A while ago, some right-wing show host got accused of defamation. He got away with it because his lawyers convinced the judge that nobody should take him seriously given that he generally doesn't state facts, just random unfounded opinions. (I barely exaggerate here.)
It seems we're going to have to do the same with cops and prosecutors. They don't deal with actual laws, so nobody should take them seriously. There was even a case when a cop's lawyer was seriously arguing that they didn't even need to know the law and they could arrest someone based on what they think the law is. Can't quite remember if he got away with it though, but the attempt itself was outrageous.
Next to this, "prosecutorial discretion" is just in the "awful but lawful" category. They can prosecute anyone they want and, more importantly, not prosecute anyone they don't want. The US legal system is basically a game where winning a case is more important than upholding the law. Actual facts and laws are less important than getting a win and avoiding a loss.
(Also, people have been "educated" by years of TV shows where police and prosecutors are always the good guys, even when they use dirty tactics that should never hold in court. I get that it makes for good entertainment, but it also establishes a bad culture where "police is always right". Even a real judge actually cited the TV series "24" in court when talking about how to treat terrorist suspects. Facts and fiction are getting mixed up in the worst way possible.)
There is nothing special about fact checkers that protects them from regulations requiring them to be fair and honest in their dealings.
Ah, this one takes the top.
There is indeed nothing special about fact checkers. And that's good. They can be punished as any other entity if they go below the pretty low bar of protected free speech. Denouncing a lie simply does not. Heck, even lying about someone lying is not unprotected unless you cross into defamation territory. He should know, he and his caste do it all the time.
Now, he is the one who wants them to get special treatment. Talk about hypocrisy.
I always find it funny how hypocritical people can get, political figures in particular.
What he's basically saying is you are allowed to say anything, including the most blatant lies, and that's protected by the First Amendment.
Denouncing said liars is not. That is a form of expression that should be fined because it hurts liars, professional liars like him in particular. And you can't do that. After all, what could he be paid for otherwise?
Another point is that he complains that fact-checking basically amounts to non-government censorship (which is totally a thing, right?). However, most of the time, lies are still left on whatever platform they are found on. There is simply a layer of correction added around the misleading content. It's just "more speech", not censorship. But, in his mind, it amounts to the same thing, right?
How the hell do people like Marcus not recognize that every claim they're making applies equally back on them.
Actually I disagree with this statement. If anything, it applies more to him and his ilk. Liars should not be free to lie with impunity. And in some specific cases (defamation/libel/slander), they are indeed not free to do so.
We still shouldn't have an official government fact-checking entity. We know what use "the ministry of truth" would have. But his lies are definitely more dangerous than others denouncing them for what they are.
Wait and see. The "Free" model has worked pretty well for some games.
I'll withhold my judgment based on two questions:
How free is "free"? Multiple games recently have developed a concept of "microtransactions" where the price of each transaction is somewhere between $1 and $100... I'm not seeing the "micro" there. Also, how necessary will these transactions be in order to experience anything remotely like normal "pay once" games.
"Free" might not mean "DRM-free". I dread the excuse that, since it's going to be free, we shouldn't complain about DRM... when it should be the exact opposite.
Depending on their actions regarding these two points, I will either be enthusiastic for their approach or avoid them completely.
There is also the quality of the games themselves to consider, but I'm willing to compromise on this point... to some extent.
Re: It's amazing how many misread that commandment.
It doesn't make much of a difference even if you are right. Those that "use" the name of the christian god for selfish purposes definitely don't "live up" to christians standards. Unless we're talking about "eye for an eye", slavery, death penalty... this kind of standards.
Definitely not the sections about tolerance, humility, "casting the first stone" and "chasing the money changers out the temple".
Their supposed "holy book" has tons of things, some good, some bad, some downright abhorrent (not even cleanly separated by old/new testament distinctions). And the most bigot and fanatic they are, the more they seem to follow the abhorrent parts and ignore the good ones. As they are now, I'm pretty sure that, should Jesus come back and preach the same as before, they would chase him out as a "commy", and possibly as a "witch" for good measure.
