You can create disc backups of your STEAM games and there is a crack STEAM that will avoid the need to have STEAM's servers active.
Yes, once you know there is a crack for it, you can use any game.
With only as much effort as cracking a single game's individual DRM, you can crack all your STEAM games
Some steam games have additional DRM on top of steam's DRM. Don't assume you can crack a title, unless you've done it. (And then if there's an update to the game, you'll have to ensure you can crack it again...) Steam isn't really more or less work to crack than anything else.
if STEAM ever goes under (though I'd hope they'll release their own fix for that impending DRM issue while they are in bankruptcy proceedings
It would never happen. Here's how bankruptcy proceedings go: a) company files for bankruptcy. b) a court assigns a trustee to oversee the proceedings c) the trustee oversee ensures that all assets are liquidated d) the trustee oversees that creditors are paid back the proceeds of the liquidation in the correct priority and amount e) the trustee ensures that the company takes no actions that would devalue any of its assets - this would harm the creditors by reducing the proceeds of the liquidation efforts. The company is legally obligated to get the most value possible for its assets... so it can't sell you a company car for $100 if its worth $5000. f) the trustee ensures that the company makes no unauthorized payments - this would harm the creditors (if the company owes you 10 grand because you made them a loan, you can't be paid back before the bondholders, and other higher priority creditors... it doesn't matter that your the ceo's brother...)
Part e is the killer here. They legally can't remove the DRM, because that would devalue their steam infrastructure. When it gets liquidated its up to the company that buys it to decide what to do with it... if your really lucky that company wants to keep running steam, and things continue on much as they were with a facelift... or maybe that company bought the relevant piece of steam for some patents and to harvest user profile information, and shuts the servers down. There is really nothing valve can do about it.
The only way the drm comes of steam legitimately is if the owners decide to do it while they are still solvent.
I like STEAM because I don't have to go around finding NoCD patches for every game I buy
I like that about steam too. But I'm pretty annoyed I can't play two different games simultaneously. And I don't like that I can't give them away, nor even lend them to a friend. I can do all of these things with a traditional retail game.
Personally I now only buy games that are DRM-free, or games which only use Steam for DRM as it can be run in offline mode.
Steam is a minefield. Its extremely difficult to know what DRM you are getting with a steam title. It may just use steams own drm, it may ALSO tie into additional 3rd party drm, the game descriptions often mention drm that has been removed for the steam title or fail to mention drm that exists.
And I personally find steams drm offensive in a couple ways... I should be able to transfer games to another account. I'd be fine if there were restrictions on so that a title couldn't be transferred more than once every 90 days, and I'd even be fine if it cost a couple bucks in fees so steam gets something out of it and it can't be heavily abused for "sharing games", but I don't like that I can't give my brother a game I don't want anymore at all.
I -also- don't like that I can't be online playing different games from the same account simultaneously. I've got kids now, and they are playing all sorts of stuff... its beyond stupid that only one of us can be online at a time. I agree we shouldn't be able to play the SAME game simultaneously... but I should be able to play TitleA online, while my daughter plays TitleB.
Finally, while you can play steam games offline, you still rely on the steam servers to install / activate them so if steam disappears your "offline games" will expire drm death when your hard drive does.
That said, I do use steam occasionally but primarily pick up games at "ridiculously" low prices, such as the current holiday sales... I've picked up a few items already... I don't own any of the half life titles...and can get the entire half-life collection for $6 bucks today (as I happen to have l4d).... at that price point, for me at least, the steam DRM is acceptable.
Like the other poster, I also picked up the Doom pack for $8 bucks or whatever, primarily to get the wads for Doom/DoomII/expansions to use with ZDoomGL.:p
As I've inadvertanly plugged steam's holiday sale, I figure I'll plug gog.com's as well; as I've picked up a few classics with the money in my couch. MOO1+2, Might and Magic 1 through 6 pack,...
That's the way I've always felt aout piracy. I don't think it represents many lost sales, if any, and in a way it can be good publicity... although I have to say you underestimate the number of pirates that simply horde stuff instead of collecting just apps they want. But again, that's not a lost sale either....\
I'd mod you up if i could. There is definitely a class of "pirates" that are more like collectors than anything else... they just want to -have- it, not to -use- it. If it has a high retail price all the better... even if its the software to monitor industrial robots in a jam bottling plant that they haven't even got a theoretical use for.
Actually no, that case covered a fairly straightforward legal technicality.
The plaintiff obtained an injunction against an individual independant website-poster and then tried to use it to compel the 3rd party website-host to comply. The website-host argued that the injunction didn't compel him to act because it was against the poster, and the court agreed.
The plaintiff needs to compel the original poster to act (so far the poster has not responded), or seek an injunction against the website host. All the court ruled here was the technical point that they can't use an injunction against party A vs party B.
