Yes, but if you know that what you have done is illegal, and that it's being referred to the authorities, then why don't they just leave. They're not on bail. That I know of, nothing is stopping them from taking a vacation to France and once there asking for asylum a la Roman Polanski.
I've never done this (nor felt the need to) so I don't know how hard it would actually be.
While I enjoy watching these guys get put to the fire, I can't help but wonder why they haven't left the country. There are several decent countries that probably wouldn't extradite them for the things they could be charged with. Either they are really stupid, or extremely confident that they will be exonerated. It's not likely they're going to be getting a lot of business as lawyers after this anyway, so having to learn a new skill set in a different country isn't much different than staying here.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Bit Upset With Netflix Here
It's not DRM if the customer can decrypt at will (besides playing the content through the approved player). If the consumer knows, or even can know, one of the keys, then it's not DRM. The only way I know of to hide the key from the consumer without hiding it from the player is to obfuscate the key. Open source prevents that. Partly because you can read the code, and partly you can also compile your own version that just prints out the key.
I don't think it's a matter of simplicity, but rather feasibility. Stack overflow seems to be in agreement. Open source DRM is probably not possible.
I don't believe, for one second, Netflix would back DRM if it wasn't for the puppeteers pulling their strings
If you've followed the story of Apple and DRM, or the ongoing story of Amazon and DRM, you'd see nobody likes DRM more than the reseller.
The RIAA insisted on DRM and made Apple into a near monopoly power that the RIAA hated.
Publishers insisted on DRM and made Amazon into a near monopoly power that the publishers hated.
Netflix is a bit different since they are upfront about only renting content where Apple and Amazon were giving appearances to selling content (DRM means you aren't selling anything).
I don't think it's possible (though I admit this is not my area of expertise). Public/Private works by someone using your public key to encrypt something that only you can decrypt with your private key. In the case of DRM, the content owners would use their private key to encrypt so other's could use their public key to decrypt. But if the key is public, then the DRM is effectively dead.
They could try encrypting the content with their customer's public keys, so the customers can then decrypt it with their private keys, but then you have to re-encrypt the content for every purchaser, and you still haven't solved the main problem: the consumer can decrypt the content at will.
The problem with DRM is that it tries to hide those keys from the same people being shown the content. It has to do this so that they can't get the keys to decrypt the content at will. So far, that's been done by having closed-source, proprietary and obfuscated solutions. With an open source solution, it would be trivial to find where the keys are hidden by reading the source code, or even easier, compile your own version that just prints the key out. Once you have the keys, you decrypt the content once, and now it's decrypted for always.
Cops have never been about preventing crime. Law enforcement has always been about dealing with people after they've committed a crime. Occasionally they might stop a crime in progress, or just their presence might be enough to deter a crime from starting or escalating.
In other words, law enforcement's responsibility in terms of the Boston bombers was to catch them after the crime occurred and then to deal with them. And look, law enforcement did just that. So why is there a need for more cameras? Why is there a need to reduce privacy?
I say let's make a deal. The only way privacy is off the table is if absolute security from crime is provided. If they can provide that, then maybe we can allow a loss in privacy. And I mean absolute security. No Boston-like bombers can ever occur again. No homicides, 1st degree, 2nd degree, or manslaughter. No robbing, stealing, thieving, or any of the like any more. I should be able to leave buckets of money in plain view on my front lawn and not have to worry at all about any of it going missing.
If that's not the level of security that can be provided, then privacy is not off the table.
That is what Franklin meant by his famous quote. You don't deserve safety if you give up liberty, because you can't get safety by giving up liberty. Thus, if you're willing to trade liberty for nothing (which is what you get from the trade) then you don't deserve liberty.
The innovations being made here are innovations in communication. Copyright is an attempt to incentivize publishing works. People will create whether copyright exists or not. People will communicate whether future innovations occur or not. But creation becomes easier when communication is easy. Publishing is easier when communication is easy. Life gets better, wrongs get righted, and people are happier (in general) when communication is easier.
