Re: To the filters, it's all the same, tone deaf and without con
That's an excellent idea. We should have joint and several liability for the performer(s) and all of their instructors (and instructors' families and estates).
With increasingly large copyright violation awards, doing this will also assure that IP rights holders get paid at least a fraction of the vast damages that are incurred whenever any music, no matter how old, is played.
This might help, in some small way, to rectify the historic injustice of instructors using copyrighted music in their classes (thus commercially). Even if students butcher the music so horribly that it's unrecognizable, it must still be a copyright violation. If their mis-playing sounds makes it sound like a different song, it's a double violation.
Is this a dice roll that the judge doesn't understand the web or sites such as reddit ?
That's a gamble that had a good chance a decade ago. It seems unlikely that federal judge would be clueless today.
Is the plaintiff's attorney being paid? Then it is likely a case of a scummy lawyer taking advantage of a client, rather than dual Dunning-Kruger.
It's telling that this attorney is a Grisham-style ambulance chaser, dabbling in personal injury and divorce cases. Real-estate law can be legitimate business, but I suspect that here it actually means evictions and arguing over security deposits.
Threatening a bogus lawsuit is almost as effective as actually having a valid claim. It's sometimes more effective if you have a history of causing innocent defendants lots of money.
In a slightly better world an attempt to file invalid trademarks would simply result in a presumption of invalidity for all future filing for both the law firm and the client.
A quick search reveals that the officers were 'exonerated' by their own department, with the decision happening in late 2017.
A state police internal affairs investigator concluded there was "no evidence" to support an activist's claim that three troopers conspired to concoct charges against him during a contentious interaction at a DUI checkpoint in 2015.
They appear to have ignored that criminal charges were filed against the activist, only to be later dropped as unsupported.
It took over four years of legal action before a trial was scheduled. It is very likely that cost more than $50K of legal effort, with part of it handled by the ACLU.
They were only caught because they were unlucky. Without the accidental recording no one in the justice system would have believed Michael Picard. Even with the recording the department claimed that they saw nothing wrong with what happened. This is hardly a happy-ending story.
There are lots of circumstances where you normally feed your pet personally, but something unexpected happens. I've been caught in a 5 hour road closure (3 hours of stopped traffic and turning around, 2 hours for the now-jammed alternate route). That's exactly where an internet-controlled pet feeder would be useful. It doesn't make you a bad pet owner.
Many people also go on business and personal travel where it's impractical to take a pet but not long enough to justify a pet sitter or pet "hotel". There a simpler timer based feeder would work, but an internet connected one would provide peace of mind that it was working.
The assumption is that Biss is working largely unpaid, with the expectation that his notoriety will result in a profitable client base. Or perhaps with the hope that a profitable settlement might be reached.
This is supported by his delayed eviction last year for non-payment of rent.
A sanction from the court that is required to be paid by Biss personally might be a significant problem for him, and I don't see Nunes being especially happy or ready to pay Twitter's legal bills.
A key missing detail is that this vehicle was apparently a 'lemon law' buy-back.
That might change the analysis, both morally and legally.
For me it moves the transaction away from a 'first sale' doctrine limit, where the manufacturer has no control after an item is sold. In this case the original sale was effectively reversed by a requirement of a state law. This was a subsequent sale, where the original window sticker and invoice might not be relevant.
Within a few seconds you can come up with several ways to mis-use the proposed law.
A private right of action with no objective standard means that you could sue anyone and they would have to prove that their speech wasn't pornography. Even if the speech had no prurient content, it shifts the burden and is going to cost the defendant much more than the plaintiff.
To make it clear, the Prop 13 "loophole" is that business properties are now commonly owned by a single-purpose corporation. Rather than sell the property, which resets tax basis to the selling price, the corporation is sold. That retains the original tax basis.
Because of the mortgage interest deduction and various other laws (including zoning), individual homeowners can't do this.
The result is that over time commercial properties have ended up paying a far lower share of property taxes than they did before.
"They're not government entities, but they can still violate someone's First Amendment rights."
I'm don't believe that is correct.
That said, the first amendment does influence what the courts will enforce. The more a HOA acts as a quasi-governmental agency, the closer the courts will examine its actions. When it purports to be able to regulate the speech of its members, it is going far beyond a limited cooperative of property owners for the purpose of maintaining community assets.
While this situation is likely to never reach trial because the board apparently never passed the resolution and provided notice of the new rules, even if they had properly passed a rule it goes so far beyond the purpose of a HOA it's difficult to see a court accepting it as legitimate.
