In all fairness, the conclusion that the man was a threat to himself wasn’t exactly unreasonable based on the information they received. Everything else does not make sense, though. I also reiterate my belief that being a threat to oneself should not be used as a way around the warrant requirement or to justify use of force except in an emergency that is occurring right now within eyesight of the officers (and obviously only to justify using nonlethal force).
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I remember reading that a different court has ruled otherwise regarding the community caretaking exception. Granted, that wouldn’t be binding on the First Circuit Appeals Court, and I may be misremembering things, but does anyone remember any details of that?
None of these factors actually make noninfringing use clearly distinguishable from infringing use, as there are many noninfringing cases that fall under many if not all of these factors. Furthermore, there isn’t really any good way to determine authorship prior to the actual author (if it is not the uploader) making a claim, copying isn’t always infringement (among other things, not everything is copyrightable, and parody and commentary are generally not infringement), most people and entities don’t have access to every product ever made to compare uploads to, less popular or low-quality works also get infringed on and are no less protected by copyright, noninfringing cases may also involve large quantities of content and/or be available for very low prices or even for free, and even popular works may be uploaded to new places (how many times have Skyrim, GTA V, Super Mario Bros., and Sonic the Hedgehog been rereleased?).
No, that’s not what happened. Or, rather, any actual lawsuits on the matter either failed or would have failed because no part of copyright law requires (in any way) copyright filters like ContentID. What actually happened was threats of large numbers of frivolous lawsuits and threats to lobby for mandating copyright filters. The law itself doesn’t support your claims.
Also, that one can sue doesn’t mean that the lawsuit has any merit whatsoever, or that the lawsuit has any basis in law that would make it past a motion to dismiss. People file frivolous lawsuits all the time. That a lawsuit was filed is, by itself, fairly meaningless in this context. As such, even if what you said was accurate about past events, that does not change what the law actually is, nor does it disprove or even substantially dispute anything I said. Whether or not Hollywood actually filed lawsuits against YouTube (or, rather, Google) for not implementing any sort of copyright filter like ContentID, that doesn’t change the fact that YouTube was not actually liable at all for any infringing content posted by users (prior to receiving a DMCA notice on that content and deciding to ignore it, at least) even before they implemented ContentID. That decision was made for other reasons that don’t relate to what is actually required under U.S. Copyright Law.
Of course, if you’re talking about lawsuits filed outside the US, those are immaterial to this discussion.
To be (possibly undeservedly) fair to cops here for a moment, there is another plausible explanation: most illegal searches that end up contested in court (and thus hear about) are either successful or incredibly intrusive/destructive, so we a disproportionate amount of the illegal searches we hear about found something.
Man, you really don’t understand how laws work, do you? First of all, I’m pretty sure it’s not “spam” if it is only targeted at you and doesn’t involve solicitation/advertisement of business for either the person sending emails or the one who hired them. And even if it was spam, that wouldn’t be a human rights violation.
Actually, you’ve called me a secular humanist, not a Christian. Though, really, given how many Americans are Christians, guessing that I am a Christian is not terribly impressive.
You also clearly still don’t understand the words you use, like “derailing”, “secular”, “sperg”, “engage”, etc.
yes, this [that I use external libraries] is true. The dependencies are carefully designed.
That’s fair enough, I suppose. It doesn’t really address my point, but whatever.
Forcing other people to use some crappy libraries is so evil operation that it just screams for a response.
Again, no one is forcing you to use anything. Additionally, nothing you described would be what I—or most people, for that matter—would consider even remotely “evil”.
Also, even if “it just screams for a response,” unless someone here was doing that, it most certainly doesn’t require a response to be given here, to us, regarding that. It doesn’t even really make sense to put such a response here to an unrelated comment by someone wholly involved in the alleged issue.
Finally, I was under the impression that you had a problem with the license for those libraries and/or the inherent dependencies including additionally external libraries would necessarily add to your project (at least according to you), not a problem with the libraries themselves. The quality of the libraries is rather immaterial to any point being made here by anyone. We’re discussing legal issues, semantics, and the quality/nature of your work. Whether or not a library made by someone else and recommended by someone not participating here in this discussion is beyond the scope of this discussion. Dissing libraries you don’t like or that are being “forced” on you adds nothing and makes you sound kinda petty.
