Congrat, you just proved the point you were trying to disprove
You wrote:
'Secondly, the courts have said infringement is not theft
"deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft. "
- US Supreme Court, MGM v Grokster.'
Looks to me like the Supreme Court is saying that unlawful copying is just as unlawful [a.k.a. that they are both against the law] as theft, not that unlawful copying is theft.
Actually there was a case not too long ago where the music industry tried to prohibit a person from reselling demo CD's on E-Bay (UMG vs. Augusto). The record companies were trying to make the same argument that you are, namely that they could change your rights by affixing a sticker to the CD.
In that case since the sticker said you couldn't resell it, it was illegal for it to be resold. The court didn't buy it.
The only terms that matter when it comes to what you can do with a CD/DVD is copyright law, tempered by the First Amendment. No matter what the producer of a CD would like you to do, it's perfectly legal to do all sorts of things;
for example: shred it, shoot it, create abstract art with it, line your bird cage with it. You know things like the First_Sale_Doctrine.
Even when it comes to copying, you are allowed to space shift (make an mp3 out of it), use it in a parody, transform it, etc. You know that Fair Use thing.
So no, what you wrote is a self serving fiction.
On the back of every CD/DVD are the terms of what the producer wants you to think you can and can not legally do with it. [there, I fixed it for you.]
The way things are, the incentives for Pharma are completely backwards to what 'sane' people would think.
Ex:
From least to most important to a healthcare company
Vaccine: lowest payback
Pro: everyone gets a shot
Con: That's all they need
Cure: second lowest
Pro: when they were sick they needed medicine.
Con: only people sick with this illness need the cure
once they get the cure they aren't customers anymore
Treatment: best
Pro: people who need it will need it forever (lifetime customer), if it's life threatening then we can charge outrageous prices (it's their money or their life)
Con: not everyone might have this illness. So if it's not life threatening, it should be vague so that we can say it works for the largest number of people.
Why should they work to find a cure, or heaven forbid a vaccine, for cancer or diabetes, or any of the other ills of modern society. A treatment is so much more profitable.
Even then, there are only so many people with cancer, etc. Now a 'lifestyle drug', there's something we can get everyone interested in.... just think of the money.
Of course failing that, we can just make up treatable illnesses like 'creepy ants crawling leg syndrome' or a nebulous mental illness that a majority of the population suffers from (and didn't even know about before we told them of our drug to treat it).
If you think I'm making this up then you haven't been paying attention. They've gotten otherwise normal rambunctious children 'diagnosed' as ADD just so they they could push their 'treatment' (a.k.a. drugs) to a whole new class of customer.
Using advanced tech to spy on people without a warrent illegal
Well, back in 2001 the Supreme Court rules 5-4 that using an IR camera to spy into someone's home constituted a search under the fourth amendment and required a search warrant. [ Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001)].
I would be surprised if the same ruling wouldn't be used to rule that back scatter x-ray and / or millimeter radar would be illegal without a search warrant on the same grounds.
This would appear to make surreptitiously scanning your house or vehicle illegal without a warrant. I would imagine it's a little vaguer when it comes to your person. After all there are instances when the police can search your person without a warrant, but I wouldn't think that they would be applicable to some sort of mass secretive scanning.
Now some people seem to be under the impression that since it's O.K. to record people in public via cameras that this would be the same thing. In the above mentioned case the Supreme Court justices took pains to differentiate what a normal unaided person could see verses advanced tech. would let you see. If the cops could see criminal activity with their eyes (ex: through an open window) then they wouldn't have needed a warrant. Since the IR camera allowed them to see through walls (just like the tech Homeland security is trying to expand the use of) it was a search and required a warrant. Therefore, cameras that only record what a normal person could see are O.K. in public, but tech that allows the government to see more than that would be a search triggering fourth amendment protection and require a warrant.
I can only assume that the last question in the article was purely rhetorical.
"Is the industry really so afraid of allowing public debate on this issue that they have to sneak it through backdoor loopholes?"
Otherwise the obvious answer would be Yes.
Anyone who is not directly involved in the industry (on the receiving end of the proposed payola) and who was paying even the most remote attention would see this for what it is;
A shameless attempt to change the law so that other people would be forced to prop up their increasingly obsolete business model.
If people in government would stop thinking according to their bank accounts and actually started doing what's best for their constituents and country then this would be a non-issue.
Unfortunately we seem to have progressed deep into the era of Corporatocracy, government by the corporation for the corporation.
There is no law, unfortunately, that protects your right to keep private what you ingest into your own body. Hell it's even illegal for you to ingest certain 'controlled substances'.
There is a constitutional amendment, as well as an implied right to privacy, that protects your freedom to speak, be heard and associate freely.
Therefore, the government, can't force you to relinquish your rights, and Maryland Correctional is a government agency, except in certain narrowly tailored instances.
It would be the same if they insisted that only practicing Southern Baptists could work for them.
