Why are prosecutors given so much power over what the end punishment of a criminal is? Seems like there should be more separation between the judge and the lawyers. Another thing I am wondering is if there are any consequences to lawyers for bringing bogus charges to court. Like, say they bring somebody up on 10 charges and the judge finds him guilty of 4. The prosecutor gets a -6 on their record or something?
Prosecutor: "Unless you sign off on this speeding ticket, chum, I'm gonna throw the book at you. That's right, I'll charge you with everything! You will be in court 20 years at least. You musta done something."
Not entertainment, but there is a large copyright industry built around the selling of academic papers. This, as a closet scientist, is an insane situation to me. I have to pay $25 just to look at some of the papers I am interested in. Knowledge should be free.
It remains unclear the motivations for the prosecutor bullying in this particular (Swartz) situation, though. What is clear is that it should not have happened.
If there is no competing service then you have customers locked in no matter if they sign a contract or not. That is exactly my situation. I have 1 ISP available to use. When I moved here they made me sign a 2 year contract. I plan to live here 10 years and be on internet the entire time, so the contract is worthless from their end. From my end it is actually a benefit because it locks them in to not raising my rates for 2 years.
In this case I think you are just over blowing some marketing rhetoric of this company. They found that people that are unstable are unwilling to sign a long term contract. They found that by lowering the fee for no contract some of them would sign up for the short term. Basically they found that wise business practice can make them more money. Then they spin it in the news as doing something special for people. It is only special because most other companies are too stupid to figure out that having a no-contract option can make them more money.
The govt as a whole may appear hypocritical but that is a symptom of the real problem. (some of) The people in charge of our govt offices are pushing their own agendas ahead of the agendas of the people they work for (us). It is symptomatic throughout the govt now to the point where everybody expects it like business as usual. This includes revolving doors and congresspeople that favor lobby interests over constituent interests.
I often hear people say things like "but the President doesn't have the power to do anything about that so how can we blame him?" Well, the Pres appoints these heads doesn't he? He has oversight and is letting it go on. These heads are not doing their jobs if they put themselves first! Obama seems like a nice guy and I like a lot of what he says, but the fact that he lets guys Leibowitz, Holder, Bernanke, and many others in his administration go on about their way means that he condones what they are doing. And what they are doing is screwing up everything they have charge over for the sake of their own personal gain.
Nothing is changing. People fear change and they are unable to think for themselves so they will continue to vote for whoever the media tells them to vote for and against their own best interests.
They can opt out anytime they wish with robots.txt. They always could do that. So why is it news that they all opt out? (That is rhetorical to your stupid question, BTW.)
They will make news by all simultaneously opting out in a news extravaganza and then quietly opt back in so it doesn't make any headlines. Same crap like when the govt puts out an economic report and then quietly revise it so no one notices.
here is my detailed explanation of how it should work
The broken patent system has put a huge drag on both economic and technology advancement. Consider, if we as a society were to totally disallow the ownership of technology. There are basically 2 cases I can see. (This is just a brain dump as I consider my own position on this subject.)
case 1. Two almost equally sized companies working on the same product(s). Seems fine. Let them compete on execution. The one to think of it first has a head start already, they don't need to be granted exclusive rights.
case 2. Smaller company tech is reverse engineered by large company and then out competed in the marketplace by the larger company with more resources. This case is the only one patents help with and should cover.
It seems like we do need to allow some sort of limited ownership of tech to prevent case 2 from stifling startups. So for patents to work as a benefit to society, they need to operate as follows.
1. Startup company files a patent to give them exclusive right to develop a new product they thought up first. Patent includes deliverables and development timelines. Company pays a yearly fee along with updates to the timelines. If timelines are missed by more than 1 year on each update, patent is invalidated. (This to make sure progress to market is actually being made.) Company is given 1-5 years exclusive market rights after the product is delivered (depending on the product) to recoup costs and establish a market.
2. An established company (one with at least one product on the market and revenue) can file a patent only to keep (1) from preventing them from developing a product. That is, since (1) allows startups to block an established company from entering a market for a period, if the established company thinks of an idea first they need a way to keep that from happening. Patents from an established company do not require a development timeline since they cannot be used to prevent anyone from developing the patented technology.
As far as I can tell, this scheme would fix the patents system to be beneficial to everyone that actually does something. (ie. not lawyers or politicians). There is room for the non-practicing inventor to file a patent (without development timeline) and then sell it within one year, either to a big company, or to a startup (that then needs to add a timeline to it and refile.) See any holes in it? Why wouldn't this work?
There is only one case I can think of where it seems like we need a protection system. This is the case where a startup should be given time to develop an idea without a large company with a great deal more resources available buldozing them over. Else all we end up with is big companies and no startups. I explained this idea in detail once, but probably nobody read it.
Where is the easy-to-vote-for congress guy in my state (AZ)? You Coloradoans are privileged to be able to cast your vote for this Polis guy and feel good about it. In my state, whoever I vote for I feel dirty about it afterward.
On the post: Carmen Ortiz's Husband Criticizes Swartz Family For Suggesting Prosecution Of Their Son Contributed To His Suicide
Plea Bargaining
Prosecutor: "Unless you sign off on this speeding ticket, chum, I'm gonna throw the book at you. That's right, I'll charge you with everything! You will be in court 20 years at least. You musta done something."