If I had to choose either incentives to innovate on communication or incentives to publish creative works, I'd choose innovation in communication every single time. That's partly because communication is important on so many other levels than creative works, but also because communication breeds creative works. So the one (communication) improves both, while the other (copyright) impedes one and may not be improving the other[1]. That means if copyright hinders innovation in communication in even the least degree, it should be abolished. And it does, so abolish it.
[1] Show me proof that copyright is necessary for creative works.
No, it's true. There is a button that will make porn disappear. It's on the back of the WiFi access point. If it's not there, there is probably a little switch on the surge protector it's plugged into. If a surge protector isn't being used, you might find the switch in a box with a lot of other switches that look similar (only some of those switches turn off the lights in the kitchen).
My guess is that at some point the government will require one or more of these buttons be employed. For the children of course.
Right now if you go to the trouble of trying to hide your bittorrent activities you are seen as a copyright infringer and nothing else. As more and more movie studios (and labels, game studios, publishers, etc) start using bittorrent to distribute promotional material like this, hiding your bittorrent activity will be seen the same as blocking tracking cookies. It'll be interesting to see how long privacy advocates are lumped in with piracy advocates.
1-800-CONTACTS is suing in Utah because it's convenient for them. I know they used to have a huge presence in the south Salt Lake area (that might be their HQ, but I'm not sure). Suing in California would have been inconvenient for 1-800-CONTACTS, suing in Utah is inconvenient for Ditto, suing anywhere else would have been inconvenient for both parties. So it makes sense that the suing party would choose a location that is most convenient to themselves. At least it wasn't East Texas.
It's despicable what they're doing, but I thought I'd just explain why they're suing where they are.
To be fair, there is a difference between the state publishing the information and an employer using the information to never hire someone for some minor infraction of the law. I also recognize, however, that it's much easier for the state to just not publish the information then it is to change the attitudes of every hiring manager.
I'm not convinced the photo even deserves a copyright. I don't see much in the photo that is "creative" on the part of Masck. He didn't choose where to be sitting in relation to Howard, he didn't choose the lighting, he didn't choose the pose, he didn't choose the relative position of other players. The only thing Masck chose was when to take the picture, of what, and the framing. The framing is easily dropped by someone taking his photo and changing the framing (zooming in or whatever). Everything creative in this picture comes from Howard or sheer luck on Masck's part.
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about photography will prove me wrong. But as of now, if I were the judge, I'd be asking Masck why this photograph deserves copyright status at all.
And neither is file type and size going to do it either. File size might get you in the ballpark (a 10 KB file is probably not what you are looking for), but other than that what does a video named Homeland that is roughly the size of a one hour video (whatever that means) imply in terms of copyright infringement? Nothing more than to take a closer look. It might very well be infringement, it might be somebody else who has created a movie based on Doctorow's book or their own work entirely, or it might even be a one hour review of Fox's show that falls under fair use (perhaps not even showing a single clip from the show).
If you are going to state that your copyrights are being infringed, you need to know your copyrights are actually being infringed. The copyrighted work is the entirety of the work, not the title, not the type, and certainly not the size. And with the Lenz v. Universal case, the copyright holder also has to take Fair Use into account as well. If you can't automate that, then you have no business filing a DMCA notice (under penalty of perjury I might add).
Cory should sue. Fox should lose. DTecNet should go out of business. But increasing the check for filesize and type simply reduces the space required to look into. It doesn't tell you that you've found an occurrence of infringement.
I've been asked my zip code while making a purchase probably a handful of times in my life. I assure you, for the vast majority of purchases I've made in my life, the only information the seller needed from me was what items I was buying and what my method of payment would be. That's because you are taxed based on the location of the seller, not where you live. I don't see why this should change.
Plus, what you are describing is called regulatory capture. Sure big etailers aren't hurt by this. Amazon used to be against it, but is now in favor of an internet tax. Why? Not because they feel sorry for the lost tax revenue of states. It's because it's easy for them and hard for little upstarts.