The ACLU is right in this one, and the sooner and firmer that government agencies get the message the better it will be for all of us.
Number 2, 'stop buying the product and services of any companies involved with those lobbyists'
First problem, unless you run off into the mountains (desert) and live an entirely self sufficient existance you can't avoid lobbiests. The only companies that don't utilize lobiests, wish they were big enough to hire a few. If you managed to only buy products from companies that don't have lobiests, they would just pass laws making it illegal _not_ to do business with them. (You think I'm joking, then you haven't been paying attention. Think Apple & appstore or Bose suing resellers.)
Number 3, 'get everyone you know to stop buying the products and services of any companies involved with those lobbyists'
See answer to number 2.
The only way to stop lobbiests are to have our government represent the people and do what's best for the country as a whole. This would be a marked change from the current system of padding their own bank accounts.
Unfortunately there are no such safeguards in the US
It would be nice, and perhaps we should be pestering our congress critters about it, but there is no laws protecting basic consumer rights from being 'contracted out'.
Therefore Americans daily find themselves in the situation of having to contract away their basic consumer protections. Most/all companies do it.
Some of the more common gems include:
Agree to have all disputes tried in the company's home state (Sony's trying to use that one against George Hotz)
Agree to have all disputes settled by binding arbitration with with a firm of the contracting company's choosing. At your own expense.
Agree that in the event that their product goes disastrously wrong, all they are liable for is the purchase price or some token amount (like $5).
Agree that there can be no class actions law suits (recently successfully challenged in the 9th circuit I believe).
Agree that you can't use their product to disparage the company or write 'naughty' things. (Think can't use Microsoft Word to write papers disparaging Microsoft. I think this one was challenged successfully in New York.)
And my all time favorite, which should instantly render any contract immediately null and void. The ever popular:
"We reserve the right to change any of the terms of this agreement, at any time, and for any reason."
If companies want to contract all sorts of things between themselves that's fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to legally do the same to consumers.
Before someone jumps in with the usual;
"If you don't agree with the terms then just don't buy the product/service"
That doesn't work since they are standard terms used by everyone. Take it or leave it doesn't work with, and shouldn't be legal with the public.
It appears that it it you who don't understand what copyright is.
You wrote:
"Under US law, the creator has complete rights to a work as soon as a work is created."
Umm.. I hate to break it to you, but under US law they creator has a limited set of rights to their works. Mostly related to, well making reproductions. If an author sells me a copy of their novel, their rights (excepting some restrictions on additional copies that I can make) are over. I can read it where ever I want, I can tear out the pages and line a bird cage, or resell it making a million dollars profit that the author has NO rights to.
You then continue with this gem:
"This is YOUR inherent right...It’s not granted by government, but it is your right…. recognized and protected by the Constitution, as further specified under the US Copyright Law."
You wouldn't happen to be European now would you? Under the US Constitution there is no moral right in a creative work. Copyright is an infringement to the First Amendment guarantee of the freedom of speech. The actual text from the US Constitution reads:
If you are paying attention, the purpose of copyright is not to recognize some sort of moral right to their works, it's to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. In other words, we infringe upon the public's right of free speech and expression, for a limited time, in the hope that this will encourage more works to be created.
If I create a song and sing it in the local tavern, what exactly can anyone take away? The words themselves fade shortly after I've uttered them. All that remains is the memory and the ideas and feelings that they engendered. If they turn around and repeat what they've heard, they aren't stealing my words, they're voicing their own.
Are you trying to say that artists should have the right to control other people's thoughts and memories? Good luck with that one.
"Unfortunately, until the people of this country voice an outcry reminiscent of the recent Canadian uproar over about the criminalization of our shared culture (perhaps even requiring an Egyptian like uprising) the moneyed interests will continue to exploit our shared culture for their personal monetary gain."
Should have read:
Unfortunately until the people of this country voice an outcry, reminiscent of the recent Canadian uproar over the change to Usage Based Biling, about the criminalization of our shared culture (perhaps even requiring an Egyptian like uprising) the moneyed interests will continue to exploit our shared culture for their personal monetary gain.
It's not about creators, it's about corporations..
The simple answer is that it isn't about creators but about corporations.
There's a reason that the 'Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998' is also referred to as the 'Micky Mouse Copyright Term Extension Act'
The canard about 'helping creators' or 'protecting creators' or 'ensuring that creators get paid for their work' are just that. They are convenient lies that the establishment tells the public to generate sympathy and distract people from their real purpose, squeezing as much money out of other people's work.
Most artists create their work from remixing or being inspired by what has come before them. Jazz being the preeminent example. Artists are hampered and hobbled by overly restrictive copyright laws. While overzealous 'collection agencies' make it harder for artists, especially up and coming ones to be heard.
Just look to the 'creative accounting' employed by the record/movie industries. The same companies that are pushing for more government protection and harsher more draconian copyright laws, are the last ones to actually _pay_ the creators whose work they are exploiting.
