With bob leading the way when bob-law gets to replace due process and all that messy kind of stuff. One day techdirt is here, the next day it's bobdirt cheering on the virtues of eternal copyright and patents and the RIAA and MPAA logos plastered all over the background of the site!
I'm going to assume, for the moment that your talking about licensing these sites as vendors when you talk about a license without one. What we're talking about here are sites that, by an large, point to torrent seeds or sites that host their own infringing material. At ;east those suppositions fit in with your view of the world if not mine.
In the case of Dajaz1 in spite of waiting for a year no RIAA member company could come forth any such thing which means a year of playing around with due process and never allowing Dajaz1 the chance to defend itself in the closed court proceedings no infringing material appeared on the evidence.
What and how many legal hoops should the US government have to go through before bringing a case to trial? I'll start at the evidence. That they actually have enough evidence to convince a jury to convict the site owner(s) beyond a reasonable doubt if the intent is to bring them to a criminal trial such as they likely will do with Megaupload. Or at least enough to convince a judge and/or judge and jury on balance of probability that the site exists solely for the sake of trafficking in infringing material or piracy.
They should hold open hearings where the defendant is present or represented by a lawyer or two instead of behind closed doors hearings where the defendant is denied the right to hear the charged against them which is applicable to both civil and criminal cases. Not once but on a number of occasions which now has all the appearance of someone with no case because there was no evidence. Just because law enforcement says there is and says so-and-so is doing something nefarious doesn't always mean that they are.
If the web site's servers and domain registration have taken place outside the United States I'd say the US has no business seizing the domain name or the data on the servers without first jumping through the hoops in the country which has jurisdiction. That kind of thing leads to violation of the sovereignty of the country it takes place in. Most countries, including the United States, take that sort of thing very, very seriously. And we'd do well to remember that until there is a ruling from a court charges of trafficking in infringing material aren't proven.
In short, the United States would be expected to follow the normal rules of law, jurisprudence and evidence and all the rest of that untidy stuff that would lead to an accurate and fair result. It's all time consuming, involved things the those bringing the allegations would rather not do unless their case is airtight and a long list of uncomfortable things for both sides.
The problem is that following the law and jurisprudence in the open and in open court works most of the time. Kangaroo courts which settle such things on rumour and innuendo don't work.
If there's one legit file? Of course there will be so the question alone is a distraction rather than informing. Particularly in the case of file lockers and other versions of cloud computing and storage.
The argument has never been about no consequences for infringement its been about the RIAA/MPAA dragging themselves into the 21st Century and providing content in ways that consumers will pay for, with rules consumers can buy into such as book loaning and so on that exist now but copyright holders want to eliminate before they make the jump to digital. (Human habits of thousands of years don't change overnight if they change at all.)
How it should be done is to follow the rules of the laws laid out, the processes and procedures of the courts without gaming them by entering voire dire (closed door) hearings every time out and follow the laws as they is written and most importantly the court processes as they have evolved over time.
Whether it's The Poacher's Cove or the Government of the United States we are states of Law which apply to everyone from the top to the bottom. Laws govern us not the wishes of the entertainment business. They govern what the President of the United States can and cannot do just as they do the homeless guy sleeping on the bench in the park across from the White House.
At least they're supposed to. If they don't and favour a select few then that's called tyranny. I don't think even you want that end of the deal, bob.
For fake propaganda images, they've been quite enduring, particularly Caligula's image.
Nero, as has been noted was, by and large, indifferent to the people of Rome particularly after the fire. Which, I agree, he did not start. He'd have been happier in many ways as a performer rather than the emperor of Rome.
I won't disagree, either, that both ran into trouble with the Roman Senate and the ruling elite of Rome. Still that "Little Boots" reputation as a nasty bit of goods, unpredictable and more than a little off his nut doesn't seem to have much to counter it. I'll go see what I can find.
Nero was self-possessed at worst though a lot of his later reputation including the notion that he started the fire appears to be a later charge.
For now, both serve as examples of what I was talking about though there are many more historical figures to draw from.