On the post: Aaron Swartz Could Have Killed Someone, Robbed A Bank & Sold Child Porn & Faced Less Time In Prison
Re: Re:
It remains unclear the motivations for the prosecutor bullying in this particular (Swartz) situation, though. What is clear is that it should not have happened.
On the post: ISP Says It's Doing Away With Contract Requirements; Wants People To Pay Them For Offering Good, Reliable Service
but is there any competition?
In this case I think you are just over blowing some marketing rhetoric of this company. They found that people that are unstable are unwilling to sign a long term contract. They found that by lowering the fee for no contract some of them would sign up for the short term. Basically they found that wise business practice can make them more money. Then they spin it in the news as doing something special for people. It is only special because most other companies are too stupid to figure out that having a no-contract option can make them more money.
On the post: NRA's Plan: If We Blame Video Games & Movies For Sandy Hook Massacre, Perhaps People Will Stop Blaming Guns
Re:
Where is the "blame the frailty of the human mind" option?
On the post: DMCA Fun: Movie Studios Issue Takedowns Over Their Authorized Films
the Thoughts of a Movie exec
On the post: Google Staredown With FTC May Result In FTC Blinking
Re: Re: Harm is easy to find if not willfully blind.
On the post: Google Staredown With FTC May Result In FTC Blinking
Re: hypocitical
I often hear people say things like "but the President doesn't have the power to do anything about that so how can we blame him?" Well, the Pres appoints these heads doesn't he? He has oversight and is letting it go on. These heads are not doing their jobs if they put themselves first! Obama seems like a nice guy and I like a lot of what he says, but the fact that he lets guys Leibowitz, Holder, Bernanke, and many others in his administration go on about their way means that he condones what they are doing. And what they are doing is screwing up everything they have charge over for the sake of their own personal gain.
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re:
On the post: Navy SEALs Lose Their Military Careers By Consulting With EA On Videogame
A blown mission to EA
On the post: Apparently Attacking A Candidate For Being A World Of Warcraft Player Is Not An Effective Campaign Strategy
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Biden Takes Part In MPAA Board Meeting; Suggests Studios Tell Paying Customers They're Thieves
Re: Re:
On the post: John Mellencamp: Thou Shalt Not Permit The Internet To Derail Our Gravy Train
Re:
two 'merican kids livin on the internet...
stealing my songs!
stealing my money!
stealing the food from my babies mouths!
damn them!
damn them all to hell!
On the post: Economist's Defense Of Perpetual Copyright: It's Best To Just Ignore The Economics
let's play b-ball
On the post: Law Enforcement Looking To Create A Searchable Database Of Everywhere Your Vehicle Has Been
Re: Re: Re: More replies than here, and actual discussion too.
On the post: Stupid Copyright Licensing Tricks Strike Again: NBC Can't Show Viral SNL Pandora Intern Clip
Re: And you guys call yourselves freetards...
On the post: Brazilian Newspapers Apparently Don't Want Traffic; They All Opt Out Of Google News
Re: Re:
On the post: Brazilian Newspapers Apparently Don't Want Traffic; They All Opt Out Of Google News
Re: Re:
They will make news by all simultaneously opting out in a news extravaganza and then quietly opt back in so it doesn't make any headlines. Same crap like when the govt puts out an economic report and then quietly revise it so no one notices.
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Economist Eric Maskin: In Highly Innovative Industries, It May Be Better To Scrap Patents
here is my detailed explanation of how it should work
case 1. Two almost equally sized companies working on the same product(s). Seems fine. Let them compete on execution. The one to think of it first has a head start already, they don't need to be granted exclusive rights.
case 2. Smaller company tech is reverse engineered by large company and then out competed in the marketplace by the larger company with more resources. This case is the only one patents help with and should cover.
It seems like we do need to allow some sort of limited ownership of tech to prevent case 2 from stifling startups. So for patents to work as a benefit to society, they need to operate as follows.
1. Startup company files a patent to give them exclusive right to develop a new product they thought up first. Patent includes deliverables and development timelines. Company pays a yearly fee along with updates to the timelines. If timelines are missed by more than 1 year on each update, patent is invalidated. (This to make sure progress to market is actually being made.) Company is given 1-5 years exclusive market rights after the product is delivered (depending on the product) to recoup costs and establish a market.
2. An established company (one with at least one product on the market and revenue) can file a patent only to keep (1) from preventing them from developing a product. That is, since (1) allows startups to block an established company from entering a market for a period, if the established company thinks of an idea first they need a way to keep that from happening. Patents from an established company do not require a development timeline since they cannot be used to prevent anyone from developing the patented technology.
As far as I can tell, this scheme would fix the patents system to be beneficial to everyone that actually does something. (ie. not lawyers or politicians). There is room for the non-practicing inventor to file a patent (without development timeline) and then sell it within one year, either to a big company, or to a startup (that then needs to add a timeline to it and refile.) See any holes in it? Why wouldn't this work?
On the post: Nobel Prize Winning Economist Eric Maskin: In Highly Innovative Industries, It May Be Better To Scrap Patents
Re: Re:
On the post: Jared Polis Tells FTC To Back Off Google Antitrust Investigation
the vote
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