The short answer here is no, for a whole bunch of reasons.
First and foremost, the Trump 4 Ruler website is a public site. That is to say, it's open to everyone without restriction. No password is required to access the site, you are not entering a secured area.
If those moved to bar them (say by issuing a cease and desist) it would likely not be valid on it's face, as it could be considered discriminatory. Otherwise, Trump could also issue a general Muslim ban as well. Denying service (even a free service) in a discriminatory manner won't fly and won't hold water.
It's a nice attempt to muddy the waters of the law. Reality sets in pretty quick when you realize the difference between an open website and a secured "employees only" server. Even a non-techie judge could catch that simple concept.
This is one of those cases where Techdirt manages to entirely misrepresent a story in a manner that it would take a whole team of workers month to undo the misinformation provided.
The gallery isn't claiming copyright over public domain works. They are claiming copyright ONLY on the photographs taken of those images. They have only ever allowed a single set of shots to be made of the (public domain) works they curate. Those images, produced well within the last 70 years, are copyright in and of themselves. Not the work pictured, but the picture of the work. The setting, the method by which they were photographed, the lighting... everything required for it to be a unique copyright work of it's own.
Put another way: If other images of these works exist (they probably do, taken over the of the work) then they could be used if they are in the public domain or the copyright holder has granted rights. The images taken recently by the gallery are works in their own rights and copyright.
Nobody is claiming copyright over 300 year old works of art. That would be silly.
Thanks for all the misinformation and fake anger Mike, it made my weekend (and while I post this late friday night, I am sure it won't get added to the discussion until Monday... prior restraint lives at Techdirt!)
"Exactly. Whatever has used the "specific search terms were used, therefore guilty" trope on a couple of occasions, never mind the fact that they were statistically insignificant."
"I estimate that America and most other 'modern' nations are no more than 3-5 years behind this effort."
I think Western nations will go about it in a little big of a different way, but to the same general end result.
I think in the US it will be done much more along the lines of "you can have your encryptions and VPNs, but your connections will have to be entirely logged". It's to me one of the reasons why they are working so hard currently to strangle TOR.
I also think that there will be at some point the completion of the title II move to apply similar laws and structures that exist for other utilities to the internet. Particular in that is the personal liability of the account holder for how the service is used. This is how phone, water, and electrical services work, so the internet could (and possibly should) be the same. There may be some legal arguments against it, but title II status goes a long way down the road already without anyone realizing it.
Essentially, if a service provider masks who the true user is by providing a proxy or portal, then they would have to log by mac address and such, and retain those records for a given period of time.
It would change how free public wifi works. It would certainly change the legal landscape for leaving your wifi open for any schmuck to use.
SO you can keep your encryption, you can keep your VPNs, but understand that you are logged all the way.
Actually, I don't ignore that fact. Rather, I know that Google is very good at manipulating results on specific terms, and it's been shown before that certain terms that were used (as examples, not as the only piracy searches) were "cleaned up" before Google answered the call.
As an example, if you search "rage against the machine free download" guess what you get? TONS OF PIRATE SITES. Google didn't clean that one up for their press release.
"Google's comparisons here are in direct response to that criticism. "
No, their comparisons are made to discredit the other side in no small part by making sure the small narrow selection of searches is "clean". It's very hard to take them seriously when you know that they control the results and can make them anything they want, just in time for their report to look good.
I always love when a judgement is "troubling" to Mike. Mostly it's because of a moral problem, and not one of law.
There are a few simple things at play here. First and foremost, before anything, is the concept that Facebook usernames and passwords were being shared with a third party. It is pretty much a TOS violation for the original user. It's also really bad for site security for Facebook, as there is a site they don't control that would have a fairly high number of their passwords. A hack of this third party site would generate harm to Facebook.
Most importantly, Facebook is not an open store. It's a close community that requires individuals, groups, and companies to sign up for their own accounts and to access the site in that manner. There is no inherent right to access the material of others, unless made public.
Facebook did nothing wrong. In fact, they did everything right and dotted every I (blocking IP Range) and crossing every T (issuing a cease and desist) in the process. Like it or not, they deserve the ruling.