At the moment I can't imagine transferring my mind, memories, thought processes and so in into a robot body as death nears. To be honest I'd rather do it right now as I continue on with life dealing with the fun and joy of a broken back.
Perhaps the only drawback to that would be having to return to work after getting comfortably settled into an early retirement due to the injury. Just why do things have to be so darned complicated?!?! :-)
The response to anything, anything at all, which the RIAA/MPAA don't like has been to attempt to criminalize it. It's one of the sadder realities that the "entertainment" industry feels that need but to lump on top of that misleading, shall we say outright lies?, figures concerning employment, monetary importance and just about anything else that they might find that may help them justify this including bleats like "what about the starving artists?" from their PR hacks while their accountants do their level best not to pay what is due to these self same artists as they create fictional entries into accounting sheets and bill them to the artist.
One has to admire the creativity that goes into this and I wait anxiously for them to get a patent on this business method so that we can all have a look into the mysteries of this after a cadre of lawyers has had at it.
Fan adaptations of popular and cult characters has been with us since I can remember, not wanting to sound too old but feeling it at times, while it's also served as a springboard for some companies to relaunch the character in an updated form or to lavishly borrow from fan fiction to get the script of a TV show or movie. Without this Star Trek would have vanished decades ago, Doctor Who wouldn't be back on the Beeb in what passes for a regular basis in England, Vampirella would be lost to the next generation of 16 and 17 year old boys who would notice anything but what has often been very good story writing, James McQuade would have had to renege on two or three promises to kill off his Misty series before this current hiatus, The Spirit would have been lost forever.
The obvious answer from the "entertainment" industry is, of course, criminalize it. The fact that to most of us who have functioning brain synapses uses such as those are the very definition of fair use/fair dealing but people shouldn't be allowed to do this even if it does, in the end, add tremendous value to a "property" that had been collecting dust and worthless prior to the fan art and stories. Once upon a time I'd have had to work very hard to come up with any kind of reason why anyone would want to do that. I don't need a reason anymore as it's just the thoughtless knee-jerk response of the RI/MP AA and their ilk as they don't seem to need a reason either.
That the "entertainment" industry is several hundred years behind the times around what the Internet is and how it does it all shouldn't surprise me. As vast consumers of technology including the Web and 'Net I can be excused for thinking they'd have a clue. That those they employ, the politicians of the western world from the President of the United States down to the mayor or Reeve of some tiny village with a weird name in England or Wales or, even, Canada are clueless as well is no big surprise. They, at least, are paid for being clueless as are a few of our more loved trollers here at Techdirt. (Some of our trollers are clueless about everything including the meaning of life, the universe and everything is just plain sad when it isn't disturbing.)
Thanks, Silverscarcat, for reminding me of the week and what it brought us. In so many ways large sectors of humanity have ceased t be creative. So much so that the arguments scripted for Mr Rogers all those years ago to tell us all about the evils of home video recording in any format was wicked and dangerous are word for word what they're claiming now.
Pyscopaths and sociopaths have used available media since time immemorial to make themselves known.
Jack The Ripper, The Hillside Strangler, Clifford Olson and many others have used whatever methods have been available to make themselves known and, often, to taunt police and the public.
Blaming the medium used doesn't change it. If WoW and Facebook weren't there Magnotta would have used another means. And he did by mailing bits of his victims to one federal political party and had plans for others. The medium isn't the issue it's the need to taunt authority and to become known so that they can instill fear. Heck, Caligula and Nero didn't need any of that, they got to run a whole empire and toy with it.
You can Google, Yahoo or Bing ANY software and find links to unauthorized (pirated) versions.
At some point you're going to have to name one or two of these firms so we have some idea who you're talking about and who the market is for these "music software" outfits are.
If there is so much piracy there would seem to be a disconnect somewhere between the makers of the product and its customers.
If, however, these companies decide to go after infringing sites and those downloading there is inevitably an increase in the cost of production, as lawyers and lawsuits don't come cheap and those costs have to be passed on to the paying customer somehow. From what little you've told us we have no idea if one or more of them can partly fund that through mass sales. I doubt is as that software sector would seem specialized to me. I could be wrong, of course, as I'm trying to figure out a thin ghost here.
