Yes, I can. And I think we all can, since we're blaming this idiot director for his analogy of fail.
Fair enough. Change "who isn't up on" to "who isn't up on or shouldn't be up on" and I think the statement is accurate. My point was that you can't blame a layperson for not knowing these distinctions. But yes, I think you obviously can blame someone who should know better i.e. one of the producers of a Hollywood blockbuster.
The letter writer isn't downloading anything. They are boycotting the movie, not downloading it.
I didn't say or imply the letter writer was downloading copyrighted material illegally, so I'm not sure how your statements are relevant.
The only sense of entitlement writer is the entitlement to boycott the movie and not watch it.
I personally think that the letter writer comes of as having a sense of entitlement because he doesn't do a good job at explaining why it's "inhumane" to sue infringers. I actually agree that the kinds of fines that would be imposed on someone if they would be found guilty of infringement are wildly disproportionate from the crime. But none of that comes across in the letter. Without any supporting statements in his argument, the average reader is most likely going to just assume that this person is the stereotypical user of BitTorrent who wants something for nothing rather than someone who would otherwise purchase the material if not for DRM, artificial release windows, not having to drive to the Blockbuster, not having to skip through 15 minutes of FBI warnings and trailers and all of the other myriad legitimate reasons why people resort to illegal downloads.
It may seem like pedantic nitpicking, but there really is a good reason to distinguish between theft, infringement, and plagiarism. You can't blame someone who isn't up on all of the topics generally discussed on TD to not know that, from a legal perspective, theft is not the same thing as infringement or plagiarism. But when there is a material difference between each act and the legal and moral ramifications of each, it's quite helpful to use the right term when discussing the topics. So, "stole" really isn't the right word in this context. As crade pointed out, if you mean plagiarize, then say plagiarize.
I don't think the producers response was out of line given the argument (or lack thereof) provider by the person who e-mailed. That e-mail basically stated that you shouldn't sue because it will hurt, and I don't want to pay for your movies....which is a really weak argument and means nothing to the producer.
I agree that the original letter writer didn't present much of an argument, however the reason that there is such an uproar is for the simple reason that the producer's response was very much out of line. Ad hominem attacks and blatant misunderstanding of the law (i.e. theft v. infringement) isn't a very effective way to address a boycot.
The person e-mailing missed an opportunity to communicate to the producer exactly why he was downloading an not purchasing it.
I couldn't agree more here. Instead of pointing valid reasons why people download copyrighted material in spite of it being illegal or why the strategy would be bad (albeit legal), the letter writer just came off as having a sense of entitlement.
If politicians want to sue Craigslist for encouraging prostitution -- when it actually just makes it easier for the police to capture dumb johns -- maybe they should go after Gizmodo for providing a venue for this guy to admit his crimes. /s
That's a rather broad generalization. While there may be many readers of TechDirt that would want to abolish the concept of copyright altogether, I think the majority of the critique is of the current copyright system itself, not necesarilly the overall concept of copyright. Your statement indicates an oversimplified understanding of a complex topic.
The DMCA makes it illegal to perform a lawful act by outlawing an essential step in performing that lawful act i.e. backing up a copyrighted work that you own. I still don't understand how this political contrivance isn't unconstitutional. See Leary v. United States.
Yes, there were other factors that resulted in the finding of inducement, but using the ads targeting Napster/Grokster users seems questionable.
Hmmm, based on what I read, I got the impression that the inducement charge came mostly from internal LimeWire e-mails which detailed a grand plan to convert people from known copyrighted material to some paid product from LimeWire.
But that would mean the court's interpretation of the DMCA means that the law requires user-generated websites to install filters. The law says no such thing.
I don't think this changes the main point that the law doesn't require filtering, but the additional factor here is that LimeWire already implemented filtering of other content (porn), so apparently the logic was "You already had filters in place; you should have been able to add copyrighted material to the filter". No, that doesn't make any sense, but if you're a judge trying to retrofit the law to your ideas, it's something that can have the appearance of sense.
This is a massive problem with the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, which says that even if the copy itself is legal, if it involves encryption, the process of making that (legal) copy, becomes illegal.
