In point of fact, the judge did order the filing handled: (appropriate action).
Some factors involved in sealing documents: (from here, a different jurisdiction, but the principle remains)
(1) the need to ensure a fair trial;
(2) the need for witness cooperation;
(3) the reliance of the parties upon expectations of confidentiality;
(4) the public or professional significance of the lawsuit;
(5) the perceived harm to the parties from disclosure;
(6) why alternatives other than sealing the documents are not available to protect legitimate private interests as identified by this Rule; and
(7) why the public interest, including, but not limited to, the public health and safety, is best served by sealing the documents.
As was pointed out, filing publicly removed even those limits the original web site had on access (while imposing new ones - PACER access). Another thing guaranteed to irritate a judge, he filed them as an exhibit with a motion asking permission to file some other document, instead of letting his motion stand on its own legs. If I understand it right, the judge is saying "it doesn't promote justice, why should we publish it?"
You're looking to hoist Mr Thompson by his own petard. The judge is looking to preserve the dignity and process of the court. Both are worthy causes, but I suspect that you might feel differently talking from the bench instead of the cheap seats.:)
>...we can easily tell that Autodesk is in the wrong There's a difference between a considered legal opinion, and the sort of opinion you read on slashdot. If there weren't, SCO vs Novell and SCO vs IBM would have been over before the ink was dry on the complaints.
>if the law says otherwise, then the law is wrong too.
Which is to say, the GP may be right about the law in the case, but your opinion is still your opinion.
> You'll have to do better than that old "it's too complicated to explain" garbage if you want to convince anyone around here.
Right you are. Read the summary, decide the case based on 5 or 6 sentences, and move on. Deciding law by sound bites. Again, you're defending opinions informed by moral appeal, rather than case law. It's nice of you to prove his point like this.
> The law is our servant, not our master.... We also know that too many in the profession have engaged in obfuscation, making contracts and law far longer and more complicated than necessary, in order to bury objectionable stuff in the fine print.
Well, which do you want? First you say "use the law to your advantage", then you carp about people doing just that. Perhaps, though, what you are complaining about is the need to hire a specialist (that is, lawyer) in order to understand contract terms.
Well... they're certainly building up a nice pool of space junk around the moon. Give us a hundred years and I'm sure we will have turned poor Luna in to a garbage dump. And shortly thereafter it will leave orbit and have wacky adventures among the stars.
Maybe if they are able to recover more money, that the California taxpayers will eventually have to pay, the California voters will get pissed off and vote out the clowns that passed legislation they should have known would be doomed.
There's a reason I'm not a lawyer... Something to do with several years of law school, bar exams, that sort of thing.
Still, I found this
reference to the DirectTV "Noerr Pennington" case.
The case puts weight, regarding the sham litigation exception, on both "objective baselessness", and "improper motive". Objective baselessness may be fairly easy to prove in Lindor, but I think "improper motive" would be a hard sell, normally.
Closer to the surface, though, I am doubtful that Noerr Pennington applies. Noerr Pennington (as near as I can tell) says, "you cannot abridge the right to petition the goverment", including the courts. However, the individual companies could still litigate separately without invoking anti-trust issues.
The DirectTV decision said - I think - that the company could send out its "we're going to sue" letters, even if it was wrong, without invoking RICO. As long as it didn't do so with malice. Which to me meant that extortion-via-lawsuit is defended. That is, "our suit may be provably wrong, but we have a right to sue you into the ground anyway."
Lindor may be the exception, though, if it's the case where the settlement center worker told her "we know we're wrong, but we're going to sue anyway".
So many cases out there, I forget which one(s) that was...
If you haven't talked to VH1 first hand, you should. YouTube and Viacom almost certainly don't know you from Adam.
Explaining it to the folks at VH1 who used your content, and having THEM talk to Viacom might avoid any need to go to court.
As from the movie Labyrinth... Sarah: What exactly have you sworn? Didymus: I have taken an oath that no one may cross this bridge without my permission. Sarah: Well... May we have your permission? Didymus: Well I, uh... I... that is, uh... hm... Yes?
So... you're saying that if we are dissatisfied with a product, we can... *become criminal *spend even more money (purchasing additional hardware/software) for the same level of service *cease complaining where you can view our complaints.
