Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 Jul 2012 @ 10:25am
Re: Re: Re:
People can understand cockroaches scurrying when the light is turned on. They can understand that Kim was trying really hard to keep his stuff across various jurisdictions to try to avoid the exact situation he finds himself in.
Even if you accept that Kim was doing something illegal (I don't), this is nothing new. Multinational corporations do this every day to limit their taxes burdens and legal liabilities.
Megaupload was siezed, and Kim was arrested for at worst civil copyright infringement. Yet HSBC was quite openly helping drug kingpins, terrorists, and rogue nations launder money, and the worst that has happened is that some of their executives resign from their positions with their fat golden parachutes intact.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 Jul 2012 @ 7:16am
Involving Law Enforcement
But, my second thought was to be surprised that so many people go to the police about such things. Perhaps it's a cultural difference, but here in the US, they'd just threaten to sue (or actually sue) in the courts directly, rather than seeking criminal charges that would involve law enforcement.
Mike, have you missed the recent stories of people calling 911 because their fast food order was wrong? Yes, right here in the US - not just one, but at least 3 I can remember.
This is a global (or at least western) thing about involving whatever authority you can if someone has "wronged" you in any possible way.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 Jul 2012 @ 7:00am
Re:
copyright is the law, they are just saying they support the law.
What an interesting bit of revisionism. The judge's comments were specifically related to how it is legal to ignore region coding on DVDs in New Zealand, and that TPP threatened that.
So, in fact, the judge's comments here were actaully supporting the law.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jul 2012 @ 10:55am
Re: Re: Re:
they not only remove that instance, but they also digitally finger print the work and stop allowing it to be re-uploaded onto other accounts - and remove it from any other accounts that it may be in.
You consistently display your complete ignorance of how any kind of technology works.
I thought of 4 ways to trivially get around that in the time it took to click the reply button.
1) Encrypt the file.
2) Compress the file (zip or RAR it).
3) Break the file into two or more pieces that can be reassembled.
4) Trivially change the file (dropping the first or last second of a movie, for instance, would give a different hash value).
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 17 Jul 2012 @ 10:45am
Re:
Rapidshare (or any file locker) could allow companies to establish "clear" accounts where they could upload their own material without issue.
And who determines who is eligible for this "clear" account? If the company does, and makes even one mistake, you can bet they'll be sued by some legacy organization populated with more lawyers than artists. Turn it over to some "rightsholder coalition" and independents or those who are a threat to the big players will get shut out.
The whole idea of some kind of special restricted account is absurd. Most cyberlocker/cloud storage treat everyone the same - or offer everyone the same options. And I think that's what really gets to the legacy content companies - that they are treated the same as everyone else. They don't get to assert their special contracts. They don't get to be the gatekeepers anymore. Boo hoo. Go cry me a river.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 1:41pm
Re:
One?
While one of the previous commenters has mentioned the few most recent, we could go back years. There's been a steady stream of completely over the top behavior of copyright lawyers going back at least as far as the RIAA cases 8 or 9 years ago.
Hiring PIs to follow an 8-year-old girl around and trying to trick her into saying her mother downloaded music? Check.
After being told they were suing a dead person, continuing the case against the family, while claiming to be compassioniate by allowing them a few weeks to grieve? Check.
Not dropping cases after being shown that the person they were suing did not own a computer and did not have internet service (only cable TV)? Check.
Refusing to drop cases for months and years after it was blatantly obvious even to them that they had the wrong person? Two or three Checks.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 16 Jul 2012 @ 10:57am
100 year old software
If his plan is to not release the software until 100 years from when the artists dies, then he might as well just delete it.
Its sometimes difficult to get 10 year old software to run on current hardware/operating systems (for example written for WindowsXP, trying to get to run under Windows 7). Add in the same problems we face with digital archival - hardware and formats may no longer exist to be able to read something after extended time periods.
While it's not clear exactly how his filter works, I can bet that Photoshop version 2112 won't recognize it.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Jul 2012 @ 5:57am
Re:
VoIP services (on mobile) are fairly bandwidth intensive
Everything is just data now. So VoIP on mobile is little different than standard voice. They may have to allocate resources slightly differently, but as data use grows, they'll have to do this anyway. There could even be less overhead with a third party VoIP from the telco's perspective.
Moreover, it's pretty much unfair competition,
Explain. The telco sold the user a smartphone that the user could install apps on (including VoIP apps). The telco sold the user a data service. Why is the user using the abilities the telco sold them unfair competition?
and more than slightly against the commercial interests of the privately owned cell phone companies. Why would they want to support user apps which bypass the main source of their revenue?