Wrong. If you were to look at the hundreds of books I have on my Kindle, not a single one is copyrighted. Some never even had a copyright.
Music is a bit different. For starters, they aren't on my Kindle, but I digress. Secondly, while I have lots of music that doesn't have a copyright on the composition, the symphonies that recorded them claim to have a copyright on their recordings. Unfortunately, there's just not a lot of sound recordings from the very early 1900s and late 1800s that are still usable.
Movies suffer from the same fate as music even more so. That doesn't mean I don't have public domain movies though. One of my favorites is Night of the Living Dead, for example.
All the other books, movies and music that I have were paid for (sometimes multiple times because I'm stupid and follow this dumb copyright law even though I don't agree with it). Does it hurt you to see that stuff might get into the public domain? Does it hurt you to see that people can disagree with a law but still follow it, meaning you can't just dismiss them as filthy pirates? I hope I haven't shattered your world view.
How about this? Or are we to believe that members of the MPAA will circumvent copy protection measures (violation of 17 USC § 1201), and copy and distribute those copies (which is infringement, not fair use), but would absolutely not use ubiquitous devices like VCRs and DVRs because they believe it's not fair use?
Plus, you conventiently ignored that the MPAA did lobby congress to change the law to make VCRs illegal, and yet Congress didn't. Ergo, congress agreed with your "six" judges, making those in favor of it being fair use hundreds.
We have so much amazing technology to make services that are absolutely amazing. And then the business people come in and say "Yes, but how can we make it a little bit worse to squeeze out a little bit more money?" Note I didn't say creators, and this isn't a problem restricted to copyrights or patents (though the maximalists of those groups fall on the same side as the dumb business people).
I'd love to buy ebooks on my Kindle. But with the number of times Amazon has taken books away from people keeps me from doing that. And all the while I'm keeping my money from current authors, I'm enjoying myself by reading free public domain books (see, no piracy). Current authors and their freeloading middle men aren't getting my money, not because they're content isn't good, and not because of piracy, but because they refuse to release without DRM, and want to have control of my devices. So I don't play their game, and I read The Three Musketeers and Oliver Twise. If Amazon takes those away from my Kindle, I'll go get them on projectgutenburg.org. Less convenient, sure, which is why I've been using Amazon so far for my public domain book fix.
The same is true for any digital movie service. I won't buy digital movies, because they come with DRM. I do buy DVDs, and the first thing I do is rip them to my XBMC file server, and then put them back in the case as a backup. It's less convenient than what Google, or Amazon could do for me, but I can't trust them to always give me my content. It's not always because of those companies. Sometimes it's because of the copyright holders. I can't trust them, so I won't bother with them.
Copyright maximalists hate me. Not because I hate their content, and not because I pirate. In fact, it's because I don't pirate that they hate me. I'm fine with consuming content that is their biggest competitor; the public domain.
First the US government will serve foreign companies for providing services illegal in the US to US citizens. Then foreign companies will just block all US traffic. Then the US government will sue them for not providing access based on some US law (perhaps the ADA?).
Then foreign governments will do the same to US companies. Then there will be a need for some third party organization to mediate all of this. Perhaps we can call it the World Trade Organization?
Disclaimer: I don't like the WTO. I think each country should be independently sovereign from other countries. If a US citizen breaks a US law, then punish the US citizen, not the foreign company that provided some service to the US citizen.
On the post: John Steele Plans To Appeal Judge Wright's Order; Says Judge Is 'No Fan Of IP Law'
Re: Re: Re: Awesome!
I've never done this (nor felt the need to) so I don't know how hard it would actually be.
On the post: John Steele Plans To Appeal Judge Wright's Order; Says Judge Is 'No Fan Of IP Law'
Re: Awesome!
On the post: The Fight Over DRM In HTML5 Should Represent The Last Stand For DRM
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: A Bit Upset With Netflix Here
I don't think it's a matter of simplicity, but rather feasibility. Stack overflow seems to be in agreement. Open source DRM is probably not possible.