An analogy would be if the police had a warrant to search your house, but when they got there and didn't find what they were looking they figured you'd moved the object of their search into a storage locker you were renting. You weren't around so they knocked on the storage companies doors asking to search the locker, showing you the warrant. And they turned around and said, "um no, this warrant doesn't have anything to do with us." And the court would agree... suggesting they get an appropriate warrant to actually do what they want to do.
Even if the police have absolute proof that the object they are looking for is in that locker, the warrant they have is the wrong tool to get it. And that's exactly what's happened here. "Free speech" as it turns out is just in the background to the case.
I'm with Kid Zero on this. I do not care for principles which say it's okay to hurt someone else with known lies.
I'm with you both on this.
But this case isn't about libel or slander. Its actually REALLY about technical court procedures.
1) Poster posts something bad to website. 2) Victim gets injunction against poster. 3) Poster ignores it. 4) Victim tries to use injunction directly against website. 5) Website says no, injunction doesn't apply to us. 6) Court agrees with website, and suggests they use a different approach.
That's the crux of this case: that you can't use an injunction you got against party A to compel party B. Get an injunction against party B.
Consider this thought experiment. Suppose some alien society with alien businesspeople discovers us and outsources some of their labor to us. From our point of view, their jobs would be awesome. You get to play with cool alien tech and they give really generous compensation. But the aliens have their own protesters who complain because we're being "exploited" with terrible 40 hour work weeks and lack of the incredibly generous benefits that the aliens have come to associated with work. Further, human society benefits greatly from the association as our society and us, personally improve with the knowledge and wealth provided by these aliens. Horrible exploitation versus fat city. Which is the real perception?
Right, they ship their piles of medical/industrial/military waste, radio actives, and toxic chemicals to your earthly processing plant where you glibly crawl around on it scavenging valuable bits for your alien-corporate-masters without protection or medical coverage.
Eventually the poisons render the entire region a desert wasteland. Earth has no regulations prohibiting this stuff, the country is nearly bankrupt anyway, and besides the leaders get to ride around on space ships and have sex with space hookers.
You, of course still do it willingly, and are grateful for the "generous" alien employers because you need a job, and it puts food in your mouth for now.
"Its a good thing."
The thought experiment can get pretty ugly if you let it.
Not all outsourcing is exploitation, but don't pretend none of it is.
Lets say I post to a website details that you are a violent child molesting rapist, with sufficient details to identify you.
And if the website is hosted in another country, their is going to be VERY little I can do about it directly. That's the futility of this whole argument, the courts are powerless if the site is outside their jurisdiction, so if you want to do this, it will be pretty easy for you.
Libel laws are there to protect you from malicious lies. Its right and proper that a website should resist taking down content just based on random request. But they absolutely should be required to comply with court orders when it comes to malicious content.
I'm reasonably sure that if and when the court actually orders them to it will. That is the misunderstanding here. No court has actually ordered them to take it down. A court ordered the poster to take it down. The poster is AWOL, and never responded. Its not like the poster tried to have it taken down, they just ignored the whole thing.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs took the injunction to various websites and said a court ordered the poster to take this down, but he's awol, so you take it down. Most of the sites complied. This site, said, "No, this court order doesn't compel us to do anything." --- and the court AGREED with them.
At best the original poster is in comtempt of the court order, not the website. So far the original poster hasn't even requested that it be taken down. If either the plaintiff or the poster actually got a court order that named the website and told it to take it down, THEN they would have to take it down.
This isn't a case about the value or enforceability of libel/defamation laws. This is a case based on a technical point of law... if you have an injunction that says so and so must do something, you can't take that injunction to some one else and compel tham to do something too.
If I understand TFA correctly, the 3rd party website doesn't even allow the post authors to remove their own posts.
Taking the defamer to court will achieve precisely nothing if the content can't be removed once the court case is complete.
Right the problem here is that the website wasn't taken to court. An injunction was issued against the poster not the website, and the plaintiff tried to use it on the website who is an unrelated 3rd party. The plaintiff (and poster) both can attempt to take the site to court directly to get the content removed.
If the court issues an injunction against the site, then you can rest assured the content WILL be removed*. That just hasn't actually happened yet. (And no one has even tried getting one yet.)
* - unless, of course, the site is outside of the courts jurisdiction...
Slashdot does indeed allow for things to be taken down.
My point was that this particular slashdot article is generating publicity for the illegal act, while generating itself some ad revenue, etc.
Also, it's a lot different than continuing a crime (as ripoffreports does, if the reports are correct) by posting speech deemed illegal. It also continues the liability of the original poster who is not allowed to remove their own comment.
Oh, yes, agreed on all counts, I was just pointing out what I pointed out. No more than that. I was not equating them, per se.
And no, if other reports are correct, it's not ALLEGED to be illegal. It was FOUND TO BE ILLEGAL, which was the basis for the attempt to remove it from ripoffreport (the injunction) - OR, you are correct, and the other outlets that have reported this are incorrect.