The point of complaining, of making our dissatisfaction known, is to encourage the provider to alter the terms they offer. We can't do that by shutting up. We can't do that by silently boycotting - the lost sales don't show up as "because of X", so the producer does not even know there is anything wrong.
Aside from threats of incarceration of fines, many of us decline to commit criminal acts, as this, too, does not provide direct feedback on the nature of our complaints. Much like silently refusing to buy, pirating the game because you don't like the registration issues looks the same to the vendor as pirating it because you simply don't want to pay for it.
And if you see nothing wrong in such an unbalanced cost for services (buy PC game vs buy 360 game + platform), then perhaps an analogy is in order. You COULD drive a hydrogen fueled car around. More expensive, more bulky, and possibly subject to detonation when damaged in collisions. But it provides the same level of service - getting you from point A to point B.
So perhaps you should turn away from those forums that cause you needless upset. In your own words, "Man Up".
Fear of having to get online to activate the game in the first place.
Why should I be required to get online at all, ever, to play a game that I don't intend to play online? Justify that, please.
I'm sorry, but I see it as an entirely unreasonable requirement. I already put up with being required to flash my original CD/DVD when the game asks "papers, please". I won't put up with being required to go online even once to be allowed to play a game I've already purchased.
As if there weren't enough reasons to comment your code, this would be added to the list.
If nothing else, they prove you know what the heck your code is doing, and why it is doing it. Which is half of what the exercise is about anyway. (The other half being "can you come up with it yourself".)
The WoW disease killed. WoW has an "easy resurrection" system, so it didn't cost players more than a few minutes of inconvenience.
The cause was immediately known, and the cure (death) while inconvenient, was also immediately known
Detecting a carrier was easy.
Being cured of the disease (dying) took little play time.
In ATITD...
The disease debilitated, eventually forcing a disconnect for a period of time (a coma, as it were).
The cause had to be discovered by the player community. And even after theories were proven, there were still some cases that could not easily be explained.
Much like real life, carriers often didn't know they had it until signs manifested... too late for those around them
Discovering a cure was a separate (community) event, requiring much player time and involvement. Actually getting cured took a non-trivial amount of time and resources on the part of the "sick" player.... and the character could get reinfected a short period after taking the cure. (A permanent cure was eventually discovered, which took MORE resources...)
Also unlike WoW, ATITD is very much a social game. Introduce, then, something that produces highly negative consequences to social interaction, and you get... a lot of people leaving a game that is no longer fun.
On the other hand, I expect the reactions by the people who didn't leave were perhaps even closer to those in the real world than in WoW, because of its social aspects.
And for those of you who haven't heard of the game before, I should point out that the nature of the game (no combat) and the social ecology tends to select for cooperative behavior.... and long attention spans...
Section 706 talks about "agents", and I'm betting that some bright fellow at ARC either didn't know about the ancient agreement, or thought section 706 would cover them, or thought they could bluff their way past. Also possible that said Bright Young Fellow read the agreement and chose specific products they thought could get away with as "not specifically covered by the agreement"
Here's hoping that the ARC doesn't end up in a $10 million lawsuit, which would neatly match the income from this project...
>It's my PC, if a company hacks into it and changes it then they're breaking the law.
If you assert your rights to control of your computer, you also assume responsibility for its actions.
> Can they even demonstrate that I don't know of the existence of that malware?
What is true for you is also true for your victims. The spam, or cracking, or DoS, or whatever that your computer commits. Whether you know about it or not is irrelevant. NOT knowing about it is merely a mitigating circumstance.
And here you are, asserting actual responsibility for it. Bravo! Well done. Makes the plaintiff's job a lot easier.
>> Cry "but I've not been proven guilty" all you want,... > What is hard to grasp about "Innocent until proven guilty"?
Absolutely nothing. But this isn't about being in front of a judge. Guilt or innocence doesn't come into play yet. And yet you seized upon that as an argument. Strange...
> If my dissertation files is on music, there is a good chance I will get a DMCA notice.
Know anyone that's happened to? Know of any cases like that, that you can point to? I'd love to hear about them. Personally, I cannot point to any good "Fair use - educational" DMCA defense instances. And I'd like to.