Please, oh, please, bob, explain how Kickstarter which exists to fund projects is, in any way, a paywall. Now I realize that, despite your "learned" lectures on copyright you may not realize that this goes on all the time just not as publicly as it does at Kickstarter. All those other ways provide special gifts to the largest contributors to any given project. So Kickstarter is no different as a fundraiser.
None of that makes it a paywall.
As for it being anti-consumer because you and I are being asked to help fund a project and them wait until it's done to see if we (or someone else) likes it that's what happens all the time now.
As for your endlessly repeated three points on how the current copyright regime works all three of them are bullshit, pure and simple.
We've been paying this "tax" to CAPAC, the Canadian royalty collection group, since the days of floppy disks, at least the last round of them that held a fair amount of data. The regulations of the Act that empowered all of this silliness is regularly updated as new tech comes on the market to cover them as well. After all, think of the musician, think of their children, think of Nickleback not being able to make all the money they do. Enough to afford homes in the most expensive postal code in Canada, West Vancouver. (Which is on the North Shore not west of the city of Vancouver at all just to confuse those who have never lived there.
What would we ever do if we couldn't do this?
And yes, I suspect everyone has pirated whether they were aware of that little detail or not. So in some way we are all pirates. Just not in the ways the recording and movie industries would have us believe we all are.
At least part of this failure were the removal of regulations which had worked perfectly well since the 1930s which had restricted investment banks from literally gambling on closed investments that, in the end, turned out to be worthless helped along by their good friends at the bond rating agencies.
The banks in the United States and elsewhere, see the UK, somehow became economic drivers as if they produced any "real" product of value. Which is odd as they are supposed to be loaning and "investing" money belonging to their depositors.
Now, I can understand the US and world economies going south if, say, Microsoft announced it was closing shop tomorrow due to bankruptcy or too many debts but that should NEVER happen in the banking sector which is, ideally, servicing the other sectors of the economy. Banking is a service industry not a production industry.
What happened is the failure of turning banking into a rebirth of mercantilism, which may be a form of facism, where the failure of the merchants can bankrupt and entire national or global economy.
And while all this was happening we were told that the market was self correcting, totally transparent and would police itself. Ideally it should do all that but in this case the banks and rating agencies decided they could do what they wanted with investments in things that no one knew what was in them.
How much did this cost real people? In far too many cases it cost them everything.
That's about the size of it. The negotiators owe their jobs to the very governments they now won't talk to.
In the parliamentary system, at some stage like right about now, that if the government won't order McCormick to stop his evasions and non answers that a motion of non-confidence should be introduced and the sitting government defeated.
THAT might open a few eyes even if it does result in an election based on TPP in Australia which I'm sure those pulling the strings behind the scene really want right now. /s
But. still, outside of trolls and paid "agents" (and I hope they don't pay bob much..what the hell..blow the bank on him!) there' no reason that a discussion can't take place on almost all that list once people get by their biases.
In fact we've seen it in this forum where, outside of the trollish types and self appointed MPAA/RIAA defenders people have changed their views. We're not in a pub where largish amounts of beer cement arguments in place, often just for the fun of it.
Where we aren't exposed to constant propaganda about the "enemy" types whoever they may be we have this wonderful tendency to get along. It also means the "enemy", whoever they are, are easier to spot.
Hey, it's a very long question and a very long answer!
And we all know that Cory Doctorow is the devil incarnate. After all he's been part of that silly free software movement forever, defended Linux against SCO and probably uses that pirating "open" source software that's nothing more than ripping off MS and Apple!
While I don't completely disagree with some of what Keen says and some of the possible consequences I have to say I'm not all that concerned about it.
We do grow up with our identity being a mixed construct of private and public portions which are inevitably shaped by others beginning with our parents. Some of this is that "horrible" thing, it seems, the process of socialization. With some luck, as we grow we are less shaped by the thoughts and opinions of others than we are by the talents, interests and passions we develop as we grow into adulthood. We can, and. most of us do, socialize with others who share those talents, interests and passions. It doesn't take Facebook to figure that out.