Based on this I did a bit more digging. It appears that the Blockwiczs allege the posts are defamatory, and obtained a "default injunction" against the posters. (default, of course meaning that the posters never replied or attended the lawsuit to defend). I'm not sure whether that settles the question of it being "alleged defamatory" or "found defamatory". But it does give us a bit of insight... the defendants have at least so far been completely non-responsive.
So, with their injunction against the POSTERS requiring the posters to remove the posts, the plaintiffs approached ripoffreport and other websites directly and demanded they take it down. ripoffreport countered and said the injunction didn't apply to THEM. The 7th circuit court agreed. The court went further...
"With sympathy for the Blockowiczs, we conclude that Rule 65(d)(2)(C) is not the appropriate mechanism for achieving the removal of the defendants' posts....The Blockowiczs likely could have pursued a contempt charge against the defendants for their failure to comply with the injunction. This avenue for relief may still be available."
Basically, the court concluded plaintiff can't take an injunction against one entity and compel another entity to do anything. This is quite correct in my opinion.
What category does knowingly maintaining information found to be in violation of the law and then extorting money to counter it (but only if the counterclaim is vague and thus not indicative of what really is going on) fit into? No, it's not a rhetorical question. I'm serious.
The problem here is not that ripoffreport can't be compelled to remove the information. Its that ripoffreport can't be compelled to remove the information with an injunction against the poster, with the poster absent... at least not directly. We haven't really seen whether or not the legal system has actually failed yet, just that this particular shortcut isn't allowed. (And based on the RIAA/MPAA activities, I tend to abhor "shortcuts".)
But more poignant are equivalent ripoffreport-clone sites based in Canada / Mexico / China, that are completely beyond the reach of US courts. Even if you could find a way to easily compel ripoffreport to take down the post, how would you address a foreign entity doing precisely the same thing?
Their whole business model is to allow people to post as many negative reviews as they want, with whatever content they want, with no regards to the legality of the statements, for FREE - all while extorting money from anyone who wants to defend themselves against such claims; who are then limited in the responses they can give (assuming their responses are approved) - at least that's the understanding that they have given as interpreted by numerous people who have used/visited or been a victim of their site.
Yes, like yelp, or at least the horror stories I've heard about yelp. I think on some level, one has to roll with the punches - there is really no removing stuff from the internet, and sites like these are going to exist somewhere.
What should the victims do? They can't really anticipate that they will be able control another si
And when the defamers are convicted and ordered to take down the defamatory posts, which 3rd party webhost refuses to do?
How exactly does your argument work here?
If the court didn't order ripoffreports to take down the posts and they refused to do it... that would be simple, they would be in contempt of court, and all sorts of enforcement actions are available to the court.
However the court agreed that ripoffreports did not have to take down the posts, so what exactly is your complaint about ripoffreports here?
Ripoffreports KNOWINGLY is using ILLEGAL speech to make money.
And now so is slashdot.:)
First through the publicity, advertising revenue and membership fees they earn
Like slashdot.
and secondly (in various cases) through charging companies who have been illegally maligned a FEE to post a correction/counterclaim, etc.
I regularly see celebrities maligned in tabloids in the supermarket, and find it hard to get worked up about a website that appears to have an equivalent level (or lack thereof) of integrity. I ignore the tabs, and I've never heard of riffreport and now that I have will likely ignore it too... just as I ignore yelp.
AFAIK, benefiting from illegal actions is not legal.
Did it occur to you that you might know wrong? What is "America's Most Wanted" business model? Or C.O.P.S.? What activity do you think the Charles Manson Fan Club and Memorabilia Superstore?
There is no free speech protection covering ILLEGAL speech. And there is no free speech protection covering another benefiting from speech they know is ILLEGAL.
Is it actually illegal speech? Or is merely alleged to be illegal? It sounds like the plaintiff wanted an injunction to remove it from the web, before it was actually established that it was illegal, and ripoffreport fought that injunction.
Apparently the 7th Circuit Court of appeals agrees that the injunction doesn't extend to ripoffreport.
They fought to protect a statement found false in federal court? Why keep it up then if it isn't true in the first place? I can understand the whole "We didn't have our day in court" deal, but it's a lie to start with. You won, but you're still publishing a lie, at least of some sort.
They came first for the Communists and I didnt speak up because I wasn't a Communist. They they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Its right to fight censorship and oppression even when it targets the fringe. Even if it means defending "liars", the KKK, flag burning, and pornography. If you let them come after those, and set precedents, its going to be a much harder fight when they come after you.
You don't appear to understand what "classified" means. It is instructions to the government charged with taking care of the documents to ensure that they don't get released to people who don't have the right clearance. If they get released or leaked, they aren't "classified" anymore, they are in the public domain. The public is not generally responsible for enforcing or respecting "classified".