To be honest, all of these claims are true.
"This" (as in "this judgment) doesn't cause the cops to be shielded from legal actions.
It just so happens that cops are (generally) not prosecuted anyway, regardless of their names being made public or not. And that state attorneys do tend to consider cops as "victims" of the corpses they created. (Dying is pretty disrespectful after all. You might even stain their uniforms with your blood.)
Also, this has recently been changing. A little. When a case is too public. But that is still the exception rather than the norm.
"Since we judges never said this exact way of breaking the law was wrong, you had no way of seeing the errors of your ways. Besides training and common sense. Which don't count. You're free to go." - The Tenth Circuit, paraphrased.
It's already known (or at least it should be) that cops are legally allowed to lie during interrogation. They can tell you they have evidence they actually don't have. They can tell you about witnesses that don't exist.
I find that wrong, morally speaking, but it goes beyond just the morality of it. There have been numerous cases of innocent pushed to confessing crimes they didn't commit because those lies made them distrust their own memories. So it's wrong because it's a failing tool to find the culprit of a crime. Unless you see as a game where the goal is to convict someone. Anyone.
Now, we have a worse case here. (And it's not unique.)
This is falsified evidence brought to the trial itself.
This definitely is illegal and the police - possibly along with the prosecutors, if they knew about it - should be sued back.
There is some degree of immunity against lawyers, judges and prosecutors, but this should only stand when not committing perjury or evidence tampering. Also, I don't think that covers the cops brought as witnesses. And certainly not the paid and lying witnesses themselves.
The third-party involvement here shouldn't even have been a problem because, except for that bribed witness, they didn't even have a case. Not that it excuses Hertz, but they are not the main ones to blame.
The main failure of this case is how it should have gone the other way.
The cop as defender and the journalist as plaintiff.
Too bad "wrongful arrest" only seems to exist in law books, never in actual cases, even the ones that have undisputable evidence.
I'll agree with the prosecutor and That One Guy above. Sahouri's job should not even matter. This was a wrongful arrest, even had he not been a journalist.
Justice is far from blind. She obviously knows several colors, blue is but one of them.
When we stop having the cops harass ordinary citizens, which is a demonstrated behavior, we might not have to record every little interaction, just in case we need documented proof of police abuse.
For years, police has abused people, and their word was law - quite literally - because of the lack of evidence to their lies in court and in the media. Nowadays, the balance is shifting - a little - in favor of the citizens thanks to cameras everywhere. The cops still have plenty of advantages, but their word is not quite as sacred anymore. It's a progress, but we can't stop recording them yet but because we know they still lie. A lot.
You celebrating that they find "clever" workarounds to accountability is a cheap shot. The cops here are clearly abusing a law that is not intended for this purpose. They should be disciplined, if only because they stop working in the middle of an interaction to dumbly listen to music, and ideally for actively trying to prevent a citizen from lawfully recording his interactions with a police officer.
Note that there will be abuse only the day cops are being recorded while off-duty. Otherwise, they are public agents in a public space, and there have been several court cases proving that they don't have a claim against this behavior from concerned citizens.
as long as people are voted into office who dont understand a damn thing about the Internet
Actually, it's more a problem of electing people who don't want to understand a damn thing about the Internet.
They have their idea of what it is, and actively resist learning better information. That is not a problem exclusive to republicans. Even democrats similarly resist understanding the world beyond their current knowledge of it.
Neither is it exclusive to technology matters. Politics and economy subjects are treated the same as they were 20-30 years ago. As if they were right then (which they weren't already) and as if nothing changing since.
As for social issues, republicans still live in the 80s. The 1680s.
The democrats are a little late on these subjects as well, but they at least try to show some progress on this front.
So, resistance to change is prevalent across most of the political landscape. Only a few of the most recent entries in the democrat-side of the Congress are actually trying to push for modernization, for long-overdue change. The majority of democrat are still trying to catch up with the 90s and the republicans are trying to pull the country backwards.