Our response to such forcing actions is that we refuse to use those technologies.
Again, nothing you alleged actually involves “forcing actions” because you don’t allege any ability for them to actually force you to do anything or to meaningfully enforce their decisions in a way that would directly impact your work or your project. Please stop calling it “forcing”; it’s not. (Also, there isn’t anything illegal or evil about it.)
Next, regarding your response, I don’t quite get it. Are you saying that, solely because you don’t like them trying to “force” these libraries on you, you won’t use them, but had they not done so, you would have? If so, the only ones you might possibly be hurting would be yourself, your work, your business, and/or your customers/clients. It’s not going to affect some person online who tried to get you to use those libraries. (Well, I suppose it might also affect the makers of the libraries, at least if it requires additional payment for a separate license.) So that just seems petty and nonproductive.
If, on the other hand, you won’t use those libraries for one or more specific and completely unrelated (to the “forcing” actions) reasons—like the licensing, the added dependencies, the libraries’ relevance to the project, or the quality of the libraries themselves—then that isn’t really a case of you refusing to use technologies in response to any “forcing actions” but rather sticking to or digging in your heels on a decision you already made in spite or because of the “forcing actions”.
Either way, don’t let them make decisions for you. Use information they provide to help guide your decisions and/or decision-making process, perhaps, ultimately, make your own decisions. (Unless they’re your boss or supervisor or something or if it’s in the terms of a licensing agreement you already signed and that you must abide by in order to use something that you are using in your project, in which case you might not have any choice but to use them.) That includes making decisions to not use something that someone is “forcing” you to use. Make your decisions on the merits of each side (as well as legal/contractual obligations and your boss/supervisor’s mandates), not what some other person thinks, says, or does.
Like I said, you don’t actually need to respond to them, anyways, and it’s not actually helpful or productive to do so.
Come to think of it, the fact that you are able and willing to continue to refuse to use those libraries after the “forcing actions” suggests that no “forcing” actually occurred, which kinda undermines a large, substantial part of your whole argument. Either that, or you’re either willing to do something unlawful or that could potentially cost you your job or something, or you’re calling their bluff, suggesting that you don’t think that they can actually force you, either. This, too, would tend to undermine your argument, so you’re not really helping your case here.
This has very big impact to all licensing activity happening in the project, because dependent projects are actually carefully considered and not accidentally imported to the project.
Again, I’m a little confused here about what you’re saying. Are you saying that your response has a big impact? Because if it does, you really shouldn’t responding that way to random people on the internet.
Also, regarding the use of dependent projects, isn’t that why you refused before any “forcing actions”? Come to think of it, wasn’t the licensing also part of the original reasoning? If so, what does this statement have to do with your response to “forcing actions”?
I think at least one of us is really confused about cause-and-effect here, and I’m not entirely sure who.
Wow, have you gotten things completely wrong. Get this through your head: the DMCA is a part of copyright law; complying with the DMCA is complying with copyright law; and ignoring copyright law would entail ignoring the DMCA.
Plus, there’s a lot more to the DMCA than just the safe-harbor provision, including parts like 1201, which also makes circumvention of DRM unlawful outside of certain exceptions that have to be reapproved every few years, thus expanding liability. In other words, the DMCA did a lot more than limit liability of platform holders for users’ infringement.