We've had data relentlessly collected on us since the appearance of loyalty cards such as Air Miles and others which record our every purchase, when and where we make them and how often. Facebook is just a larger, if less accurate dataset. The vastness of the Facebook dataset is valuable to marketers in that it may create less errors and make some things more predictable of us as Facebook users just as the Air Miles dataset may make us more predictable as consumers. As groups, I hasten to add, not as individuals.
We have the "luxury" of picking and choosing what we'll share on Facebook in our privacy settings all the while having some of that negated by the tracking cookies ads place in our browsers.
Still, I come back to one of the most important things I was taught and pass on in the granddaddy of 12 step that "you're only as sick as your secrets" which, as it turns out, was very true. Later on came "live your life like an open book" which is also true. It makes things so much simpler! Even on Facebook or other social networks.
Nor do I, necessarily, agree that video games and porn are going to make boys less sensitive or less of a catch as partners. Even first person shooters are, at their core, puzzles to be solved and you can leave as much blood and gore around as you want and still not beat the game. As for porn, I'd hope that at some point in a guy's life the light comes on that says "sex is a VERY boring spectator sport" and much, much better when it's part of a loving and caring partnership.
Perhaps what worried Keen is that the rules for boundaries have changed and that while he's not happy about that and doesn't really understand that he misses the point that today's teenagers largely know nothing else and like most of their ilk ( ;-) ) will make terrible mistakes there. They'll also survive. I did despite everything I could do to ensure I wouldn't.
Life, personality and identity are made to be lived and not hidden from ourselves or the world. Real or virtual. They're also made to be celebrated. They're also malleable to such a degree that parts of them can and do change daily. The day we lock ourselves in is the day we begin to rapidly die even if we're still breathing in and out as we do it.
They're also meant to be shared otherwise identity and personality become utterly meaningless.
In most ways sharing is legal now. IP maximalists would prefer that it wasn't but it is. We can still loan out a physical book that's inspired or interested us though the same activity is considered "piracy" on the Internet mostly due to scale and the false notion that every download is one lost sale which is untrue. The information contained within a patent is sharable though creating an identical product isn't allowed while work arounds are and improvements of various kinds are allowed based on the information contained in the patent.
(Which works well for physical objects seems to collapse completely for software and business method patents which contain far more vapour than reality and claims which are often beyond the current state of technology without code or other information required to get there. Hence, patent trolls.)
Thing is that the American grand jury system has no standing outside of the United States. The U.S. has learned better than to try that dodge when requesting an extradition from Canada. The answer has always been the legal version of "so what? produce it anyway."
That the US DoJ has, along with ICE and others, gone way over the line on this one is fairly well known. Which really has no bearing on the case in New Zealand. What does is that Dotcom has the right to be confronted with the evidence and documentation to be used against him before it is used. That's what discovery is all about. You may be able to hide that sort of thing behind an ancient and creeky Grand Jury system, the United States being the last English style justice system I'm aware of that still used that relic of the Star Chamber, but it doesn't work outside the United States.
I'm not at all sure they can balk on the list of items to disclose. They can go apeshit all they want.
Parts 1(a) and 1(b) are standard disclosure documents that are being ordered. In short, just is your case even for civil infringement? And are is that extraditable in New Zealand? Part 1(c) tells them to establish that it is criminal infringement and to disclose their evidence backed up by the documents they have supporting order to disclose 1(d). The orders contained in 2, 3 and 4 are pertaining to evidence and documents concerning things like racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering backing the extradition claims for those.
All this after citing case law from New Zealand's Bill of Rights, Australian law and case law and precedent originating from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All insisting on natural justice and the right of the accused to be confronted with all the evidence against him. Something going back to Magna Carta which applies to the United States as much as it does to Commonwealth countries.
Put another way "produce the documents or no extradition". At which point Dotcom goes free unless there's an appeal. Reading through the ruling the judge has tried to make sure that there isn't a possible appeal by covering all the bases he can find, including relevant United States law.
In short, Dotcom has the right to see the documents the judge has ordered disclosed by rights granted and guaranteed since the 13th Century. For the life of me I can't see an appeal on that basis denying those rights being successful in any Commonwealth country that makes any pretense of being democratic.
