Studies show that no one is fooled by fake packaging. These studies obviously apply to your strings, no matter how realistic the fake packaging is, and how unsophisticated the consumer is. So don't worry about people being duped by fake packaging. They know they're buying fake strings. The fact is that they want to be buying the real strings, but that is only aspirational. So in the meantime, until they can buy the real strings, they are going to buy the next best thing they can get--strings sold in packaging that looks like the real packaging. Sure the strings suck, but the packaging looks good, so that's what's important. There is simply no way that consumers are being tricked by these fake strings. So stop worrying about it.
Now, the problem here is that you're not connecting with your fans. Well, you are doing a great job of connecting with your fans, that's not what I meant... but you should be doing better. Despite all of your success, clearly you just don't know what you're doing. That's why I'm here. I'm here to help. Your other problem is that you're not competing with yourself and liking it. With piracy, you'll always be competing with yourself, so you may as well embrace it. It doesn't matter that the people you're competing against don't play by the rules. Put on your happy face as the pirates make money off of your good will. How could the fake strings possibly hurt your business or your customers? These pirates are doing you a favor. You've got to put on your A-game and compete against yourself like a man. Since you're competing against yourself, only you can win. See how great piracy is?
Oh, and as far as all that nasty legal stuff about due process and free speech goes--don't worry about it. Not only am I a learned studier of studies, I'm also a constitutional law expert. COICA is straight up illegal. ICE and the seizures are too. There is no other possibility, so I can say this with perfect certainty. If you ever want me to tell you how to run your incredibly successful business again, just stop on by any time.
However the people you're dealing with on this site, and Mike Masnick in particular, have no interest in looking at the law from a impartial point of view.
The agenda is to protect the continued piracy of copyrighted works.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: counterfeiting and law suits.
They have to be charged with a crime, and ownership of seized property is not automatically transferred to the state. The owners of the seized domain names have not been charged or even contacted by ICE, and have no opportunity to respond to the seizure. They have been afforded no opportunity to participate in the process at all, due or otherwise.
False, they don't have to charged with a crime. True, ownership is not automatically transferred to the state, but possession is transferred for the time being. That's how seizure of any property works. False, some lawsuits have been filed and the owners of the domain names are being given a chance to be heard in court. Eventually, every single domain name owner will get their day in court.
It sounds to me like you don't really know what's going on, and you're just assuming the worst. Don't let the headlines fool you.
I love Netflix. I won't hold it against them when they raise their rates, as long as they prevail. Later, when they have the power and 400 million subscribers, I hope they buy some of these Hollywood studios and fire the idiots. Every time Google, Netflix or other services give us what we want, the morons come out of the woodwork.
I love Netflix too. I'd gladly pay more for the same service. Despite the FUD, I can't imagine they're going anywhere.
Again, you keep making this argument, which is totally undermined by the fact that DHS's own filing on the matter equated the two.
You really are hanging your whole argument on one sentence in the affidavit, a sentence that you yourself pointed out as being incorrect.
Do you really think a judge is going to say, "Well, you didn't actually take down the content on those sites, but you said that you were going to, so we'll call that prior restraint, even though nothing was in fact restrained." Good luck with that. And what about all of the other sites that were seized? The affidavit only covers five sites.
If they're confiscating it for no reason other than it's related to a crime (for which there has been no case heard), then why is that more important than the fact that they are forcing a website with protected speech on to get a new name? The whole point of prior restraint is that limiting free speech doesn't have to mean direct censorship. If you're merely taking them out of the Google results until they register a new name then that would still seem to be prior restraint. Just because it's not entirely effective does not mean it isn't effectively censorship.
I think there's two different speeches here, the content of the website, and the domain name itself. The domain name is being seized because of alleged crimes being committed on the website. You can seize the domain name because its connection to the content on the website is only incidental. The domain name itself is also speech, but it too can be seized because it's not presumptively protected speech. It may well be protected speech, but that is yet to be determined.
I'm just not seeing the prior restraint. Where's the First Amendment violation?
You see this is where clarification from the judge involved would be helpful.
Agreed. Thinking about it makes my head hurt. It's poorly phrased.
But if it is to get meaning from the wording, no where in there "trial" is the instance to be concluded, it suggests that the judge will take into consideration if it is a case of presumptively protected speech or not, meaning he has to make the call at the moment of the first request and not at trial because that would defeat the purpose of having presumption and not being protected.
But if a determination has to be made on the merits, doesn't that make it not a presumption?