IANAL, but this seems very similar to Leary v. United States, the case that overturned the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. (At the time marijuana wasn't illegal, but the Act made it effectively illegal because it required a special stamp. If caught with marijuana, you weren't charged with illegal possession, you were charged for not having the stamp.)
I know the situations aren't a perfect match, but they seem to have basically the same model.
"Oh, no, pot isn't illegal. We never said that. It's just transporting it without this special stamp that is illegal."
"Oh, no, backing up your own DVD isn't illegal. We never said that. It's just that in order to back up your DVD you need to break our encryption and that's illegal."
It just seems to me that we have a clear precedent in place that you can't circumvent a right by the outlawing a key component of exercising that right.
Unintended consequences is euphemism for intended consequences
I see your point and I don't discount it altogether, but for the most part, I think that the true unintended consequences outweight the unintented-but-really-intended consequences. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
If there were actually a system and process for reviewing laws to see if they ever actually did what was promised, perhaps it would be worthwhile to experiment.
The more I read about the disastrous effects of the unintended consequences of new laws, the more I think it'd be a good idea to require periodic review any new law that Congress passes. Maybe review a law after the first year, then after five years. It might take a Constitutional amendment, but how could it not be a good idea for the government to review the effects of a law to see if it is actually conforming to its original intent?
"But wouldn't that cause gridlock because it would take time away from the Congress to pass new laws?", you ask. And my reply would be "So what?" [In my best Gordon Gecko voice] "Gridlock is good." I think that the less the US government can do, the better off its citizens will be. (Not to mention that you might actually have some real bipartisanship if you knew that any law you passed would be reviewed by the next iteration of Congress.) If Congress can't pass a bunch of new stupid laws because they have to spend time reviewing all of the old stupid laws, then I'm just fine with that.
So, your response is say that I didn't support my argument with facts and yet you didn't supply any facts (much less supporting opinions) of your own? The next time you critisize someone for not having a valid argument, you might want to actually do so by having a valid argument.
The site where I found it has the source as "The Judge in Life-Line". I don't know what he was referring to, but it'd be interesting to find out. Reading it today, it could easily apply to any number of organizations (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) discussed regularly on TechDirt.
What the USPTO can influence however, is *who* gets sued. If they start rejecting patents it will be the USPTO that gets sued.
So, has the USPTO ever been sued? I've never heard this as a concern before. I can understand the argument that their motivated by the cash that comes in from applications, but I would think they're quite insulated from the possibility of being sued. If you submit a patent application and it's rejected a number of times, I would think (hope) that the buck stops at the USPTO, otherwise the court system really would be clogged up with cases against the USPTO instead of with patentholders against other companies.
I honest don't know how this works now, but it would seem to me that the USPTO would have to win just one lawsuit that confirms them as the final arbiter of what gets a patent and that would be it, not individual lawsuits over every rejected patent.
If they were going to get into any trouble for it it would have been quite a while ago.
That's true enough. But it's also the very reason that their incentives need to be changed. No white knight is going to step in and publicly call the USPTO on the millions (perhaps billions) of wasted dollars that have been expended because of their bungling approval of bogus patents. But, some government official might be able to affect some small tweaks to their incentive system that would produce big results in the right direction.
Because people see that you can get a patent on pretty much anything
Point taken. I guess I was focusing on the legitimate applicants, not the people or corporations who knowingly submit a ludicrous patent application. To account for these, should the system change to eliminate the system whereby the USPTO is paid for every submission? Yeah, that would be nice. But I don't see that as very likely. I stand by my thought that the president or somebody in the government could mandate a much less drastic change and still see a significant improvement and damn what the USPTO thinks or what their incentives are.
Understood. It just seems to me that with some relatively small tweaks to the incentive system at the USPTO, you could shape this behavior. Is there a fee for resubmitting a rejected patent? If not, put one in place. If there already is, increase it. To account for patents that are actually improperly rejected, maybe make some kind of graduated pricing model for each resubmission.
