Could photographer have avoided arrest by not cursing?
Obviously the arrest cannot be justified, given that the officer had to deliberately walk a significant distance over to confront the photographer, who was doing nothing other than recording - not even commenting on the situation. I hope he is disciplined and instructed in proper protocol, and that the photographer is compensated for the unlawful arrest and his injuries.
I always watch these types of videos with interest, and try to imagine what I would do if I were in the situation. I can't help but wonder if by simply not cursing at the officer, the photographer could have avoided antagonizing him, and thus avoided arrest.
Doesn't by any means make what the officer did justified in any way. But it seems like in many confrontations, the officer causes the conflict by unlawfully telling a person to stop recording, or trying to take their camera or delete the photos/recordings. But we didn't hear any of that in this video before the arrest.
Seems to me the main complaint from this article is not delivering slower than advertised speeds, but the claim that there is no demand for faster service.
That claim is based on pricing in a non-competitive market. We have no idea what demand would look like in a truly competitive market.
If you give me monopolistic control over anything, I can make demand disappear overnight by raising prices high enough.
They already have 6 to 13 years of protection for this data in the EU
I was confused at first, because clinical trial data is already protected for at least 10 years in the majority of EU member states. Note that this is longer than the 5 years protection in the US, so it's funny that US firms are complaining.
But then I read carefully:
"We are especially concerned that proposals to disclose regulatory clinical study reports (CSRs) in their entirety... will allow competitors to submit innovators' documents to gain regulatory approval in non-European countries."
Basically they want to prevent generic firms from relying on clinical trial data ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, not just where such reliance is prohibited by law.
I also love the bit in Verizon's response about how since speed tests show people getting higher than advertised speeds, their customers are getting "more than they paid for" and presumably should STFU.
It's like saying that since you can go 80 mph on the Beltway at 3 AM, you shouldn't complain about traffic.
Tim, I think we all need to realize that the DMCA is NOT for us. Abiding by the law is really just a nuisance. How can you actually expect rights holders to follow the law? After all, the law is about stopping those other people from stealing their stuff.
How can we expect rights holders to abide by all these pesky rules? That just gets in the way of their creativity. It's almost like you don't think that IP law is a special kind of law that is more important than every other type of law.
Why are we assuming this qualifies as a "public performance"? The MPAA claims that prisons require a public performance license, but that's probably your classic prison movie showing situation. If they're blasting music at one or two detainees in Gitmo, that's not a public performance, and no license is required. If they're using headphones, as one commenter above suggested, should be an open-and-shut defense.
If they actually want to sue, the hurdles are higher for suing the federal government for infringement than private parties. And they'll be limited to minimum statutory damages.
Obviously they can object to whatever they want, but copyright is not a tool to silence all uses you disagree with. We might not like the use, but this is borderline copyright abuse.
Gabriel J. Michael (profile), 27 Jan 2014 @ 4:51pm
The easiest solution is to just make up numbers quantifying the benefits of potentially infringing technologies. Use the same flimsy methodologies the other side does. (IMO this is what the studies quantifying the value of fair use do.)
Gabriel J. Michael (profile), 23 Dec 2013 @ 6:35pm
Re:
The R&D active versus non-R&D active distinction is only particularly relevant for utility patents and design patents (and mask works, but hardly anyone registers masks works anymore).
From a theoretical perspective, there is no reason to think that R&D active businesses would benefit more or less from trademarks than non-R&D active businesses. Of course, these data suggest there is a difference between the two groups, which is something worth exploring.
The copyright data are more complex, given that most copyrightable subject matter was explicitly excluded from the definition of R&D used in the survey. One could make an argument about which group (R&D active/non-active) is more meaningful to discuss, or simply report the overall figures, as I did.
The three value Likert items are not really ideal precisely because the definition of "somewhat important" is unclear. Is "somewhat important" equidistant from "very" and "not"? Do survey respondents select it as a "neutral" value when they don't want to choose "very" or "not"? In my opinion, eliding the distinction between "very" and "somewhat" will tend to overstate importance.
FWIW, I'm not a business, I'm an academic. Academics typically have a twisted relationship with copyright, since we often have to sign over our copyrights on written work to publishers in order to publish journal articles. I just did this recently, and was informed that if I wanted, I could pay several thousand dollars to make my journal article open access.
CC BY-SA is superior to a public domain dedication in the American context (e.g. CC 0) because the United States does not have effective protection of moral rights. If it did (à la France), I could have said something to the effect of "this work is dedicated to the public domain; the author has asserted his moral rights." Moral rights would be adequate to provide me with attribution and protect me from distortion or misrepresentation of the work, which for me are the most important considerations.
