Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 18 Jun 2012 @ 8:42am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
IndieGoGo shouldn't need to do that charity paperwork - they are only providing the tools. You don't sue the company that made the Santa suit for an imposter who uses it to make people think they are donating to the Salvation Army. Inman would be the only target for failure to do the paperwork - but Carreon doesn't have the standing, either the government would (if it is a criminal offense), or the charities (if it is civil law).
Also, the DMCA is for copyright claims only - not for defamation, which would probably fall under the CDA.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 15 Jun 2012 @ 6:32pm
Re:
the supplying company on the other hand, need chastising if they are at fault.
I'm not sure how Scottish school boards are chosen, but if this happened in the US, you can bet that the supply company donated to some of the school board member's election campaigns.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 15 Jun 2012 @ 11:13am
Re:
Its only a few years till lawmakers are going to introduce stricter laws for controlling the Internet.
Supermarket tabloids have been printing this stuff for decades. I bet if we looked before that, we could find it in various local newspapers stretching back hundreds of years.
Why does this suddenly need to be regulated? Just because it's on the internet?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 15 Jun 2012 @ 11:03am
Re:
as it seems unlikely that Meyer himself would have been searching for "negative" information about his client on the Web.
There's a whole new industry (and apparently decent money in it) out there searching out negative information on the web for clients and trying to get it taken down. I'm sure some is perfectly fine, with polite requests and no abuses - and then there's stupid lawyers threatening the wrong site/person with overreaching and questionable claims. This would be the latter.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 14 Jun 2012 @ 8:15am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Josh, I really don't see how you can defend enjoying the creative output of another who offers that product for sale in order to make a living without also compensating him. I'll never get that and if you think that is right, fair and just, I'll need a better explanation as to why it is not wrong.
I will compensate the creator if what they offer has enough value, if it is offered in a convenient manner and reasonably priced. I don't have a problem with paying creators for their work. I have a problem with a creator demanding that they deserve to be paid just because they created something. I have a problem with a creator having veto power (a monopoly or copyright) over any use, sharing, or modification of their creation.
Most people will pay for something that is valuable to them when the creators make it easy and convenient to do so. This is no different than physical products. I buy my fruits and vegetables at the grocery store because it is easier and more convenient than growing my own. The farmers grew them, had them packaged and shipped to the store, and the store makes sure they're not rotten. But what if the farmer decided they didn't like that. Instead of sending them to the grocery store a couple miles from my house, they insisted I had to drive to the farm 100 miles away. When I got there, all they would do was to provide me with one option - a 20 pound bag of apples - that I couldn't inspect beforehand - and there were no refunds if when I got home I discovered they were rotten. If I only wanted 5 pounds, tough luck - and I'm prevented from sharing or giving away the rest to my neighbor. If I got fed up with that, and started planting the apple seeds so I could grow my own apple tree, the farmer could come by and cut it down, then fine me hundreds of thousands of dollars. You wouldn't tolerate that - and I won't either.
In general I see that copyrights and patents are wrong. Why? Imagine this. In the near someone has created a Star Trek style replicator. It can create food at no cost, anywhere in the world. This would obviously threaten the profits of Monsanto. Are the profits of one company a good enough reason to stop this new invention from feeding the world? What if we add in all the other agri-business companies? Thousands of farmers who can't adapt to grow specialty foods for people who want "the real thing"? Do all those companies and people deserve some kind of protection against something wonderful? The answer to me is obviously not. Now, food isn't exactly the same as knowledge, ideas, culture, and entertainment - but it is only a matter of degrees. We have a wonderful invention, the Internet, that can provide all those things at little cost to nearly everyone on the planet. How can it be wrong to use it to do so, just because of some companies and artists who can't adapt?
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Jun 2012 @ 11:35am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Wow, accusing me of playing word games, and then doing it yourself (and badly, too).
The flaw in your view is simple: You want the rights to own your house and have everyone respect it, but you are unwilling to respect the rights of artists and creators.
These are fundamentally different rights about fandamentally different things. Scarce and non-scarce. Rivalrous and non-rivalrous.