The more I read about how the USPTO works, the more I think that much of the problem with patents could be resolved with, not major shakeups that would require congresional intervention, but small changes to how some reviewers get their quarterly performance evalutations.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Fair enough. Change "who isn't up on" to "who isn't up on or shouldn't be up on" and I think the statement is accurate. My point was that you can't blame a layperson for not knowing these distinctions. But yes, I think you obviously can blame someone who should know better i.e. one of the producers of a Hollywood blockbuster.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re: Missed Opportunity
I didn't say or imply the letter writer was downloading copyrighted material illegally, so I'm not sure how your statements are relevant.
The only sense of entitlement writer is the entitlement to boycott the movie and not watch it.
I personally think that the letter writer comes of as having a sense of entitlement because he doesn't do a good job at explaining why it's "inhumane" to sue infringers. I actually agree that the kinds of fines that would be imposed on someone if they would be found guilty of infringement are wildly disproportionate from the crime. But none of that comes across in the letter. Without any supporting statements in his argument, the average reader is most likely going to just assume that this person is the stereotypical user of BitTorrent who wants something for nothing rather than someone who would otherwise purchase the material if not for DRM, artificial release windows, not having to drive to the Blockbuster, not having to skip through 15 minutes of FBI warnings and trailers and all of the other myriad legitimate reasons why people resort to illegal downloads.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Re: Re:
It may seem like pedantic nitpicking, but there really is a good reason to distinguish between theft, infringement, and plagiarism. You can't blame someone who isn't up on all of the topics generally discussed on TD to not know that, from a legal perspective, theft is not the same thing as infringement or plagiarism. But when there is a material difference between each act and the legal and moral ramifications of each, it's quite helpful to use the right term when discussing the topics. So, "stole" really isn't the right word in this context. As crade pointed out, if you mean plagiarize, then say plagiarize.
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re:
Of course you meant "INFRINGED", right? /s
On the post: Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You're A Moron And A Thief
Re: Missed Opportunity
I agree that the original letter writer didn't present much of an argument, however the reason that there is such an uproar is for the simple reason that the producer's response was very much out of line. Ad hominem attacks and blatant misunderstanding of the law (i.e. theft v. infringement) isn't a very effective way to address a boycot.
The person e-mailing missed an opportunity to communicate to the producer exactly why he was downloading an not purchasing it.
I couldn't agree more here. Instead of pointing valid reasons why people download copyrighted material in spite of it being illegal or why the strategy would be bad (albeit legal), the letter writer just came off as having a sense of entitlement.
On the post: Actor Explains Why He Downloads Unauthorized Content... Including Movies He's In
Re:
Also, what's up with "mikey"? Are you so unsure of your arguments that you have to stoop to insults?
On the post: Actor Explains Why He Downloads Unauthorized Content... Including Movies He's In
So...
On the post: Actor Explains Why He Downloads Unauthorized Content... Including Movies He's In
Modern corollary
"The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked" - Oscar Wilde
On the post: Can Someone Explain Why Circumvention For Non-Infringing Purposes Is Illegal?
Re:
That's a rather broad generalization. While there may be many readers of TechDirt that would want to abolish the concept of copyright altogether, I think the majority of the critique is of the current copyright system itself, not necesarilly the overall concept of copyright. Your statement indicates an oversimplified understanding of a complex topic.
On the post: Can Someone Explain Why Circumvention For Non-Infringing Purposes Is Illegal?
Catch-22
On the post: Real Copyright Law And File Sharing Copyright Law
Internal e-mails
Hmmm, based on what I read, I got the impression that the inducement charge came mostly from internal LimeWire e-mails which detailed a grand plan to convert people from known copyrighted material to some paid product from LimeWire.
But that would mean the court's interpretation of the DMCA means that the law requires user-generated websites to install filters. The law says no such thing.
I don't think this changes the main point that the law doesn't require filtering, but the additional factor here is that LimeWire already implemented filtering of other content (porn), so apparently the logic was "You already had filters in place; you should have been able to add copyrighted material to the filter". No, that doesn't make any sense, but if you're a judge trying to retrofit the law to your ideas, it's something that can have the appearance of sense.