Furthermore, the DMCA does not allow platform holders to both ignore copyright law completely and avoid liability. That protection is conditioned on, among other things, receiving a DMCA claim for the specified content and acting appropriately. It’s also only an exception to the rule that, if you have actual, lawful control of a machine containing and/or displaying infringing content and have knowledge of infringement occurring, then you are liable for infringement by users, and even that exception is fairly limited in that it requires particular knowledge and failure to act. It doesn’t change anything regarding direct liability for actions by the accused (including platform holders) that are actively, directly infringing on someone else’s copyright, it doesn’t change anything regarding what is or isn’t direct infringement of copyright (aside from circumvention of DRM, but that does include things like fair use, which predates the DMCA), it has no impact on liability of makers of software/devices that have no substantial noninfringing uses, and it did not introduce the fact that cases where the developers/manufacturers of software/devices have no actual, lawful control of devices containing allegedly infringing content, the software/devices are capable of substantial noninfringing uses, they aren’t directly and actively encouraging infringement, and they are not actually, directly infringing on copyright themselves, the developers/manufacturers have no liability whatsoever for infringing activity by users (alleged or proven), and that determination is not conditioned on the same factors as the safe-harbor provision.
It also doesn’t change the fact that no one is liable for anyone’s allegedly infringing content if the content has not been legally proven to be infringing. The plaintiff(s) still has/have to prove that
1) they own a valid copyright in work X;
2) the copyright in X was validly registered with the US Copyright Office;
3) the authors/publishers of Y
a) had access to X and
b) either
i) copied content from X for use in Y or
ii) made Y probatively similar to X;
4) some elements of X used in Y are
a) protectable elements and
b) substantially similar (or unlawfully copied) in both X and Y;
5) if none of the defendants did not themselves author/publish Y, the use does not fall under fair use or other exceptions; and
6) the defendants either
a) are the authors/publishers of Y and either
i) are not holders of a platform that published or hosted Y or
ii) are not protected by the DMCA’s safe-harbor provisions,
b) actively and directly encouraged infringement of others’ copyright, including Y;
c) created a device/software that was used to create/publish Y and either
i) the defendants had both
A) knowledge of infringement using their device/software and
B) actual and lawful control over a machine that contains Y, or
ii) the device/software is incapable of substantial noninfringing uses.
(Although, if Y was found to be infringing in another court case, parts 1-5 can be demonstrated by merely bringing the ruling from that case. Also, in some cases of contributory or vicarious liability, more than one infringing case may be needed for liability to be demonstrated.)
Only if the plaintiff adequately alleges (on a motion to dismiss), can reasonably prove (in summary judgement for the defense), cannot be reasonably disproven on (in summary judgement for the plaintiff), has proven at trial according to a jury (jury trial) or federal judge (bench trial), or has plausibly proven at trial (on appeal) all 6 of these things would we need to get into affirmative defenses like the copyright has been invalidated somehow, de minimus use, or fair use. The only thing that the DMCA changes are with regards to 6ai and 6aii.
It should also be noted—once again, since you clearly missed this point as well—that even where someone is somehow liable for some or all infringing use(s) done by users of a software/service/device they created, that doesn’t change whether or not that person/entity actually infringed. Again, if someone uses your product to infringe, that doesn’t mean you yourself infringed as well, even if you are legally liable for that infringement. Additionally, any use that is fair use or use of uncopyrightable or public domain content is not infringing.
At any rate, the point is that the DMCA did a lot more than just the safe-harbor provision, the DMCA is a part of copyright law, and platforms (and IAPs) are generally required to do some ad hoc enforcement of copyright after receiving a proper notification of specific infringing content on their platform (and only with regards to that specific content and/or the specific user(s) responsible for that content), at least if they have actual and lawful means to do so, in order to be protected by the DMCA’s safe-harbor provision. No part of US copyright law requires or recommends any preventative measures be taken to prevent or reduce copyright infringement, nor does doing so actually affect one’s liability for infringement (outside of whether the infringement is willful or not, but even then, that only changes the degree of liability).
Also, none of what you just said actually addresses my point: the things we’ve been talking about haven’t involved avoiding liability for your own infringement but avoiding any direct infringement by yourself or not being liable for infringement done by a user(s) of your software, service, platform, or device somehow involving the use of your software, service, platform, or device. That’s what I was saying there. It’s not about avoiding liability for one’s own actions. It’s about either not being liable for someone else’s actions or whether certain actions/works are actually infringing or not.
Nope. The law is crystal clear that government officials are just as liable for or immune to civil suits while in office as they are after they leave office. As far as civil law is concerned, there is no rule that says, for any suit or claim, you have to wait until they leave office. Either they are immune or they are liable. If they are liable, you don’t have to wait for them to leave office to file suit, nor for any subsequent steps to a lawsuit.