If it was possible for everyone in the world to come and live in my house, eat my food, or use my internet connection without preventing my own use of those things, I would gladly do it.
You want it all, but you don't want to share what you have freely with everyone else.
I freely share my knowledge and expertise with those who ask. I'm sure you'll bring up that I get paid by my employer for those. My employer pays for my time - someone's time is a scarce resource - the time I spend working on specific projects. Once I'm no longer actively working on those things, I don't expect to continue getting paid. Artists and creators work hourly or on commission basis all the time. Its work-for-hire, and I have no problems with that.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Jun 2012 @ 10:31am
Re: Already Infringing...
In short, it could easily cover the iPhone/iPad dynamic keyboard.
Perhaps PRC/SCS contacted Apple and said something along the lines of: "Look, this patent could cover your products. We don't really want to sue you, but we could and make you spend a bunch of money to defend yourself. So instead, just shutdown this app (that is a legitimate threat to our overpriced business) and we won't sue you."
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Jun 2012 @ 10:23am
Re: Sender pays
It's like making me pay for received phone calls, but not for ones I initiate.
Sounds like SMS text spam.
I never sent/rec'd enough texts to go over my cap before I had an unlimited plan, but I always wondered if I would get to call and bitch someone at the telco out for it.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Jun 2012 @ 7:30am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You are discussing two elements of a [potential] common wrong. You have unjustly and illegally enriched yourself. This guy has been deprived of property but no one has been enriched. The difference is that while your crimes are evident on their face, his lack of access may or may not be.
I have not claimed that copying a movie without permission is legal. I'm quite aware that is against the law. But I quite vehemently disagree with your assertion that just because something is illegal means that it is wrong. I encourage others to break laws which are wrong, unjust, and unethical. I see copyright law as all of those.
As to the topic at hand, how can the government's actions not be wrong? They have seized and prevented access to this guy's data, then claim not to have seized it. The original seziures have been shown to be deeply flawed and have not followed due process. Even if they had followed standard sezuire procedures, we have many indications that those procedures are unjustly depriving people of the rights and property, so there is clearly a problem with standard seizures in a general sense.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 13 Jun 2012 @ 6:57am
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ahh, so you want to be able to own property, which is really just a made up way of splitting up the public domain, but you cannot accept any other made up system?
Physical property rights exist to allocate scarce resources. Real eastate, for example. There is a finite quantity of land on the planet, or in any country/state/province/county/city. If someone builds a house on a chunk of land, another person cannot use that same land to build their house.
This situation does not apply to infinitely copyable data. My copying of data does not prevent anyone else from using that data for their own purposes. So property rights do not make sense to apply to data. I don't accept or respect things that do not make sense.
Again, please point out the flaw in my view, instead of some strawman you are making up.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jun 2012 @ 4:05pm
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
My point was calling anyone who claims to support property rights a hypocrite for not wanting this guy to get his data back from seizure by the government. I guess that hit a bit too close to home, eh?
I respect physical property rights, and only physical property rights. I do not respect monopoly rights over any form of content, ideas, or data - that type of infinitely copyable information should be available to all - I have made no secret or excuse of that.
I see no hypocritical aspect of disagreeing that copyright and patents are necessary, while at the same time disagreeing that the government can go and seize data and prevent the owner of that data from accessing it. When I copy a movie without permission, I have not stopped the movie studio from having use of that movie. In this case, the government has in fact prevented this guy from having use of his data.
If you can point out a flaw in that view, instead of a strawman you are creating, please be clear on what it is. I have the ability to think critically of my views and change them if evidence and logic warrant it, unlike some others.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jun 2012 @ 12:47pm
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh wait, he doesn't have any backups, so it would be strictly his word, and nothing more.
His word against whose? So the government is refuting his claim? Or another copyright holder is saying that the data is infringing? No? Then its clear.
Having worked in the car rental world in the past, I can tell you that this is essentially correct. Cars are often seized as evidence and held for the length of the court case, and depending on circumstance, can in fact be sold by the state at the end of the process.