I suspect, though, that if your dissertation files are.mp3s with the titles of copyrighted songs, then yes, you might well get challenged improperly. And if you're making them available via P2P software, I'd call that "baiting", sure enough. And if you're being that clever, you can surely take responsibility for the results.
>> "a tax on the behavior that causes them to employ people to handle the results. "
> You know, they pay people to clean the floors, maybe there should be a door man to charge people entrance to the buildings based on how dirty the students shoes are?
I suspect you want books and lab fees to be rolled into general tuition costs too, then? How about damage deposits for the dorms? Perhaps shoes for the athletes, suits for the debating team, beer for the debauches?
At some point lines do have to be drawn, between costs that can/should be absorbed by the whole, and ones that a person has to be individually responsible for. You are arguing that the cost of the notices should be absorbed entirely, I that the individual should be responsible.
And as I've said in other comments, I feel that an improper notice should not generate a fee. IMHO, the cost of defending the innocent IS a cost that should be shared.
> Your arguments are weak, and puny.
Need I say it? Really? And you're welcome to the spelling corrections.
> Wrong. If I feel that some Stanford Student ripped off some research I did, I can perfectly well file a DMCA takedown notice about said dissertation. And nowhere in their policies does it say that only DMCA notices from the MAFIAA incur these fines.
I stand by my original statement >>... but the XXaa won't be sending takedown notices of your dissertation and research papers without you having baited them into it. but accept your expansions. You're perfectly right; music isn't the only copyrighted information out there that's being misappropriated.
I think >> Don't like it? Don't steal files. still covers it. Folks will still want to quibble over the word "steal", but that's not important here.
> So, Slashdot readers, browse around Stanford's student pages, and if you see material that you feel violates your copyright, don't hesitate to file a takedown notice. Twice. And Thrice. Especially if the student has the same name as a Senator or Congressman that voted for the DMCA. Oh, and preferably do it on a Friday afternoon, just before school holidays, or during Stanford's exam periods.
If you feel vindictive, then yes. Feel free to game the system. You've got plenty of examples of how best to do it by corporations who have done extensive research on how best to use the DMCA. See also my earlier statement about recompense due in response to bogus DMCA notices, for my opinion on such tactics.
Expanding on that latter, maybe the universities could charge a processing fee to those sending bogus notices, as a "settlement for not suing over improper DMCA use".
They might have to initiate the lawsuit first, though, to avoid charges of blackmail. IANAL, but I've been told that there are countries (not the USA) where threatening to sue unless a "settlement" is paid IS considered blackmail. Chew on that one for a bit.
>Q: Does it really cost $100-$1000 to update a routing table? >A: No, of course it doesn't.
You're right. That's not what Stanford is saying. They're saying "between you, you force us to employ 3 people handling this that we wouldn't otherwise. So we're putting in a tax on the behavior that has caused us to employ them."
Don't like it? Don't steal files. Cry "but I've not been proven guilty" all you want, but the XXaa won't be sending takedown notices of your dissertation and research papers without you having baited them into it.
And responding to the DMCA takedown notice within 48 hours will keep you from being disconnected - and thus subject to the tax - in the first place. So if you ARE baiting them into papering you, keep on top of it. File a rebuttal with Stanford, documenting your copyright (or permission/license to post).
> This goes right up there with my U's $100 "administrative fee" they charge for forwarding you an email complaining about file sharing.
Same argument: a tax on the behavior that causes them to employ people to handle the results. Still, your school should have a policy of negating the "fee" if you can prove that the complaint is bogus. If they don't, YOU (a person provably interested) should talk to the administration about it.
- in Oregon
- Trespass of Chattels was directly considered.
The MPAA discussion of the first counterclaim, "Electronic Trespass", refers to such Trespass.
True: Schwartz was prosecuted on criminal charges, while these are civil claims.
I cannot say anything about the correctness of the claim, but the applicability of "trespass" to the circumstances seems relevant. The MPAA makes some of the same claims that Schwartz did. They were shot down for him, though.
In Washington's case, both parties have to consent to the recording.