The “rule of law” regarding vulgarity is that whether or not speech is vulgar doesn’t change whether or not it’s protected. Basically, the rule of law for vulgarity has been clearly defined as nonexistent.
Look, there are only a select few exceptions to the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has made clear that they have no interest in allowing any new ones. One of those exceptions is obscenity; vulgarity is not one of the exceptions.
there is no First Amendment right to address a legislative body during its business
In the First Amendment, we have both the right to free speech and the right to petition the government.
From what I understand, at that time, the legislative body’s “business” was to listen to constituents speak their grievances and opinions. This wasn’t some random guy breaking into the building and interrupting the legislature’s important business to say his piece. Listening to this man was its business right then. You may feel that representatives shouldn’t have to hear testimony from the people on the floor—which doesn’t make much sense to me—but that’s neither here nor there in this particular case.
That’s kinda missing the point. That’s solely about who, where, and when. The thing is that no one there had a problem with this man’s addressing the legislature here at the time he did. If you had a problem with the person, that’d be one thing. The problem is that, given that he has been allowed to speak there and then (something that is not disputed; no one was stopping him or kicking him out or anything), you’re arguing that what he said and how he said it—at least in these circumstances—is not a right he has by the 1st Amendment. That right there is a content-based restriction on speech, and those are rarely constitutional, especially when the government is restricting speech on a public matter when addressing the government.
Otherwise, what's the point in running for office and having a representative form of government if anyone, whenever they please, can march down to the legislature and right on to the floor to speak their piece.
Well, to actually draft, amend, and vote on legislation. I fail to see why having constituents speak their opinions on current or future legislation or issues they feel the legislature should address in any way impedes or makes redundant any of the core duties of the legislative branch of a representative government. Sure, legislatures also talk about those things, but that’s not their core function, per se. It’s just something they do to facilitate the process of crafting legislation.
The plan was to go with one Republican and five Democrats. In the end, the committee chairman decided to go with four Democrats and no Republicans. If the chairman wanted to, subject to the rule of the chamber, he could have had 100 Democrats and no Republicans.
Sure, but that also has nothing to do with the T-shirt, nor does it have any 1st Amendment implications. It’s completely irrelevant here.
I guarantee you, the courts aren't about to force the legislative branch at either the federal or state levels to accept whomever wishes to testify. Won't happen. Ever.
Apparently, you don’t understand how the courts or the law actually works. Whatever. You’re still missing the point. The problem you stated wasn’t that this man—or anyone else—had to be allowed to testify. If he wasn’t allowed to testify, I’m sure that security or law enforcement would’ve removed him, and since that didn’t happen, that clearly was never the problem. You had a problem with the message on his shirt. In other words, it wasn’t who was testifying but what was being said that’s being discussed. Even assuming that the legislative branch can regulate the former, that doesn’t mean they can also regulate the latter.
I’m really having trouble thinking of any reason—rational or otherwise—to be posting this sort of thing, especially since the first tweet(s) implied nothing criminal or suspicious about the person they seized cash from. What did they expect or hope was going to happen?
Again, unless they are the licensors for something you’re actually using or your boss/supervisor, their threats are highly unlikely to have any teeth, so just ignore them. If they are claiming that something is required by a licensing agreement for something you’re using, either ask them to point out where in the license agreement that language is or check for yourself. Otherwise, they’re just empty threats.
Also, I highly doubt there’s anything illegal going on there, especially if it’s by uninvolved parties. Morally dubious at best, perhaps, but I don’t believe there is any law against anything that would fit what you’ve described.
Seriously, either ignore them or double-check to make sure they don’t have a point. Regardless, none of that explains why you’re complaining about it here. It seems pretty irrelevant to the arguments that have been made thus far.