Now, the CFAA law is a bitch, it's big and heavy and very powerful, and in this case is being used to squish an ant sized problem. It's easy to get distracted by all the legal machinery whirring and clicking to get this all done. If you focus on the issue (users giving access to third parties) then you might realize why the ruling went the way it did.
We should celebrate that the courts are getting it right, even with such a huge law to apply.
Yup. Nobody denies it. However, Google's numbers are a little bit self serving, if you ask me.
"Katy Perry" by itself will ALWAYS be way more searched than any variation of downloading, mp3, etc. It's pretty normal. She's a big star and plenty of people search for her, her latest news, outfits, cleavage shots... whatever it is they like. Many of them would start with a simple "Katy Perry" search. So yeah, guess what, the volume of searches is there.
You also notice that Google is using SPECIFIC single terms. So while "Katy Perry Free Download" might be one of the ways to find a torrent or download, it's not the only way.
The scale between one search and another really isn't all that relevant - the numbers, however, tell a big story. If Google does 1 trillion total searches per year, and even if "good" searches are 500 times over "bad" (which is being generous based on Google's own numbers) then you are looking at 2 billion searches for piracy. So yeah, say what you like, serving up 2 billion less queries that lead to pirate sites would make a difference, like it or not.
Actually, I am not "keen on supporting" Geoblocking or anything else. To paraphrase Mike, just because I am pointing it out doesn't mean that I actively support it.
Geo blocking is as much caused by local governments than anything else. As a Canadian, I can tell you that it's insanely painful to not be able to watch US TV channels as an example. That isn't the US networks not wanting to be in Canada, it's local regulation (CRTC) which forces Canadian content, ownership, and such of broadcasting undertakings. Movies end up in the same boat, with different provinces having their own rating boards, and in Quebec, requiring a French language translation before most movies can be released to the cinemas.
It's why it took Netflix a long time to come to Canada, and some of the very big reasons why the content is not the same. Ditto for HBO, where there is "HBO Canada" which doesn't run the same programming as HBO in many cases in order to meet it's CanCon requirements and such.
I guess on the plus side, South Park isn't censored, even over the air.
So if you want to loosen up on Geo blocking, then get your local governments to loosen up on local content and ownership requirements. The movie companies would love nothing more than to be able to do it all themselves from one central location, rather than having to make literally hundreds of separate distribution deals around the world just to release a movie.
"So the fact that Sam Niel doesn't exist, was still enough to get a warrant to search Phillips Thompson's residence?"
Re-read the story, and you will see why. The warrant to search the house has nothing to do with Phillips Thompson specifically. Rather, after making a controlled delivery of a known bad package, they got a warrant for the house. Thompson is the resident and the one who received the package.
The question of "sam niel" doesn't enter into it. It's not a warrant on the person, but on the physical location "and it's occupants"
The rest of the argument is pretty simple, please follow:
Sam Niel does not exist. If he existed, he could have objected and possible could have succeeded on his objection / appeal. Mr Thompson is NOT Sam Niel in any legal sense. It's not even a pen name or similar. You or I would have about the same level of claim on the name Sam Niel as he does. So there is nobody to object to the search.
The knowledge of what was found in that search lead to a controlled delivery. That delivery could have been denied by Mr Thompson ("there is no Sam Niel here") but instead he accepted the package without issue. The warrant is for the residence where that package was delivered AND ACCEPTED by parties unknown (who turned out to be Mr Thompson).
Now, had he been commonly known as Sam Niel, if a bunch of people would make statements that they knew him by that name, if he had ID in that name, bank accounts, had written a published book or magazine article, or done other things that showed that he was in fact Sam Niel, then he might have been able to object. But playing the anonymous card cuts both ways - the disconnect created by being anonymous works both for and against.
The courts got this one EXACTLY right. Anonymous isn't a one way deal. It grants you a certain distance from your words and even some actions, but it also takes away all of your other rights as an individual.
"Most people I know who started using the likes of Spotify and Netflix did so because instantly available streaming was a better experience than P2P downloads, not because P2P suddenly decreased in quality. "
Yup - the P2P experience got worse, and the new services looked better as a result. We agree. Part of the reason P2P has gotten worse of course is because pirate sites come and go, and many of them have more recently resorted to allowing ads with malware and such on their sites. Trying to keep up with the domain name of the week, of which version of a site (like KAT) is actually real and which is a snakepit mirror... yeah, piracy stopped looking so good.
