Unfortunately even those that AREN'T in power will still vote to give power to their enemies in hopes that eventually they'll have the power and be able to use it for themselves.
This is why the founding fathers hated political parties. The president would have MUCH less power if legislators with no hope of becoming president themselves didn't still have a stake in who was. Unfortunately, the founders had no idea WHY parties formed and so did nothing to prevent them from forming or accommodate their existence, and ended up forming parties before the ink was dry on the Constitution.
What does it say that a jury felt Apple was indeed deserving of damages from Samsung considering how thoroughly the appeals court trashed their arguments, based in part on what a "reasonable jury" would find?
The real problem is that the uneducated actively distrusts the educated and explicitly prefers to vote for someone "just like me" no matter how unqualified.
Republicans are for limited government when it's their donors that are being governed. If limited government means making things easier for ordinary Americans? Screw them, we gotta catch turrorists!
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public." -Adam Smith by way of Civ IV
If you want to know why corporations "suffer" so much government "regulation", this is why: anyone who isn't paid off by them never, ever, ever trusts anything they say to get what they want, because they know all their promises will either be quickly forgotten or will be adhered to at the bare minimum to fall far short of counteracting what they get by getting their way.
Forgetting that there's this little thing called the Constitution that explicitly says murderers do have rights at least until they're prosecuted in a court of law (yes, it still exists as much as the government likes to pretend otherwise), it's technically impossible to open the phone without opening up a massive vulnerability in everyone's iPhone (and no, "those smart people in Silicon Valley should be able to find a way" isn't good enough, again as much as the government likes to think otherwise). What's so hard to understand here?
And had he worked fifty years later, he would have failed because someone would have sued him for copyright infringement for incorporating something made a hundred years earlier and demanded enough royalties to wipe out his profits.
Don't worry, our security backdoors only allow us, the good guys, to get in, never the bad guys! In other news, we want Apple to make it possible for us to brute-force guess their devices' passwords, which is the most basic way the bad guys get into people's devices and the most basic security weakness tech companies patch.
There isn't any evidence that Dish got any sort of CBS content to use on Sling as part of their settlement, and the fact they didn't mention it with Fox suggest that didn't happen here either. Moreover, ABC still isn't on Sling despite ABC supposedly being the reason the Disney networks are on Sling to begin with. I'm guessing cause and effect might be backwards: Dish wanted ESPN for Sling and Disney said "only if you block AutoHop for ABC shows", which opened the door to reaching the same agreement with CBS and Fox without the Sling agreements.
I'm guessing it may have gone something like this:
MPAA: We need you to use this DRM scheme.
Daz: Hmm, this'll break old versions and cause all sorts of other problems for our users. We need to reach out to our users to minimize the impacts this'll have on them.
Users: DRM sucks and you shouldn't do it, and you certainly shouldn't do it like this.
Daz: Yeah, our users really don't like this, maybe we shouldn't do it.
MPAA: You're going to use this DRM scheme and that's final.
In other words, maybe they thought they were going to have some say in whether they instituted it, and thus that they could let their users have some say, only to find out the MPAA wasn't actually going to give them any say in the matter..
Clearly Let's Plays are profiting off the use of our intellectual property for unique and original purposes, so either they need to pay us for the use of our game in making their video, or they need to be shut down because the law says they're infringing our copyright.
I think this is the only time in Techdirt history a writer has said "What these people say they're doing is a good idea, ignore all the evidence that points to what they're actually going to do".
On the post: Abuse Of Power: Laws Should Be Designed As If The People We Distrust The Most Are In Power
This is why the founding fathers hated political parties. The president would have MUCH less power if legislators with no hope of becoming president themselves didn't still have a stake in who was. Unfortunately, the founders had no idea WHY parties formed and so did nothing to prevent them from forming or accommodate their existence, and ended up forming parties before the ink was dry on the Constitution.
On the post: Appeals Court Dumps Apple's Slide To Unlock Patent, Tosses Massive Jury Award Against Samsung In The Trash
On the post: Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight
Re:
On the post: Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight
Re: You can't expect the president to know everything...
On the post: Lawmakers Speak Out On Apple Being Forced To Create Backdoors; Some Wisely, Some Ignorantly
Re:
On the post: Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight
Re:
On the post: Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight
On the post: Basically Every Single Presidential Candidate Is Totally Clueless As To What's At Stake In The Apple / FBI Fight
On the post: Yes, The Backdoor That The FBI Is Requesting Can Work On Modern iPhones Too
Re:
On the post: AT&T Makes It Clear: It Bought DirecTV So It Doesn't Have To Upgrade Its Lagging Networks
Re: Reality
But! But the free market always knows best!
On the post: AT&T Makes It Clear: It Bought DirecTV So It Doesn't Have To Upgrade Its Lagging Networks
Re:
Of course, if people were remotely paying attention the way they should, this wouldn't be a problem to begin with...
On the post: AT&T Makes It Clear: It Bought DirecTV So It Doesn't Have To Upgrade Its Lagging Networks
Re:
On the post: No, A Judge Did Not Just Order Apple To Break Encryption On San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone, But To Create A New Backdoor
Re: Hmmmmm
On the post: Without Copyright Infringement, Deadpool Doesn't Get Made
Re: Henry Ford quote;
On the post: No, A Judge Did Not Just Order Apple To Break Encryption On San Bernardino Shooter's iPhone, But To Create A New Backdoor
On the post: Dish Agrees To Cripple Its Ad-Skipping DVR To Settle Fox Lawsuit
On the post: ISPs Are Trampling Net Neutrality While The FCC Sits Boxed In By Lawsuits, Upcoming Election
Re: Re: Re: Re: And your proposed solution is...?
That One Guy: If Congress wrote the rules they'd be even more pro-cable company.
You: You don't get it! Congress has abdicated its responsibility and tries to claim it's powerless to write the rules!
Way to miss the point.
On the post: Software Company Asks Users For Input On DRM; Goes Ahead And Institutes It Anyway Over Their Objections
Re: Re:
MPAA: We need you to use this DRM scheme.
Daz: Hmm, this'll break old versions and cause all sorts of other problems for our users. We need to reach out to our users to minimize the impacts this'll have on them.
Users: DRM sucks and you shouldn't do it, and you certainly shouldn't do it like this.
Daz: Yeah, our users really don't like this, maybe we shouldn't do it.
MPAA: You're going to use this DRM scheme and that's final.
In other words, maybe they thought they were going to have some say in whether they instituted it, and thus that they could let their users have some say, only to find out the MPAA wasn't actually going to give them any say in the matter..
On the post: The Wil Wheaton Effect Is Why Video Game Makers Should Embrace Let's Play Videos
On the post: The Fine Bros Plan Is Actually Pretty Cool If You Get Past How They Announced It
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