Companies don't spend the millions it takes for a superbowl ad to tell the truth. They are either introducing a new product, reminding you to drink beer and eat junk food, or telling a Big Lie.
Oracle is twisting to distinguish this specific unlicensed API use from very similar use that they sued others over.
I can't see it working. They might be able to thread the needle on this one very specific use case. But every statement they make to claim that their use is different will complicate their options for the dozens or hundred other situations that are going to be pointed out in the coming years.
If API copyright is upheld by the US Supreme Court, there will be an avalanche of filings. Most of them be an injustice, but I'll cheer for every one filed against Oracle.
It's disappointing that the ruling on the Nazi-or-not-Nazi fact.
Putting up the picture was the issue. In the U.S. that so-called libel would be an opinion based on disclosed facts.
But, just like the U.S., the lawsuit was the punishment. They didn't think that anyone would risk the cost of the research, even if 75% sure that the conclusion would be "yup, Nazi". But, unlike the U.S., 'loser pays' kept the injustice from being greater.
There are plenty of people in the SF bay area making good money, but there is a strong element of 'winning the lottery' in the area. A handful win big, but the average payout is less than the perception.
You frequently hear about the few mid-level employees that made millions on their stock. You don't hear from the much larger proportion that worked long hours for modest pay with the expectation that their stock would be the big payday, only to end up with stock options or RSUs that are 'in the money' just enough to keep them from leaving the job until they finish vesting.
From what I've seen, the path to an IPO or being bought out is usually preceded by a year of practically cooking the books to grow, gain customers with one-off discounts, and attract employees with luxurious workplace amenities. Just before the IPO the stock is shuffled to make the regular employee shares and options worth significantly less. Just after the IPO the amenities are cut.
It was reasonably foreseeable that there would be an injury on the police side. Should the organizers have been legally responsible for that injury?
For background, during a previous march three weeks earlier police had attacked the unarmed, peaceful protesters and killed one of them. During the same march two press photographers were clubbed by police and a TV reporter was badly beaten by police. It was very likely that police would be violently attacking any march in support of civil rights.
Now, again, should protest organizers be legally responsible for police injuries? How would that have changed organized civil rights demonstrations?
I'm sure they will get lots of sympathetic press from headlines claiming that they are being sued in California, and likely a bunch of donations.
I was initially confused how California was remotely related. I expected that it was somehow like Virginia, which apparently is an overlap of California and Iowa for Devin Nunes. But looking at where the notice was sent, it is actually the most logical venue for the legal action. Dropbox is the nexus for the activity -- it is the district the plaintiffs and defendants have in common, and it is where the action happened.
I argue that binary code shouldn't receive direct copyright protection. Only source code, with the resulting binary covered as a derivative work.
The bargain with society is that you are given a limited government-enforced period where you have the exclusive rights to publish a work. If you aren't revealing the complete work e.g. by registering the work with the Library of Congress, then you shouldn't get the government benefit of copyright protection.
Look, he wasn't in Vienna.
And he has never heard of Vienna.
And if you have a picture of him there, it might have been someone else using his body. And we'll have to check that out, since you can't possibly expect him to remember where he has been.
On the post: As Record Labels Still Are Demanding Mandated Filters; Facebook's Copyright Filter Takes Down A Guy Playing Bach
Re: To the filters, it's all the same, tone deaf and without con
That's an excellent idea. We should have joint and several liability for the performer(s) and all of their instructors (and instructors' families and estates).
With increasingly large copyright violation awards, doing this will also assure that IP rights holders get paid at least a fraction of the vast damages that are incurred whenever any music, no matter how old, is played.
This might help, in some small way, to rectify the historic injustice of instructors using copyrighted music in their classes (thus commercially). Even if students butcher the music so horribly that it's unrecognizable, it must still be a copyright violation. If their mis-playing sounds makes it sound like a different song, it's a double violation.
On the post: Patent Troll Runs To Court To Whine About Mean People Online, Insists They Must All Secretly Be From Company It's Suing
Is this a dice roll that the judge doesn't understand the web or sites such as reddit ?
That's a gamble that had a good chance a decade ago. It seems unlikely that federal judge would be clueless today.
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: Anti-FACTSER sues facebook ...
Is the plaintiff's attorney being paid? Then it is likely a case of a scummy lawyer taking advantage of a client, rather than dual Dunning-Kruger.
It's telling that this attorney is a Grisham-style ambulance chaser, dabbling in personal injury and divorce cases. Real-estate law can be legitimate business, but I suspect that here it actually means evictions and arguing over security deposits.