If piracy had remained as good as it was say 5 years ago, then the new services would likely find it much harder to get a foothold. They are doing well in no small part to diminished competition. Oh. and of course, as people more to the legal stuff, the P2P world loses peers, loses seeders, chipping away the critical mass required to make it work well.
"Merely attacking piracy without improving legal services to make them attractive will not work,"
Nobody said that, you are trying to build a strawman here! No one thing makes piracy disappear. Good legal streaming and download services are a big help. But if they were only as good as the pirate sites, and if the pirate sites could operate in the clear without legal risk, then those services would likely find it harder to compete against pirate sites. The COMBINATION of constant legal pressure, the risks of using some pirate sites, and the accessibility of good streaming options is shifting the needle that is for sure.
Of course, you more or less left out the concept that P2P sites are generally blocked in the UK, yet many scramble to get around it. The small shift in P2P traffic could be entirely attributed to there being better blocking during the relatively short survey period. It could also suggest that, once piracy isn't "quick and easy" that people move back to paying services.
it cuts both ways, but only one way bolsters your in house "think tank" (aka, another way for Mike to try to out talk everyone else on the topic).
I gotta laugh. Another court ruling and Techdirt comes out completely missing out on the true legal argument, and instead giving us the old "he court's finding makes some bad assumptions " when they don't agree.
Here is rule #1 of social media: There is no such thing as private. Something shared with 8 people via a third party system (facebook) which allows private messages to be reposted, sharing, or copied isn't at all private. The reality is "limited distribution" or "wide distribution" but not at level of privacy.
Sharing with a group of people means that it's almost a certainty that one or more of them will sharing it with someone else, who will sharing it with someone else, and so on. Information once shared at least a bit is pretty hard to stop (just ask Wikileaks).
The intiial share, even to a small group, was done with malicious intent. The court didn't get bamboozled by a bunch of public / private nonsense and read it pretty much perfectly.
I don't champion scarcity. Sorry, you fail. That's Mike's schtick.
As for PaulT:
"accessing this database with normal user privileges won't let you hack it either"
If you are accessing it yourself with your password given by your employer when you are still working for the company, it's not hacking (illegal access). Once you are fired, or when you are using someone else's password (social hacking or otherwise) then you have crossed the line.
I can't imagine that simple concept is too hard to understand. Try thinking about it for a couple of weeks and check back with us once you earn your gold star in basic English.
"Either way, after this ruling, there's at least a lot more legal uncertainty and liability in sharing passwords. And that's unfortunate."
It's a bad week on Techdirt for over reach and over reading court judgments. The conclusion in this story is Fox News in "quality".
Part of the problem here is that you seem unwilling or unable to accept the concept of intent. The password was given out with the intention of hacking, causing harm, or otherwise illegally accessing the system. The intent is there.
Sharing your gmail password with your brother won't get you sent to jail (unless of course you have magically conspired to hack gmail).
Techdirt use to be pretty good with this stuff, but more and more, it seems you are more worried about riling up the troops and a lot less about drawing sensible conclusions.
For me, it's a very complex problem with few good answers. A big part of the problem here is that it's easy to focus narrowly on the concept of "checking up on the police" or the old "unblinking eye", but it's much harder to deal with when you consider all the people involved and all of the potential privacy issues it raises.
Bodycam footage is intrusive. Police routinely go into private homes and businesses and deal with people at their very worst times. They deal with people who are stressed out, who are freaking out, both victims and criminals alike. They see many people who are not particularly related to their work who may be nearby, and having a full video record available to anyone at any time would most certainly violate the privacy of many.
Keeping it "confidental" is a non-starter. We all know how often confidential information sneaks out, from autopsy photos to arrest records of celebs. Once recorded, it's only a matter of time until the video gets out.
I don't have a problem with cameras in a police car, as an example. What is captured on dashcams is generally public view stuff. There are some circumstances where privacy may be an issue (like driving up a private road, or perhaps having the car point in a manner where the camera can see inside a private residence), but those would seem to be rarer issues.
In the rush to monitor police, it seems that trampling on the privacy rights of citizens is not an issue.
"Actually, anything that enables more creativity and opens up MORE possibilities for artists is useful."