On the post: Kaleidescape Introduces Expensive And Almost Pointless Blu-ray Jukebox... And Hollywood Still Thinks It's Illegal
Leary v. United States
IANAL, but this seems very similar to Leary v. United States, the case that overturned the 1937 Marihuana Tax Act. (At the time marijuana wasn't illegal, but the Act made it effectively illegal because it required a special stamp. If caught with marijuana, you weren't charged with illegal possession, you were charged for not having the stamp.)
I know the situations aren't a perfect match, but they seem to have basically the same model.
"Oh, no, pot isn't illegal. We never said that. It's just transporting it without this special stamp that is illegal."
"Oh, no, backing up your own DVD isn't illegal. We never said that. It's just that in order to back up your DVD you need to break our encryption and that's illegal."
It just seems to me that we have a clear precedent in place that you can't circumvent a right by the outlawing a key component of exercising that right.
On the post: Can The Government Really Walk The Line Of Regulating The Internet Without Screwing It Up?
Re: Re: Review cycle
I see your point and I don't discount it altogether, but for the most part, I think that the true unintended consequences outweight the unintented-but-really-intended consequences. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
On the post: Can The Government Really Walk The Line Of Regulating The Internet Without Screwing It Up?
Review cycle
The more I read about the disastrous effects of the unintended consequences of new laws, the more I think it'd be a good idea to require periodic review any new law that Congress passes. Maybe review a law after the first year, then after five years. It might take a Constitutional amendment, but how could it not be a good idea for the government to review the effects of a law to see if it is actually conforming to its original intent?
"But wouldn't that cause gridlock because it would take time away from the Congress to pass new laws?", you ask. And my reply would be "So what?" [In my best Gordon Gecko voice] "Gridlock is good." I think that the less the US government can do, the better off its citizens will be. (Not to mention that you might actually have some real bipartisanship if you knew that any law you passed would be reviewed by the next iteration of Congress.) If Congress can't pass a bunch of new stupid laws because they have to spend time reviewing all of the old stupid laws, then I'm just fine with that.
On the post: Can We Make A Power Hour Drinking Game Around Ridiculous Trademark Disputes?
Take a drink whenever the word "draconian" appears in a TechDirt post. ;-)
On the post: USPTO Ramping Up Patent Approvals
Re: I'd like some
On the post: Music Industry Lawyer Complains Both That Musicians Don't Get Paid... And When They Do
Re: Re: "strange doctrine" indeed
On the post: USPTO Ramping Up Patent Approvals
Re: where to put those pesky lawsuits
So, has the USPTO ever been sued? I've never heard this as a concern before. I can understand the argument that their motivated by the cash that comes in from applications, but I would think they're quite insulated from the possibility of being sued. If you submit a patent application and it's rejected a number of times, I would think (hope) that the buck stops at the USPTO, otherwise the court system really would be clogged up with cases against the USPTO instead of with patentholders against other companies.
I honest don't know how this works now, but it would seem to me that the USPTO would have to win just one lawsuit that confirms them as the final arbiter of what gets a patent and that would be it, not individual lawsuits over every rejected patent.
If they were going to get into any trouble for it it would have been quite a while ago.
That's true enough. But it's also the very reason that their incentives need to be changed. No white knight is going to step in and publicly call the USPTO on the millions (perhaps billions) of wasted dollars that have been expended because of their bungling approval of bogus patents. But, some government official might be able to affect some small tweaks to their incentive system that would produce big results in the right direction.
On the post: USPTO Ramping Up Patent Approvals
Re: Re:
Point taken. I guess I was focusing on the legitimate applicants, not the people or corporations who knowingly submit a ludicrous patent application. To account for these, should the system change to eliminate the system whereby the USPTO is paid for every submission? Yeah, that would be nice. But I don't see that as very likely. I stand by my thought that the president or somebody in the government could mandate a much less drastic change and still see a significant improvement and damn what the USPTO thinks or what their incentives are.
On the post: USPTO Ramping Up Patent Approvals
Re: Re:
The more I read about how the USPTO works, the more I think that much of the problem with patents could be resolved with, not major shakeups that would require congresional intervention, but small changes to how some reviewers get their quarterly performance evalutations.
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