an author protecting her solely-created IP from some little fanboy trying to profit off her work and his "doesn't get out much" Potter addiction hardly warrants this kind of posting
I disagree. The vitality of the "fair use" defense is of extreme importance to the balance in copyright law. A highly publicized, and dead-wrong, decision like this casts a chill over our freedom of expression.
Even though I agree that the article you posted was a little too opinionated, I am glad you contribute to/.
Thank you.
I think.
. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue doing what I always do. When I report facts I'll report facts. When I'm expressing an opinion along with the facts -- as I was doing here -- there will be no mistaking what my opinion is. I'm entitled to my opinions.
My opinion of J. K. Rowling used to be highly favorable. It has changed due to her pursuit of this mean-spirited lawsuit.
My opinion of the law is not affected by the lawsuit. Only my opinion of Ms. Rowling is affected by the lawsuit. My opinion of the law is that the defendant had a very strong fair use defense, and that the judge erred in concluding otherwise.
"Why is it wrong for a Slashdot post to express an opinion?"
Because of the borg, you will be assimilated, resistance is futile. opinion must be shared by all, or not exist. there can be no bias, except that of the slashdrone. there must be no argument on what is right, for the slashdrones can not argue.
I honestly can't remember very many articles in Slashdot that weren't skew by opinion. If you take a sample of the latest articles mentioning Microsoft, Linux, Apple, DRM, politicians, or any other Slashroversial topic. I bet nearly all of them have opinionated summaries. The difference here is that they are a fan of J.K Rowlings, which makes you wrong for having a negative opinion of her.
I was wondering what's going on here. I guess you have put it in perspective for me. I guess I touched a nerve by criticizing the Great God Rowling.
Seriously, can someone explain why competing reference books rule out fair use, especially given that she admits she hasn't even started on her version, years after his has been done?/quote?Seriously. No.
I think NYCL's sarcasm, though perhaps a bit on the snarky side, is at least relevant to the conversation.
It's not the first time I've been called snarky on Slashdot. So it must be so.
I just find it offensive for a woman who was once poor, and who knows what poverty is, who is now a gazillionaire, to prevent some other person from trying to make a living, not by publishing books that try to compete with her novels and movies or try to rip her off in any way, but for doing a 'lexicon', which is exactly the type of secondary work she has been encouraging people to do these past years because it helps to promote her books and movies, and it is something she has never done, based on the premise that she's been planning to do one some day.
As a legal matter, every United States copyright lawyer knows the judge screwed up here.
As a matter of fairness and morality and decency, only on Slashdot could you find anyone willing to take a stab at justifying her disgusting behavior.
Kdawson is an idiot for not removing the personal bias from the blurb.
Point of order. Why is it wrong for a Slashdot post to express an opinion? Especially where the submitter provided the actual, 68-page, decision so that readers can make up their own mind.
Oh please.
The judge granted summary judgement on the flimsiest of grounds - a reference work for a multiple-volume work of fiction, by definition, will be "a dry reference."
Most reference books contain unique descriptions and commentary above and beyond the information presented in the source material.
And if you've ever looked at the Lexicon website, you know that it does precisely that. The judge fucked up on this point of law, because the Lexicon writer was a little guy and Rowling carries around an army of lawyers.
It's a sad day for the legal system and I hope this gets overturned on appeal - of course, by that point the damage is done.
Thank you, Moryath. It's always a pleasure to hear from someone who actually knows something about copyright law.
I wish I could mod myself -1 Complainy, but I gotta agree here...this is a deeply biased and agendized summary. Mod the summary -1 Disappointed.:(
Yes but I did provide you with the actual 68-page decision, so that you could decide for yourself that my post was "biased" and "agendized". Who, other than Groklaw, gives you that kind of service? And with a:).
You are implying (well, stating outright) the RIAA cases are illogical, and I disagree.
1. Yes I stated. I never imply.
2. Yes I stated they are illogical. I was not speaking as a businessman, but as a lawyer. They are illogical because they are not based on sound legal theory or on evidence that the defendant infringed any of plaintiffs' rights. I don't see anything in your post which disputes that.
3. As to whether the suits are logical from a business perspective, I will leave that to the marketplace, which doesnotseem to thinkso.