Unfortunately, until the people of this country voice an outcry reminiscent of the recent Canadian uproar over about the criminalization of our shared culture (perhaps even requiring an Egyptian like uprising) the moneyed interests will continue to exploit our shared culture for their personal monetary gain.
Sony's trying to scare other people from watching it.
I think perhaps people are missing the point.
I doubt that Sony's lawyers are dumb enough to think they can get much usable information from identifying everyone who watched a particular You Tube video, excepting of course a few more bread crumbs on the way to unmasking Fail0verflow.
The real purpose is to bring the fear of Sony's lawyers in an attempt to keep people from reading/learning about this method. It's what's known as a 'chilling effect'.
If you think Sony is going after everyone who even _looks_ at this information, that may be enough to keep you from doing so.
Personally, I think Sony vastly underestimates the people that are capable of utilizing this information, if they think this will work.
It's just Sony trying their part to emulate Oracle or Apple in control freakery.
Most people are perfectly happy to use their PS3's to play store bought games and watch blue-ray discs. The minority who want to tinker used to do so through the 'Other OS' functionality. All Sony managed to do by overreacting is to break the toys of a small, but very motivated group of people.
The sooner Sony 'gets over it', the sooner the tinkers can get back to tinkering and the game players can get back to playing.
I think there are two similar but distinct cases involved here.
The internet never forgets, or so some say. Things that previously would never have been recorded, now are. Sometimes by friends or ourselves (the ill-conceived Face book picture of you after the party), other times by the near ubiquitous surveillance we live through daily. Or alternatively, if you wanted to know something you had to seek it out, visit the courthouse in person. Things that were inconvenient to access were in practice private information. No one was going to transcribe every single court infraction by hand. If you weren't important then most people wouldn't take the time to look you up. So in practice peoples lives were a lot more private than they are now.
This goes hand in hand with the legal concept of expungement. That if you served your time, or were later found innocent, then your record would be expunged. It would be like it never happened. That's easy to do when the only records concerning an incident reside in musty courthouse documents. Expungement is like annulment for your legal past. A divorce means that your were married but now you're not, an annulment means the marriage never happened. An expungement means that your conviction never happened, otherwise you are just another ex-con.
Since information is soo easy to come by companies make it their business to vacuum up everything on everybody cause it cheap and you never know who you might be able to sell it to someday. Now everything that you do in public, every somewhat public record that some one has on you, every recorded transaction is liable to haunt you for the rest of your life and beyond.
I think that the only way we can deal with this is to:
First, prohibit people from amassing so much information on everyone. What information you do have to compile on someone, has to be limited to what is _actually_needed_ to accomplish the transaction at hand. Your utility company doesn't need your SS#, your religious preference or the number of people living in your home to sell you electricity. If it isn't collected, then it doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, then you don't have to order it erased.
Second, organizations that amass this information about you should have a legal requirement to ensure that it's accurate, to safeguard it from others, and to delete it when requested. If there's only one copy of that information, it's much easier to get rid of it, especially it it isn't needed anymore.
Third, there has to be real penalties for failing points one and two. Monetary penalties that are large enough to be more than the cost of doing business. Shutting down companies and yes jail time for egregious violators.
Finally there has to be a change in the stigma in having done certain things. Some of it will have to be legislated (such as the restrictions against people with criminal records, since eventually we will _all_ have criminal records) and some of it will have to societal. At one time being an unwed mother carried a real and debilitating stigma, now it isn't that bad.
In some ways I appreciate the European mindset. We could do worse than to nip the rampant amassing and trading in our otherwise private information.
So how many of these seizures have resulted in a trial, or even charges? Last I checked, I haven't seen any.
Why have they seized domain names and not gone after the servers or the people behind them?
Why have they waited, sometimes for months, before providing the owners of proper notice? It's not like they didn't know how to contact them.
These extra legal seizures aren't anything like warrants. Warrants are issued to seize a person or evidence of wrongdoing for trial. In the case of a publisher, the government faces a very high standard before they can seize anything. Make copies to preserve evidence yes, seize it, no. These websites are publishers, therefore under current jurisprudence ICE should be facing a higher standard in order to seize anything related to them, not no standard.
Looking at the complete picture we have government agents, acting at the behest of commercial interests interfering with publishers by seizing their domain names. The digital equivalent of jamming their television or radio station signals, or perhaps locking up all of their newspaper vending machines. There is no notification, there is no due process, and apparently no intent to ever litigate. Since those effected can (and do) switch to a different radio frequency or move their papers to a different street corner (move their domains) there is obviously no intention to actually stop them.
The obvious conclusion? Government agents acting extra legally to disrupt a commercial competitor.
You wrote:
"Again, Mike may not like it, but with all the FUD removed, the reality is pretty clear, and a matter for the courts."