How is surprising that they can't cope with such a "revolutionary" concept as actual free speech for everyone? (Not just the few that the newspaper and TV deign to glorify.)
Even according to your definition, these people - or some of them at the very least - are terrorists.
Failed ones though.
Pipe bombs and molotov cocktails were found. Some of them had clearly expressed plans to kill Pence and some members of Congress. A noose was set up outside and zip-ties were brought in. That's a lot for people with no intention to kill.
I didn't even mention assault rifles and other guns because these are just standard equipment for right-wing nuts like them. They never go to a rally without heavy firearms, so it's difficult to distinguish when they actually intend to use them. They even had less than I expected. Every thing else above clearly expresses murderous intent.
If that doesn't fall under "terrorism", what does?
Also, the right wing has had a way more liberal use of the word than we do here. They called people "terrorists" for peacefully assembling, expressing disagreement with a republican elected official, or filing too many perfectly legal FOIA requests.
We call people terrorists when they use or threaten violence on people they disagree with politically.
Sorry I'm late replying to this message, but my answer is simple: does everything need a copyright?
My answer is simply no.
I don't need a copyright on this comment, even though I actually got one the moment it was published. That's stupid. Same thing when I have a selfie I post for my friends or family to see. I care about privacy to some extend, but I absolutely don't care about copyright. My incentive to take my own picture is to show my entourage that I'm well and happy, not to make them pay for the privilege.
If you want to monetize your work, you copyright it. Meaning you take an active step to register it for copyright. That's how it was originally, and it makes sense for nearly everything on the internet. The little content that is actually a source of income could be registered in several ways. It can be made as easy or difficult as the lawmakers want to make it, but registering should be necessary in order to trace the ownership of the rights on a work, including date of start, date of end, author, current owner. At a minimum. (Note that I also object to retroactively extending copyright on existing work. That is one of the biggest scams ever. End of rights should be set when they start.)
It's not like small physical items where - mostly - holding it means you own it. (Not so simple, obviously, but close enough.)
It's way more akin to land ownership where you need to have official records of the owner because otherwise anyone could come and claim it for himself.
(But even land can only have one clear owner at most. Copyright is way more complex as "similarity" is sometimes enough to be considered infringing.)
In the case of copyright, my opinion is to make it clear: if you want to make money out of it, register it. Otherwise, let it be.
nb: about "how easy or difficult you make it", I can imagine something where you can register online for a whole website content at once. Or on the other end of the scale, making you file a form for every page and content element on it. I don't mind either way because copyright is not part of my life. Or at least, it shouldn't be since I'm not in the business of owning and spreading the works of my imagination. But it happens to be nowadays because anything and everything on the internet is a copy. So everyone on the internet is involved with this crazy minefield of laws and regulations. You can only hope the sights of some right holder will not fall on you for some reason.
This, despite not "illegally" downloading movies, songs or whatever else. I'm subscribed to a few services, and if I don't get what I want there, I'm of the idea that, if they don't want my money, I don't want their works either. They lose more than I do.
And that's why you need an actual copyright registry.
I understand that was the case before, and the law was changed to make it easier for "creators" to claim copyright on their works.
But, as it should have been predicted, it became a mess where copyright can be claimed fraudulently. Even when bad faith is not factored in, it sometimes become difficult to impossible to trace who is the current holder of a particular copyrighted work. Orphaned works are a huge problem. And people who want to use a copyrighted work sometimes don't know who to contact. (See recently, the news about the game studio who wants to remake a game, but doesn't know which of three studios owns the rights... and neither of them will be bothered to check until they have an opportunity to sue.)
The law is broken and needs to be fixed in all sorts of ways: registration, scope and duration. But the copyright lobby is huge, and very generous... towards politicians.
Section 1983 meets Catch-22. Plaintiffs must produce precedent even as fewer courts are producing precedent. Important constitutional questions go unanswered precisely because those questions are yet unanswered.
This guy deserves to be nominated for insightful.
This has been pointed out in comments several times, so it's a happy day when an actual judge actually states it in an actual court. (Yes, repetition is intended.)