Once they have to start testifying under oath, they will be either (a) admitting the facts upon which they can be found guilty, (b) committing perjury, or (c) taking the Fifth.
The only real difficulty in applying logic to the law is that the weighed value of specific original premises (precedent, law, etc) tends to change as time changes and depending on which judge is analyzing them. But the results most certainly do depend on logic, and the weighted values of the original premises are not simply pulled out of thin air.
Logic has its place in the law, but it is not the sole determinant. If it were, there would be no RIAA cases for us to talk about.
My message to the poster was that if he wanted to try to play the futile game of deciding these cases on pure logic, he needed to get the "original premises" right... even the unweighted premises... before proceeding to the next step.
I'm not saying logic has no place in the law; indeed it has an important place.
What I was saying is that (a) you cannot answer a legal question merely with logic, and (b) if you want to go ahead and try, fine, but go ahead and get your premises straight before proceeding to develop your formula. The original poster had all false premises not based on copyright law.
MediaSentry absolutely doesn't want to be an expert witness. As an expert witness they & their methods are subject to cross examination. They've been dancing this dance since day 1. They aren't private investigators, because then they could be regulated, have oversight, etc. They aren't expert witnesses because then their methodologies would have to be displayed & would be eligible for review. They want to play both roles without having to be subject to the rules governing either side.
Thank you, tinkerghost, for reminding people of that. They have argued strenuously in UMG v. Lindor that they are not expert witnesses, in order to avoid having to provide expert witness disclosure. And in the 3 pending Michigan investigations, they have argued,equally strenuously, that the are expert witnesses, in order to avoid having to comply with the licensing statute for investigators.
So what are they really?
Professional liars.
Is any license required for that? No, just the willingness to go to jail when the long arm of the law finally catches up to you.
Since YANAL don't make false statements about what the law is. A private investigator has to be licensed in any state in which he operates which requires a private investigator's license.
This move seems more like a maneuver against the RIAA then a chance to catch Safenet doing something illegal. The impression I received from reading the article [beckermanlegal.com] you wrote concerning the RIAA's legal practices was that Safenet only made it to the stand a handful of times at most, and each time made no attempt to insist their methods met the relevant reliability standards.
It has not yet been deposed even once.
With that in mind, it seems like the RIAA lawyers are the ones presenting Safenet as legitimate investigators, and then dismissing the case once in possession of the desired name.
You are confusing the "John Doe" cases with the "named defendant" cases. In the "named defendant" cases the MediaSentry investigator is the RIAA's sole fact witness.
Putting Safenet under the spotlight puts their methods directly in question, and offers the chance to expose a part of the RIAA's own methodology that seems to much harder to achieve when directly dealing with the RIAA's suits and actions.
All the same, criminal charges against Safenet for what they are doing specifically with technology and information might have unintended, negative consequences. Is the push to prosecute Safenet being put specifically into terms of it's actions as agent in the RIAA cases?
Of course it is. We don't know about their other illegal activities.
Downloading a file, verifying it's content, recording the IP address from which it came hardly seems illegal.
1. You might feel differently if someone accessed your hard drive under false pretenses. 2. Doing it without an investigator's license is certainly illegal. 3. It might even be illegal with an investigator's license, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
All normal things that legitimate software might do.
It is software. You haven't persuaded me it's "legitimate".
>Safenet hands that information over to the RIAA, and the RIAA of course misuses that.
That, too. But Safenet and the 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson are partners in the misuse.
Without being clear on the Michigan law, is it the last step, the releasing of that information to a client with the knowledge that it's going to be used in litigation, what specifically defines it as computer forensics and requires an investigator's license?
These cases are about copyright law, not logic. You cannot get the answer to legal questions by engaging in logic. But if you are going to do so, you should at least get your assumptions right before you start trying to develop formulas.
There are 6 "rights" included in a "copyright". They are enumerated in 17 USC 106. You will not find any mention there of 'sharing', and the 'distributing' mentioned there is narrowly defined.
There is no prohibition against 'sharing' copyrighted material, and there are hundreds of ways of 'sharing' copyrighted materials which do not infringe a copyright owner's rights.
So if you want to play this game, my advice is to develop some premises that are real, rather than fallacious, to start out with.