On the post: Awful, Awful People Keep Trying To Trademark COVID And Coronavirus
It is a license to sue!
Threatening a bogus lawsuit is almost as effective as actually having a valid claim. It's sometimes more effective if you have a history of causing innocent defendants lots of money.
In a slightly better world an attempt to file invalid trademarks would simply result in a presumption of invalidity for all future filing for both the law firm and the client.
On the post: Police Department Shells Out $50,000 To Man After His Camera Catches Cops Fabricating Criminal Charges Against Him
A quick search reveals that the officers were 'exonerated' by their own department, with the decision happening in late 2017.
They appear to have ignored that criminal charges were filed against the activist, only to be later dropped as unsupported.
It took over four years of legal action before a trial was scheduled. It is very likely that cost more than $50K of legal effort, with part of it handled by the ACLU.
They were only caught because they were unlucky. Without the accidental recording no one in the justice system would have believed Michael Picard. Even with the recording the department claimed that they saw nothing wrong with what happened. This is hardly a happy-ending story.
On the post: PetNet 'Smart' Pet Feeders Go Offline For A Week, Customer Service Completely Breaks Down
Re: Too busy to feed your pet?
There are lots of circumstances where you normally feed your pet personally, but something unexpected happens. I've been caught in a 5 hour road closure (3 hours of stopped traffic and turning around, 2 hours for the now-jammed alternate route). That's exactly where an internet-controlled pet feeder would be useful. It doesn't make you a bad pet owner.
Many people also go on business and personal travel where it's impractical to take a pet but not long enough to justify a pet sitter or pet "hotel". There a simpler timer based feeder would work, but an internet connected one would provide peace of mind that it was working.
On the post: Devin Nunes' Lawyer Continues To Use Unrelated Case To Try To Unearth Satirical Internet Cow Account
The assumption is that Biss is working largely unpaid, with the expectation that his notoriety will result in a profitable client base. Or perhaps with the hope that a profitable settlement might be reached.
This is supported by his delayed eviction last year for non-payment of rent.
A sanction from the court that is required to be paid by Biss personally might be a significant problem for him, and I don't see Nunes being especially happy or ready to pay Twitter's legal bills.
On the post: Trouble At The Law Firm Filing Patently Ridiculous Lawsuits On Behalf Of Tulsi Gabbard
Re: Haters Are Going To Hate
I'm pretty sure that this is a troll..
Michael Avenatti was convicted only a day ago.
Since his name came up, "Ken, is Michael Avenatti a good lawyer?"
On the post: The End Of Ownership: Tesla Software Updates Giveth... And Tesla Software Updates Taketh Away...
Lemon law buy-back and subsequent sale
A key missing detail is that this vehicle was apparently a 'lemon law' buy-back.
That might change the analysis, both morally and legally.
For me it moves the transaction away from a 'first sale' doctrine limit, where the manufacturer has no control after an item is sold. In this case the original sale was effectively reversed by a requirement of a state law. This was a subsequent sale, where the original window sticker and invoice might not be relevant.
On the post: Utah State Rep Unveils Bill To Force Porn To Come With A Warning Label
Within a few seconds you can come up with several ways to mis-use the proposed law.
A private right of action with no objective standard means that you could sue anyone and they would have to prove that their speech wasn't pornography. Even if the speech had no prurient content, it shifts the burden and is going to cost the defendant much more than the plaintiff.
On the post: Disney's Licensing Dogs Charge Underserved School District A Third Of Fundraiser Money For Playing 'Lion King' DVD
Re: Re: Dangit, who let those weasels in here?!
To make it clear, the Prop 13 "loophole" is that business properties are now commonly owned by a single-purpose corporation. Rather than sell the property, which resets tax basis to the selling price, the corporation is sold. That retains the original tax basis.
Because of the mortgage interest deduction and various other laws (including zoning), individual homeowners can't do this.
The result is that over time commercial properties have ended up paying a far lower share of property taxes than they did before.
On the post: Home Owners Association Threatens Residents With Lawsuit For Online Criticism
"They're not government entities, but they can still violate someone's First Amendment rights."
I'm don't believe that is correct.
That said, the first amendment does influence what the courts will enforce. The more a HOA acts as a quasi-governmental agency, the closer the courts will examine its actions. When it purports to be able to regulate the speech of its members, it is going far beyond a limited cooperative of property owners for the purpose of maintaining community assets.
