It's also fraud to go to a court, claim rights you don't have were infringed, collect $100,000 per IP you falsely claimed, and not forward those damages to the actual owner of the IP.
I find myself curious -- if you stand at the door of a police station and ask permission to come in, if a cop grants you that permission would that mean that you would therefore have no reasonable belief that smashing out the glass in the door to enter with the door closed might be unjustified?
According to the police, there's no way for any reasonable person to know that doing that might be illegal.
As far as I know, the only sort of person even capable of violating CDA 230 is a judge who is hearing a lawsuit that violates CDA 230 who lets it go forward despite that.
Which is why I've been saying for years that we're going after dirty cops, prosecutors and even judges who violate rights in the wrong legal system.
In civil court, they use other people's money for their defense and not a penny of their own. That's if you can get a court to even hear the case, since the doctrine of immunity says they don't have to accept the lawsuit if no court has ever ruled that such things are illegal, no matter how many laws there are that say so. Even if they lose the lawsuit, the payout to the plaintiffs comes from the taxpayers not the people who broke the law.
But any rights violation you can sue an official for in federal civil court and win, is also a federal criminal court offense. One that carries sentences of decades in prison, for most offenses.
Texas in particular is fertile ground for citizens to arrest rights-violating officials, since color of law rights violations while in possession of a firearm or with two or more people working together to violate rights are felonies, and the same Texas statute that authorizes a cop to arrest someone without a warrant also authorizes ANY citizen to make an arrest under the same circumstances.
Lastly, the US Supreme Court has ruled that federal citizen's arrests are lawful in any state that authorizes state citizen's arrests. For a felony, that's every state except North Carolina.
If all these things the corporations are claiming to be speech actually are, then copyright infringement would also be speech.
After all, scraping content from people's sites to use in ways you aren't licensed to is copyright violation under the current understanding of free speech, whether that content is people's user images or the latest Hollywood movie.
But if laws prohibiting that sort of thing are unconstitutional violations of freedom of speech...
It occurs to me that if a company owns a patent or trademark on "COVID-19" then they are, essentially, declaring that they own the rights to the disease, or they invented the disease itself.
Wouldn't that make them liable for economic damage from the epidemic, if it were true?
Police occupy no special place in constitutional law, aside from their status as government actors. They don't have any rights a private citizen lacks, and it would actually be unconstitutional to give them any as it would create a very large less privileged class of citizen.
So I'm curious. If you were to express 'concern' for Judge Selya's well-being to someone, and that person was unable to contact Selya by phone, would it justify kicking in Selya's front door to ascertain whether he is okay? And if some member of his household is visibly breaking the law, well, too bad?
As hard as it is today, it's easier now than it has ever before been at any point in US history. Law enforcement did just fine in the past, so the only conclusion that can be drawn from law enforcement claiming it's too hard now is that law enforcement has become lazy.
Therefore, the solution is equally obvious: Cop harder.
If you were to offer to pay a fine or a fee or a tax in pennies seconds before the deadline, would the government prosecute you for missing the deadline because processing the paperwork took longer than the deadline? I bet they would.
But if the patent only covers hardware, then figuring out how to do it in software is a completely separate thing in patent law. The only way the hardware patent could be ruled to apply to software is if the judge was corrupt or the judge had no idea that there was a difference between the two (or both).
Saying they're the same would mean that a patent on a horse-drawn wagon steering system would invalidate one on a modern car's computer-controlled steering system, because both are used to make the wheels turn when you move the steering control, just in different ways.
Their patents can be attacked that way. If you have a patent that, if you squint while standing on one foot on a Tuesday with a date of 1970 and are using it to extort money from me, and have successfully used it to extort money from a dozen other people...you have a real problem if I have a patent that seems to cover the same thing but which has a date of 1968.
Not only can you lose your lucrative patent, but you can end up owing me all the money you made in the past from suing those dozen other people.
Defending against what the patent troll says it does (given how vaguely most patents are worded) usually costs ten to a hundred times more than it costs the plaintiff to sue you.
The best part of the joke is that it's true -- that's WHY they get paid so much, especially in companies where they're a figurehead. Figurehead, scapegoat, whatever.
Eh, maybe. One of the reasons that CEOs get paid so much is they are the embodiment of the corporation. It's difficult to put a corporation in jail, but the CEO is the one ultimately liable if someone needs to end up in a cell.
Given that they committed a federal felony, and convicted felons cannot be cops after they get out of prison, simple enforcement of the law would be all that is needed. The video creates all the probable cause needed for them to be arrested and prosecuted for that felony.
But oddly enough, the government rarely bothers prosecuting officials who are felons right in front of them when there are private citizens committing mere misdemeanors somewhere vaguely far away.