It's pretty clear that Wikileaks was violating US law. Ergo, not a lie.
No, its not clear that Wikileaks was violating U.S. law at all. Being accused of breaking the law isn't a violation of the law. Perhaps you should leave deciding who is breaking the law to the courts before we start vigilante activities.
Wikileaks is not permitted by US law to distribute these documents.
Care to cite a law which backs that up.
I agree completely that US Government employees are not permitted by US law to distribute these documents, but can you find one that would apply to a civilian organization? especially one based offshore?...Amazon must also be convinced the process is sufficient.
Precisely how do you imagine Amazon convinces itself that the future information that any user of its service will not one day violate its ToS? Its absurd to even assert that they even try.
Do you really think Wikileaks should be allowed to agree to terms of service, and then intentionally violate those terms of service?
Perhaps we should wait for them to violate those terms of service in the physical world, rather than in some made up hypothetical scenario with imaginary laws and the ability to see into the future.
Most sites have the same ToS conditions if you bother to read them.
I do read them. I rarely have an issue with them. I have also never been advised that one should need to create multiple accounts with falsified information in them in order to make use of a service other than facebook and its social networking ilk.
No bullshit, one account per person.
Yes and no. Its hard to compare "most sites" to facebook. Most sites don't collect anywhere near the same amount of information as facebook does. Most sites don't require much more than a valid email address, a username/alias, and a password to register and use the site.
Social networking sites are collecting more data from you, and I'll even agree that the one account / no bullshit rule is legitimate.. but then your inability to control the distribution of that information to the point that you are induced to violate the ToS to regain control you should have had all along... well... like I said, there is something wrong with facebook. I've never felt the need to create multiple falsified profiles on any other website I've used in order to do something legitimate.
Why wouldn't it be? AmericanCorporationX pays more and has better working conditions than the local businesses. So it improves the standard of living and generates wealth for unnamed 3rd world country.
That's not the same thing as being authorized. I could probably find a key under a fake rock or door mat for at least one house in my neighborhood.
I don't think a secret key in a fake rock accessed by a relative stranger really passes the sniff test for being the same.
Consider this: if your wife hid a key in a fake rock on your own front step without explicitly telling you... could you legally use the key you knew was there?
As to the actual case, I think the circumstances are quite different, and I think he may be in violation here, unless he can successfully argue that she had given him permission to access the account.
Given they were married, the book itself is probably as much his as it was hers, and if it was left on the table in pain sight next to a computer they both used she's going to have a tough time arguing that he wasn't authorized to know the password, in my opinion. I'm not sure whether being given the password counts as authorization to use it - that's still a gray area to me.
But if he had permission to use any passwords in that book - for accessing a library account, or a newspaper-paywall, or her Steam account, or the router wifi-password, or the router admin password, or if it contained any passwords belonging to an account "in his name", and he ordinarily used the book to refer to passwords... then I think that might tip the argument in his favor of it being a record of 'their' passwords, and that she had made no effort to even separate out passwords that were 'hers alone'.
Any substantial investment into the USA is a good reason to wave the flag, especially in a state with 12.5% unemployment.
Agreed. But its not "Mission Accomplished".
And in many respects it parallels AmericanCorporationX opening a textiles plant in unnamed 3rd world high-unemployment country. Yay! Jobs for the unemployed is good... but long term, is it even a step in the right direction for unnamed 3rd world country?
In other words, you recommend that people directly violate facebooks terms of service:
Section 4:
# You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission. # You will not create more than one personal profile.... # You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.....
Oh, and by recommending people create multiple profiles with false information you are also in violation of Facebook's terms of service yourself:
Section 3: # You will not facilitate or encourage any violations of this Statement.
This is one of MANY reasons I recommend people not use facebook. I don't think their ToS are at all reasonable. If you have to blatantly violate them to make the site palatable, then don't use the site. Doing what you advocate just rewards them for being assholes, and if you ever have any sort of dispute with them they have you over a barrel because you are blatantly violating their ToS.
hahahaha quite. why do people still buy a cheap $40 product when they could buy a small business solution for 4x as much that will last them forever?
hahahaha jokes on you! That $250 10-baseT ISDN router you are using may still be going strong. Or are you using that kick ass $300 10-baseT / wireless-b small business router with WEP? Either way the rest of us with our $50 gigabit wireless-n routers are pointing and laughing at you.
In the off chance you missed my point, its that "paying more" to get "lasting forever" isn't really an advantage with this stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
You can create disc backups of your STEAM games and there is a crack STEAM that will avoid the need to have STEAM's servers active.
Yes, once you know there is a crack for it, you can use any game.