Oh, so it's a business model problem, not unfair competition. Guess what?
No one fucking cares about their business model problem.
I wouldn't be shocked in the long run to see cell companies move to data methods that don't support this sort of continuous stream of data
And in a competitive market, they could do so, and their customers could choose to move to a different provider if they weren't satisfied with the service.
But we all know that there isn't a competitive market in most countries when it comes to telco and mobile service.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jul 2012 @ 9:10am
Re:
I won't argue that viewers are the product sold to advertisers. However, in this case the "product" can walk away and start watching elsewhere and decide to be someone else's product (or not one at all).
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jul 2012 @ 8:00am
Re:
Failtroll.
Absolutely unforgivable that you missed linking copyright infringement and communism in a story about both. Also, since North Korea wants nuclear weapons, and we all know that terrorists want nuclear weapons, there was that angle too. And even though both of your "sentences" were fragments, you capitalized one of them, and they were coherent.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jul 2012 @ 7:46am
Disruption
This is why the TV market is so ripe for disruption.
On that note, the judge in the Aereo case has refused to issue an injunction forcing Aereo to stop providing their over-the-air broadcast TV streaming online.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 11 Jul 2012 @ 2:03pm
Re: Re: The Idiots...
I see this suggestion a lot - "We need a law to stop Congress from doing ____."
It is not that simple.
Who would need to pass that law? Congress. They won't tie their own hands.
Even if they were willing to pass that law, it would be short lived. The current Congress cannot limit what a future Congress can do. So even if the next Congress passed such a law in January 2013, the next Congress could start ignoring it when they take office in 2015.
So let's skip these laws and put in an amendment to the Constitution? Won't work. Every amendment we have (after the first 10 of the Bill of Rights) has gone one of the two routes the Constitution provides - first it needs to to be proposed by Congress, requiring a 2/3rds majority in each house - so this is an even larger hurdle than passing a law - then needs to be ratified by 3/4ths of the states. (The other way the Consitution allows is for 2/3rds of states legislatures to demand an amendment, which Congress then calls a Constitutional Convention, which then makes a proposal that 3/4ths of states must ratify - there's a few reasons why this has never happened yet.)
You know what the answer is?
Vote them out.
Keep voting them out until they are all so scared that they stop doing stupid things.
Or violently overthrow the government.
I wouldn't bet on any of the above having a decent chance in the forseeable future.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 11 Jul 2012 @ 7:05am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I am confident that the US has at least enough evidence to satisfy the requirements for extradition.
How can you be confident of that when they have failed to show any evidence at all? Or when they have said they want the evidence destroyed? Or when they have shown that they don't seem to understand the laws they are trying to use? Or basically when they have been completely incompetent every step of the way?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 9 Jul 2012 @ 3:49pm
Re:
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway. -Andrew Tanenbaum
Though seriously, it was AusCERT. If it was some random for profit government contractor, I'd expect this level of carelessness. These guys are supposed to be pros.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 9 Jul 2012 @ 2:11pm
Re: Re:
OK, if there's so much great content being given away for free, why do you care if other people want to charge for theirs?
That's the only bit of your comment worth responding to, so here goes.
I don't care if you want to charge for content your created.
Things I do care about:
-I care about that content being locked up behind copyright for life+70 years, and preventing others from making use of it for going on a century.
-I care about fines and penalties for copying that content being thousands of times for severe than criminal acts which endanger public safety and people's lives.
-I care about the corruption of public officials and a dying industry's inordinate influence on legislation
-I care about our tax dollars being used to enforce said legislation in what is obviously a business model problem
-I care about our tax dollars being used to spread this pernicious view that ideas and culture can be owned to other countries' laws
In short, I don't care if you want to charge for your content - I care what happens when people refuse to buy it at your unrealistic prices.
On the post: DOJ Tries To Explain How It Can Get Around Requirement To Serve Megaupload In The US
Re: Re: Re:
Even if you accept that Kim was doing something illegal (I don't), this is nothing new. Multinational corporations do this every day to limit their taxes burdens and legal liabilities.
Megaupload was siezed, and Kim was arrested for at worst civil copyright infringement. Yet HSBC was quite openly helping drug kingpins, terrorists, and rogue nations launder money, and the worst that has happened is that some of their executives resign from their positions with their fat golden parachutes intact.
On the post: DOJ Tries To Explain How It Can Get Around Requirement To Serve Megaupload In The US
Re: Re: We are heading quickly down a slippery slope
and the content is made available in the US, there is plenty of standing.