On the post: Tell The White House To Stop Illegally Seizing & Shutting Down Websites
Re: not long (that long)
On the post: Tell The White House To Stop Illegally Seizing & Shutting Down Websites
Re: What would be an appropriate mechanism?
I'm going to assume, for the moment that your talking about licensing these sites as vendors when you talk about a license without one. What we're talking about here are sites that, by an large, point to torrent seeds or sites that host their own infringing material. At ;east those suppositions fit in with your view of the world if not mine.
In the case of Dajaz1 in spite of waiting for a year no RIAA member company could come forth any such thing which means a year of playing around with due process and never allowing Dajaz1 the chance to defend itself in the closed court proceedings no infringing material appeared on the evidence.
What and how many legal hoops should the US government have to go through before bringing a case to trial? I'll start at the evidence. That they actually have enough evidence to convince a jury to convict the site owner(s) beyond a reasonable doubt if the intent is to bring them to a criminal trial such as they likely will do with Megaupload. Or at least enough to convince a judge and/or judge and jury on balance of probability that the site exists solely for the sake of trafficking in infringing material or piracy.
They should hold open hearings where the defendant is present or represented by a lawyer or two instead of behind closed doors hearings where the defendant is denied the right to hear the charged against them which is applicable to both civil and criminal cases. Not once but on a number of occasions which now has all the appearance of someone with no case because there was no evidence. Just because law enforcement says there is and says so-and-so is doing something nefarious doesn't always mean that they are.
If the web site's servers and domain registration have taken place outside the United States I'd say the US has no business seizing the domain name or the data on the servers without first jumping through the hoops in the country which has jurisdiction. That kind of thing leads to violation of the sovereignty of the country it takes place in. Most countries, including the United States, take that sort of thing very, very seriously. And we'd do well to remember that until there is a ruling from a court charges of trafficking in infringing material aren't proven.
In short, the United States would be expected to follow the normal rules of law, jurisprudence and evidence and all the rest of that untidy stuff that would lead to an accurate and fair result. It's all time consuming, involved things the those bringing the allegations would rather not do unless their case is airtight and a long list of uncomfortable things for both sides.
The problem is that following the law and jurisprudence in the open and in open court works most of the time. Kangaroo courts which settle such things on rumour and innuendo don't work.
If there's one legit file? Of course there will be so the question alone is a distraction rather than informing. Particularly in the case of file lockers and other versions of cloud computing and storage.
The argument has never been about no consequences for infringement its been about the RIAA/MPAA dragging themselves into the 21st Century and providing content in ways that consumers will pay for, with rules consumers can buy into such as book loaning and so on that exist now but copyright holders want to eliminate before they make the jump to digital. (Human habits of thousands of years don't change overnight if they change at all.)
How it should be done is to follow the rules of the laws laid out, the processes and procedures of the courts without gaming them by entering voire dire (closed door) hearings every time out and follow the laws as they is written and most importantly the court processes as they have evolved over time.
Whether it's The Poacher's Cove or the Government of the United States we are states of Law which apply to everyone from the top to the bottom. Laws govern us not the wishes of the entertainment business. They govern what the President of the United States can and cannot do just as they do the homeless guy sleeping on the bench in the park across from the White House.
At least they're supposed to. If they don't and favour a select few then that's called tyranny. I don't think even you want that end of the deal, bob.
On the post: The Sweet Taste Of Defeat: Band Must Pay Legal Fees For Frivolous Lawsuit Over One Used CD On eBay
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And don't worry, Scott or someone else like him will try this trick again. :(
On the post: Press Tries To Pin High Profile Killings On The Web & World Of Warcraft
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nero, as has been noted was, by and large, indifferent to the people of Rome particularly after the fire. Which, I agree, he did not start. He'd have been happier in many ways as a performer rather than the emperor of Rome.
I won't disagree, either, that both ran into trouble with the Roman Senate and the ruling elite of Rome. Still that "Little Boots" reputation as a nasty bit of goods, unpredictable and more than a little off his nut doesn't seem to have much to counter it. I'll go see what I can find.