The RIAA has shown that they are adamantly determined to see this particular gambit through to the bitter end
I have not seen that kind of resolve.
... short of the execs responsible for it going to jail (which I doubt will happen)
I would not be surprised to see criminal culpability for aiding and abetting MediaSentry's felonies and misdemeanors.
... they'll keep pushing forward, just slightly altering their tactics as each old tactic fails them
If your SOLE witness has to take the Fifth, your cases are gone.
I would love to be proven wrong and, gawd knows you know more about the law and its processes than I do, but I just put more faith in the RIAA's pig-headed-ness than their common sense and willingness to play by the rules.
I wasn't suggesting that they have a shred of either common sense or willingness to play by the rules. I believe they will be shut down by (a) their shareholders, or (b) the judges.
Most of the information investigators collect comes from 'publicly available sources'. Safenet's argument is totally meaningless; there is no exemption for evidence gathered from 'publicly available sources'. They're just blowing smoke.
Second, assuming they do take the fifth, and the "evidence" upon which all of the cases are based is wiped out, won't SafeNet just hire some people with investigator's licenses to continue the farce? Or is there some reason that a legitimate, licensed investigator would refuse to participate?
when they're under oath. Right now they're speaking through their mouthpieces, who will say anything, anything at all, no matter how nonsensical it is. It will be hysterical when one of the actual crooks is actually required to testify under oath about his or her illegal conduct. I'm betting (a) they take the Fifth, and (b) the RIAA's whole litigation campaign goes down the tubes.
Slashdot Mirror
Despite what a lot of people are saying, Rowling did not sue. Her publishing company did.
Not so. J. K. Rowling is the second named plaintiff.
an author protecting her solely-created IP from some little fanboy trying to profit off her work and his "doesn't get out much" Potter addiction hardly warrants this kind of posting
I disagree. The vitality of the "fair use" defense is of extreme importance to the balance in copyright law. A highly publicized, and dead-wrong, decision like this casts a chill over our freedom of expression.
Even though I agree that the article you posted was a little too opinionated, I am glad you contribute to /.
Thank you.
I think.
. Meanwhile, I'm going to continue doing what I always do. When I report facts I'll report facts. When I'm expressing an opinion along with the facts -- as I was doing here -- there will be no mistaking what my opinion is. I'm entitled to my opinions.
My opinion of J. K. Rowling used to be highly favorable. It has changed due to her pursuit of this mean-spirited lawsuit.
My opinion of the law is not affected by the lawsuit. Only my opinion of Ms. Rowling is affected by the lawsuit. My opinion of the law is that the defendant had a very strong fair use defense, and that the judge erred in concluding otherwise.
"Why is it wrong for a Slashdot post to express an opinion?"
Because of the borg, you will be assimilated, resistance is futile. opinion must be shared by all, or not exist. there can be no bias, except that of the slashdrone. there must be no argument on what is right, for the slashdrones can not argue.
Now you tell me.
I honestly can't remember very many articles in Slashdot that weren't skew by opinion. If you take a sample of the latest articles mentioning Microsoft, Linux, Apple, DRM, politicians, or any other Slashroversial topic. I bet nearly all of them have opinionated summaries. The difference here is that they are a fan of J.K Rowlings, which makes you wrong for having a negative opinion of her.
I was wondering what's going on here. I guess you have put it in perspective for me. I guess I touched a nerve by criticizing the Great God Rowling.
Seriously, can someone explain why competing reference books rule out fair use, especially given that she admits she hasn't even started on her version, years after his has been done?/quote?Seriously. No.
I think NYCL's sarcasm, though perhaps a bit on the snarky side, is at least relevant to the conversation.
It's not the first time I've been called snarky on Slashdot. So it must be so.
I just find it offensive for a woman who was once poor, and who knows what poverty is, who is now a gazillionaire, to prevent some other person from trying to make a living, not by publishing books that try to compete with her novels and movies or try to rip her off in any way, but for doing a 'lexicon', which is exactly the type of secondary work she has been encouraging people to do these past years because it helps to promote her books and movies, and it is something she has never done, based on the premise that she's been planning to do one some day.
As a legal matter, every United States copyright lawyer knows the judge screwed up here.