With only as much effort as cracking a single game's individual DRM, you can crack all your STEAM games
Some steam games have additional DRM on top of steam's DRM. Don't assume you can crack a title, unless you've done it. (And then if there's an update to the game, you'll have to ensure you can crack it again...) Steam isn't really more or less work to crack than anything else.
if STEAM ever goes under (though I'd hope they'll release their own fix for that impending DRM issue while they are in bankruptcy proceedings
It would never happen. Here's how bankruptcy proceedings go:
a) company files for bankruptcy.
b) a court assigns a trustee to oversee the proceedings
c) the trustee oversee ensures that all assets are liquidated
d) the trustee oversees that creditors are paid back the proceeds of the liquidation in the correct priority and amount
e) the trustee ensures that the company takes no actions that would devalue any of its assets - this would harm the creditors by reducing the proceeds of the liquidation efforts. The company is legally obligated to get the most value possible for its assets... so it can't sell you a company car for $100 if its worth $5000.
f) the trustee ensures that the company makes no unauthorized payments - this would harm the creditors (if the company owes you 10 grand because you made them a loan, you can't be paid back before the bondholders, and other higher priority creditors... it doesn't matter that your the ceo's brother...)
Part e is the killer here. They legally can't remove the DRM, because that would devalue their steam infrastructure. When it gets liquidated its up to the company that buys it to decide what to do with it... if your really lucky that company wants to keep running steam, and things continue on much as they were with a facelift... or maybe that company bought the relevant piece of steam for some patents and to harvest user profile information, and shuts the servers down. There is really nothing valve can do about it.
The only way the drm comes of steam legitimately is if the owners decide to do it while they are still solvent.
I like STEAM because I don't have to go around finding NoCD patches for every game I buy
I like that about steam too. But I'm pretty annoyed I can't play two different games simultaneously. And I don't like that I can't give them away, nor even lend them to a friend. I can do all of these things with a traditional retail game.
Personally I now only buy games that are DRM-free, or games which only use Steam for DRM as it can be run in offline mode.
Steam is a minefield. Its extremely difficult to know what DRM you are getting with a steam title. It may just use steams own drm, it may ALSO tie into additional 3rd party drm, the game descriptions often mention drm that has been removed for the steam title or fail to mention drm that exists.
And I personally find steams drm offensive in a couple ways... I should be able to transfer games to another account. I'd be fine if there were restrictions on so that a title couldn't be transferred more than once every 90 days, and I'd even be fine if it cost a couple bucks in fees so steam gets something out of it and it can't be heavily abused for "sharing games", but I don't like that I can't give my brother a game I don't want anymore at all.
I -also- don't like that I can't be online playing different games from the same account simultaneously. I've got kids now, and they are playing all sorts of stuff... its beyond stupid that only one of us can be online at a time. I agree we shouldn't be able to play the SAME game simultaneously... but I should be able to play TitleA online, while my daughter plays TitleB.
Finally, while you can play steam games offline, you still rely on the steam servers to install / activate them so if steam disappears your "offline games" will expire drm death when your hard drive does.
That said, I do use steam occasionally but primarily pick up games at "ridiculously" low prices, such as the current holiday sales... I've picked up a few items already... I don't own any of the half life titles...and can get the entire half-life collection for $6 bucks today (as I happen to have l4d).... at that price point, for me at least, the steam DRM is acceptable.
Like the other poster, I also picked up the Doom pack for $8 bucks or whatever, primarily to get the wads for Doom/DoomII/expansions to use with ZDoomGL. :p
As I've inadvertanly plugged steam's holiday sale, I figure I'll plug gog.com's as well; as I've picked up a few classics with the money in my couch. MOO1+2, Might and Magic 1 through 6 pack, ...
That's the way I've always felt aout piracy. I don't think it represents many lost sales, if any, and in a way it can be good publicity... although I have to say you underestimate the number of pirates that simply horde stuff instead of collecting just apps they want. But again, that's not a lost sale either....\
I'd mod you up if i could. There is definitely a class of "pirates" that are more like collectors than anything else... they just want to -have- it, not to -use- it. If it has a high retail price all the better... even if its the software to monitor industrial robots in a jam bottling plant that they haven't even got a theoretical use for.
Actually no, that case covered a fairly straightforward legal technicality.
The plaintiff obtained an injunction against an individual independant website-poster and then tried to use it to compel the 3rd party website-host to comply. The website-host argued that the injunction didn't compel him to act because it was against the poster, and the court agreed.
The plaintiff needs to compel the original poster to act (so far the poster has not responded), or seek an injunction against the website host. All the court ruled here was the technical point that they can't use an injunction against party A vs party B.
An analogy would be if the police had a warrant to search your house, but when they got there and didn't find what they were looking they figured you'd moved the object of their search into a storage locker you were renting. You weren't around so they knocked on the storage companies doors asking to search the locker, showing you the warrant. And they turned around and said, "um no, this warrant doesn't have anything to do with us." And the court would agree... suggesting they get an appropriate warrant to actually do what they want to do.