How about: seizing the building that the bookstore is in, but not the books themselves?
After all, a building isn't protected by the First Amendment. So this wouldn't be prior restraint... right?
Let's make the files on the server the books, the server computer is the bookstore, and the domain name is the sign on the front door. All the seizure does is take down the sign on the front door. The books and the bookstore are exactly where they were before the seizure.
How about the content? If that is presumptively protected speech then isn't the domain name's status a moot point?
I think the courts will look at the content on the server and the domain name as being two separate things, which is what they actually are. You can seize one and not the other--they are separate things.
If the domain name is property used to commit a crime, it can be seized under 18 U.S.C. 2323. Once there is probable cause that the site is being used to infringe criminally, the domain name can be seized since it's property used to commit that crime. The content on the site is looked at to determine if there's a crime. The domain name is just property that's used to commit the crime.
I think the bookstore is a clunky analogy. The claim here is that the domain name is property used in the commission of a crime, and as such, it can be seized under U.S. Code.
You're the one who's focusing on that one quote Mike used to back up the argument, rather than looking at the argument itself. Either they seized the domain name for no apparent reason, or they seized it to stop access to the site, unless you can think of a plausible alternative explanation for them seizing the domain names.
According to the affidavit, the domain name was seized because it was property used in the commission of a crime. The confusion seems to center around whether or not it's really more than just a piece of property, e.g., maybe it is protected speech.
Ah, right, so parody is no longer allowed now? Guess there are a number of authors who are going to be in DEEP trouble now that parody is illegal and no longer a part of the exceptions to copyright law. Thanks for clearing that up.
Don't be ridiculous. You should read the opinion I linked to. The court went into great detail about how this wasn't actually parody.
Yeah, I'm reading it differently now. I think I was misreading it before. The argument is that the domain name is property that can be seized since it was used in the commission of criminal infringement. The whole debate about whether the domain name itself is protected speech was in the context of whether or not the seizures violated the First Amendment. The affidavit states that they were trying to seize the domain name for several reasons, one of which was that it would shut down the website. That reason turned out to be wrong, and it doesn't negate the other reasons that were alleged. ICE didn't seize the whole bookstore, so that analogy doesn't work. They seized the domain name, that's all. The website's still there.
Right. The agent gives many reasons for seizing the domain names, any one of which would be sufficient to justify the seizures. One reason he gives is that "furthermore, seizure of the subject domain names will prevent third parties from continuing to access the five websites listed above." I think Mike's argument is that by suggesting so, the agent is suggesting something that MIGHT be a violation of the First Amendment. And somehow, this adds up to prior restraint, despite the fact that the agent was incorrect in the claim, and despite the fact that his other claims clearly supported the seizure.
What the court said was just this in simple terms: A domain name can be protect by the First Amendment but it is not automatic, which means it needs someone to decide if it will be protected or not and that probably is the judge in a case by case basis. That is what it says in all its gory details that you selectively choose to ignore for some reason.
I read it the same way, but to a different conclusion. The Second Circuit is saying that maybe a domain name is protected speech, or maybe it's not. That determination would have to be made at a trial. What's clear, however, is that necessarily means the domain name is not presumptively protected speech. In turn, that means it doesn't qualify for the First Amendment seizure exception--it can be seized without it being prior restraint.
Now that TD appears to think it is an expert in substantive constitutional law, it would do a grave disservice to its readership to not present a counter-analysis of pertinent caselaw.
Not only would its readership benefit, but the very same can be said of the federal judiciary.
On the post: Jim D'Addario Defends His Support Of COICA & Domain Seizures
Jim,
Studies show that no one is fooled by fake packaging. These studies obviously apply to your strings, no matter how realistic the fake packaging is, and how unsophisticated the consumer is. So don't worry about people being duped by fake packaging. They know they're buying fake strings. The fact is that they want to be buying the real strings, but that is only aspirational. So in the meantime, until they can buy the real strings, they are going to buy the next best thing they can get--strings sold in packaging that looks like the real packaging. Sure the strings suck, but the packaging looks good, so that's what's important. There is simply no way that consumers are being tricked by these fake strings. So stop worrying about it.
Now, the problem here is that you're not connecting with your fans. Well, you are doing a great job of connecting with your fans, that's not what I meant... but you should be doing better. Despite all of your success, clearly you just don't know what you're doing. That's why I'm here. I'm here to help. Your other problem is that you're not competing with yourself and liking it. With piracy, you'll always be competing with yourself, so you may as well embrace it. It doesn't matter that the people you're competing against don't play by the rules. Put on your happy face as the pirates make money off of your good will. How could the fake strings possibly hurt your business or your customers? These pirates are doing you a favor. You've got to put on your A-game and compete against yourself like a man. Since you're competing against yourself, only you can win. See how great piracy is?