...Wow.
That is exactly the same justification for the libel suits.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120329/03303218286/uk-judge-attracts-libel-tourists-with-775k -award-to-new-zealand-cricket-player-over-defamatory-tweet.shtml
"The original Tweet was received by only a limited number of followers within England and Wales. One expert calculated that they numbered 95, the other 35. The parties have sensibly agreed that I should take the figure of 65."
On the post: Police In Tasmania Explain To The Public That Someone Saying Something Mean Online Is Not Illegal
Involving Law Enforcement
Mike, have you missed the recent stories of people calling 911 because their fast food order was wrong? Yes, right here in the US - not just one, but at least 3 I can remember.
This is a global (or at least western) thing about involving whatever authority you can if someone has "wronged" you in any possible way.
On the post: Pro-Copyright Judges Never Drop Cases Over Conflicts, So Why Does Megaupload Judge Have To Step Down?
Re:
What an interesting bit of revisionism. The judge's comments were specifically related to how it is legal to ignore region coding on DVDs in New Zealand, and that TPP threatened that.
So, in fact, the judge's comments here were actaully supporting the law.
Try again.
On the post: Jon Stewart Blasts Viacom For Stupid Blackout; Viacom Sheepishly Turns Web Streams Back On
Re: Re: Re: Link to DailyShow had ad beforehand blaming DirectTV
On the post: German Supreme Court Suggests Cyber Lockers Need To Filter Content If Alerted To Copyright Infringement
Re: Re: Re:
You consistently display your complete ignorance of how any kind of technology works.
I thought of 4 ways to trivially get around that in the time it took to click the reply button.
1) Encrypt the file.
2) Compress the file (zip or RAR it).
3) Break the file into two or more pieces that can be reassembled.
4) Trivially change the file (dropping the first or last second of a movie, for instance, would give a different hash value).
On the post: German Supreme Court Suggests Cyber Lockers Need To Filter Content If Alerted To Copyright Infringement
Re:
And who determines who is eligible for this "clear" account? If the company does, and makes even one mistake, you can bet they'll be sued by some legacy organization populated with more lawyers than artists. Turn it over to some "rightsholder coalition" and independents or those who are a threat to the big players will get shut out.
The whole idea of some kind of special restricted account is absurd. Most cyberlocker/cloud storage treat everyone the same - or offer everyone the same options. And I think that's what really gets to the legacy content companies - that they are treated the same as everyone else. They don't get to assert their special contracts. They don't get to be the gatekeepers anymore. Boo hoo. Go cry me a river.
On the post: In The Patent Battle Over Speech Devices, The Real 'Irreparable Harm' Is A Child Losing Her Only Voice
Re:
As the previous articles note, the product sold by SCS and PRC are significantly less usable for this little girl, and outrageously more expensive.
On the post: Copyright Troll Claims Sanctions Against Him Are 'Bulls**t' And He's Going To Keep Sending Questionable Subpoenas
Re:
While one of the previous commenters has mentioned the few most recent, we could go back years. There's been a steady stream of completely over the top behavior of copyright lawyers going back at least as far as the RIAA cases 8 or 9 years ago.
Hiring PIs to follow an 8-year-old girl around and trying to trick her into saying her mother downloaded music? Check.
After being told they were suing a dead person, continuing the case against the family, while claiming to be compassioniate by allowing them a few weeks to grieve? Check.
Not dropping cases after being shown that the person they were suing did not own a computer and did not have internet service (only cable TV)? Check.
Refusing to drop cases for months and years after it was blatantly obvious even to them that they had the wrong person? Two or three Checks.
On the post: Chuck Close Succeeds In Stifling A Creative Homage... But Only For Another 100 Years Or So!
100 year old software
Its sometimes difficult to get 10 year old software to run on current hardware/operating systems (for example written for WindowsXP, trying to get to run under Windows 7). Add in the same problems we face with digital archival - hardware and formats may no longer exist to be able to read something after extended time periods.
While it's not clear exactly how his filter works, I can bet that Photoshop version 2112 won't recognize it.
On the post: South Korea Gives Mobile Operators Permission To Ignore Net Neutrality By Surcharging Or Blocking VOIP Services
Re:
Everything is just data now. So VoIP on mobile is little different than standard voice. They may have to allocate resources slightly differently, but as data use grows, they'll have to do this anyway. There could even be less overhead with a third party VoIP from the telco's perspective.