If it truly was a matter for the courts, then people wouldn't be so upset about it. If they really wanted to take the owners of these sites to court then they would have served the site owners with charges. If the servers were in the country they would have petitioned the court to preserve any evidence on their servers. This is not a case where the complainant would be irrevocably harmed without shutting them down immediately. Whatever they've been accused of doing, they've been doing for a while. It's not like they are selling counterfeit medicine or faulty equipment that would endanger people's lives if it wasn't impounded before trial.
When it comes down to it, these web sites are publishing information that the copyright owners don't want them to. Whether or not what they are doing is illegal is for a court to decide.
Unfortunately, like the recent Spanish domain that was seized, they are afraid that the courts wouldn't agree that what these sites are doing is in fact against the law. If they were confident, if it's such a obvious case of these websites acting illegally, then they would have taken the site owners to court. The DMCA that they fought so hard to get passed establishes a _legal_ method to deal with web sites that are accused of hosting / distributing copy written material illegally.
It isn't FUD to watch government agents act like paid corporate goons. It's just stating the obvious.
"The points of the letter aren't really relevant. Most of them are habeas corpus type questions that should be asked by defence[sic] lawyers in a court of law..."
Unfortunately, since there don't appear to be any prosecutions based on these seizures, there isn't a trial where a defense attorney _could_ ask these kind of questions. It's part of the whole 'without due process' thing that everyone who isn't a corporate shill is getting so upset about.
Luckily for us the Senator has brought up exactly that point with his question number two:
"2. Of the nearly 100 domain names seized by the Obama Administration over the last 9 months, how many prosecutions were initiated, how many indictments obtained, and how were the operators of these domain names provided due process? "
As for your;
"...from a legal standpoint, people working together in a conspiracy to commit an illegal act are all guilty of the act..."
Unfortunately for you and the RIAA/MPAA etc. the 'acts' that these domains are accused of 'committing' are necessarily illegal. A conspiracy of people to commit a _legal_ act still isn't illegal, even if the people working together know _exactly_ what the other parties are doing.
Oh wait, the Senator has addressed that one as well;
'3.4: What standards does ICE use to ensure that it does not seize the domain names of websites the legal status of which could be subject to legitimate debate in a U.S. court of law; how does ICE ensure that seizures target on the true "bad actors?" '
Looks like a group of corporate interests has enlisted the might of the U.S. government to mete out 'justice'. Where 'justice' means whatever they believe it means (interference with a business model, competitors, people we just don't like today).
Actually I think this is a _new_ round of seizures....
Actually I think this is a _new_ round of seizures. The first round was late last year. I haven't checked if any of the sites were fighting it, though I think when the government actually let the domain owners know (several months later) that at least one of the blogger sites was fighting it.
Most of the sites simply reopened under non-US controlled domains. I you were a foreign company with a .com web address that was seized illegally by the U.S. government, what would you do?
1. Hire expensive lawyers, fly to the United States, get embroiled in a lengthy, potentially very expensive law suit.
2. Shake your head, and reopen your web site on a domain that the US gov. can't seize within hours or perhaps the very next day.
Hmmmmm.....
I don't think that either option requires them to believe that they were guilty of anything or to concede that the seizures were anything like legal.
As it's been mentioned elsewhere and alluded to in previous posting here, this is all just 'smoke & mirrors'.
The machines are the _same_. _Same_ privacy invading tech, _same_ potential health concerns, _same_ waste of tax dollars with this ineffectual system.
The new software purportedly 'displays' the results on a generic outline. It still _records_ and _stores_ (remember when the TSA was/is telling everyone that none of the images are capable of being stored?) the original image in all it's privacy invading glory.
Oh, and just to add insult to injury, the TSA is requiring new scanners to not only have large storage capacity, but high speed network links.
Now, if the scanners just display images draped a generic outline (you can dump most of the image right there) and they _never_ store any images, just what would large hard drives and fast network links be used for? It couldn't possibly be for storing large detailed privacy invading images of people and quickly transferring them to 'somewhere safe' (from subpoena and embarrassing, to the TSA at least, disclosures) now could it?
I mean this is the TSA, they would _never_ lie to the public, right?
On the post: Inauspicious Start For Chris Dodd At MPAA; Starts Off With 'Infringement No Different Than Theft' Claim
Congrat, you just proved the point you were trying to disprove
'Secondly, the courts have said infringement is not theft
"deliberate unlawful copying is no less an unlawful taking of property than garden-variety theft. "
- US Supreme Court, MGM v Grokster.'
Looks to me like the Supreme Court is saying that unlawful copying is just as unlawful [a.k.a. that they are both against the law] as theft, not that unlawful copying is theft.
Thanks for playing....
On the post: Inauspicious Start For Chris Dodd At MPAA; Starts Off With 'Infringement No Different Than Theft' Claim
There aren't EULA's for CD/DVD's .... yet.
In that case since the sticker said you couldn't resell it, it was illegal for it to be resold. The court didn't buy it.
The only terms that matter when it comes to what you can do with a CD/DVD is copyright law, tempered by the First Amendment. No matter what the producer of a CD would like you to do, it's perfectly legal to do all sorts of things;
for example: shred it, shoot it, create abstract art with it, line your bird cage with it. You know things like the First_Sale_Doctrine.