Obviously I fall more on the "flexibilities/limitations and exceptions"-oriented side of the copyright debate. But I don't see why that should preclude me from using copyright when it is to my advantage to do so.
If your position is that it is hypocritical for anyone who believes copyright should be reformed to make use of copyright, I simply have to disagree. If anything, people who use copyright may be especially interested in its reform, just as people who deal with patents may be interested in patent reform.
Also, copyright is only one aspect of the survey, which also deals with trademark and patents. Frankly, I think the trademark data is even more interesting than the copyright data. Unlike copyright or patent, trademarks should in theory be useful to virtually every business, but apparently businesses do not view them in that way.
Hi. I'm the author. Since you're picking on the CC BY-SA licensing, let me explain why it's there.
This post was not originally written for TechDirt. I originally wrote it on my personal blog. It's since been posted to Slashdot, BoingBoing, here, and been reblogged elsewhere.
I include the CC BY-SA to make sure that people know they are free to copy and reuse the content elsewhere. I often include graphics in my posts that may be useful in peoples' PowerPoints, etc., and embedding a note about the CC BY-SA licensing makes it more likely that people won't lose the licensing information and feel they need to ask for permission.
As you will have presumably read in the post, the conclusion is not that we should eliminate IP laws. Rather, I wrote the post to highlight important empirical data on IP that had received almost no attention.
In the US, the best way to fight TTIP/TAFTA is to call your congresspeople
In the US, the best way to fight TTIP/TAFTA is to call your congresspeople.
Tell them you will vote them out if they approve "fast track" (trade promotion authority) for Obama. Tell them that if they vote for fast track, you will see it as them abdicating their Congressional authority, responsibility, and duty, and that you will make sure come election time that someone who takes their job seriously will be replacing them.
If their staffers drone on about the purported economic benefits of the deal, point out that since nothing has been finalized, and indeed nothing substantive has even been shared with the public, there is zero evidence to support such claims. It is all hot air. And if it is really true, there should be no reason to hide it from the public.
Those photos don't provide evidence of cropping...
But the positioning/timing is wrong. As McCrea notes, the car is simply blocking the view of the lines in the first photo. But normally citations will offer photos where lines are visible in both frames.
Because the lines are blocked, there is no way to double-check the speed reading. Having received one of these before, I used the timing information and the car's length to calculate my speed and compared it to the citation. (The citation actually understated my speed slightly, but was thrown out on another technicality).
The whole point of having the lines is to be able to check the calibration of the radar gun against something else, so they ought to always be visible in both photos. Even when they are, you still have to trust the timing information from the cameras.
On the post: Cop Harasses Photographer, Steals His Cellphone Battery And Attempts To Get YouTube To Pull The Incriminating Video
Could photographer have avoided arrest by not cursing?
I always watch these types of videos with interest, and try to imagine what I would do if I were in the situation. I can't help but wonder if by simply not cursing at the officer, the photographer could have avoided antagonizing him, and thus avoided arrest.
Doesn't by any means make what the officer did justified in any way. But it seems like in many confrontations, the officer causes the conflict by unlawfully telling a person to stop recording, or trying to take their camera or delete the photos/recordings. But we didn't hear any of that in this video before the arrest.
On the post: Lululemon: If You Can't Beat Your Customers, Ban Your Customers
On the post: Comcast-Backed Lobbyist Insists Seattle Doesn't Want Faster, Cheaper Broadband
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That claim is based on pricing in a non-competitive market. We have no idea what demand would look like in a truly competitive market.
If you give me monopolistic control over anything, I can make demand disappear overnight by raising prices high enough.
On the post: PhRMA Wants EU Put On US's 'Priority Watch List' For Plans To Disclose Basic Safety Info About Drugs
They already have 6 to 13 years of protection for this data in the EU
But then I read carefully:
"We are especially concerned that proposals to disclose regulatory clinical study reports (CSRs) in their entirety... will allow competitors to submit innovators' documents to gain regulatory approval in non-European countries."
Basically they want to prevent generic firms from relying on clinical trial data ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, not just where such reliance is prohibited by law.
On the post: Netflix, YouTube Streaming Gets Worse on Major ISPs, Who In Turn Blame the Deep, Dark Mysteries of the Internet
Disingenuous
It's like saying that since you can go 80 mph on the Beltway at 3 AM, you shouldn't complain about traffic.
On the post: What The DMCA System Is NOT For: Shutting Down Twitter Accounts You Don't Like And Sending Anonymous Tips
The DMCA is NOT for you.
Kind of like how X-Art is complaining about copyright infringement while also illegally producing commercial films without permits and violating health ordinances. NSFW link: http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2014/02/07/x-artmalibu-media-sues-alleged-file-sharers-over-illegall y-produced-videos/comment-page-1/
How can we expect rights holders to abide by all these pesky rules? That just gets in the way of their creativity. It's almost like you don't think that IP law is a special kind of law that is more important than every other type of law.