Reading Hasselton's site a bit further revealed that he had a voice menu like system in place that provided a message along the lines of "this call may be monitored and recorded". Which the spammer flew past in making the call.
The problem with this as evidence was: the message indicating acceptance of the terms was not recorded on the tape.
The judge in the case rejected it on these grounds. After all, the fact you have a message on one phone line - now - does not prove you had it on the line the message was taped on, when the message was taped. That's a mighty high bar to try to repair after the fact.
It is quite likely that he has adjusted his methods in response to experience, but unlikely he has had quite that opportunity again. A spammer calling you is not something I'd expect every day.
Also... Hasselton was doing all this pro se (as his own lawyer). The judge showed him some leniency (probably), but clearly had little patience with non-lawyers in the court room. Which makes one wonder how well he served in Small Claims Court, where that is more the rule than the exception.
Note also that the events being noticed here were written up last October, so this is not late-breaking news.
Bug Park - what would it REALLY be like to be miniaturized? How "honey, I shrunk the kids" etc get it wrong.
I could almost recommend The Two Faces of Tomorrow as well, for its description of the limits of expert systems (common sense doesn't "just happen"), but it then goes off into something between first-contact, coming-of-age, and speculation on the development of AI. A good story, just not quite as "hard" as many of the other suggestions in this thread.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't even have to ship them to Gitmo...
Declare them a flight risk and hold them incommunicado and in isolation until they 'confess'.
In point of fact, the judge did order the filing handled: (appropriate action).
:)
Some factors involved in sealing documents: (from here, a different jurisdiction, but the principle remains)
(1) the need to ensure a fair trial;
(2) the need for witness cooperation;
(3) the reliance of the parties upon expectations of confidentiality;
(4) the public or professional significance of the lawsuit;
(5) the perceived harm to the parties from disclosure;
(6) why alternatives other than sealing the documents are not available to protect legitimate private interests as identified by this Rule; and
(7) why the public interest, including, but not limited to, the public health and safety, is best served by sealing the documents.
As was pointed out, filing publicly removed even those limits the original web site had on access (while imposing new ones - PACER access). Another thing guaranteed to irritate a judge, he filed them as an exhibit with a motion asking permission to file some other document, instead of letting his motion stand on its own legs. If I understand it right, the judge is saying "it doesn't promote justice, why should we publish it?"
You're looking to hoist Mr Thompson by his own petard. The judge is looking to preserve the dignity and process of the court. Both are worthy causes, but I suspect that you might feel differently talking from the bench instead of the cheap seats.
>...we can easily tell that Autodesk is in the wrong
... We also know that too many in the profession have engaged in obfuscation, making contracts and law far longer and more complicated than necessary, in order to bury objectionable stuff in the fine print.
There's a difference between a considered legal opinion, and the sort of opinion you read on slashdot. If there weren't, SCO vs Novell and SCO vs IBM would have been over before the ink was dry on the complaints.
>if the law says otherwise, then the law is wrong too.
Which is to say, the GP may be right about the law in the case, but your opinion is still your opinion.
> You'll have to do better than that old "it's too complicated to explain" garbage if you want to convince anyone around here.
Right you are. Read the summary, decide the case based on 5 or 6 sentences, and move on. Deciding law by sound bites. Again, you're defending opinions informed by moral appeal, rather than case law. It's nice of you to prove his point like this.
> The law is our servant, not our master.
Well, which do you want? First you say "use the law to your advantage", then you carp about people doing just that. Perhaps, though, what you are complaining about is the need to hire a specialist (that is, lawyer) in order to understand contract terms.
Maybe if they are able to recover more money, that the California taxpayers will eventually have to pay, the California voters will get pissed off and vote out the clowns that passed legislation they should have known would be doomed.
Sorry, cause and effect are too distant. You're talking about (on the order of) $300K out of a $1.5 trillion (with a T) GDP, and an annual total revenue of $50 billion (with a B).
If you earn $100,000 a year, it would be equivalent to you losing a penny in the couch.
There's a reason I'm not a lawyer... Something to do with several years of law school, bar exams, that sort of thing.
Still, I found this reference to the DirectTV "Noerr Pennington" case.