Even if the police have absolute proof that the object they are looking for is in that locker, the warrant they have is the wrong tool to get it. And that's exactly what's happened here. "Free speech" as it turns out is just in the background to the case.
I'm with Kid Zero on this. I do not care for principles which say it's okay to hurt someone else with known lies.
I'm with you both on this.
But this case isn't about libel or slander. Its actually REALLY about technical court procedures.
1) Poster posts something bad to website.
2) Victim gets injunction against poster.
3) Poster ignores it.
4) Victim tries to use injunction directly against website.
5) Website says no, injunction doesn't apply to us.
6) Court agrees with website, and suggests they use a different approach.
That's the crux of this case: that you can't use an injunction you got against party A to compel party B. Get an injunction against party B.
Consider this thought experiment. Suppose some alien society with alien businesspeople discovers us and outsources some of their labor to us. From our point of view, their jobs would be awesome. You get to play with cool alien tech and they give really generous compensation. But the aliens have their own protesters who complain because we're being "exploited" with terrible 40 hour work weeks and lack of the incredibly generous benefits that the aliens have come to associated with work. Further, human society benefits greatly from the association as our society and us, personally improve with the knowledge and wealth provided by these aliens. Horrible exploitation versus fat city. Which is the real perception?
Right, they ship their piles of medical/industrial/military waste, radio actives, and toxic chemicals to your earthly processing plant where you glibly crawl around on it scavenging valuable bits for your alien-corporate-masters without protection or medical coverage.
Eventually the poisons render the entire region a desert wasteland. Earth has no regulations prohibiting this stuff, the country is nearly bankrupt anyway, and besides the leaders get to ride around on space ships and have sex with space hookers.
You, of course still do it willingly, and are grateful for the "generous" alien employers because you need a job, and it puts food in your mouth for now.
"Its a good thing."
The thought experiment can get pretty ugly if you let it.
Not all outsourcing is exploitation, but don't pretend none of it is.
Lets say I post to a website details that you are a violent child molesting rapist, with sufficient details to identify you.
And if the website is hosted in another country, their is going to be VERY little I can do about it directly. That's the futility of this whole argument, the courts are powerless if the site is outside their jurisdiction, so if you want to do this, it will be pretty easy for you.
Libel laws are there to protect you from malicious lies. Its right and proper that a website should resist taking down content just based on random request. But they absolutely should be required to comply with court orders when it comes to malicious content.
I'm reasonably sure that if and when the court actually orders them to it will. That is the misunderstanding here. No court has actually ordered them to take it down. A court ordered the poster to take it down. The poster is AWOL, and never responded. Its not like the poster tried to have it taken down, they just ignored the whole thing.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs took the injunction to various websites and said a court ordered the poster to take this down, but he's awol, so you take it down. Most of the sites complied. This site, said, "No, this court order doesn't compel us to do anything." --- and the court AGREED with them.
At best the original poster is in comtempt of the court order, not the website. So far the original poster hasn't even requested that it be taken down. If either the plaintiff or the poster actually got a court order that named the website and told it to take it down, THEN they would have to take it down.
This isn't a case about the value or enforceability of libel/defamation laws. This is a case based on a technical point of law... if you have an injunction that says so and so must do something, you can't take that injunction to some one else and compel tham to do something too.
If I understand TFA correctly, the 3rd party website doesn't even allow the post authors to remove their own posts.
Taking the defamer to court will achieve precisely nothing if the content can't be removed once the court case is complete.
Right the problem here is that the website wasn't taken to court. An injunction was issued against the poster not the website, and the plaintiff tried to use it on the website who is an unrelated 3rd party. The plaintiff (and poster) both can attempt to take the site to court directly to get the content removed.
If the court issues an injunction against the site, then you can rest assured the content WILL be removed*. That just hasn't actually happened yet. (And no one has even tried getting one yet.)
* - unless, of course, the site is outside of the courts jurisdiction...
Slashdot does indeed allow for things to be taken down.
My point was that this particular slashdot article is generating publicity for the illegal act, while generating itself some ad revenue, etc.
Also, it's a lot different than continuing a crime (as ripoffreports does, if the reports are correct) by posting speech deemed illegal. It also continues the liability of the original poster who is not allowed to remove their own comment.
Oh, yes, agreed on all counts, I was just pointing out what I pointed out. No more than that. I was not equating them, per se.
And no, if other reports are correct, it's not ALLEGED to be illegal. It was FOUND TO BE ILLEGAL, which was the basis for the attempt to remove it from ripoffreport (the injunction) - OR, you are correct, and the other outlets that have reported this are incorrect.
Based on this I did a bit more digging. It appears that the Blockwiczs allege the posts are defamatory, and obtained a "default injunction" against the posters. (default, of course meaning that the posters never replied or attended the lawsuit to defend). I'm not sure whether that settles the question of it being "alleged defamatory" or "found defamatory". But it does give us a bit of insight... the defendants have at least so far been completely non-responsive.