Then that is ludicrous. I'm not arguing that the government might need to hold it as evidence if it is materially important to the case, but once they are done, then simple common sense means it goes back to the rightful owner (assuming third party unconnected to the crime). Anyone claiming to respect any form of property rights should be agreeing here. Completely ludicrous and needs to be changed.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jun 2012 @ 10:58am
Re: Re:
No what it means is that, in the case of any seizure, third parties (whos goods or products were in the seized business at the time) would have the right to request return of those goods, regardless of actual ownership.
What do you mean, "regardless of actual ownership"?
Ownership of the data in this case is clear. The videos are not infringing on the copyright of anyone else. The guy who is suing is the rightful owner.
If we translate this case into physical items, what the government seems to be saying is that if a criminal rents a car, uses it to commit a crime, and it is then seized, the car rental company cannot get it back. If the government wants to, it can destroy the car, or sell it off, and the rental agency has no recourse. That is ludicrous. I fully expect that in a legal seizure, the government could use the car for evidentiary reasons, but at some point they would have to give it back to the rightful owner.
Josh in CharlotteNC (profile), 12 Jun 2012 @ 10:45am
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I seem to have struck a nerve.
I stand by my comment: Not everyone is solely motivated by money.
To expand on that, yes, everyone needs money for food/shelter/luxuries. But we're all motivated by more than that. I work for a living - but I like my job for more than the money. I get a lot of satisfaction in working to secure the company I work for's computer systems - and thus to protect our customer's information, and yes, money. There's probably about a 1 in 3 or 4 chance that the bank I work for has yours in some form or another. If money was the only thing I cared about, I could get a lot more than I'm making now by selling what I know and my access to criminal organizations. Luckily for you, other things motivate me.
Specifically on topic from the original comment, the "everyone who made a life saving drug" not deciding to do so because they can't make oodles of money from a big pharma company comment is bogus. It has been shown that much of the reaserch for those drugs is funded by tax payers through NIH grants. Mostly going to professors at universities who aren't making a tremendous salary. They're in the pursuit of knowledge, some for science's sake. Others knowing that they're helping people. Others may be going for fame or peer recognition. But it ain't all about the money.
On the post: Once More, With Feeling: Having Open WiFi Does Not Make You 'Negligent' Under The Law
Re:
http://xkcd.com/927/
On the post: Charles Carreon Sues Matthew Inman... And The Charities He's Raising Money For
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Also, the DMCA is for copyright claims only - not for defamation, which would probably fall under the CDA.
On the post: The Streisand Effect Wins Again: Scottish Council Reverses Ban On 9-Year Old Blogging About School Lunches
Re:
I'm not sure how Scottish school boards are chosen, but if this happened in the US, you can bet that the supply company donated to some of the school board member's election campaigns.
On the post: Chris Evans' Lawyer Threatens Forum; Apparently Unfamiliar With Free Speech, Safe Harbors & Streisand Effect
Re:
Supermarket tabloids have been printing this stuff for decades. I bet if we looked before that, we could find it in various local newspapers stretching back hundreds of years.
Why does this suddenly need to be regulated? Just because it's on the internet?
On the post: Chris Evans' Lawyer Threatens Forum; Apparently Unfamiliar With Free Speech, Safe Harbors & Streisand Effect
Re:
There's a whole new industry (and apparently decent money in it) out there searching out negative information on the web for clients and trying to get it taken down. I'm sure some is perfectly fine, with polite requests and no abuses - and then there's stupid lawyers threatening the wrong site/person with overreaching and questionable claims. This would be the latter.
On the post: Former Federal Judge Calls US Prosecution Of Megaupload 'Really Outrageous'
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Former Federal Judge Calls US Prosecution Of Megaupload 'Really Outrageous'
Re: What if........Pirates are PROUD ?
This.
If Techdirt allowed bigger avatars, my pirate chimp might be holding a pirate flag.
On the post: Funnyjunk's Lawyer, Charles Carreon, Continues To Lash Out: Accuses Matt Inman Of 'Instigating Security Attacks'
Re:
Kinda like putting out a brushfire with napalm.