Even when it comes to copying, you are allowed to space shift (make an mp3 out of it), use it in a parody, transform it, etc. You know that Fair Use thing.
So no, what you wrote is a self serving fiction.
On the back of every CD/DVD are the terms of what the producer wants you to think you can and can not legally do with it. [there, I fixed it for you.]
On the post: Another Attempt To Make TSA Searches Open To Sex Offender Charges
Wouldn't apply outside of NH
This law, if enacted, would only make it a crime if the action was committed _inside_ of New Hampshire's borders.
I don't think anyone is trying to make it against NH state law to do something _outside_ of NH.
On the post: Drug Firms Freaking Out Over Expiring Patents
Pharma incentives are completely backwards.
Ex:
From least to most important to a healthcare company
Vaccine: lowest payback
Pro: everyone gets a shot
Con: That's all they need
Cure: second lowest
Pro: when they were sick they needed medicine.
Con: only people sick with this illness need the cure
once they get the cure they aren't customers anymore
Treatment: best
Pro: people who need it will need it forever (lifetime customer), if it's life threatening then we can charge outrageous prices (it's their money or their life)
Con: not everyone might have this illness. So if it's not life threatening, it should be vague so that we can say it works for the largest number of people.
Why should they work to find a cure, or heaven forbid a vaccine, for cancer or diabetes, or any of the other ills of modern society. A treatment is so much more profitable.
Even then, there are only so many people with cancer, etc. Now a 'lifestyle drug', there's something we can get everyone interested in.... just think of the money.
Of course failing that, we can just make up treatable illnesses like 'creepy ants crawling leg syndrome' or a nebulous mental illness that a majority of the population suffers from (and didn't even know about before we told them of our drug to treat it).
If you think I'm making this up then you haven't been paying attention. They've gotten otherwise normal rambunctious children 'diagnosed' as ADD just so they they could push their 'treatment' (a.k.a. drugs) to a whole new class of customer.
On the post: Homeland Security Was Interested In Doing 'Covert' Pedestrian 'Scans' From 30 Feet Away
Using advanced tech to spy on people without a warrent illegal
I would be surprised if the same ruling wouldn't be used to rule that back scatter x-ray and / or millimeter radar would be illegal without a search warrant on the same grounds.
This would appear to make surreptitiously scanning your house or vehicle illegal without a warrant. I would imagine it's a little vaguer when it comes to your person. After all there are instances when the police can search your person without a warrant, but I wouldn't think that they would be applicable to some sort of mass secretive scanning.
Now some people seem to be under the impression that since it's O.K. to record people in public via cameras that this would be the same thing. In the above mentioned case the Supreme Court justices took pains to differentiate what a normal unaided person could see verses advanced tech. would let you see. If the cops could see criminal activity with their eyes (ex: through an open window) then they wouldn't have needed a warrant. Since the IR camera allowed them to see through walls (just like the tech Homeland security is trying to expand the use of) it was a search and required a warrant. Therefore, cameras that only record what a normal person could see are O.K. in public, but tech that allows the government to see more than that would be a search triggering fourth amendment protection and require a warrant.
Just my $0.02.
On the post: Irish Gov't Trying To Sneak Through Massive Copyright Law Changes Via Questionable Legal Process
I'm assuming that last question was rhetorical?
"Is the industry really so afraid of allowing public debate on this issue that they have to sneak it through backdoor loopholes?"
Otherwise the obvious answer would be Yes.
Anyone who is not directly involved in the industry (on the receiving end of the proposed payola) and who was paying even the most remote attention would see this for what it is;
A shameless attempt to change the law so that other people would be forced to prop up their increasingly obsolete business model.
If people in government would stop thinking according to their bank accounts and actually started doing what's best for their constituents and country then this would be a non-issue.
Unfortunately we seem to have progressed deep into the era of Corporatocracy, government by the corporation for the corporation.
On the post: Maryland Corrections Agency Demanding All Social Media Passwords Of Potential Hires
Re: Re: Re: Drug Test?
There is a constitutional amendment, as well as an implied right to privacy, that protects your freedom to speak, be heard and associate freely.
Therefore, the government, can't force you to relinquish your rights, and Maryland Correctional is a government agency, except in certain narrowly tailored instances.
It would be the same if they insisted that only practicing Southern Baptists could work for them.
The ACLU is right in this one, and the sooner and firmer that government agencies get the message the better it will be for all of us.
On the post: Dead Baltimore Cop Signed and 'Certified' Red Light Camera Tickets
How many less obvious tickets have gone through?
The only reason people noticed was because dead people don't certify tickets, or vote (obligatory Chicago reference not withstanding).
Personally, I think a complete audit of all the tickets needs to be done.