On the post: First Circuit Appeals Court: 'Community Caretaking' Function Applies To Warrantless Seizures, Not Actually Caring For The Community
In all fairness, the conclusion that the man was a threat to himself wasn’t exactly unreasonable based on the information they received. Everything else does not make sense, though. I also reiterate my belief that being a threat to oneself should not be used as a way around the warrant requirement or to justify use of force except in an emergency that is occurring right now within eyesight of the officers (and obviously only to justify using nonlethal force).
On the post: First Circuit Appeals Court: 'Community Caretaking' Function Applies To Warrantless Seizures, Not Actually Caring For The Community
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure I remember reading that a different court has ruled otherwise regarding the community caretaking exception. Granted, that wouldn’t be binding on the First Circuit Appeals Court, and I may be misremembering things, but does anyone remember any details of that?
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re:
None of these factors actually make noninfringing use clearly distinguishable from infringing use, as there are many noninfringing cases that fall under many if not all of these factors. Furthermore, there isn’t really any good way to determine authorship prior to the actual author (if it is not the uploader) making a claim, copying isn’t always infringement (among other things, not everything is copyrightable, and parody and commentary are generally not infringement), most people and entities don’t have access to every product ever made to compare uploads to, less popular or low-quality works also get infringed on and are no less protected by copyright, noninfringing cases may also involve large quantities of content and/or be available for very low prices or even for free, and even popular works may be uploaded to new places (how many times have Skyrim, GTA V, Super Mario Bros., and Sonic the Hedgehog been rereleased?).
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, that’s not what happened. Or, rather, any actual lawsuits on the matter either failed or would have failed because no part of copyright law requires (in any way) copyright filters like ContentID. What actually happened was threats of large numbers of frivolous lawsuits and threats to lobby for mandating copyright filters. The law itself doesn’t support your claims.
Also, that one can sue doesn’t mean that the lawsuit has any merit whatsoever, or that the lawsuit has any basis in law that would make it past a motion to dismiss. People file frivolous lawsuits all the time. That a lawsuit was filed is, by itself, fairly meaningless in this context. As such, even if what you said was accurate about past events, that does not change what the law actually is, nor does it disprove or even substantially dispute anything I said. Whether or not Hollywood actually filed lawsuits against YouTube (or, rather, Google) for not implementing any sort of copyright filter like ContentID, that doesn’t change the fact that YouTube was not actually liable at all for any infringing content posted by users (prior to receiving a DMCA notice on that content and deciding to ignore it, at least) even before they implemented ContentID. That decision was made for other reasons that don’t relate to what is actually required under U.S. Copyright Law.
Of course, if you’re talking about lawsuits filed outside the US, those are immaterial to this discussion.
On the post: Police Department Shells Out $50,000 To Man After His Camera Catches Cops Fabricating Criminal Charges Against Him
Re:
To be (possibly undeservedly) fair to cops here for a moment, there is another plausible explanation: most illegal searches that end up contested in court (and thus hear about) are either successful or incredibly intrusive/destructive, so we a disproportionate amount of the illegal searches we hear about found something.
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Man, you really don’t understand how laws work, do you? First of all, I’m pretty sure it’s not “spam” if it is only targeted at you and doesn’t involve solicitation/advertisement of business for either the person sending emails or the one who hired them. And even if it was spam, that wouldn’t be a human rights violation.
On the post: European Law Enforcement Officials Upset Facebook Is Warning Users Their Devices May Have Been Hacked
Re: HAHA. agnostic, christian deist
Actually, you’ve called me a secular humanist, not a Christian. Though, really, given how many Americans are Christians, guessing that I am a Christian is not terribly impressive.
You also clearly still don’t understand the words you use, like “derailing”, “secular”, “sperg”, “engage”, etc.
Maybe you should learn to take your own advice.
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That’s fair enough, I suppose. It doesn’t really address my point, but whatever.
Again, no one is forcing you to use anything. Additionally, nothing you described would be what I—or most people, for that matter—would consider even remotely “evil”.
Also, even if “it just screams for a response,” unless someone here was doing that, it most certainly doesn’t require a response to be given here, to us, regarding that. It doesn’t even really make sense to put such a response here to an unrelated comment by someone wholly involved in the alleged issue.