Moreover, it's pretty much unfair competition,
Explain. The telco sold the user a smartphone that the user could install apps on (including VoIP apps). The telco sold the user a data service. Why is the user using the abilities the telco sold them unfair competition?
and more than slightly against the commercial interests of the privately owned cell phone companies. Why would they want to support user apps which bypass the main source of their revenue?
Oh, so it's a business model problem, not unfair competition. Guess what?
No one fucking cares about their business model problem.
I wouldn't be shocked in the long run to see cell companies move to data methods that don't support this sort of continuous stream of data
And in a competitive market, they could do so, and their customers could choose to move to a different provider if they weren't satisfied with the service.
But we all know that there isn't a competitive market in most countries when it comes to telco and mobile service.
On the post: FBI Wants To Make It Easier For You To Tell Your Customers They Might Be Felonious Pirates
Re:
More government waste? Check.
Corruption of government agency by corporations? Check.
Harm? Check. Check. Check.
On the post: Viacom Uses Fans As Hostages: Blocks Daily Show, Colbert Streams For Everyone To Spite DirecTV
Re:
On the post: Viacom Uses Fans As Hostages: Blocks Daily Show, Colbert Streams For Everyone To Spite DirecTV
Re: Re:
(see Redbox fight over DVD rentals)
On the post: Kim Jong Un's Mysterious Female Companion Hides The Real Issue: Piracy Of Disney Characters!
Re:
Absolutely unforgivable that you missed linking copyright infringement and communism in a story about both. Also, since North Korea wants nuclear weapons, and we all know that terrorists want nuclear weapons, there was that angle too. And even though both of your "sentences" were fragments, you capitalized one of them, and they were coherent.
Complete failing grade.
On the post: Viacom Uses Fans As Hostages: Blocks Daily Show, Colbert Streams For Everyone To Spite DirecTV
Disruption
On that note, the judge in the Aereo case has refused to issue an injunction forcing Aereo to stop providing their over-the-air broadcast TV streaming online.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/judge-rules-against-broadcasters-denying-injun ction-against-aereo-tv/
On the post: The Real Battle: Permission vs. Innovation; Lawyers vs. Innovators
Re: Re: The Idiots...
It is not that simple.
Who would need to pass that law? Congress. They won't tie their own hands.
Even if they were willing to pass that law, it would be short lived. The current Congress cannot limit what a future Congress can do. So even if the next Congress passed such a law in January 2013, the next Congress could start ignoring it when they take office in 2015.
So let's skip these laws and put in an amendment to the Constitution? Won't work. Every amendment we have (after the first 10 of the Bill of Rights) has gone one of the two routes the Constitution provides - first it needs to to be proposed by Congress, requiring a 2/3rds majority in each house - so this is an even larger hurdle than passing a law - then needs to be ratified by 3/4ths of the states. (The other way the Consitution allows is for 2/3rds of states legislatures to demand an amendment, which Congress then calls a Constitutional Convention, which then makes a proposal that 3/4ths of states must ratify - there's a few reasons why this has never happened yet.)
You know what the answer is?
Vote them out.
Keep voting them out until they are all so scared that they stop doing stupid things.
Or violently overthrow the government.
I wouldn't bet on any of the above having a decent chance in the forseeable future.
On the post: Kim Dotcom Offers To Come To The US, If DOJ Releases Funds For Legal Defense
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
How can you be confident of that when they have failed to show any evidence at all? Or when they have said they want the evidence destroyed? Or when they have shown that they don't seem to understand the laws they are trying to use? Or basically when they have been completely incompetent every step of the way?
On the post: Australian Government Loses DVD With Personal Info Of Everyone In Its 'Stay Smart Online' Program
Re:
Though seriously, it was AusCERT. If it was some random for profit government contractor, I'd expect this level of carelessness. These guys are supposed to be pros.
On the post: Lamar Smith Looking To Sneak Through SOPA In Bits & Pieces, Starting With Expanding Hollywood's Global Police Force
Re: Re:
That's the only bit of your comment worth responding to, so here goes.
I don't care if you want to charge for content your created.
Things I do care about:
-I care about that content being locked up behind copyright for life+70 years, and preventing others from making use of it for going on a century.
-I care about fines and penalties for copying that content being thousands of times for severe than criminal acts which endanger public safety and people's lives.
-I care about the corruption of public officials and a dying industry's inordinate influence on legislation
-I care about our tax dollars being used to enforce said legislation in what is obviously a business model problem
-I care about our tax dollars being used to spread this pernicious view that ideas and culture can be owned to other countries' laws
In short, I don't care if you want to charge for your content - I care what happens when people refuse to buy it at your unrealistic prices.
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