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I will compensate the creator if what they offer has enough value, if it is offered in a convenient manner and reasonably priced. I don't have a problem with paying creators for their work. I have a problem with a creator demanding that they deserve to be paid just because they created something. I have a problem with a creator having veto power (a monopoly or copyright) over any use, sharing, or modification of their creation.
Most people will pay for something that is valuable to them when the creators make it easy and convenient to do so. This is no different than physical products. I buy my fruits and vegetables at the grocery store because it is easier and more convenient than growing my own. The farmers grew them, had them packaged and shipped to the store, and the store makes sure they're not rotten. But what if the farmer decided they didn't like that. Instead of sending them to the grocery store a couple miles from my house, they insisted I had to drive to the farm 100 miles away. When I got there, all they would do was to provide me with one option - a 20 pound bag of apples - that I couldn't inspect beforehand - and there were no refunds if when I got home I discovered they were rotten. If I only wanted 5 pounds, tough luck - and I'm prevented from sharing or giving away the rest to my neighbor. If I got fed up with that, and started planting the apple seeds so I could grow my own apple tree, the farmer could come by and cut it down, then fine me hundreds of thousands of dollars. You wouldn't tolerate that - and I won't either.
In general I see that copyrights and patents are wrong. Why? Imagine this. In the near someone has created a Star Trek style replicator. It can create food at no cost, anywhere in the world. This would obviously threaten the profits of Monsanto. Are the profits of one company a good enough reason to stop this new invention from feeding the world? What if we add in all the other agri-business companies? Thousands of farmers who can't adapt to grow specialty foods for people who want "the real thing"? Do all those companies and people deserve some kind of protection against something wonderful? The answer to me is obviously not. Now, food isn't exactly the same as knowledge, ideas, culture, and entertainment - but it is only a matter of degrees. We have a wonderful invention, the Internet, that can provide all those things at little cost to nearly everyone on the planet. How can it be wrong to use it to do so, just because of some companies and artists who can't adapt?
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The flaw in your view is simple: You want the rights to own your house and have everyone respect it, but you are unwilling to respect the rights of artists and creators.
These are fundamentally different rights about fandamentally different things. Scarce and non-scarce. Rivalrous and non-rivalrous.
If it was possible for everyone in the world to come and live in my house, eat my food, or use my internet connection without preventing my own use of those things, I would gladly do it.
You want it all, but you don't want to share what you have freely with everyone else.
I freely share my knowledge and expertise with those who ask. I'm sure you'll bring up that I get paid by my employer for those. My employer pays for my time - someone's time is a scarce resource - the time I spend working on specific projects. Once I'm no longer actively working on those things, I don't expect to continue getting paid. Artists and creators work hourly or on commission basis all the time. Its work-for-hire, and I have no problems with that.
On the post: Apple Steps Into Patent Fight To Unnecessarily Silence A Little Girl
Re: Re: Re: Already Infringing...
On the post: Apple Steps Into Patent Fight To Unnecessarily Silence A Little Girl
Re: Already Infringing...
Perhaps PRC/SCS contacted Apple and said something along the lines of: "Look, this patent could cover your products. We don't really want to sue you, but we could and make you spend a bunch of money to defend yourself. So instead, just shutdown this app (that is a legitimate threat to our overpriced business) and we won't sue you."
On the post: The EU Telco Plan To Have The UN 'Tax & Track' Internet Usage Goes Against Fundamental Internet Principles
Re: Sender pays
Sounds like SMS text spam.
I never sent/rec'd enough texts to go over my cap before I had an unlimited plan, but I always wondered if I would get to call and bitch someone at the telco out for it.
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I have not claimed that copying a movie without permission is legal. I'm quite aware that is against the law. But I quite vehemently disagree with your assertion that just because something is illegal means that it is wrong. I encourage others to break laws which are wrong, unjust, and unethical. I see copyright law as all of those.