Finally, I was under the impression that you had a problem with the license for those libraries and/or the inherent dependencies including additionally external libraries would necessarily add to your project (at least according to you), not a problem with the libraries themselves. The quality of the libraries is rather immaterial to any point being made here by anyone. We’re discussing legal issues, semantics, and the quality/nature of your work. Whether or not a library made by someone else and recommended by someone not participating here in this discussion is beyond the scope of this discussion. Dissing libraries you don’t like or that are being “forced” on you adds nothing and makes you sound kinda petty.
Again, nothing you alleged actually involves “forcing actions” because you don’t allege any ability for them to actually force you to do anything or to meaningfully enforce their decisions in a way that would directly impact your work or your project. Please stop calling it “forcing”; it’s not. (Also, there isn’t anything illegal or evil about it.)
Next, regarding your response, I don’t quite get it. Are you saying that, solely because you don’t like them trying to “force” these libraries on you, you won’t use them, but had they not done so, you would have? If so, the only ones you might possibly be hurting would be yourself, your work, your business, and/or your customers/clients. It’s not going to affect some person online who tried to get you to use those libraries. (Well, I suppose it might also affect the makers of the libraries, at least if it requires additional payment for a separate license.) So that just seems petty and nonproductive.
If, on the other hand, you won’t use those libraries for one or more specific and completely unrelated (to the “forcing” actions) reasons—like the licensing, the added dependencies, the libraries’ relevance to the project, or the quality of the libraries themselves—then that isn’t really a case of you refusing to use technologies in response to any “forcing actions” but rather sticking to or digging in your heels on a decision you already made in spite or because of the “forcing actions”.
Either way, don’t let them make decisions for you. Use information they provide to help guide your decisions and/or decision-making process, perhaps, ultimately, make your own decisions. (Unless they’re your boss or supervisor or something or if it’s in the terms of a licensing agreement you already signed and that you must abide by in order to use something that you are using in your project, in which case you might not have any choice but to use them.) That includes making decisions to not use something that someone is “forcing” you to use. Make your decisions on the merits of each side (as well as legal/contractual obligations and your boss/supervisor’s mandates), not what some other person thinks, says, or does.
Like I said, you don’t actually need to respond to them, anyways, and it’s not actually helpful or productive to do so.
Come to think of it, the fact that you are able and willing to continue to refuse to use those libraries after the “forcing actions” suggests that no “forcing” actually occurred, which kinda undermines a large, substantial part of your whole argument. Either that, or you’re either willing to do something unlawful or that could potentially cost you your job or something, or you’re calling their bluff, suggesting that you don’t think that they can actually force you, either. This, too, would tend to undermine your argument, so you’re not really helping your case here.
Again, I’m a little confused here about what you’re saying. Are you saying that your response has a big impact? Because if it does, you really shouldn’t responding that way to random people on the internet.
Also, regarding the use of dependent projects, isn’t that why you refused before any “forcing actions”? Come to think of it, wasn’t the licensing also part of the original reasoning? If so, what does this statement have to do with your response to “forcing actions”?
I think at least one of us is really confused about cause-and-effect here, and I’m not entirely sure who.
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Okaaaay… I don’t think it’s that onerous, but fine. I still stand by everything else I said.
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Sorry! This is actually me! It logged me out while I was typing for some reason, and I didn’t notice! Whoops!
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wow, have you gotten things completely wrong. Get this through your head: the DMCA is a part of copyright law; complying with the DMCA is complying with copyright law; and ignoring copyright law would entail ignoring the DMCA.
Plus, there’s a lot more to the DMCA than just the safe-harbor provision, including parts like 1201, which also makes circumvention of DRM unlawful outside of certain exceptions that have to be reapproved every few years, thus expanding liability. In other words, the DMCA did a lot more than limit liability of platform holders for users’ infringement.