I have an image file on my computer that is the full text of the first amendment...in Arabic. I haven't gotten around to getting it printed on a t-shirt, but I figure that and a Make America Smart Again hat ought to set just about the right tone...
First, don't sue Mr Patrick. Arrest him on the Senate floor. Officially issuing an illegal order to violate rights is a misdemeanor and incites a breach of the peace, if a guard carries it out it becomes a conspiracy against rights which is a felony for both the one obeying the order and the one giving the order.
The Texas statute that authorizes peace officers to make arrests without a warrant also grants that authority to ANY citizen under the same restrictions.
Second, the Vietnam war/conflict wasn't a losing one for the US until the Democrats got the majority in a Congressional election -- prior to that we were winning very handily.
Actually, he had a duty to stand his ground, since he was, you know, guarding the border. So he couldn't actually have retreated, and rocks are a dangerous weapon -- using them on people is a deadly force attack.
If a child is attacking you with deadly force attacks, it doesn't matter how old he is. You can choose to die or you can choose not to. If you choose not to die, well, the kid has it coming.
It's not murder to decide you don't want to be murdered today.
On the post: Court Tells Lying Cops That Someone Asserting Their Rights Isn't 'Reasonably Suspicious'
Re:
This. Perjury is supposedly illegal. So why is it that cops can get caught lying under oath and the court just shrugs?
On the post: RIAA Realizes It Sued Charter Over A Bunch Of Songs It Doesn't Hold The Copyrights For
Re:
It's also fraud to go to a court, claim rights you don't have were infringed, collect $100,000 per IP you falsely claimed, and not forward those damages to the actual owner of the IP.
On the post: Appeals Court Says No Immunity For Cops Who Shot A Man Standing Motionless With His Hands In The Air
Giving permission to come in
I find myself curious -- if you stand at the door of a police station and ask permission to come in, if a cop grants you that permission would that mean that you would therefore have no reasonable belief that smashing out the glass in the door to enter with the door closed might be unjustified?
According to the police, there's no way for any reasonable person to know that doing that might be illegal.
On the post: Anti-Vaxxer Sues Facebook, In The Middle Of A Pandemic, For 'In Excess' Of $5 Billion For Shutting Down His Account
Violating CDA 230
As far as I know, the only sort of person even capable of violating CDA 230 is a judge who is hearing a lawsuit that violates CDA 230 who lets it go forward despite that.
On the post: Anti-Vaxxer Sues Facebook, In The Middle Of A Pandemic, For 'In Excess' Of $5 Billion For Shutting Down His Account
Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
And if you're unarmed in the ensuing battle of wits, chew on the table.
On the post: Houston Police Chief Says He'll Prosecute People For False Statements About COVID-19 Response; Won't Debate 1st Amendment
Re:
Which is why I've been saying for years that we're going after dirty cops, prosecutors and even judges who violate rights in the wrong legal system.
In civil court, they use other people's money for their defense and not a penny of their own. That's if you can get a court to even hear the case, since the doctrine of immunity says they don't have to accept the lawsuit if no court has ever ruled that such things are illegal, no matter how many laws there are that say so. Even if they lose the lawsuit, the payout to the plaintiffs comes from the taxpayers not the people who broke the law.
But any rights violation you can sue an official for in federal civil court and win, is also a federal criminal court offense. One that carries sentences of decades in prison, for most offenses.
Texas in particular is fertile ground for citizens to arrest rights-violating officials, since color of law rights violations while in possession of a firearm or with two or more people working together to violate rights are felonies, and the same Texas statute that authorizes a cop to arrest someone without a warrant also authorizes ANY citizen to make an arrest under the same circumstances.
Lastly, the US Supreme Court has ruled that federal citizen's arrests are lawful in any state that authorizes state citizen's arrests. For a felony, that's every state except North Carolina.
On the post: Big Telecom's Quest To Use The First Amendment To Scuttle Privacy Laws Won't Go Well, Experts Predict
ON the other hand...
If all these things the corporations are claiming to be speech actually are, then copyright infringement would also be speech.
After all, scraping content from people's sites to use in ways you aren't licensed to is copyright violation under the current understanding of free speech, whether that content is people's user images or the latest Hollywood movie.
But if laws prohibiting that sort of thing are unconstitutional violations of freedom of speech...
On the post: Awful, Awful People Keep Trying To Trademark COVID And Coronavirus
Liability issues
It occurs to me that if a company owns a patent or trademark on "COVID-19" then they are, essentially, declaring that they own the rights to the disease, or they invented the disease itself.
Wouldn't that make them liable for economic damage from the epidemic, if it were true?
On the post: First Circuit Appeals Court: 'Community Caretaking' Function Applies To Warrantless Seizures, Not Actually Caring For The Community
Equal protection clause
Police occupy no special place in constitutional law, aside from their status as government actors. They don't have any rights a private citizen lacks, and it would actually be unconstitutional to give them any as it would create a very large less privileged class of citizen.