While this situation is likely to never reach trial because the board apparently never passed the resolution and provided notice of the new rules, even if they had properly passed a rule it goes so far beyond the purpose of a HOA it's difficult to see a court accepting it as legitimate.
On the post: Verizon's 5G Superbowl Ads Will Hype Nonexistent Firefighter Tech And A Barely Available Network
Companies don't spend the millions it takes for a superbowl ad to tell the truth. They are either introducing a new product, reminding you to drink beer and eat junk food, or telling a Big Lie.
On the post: Turns Out Oracle Copied Amazon's S3 APIs; When Confronted, Pretends That's Different (Spoiler Alert: It's Not)
Threading the needle
Oracle is twisting to distinguish this specific unlicensed API use from very similar use that they sued others over.
I can't see it working. They might be able to thread the needle on this one very specific use case. But every statement they make to claim that their use is different will complicate their options for the dozens or hundred other situations that are going to be pointed out in the coming years.
If API copyright is upheld by the US Supreme Court, there will be an avalanche of filings. Most of them be an injustice, but I'll cheer for every one filed against Oracle.
On the post: Austrian Hotel Drops Libel Lawsuit Against Guest Who Complained About Pictures Of Nazis In The Lobby
It's disappointing that the ruling on the Nazi-or-not-Nazi fact.
Putting up the picture was the issue. In the U.S. that so-called libel would be an opinion based on disclosed facts.
But, just like the U.S., the lawsuit was the punishment. They didn't think that anyone would risk the cost of the research, even if 75% sure that the conclusion would be "yup, Nazi". But, unlike the U.S., 'loser pays' kept the injustice from being greater.
On the post: NYTimes Predicted San Francisco Would 'Drown In Millionaires' Post IPO Boom; Now Whines That It Never Happened
There are plenty of people in the SF bay area making good money, but there is a strong element of 'winning the lottery' in the area. A handful win big, but the average payout is less than the perception.
You frequently hear about the few mid-level employees that made millions on their stock. You don't hear from the much larger proportion that worked long hours for modest pay with the expectation that their stock would be the big payday, only to end up with stock options or RSUs that are 'in the money' just enough to keep them from leaving the job until they finish vesting.
From what I've seen, the path to an IPO or being bought out is usually preceded by a year of practically cooking the books to grow, gain customers with one-off discounts, and attract employees with luxurious workplace amenities. Just before the IPO the stock is shuffled to make the regular employee shares and options worth significantly less. Just after the IPO the amenities are cut.
On the post: Appeals Court Revisits Its Terrible New Orleans Protest Decision, Changes Nothing About Its Rejection Of First Amendment Protections
A good reference is the 1965 'March on Selma'.
It was reasonably foreseeable that there would be an injury on the police side. Should the organizers have been legally responsible for that injury?
For background, during a previous march three weeks earlier police had attacked the unarmed, peaceful protesters and killed one of them. During the same march two press photographers were clubbed by police and a TV reporter was badly beaten by police. It was very likely that police would be violently attacking any march in support of civil rights.
Now, again, should protest organizers be legally responsible for police injuries? How would that have changed organized civil rights demonstrations?
On the post: NC, Or Not NC: Why Suing The Sons Of Confederate Veterans In N.D.Cal For Violating The DMCA Makes Sense
I'm sure they will get lots of sympathetic press from headlines claiming that they are being sued in California, and likely a bunch of donations.
I was initially confused how California was remotely related. I expected that it was somehow like Virginia, which apparently is an overlap of California and Iowa for Devin Nunes. But looking at where the notice was sent, it is actually the most logical venue for the legal action. Dropbox is the nexus for the activity -- it is the district the plaintiffs and defendants have in common, and it is where the action happened.
On the post: Disney's Decision Not To Renew SecuROM License Bricks 'Tron: Evolution'
Re:
I argue that binary code shouldn't receive direct copyright protection. Only source code, with the resulting binary covered as a derivative work.
The bargain with society is that you are given a limited government-enforced period where you have the exclusive rights to publish a work. If you aren't revealing the complete work e.g. by registering the work with the Library of Congress, then you shouldn't get the government benefit of copyright protection.
On the post: Devin Nunes' Virginia SLAPP Suits Causing Virginia Legislators To Consider A New Anti-SLAPP Law
Re: Re: Re: Ah those silver linings...
Look, he wasn't in Vienna.
And he has never heard of Vienna.
And if you have a picture of him there, it might have been someone else using his body. And we'll have to check that out, since you can't possibly expect him to remember where he has been.
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