So, with their injunction against the POSTERS requiring the posters to remove the posts, the plaintiffs approached ripoffreport and other websites directly and demanded they take it down. ripoffreport countered and said the injunction didn't apply to THEM. The 7th circuit court agreed. The court went further...
"With sympathy for the Blockowiczs, we conclude that Rule 65(d)(2)(C) is not the appropriate mechanism for achieving the removal of the defendants' posts....The Blockowiczs likely could have pursued a contempt charge against the defendants for their failure to comply with the injunction. This avenue for relief may still be available."
Basically, the court concluded plaintiff can't take an injunction against one entity and compel another entity to do anything. This is quite correct in my opinion.
What category does knowingly maintaining information found to be in violation of the law and then extorting money to counter it (but only if the counterclaim is vague and thus not indicative of what really is going on) fit into? No, it's not a rhetorical question. I'm serious.
The problem here is not that ripoffreport can't be compelled to remove the information. Its that ripoffreport can't be compelled to remove the information with an injunction against the poster, with the poster absent... at least not directly. We haven't really seen whether or not the legal system has actually failed yet, just that this particular shortcut isn't allowed. (And based on the RIAA/MPAA activities, I tend to abhor "shortcuts".)
But more poignant are equivalent ripoffreport-clone sites based in Canada / Mexico / China, that are completely beyond the reach of US courts. Even if you could find a way to easily compel ripoffreport to take down the post, how would you address a foreign entity doing precisely the same thing?
Their whole business model is to allow people to post as many negative reviews as they want, with whatever content they want, with no regards to the legality of the statements, for FREE - all while extorting money from anyone who wants to defend themselves against such claims; who are then limited in the responses they can give (assuming their responses are approved) - at least that's the understanding that they have given as interpreted by numerous people who have used/visited or been a victim of their site.
Yes, like yelp, or at least the horror stories I've heard about yelp. I think on some level, one has to roll with the punches - there is really no removing stuff from the internet, and sites like these are going to exist somewhere.
What should the victims do? They can't really anticipate that they will be able control another si
And when the defamers are convicted and ordered to take down the defamatory posts, which 3rd party webhost refuses to do?
How exactly does your argument work here?
If the court didn't order ripoffreports to take down the posts and they refused to do it... that would be simple, they would be in contempt of court, and all sorts of enforcement actions are available to the court.
However the court agreed that ripoffreports did not have to take down the posts, so what exactly is your complaint about ripoffreports here?
Ripoffreports KNOWINGLY is using ILLEGAL speech to make money.
And now so is slashdot. :)
First through the publicity, advertising revenue and membership fees they earn
Like slashdot.
and secondly (in various cases) through charging companies who have been illegally maligned a FEE to post a correction/counterclaim, etc.
I regularly see celebrities maligned in tabloids in the supermarket, and find it hard to get worked up about a website that appears to have an equivalent level (or lack thereof) of integrity. I ignore the tabs, and I've never heard of riffreport and now that I have will likely ignore it too... just as I ignore yelp.
AFAIK, benefiting from illegal actions is not legal.
Did it occur to you that you might know wrong? What is "America's Most Wanted" business model? Or C.O.P.S.? What activity do you think the Charles Manson Fan Club and Memorabilia Superstore?
There is no free speech protection covering ILLEGAL speech. And there is no free speech protection covering another benefiting from speech they know is ILLEGAL.
Is it actually illegal speech? Or is merely alleged to be illegal? It sounds like the plaintiff wanted an injunction to remove it from the web, before it was actually established that it was illegal, and ripoffreport fought that injunction.
Apparently the 7th Circuit Court of appeals agrees that the injunction doesn't extend to ripoffreport.
So charge the defamers with defamation... leave the 3rd party website host alone.
They fought to protect a statement found false in federal court? Why keep it up then if it isn't true in the first place? I can understand the whole "We didn't have our day in court" deal, but it's a lie to start with. You won, but you're still publishing a lie, at least of some sort.
They came first for the Communists and I didnt speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
They they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Its right to fight censorship and oppression even when it targets the fringe. Even if it means defending "liars", the KKK, flag burning, and pornography. If you let them come after those, and set precedents, its going to be a much harder fight when they come after you.
Yes but they inherited a patent covenant with anyone who fully implements the Java spec.
Did google *fully* implement the java spec?
You don't appear to understand what "classified" means. It is instructions to the government charged with taking care of the documents to ensure that they don't get released to people who don't have the right clearance. If they get released or leaked, they aren't "classified" anymore, they are in the public domain. The public is not generally responsible for enforcing or respecting "classified".
It's pretty clear that Wikileaks was violating US law. Ergo, not a lie.
No, its not clear that Wikileaks was violating U.S. law at all. Being accused of breaking the law isn't a violation of the law. Perhaps you should leave deciding who is breaking the law to the courts before we start vigilante activities.