Nero was self-possessed at worst though a lot of his later reputation including the notion that he started the fire appears to be a later charge.
For now, both serve as examples of what I was talking about though there are many more historical figures to draw from.
On the post: Silverscarcat's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Perhaps the only drawback to that would be having to return to work after getting comfortably settled into an early retirement due to the injury. Just why do things have to be so darned complicated?!?! :-)
The response to anything, anything at all, which the RIAA/MPAA don't like has been to attempt to criminalize it. It's one of the sadder realities that the "entertainment" industry feels that need but to lump on top of that misleading, shall we say outright lies?, figures concerning employment, monetary importance and just about anything else that they might find that may help them justify this including bleats like "what about the starving artists?" from their PR hacks while their accountants do their level best not to pay what is due to these self same artists as they create fictional entries into accounting sheets and bill them to the artist.
One has to admire the creativity that goes into this and I wait anxiously for them to get a patent on this business method so that we can all have a look into the mysteries of this after a cadre of lawyers has had at it.
Fan adaptations of popular and cult characters has been with us since I can remember, not wanting to sound too old but feeling it at times, while it's also served as a springboard for some companies to relaunch the character in an updated form or to lavishly borrow from fan fiction to get the script of a TV show or movie. Without this Star Trek would have vanished decades ago, Doctor Who wouldn't be back on the Beeb in what passes for a regular basis in England, Vampirella would be lost to the next generation of 16 and 17 year old boys who would notice anything but what has often been very good story writing, James McQuade would have had to renege on two or three promises to kill off his Misty series before this current hiatus, The Spirit would have been lost forever.
The obvious answer from the "entertainment" industry is, of course, criminalize it. The fact that to most of us who have functioning brain synapses uses such as those are the very definition of fair use/fair dealing but people shouldn't be allowed to do this even if it does, in the end, add tremendous value to a "property" that had been collecting dust and worthless prior to the fan art and stories. Once upon a time I'd have had to work very hard to come up with any kind of reason why anyone would want to do that. I don't need a reason anymore as it's just the thoughtless knee-jerk response of the RI/MP AA and their ilk as they don't seem to need a reason either.
That the "entertainment" industry is several hundred years behind the times around what the Internet is and how it does it all shouldn't surprise me. As vast consumers of technology including the Web and 'Net I can be excused for thinking they'd have a clue. That those they employ, the politicians of the western world from the President of the United States down to the mayor or Reeve of some tiny village with a weird name in England or Wales or, even, Canada are clueless as well is no big surprise. They, at least, are paid for being clueless as are a few of our more loved trollers here at Techdirt. (Some of our trollers are clueless about everything including the meaning of life, the universe and everything is just plain sad when it isn't disturbing.)
Thanks, Silverscarcat, for reminding me of the week and what it brought us. In so many ways large sectors of humanity have ceased t be creative. So much so that the arguments scripted for Mr Rogers all those years ago to tell us all about the evils of home video recording in any format was wicked and dangerous are word for word what they're claiming now.
Plagiarism is alive and well.
On the post: Press Tries To Pin High Profile Killings On The Web & World Of Warcraft
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Jack The Ripper, The Hillside Strangler, Clifford Olson and many others have used whatever methods have been available to make themselves known and, often, to taunt police and the public.
Blaming the medium used doesn't change it. If WoW and Facebook weren't there Magnotta would have used another means. And he did by mailing bits of his victims to one federal political party and had plans for others. The medium isn't the issue it's the need to taunt authority and to become known so that they can instill fear. Heck, Caligula and Nero didn't need any of that, they got to run a whole empire and toy with it.
On the post: Vibram Boss: IP Enforcement Is A Waste Of Time; You're Better Off Building A Relationship With Customers
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At some point you're going to have to name one or two of these firms so we have some idea who you're talking about and who the market is for these "music software" outfits are.
If there is so much piracy there would seem to be a disconnect somewhere between the makers of the product and its customers.