The case puts weight, regarding the sham litigation exception, on both "objective baselessness", and "improper motive". Objective baselessness may be fairly easy to prove in Lindor, but I think "improper motive" would be a hard sell, normally.
Closer to the surface, though, I am doubtful that Noerr Pennington applies. Noerr Pennington (as near as I can tell) says, "you cannot abridge the right to petition the goverment", including the courts. However, the individual companies could still litigate separately without invoking anti-trust issues.
The DirectTV decision said - I think - that the company could send out its "we're going to sue" letters, even if it was wrong, without invoking RICO. As long as it didn't do so with malice. Which to me meant that extortion-via-lawsuit is defended. That is, "our suit may be provably wrong, but we have a right to sue you into the ground anyway."
Lindor may be the exception, though, if it's the case where the settlement center worker told her "we know we're wrong, but we're going to sue anyway". So many cases out there, I forget which one(s) that was...
Answer that seems obvious to me is:
If you haven't talked to VH1 first hand, you should. YouTube and Viacom almost certainly don't know you from Adam.
Explaining it to the folks at VH1 who used your content, and having THEM talk to Viacom might avoid any need to go to court.
As from the movie Labyrinth...
Sarah: What exactly have you sworn?
Didymus: I have taken an oath that no one may cross this bridge without my permission.
Sarah: Well... May we have your permission?
Didymus: Well I, uh... I... that is, uh... hm... Yes?
So... you're saying that if we are dissatisfied with a product, we can...
*become criminal
*spend even more money (purchasing additional hardware/software) for the same level of service
*cease complaining where you can view our complaints.
The point of complaining, of making our dissatisfaction known, is to encourage the provider to alter the terms they offer. We can't do that by shutting up. We can't do that by silently boycotting - the lost sales don't show up as "because of X", so the producer does not even know there is anything wrong.
Aside from threats of incarceration of fines, many of us decline to commit criminal acts, as this, too, does not provide direct feedback on the nature of our complaints. Much like silently refusing to buy, pirating the game because you don't like the registration issues looks the same to the vendor as pirating it because you simply don't want to pay for it.
And if you see nothing wrong in such an unbalanced cost for services (buy PC game vs buy 360 game + platform), then perhaps an analogy is in order. You COULD drive a hydrogen fueled car around. More expensive, more bulky, and possibly subject to detonation when damaged in collisions. But it provides the same level of service - getting you from point A to point B.
So perhaps you should turn away from those forums that cause you needless upset. In your own words, "Man Up".
How about this, then?
Fear of having to get online to activate the game in the first place.
Why should I be required to get online at all, ever, to play a game that I don't intend to play online? Justify that, please.
I'm sorry, but I see it as an entirely unreasonable requirement. I already put up with being required to flash my original CD/DVD when the game asks "papers, please". I won't put up with being required to go online even once to be allowed to play a game I've already purchased.
As if there weren't enough reasons to comment your code, this would be added to the list.
If nothing else, they prove you know what the heck your code is doing, and why it is doing it. Which is half of what the exercise is about anyway. (The other half being "can you come up with it yourself".)
In WoW...
- The WoW disease killed. WoW has an "easy resurrection" system, so it didn't cost players more than a few minutes of inconvenience.
- The cause was immediately known, and the cure (death) while inconvenient, was also immediately known
- Detecting a carrier was easy.
- Being cured of the disease (dying) took little play time.
In ATITD...- The disease debilitated, eventually forcing a disconnect for a period of time (a coma, as it were).
- The cause had to be discovered by the player community. And even after theories were proven, there were still some cases that could not easily be explained.
- Much like real life, carriers often didn't know they had it until signs manifested... too late for those around them
- Discovering a cure was a separate (community) event, requiring much player time and involvement. Actually getting cured took a non-trivial amount of time and resources on the part of the "sick" player.
... and the character could get reinfected a short period after taking the cure. (A permanent cure was eventually discovered, which took MORE resources...)
Also unlike WoW, ATITD is very much a social game. Introduce, then, something that produces highly negative consequences to social interaction, and you getOn the other hand, I expect the reactions by the people who didn't leave were perhaps even closer to those in the real world than in WoW, because of its social aspects.