Also, whoever established that stupid rule in the first place should be tagged as inept to practice law and thrown out of court. I know it was the judge, but that shouldn't have stopped everyone else from kicking him out.
On the one hand, that's a pretty greedy move. Not surprising, but deplorable nonetheless.
On the other hand, as long as researchers really want to say "I was published in Nature", Nature can charge them what they want.
Offer & demand, the "beauty of capitalism" in action. (/s in case you didn't get it.)
It will take a bold group of academics to make a different, less greedy publisher as prestigious as Nature and Science. Only then will there truly be an alternative to paying tons of money to publishers. This might take time, and some dedication from the research in question, for them to eschew the (questionable) fame of being published under these two big names.
This is what happens when the branding is more important than the content.
In my view social media companies must not censor political speech but they have a responsibility to act against known sources of harmful disinformation wherever it comes from, including when it's from a President
Does he not realize how contradictory this statement is?
"Don't censor political speech, which is 90% lies (half-truth at best), but please censor their lies."
And given that he wants to decide what truth is, I'll pin his statement as contradictatory.
On the post: Judge Dumps Iowa Prosecutors' Attempt To Jail An Activist For Sharing A Law Enforcement Document With Journalists
A while ago, some right-wing show host got accused of defamation. He got away with it because his lawyers convinced the judge that nobody should take him seriously given that he generally doesn't state facts, just random unfounded opinions. (I barely exaggerate here.)
It seems we're going to have to do the same with cops and prosecutors. They don't deal with actual laws, so nobody should take them seriously. There was even a case when a cop's lawyer was seriously arguing that they didn't even need to know the law and they could arrest someone based on what they think the law is. Can't quite remember if he got away with it though, but the attempt itself was outrageous.
Next to this, "prosecutorial discretion" is just in the "awful but lawful" category. They can prosecute anyone they want and, more importantly, not prosecute anyone they don't want. The US legal system is basically a game where winning a case is more important than upholding the law. Actual facts and laws are less important than getting a win and avoiding a loss.
(Also, people have been "educated" by years of TV shows where police and prosecutors are always the good guys, even when they use dirty tactics that should never hold in court. I get that it makes for good entertainment, but it also establishes a bad culture where "police is always right". Even a real judge actually cited the TV series "24" in court when talking about how to treat terrorist suspects. Facts and fiction are getting mixed up in the worst way possible.)
On the post: Fact Check: Yes, Fact Checking Is Totally Protected By The 1st Amendment
Ah, this one takes the top.
There is indeed nothing special about fact checkers. And that's good. They can be punished as any other entity if they go below the pretty low bar of protected free speech. Denouncing a lie simply does not. Heck, even lying about someone lying is not unprotected unless you cross into defamation territory. He should know, he and his caste do it all the time.
Now, he is the one who wants them to get special treatment. Talk about hypocrisy.
On the post: Fact Check: Yes, Fact Checking Is Totally Protected By The 1st Amendment
I always find it funny how hypocritical people can get, political figures in particular.
What he's basically saying is you are allowed to say anything, including the most blatant lies, and that's protected by the First Amendment.
Denouncing said liars is not. That is a form of expression that should be fined because it hurts liars, professional liars like him in particular. And you can't do that. After all, what could he be paid for otherwise?
Another point is that he complains that fact-checking basically amounts to non-government censorship (which is totally a thing, right?). However, most of the time, lies are still left on whatever platform they are found on. There is simply a layer of correction added around the misleading content. It's just "more speech", not censorship. But, in his mind, it amounts to the same thing, right?
Actually I disagree with this statement. If anything, it applies more to him and his ilk. Liars should not be free to lie with impunity. And in some specific cases (defamation/libel/slander), they are indeed not free to do so.
We still shouldn't have an official government fact-checking entity. We know what use "the ministry of truth" would have. But his lies are definitely more dangerous than others denouncing them for what they are.
On the post: Ubisoft Shifts Its Future Plans To Include More 'Free To Play' Games
Wait and see. The "Free" model has worked pretty well for some games.