If, however, these companies decide to go after infringing sites and those downloading there is inevitably an increase in the cost of production, as lawyers and lawsuits don't come cheap and those costs have to be passed on to the paying customer somehow. From what little you've told us we have no idea if one or more of them can partly fund that through mass sales. I doubt is as that software sector would seem specialized to me. I could be wrong, of course, as I'm trying to figure out a thin ghost here.
On the post: Author Using Kickstarter To Offer His Book To The Public Domain, And Help Other Creators To Do The Same
Re: Well, there's the sucker factor
None of that makes it a paywall.
As for it being anti-consumer because you and I are being asked to help fund a project and them wait until it's done to see if we (or someone else) likes it that's what happens all the time now.
As for your endlessly repeated three points on how the current copyright regime works all three of them are bullshit, pure and simple.
On the post: Yet Another Of The FBI's Own Terrorist Plots... Involves A Group Of Senior Citizens
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/aps-approval-of-hopefully-symbolizes-l arger-debate-over-language/2012/04/17/gIQAti4zOT_story.html
On the post: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%
Re: Re: WTH
On the post: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%
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What would we ever do if we couldn't do this?
And yes, I suspect everyone has pirated whether they were aware of that little detail or not. So in some way we are all pirates. Just not in the ways the recording and movie industries would have us believe we all are.
On the post: Germany Increases 'You Are All Pirates' Tax On Solid State Media By 2000%
Re: Rebellion Coming Soon
The banks in the United States and elsewhere, see the UK, somehow became economic drivers as if they produced any "real" product of value. Which is odd as they are supposed to be loaning and "investing" money belonging to their depositors.
Now, I can understand the US and world economies going south if, say, Microsoft announced it was closing shop tomorrow due to bankruptcy or too many debts but that should NEVER happen in the banking sector which is, ideally, servicing the other sectors of the economy. Banking is a service industry not a production industry.
What happened is the failure of turning banking into a rebirth of mercantilism, which may be a form of facism, where the failure of the merchants can bankrupt and entire national or global economy.
And while all this was happening we were told that the market was self correcting, totally transparent and would police itself. Ideally it should do all that but in this case the banks and rating agencies decided they could do what they wanted with investments in things that no one knew what was in them.
How much did this cost real people? In far too many cases it cost them everything.
On the post: Significant Concerns About TPP Raised Down Under
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In the parliamentary system, at some stage like right about now, that if the government won't order McCormick to stop his evasions and non answers that a motion of non-confidence should be introduced and the sitting government defeated.
THAT might open a few eyes even if it does result in an election based on TPP in Australia which I'm sure those pulling the strings behind the scene really want right now. /s
It would be fun, though.
On the post: Help To Save The World: Go Online
Re: Not so sure...
But. still, outside of trolls and paid "agents" (and I hope they don't pay bob much..what the hell..blow the bank on him!) there' no reason that a discussion can't take place on almost all that list once people get by their biases.
In fact we've seen it in this forum where, outside of the trollish types and self appointed MPAA/RIAA defenders people have changed their views. We're not in a pub where largish amounts of beer cement arguments in place, often just for the fun of it.
Where we aren't exposed to constant propaganda about the "enemy" types whoever they may be we have this wonderful tendency to get along. It also means the "enemy", whoever they are, are easier to spot.
They're the ones that want to divide us.
On the post: AOL Threatens Blogger With Copyright Infringement Charge... For Doing The Exact Same Thing AOL Has Done On A Large Scale
Re: Re: Hypocritical? Perhaps
And we all know that Cory Doctorow is the devil incarnate. After all he's been part of that silly free software movement forever, defended Linux against SCO and probably uses that pirating "open" source software that's nothing more than ripping off MS and Apple!
/s
On the post: Myths And Realities About Fair Use
Re: Re: Re: Non-Commercial use
She has this fantasy about being a Siberian Tiger and lives her life as if she is. I have a pile of prey on the back porch just to prove that point!
On the post: Don't Read Andrew Keen's Book - You'll Harm His Identity
We do grow up with our identity being a mixed construct of private and public portions which are inevitably shaped by others beginning with our parents. Some of this is that "horrible" thing, it seems, the process of socialization. With some luck, as we grow we are less shaped by the thoughts and opinions of others than we are by the talents, interests and passions we develop as we grow into adulthood. We can, and. most of us do, socialize with others who share those talents, interests and passions. It doesn't take Facebook to figure that out.