And for those of you who haven't heard of the game before, I should point out that the nature of the game (no combat) and the social ecology tends to select for cooperative behavior.
with a 52 page itemized list of $0.00 entries is... ... that they're tracking this information.
What their internal records have is almost certain to be much more than what they show on the bill.
Got your anonymizer fired up?
Looks like the ARC and J&J had a 1895 agreement on trademark use(referred to in this CNN article, which congress codified in USC Title 18 section 706 chapter 33.
Section 706 talks about "agents", and I'm betting that some bright fellow at ARC either didn't know about the ancient agreement, or thought section 706 would cover them, or thought they could bluff their way past. Also possible that said Bright Young Fellow read the agreement and chose specific products they thought could get away with as "not specifically covered by the agreement"
Here's hoping that the ARC doesn't end up in a $10 million lawsuit, which would neatly match the income from this project...
>Most Americans I know have at least two (if not more!) vehicles...
That, my friend, is what we like to call "anecdotal evidence".
Here's another:
Most Americans I know have 1, or no cars. That is, (individual americans) > (individual motor vehicles).
Having said that, I'll go on to say (families) <= (motor vehicles). Which is still misleading.
>It's my PC, if a company hacks into it and changes it then they're breaking the law.
If you assert your rights to control of your computer, you also assume responsibility for its actions.
> Can they even demonstrate that I don't know of the existence of that malware?
What is true for you is also true for your victims. The spam, or cracking, or DoS, or whatever that your computer commits. Whether you know about it or not is irrelevant. NOT knowing about it is merely a mitigating circumstance.
And here you are, asserting actual responsibility for it. Bravo! Well done. Makes the plaintiff's job a lot easier.
June, friend, June.
Even the police don't have time machines.
Except for Jean Claude Van Damme and Ron Silver, of course.
The police are using the retail prices of the authentic items in their valuation, not the swap meet knock-off price.
(Information courtesy of the reporter, Holly Danks. Amazing what you can find out if you ask the right people.)
... for there to be TWO patents out there, each for half the technology, with Eolas having one, Microsoft the other?
What they'd do is cross-license with each other, and form a cartel to squeeze the rest of us.
Splitting patents is like chopping starfish up and throwing the pieces back into the bay.
> I am not "provably interested" until I get one of these emails myself. Since I no longer live on campus, that's not going to happen.
Sorry, I took your reply as proof that you were interested. Should I stand corrected?
>> Cry "but I've not been proven guilty" all you want, ...
.mp3s with the titles of copyrighted songs, then yes, you might well get challenged improperly. And if you're making them available via P2P software, I'd call that "baiting", sure enough. And if you're being that clever, you can surely take responsibility for the results.
> What is hard to grasp about "Innocent until proven guilty"?
Absolutely nothing. But this isn't about being in front of a judge. Guilt or innocence doesn't come into play yet. And yet you seized upon that as an argument. Strange...
> If my dissertation files is on music, there is a good chance I will get a DMCA notice.
Know anyone that's happened to? Know of any cases like that, that you can point to? I'd love to hear about them. Personally, I cannot point to any good "Fair use - educational" DMCA defense instances. And I'd like to.
I suspect, though, that if your dissertation files are
>> "a tax on the behavior that causes them to employ people to handle the results. "
> You know, they pay people to clean the floors, maybe there should be a door man to charge people entrance to the buildings based on how dirty the students shoes are?
I suspect you want books and lab fees to be rolled into general tuition costs too, then? How about damage deposits for the dorms? Perhaps shoes for the athletes, suits for the debating team, beer for the debauches?
At some point lines do have to be drawn, between costs that can/should be absorbed by the whole, and ones that a person has to be individually responsible for. You are arguing that the cost of the notices should be absorbed entirely, I that the individual should be responsible.
And as I've said in other comments, I feel that an improper notice should not generate a fee. IMHO, the cost of defending the innocent IS a cost that should be shared.
> Your arguments are weak, and puny.
Need I say it? Really? And you're welcome to the spelling corrections.
> Wrong. If I feel that some Stanford Student ripped off some research I did, I can perfectly well file a DMCA takedown notice about said dissertation. And nowhere in their policies does it say that only DMCA notices from the MAFIAA incur these fines.