On the post: The Fight Over DRM In HTML5 Should Represent The Last Stand For DRM
Re:
The RIAA insisted on DRM and made Apple into a near monopoly power that the RIAA hated.
Publishers insisted on DRM and made Amazon into a near monopoly power that the publishers hated.
Netflix is a bit different since they are upfront about only renting content where Apple and Amazon were giving appearances to selling content (DRM means you aren't selling anything).
On the post: The Fight Over DRM In HTML5 Should Represent The Last Stand For DRM
Re: Re: Re: Re: A Bit Upset With Netflix Here
They could try encrypting the content with their customer's public keys, so the customers can then decrypt it with their private keys, but then you have to re-encrypt the content for every purchaser, and you still haven't solved the main problem: the consumer can decrypt the content at will.
The problem with DRM is that it tries to hide those keys from the same people being shown the content. It has to do this so that they can't get the keys to decrypt the content at will. So far, that's been done by having closed-source, proprietary and obfuscated solutions. With an open source solution, it would be trivial to find where the keys are hidden by reading the source code, or even easier, compile your own version that just prints the key out. Once you have the keys, you decrypt the content once, and now it's decrypted for always.
On the post: NY Police Chief Ray Kelly Says The Boston Bombing Takes Privacy 'Off The Table'
Re: Hmm...
In other words, law enforcement's responsibility in terms of the Boston bombers was to catch them after the crime occurred and then to deal with them. And look, law enforcement did just that. So why is there a need for more cameras? Why is there a need to reduce privacy?
I say let's make a deal. The only way privacy is off the table is if absolute security from crime is provided. If they can provide that, then maybe we can allow a loss in privacy. And I mean absolute security. No Boston-like bombers can ever occur again. No homicides, 1st degree, 2nd degree, or manslaughter. No robbing, stealing, thieving, or any of the like any more. I should be able to leave buckets of money in plain view on my front lawn and not have to worry at all about any of it going missing.
If that's not the level of security that can be provided, then privacy is not off the table.
That is what Franklin meant by his famous quote. You don't deserve safety if you give up liberty, because you can't get safety by giving up liberty. Thus, if you're willing to trade liberty for nothing (which is what you get from the trade) then you don't deserve liberty.
On the post: How Key Decisions In Copyright Cases Can Impact The Pace Of Technological Innovation
If I had to choose either incentives to innovate on communication or incentives to publish creative works, I'd choose innovation in communication every single time. That's partly because communication is important on so many other levels than creative works, but also because communication breeds creative works. So the one (communication) improves both, while the other (copyright) impedes one and may not be improving the other[1]. That means if copyright hinders innovation in communication in even the least degree, it should be abolished. And it does, so abolish it.
[1] Show me proof that copyright is necessary for creative works.
On the post: Why Do Politicians Continue To Insist That A Magic Button Can Make Porn Disappear Online?
Re:
My guess is that at some point the government will require one or more of these buttons be employed. For the children of course.
On the post: Ridiculous: Short-Sighted, Anonymous Hollywood Exec Flips Out Over Using BitTorrent For Promotions
On the post: Patents As Weapons: How 1-800-CONTACTS Is Using The Patent System To Kill An Innovative Startup
It's despicable what they're doing, but I thought I'd just explain why they're suing where they are.
On the post: Washington State Allows Third Parties To Brand Youthful Offenders For Life At The Low, Low Price Of Only 69¢ A Record
Re: Re: Freedom of information
On the post: Court Not Impressed By Dentist Using Copyright To Try To Censor Online Reviews
No, no...not a pun. It was a palindrome.
On the post: Photographer Sues Desmond Howard For Infringement; Howard Counters With 'Publicity Rights'
Re:
Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about photography will prove me wrong. But as of now, if I were the judge, I'd be asking Masck why this photograph deserves copyright status at all.
On the post: Red Sox' David Ortiz Unleashes An Expletive During Televised Speech; FCC Says 'F**k It'
Re: Keepin' it classy, minion.