Furthermore, the DMCA does not allow platform holders to both ignore copyright law completely and avoid liability. That protection is conditioned on, among other things, receiving a DMCA claim for the specified content and acting appropriately. It’s also only an exception to the rule that, if you have actual, lawful control of a machine containing and/or displaying infringing content and have knowledge of infringement occurring, then you are liable for infringement by users, and even that exception is fairly limited in that it requires particular knowledge and failure to act. It doesn’t change anything regarding direct liability for actions by the accused (including platform holders) that are actively, directly infringing on someone else’s copyright, it doesn’t change anything regarding what is or isn’t direct infringement of copyright (aside from circumvention of DRM, but that does include things like fair use, which predates the DMCA), it has no impact on liability of makers of software/devices that have no substantial noninfringing uses, and it did not introduce the fact that cases where the developers/manufacturers of software/devices have no actual, lawful control of devices containing allegedly infringing content, the software/devices are capable of substantial noninfringing uses, they aren’t directly and actively encouraging infringement, and they are not actually, directly infringing on copyright themselves, the developers/manufacturers have no liability whatsoever for infringing activity by users (alleged or proven), and that determination is not conditioned on the same factors as the safe-harbor provision.
It also doesn’t change the fact that no one is liable for anyone’s allegedly infringing content if the content has not been legally proven to be infringing. The plaintiff(s) still has/have to prove that
1) they own a valid copyright in work X;
2) the copyright in X was validly registered with the US Copyright Office;
3) the authors/publishers of Y
a) had access to X and
b) either
i) copied content from X for use in Y or
ii) made Y probatively similar to X;
4) some elements of X used in Y are
a) protectable elements and
b) substantially similar (or unlawfully copied) in both X and Y;
5) if none of the defendants did not themselves author/publish Y, the use does not fall under fair use or other exceptions; and
6) the defendants either
a) are the authors/publishers of Y and either
i) are not holders of a platform that published or hosted Y or
ii) are not protected by the DMCA’s safe-harbor provisions,
b) actively and directly encouraged infringement of others’ copyright, including Y;
c) created a device/software that was used to create/publish Y and either
i) the defendants had both
A) knowledge of infringement using their device/software and
B) actual and lawful control over a machine that contains Y, or
ii) the device/software is incapable of substantial noninfringing uses.
(Although, if Y was found to be infringing in another court case, parts 1-5 can be demonstrated by merely bringing the ruling from that case. Also, in some cases of contributory or vicarious liability, more than one infringing case may be needed for liability to be demonstrated.)
Only if the plaintiff adequately alleges (on a motion to dismiss), can reasonably prove (in summary judgement for the defense), cannot be reasonably disproven on (in summary judgement for the plaintiff), has proven at trial according to a jury (jury trial) or federal judge (bench trial), or has plausibly proven at trial (on appeal) all 6 of these things would we need to get into affirmative defenses like the copyright has been invalidated somehow, de minimus use, or fair use. The only thing that the DMCA changes are with regards to 6ai and 6aii.
It should also be noted—once again, since you clearly missed this point as well—that even where someone is somehow liable for some or all infringing use(s) done by users of a software/service/device they created, that doesn’t change whether or not that person/entity actually infringed. Again, if someone uses your product to infringe, that doesn’t mean you yourself infringed as well, even if you are legally liable for that infringement. Additionally, any use that is fair use or use of uncopyrightable or public domain content is not infringing.
At any rate, the point is that the DMCA did a lot more than just the safe-harbor provision, the DMCA is a part of copyright law, and platforms (and IAPs) are generally required to do some ad hoc enforcement of copyright after receiving a proper notification of specific infringing content on their platform (and only with regards to that specific content and/or the specific user(s) responsible for that content), at least if they have actual and lawful means to do so, in order to be protected by the DMCA’s safe-harbor provision. No part of US copyright law requires or recommends any preventative measures be taken to prevent or reduce copyright infringement, nor does doing so actually affect one’s liability for infringement (outside of whether the infringement is willful or not, but even then, that only changes the degree of liability).
Also, none of what you just said actually addresses my point: the things we’ve been talking about haven’t involved avoiding liability for your own infringement but avoiding any direct infringement by yourself or not being liable for infringement done by a user(s) of your software, service, platform, or device somehow involving the use of your software, service, platform, or device. That’s what I was saying there. It’s not about avoiding liability for one’s own actions. It’s about either not being liable for someone else’s actions or whether certain actions/works are actually infringing or not.