We've had data relentlessly collected on us since the appearance of loyalty cards such as Air Miles and others which record our every purchase, when and where we make them and how often. Facebook is just a larger, if less accurate dataset. The vastness of the Facebook dataset is valuable to marketers in that it may create less errors and make some things more predictable of us as Facebook users just as the Air Miles dataset may make us more predictable as consumers. As groups, I hasten to add, not as individuals.
We have the "luxury" of picking and choosing what we'll share on Facebook in our privacy settings all the while having some of that negated by the tracking cookies ads place in our browsers.
Still, I come back to one of the most important things I was taught and pass on in the granddaddy of 12 step that "you're only as sick as your secrets" which, as it turns out, was very true. Later on came "live your life like an open book" which is also true. It makes things so much simpler! Even on Facebook or other social networks.
Nor do I, necessarily, agree that video games and porn are going to make boys less sensitive or less of a catch as partners. Even first person shooters are, at their core, puzzles to be solved and you can leave as much blood and gore around as you want and still not beat the game. As for porn, I'd hope that at some point in a guy's life the light comes on that says "sex is a VERY boring spectator sport" and much, much better when it's part of a loving and caring partnership.
Perhaps what worried Keen is that the rules for boundaries have changed and that while he's not happy about that and doesn't really understand that he misses the point that today's teenagers largely know nothing else and like most of their ilk ( ;-) ) will make terrible mistakes there. They'll also survive. I did despite everything I could do to ensure I wouldn't.
Life, personality and identity are made to be lived and not hidden from ourselves or the world. Real or virtual. They're also made to be celebrated. They're also malleable to such a degree that parts of them can and do change daily. The day we lock ourselves in is the day we begin to rapidly die even if we're still breathing in and out as we do it.
They're also meant to be shared otherwise identity and personality become utterly meaningless.
On the post: 'Hack The Real World And Share The Results'
Re:
(Which works well for physical objects seems to collapse completely for software and business method patents which contain far more vapour than reality and claims which are often beyond the current state of technology without code or other information required to get there. Hence, patent trolls.)
On the post: New Zealand Judge Won't Rubberstamp Kim Dotcom Extradition; Orders US To Share Evidence
Re: Re:
That the US DoJ has, along with ICE and others, gone way over the line on this one is fairly well known. Which really has no bearing on the case in New Zealand. What does is that Dotcom has the right to be confronted with the evidence and documentation to be used against him before it is used. That's what discovery is all about. You may be able to hide that sort of thing behind an ancient and creeky Grand Jury system, the United States being the last English style justice system I'm aware of that still used that relic of the Star Chamber, but it doesn't work outside the United States.
On the post: New Zealand Judge Won't Rubberstamp Kim Dotcom Extradition; Orders US To Share Evidence
Re: Re:
Parts 1(a) and 1(b) are standard disclosure documents that are being ordered. In short, just is your case even for civil infringement? And are is that extraditable in New Zealand? Part 1(c) tells them to establish that it is criminal infringement and to disclose their evidence backed up by the documents they have supporting order to disclose 1(d). The orders contained in 2, 3 and 4 are pertaining to evidence and documents concerning things like racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering backing the extradition claims for those.
All this after citing case law from New Zealand's Bill of Rights, Australian law and case law and precedent originating from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. All insisting on natural justice and the right of the accused to be confronted with all the evidence against him. Something going back to Magna Carta which applies to the United States as much as it does to Commonwealth countries.
Put another way "produce the documents or no extradition". At which point Dotcom goes free unless there's an appeal. Reading through the ruling the judge has tried to make sure that there isn't a possible appeal by covering all the bases he can find, including relevant United States law.
In short, Dotcom has the right to see the documents the judge has ordered disclosed by rights granted and guaranteed since the 13th Century. For the life of me I can't see an appeal on that basis denying those rights being successful in any Commonwealth country that makes any pretense of being democratic.
This ought to be fun. :-)
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