I'll withhold my judgment based on two questions:
Depending on their actions regarding these two points, I will either be enthusiastic for their approach or avoid them completely.
There is also the quality of the games themselves to consider, but I'm willing to compromise on this point... to some extent.
On the post: The Pillow Dude's 'Free Speech' Social Media Website Will Moderate 'Swear Words' Because Of Course It Will
Re: It's amazing how many misread that commandment.
It doesn't make much of a difference even if you are right. Those that "use" the name of the christian god for selfish purposes definitely don't "live up" to christians standards. Unless we're talking about "eye for an eye", slavery, death penalty... this kind of standards.
Definitely not the sections about tolerance, humility, "casting the first stone" and "chasing the money changers out the temple".
Their supposed "holy book" has tons of things, some good, some bad, some downright abhorrent (not even cleanly separated by old/new testament distinctions). And the most bigot and fanatic they are, the more they seem to follow the abhorrent parts and ignore the good ones. As they are now, I'm pretty sure that, should Jesus come back and preach the same as before, they would chase him out as a "commy", and possibly as a "witch" for good measure.
On the post: Court Says Two Cops Who Deployed Deadly Force Can Use Florida's Victims' Rights Law To Hide Their Names From The Public
Re: Joke-a-Thon
To be honest, all of these claims are true.
"This" (as in "this judgment) doesn't cause the cops to be shielded from legal actions.
It just so happens that cops are (generally) not prosecuted anyway, regardless of their names being made public or not. And that state attorneys do tend to consider cops as "victims" of the corpses they created. (Dying is pretty disrespectful after all. You might even stain their uniforms with your blood.)
Also, this has recently been changing. A little. When a case is too public. But that is still the exception rather than the norm.
On the post: Justice Thomas Goes Weird Again; Suggests Twitter Can't Moderate & Section 230 Violates 1st Amendment
From what I read here, he is.
He is absolutely opposed to the First Amendment.
On the post: Appeals Court Extends Qualified Immunity To Cops Who Knew They Were Violating A Photographer's Rights
"Since we judges never said this exact way of breaking the law was wrong, you had no way of seeing the errors of your ways. Besides training and common sense. Which don't count. You're free to go." - The Tenth Circuit, paraphrased.
On the post: After 40 Years Of Being Wrong, Texas Rangers Finally Decide Hypnosis Isn't A Viable Investigative Technique
Marx Howell probably hypnotized himself into thinking that hypnosis is a legitimate investigative technique.
Either that or he's simply disappointed he won't be paid for making people sleep their way to jail anymore.
On the post: Man Sues Hertz For Not Turning Over A Receipt That Would Have Cleared Him Of Murder Charges Until After He Spent Five Years In Jail
It's already known (or at least it should be) that cops are legally allowed to lie during interrogation. They can tell you they have evidence they actually don't have. They can tell you about witnesses that don't exist.
I find that wrong, morally speaking, but it goes beyond just the morality of it. There have been numerous cases of innocent pushed to confessing crimes they didn't commit because those lies made them distrust their own memories. So it's wrong because it's a failing tool to find the culprit of a crime. Unless you see as a game where the goal is to convict someone. Anyone.
Now, we have a worse case here. (And it's not unique.)
This is falsified evidence brought to the trial itself.
This definitely is illegal and the police - possibly along with the prosecutors, if they knew about it - should be sued back.
There is some degree of immunity against lawyers, judges and prosecutors, but this should only stand when not committing perjury or evidence tampering. Also, I don't think that covers the cops brought as witnesses. And certainly not the paid and lying witnesses themselves.
The third-party involvement here shouldn't even have been a problem because, except for that bribed witness, they didn't even have a case. Not that it excuses Hertz, but they are not the main ones to blame.
On the post: Iowa Journalist Cleared Of All Charges In Bullshit Prosecution Over 'Failure To Disperse'
The main failure of this case is how it should have gone the other way.
The cop as defender and the journalist as plaintiff.
Too bad "wrongful arrest" only seems to exist in law books, never in actual cases, even the ones that have undisputable evidence.