As a matter of fairness and morality and decency, only on Slashdot could you find anyone willing to take a stab at justifying her disgusting behavior.
If it makes you feel any better, most of my submissions get rejected.
Kdawson is an idiot for not removing the personal bias from the blurb.
Point of order. Why is it wrong for a Slashdot post to express an opinion? Especially where the submitter provided the actual, 68-page, decision so that readers can make up their own mind.
Oh please. The judge granted summary judgement on the flimsiest of grounds - a reference work for a multiple-volume work of fiction, by definition, will be "a dry reference." Most reference books contain unique descriptions and commentary above and beyond the information presented in the source material. And if you've ever looked at the Lexicon website, you know that it does precisely that. The judge fucked up on this point of law, because the Lexicon writer was a little guy and Rowling carries around an army of lawyers. It's a sad day for the legal system and I hope this gets overturned on appeal - of course, by that point the damage is done.
Thank you, Moryath. It's always a pleasure to hear from someone who actually knows something about copyright law.
I wish I could mod myself -1 Complainy, but I gotta agree here...this is a deeply biased and agendized summary. Mod the summary -1 Disappointed. :(
Yes but I did provide you with the actual 68-page decision, so that you could decide for yourself that my post was "biased" and "agendized". Who, other than Groklaw, gives you that kind of service? And with a :).
I noticed you accidently wrote at least one sentence that doesn't totally drip with contempt for this ruling.
Dammit. Sorry about that. I don't know how I let that slip through.
You are implying (well, stating outright) the RIAA cases are illogical, and I disagree.
1. Yes I stated. I never imply.
2. Yes I stated they are illogical. I was not speaking as a businessman, but as a lawyer. They are illogical because they are not based on sound legal theory or on evidence that the defendant infringed any of plaintiffs' rights. I don't see anything in your post which disputes that.
3. As to whether the suits are logical from a business perspective, I will leave that to the marketplace, which does not seem to think so.
The counsel would have to be uncannily stupid and/or desperate to try this argument in court.
They have tried it in court.
Draw your own conclusions.
Once they have to start testifying under oath, they will be either (a) admitting the facts upon which they can be found guilty, (b) committing perjury, or (c) taking the Fifth.
The only real difficulty in applying logic to the law is that the weighed value of specific original premises (precedent, law, etc) tends to change as time changes and depending on which judge is analyzing them. But the results most certainly do depend on logic, and the weighted values of the original premises are not simply pulled out of thin air.
Logic has its place in the law, but it is not the sole determinant. If it were, there would be no RIAA cases for us to talk about.
My message to the poster was that if he wanted to try to play the futile game of deciding these cases on pure logic, he needed to get the "original premises" right... even the unweighted premises... before proceeding to the next step.
I'm not saying logic has no place in the law; indeed it has an important place.
What I was saying is that (a) you cannot answer a legal question merely with logic, and (b) if you want to go ahead and try, fine, but go ahead and get your premises straight before proceeding to develop your formula. The original poster had all false premises not based on copyright law.
MediaSentry absolutely doesn't want to be an expert witness. As an expert witness they & their methods are subject to cross examination. They've been dancing this dance since day 1. They aren't private investigators, because then they could be regulated, have oversight, etc. They aren't expert witnesses because then their methodologies would have to be displayed & would be eligible for review. They want to play both roles without having to be subject to the rules governing either side.
Thank you, tinkerghost, for reminding people of that. They have argued strenuously in UMG v. Lindor that they are not expert witnesses, in order to avoid having to provide expert witness disclosure. And in the 3 pending Michigan investigations, they have argued,equally strenuously, that the are expert witnesses, in order to avoid having to comply with the licensing statute for investigators.
So what are they really?
Professional liars.
Is any license required for that? No, just the willingness to go to jail when the long arm of the law finally catches up to you.
Since YANAL don't make false statements about what the law is. A private investigator has to be licensed in any state in which he operates which requires a private investigator's license.
This move seems more like a maneuver against the RIAA then a chance to catch Safenet doing something illegal. The impression I received from reading the article [beckermanlegal.com] you wrote concerning the RIAA's legal practices was that Safenet only made it to the stand a handful of times at most, and each time made no attempt to insist their methods met the relevant reliability standards.