I think part of the problem here is that you are looking at "gains" (derivative artists can do more) without considering the losses on the other side.
It's important because of the knock on effects. When you discourage the current and original artists from creating by taking away possibilities for others. A writer considering a series of books (think Harry Potter, example) would be discouraged by knowing that their follow up books would be competing with a sea of stories written with the same characters and the same circumstances.
You could say it would be great to have hundreds or thousands of Potter books, you might have to consider that the author may have decided to not bother writing the original work to start with.
You could consider that a famous writer like Phillip Dick wrote many of his stories literally to pay next month's rent. The lack of copyright and lack of a structure under which the companies paying for his work could profit would discourage them from paying for his work (or would pay less), and as a result maybe he wouldn't have written them at all.
Volume of stuff is nothing compared to encouraging the original artists who dream up something new, and don't just copy the work of others. Put another way, there is no standing on the shoulders of giants if you discourage the giants.
You sort of have to squint really hard and try not to focus to get the sort of meaning you are trying to extract from the court's ruling.
The concept of "encourages others to build freely on the ideas and information conveyed by a work" doesn't mean take the existing work, add a little too it, and call it your own. It seems pretty plainly to be the much more simple concept of furthering the ideas or concepts raised, rather than the specific content of the work. As an example, Star Trek (the original TV show) has been the inspiration for any number of other "space future" shows and movies. It's spawn a number of movies, books, and so on. Star Trek in turn was build upon the ideas and concepts raised through science fiction books and short stories dating back 100 years or more, most specifically the pulp fiction periods which also brought us the works of authors like Azimov and Dick.
Thinking that the court has suddenly given you an avenue for much wider fair use, or wider use of specific characters, stories, or other content to "roll your own" is really pushing way too hard to find the golden needle in a legal haystack.
On the post: Could Donald Trump Block Hillary Clinton's Campaign From Visiting His Website Via The CFAA?
Short answer NO
First and foremost, the Trump 4 Ruler website is a public site. That is to say, it's open to everyone without restriction. No password is required to access the site, you are not entering a secured area.
If those moved to bar them (say by issuing a cease and desist) it would likely not be valid on it's face, as it could be considered discriminatory. Otherwise, Trump could also issue a general Muslim ban as well. Denying service (even a free service) in a discriminatory manner won't fly and won't hold water.
It's a nice attempt to muddy the waters of the law. Reality sets in pretty quick when you realize the difference between an open website and a secured "employees only" server. Even a non-techie judge could catch that simple concept.
On the post: Why Is The UK's Intellectual Property Office Praising National Portrait Gallery's Copyfraud Claims Over Public Domain Images?
I be laughing at ya...
The gallery isn't claiming copyright over public domain works. They are claiming copyright ONLY on the photographs taken of those images. They have only ever allowed a single set of shots to be made of the (public domain) works they curate. Those images, produced well within the last 70 years, are copyright in and of themselves. Not the work pictured, but the picture of the work. The setting, the method by which they were photographed, the lighting... everything required for it to be a unique copyright work of it's own.
Put another way: If other images of these works exist (they probably do, taken over the of the work) then they could be used if they are in the public domain or the copyright holder has granted rights. The images taken recently by the gallery are works in their own rights and copyright.
Nobody is claiming copyright over 300 year old works of art. That would be silly.
Thanks for all the misinformation and fake anger Mike, it made my weekend (and while I post this late friday night, I am sure it won't get added to the discussion until Monday... prior restraint lives at Techdirt!)
On the post: Google Issues Its Latest 'Stop Blaming Us For Piracy' Report
Re: Re: Re:
LIAR.
On the post: Private Internet Access Leaves Russia, Following Encryption Ban And Seized Servers
Re: Love of Control
I think Western nations will go about it in a little big of a different way, but to the same general end result.
I think in the US it will be done much more along the lines of "you can have your encryptions and VPNs, but your connections will have to be entirely logged". It's to me one of the reasons why they are working so hard currently to strangle TOR.
I also think that there will be at some point the completion of the title II move to apply similar laws and structures that exist for other utilities to the internet. Particular in that is the personal liability of the account holder for how the service is used. This is how phone, water, and electrical services work, so the internet could (and possibly should) be the same. There may be some legal arguments against it, but title II status goes a long way down the road already without anyone realizing it.