... but the XXaa won't be sending takedown notices of your dissertation and research papers without you having baited them into it.
I stand by my original statement
>>
but accept your expansions. You're perfectly right; music isn't the only copyrighted information out there that's being misappropriated.
I think
>> Don't like it? Don't steal files.
still covers it. Folks will still want to quibble over the word "steal", but that's not important here.
> So, Slashdot readers, browse around Stanford's student pages, and if you see material that you feel violates your copyright, don't hesitate to file a takedown notice. Twice. And Thrice. Especially if the student has the same name as a Senator or Congressman that voted for the DMCA. Oh, and preferably do it on a Friday afternoon, just before school holidays, or during Stanford's exam periods.
If you feel vindictive, then yes. Feel free to game the system. You've got plenty of examples of how best to do it by corporations who have done extensive research on how best to use the DMCA. See also my earlier statement about recompense due in response to bogus DMCA notices, for my opinion on such tactics.
Expanding on that latter, maybe the universities could charge a processing fee to those sending bogus notices, as a "settlement for not suing over improper DMCA use".
They might have to initiate the lawsuit first, though, to avoid charges of blackmail. IANAL, but I've been told that there are countries (not the USA) where threatening to sue unless a "settlement" is paid IS considered blackmail. Chew on that one for a bit.
>Q: Does it really cost $100-$1000 to update a routing table?
>A: No, of course it doesn't.
You're right. That's not what Stanford is saying. They're saying "between you, you force us to employ 3 people handling this that we wouldn't otherwise. So we're putting in a tax on the behavior that has caused us to employ them."
Don't like it? Don't steal files. Cry "but I've not been proven guilty" all you want, but the XXaa won't be sending takedown notices of your dissertation and research papers without you having baited them into it.
And responding to the DMCA takedown notice within 48 hours will keep you from being disconnected - and thus subject to the tax - in the first place. So if you ARE baiting them into papering you, keep on top of it. File a rebuttal with Stanford, documenting your copyright (or permission/license to post).
> This goes right up there with my U's $100 "administrative fee" they charge for forwarding you an email complaining about file sharing.
Same argument: a tax on the behavior that causes them to employ people to handle the results. Still, your school should have a policy of negating the "fee" if you can prove that the complaint is bogus. If they don't, YOU (a person provably interested) should talk to the administration about it.
The case of Randal Schwartz is directly applicable to this case:
http://www.lightlink.com/spacenka/fors/
- in Oregon - Trespass of Chattels was directly considered.
The MPAA discussion of the first counterclaim, "Electronic Trespass", refers to such Trespass.
True: Schwartz was prosecuted on criminal charges, while these are civil claims.
I cannot say anything about the correctness of the claim, but the applicability of "trespass" to the circumstances seems relevant. The MPAA makes some of the same claims that Schwartz did. They were shot down for him, though.
Depends on state laws.
In Washington's case, both parties have to consent to the recording.
Reading Hasselton's site a bit further revealed that he had a voice menu like system in place that provided a message along the lines of "this call may be monitored and recorded". Which the spammer flew past in making the call.
The problem with this as evidence was: the message indicating acceptance of the terms was not recorded on the tape.
The judge in the case rejected it on these grounds. After all, the fact you have a message on one phone line - now - does not prove you had it on the line the message was taped on, when the message was taped. That's a mighty high bar to try to repair after the fact.
It is quite likely that he has adjusted his methods in response to experience, but unlikely he has had quite that opportunity again. A spammer calling you is not something I'd expect every day.
Also... Hasselton was doing all this pro se (as his own lawyer). The judge showed him some leniency (probably), but clearly had little patience with non-lawyers in the court room. Which makes one wonder how well he served in Small Claims Court, where that is more the rule than the exception.
Note also that the events being noticed here were written up last October, so this is not late-breaking news.
I would add another work by Hogan:
Bug Park - what would it REALLY be like to be miniaturized? How "honey, I shrunk the kids" etc get it wrong.
I could almost recommend The Two Faces of Tomorrow as well, for its description of the limits of expert systems (common sense doesn't "just happen"), but it then goes off into something between first-contact, coming-of-age, and speculation on the development of AI. A good story, just not quite as "hard" as many of the other suggestions in this thread.