On the post: Recording Industry Keeps Quiet About Canadian IsoHunt Lawsuit; Didn't Want To Admit Canada Has Strong Copyright
Nice idea, but it'll never work.
Number 1, 'become informed':
Always a good idea.
Number 2, 'stop buying the product and services of any companies involved with those lobbyists'
First problem, unless you run off into the mountains (desert) and live an entirely self sufficient existance you can't avoid lobbiests. The only companies that don't utilize lobiests, wish they were big enough to hire a few. If you managed to only buy products from companies that don't have lobiests, they would just pass laws making it illegal _not_ to do business with them. (You think I'm joking, then you haven't been paying attention. Think Apple & appstore or Bose suing resellers.)
Number 3, 'get everyone you know to stop buying the products and services of any companies involved with those lobbyists'
See answer to number 2.
The only way to stop lobbiests are to have our government represent the people and do what's best for the country as a whole. This would be a marked change from the current system of padding their own bank accounts.
On the post: Can A Contract Remove Fair Use Rights?
Unfortunately there are no such safeguards in the US
Therefore Americans daily find themselves in the situation of having to contract away their basic consumer protections. Most/all companies do it.
Some of the more common gems include:
Agree to have all disputes tried in the company's home state (Sony's trying to use that one against George Hotz)
Agree to have all disputes settled by binding arbitration with with a firm of the contracting company's choosing. At your own expense.
Agree that in the event that their product goes disastrously wrong, all they are liable for is the purchase price or some token amount (like $5).
Agree that there can be no class actions law suits (recently successfully challenged in the 9th circuit I believe).
Agree that you can't use their product to disparage the company or write 'naughty' things. (Think can't use Microsoft Word to write papers disparaging Microsoft. I think this one was challenged successfully in New York.)
And my all time favorite, which should instantly render any contract immediately null and void. The ever popular:
"We reserve the right to change any of the terms of this agreement, at any time, and for any reason."
If companies want to contract all sorts of things between themselves that's fine, but they shouldn't be allowed to legally do the same to consumers.
Before someone jumps in with the usual;
"If you don't agree with the terms then just don't buy the product/service"
That doesn't work since they are standard terms used by everyone. Take it or leave it doesn't work with, and shouldn't be legal with the public.
On the post: If Artists Don't Value Copyright On Their Works, Why Do We Force It On Them?
Re: Copyrights
You wrote:
"Under US law, the creator has complete rights to a work as soon as a work is created."
Umm.. I hate to break it to you, but under US law they creator has a limited set of rights to their works. Mostly related to, well making reproductions. If an author sells me a copy of their novel, their rights (excepting some restrictions on additional copies that I can make) are over. I can read it where ever I want, I can tear out the pages and line a bird cage, or resell it making a million dollars profit that the author has NO rights to.
You then continue with this gem:
"This is YOUR inherent right...It’s not granted by government, but it is your right…. recognized and protected by the Constitution, as further specified under the US Copyright Law."
You wouldn't happen to be European now would you? Under the US Constitution there is no moral right in a creative work. Copyright is an infringement to the First Amendment guarantee of the freedom of speech. The actual text from the US Constitution reads:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Copyright_Clause )
If you are paying attention, the purpose of copyright is not to recognize some sort of moral right to their works, it's to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts. In other words, we infringe upon the public's right of free speech and expression, for a limited time, in the hope that this will encourage more works to be created.
If I create a song and sing it in the local tavern, what exactly can anyone take away? The words themselves fade shortly after I've uttered them. All that remains is the memory and the ideas and feelings that they engendered. If they turn around and repeat what they've heard, they aren't stealing my words, they're voicing their own.
Are you trying to say that artists should have the right to control other people's thoughts and memories? Good luck with that one.
On the post: If Artists Don't Value Copyright On Their Works, Why Do We Force It On Them?
Ugg. correction to last paragraph
"Unfortunately, until the people of this country voice an outcry reminiscent of the recent Canadian uproar over about the criminalization of our shared culture (perhaps even requiring an Egyptian like uprising) the moneyed interests will continue to exploit our shared culture for their personal monetary gain."
Should have read:
Unfortunately until the people of this country voice an outcry, reminiscent of the recent Canadian uproar over the change to Usage Based Biling, about the criminalization of our shared culture (perhaps even requiring an Egyptian like uprising) the moneyed interests will continue to exploit our shared culture for their personal monetary gain.
On the post: If Artists Don't Value Copyright On Their Works, Why Do We Force It On Them?
It's not about creators, it's about corporations..
There's a reason that the 'Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998' is also referred to as the 'Micky Mouse Copyright Term Extension Act'
The canard about 'helping creators' or 'protecting creators' or 'ensuring that creators get paid for their work' are just that. They are convenient lies that the establishment tells the public to generate sympathy and distract people from their real purpose, squeezing as much money out of other people's work.
Most artists create their work from remixing or being inspired by what has come before them. Jazz being the preeminent example. Artists are hampered and hobbled by overly restrictive copyright laws. While overzealous 'collection agencies' make it harder for artists, especially up and coming ones to be heard.