It has not yet been deposed even once.
With that in mind, it seems like the RIAA lawyers are the ones presenting Safenet as legitimate investigators, and then dismissing the case once in possession of the desired name.
You are confusing the "John Doe" cases with the "named defendant" cases. In the "named defendant" cases the MediaSentry investigator is the RIAA's sole fact witness.
Putting Safenet under the spotlight puts their methods directly in question, and offers the chance to expose a part of the RIAA's own methodology that seems to much harder to achieve when directly dealing with the RIAA's suits and actions. All the same, criminal charges against Safenet for what they are doing specifically with technology and information might have unintended, negative consequences. Is the push to prosecute Safenet being put specifically into terms of it's actions as agent in the RIAA cases?
Of course it is. We don't know about their other illegal activities.
Downloading a file, verifying it's content, recording the IP address from which it came hardly seems illegal.
1. You might feel differently if someone accessed your hard drive under false pretenses. 2. Doing it without an investigator's license is certainly illegal. 3. It might even be illegal with an investigator's license, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
All normal things that legitimate software might do.
It is software. You haven't persuaded me it's "legitimate".
>Safenet hands that information over to the RIAA, and the RIAA of course misuses that.
That, too. But Safenet and the 'expert' Dr. Doug Jacobson are partners in the misuse. Without being clear on the Michigan law, is it the last step, the releasing of that information to a client with the knowledge that it's going to be used in litigation, what specifically defines it as computer forensics and requires an investigator's license?
These cases are about copyright law, not logic. You cannot get the answer to legal questions by engaging in logic. But if you are going to do so, you should at least get your assumptions right before you start trying to develop formulas.
There are 6 "rights" included in a "copyright". They are enumerated in 17 USC 106. You will not find any mention there of 'sharing', and the 'distributing' mentioned there is narrowly defined.
There is no prohibition against 'sharing' copyrighted material, and there are hundreds of ways of 'sharing' copyrighted materials which do not infringe a copyright owner's rights.
So if you want to play this game, my advice is to develop some premises that are real, rather than fallacious, to start out with.
The RIAA has shown that they are adamantly determined to see this particular gambit through to the bitter end
I have not seen that kind of resolve.
... short of the execs responsible for it going to jail (which I doubt will happen)
I would not be surprised to see criminal culpability for aiding and abetting MediaSentry's felonies and misdemeanors.
... they'll keep pushing forward, just slightly altering their tactics as each old tactic fails them
If your SOLE witness has to take the Fifth, your cases are gone.
I would love to be proven wrong and, gawd knows you know more about the law and its processes than I do, but I just put more faith in the RIAA's pig-headed-ness than their common sense and willingness to play by the rules.
I wasn't suggesting that they have a shred of either common sense or willingness to play by the rules. I believe they will be shut down by (a) their shareholders, or (b) the judges.
Most of the information investigators collect comes from 'publicly available sources'. Safenet's argument is totally meaningless; there is no exemption for evidence gathered from 'publicly available sources'. They're just blowing smoke.
Two questions, Mr. Beckerman: First, is there some court proceeding in progress which is likely to require one of the crooks to testify under oath?
There are many. In UMG v. Lindor we had noticed MediaSentry's deposition, and were awaiting rulings on our document subpoena from the Magistrate Judge, when the RIAA made a motion to drop their case. However, the case is pending at this time. There are plenty of other cases in which MediaSentry's deposition can and should be taken. E.g., Andersen v. Atlantic, Atlantic v. Boyer, Elektra v. Torres, Arista v. Does 1-27, Arista v. Does 1-17, LaFace v. Does 1-5, to name a few.
Second, assuming they do take the fifth, and the "evidence" upon which all of the cases are based is wiped out, won't SafeNet just hire some people with investigator's licenses to continue the farce? Or is there some reason that a legitimate, licensed investigator would refuse to participate?
I don't know.
when they're under oath. Right now they're speaking through their mouthpieces, who will say anything, anything at all, no matter how nonsensical it is. It will be hysterical when one of the actual crooks is actually required to testify under oath about his or her illegal conduct. I'm betting (a) they take the Fifth, and (b) the RIAA's whole litigation campaign goes down the tubes.