Essentially, if a service provider masks who the true user is by providing a proxy or portal, then they would have to log by mac address and such, and retain those records for a given period of time.
It would change how free public wifi works. It would certainly change the legal landscape for leaving your wifi open for any schmuck to use.
SO you can keep your encryption, you can keep your VPNs, but understand that you are logged all the way.
My guess is by 2020.
On the post: Google Issues Its Latest 'Stop Blaming Us For Piracy' Report
Re: Re:
As an example, if you search "rage against the machine free download" guess what you get? TONS OF PIRATE SITES. Google didn't clean that one up for their press release.
"Google's comparisons here are in direct response to that criticism. "
No, their comparisons are made to discredit the other side in no small part by making sure the small narrow selection of searches is "clean". It's very hard to take them seriously when you know that they control the results and can make them anything they want, just in time for their report to look good.
Even Mike knows that.
On the post: Appeals Court: It Violates CFAA For Service To Access Facebook On Behalf Of Users, Because Facebook Sent Cease & Desist
THe court got it right, it's not troubling at all
There are a few simple things at play here. First and foremost, before anything, is the concept that Facebook usernames and passwords were being shared with a third party. It is pretty much a TOS violation for the original user. It's also really bad for site security for Facebook, as there is a site they don't control that would have a fairly high number of their passwords. A hack of this third party site would generate harm to Facebook.
Most importantly, Facebook is not an open store. It's a close community that requires individuals, groups, and companies to sign up for their own accounts and to access the site in that manner. There is no inherent right to access the material of others, unless made public.
Facebook did nothing wrong. In fact, they did everything right and dotted every I (blocking IP Range) and crossing every T (issuing a cease and desist) in the process. Like it or not, they deserve the ruling.
Now, the CFAA law is a bitch, it's big and heavy and very powerful, and in this case is being used to squish an ant sized problem. It's easy to get distracted by all the legal machinery whirring and clicking to get this all done. If you focus on the issue (users giving access to third parties) then you might realize why the ruling went the way it did.
We should celebrate that the courts are getting it right, even with such a huge law to apply.
On the post: Google Issues Its Latest 'Stop Blaming Us For Piracy' Report
Yup. Nobody denies it. However, Google's numbers are a little bit self serving, if you ask me.
"Katy Perry" by itself will ALWAYS be way more searched than any variation of downloading, mp3, etc. It's pretty normal. She's a big star and plenty of people search for her, her latest news, outfits, cleavage shots... whatever it is they like. Many of them would start with a simple "Katy Perry" search. So yeah, guess what, the volume of searches is there.
You also notice that Google is using SPECIFIC single terms. So while "Katy Perry Free Download" might be one of the ways to find a torrent or download, it's not the only way.
The scale between one search and another really isn't all that relevant - the numbers, however, tell a big story. If Google does 1 trillion total searches per year, and even if "good" searches are 500 times over "bad" (which is being generous based on Google's own numbers) then you are looking at 2 billion searches for piracy. So yeah, say what you like, serving up 2 billion less queries that lead to pirate sites would make a difference, like it or not.
On the post: As UK Piracy Falls To Record Lows, Government Still Wants To Put Pirates In Jail For 10 Years
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Geo blocking is as much caused by local governments than anything else. As a Canadian, I can tell you that it's insanely painful to not be able to watch US TV channels as an example. That isn't the US networks not wanting to be in Canada, it's local regulation (CRTC) which forces Canadian content, ownership, and such of broadcasting undertakings. Movies end up in the same boat, with different provinces having their own rating boards, and in Quebec, requiring a French language translation before most movies can be released to the cinemas.
It's why it took Netflix a long time to come to Canada, and some of the very big reasons why the content is not the same. Ditto for HBO, where there is "HBO Canada" which doesn't run the same programming as HBO in many cases in order to meet it's CanCon requirements and such.
I guess on the plus side, South Park isn't censored, even over the air.
So if you want to loosen up on Geo blocking, then get your local governments to loosen up on local content and ownership requirements. The movie companies would love nothing more than to be able to do it all themselves from one central location, rather than having to make literally hundreds of separate distribution deals around the world just to release a movie.