Just look to the 'creative accounting' employed by the record/movie industries. The same companies that are pushing for more government protection and harsher more draconian copyright laws, are the last ones to actually _pay_ the creators whose work they are exploiting.
Unfortunately, until the people of this country voice an outcry reminiscent of the recent Canadian uproar over about the criminalization of our shared culture (perhaps even requiring an Egyptian like uprising) the moneyed interests will continue to exploit our shared culture for their personal monetary gain.
On the post: Sony Demanding Identity Of Anyone Who Saw PS3 Jailbreak Video On YouTube
Sony's trying to scare other people from watching it.
I doubt that Sony's lawyers are dumb enough to think they can get much usable information from identifying everyone who watched a particular You Tube video, excepting of course a few more bread crumbs on the way to unmasking Fail0verflow.
The real purpose is to bring the fear of Sony's lawyers in an attempt to keep people from reading/learning about this method. It's what's known as a 'chilling effect'.
If you think Sony is going after everyone who even _looks_ at this information, that may be enough to keep you from doing so.
Personally, I think Sony vastly underestimates the people that are capable of utilizing this information, if they think this will work.
It's just Sony trying their part to emulate Oracle or Apple in control freakery.
Most people are perfectly happy to use their PS3's to play store bought games and watch blue-ray discs. The minority who want to tinker used to do so through the 'Other OS' functionality. All Sony managed to do by overreacting is to break the toys of a small, but very motivated group of people.
The sooner Sony 'gets over it', the sooner the tinkers can get back to tinkering and the game players can get back to playing.
On the post: Europeans Continue To Push For 'Right To Be Forgotten'; Claim Americans 'Fetishize' Free Speech
It's more a case of Stigma and Expungement
The internet never forgets, or so some say. Things that previously would never have been recorded, now are. Sometimes by friends or ourselves (the ill-conceived Face book picture of you after the party), other times by the near ubiquitous surveillance we live through daily. Or alternatively, if you wanted to know something you had to seek it out, visit the courthouse in person. Things that were inconvenient to access were in practice private information. No one was going to transcribe every single court infraction by hand. If you weren't important then most people wouldn't take the time to look you up. So in practice peoples lives were a lot more private than they are now.
This goes hand in hand with the legal concept of expungement. That if you served your time, or were later found innocent, then your record would be expunged. It would be like it never happened. That's easy to do when the only records concerning an incident reside in musty courthouse documents. Expungement is like annulment for your legal past. A divorce means that your were married but now you're not, an annulment means the marriage never happened. An expungement means that your conviction never happened, otherwise you are just another ex-con.
Since information is soo easy to come by companies make it their business to vacuum up everything on everybody cause it cheap and you never know who you might be able to sell it to someday. Now everything that you do in public, every somewhat public record that some one has on you, every recorded transaction is liable to haunt you for the rest of your life and beyond.
I think that the only way we can deal with this is to:
First, prohibit people from amassing so much information on everyone. What information you do have to compile on someone, has to be limited to what is _actually_needed_ to accomplish the transaction at hand. Your utility company doesn't need your SS#, your religious preference or the number of people living in your home to sell you electricity. If it isn't collected, then it doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, then you don't have to order it erased.
Second, organizations that amass this information about you should have a legal requirement to ensure that it's accurate, to safeguard it from others, and to delete it when requested. If there's only one copy of that information, it's much easier to get rid of it, especially it it isn't needed anymore.
Third, there has to be real penalties for failing points one and two. Monetary penalties that are large enough to be more than the cost of doing business. Shutting down companies and yes jail time for egregious violators.
Finally there has to be a change in the stigma in having done certain things. Some of it will have to be legislated (such as the restrictions against people with criminal records, since eventually we will _all_ have criminal records) and some of it will have to societal. At one time being an unwed mother carried a real and debilitating stigma, now it isn't that bad.
In some ways I appreciate the European mindset. We could do worse than to nip the rampant amassing and trading in our otherwise private information.
On the post: Senator Wyden Asks WTF Is Up With Homeland Security Domain Seizures
Re: If they ever _get_ to court. (Correction)
Why have they seized domain names and not gone after the servers or the people behind them?
Why have they waited, sometimes for months, before providing the owners of proper notice? It's not like they didn't know how to contact them.
These extra legal seizures aren't anything like warrants. Warrants are issued to seize a person or evidence of wrongdoing for trial. In the case of a publisher, the government faces a very high standard before they can seize anything. Make copies to preserve evidence yes, seize it, no. These websites are publishers, therefore under current jurisprudence ICE should be facing a higher standard in order to seize anything related to them, not no standard.
Looking at the complete picture we have government agents, acting at the behest of commercial interests interfering with publishers by seizing their domain names. The digital equivalent of jamming their television or radio station signals, or perhaps locking up all of their newspaper vending machines. There is no notification, there is no due process, and apparently no intent to ever litigate. Since those effected can (and do) switch to a different radio frequency or move their papers to a different street corner (move their domains) there is obviously no intention to actually stop them.