So I'm curious. If you were to express 'concern' for Judge Selya's well-being to someone, and that person was unable to contact Selya by phone, would it justify kicking in Selya's front door to ascertain whether he is okay? And if some member of his household is visibly breaking the law, well, too bad?
On the post: Texas Court Says State's Constitution Protects Cell Site Location Info
Re: 'But it's haaaard!'
As hard as it is today, it's easier now than it has ever before been at any point in US history. Law enforcement did just fine in the past, so the only conclusion that can be drawn from law enforcement claiming it's too hard now is that law enforcement has become lazy.
Therefore, the solution is equally obvious: Cop harder.
On the post: DEA Returns Money It Stole From An Innocent Woman, Gets Court To Let It Walk Away From Paying Her Legal Fees
I wonder...
If you were to offer to pay a fine or a fee or a tax in pennies seconds before the deadline, would the government prosecute you for missing the deadline because processing the paperwork took longer than the deadline? I bet they would.
On the post: Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents
Re: The problem with the patent system is...
But if the patent only covers hardware, then figuring out how to do it in software is a completely separate thing in patent law. The only way the hardware patent could be ruled to apply to software is if the judge was corrupt or the judge had no idea that there was a difference between the two (or both).
Saying they're the same would mean that a patent on a horse-drawn wagon steering system would invalidate one on a modern car's computer-controlled steering system, because both are used to make the wheels turn when you move the steering control, just in different ways.
On the post: Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents
Re: Re: Re:
Their patents can be attacked that way. If you have a patent that, if you squint while standing on one foot on a Tuesday with a date of 1970 and are using it to extort money from me, and have successfully used it to extort money from a dozen other people...you have a real problem if I have a patent that seems to cover the same thing but which has a date of 1968.
Not only can you lose your lucrative patent, but you can end up owing me all the money you made in the past from suing those dozen other people.
Defending against what the patent troll says it does (given how vaguely most patents are worded) usually costs ten to a hundred times more than it costs the plaintiff to sue you.
On the post: Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The best part of the joke is that it's true -- that's WHY they get paid so much, especially in companies where they're a figurehead. Figurehead, scapegoat, whatever.
On the post: Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents
Re: Re:
Eh, maybe. One of the reasons that CEOs get paid so much is they are the embodiment of the corporation. It's difficult to put a corporation in jail, but the CEO is the one ultimately liable if someone needs to end up in a cell.
On the post: Police Department Shells Out $50,000 To Man After His Camera Catches Cops Fabricating Criminal Charges Against Him
Re: Re:
Given that they committed a federal felony, and convicted felons cannot be cops after they get out of prison, simple enforcement of the law would be all that is needed. The video creates all the probable cause needed for them to be arrested and prosecuted for that felony.
But oddly enough, the government rarely bothers prosecuting officials who are felons right in front of them when there are private citizens committing mere misdemeanors somewhere vaguely far away.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/241
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Re: Re: Correct responce
I have an image file on my computer that is the full text of the first amendment...in Arabic. I haven't gotten around to getting it printed on a t-shirt, but I figure that and a Make America Smart Again hat ought to set just about the right tone...
On the post: Lt. Governor Of Texas Gets Offended By An Anti-Police Shirt, Decides He Needs To Start Violating The First Amendment
Two things
First, don't sue Mr Patrick. Arrest him on the Senate floor. Officially issuing an illegal order to violate rights is a misdemeanor and incites a breach of the peace, if a guard carries it out it becomes a conspiracy against rights which is a felony for both the one obeying the order and the one giving the order.
The Texas statute that authorizes peace officers to make arrests without a warrant also grants that authority to ANY citizen under the same restrictions.
https://www.justice.gov/crt/statutes-enforced-criminal-section
https://www.lawserver.c om/law/state/texas/tx-codes/texas_code_of_criminal_procedure_14-01
Second, the Vietnam war/conflict wasn't a losing one for the US until the Democrats got the majority in a Congressional election -- prior to that we were winning very handily.
On the post: Supreme Court Says It's OK For Border Patrol Agents To Kill Mexican Citizens As Long As They Die In Mexico
Re: Re:
Actually, he had a duty to stand his ground, since he was, you know, guarding the border. So he couldn't actually have retreated, and rocks are a dangerous weapon -- using them on people is a deadly force attack.
On the post: Supreme Court Says It's OK For Border Patrol Agents To Kill Mexican Citizens As Long As They Die In Mexico
Re: Re:
If a child is attacking you with deadly force attacks, it doesn't matter how old he is. You can choose to die or you can choose not to. If you choose not to die, well, the kid has it coming.
It's not murder to decide you don't want to be murdered today.
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