Oh, and as far as all that nasty legal stuff about due process and free speech goes--don't worry about it. Not only am I a learned studier of studies, I'm also a constitutional law expert. COICA is straight up illegal. ICE and the seizures are too. There is no other possibility, so I can say this with perfect certainty. If you ever want me to tell you how to run your incredibly successful business again, just stop on by any time.
Mike
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The agenda is to protect the continued piracy of copyrighted works.
It certainly feels that way to me sometimes too.
On the post: Universal Music Donates Master Recordings To Library Of Congress... But Keeps The Copyright
Re: Re:
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: counterfeiting and law suits.
False, they don't have to charged with a crime. True, ownership is not automatically transferred to the state, but possession is transferred for the time being. That's how seizure of any property works. False, some lawsuits have been filed and the owners of the domain names are being given a chance to be heard in court. Eventually, every single domain name owner will get their day in court.
It sounds to me like you don't really know what's going on, and you're just assuming the worst. Don't let the headlines fool you.
On the post: Universal Music Donates Master Recordings To Library Of Congress... But Keeps The Copyright
On the post: Will Hollywood Kill The Golden Goose By Squeezing Netflix Dry?
Re: I hate Hollywood
I love Netflix too. I'd gladly pay more for the same service. Despite the FUD, I can't imagine they're going anywhere.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
Re: Re: Re: Re: counterfeiting and law suits.
Things get seized and people get arrested all the time, and before there's a trial on the merits. It doesn't violate due process necessarily.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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You really are hanging your whole argument on one sentence in the affidavit, a sentence that you yourself pointed out as being incorrect.
Do you really think a judge is going to say, "Well, you didn't actually take down the content on those sites, but you said that you were going to, so we'll call that prior restraint, even though nothing was in fact restrained." Good luck with that. And what about all of the other sites that were seized? The affidavit only covers five sites.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think there's two different speeches here, the content of the website, and the domain name itself. The domain name is being seized because of alleged crimes being committed on the website. You can seize the domain name because its connection to the content on the website is only incidental. The domain name itself is also speech, but it too can be seized because it's not presumptively protected speech. It may well be protected speech, but that is yet to be determined.
I'm just not seeing the prior restraint. Where's the First Amendment violation?
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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Agreed. Thinking about it makes my head hurt. It's poorly phrased.
But if it is to get meaning from the wording, no where in there "trial" is the instance to be concluded, it suggests that the judge will take into consideration if it is a case of presumptively protected speech or not, meaning he has to make the call at the moment of the first request and not at trial because that would defeat the purpose of having presumption and not being protected.
But if a determination has to be made on the merits, doesn't that make it not a presumption?
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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After all, a building isn't protected by the First Amendment. So this wouldn't be prior restraint... right?
Let's make the files on the server the books, the server computer is the bookstore, and the domain name is the sign on the front door. All the seizure does is take down the sign on the front door. The books and the bookstore are exactly where they were before the seizure.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I think the courts will look at the content on the server and the domain name as being two separate things, which is what they actually are. You can seize one and not the other--they are separate things.
If the domain name is property used to commit a crime, it can be seized under 18 U.S.C. 2323. Once there is probable cause that the site is being used to infringe criminally, the domain name can be seized since it's property used to commit that crime. The content on the site is looked at to determine if there's a crime. The domain name is just property that's used to commit the crime.
That's my take.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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According to the affidavit, the domain name was seized because it was property used in the commission of a crime. The confusion seems to center around whether or not it's really more than just a piece of property, e.g., maybe it is protected speech.
On the post: Settlement Details On The Banning Of Unauthorized Catcher in The Rye Sequel Even More Troubling
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Don't be ridiculous. You should read the opinion I linked to. The court went into great detail about how this wasn't actually parody.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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I read it the same way, but to a different conclusion. The Second Circuit is saying that maybe a domain name is protected speech, or maybe it's not. That determination would have to be made at a trial. What's clear, however, is that necessarily means the domain name is not presumptively protected speech. In turn, that means it doesn't qualify for the First Amendment seizure exception--it can be seized without it being prior restraint.
On the post: The Companies Who Support Censoring The Internet
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Not only would its readership benefit, but the very same can be said of the federal judiciary.
I'd like to see this as well.
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