As to the topic at hand, how can the government's actions not be wrong? They have seized and prevented access to this guy's data, then claim not to have seized it. The original seziures have been shown to be deeply flawed and have not followed due process. Even if they had followed standard sezuire procedures, we have many indications that those procedures are unjustly depriving people of the rights and property, so there is clearly a problem with standard seizures in a general sense.
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Physical property rights exist to allocate scarce resources. Real eastate, for example. There is a finite quantity of land on the planet, or in any country/state/province/county/city. If someone builds a house on a chunk of land, another person cannot use that same land to build their house.
This situation does not apply to infinitely copyable data. My copying of data does not prevent anyone else from using that data for their own purposes. So property rights do not make sense to apply to data. I don't accept or respect things that do not make sense.
Again, please point out the flaw in my view, instead of some strawman you are making up.
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I respect physical property rights, and only physical property rights. I do not respect monopoly rights over any form of content, ideas, or data - that type of infinitely copyable information should be available to all - I have made no secret or excuse of that.
I see no hypocritical aspect of disagreeing that copyright and patents are necessary, while at the same time disagreeing that the government can go and seize data and prevent the owner of that data from accessing it. When I copy a movie without permission, I have not stopped the movie studio from having use of that movie. In this case, the government has in fact prevented this guy from having use of his data.
If you can point out a flaw in that view, instead of a strawman you are creating, please be clear on what it is. I have the ability to think critically of my views and change them if evidence and logic warrant it, unlike some others.
On the post: What Kind Of Professor Patents A Way To Make It More Expensive & More Difficult For Students To Learn?
So bad it might...
He might plan to go patent troll on anyone else stupid enough to try this?
It might be bad enough that it could set precedents that get us closer to promoting the progress?
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re: Re: Re:
His word against whose? So the government is refuting his claim? Or another copyright holder is saying that the data is infringing? No? Then its clear.
Having worked in the car rental world in the past, I can tell you that this is essentially correct. Cars are often seized as evidence and held for the length of the court case, and depending on circumstance, can in fact be sold by the state at the end of the process.
Then that is ludicrous. I'm not arguing that the government might need to hold it as evidence if it is materially important to the case, but once they are done, then simple common sense means it goes back to the rightful owner (assuming third party unconnected to the crime). Anyone claiming to respect any form of property rights should be agreeing here. Completely ludicrous and needs to be changed.
On the post: The DOJ's Truly Disgusting Argument For Denying A Megaupload User Access To His Legal Content
Re: Re:
What do you mean, "regardless of actual ownership"?
Ownership of the data in this case is clear. The videos are not infringing on the copyright of anyone else. The guy who is suing is the rightful owner.
If we translate this case into physical items, what the government seems to be saying is that if a criminal rents a car, uses it to commit a crime, and it is then seized, the car rental company cannot get it back. If the government wants to, it can destroy the car, or sell it off, and the rental agency has no recourse. That is ludicrous. I fully expect that in a legal seizure, the government could use the car for evidentiary reasons, but at some point they would have to give it back to the rightful owner.
On the post: After India And Brazil, Now China Takes Steps To Allow Cheap Versions Of Patented Drugs
Re: Re: Re: Re:
I stand by my comment: Not everyone is solely motivated by money.
To expand on that, yes, everyone needs money for food/shelter/luxuries. But we're all motivated by more than that. I work for a living - but I like my job for more than the money. I get a lot of satisfaction in working to secure the company I work for's computer systems - and thus to protect our customer's information, and yes, money. There's probably about a 1 in 3 or 4 chance that the bank I work for has yours in some form or another. If money was the only thing I cared about, I could get a lot more than I'm making now by selling what I know and my access to criminal organizations. Luckily for you, other things motivate me.
Specifically on topic from the original comment, the "everyone who made a life saving drug" not deciding to do so because they can't make oodles of money from a big pharma company comment is bogus. It has been shown that much of the reaserch for those drugs is funded by tax payers through NIH grants. Mostly going to professors at universities who aren't making a tremendous salary. They're in the pursuit of knowledge, some for science's sake. Others knowing that they're helping people. Others may be going for fame or peer recognition. But it ain't all about the money.
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