I'll agree with the prosecutor and That One Guy above. Sahouri's job should not even matter. This was a wrongful arrest, even had he not been a journalist.
Justice is far from blind. She obviously knows several colors, blue is but one of them.
On the post: Latest Anti-Accountability Move By Cops Involves Playing Music While Being Recorded In Hopes Of Triggering Copyright Takedowns
When we stop having the cops harass ordinary citizens, which is a demonstrated behavior, we might not have to record every little interaction, just in case we need documented proof of police abuse.
For years, police has abused people, and their word was law - quite literally - because of the lack of evidence to their lies in court and in the media. Nowadays, the balance is shifting - a little - in favor of the citizens thanks to cameras everywhere. The cops still have plenty of advantages, but their word is not quite as sacred anymore. It's a progress, but we can't stop recording them yet but because we know they still lie. A lot.
You celebrating that they find "clever" workarounds to accountability is a cheap shot. The cops here are clearly abusing a law that is not intended for this purpose. They should be disciplined, if only because they stop working in the middle of an interaction to dumbly listen to music, and ideally for actively trying to prevent a citizen from lawfully recording his interactions with a police officer.
Note that there will be abuse only the day cops are being recorded while off-duty. Otherwise, they are public agents in a public space, and there have been several court cases proving that they don't have a claim against this behavior from concerned citizens.
On the post: Latest Anti-Accountability Move By Cops Involves Playing Music While Being Recorded In Hopes Of Triggering Copyright Takedowns
What did the IP holders tell us again?
Ah right, "Copyright is not a tool for censorship."
Riiight.
On the post: Senators Warner, Hirono, And Klobuchar Demand The End Of The Internet Economy
Re:
Actually, it's more a problem of electing people who don't want to understand a damn thing about the Internet.
They have their idea of what it is, and actively resist learning better information. That is not a problem exclusive to republicans. Even democrats similarly resist understanding the world beyond their current knowledge of it.
Neither is it exclusive to technology matters. Politics and economy subjects are treated the same as they were 20-30 years ago. As if they were right then (which they weren't already) and as if nothing changing since.
As for social issues, republicans still live in the 80s. The 1680s.
The democrats are a little late on these subjects as well, but they at least try to show some progress on this front.
So, resistance to change is prevalent across most of the political landscape. Only a few of the most recent entries in the democrat-side of the Congress are actually trying to push for modernization, for long-overdue change. The majority of democrat are still trying to catch up with the 90s and the republicans are trying to pull the country backwards.
How is surprising that they can't cope with such a "revolutionary" concept as actual free speech for everyone? (Not just the few that the newspaper and TV deign to glorify.)
On the post: Wednesday, January 6th: The Day The Game Of Politics Turned Into Insurrection
Re: Terrorist
Even according to your definition, these people - or some of them at the very least - are terrorists.
Failed ones though.
Pipe bombs and molotov cocktails were found. Some of them had clearly expressed plans to kill Pence and some members of Congress. A noose was set up outside and zip-ties were brought in. That's a lot for people with no intention to kill.
I didn't even mention assault rifles and other guns because these are just standard equipment for right-wing nuts like them. They never go to a rally without heavy firearms, so it's difficult to distinguish when they actually intend to use them. They even had less than I expected. Every thing else above clearly expresses murderous intent.
If that doesn't fall under "terrorism", what does?
Also, the right wing has had a way more liberal use of the word than we do here. They called people "terrorists" for peacefully assembling, expressing disagreement with a republican elected official, or filing too many perfectly legal FOIA requests.
We call people terrorists when they use or threaten violence on people they disagree with politically.
Who is abusing the word here?
On the post: Copyright Trolling/SEO Scam, Changing The Photo Credits On Wikimedia Commons
Re: Re:
Sorry I'm late replying to this message, but my answer is simple: does everything need a copyright?
My answer is simply no.
I don't need a copyright on this comment, even though I actually got one the moment it was published. That's stupid. Same thing when I have a selfie I post for my friends or family to see. I care about privacy to some extend, but I absolutely don't care about copyright. My incentive to take my own picture is to show my entourage that I'm well and happy, not to make them pay for the privilege.