On the post: Fox Uses Bogus DMCA Claims To Censor Cory Doctorow's Book About Censorship
Re: Re:
If you are going to state that your copyrights are being infringed, you need to know your copyrights are actually being infringed. The copyrighted work is the entirety of the work, not the title, not the type, and certainly not the size. And with the Lenz v. Universal case, the copyright holder also has to take Fair Use into account as well. If you can't automate that, then you have no business filing a DMCA notice (under penalty of perjury I might add).
Cory should sue. Fox should lose. DTecNet should go out of business. But increasing the check for filesize and type simply reduces the space required to look into. It doesn't tell you that you've found an occurrence of infringement.
On the post: Senator Wyden Takes A Stand Against Overbroad Tax On Internet Transactions
Re: Re: Re: Unfair burden?
Plus, what you are describing is called regulatory capture. Sure big etailers aren't hurt by this. Amazon used to be against it, but is now in favor of an internet tax. Why? Not because they feel sorry for the lost tax revenue of states. It's because it's easy for them and hard for little upstarts.
On the post: MPAA Pretends To Be A Regular Defender Of Fair Use; The Evidence Suggests Otherwise
Re: Re: Re:
Music is a bit different. For starters, they aren't on my Kindle, but I digress. Secondly, while I have lots of music that doesn't have a copyright on the composition, the symphonies that recorded them claim to have a copyright on their recordings. Unfortunately, there's just not a lot of sound recordings from the very early 1900s and late 1800s that are still usable.
Movies suffer from the same fate as music even more so. That doesn't mean I don't have public domain movies though. One of my favorites is Night of the Living Dead, for example.
All the other books, movies and music that I have were paid for (sometimes multiple times because I'm stupid and follow this dumb copyright law even though I don't agree with it). Does it hurt you to see that stuff might get into the public domain? Does it hurt you to see that people can disagree with a law but still follow it, meaning you can't just dismiss them as filthy pirates? I hope I haven't shattered your world view.
On the post: MPAA Pretends To Be A Regular Defender Of Fair Use; The Evidence Suggests Otherwise
Re: Re: Re:
Plus, you conventiently ignored that the MPAA did lobby congress to change the law to make VCRs illegal, and yet Congress didn't. Ergo, congress agreed with your "six" judges, making those in favor of it being fair use hundreds.
On the post: Attention Game Developers And Console Manufacturers: 'Always On' Is NOT The Same As 'Always Connectable'
Re:
I'd love to buy ebooks on my Kindle. But with the number of times Amazon has taken books away from people keeps me from doing that. And all the while I'm keeping my money from current authors, I'm enjoying myself by reading free public domain books (see, no piracy). Current authors and their freeloading middle men aren't getting my money, not because they're content isn't good, and not because of piracy, but because they refuse to release without DRM, and want to have control of my devices. So I don't play their game, and I read The Three Musketeers and Oliver Twise. If Amazon takes those away from my Kindle, I'll go get them on projectgutenburg.org. Less convenient, sure, which is why I've been using Amazon so far for my public domain book fix.
The same is true for any digital movie service. I won't buy digital movies, because they come with DRM. I do buy DVDs, and the first thing I do is rip them to my XBMC file server, and then put them back in the case as a backup. It's less convenient than what Google, or Amazon could do for me, but I can't trust them to always give me my content. It's not always because of those companies. Sometimes it's because of the copyright holders. I can't trust them, so I won't bother with them.
Copyright maximalists hate me. Not because I hate their content, and not because I pirate. In fact, it's because I don't pirate that they hate me. I'm fine with consuming content that is their biggest competitor; the public domain.
On the post: Megaupload Points Out That The DOJ Has Contradicted Itself Concerning Legality Of Serving Megaupload
Re:
Then foreign governments will do the same to US companies. Then there will be a need for some third party organization to mediate all of this. Perhaps we can call it the World Trade Organization?
Disclaimer: I don't like the WTO. I think each country should be independently sovereign from other countries. If a US citizen breaks a US law, then punish the US citizen, not the foreign company that provided some service to the US citizen.
Next >>