On the post: Judge Upholds UPS Employee/Paid Informant's Search Of An Intercepted Package
Re:
Re-read the story, and you will see why. The warrant to search the house has nothing to do with Phillips Thompson specifically. Rather, after making a controlled delivery of a known bad package, they got a warrant for the house. Thompson is the resident and the one who received the package.
The question of "sam niel" doesn't enter into it. It's not a warrant on the person, but on the physical location "and it's occupants"
The rest of the argument is pretty simple, please follow:
Sam Niel does not exist. If he existed, he could have objected and possible could have succeeded on his objection / appeal. Mr Thompson is NOT Sam Niel in any legal sense. It's not even a pen name or similar. You or I would have about the same level of claim on the name Sam Niel as he does. So there is nobody to object to the search.
The knowledge of what was found in that search lead to a controlled delivery. That delivery could have been denied by Mr Thompson ("there is no Sam Niel here") but instead he accepted the package without issue. The warrant is for the residence where that package was delivered AND ACCEPTED by parties unknown (who turned out to be Mr Thompson).
Now, had he been commonly known as Sam Niel, if a bunch of people would make statements that they knew him by that name, if he had ID in that name, bank accounts, had written a published book or magazine article, or done other things that showed that he was in fact Sam Niel, then he might have been able to object. But playing the anonymous card cuts both ways - the disconnect created by being anonymous works both for and against.
The courts got this one EXACTLY right. Anonymous isn't a one way deal. It grants you a certain distance from your words and even some actions, but it also takes away all of your other rights as an individual.
On the post: As UK Piracy Falls To Record Lows, Government Still Wants To Put Pirates In Jail For 10 Years
Re: Re: Re:
Hi Paul. Still with the personal attacks I see.
"Most people I know who started using the likes of Spotify and Netflix did so because instantly available streaming was a better experience than P2P downloads, not because P2P suddenly decreased in quality. "
Yup - the P2P experience got worse, and the new services looked better as a result. We agree. Part of the reason P2P has gotten worse of course is because pirate sites come and go, and many of them have more recently resorted to allowing ads with malware and such on their sites. Trying to keep up with the domain name of the week, of which version of a site (like KAT) is actually real and which is a snakepit mirror... yeah, piracy stopped looking so good.
If piracy had remained as good as it was say 5 years ago, then the new services would likely find it much harder to get a foothold. They are doing well in no small part to diminished competition. Oh. and of course, as people more to the legal stuff, the P2P world loses peers, loses seeders, chipping away the critical mass required to make it work well.
"Merely attacking piracy without improving legal services to make them attractive will not work,"
Nobody said that, you are trying to build a strawman here! No one thing makes piracy disappear. Good legal streaming and download services are a big help. But if they were only as good as the pirate sites, and if the pirate sites could operate in the clear without legal risk, then those services would likely find it harder to compete against pirate sites. The COMBINATION of constant legal pressure, the risks of using some pirate sites, and the accessibility of good streaming options is shifting the needle that is for sure.
On the post: As UK Piracy Falls To Record Lows, Government Still Wants To Put Pirates In Jail For 10 Years
it cuts both ways, but only one way bolsters your in house "think tank" (aka, another way for Mike to try to out talk everyone else on the topic).
On the post: Back By Popular Demand: Nerd Harder T-Shirts
until next weekend, or perhaps the weekend after - or whenever they need some extra cash for the friday lunch fund.
On the post: State Supreme Court Says 'Smashmouth Journo' Teri Buhl Must Go To Jail For Posting Teen's Journal Pages
Here is rule #1 of social media: There is no such thing as private. Something shared with 8 people via a third party system (facebook) which allows private messages to be reposted, sharing, or copied isn't at all private. The reality is "limited distribution" or "wide distribution" but not at level of privacy.
Sharing with a group of people means that it's almost a certainty that one or more of them will sharing it with someone else, who will sharing it with someone else, and so on. Information once shared at least a bit is pretty hard to stop (just ask Wikileaks).
The intiial share, even to a small group, was done with malicious intent. The court didn't get bamboozled by a bunch of public / private nonsense and read it pretty much perfectly.
On the post: Appeals Court Says That Sharing Passwords Can Violate Criminal Anti-Hacking Laws
Re: Re: Re:
I don't champion scarcity. Sorry, you fail. That's Mike's schtick.