If you want to monetize your work, you copyright it. Meaning you take an active step to register it for copyright. That's how it was originally, and it makes sense for nearly everything on the internet. The little content that is actually a source of income could be registered in several ways. It can be made as easy or difficult as the lawmakers want to make it, but registering should be necessary in order to trace the ownership of the rights on a work, including date of start, date of end, author, current owner. At a minimum. (Note that I also object to retroactively extending copyright on existing work. That is one of the biggest scams ever. End of rights should be set when they start.)
It's not like small physical items where - mostly - holding it means you own it. (Not so simple, obviously, but close enough.)
It's way more akin to land ownership where you need to have official records of the owner because otherwise anyone could come and claim it for himself.
(But even land can only have one clear owner at most. Copyright is way more complex as "similarity" is sometimes enough to be considered infringing.)
In the case of copyright, my opinion is to make it clear: if you want to make money out of it, register it. Otherwise, let it be.
nb: about "how easy or difficult you make it", I can imagine something where you can register online for a whole website content at once. Or on the other end of the scale, making you file a form for every page and content element on it. I don't mind either way because copyright is not part of my life. Or at least, it shouldn't be since I'm not in the business of owning and spreading the works of my imagination. But it happens to be nowadays because anything and everything on the internet is a copy. So everyone on the internet is involved with this crazy minefield of laws and regulations. You can only hope the sights of some right holder will not fall on you for some reason.
This, despite not "illegally" downloading movies, songs or whatever else. I'm subscribed to a few services, and if I don't get what I want there, I'm of the idea that, if they don't want my money, I don't want their works either. They lose more than I do.
On the post: Copyright Trolling/SEO Scam, Changing The Photo Credits On Wikimedia Commons
And that's why you need an actual copyright registry.
I understand that was the case before, and the law was changed to make it easier for "creators" to claim copyright on their works.
But, as it should have been predicted, it became a mess where copyright can be claimed fraudulently. Even when bad faith is not factored in, it sometimes become difficult to impossible to trace who is the current holder of a particular copyrighted work. Orphaned works are a huge problem. And people who want to use a copyrighted work sometimes don't know who to contact. (See recently, the news about the game studio who wants to remake a game, but doesn't know which of three studios owns the rights... and neither of them will be bothered to check until they have an opportunity to sue.)
The law is broken and needs to be fixed in all sorts of ways: registration, scope and duration. But the copyright lobby is huge, and very generous... towards politicians.
On the post: Fifth Circuit Denies Immunity To Cops Who Beat And Tased An Unresisting Man To Death
This guy deserves to be nominated for insightful.
This has been pointed out in comments several times, so it's a happy day when an actual judge actually states it in an actual court. (Yes, repetition is intended.)
Also, whoever established that stupid rule in the first place should be tagged as inept to practice law and thrown out of court. I know it was the judge, but that shouldn't have stopped everyone else from kicking him out.
On the post: Good News: Academics Can Make Their Articles Published In Top Journal Nature Freely Available As Open Access. Bad News: They Must Pay $11,000 For Each One
On the one hand, that's a pretty greedy move. Not surprising, but deplorable nonetheless.
On the other hand, as long as researchers really want to say "I was published in Nature", Nature can charge them what they want.
Offer & demand, the "beauty of capitalism" in action. (/s in case you didn't get it.)
It will take a bold group of academics to make a different, less greedy publisher as prestigious as Nature and Science. Only then will there truly be an alternative to paying tons of money to publishers. This might take time, and some dedication from the research in question, for them to eschew the (questionable) fame of being published under these two big names.
This is what happens when the branding is more important than the content.
On the post: UK Politician Demands The Impossible: Social Media Companies Must Not Take Down Political Speech, But Must Block Disinformation
Does he not realize how contradictory this statement is?
"Don't censor political speech, which is 90% lies (half-truth at best), but please censor their lies."
And given that he wants to decide what truth is, I'll pin his statement as contradictatory.
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