The obvious conclusion? Government agents acting extra legally to disrupt a commercial competitor.
You wrote:
"Again, Mike may not like it, but with all the FUD removed, the reality is pretty clear, and a matter for the courts."
If it truly was a matter for the courts, then people wouldn't be so upset about it. If they really wanted to take the owners of these sites to court then they would have served the site owners with charges. If the servers were in the country they would have petitioned the court to preserve any evidence on their servers. This is not a case where the complainant would be irrevocably harmed without shutting them down immediately. Whatever they've been accused of doing, they've been doing for a while. It's not like they are selling counterfeit medicine or faulty equipment that would endanger people's lives if it wasn't impounded before trial.
When it comes down to it, these web sites are publishing information that the copyright owners don't want them to. Whether or not what they are doing is illegal is for a court to decide.
Unfortunately, like the recent Spanish domain that was seized, they are afraid that the courts wouldn't agree that what these sites are doing is in fact against the law. If they were confident, if it's such a obvious case of these websites acting illegally, then they would have taken the site owners to court. The DMCA that they fought so hard to get passed establishes a _legal_ method to deal with web sites that are accused of hosting / distributing copy written material illegally.
It isn't FUD to watch government agents act like paid corporate goons. It's just stating the obvious.
On the post: Senator Wyden Asks WTF Is Up With Homeland Security Domain Seizures
Re: If they ever _get_ to court. (Correction)
"Unfortunately for you and the RIAA/MPAA etc. the 'acts' that these domains are accused of 'committing' are necessarily illegal."
I meant to write:
"Unfortunately for you and the RIAA/MPAA etc. the 'acts' that these domains are accused of 'committing' aren't necessarily illegal."
On the post: Senator Wyden Asks WTF Is Up With Homeland Security Domain Seizures
If they ever _get_ to court.
"The points of the letter aren't really relevant. Most of them are habeas corpus type questions that should be asked by defence[sic] lawyers in a court of law..."
Unfortunately, since there don't appear to be any prosecutions based on these seizures, there isn't a trial where a defense attorney _could_ ask these kind of questions. It's part of the whole 'without due process' thing that everyone who isn't a corporate shill is getting so upset about.
Luckily for us the Senator has brought up exactly that point with his question number two:
"2. Of the nearly 100 domain names seized by the Obama Administration over the last 9 months, how many prosecutions were initiated, how many indictments obtained, and how were the operators of these domain names provided due process? "
As for your;
"...from a legal standpoint, people working together in a conspiracy to commit an illegal act are all guilty of the act..."
Unfortunately for you and the RIAA/MPAA etc. the 'acts' that these domains are accused of 'committing' are necessarily illegal. A conspiracy of people to commit a _legal_ act still isn't illegal, even if the people working together know _exactly_ what the other parties are doing.
Oh wait, the Senator has addressed that one as well;
'3.4: What standards does ICE use to ensure that it does not seize the domain names of websites the legal status of which could be subject to legitimate debate in a U.S. court of law; how does ICE ensure that seizures target on the true "bad actors?" '
Looks like a group of corporate interests has enlisted the might of the U.S. government to mete out 'justice'. Where 'justice' means whatever they believe it means (interference with a business model, competitors, people we just don't like today).
On the post: Will Homeland Security Domain Seizures Lead To Exodus From US Controlled Domains?
Actually I think this is a _new_ round of seizures....
Most of the sites simply reopened under non-US controlled domains. I you were a foreign company with a .com web address that was seized illegally by the U.S. government, what would you do?
1. Hire expensive lawyers, fly to the United States, get embroiled in a lengthy, potentially very expensive law suit.
2. Shake your head, and reopen your web site on a domain that the US gov. can't seize within hours or perhaps the very next day.
Hmmmmm.....
I don't think that either option requires them to believe that they were guilty of anything or to concede that the seizures were anything like legal.
On the post: TSA Starts Testing New Scanners That Don't Show Your Naked Body
Just more TSA lies and misdirection
The machines are the _same_. _Same_ privacy invading tech, _same_ potential health concerns, _same_ waste of tax dollars with this ineffectual system.
The new software purportedly 'displays' the results on a generic outline. It still _records_ and _stores_ (remember when the TSA was/is telling everyone that none of the images are capable of being stored?) the original image in all it's privacy invading glory.
Oh, and just to add insult to injury, the TSA is requiring new scanners to not only have large storage capacity, but high speed network links.
Now, if the scanners just display images draped a generic outline (you can dump most of the image right there) and they _never_ store any images, just what would large hard drives and fast network links be used for? It couldn't possibly be for storing large detailed privacy invading images of people and quickly transferring them to 'somewhere safe' (from subpoena and embarrassing, to the TSA at least, disclosures) now could it?
I mean this is the TSA, they would _never_ lie to the public, right?
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