As for PaulT:
"accessing this database with normal user privileges won't let you hack it either"
If you are accessing it yourself with your password given by your employer when you are still working for the company, it's not hacking (illegal access). Once you are fired, or when you are using someone else's password (social hacking or otherwise) then you have crossed the line.
I can't imagine that simple concept is too hard to understand. Try thinking about it for a couple of weeks and check back with us once you earn your gold star in basic English.
On the post: Two Days, Two Shootings, Two Sets Of Cops Making Recordings Disappear
How excellent!
On the post: FBI Vacuums Up Local Law Enforcement Documents To Block Open Records Requests About Orlando Shooting
Techdirt hates it when police do their jobs.
On the post: Appeals Court Says That Sharing Passwords Can Violate Criminal Anti-Hacking Laws
It's a bad week on Techdirt for over reach and over reading court judgments. The conclusion in this story is Fox News in "quality".
Part of the problem here is that you seem unwilling or unable to accept the concept of intent. The password was given out with the intention of hacking, causing harm, or otherwise illegally accessing the system. The intent is there.
Sharing your gmail password with your brother won't get you sent to jail (unless of course you have magically conspired to hack gmail).
Techdirt use to be pretty good with this stuff, but more and more, it seems you are more worried about riling up the troops and a lot less about drawing sensible conclusions.
On the post: Former Police Chief Pushes Through Legislation To Keep Body Cam Footage Out Of The Public's Hands
Bodycam footage is intrusive. Police routinely go into private homes and businesses and deal with people at their very worst times. They deal with people who are stressed out, who are freaking out, both victims and criminals alike. They see many people who are not particularly related to their work who may be nearby, and having a full video record available to anyone at any time would most certainly violate the privacy of many.
Keeping it "confidental" is a non-starter. We all know how often confidential information sneaks out, from autopsy photos to arrest records of celebs. Once recorded, it's only a matter of time until the video gets out.
I don't have a problem with cameras in a police car, as an example. What is captured on dashcams is generally public view stuff. There are some circumstances where privacy may be an issue (like driving up a private road, or perhaps having the car point in a manner where the camera can see inside a private residence), but those would seem to be rarer issues.
In the rush to monitor police, it seems that trampling on the privacy rights of citizens is not an issue.
On the post: Why The Latest Supreme Court Ruling In Kirtsaeng May Have A Much Bigger Impact On Copyright & Fair Use
Re: Re:
I think part of the problem here is that you are looking at "gains" (derivative artists can do more) without considering the losses on the other side.
It's important because of the knock on effects. When you discourage the current and original artists from creating by taking away possibilities for others. A writer considering a series of books (think Harry Potter, example) would be discouraged by knowing that their follow up books would be competing with a sea of stories written with the same characters and the same circumstances.
You could say it would be great to have hundreds or thousands of Potter books, you might have to consider that the author may have decided to not bother writing the original work to start with.
You could consider that a famous writer like Phillip Dick wrote many of his stories literally to pay next month's rent. The lack of copyright and lack of a structure under which the companies paying for his work could profit would discourage them from paying for his work (or would pay less), and as a result maybe he wouldn't have written them at all.
Volume of stuff is nothing compared to encouraging the original artists who dream up something new, and don't just copy the work of others. Put another way, there is no standing on the shoulders of giants if you discourage the giants.
On the post: Why The Latest Supreme Court Ruling In Kirtsaeng May Have A Much Bigger Impact On Copyright & Fair Use
Squint
The concept of "encourages others to build freely on the ideas and information conveyed by a work" doesn't mean take the existing work, add a little too it, and call it your own. It seems pretty plainly to be the much more simple concept of furthering the ideas or concepts raised, rather than the specific content of the work. As an example, Star Trek (the original TV show) has been the inspiration for any number of other "space future" shows and movies. It's spawn a number of movies, books, and so on. Star Trek in turn was build upon the ideas and concepts raised through science fiction books and short stories dating back 100 years or more, most specifically the pulp fiction periods which also brought us the works of authors like Azimov and Dick.
Thinking that the court has suddenly given you an avenue for much wider fair use, or wider use of specific characters, stories, or other content to "roll your own" is really pushing way too hard to find the golden needle in a legal haystack.
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