Wikileaks is not permitted by US law to distribute these documents.
Care to cite a law which backs that up.
I agree completely that US Government employees are not permitted by US law to distribute these documents, but can you find one that would apply to a civilian organization? especially one based offshore? ...Amazon must also be convinced the process is sufficient.
Precisely how do you imagine Amazon convinces itself that the future information that any user of its service will not one day violate its ToS? Its absurd to even assert that they even try.
Do you really think Wikileaks should be allowed to agree to terms of service, and then intentionally violate those terms of service?
Perhaps we should wait for them to violate those terms of service in the physical world, rather than in some made up hypothetical scenario with imaginary laws and the ability to see into the future.
I call it "employment".
If workers are poorly treated, the environment is damaged, and all the wealth flows out of the country then its also exploitative.
If these workers aren't being "exploited" by someone, then they aren't working.
"Employed" does not equal "Exploited"
Most sites have the same ToS conditions if you bother to read them.
I do read them. I rarely have an issue with them. I have also never been advised that one should need to create multiple accounts with falsified information in them in order to make use of a service other than facebook and its social networking ilk.
No bullshit, one account per person.
Yes and no. Its hard to compare "most sites" to facebook. Most sites don't collect anywhere near the same amount of information as facebook does. Most sites don't require much more than a valid email address, a username/alias, and a password to register and use the site.
Social networking sites are collecting more data from you, and I'll even agree that the one account / no bullshit rule is legitimate.. but then your inability to control the distribution of that information to the point that you are induced to violate the ToS to regain control you should have had all along... well... like I said, there is something wrong with facebook. I've never felt the need to create multiple falsified profiles on any other website I've used in order to do something legitimate.
Actually, the rest of us grew up and left childish things like "pointing and laughing" back at the playground.
Apparently they graduated to "snide insinuations that others are juvenile". Bravo.
Why is it ok to be exploited by the local businesses, but not ok to be exploited, with better wages and benefits, by a multinational?
When did anyone say being exploited by local business was ok?
Why wouldn't it be? AmericanCorporationX pays more and has better working conditions than the local businesses. So it improves the standard of living and generates wealth for unnamed 3rd world country.
There is a reason we call it exploitation.
That's not the same thing as being authorized. I could probably find a key under a fake rock or door mat for at least one house in my neighborhood.
I don't think a secret key in a fake rock accessed by a relative stranger really passes the sniff test for being the same.
Consider this: if your wife hid a key in a fake rock on your own front step without explicitly telling you... could you legally use the key you knew was there?
As to the actual case, I think the circumstances are quite different, and I think he may be in violation here, unless he can successfully argue that she had given him permission to access the account.
Given they were married, the book itself is probably as much his as it was hers, and if it was left on the table in pain sight next to a computer they both used she's going to have a tough time arguing that he wasn't authorized to know the password, in my opinion. I'm not sure whether being given the password counts as authorization to use it - that's still a gray area to me.
But if he had permission to use any passwords in that book - for accessing a library account, or a newspaper-paywall, or her Steam account, or the router wifi-password, or the router admin password, or if it contained any passwords belonging to an account "in his name", and he ordinarily used the book to refer to passwords... then I think that might tip the argument in his favor of it being a record of 'their' passwords, and that she had made no effort to even separate out passwords that were 'hers alone'.
Any substantial investment into the USA is a good reason to wave the flag, especially in a state with 12.5% unemployment.
Agreed. But its not "Mission Accomplished".
And in many respects it parallels AmericanCorporationX opening a textiles plant in unnamed 3rd world high-unemployment country. Yay! Jobs for the unemployed is good... but long term, is it even a step in the right direction for unnamed 3rd world country?
In other words, you recommend that people directly violate facebooks terms of service:
Section 4:
# You will not provide any false personal information on Facebook, or create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission. ... ....
# You will not create more than one personal profile.
# You will keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date.
Oh, and by recommending people create multiple profiles with false information you are also in violation of Facebook's terms of service yourself:
Section 3:
# You will not facilitate or encourage any violations of this Statement.
This is one of MANY reasons I recommend people not use facebook. I don't think their ToS are at all reasonable. If you have to blatantly violate them to make the site palatable, then don't use the site. Doing what you advocate just rewards them for being assholes, and if you ever have any sort of dispute with them they have you over a barrel because you are blatantly violating their ToS.
hahahaha quite. why do people still buy a cheap $40 product when they could buy a small business solution for 4x as much that will last them forever?
hahahaha jokes on you! That $250 10-baseT ISDN router you are using may still be going strong. Or are you using that kick ass $300 10-baseT / wireless-b small business router with WEP? Either way the rest of us with our $50 gigabit wireless-n routers are pointing and laughing at you.
In the off chance you missed my point, its that "paying more" to get "lasting forever" isn't really an advantage with this stuff.