On the post: Skinny Puppy Invoices US Government After It Played The Band's Music To Torture Gitmo Prisoners [Updated]
Publicity stunt. Probably nothing owed.
If they actually want to sue, the hurdles are higher for suing the federal government for infringement than private parties. And they'll be limited to minimum statutory damages.
Obviously they can object to whatever they want, but copyright is not a tool to silence all uses you disagree with. We might not like the use, but this is borderline copyright abuse.
On the post: Innovation Asymmetry: Why The Copyright Industry Always Freaks Out About New Technologies
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
From a theoretical perspective, there is no reason to think that R&D active businesses would benefit more or less from trademarks than non-R&D active businesses. Of course, these data suggest there is a difference between the two groups, which is something worth exploring.
The copyright data are more complex, given that most copyrightable subject matter was explicitly excluded from the definition of R&D used in the survey. One could make an argument about which group (R&D active/non-active) is more meaningful to discuss, or simply report the overall figures, as I did.
The three value Likert items are not really ideal precisely because the definition of "somewhat important" is unclear. Is "somewhat important" equidistant from "very" and "not"? Do survey respondents select it as a "neutral" value when they don't want to choose "very" or "not"? In my opinion, eliding the distinction between "very" and "somewhat" will tend to overstate importance.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
Re:
CC BY-SA is superior to a public domain dedication in the American context (e.g. CC 0) because the United States does not have effective protection of moral rights. If it did (à la France), I could have said something to the effect of "this work is dedicated to the public domain; the author has asserted his moral rights." Moral rights would be adequate to provide me with attribution and protect me from distortion or misrepresentation of the work, which for me are the most important considerations.
Obviously I fall more on the "flexibilities/limitations and exceptions"-oriented side of the copyright debate. But I don't see why that should preclude me from using copyright when it is to my advantage to do so.
If your position is that it is hypocritical for anyone who believes copyright should be reformed to make use of copyright, I simply have to disagree. If anything, people who use copyright may be especially interested in its reform, just as people who deal with patents may be interested in patent reform.
Also, copyright is only one aspect of the survey, which also deals with trademark and patents. Frankly, I think the trademark data is even more interesting than the copyright data. Unlike copyright or patent, trademarks should in theory be useful to virtually every business, but apparently businesses do not view them in that way.
On the post: Vast Majority Of US Businesses Say Intellectual Property Is Not Important
I'm the author.
This post was not originally written for TechDirt. I originally wrote it on my personal blog. It's since been posted to Slashdot, BoingBoing, here, and been reblogged elsewhere.
I include the CC BY-SA to make sure that people know they are free to copy and reuse the content elsewhere. I often include graphics in my posts that may be useful in peoples' PowerPoints, etc., and embedding a note about the CC BY-SA licensing makes it more likely that people won't lose the licensing information and feel they need to ask for permission.
As you will have presumably read in the post, the conclusion is not that we should eliminate IP laws. Rather, I wrote the post to highlight important empirical data on IP that had received almost no attention.
On the post: European Commissioner Claims 'Nothing Secret' About TAFTA/TTIP, Tries To Defend Corporate Sovereignty
In the US, the best way to fight TTIP/TAFTA is to call your congresspeople
Tell them you will vote them out if they approve "fast track" (trade promotion authority) for Obama. Tell them that if they vote for fast track, you will see it as them abdicating their Congressional authority, responsibility, and duty, and that you will make sure come election time that someone who takes their job seriously will be replacing them.
If their staffers drone on about the purported economic benefits of the deal, point out that since nothing has been finalized, and indeed nothing substantive has even been shared with the public, there is zero evidence to support such claims. It is all hot air. And if it is really true, there should be no reason to hide it from the public.
On the post: A Look At Just How Much The US Is Isolated In Its TPP Demands
Now available at Washington Post
On the post: A Look At Just How Much The US Is Isolated In Its TPP Demands
Updated version of this article available at my blog
http://topromotetheprogress.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/visualizing-tpp-negotiating-positions-with-new- leaks-salt-lake-city/
Thanks for reading!
On the post: Speed Cam Contractor Responds To Challenged Tickets By Cropping Photos, Moving Cameras
Those photos don't provide evidence of cropping...
Because the lines are blocked, there is no way to double-check the speed reading. Having received one of these before, I used the timing information and the car's length to calculate my speed and compared it to the citation. (The citation actually understated my speed slightly, but was thrown out on another technicality).
The whole point of having the lines is to be able to check the calibration of the radar gun against something else, so they ought to always be visible in both photos. Even when they are, you still have to trust the timing information from the cameras.
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