with Maple Leaf ones. That way everyone will know to hate me.
These are humans (thus the same species), so no problems. We can conquer, destroy and/or commit genocide like we have done with other aboriginal humans.~
So some small town might find that according to their standards the work appeals to the prurient interest, but as long as it has some serious value according to national standards it will be okay (therefore you can look at stuff from California and New York which tend to be much more liberal obviously).
Under this standard most porn is okay (yeah) (except child porn and what I'd guess would have to be some extremely hardcore porn - I'll leave that to you to imagine though).
Also, important to note that while Congress can restrict the sale and distribution of obscenity it cannot criminalize one from possessing it in the privacy of his or her own home (except for child porn which they can though amazingly some Supreme Court Justices dissented on that).
So if the FCC goes overboard on what needs to be blocked, I'm guessing it would be unconstitutional (since the internet isn't like television where they can control things more) and someone like the ACLU would definitely challenge it. I'm not great with First Amendment law, anyone know if there are arguments for them to block more under First Amendment doctrines.
On another note, maybe they can get China to help them figure out how to censor better. They've taken a lot of U.S. technologies. Now they can reciprocate.~.
Agreed that's why instead of a taking using retroactive immunity the patent should just be defeated so there wouldn't need to be compensation.
From the limited facts I know, they would never win in a U.S. court. Sounds like they'll get their ass handed to them with (inequitable conduct for not submitting prior art that I'm sure they knew of since anyone whose used the internet probably knows about, etc). There are plenty of mechanisms in the law for dealing with frivolous arguments (sanctions, etc). Sounds like they might be trying to extract some money unethically from people who don't know better.
I doubt they will try to take on the big boys (Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo, etc). They wouldn't be able to afford that and they know they'd get their ass handed to them. Anyway, this isn't a reason to redo IP laws. If anything, this is only a reason to deal better with frivolous lawsuits and threats of lawsuits (and attorney ethics). Well, I guess it is a reason to look at the execution of patent laws, as clearly examiners are patenting stuff that shouldn't be. That doesn't mean the law is bad (though I'm sure we could come up with other reasons why it is), just the execution of it in the patent office. A lot of that probably comes from the Patent Office being underfunded and having some bad policies. (or maybe just hiring idiots I guess).
Retroactive immunity? Wouldn't that be an unconstitutional taking in violation of the 5th Amendment (unless the government gave them just compensation, though I'm not sure if would be for the public)?
Things need to be put in perspective. I criticize the U.S. all the time, but I find myself defending the U.S. against foreigners when I go abroad. My brother who is a bleeding heart liberal told me the same thing happens to him.
Also, China has much to criticize, but I think this is just taking everyone's focus off the problems in the U.S. (or whatever country you are from). We aren't the great country that we are taught in school (well, I think it is a great country but we have done many terrible things that we should admit to, move on and never repeat - such as the genocide of the Native-Americans, enslavement of a race of people and then discrimination against them, assassinations and coups perpetrated against democratically elected leaders, but ones who we didn't like, all the shit going on now that Slashdot talks about with our freedoms and privacy, and the list goes on).
Anyway, criticism is important. I just don't want everyone focusing only on China, as our government also needs criticism (so it will hopefully improve).
It is "just deserts." This is a very commonly misspelled word. Check out http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/misspelled_words.html or other websites by googling it.
Lawyers are bastards, but you need them. People hate lawyers, but when a company poisons ground water, then they're okay. It's like how everyone hates Congress, but often like their Congressman. Look at nations where there aren't enough. Look at the Corporate Scandals that barely go punished in Korea - there aren't enough lawyers there. It's hard to get justice in countries without enough lawyers. Who was protesting against Musharraf in Pakistan? That's right lawyers. Of the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 35 had legal training or were lawyers.
The rule of law is exceptionally important, and without it, I don't think a developed society could exist. Of course when lawyers step out of line, they need to be punished. A bitch slapping by the Court will probably be enough for this guy though; don't think we need to take his livelihood away from him. Some cases like this need to come up with lawyers being punished, as to provide a warning to other lawyers.
Anyway, you should calm down. Engineers and scientists are great and society needs them. But society also needs doctors, lawyers, businessmen, construction workers, policemen, and just about every other job. The system has problems, which we should try to fix, but I'll take it over the systems that a lot of other nations have any day.
If you can't sue a state in federal court for a copyright violation wouldn't that basically be sovereign immunity?
I don't think if someone gets on your network and downloads porn you will be held responsible. You didn't do it, so there is no way you are going to jail. Of course, they might think you were the one doing it, but that's an evidentiary problem. As to Terms of Use, that might be true. I'm not sure. However, it would be difficult for an ISP to sue a third party that logged onto the network. The owner of the internet connection agreed to and entered into a contract (the terms of use). The third party did not and so is probably not bound to them.
Have you read Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank?
The Court struck down a law taking away sovereign immunity from the states for patent infringement. Why is copyright different (I haven't researched this very much, so obviously I'm open to convincing)?
Of course, sovereign immunity is waivable. A waiver implies voluntary relinquishment (meaning the state decides to do it, not the federal government). Here the state might not want to waive its sovereign immunity.
I also think it is probably very difficult to predict that the Supreme Court would definitely grant cert, since that happens in such a small percentage of the time.
Almost positive your analysis is wrong at least partially. The 14th Amendment was indeed passed to abolish the vestiges of slavery. BUT it does much more than that, and Congress can use it to do more than that. In Tennessee v. Lane (2004), the Court upheld a law taking away sovereign immunity from states that failed to provide adequate access for disabled citizens to courtrooms under Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. This has nothing to do with a vestige of slavery. So you see, the Amendment is interpreted much more broadly than just slavery (as it should be since slavery is not within the text). Just because it was passed as part of Reconstruction doesn't mean its limited to that.
Passed so that states had to provide due process and equal protection to the newly freed slaves (as well as others).
The Constitution is the ultimate and supreme law of the United States! So you aren't breaking the law when you go against the terms of an unconstitutional act by Congress.
I disagree. I think they are free networks. Some people leave them open purposefully so other people can use it. I think that should be the presumption. It's sending you a signal saying, connect to me, right? You shouldn't have to physically find a person and ask if you can connect. That is ridiculous.
Assuming your goal is to get a job after graduation, you might want to check out the career services departments and their respective job placement rates for computer science students. Don't be tricked by high rates as some school get students crappy jobs to inflate this. See where people are going to work; what companies the school has relationships with. Of course you can always get a job on your own, but this can be beneficial. People say school doesn't matter, but I'd bet a C.S. major from Stanford doesn't have problems getting a job (if the tuition was worth it is another question though; so I guess one of the goals is to find the school that maximizes employability without being too expensive). Of course, there are many important factors beyond employability and the C.S. department: cost, girls (very important), location, atmosphere, gut feeling, etc.