On the post: Trump Campaign Suing All His Media 'Enemies': Files Another Silly SLAPP Suit Over CNN Opinion Piece
Re: Re: Re:
Like he said, where’s the lie?
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: Re: Re: Question
Nope. The law is crystal clear that government officials are just as liable for or immune to civil suits while in office as they are after they leave office. As far as civil law is concerned, there is no rule that says, for any suit or claim, you have to wait until they leave office. Either they are immune or they are liable. If they are liable, you don’t have to wait for them to leave office to file suit, nor for any subsequent steps to a lawsuit.
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: Re:
The “rule of law” regarding vulgarity is that whether or not speech is vulgar doesn’t change whether or not it’s protected. Basically, the rule of law for vulgarity has been clearly defined as nonexistent.
Look, there are only a select few exceptions to the 1st Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, and the Supreme Court has made clear that they have no interest in allowing any new ones. One of those exceptions is obscenity; vulgarity is not one of the exceptions.
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: Re:
The point is that he’s a Republican, not a Democrat, so clearly the Democrats don’t have a monopoly on being easily offended.
Come to think of it, what party is this guy from, again?
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: Re: Re: Re: T-Shirts
Wow. Great comeback there.
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: T-Shirts
Funny. In my experience, Republicans have been at least as easily offended as Democrats. Having thin skin seems to be a bipartisan issue.
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: Re: You ought to read my piece first
In the First Amendment, we have both the right to free speech and the right to petition the government.
From what I understand, at that time, the legislative body’s “business” was to listen to constituents speak their grievances and opinions. This wasn’t some random guy breaking into the building and interrupting the legislature’s important business to say his piece. Listening to this man was its business right then. You may feel that representatives shouldn’t have to hear testimony from the people on the floor—which doesn’t make much sense to me—but that’s neither here nor there in this particular case.
Well, to actually draft, amend, and vote on legislation. I fail to see why having constituents speak their opinions on current or future legislation or issues they feel the legislature should address in any way impedes or makes redundant any of the core duties of the legislative branch of a representative government. Sure, legislatures also talk about those things, but that’s not their core function, per se. It’s just something they do to facilitate the process of crafting legislation.
Sure, but that also has nothing to do with the T-shirt, nor does it have any 1st Amendment implications. It’s completely irrelevant here.
Apparently, you don’t understand how the courts or the law actually works. Whatever. You’re still missing the point. The problem you stated wasn’t that this man—or anyone else—had to be allowed to testify. If he wasn’t allowed to testify, I’m sure that security or law enforcement would’ve removed him, and since that didn’t happen, that clearly was never the problem. You had a problem with the message on his shirt. In other words, it wasn’t who was testifying but what was being said that’s being discussed. Even assuming that the legislative branch can regulate the former, that doesn’t mean they can also regulate the latter.
On the post: Michigan State Police Spend The Weekend Getting Ratioed For Bragging About Stealing $40,000 From A Driver
I’m really having trouble thinking of any reason—rational or otherwise—to be posting this sort of thing, especially since the first tweet(s) implied nothing criminal or suspicious about the person they seized cash from. What did they expect or hope was going to happen?
On the post: Copyright In The Modern Era: Fortnite Lets Players Mute Emote To Avoid Auto-Copyright Claims Against YouTubers
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Again, unless they are the licensors for something you’re actually using or your boss/supervisor, their threats are highly unlikely to have any teeth, so just ignore them. If they are claiming that something is required by a licensing agreement for something you’re using, either ask them to point out where in the license agreement that language is or check for yourself. Otherwise, they’re just empty threats.
Also, I highly doubt there’s anything illegal going on there, especially if it’s by uninvolved parties. Morally dubious at best, perhaps, but I don’t believe there is any law against anything that would fit what you’ve described.
Seriously, either ignore them or double-check to make sure they don’t have a point. Regardless, none of that explains why you’re complaining about it here. It seems pretty irrelevant to the arguments that have been made thus far.
Next >>