They are not charging him with breaking into the advert boxes and replacing the contents. They are also apparently not charging any of the people who helped him. It's not even clear how much of a role he had in the actual swapping of the signage. Instead, they've charged only him with a bizarre set of crimes which you admit are inappropriate. Yet you seem to believe it's OK to convict him of something—anything—because you don't like the fact that the advert boxes were broken into.
What's worse, the abridgment of his free speech rights, or the injustice of a public which won't accept that he should not be punished at all if he is not found guilty, in a court of law, of the exact crimes with which he has been charged? The innocent—that is, those who haven't been found guilty in court—must go free (and ideally shouldn't be put through the wringer in the first place), even if they've actually done something wrong. It doesn't matter if it's a petty vandal or a terrorist mastermind being put on the stand.
They are not charging him with breaking into the advert boxes and replacing the contents. They are also apparently not charging any of the people who helped him. It's not even clear how much of a role he had in the actual swapping of the signage. Instead, they've charged only him with a bizarre set of crimes which you admit are inappropriate. Yet you seem to believe it's OK to convict him of something—anything—because you don't like the fact that the advert boxes were broken into.
What's worse, the abridgment of his free speech rights, or the injustice of a public which won't accept that he should not be punished at all if he is not found guilty, in a court of law, of the exact crimes with which he has been charged? The innocent—that is, those who haven't been found guilty in court—must go free (and ideally shouldn't be put through the wringer in the first place), even if they actually done something wrong. It doesn't matter if it's a petty vandal or a terrorist mastermind being put on the stand.
As it says in the article: MP3s under five minutes in length are assessed a 13-cent per track fee. Each additional minute brings with it a 20% increase in price.
I think for these philosophical arguments to be persuasive, they need to be augmented with a concise list of innovations that were threatened or outright hindered by copyright. It would also help to have examples of creativity flourishing in venues where this no copyright, or where copyright is not respected. The RSC policy brief made a stab in this direction, but IMHO focused too much on one rather weak example (the DJ industry). There are many more and better examples, with court cases and numbers for support.
The only exception is when there are periods: M.D. gets the apostrophe, DJ and TV do not.
Anyway, I do agree that the "DJ industry" section was weakly argued and given way too much space. The technical illegality of most DJ mixes is just one of many ways in which copyright acts in opposition to culture; it would be better to just talk about that subject and use DJing, remixing, re-editing, and sampling as examples.
Re: Movie and Music Industry Abuses Stifle Innovation
Your letter reads as an insincere thank-you because you use it as a springboard for a lengthy gripe session that you publicly post in forums.
Also, are you suggesting that Congress should do something about gratuitous violence, sex, political POV, and homosexual "social conditioning" in movies, which you consider "abuse" of consumers? Rein it in or GTFO.
In the U.S., for civil copyright suits, statutory damages are usually an option instead of actual damages. In that situation, there doesn't have to be any showing of actual damages; a vague and unsupported claim of "irreparable harm" is normally taken prima facie. Naturally, when given the option, the copyright owners almost always seek statutory damages...
The starry-eyed author just got a reality check: now he knows big business doesn't give a crap about his facts or his idealism, and he knows his party isn't going to stick up for him if he challenges corporate authority.
Likewise, the GOP establishment just got a wake-up call about the younger generation, which doesn't blindly accept the status quo when it comes to intellectual property, and which actually considers the public interest to be worth the party's consideration. The old guard must recognize that these upstarts have not only infiltrated party ranks, but are on the verge of exerting an unwelcome influence on policy; something has to be done!
There was indeed an opinion piece authored by the two lawyers on Nov 7.
Mike's previous post opened by mentioning it and saying there hasn't been much else of note ... until the RSC report (or Policy Brief or whatever you want to call it) that was covered at length. It was this RSC document which is at issue, here, not the op-ed.
"Freehadist" is a word apparently made up by David Lowery, and as such is pretty much confined to posts and comments on The Trichordist... and the occasional spillover from there to here.
OK, have it your way, it's not a "report." It is, however, an RSC "Policy Brief" provided as part of "informative analysis of major policy issues and pending legislation".
We at the RSC take pride in providing informative analysis of major policy issues and pending legislation that accounts for the range of perspectives held by RSC Members and within the conservative community. Yesterday you received a Policy Brief on copyright law that was published without adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard.
Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"
Along those lines...I think it's a safe bet that these IP-protection advocates in the Obama administration are not TechDirt readers. Nobody representing the public interest has their ear, and it's not in their office's mission to respond to put the public interest ahead of industry and trade. Nevertheless, I feel it wouldn't hurt to at least make an attempt to make our point of view heard, especially if we can frame it in terms they're likely to respond to.
I was going to say maybe someone should write to Secretary Locke and point out the gaffe, but he no longer holds that post. He is now Ambassador to China. His replacement stepped down. The current (acting) Secretary of Commerce is Rebecca Blank, Locke's former adviser and (apparently) co-author of the "IP and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus" report which was criticized here (click) earlier this year. Has anyone here made any effort whatsoever to transmit critical points of view to specific people in the Obama administration? Waiting for Republicans to do it doesn't seem like it's going to be very productive.
Re: Re: Toshibas have a tendency to overheat it seems
Yeah, my Toshiba laptop didn't have an overheating problem...because it came with a firmware problem that caused the CPU to be "stuck" at its slowest setting! I wonder how many never realized their laptop was running slow. Affected models include M200, M15-S405, M35-S359, Qosmio F10 & F10, Tecra M1, SPM-30, probably more.
Toshiba never acknowledged the problem nor offered a fix for it publicly. Their low-level repair techs didn't know about it, and the phone support people just read from a script that, naturally, never acknowledged that Toshiba was shipping computers with crippled CPUs. But their upper-level repair techs knew about it and could use special software to change the settings to allow the CPU speed to change. Eventually this software made it into public notebook forums, where it was aggressively taken down by Toshiba, citing copyright and the other ridiculous excuses outlined by That Anonymous Coward, above.
After using the Toshiba CPU utility to get my system to dynamically adjust the CPU speed, guess what happened... overheating!
On the post: NY Times Published The Pentagon Papers, But Can't Be Bothered To Send Reporter To Bradley Manning Trial
Re: NY Times is pro liberal.
On the post: NYC Artist Satirizes Law Enforcement Drone Program; Gets Book Thrown At Him By NYPD
Re: Re:
On the post: NYC Artist Satirizes Law Enforcement Drone Program; Gets Book Thrown At Him By NYPD
Re:
They are not charging him with breaking into the advert boxes and replacing the contents. They are also apparently not charging any of the people who helped him. It's not even clear how much of a role he had in the actual swapping of the signage. Instead, they've charged only him with a bizarre set of crimes which you admit are inappropriate. Yet you seem to believe it's OK to convict him of something—anything—because you don't like the fact that the advert boxes were broken into.
What's worse, the abridgment of his free speech rights, or the injustice of a public which won't accept that he should not be punished at all if he is not found guilty, in a court of law, of the exact crimes with which he has been charged? The innocent—that is, those who haven't been found guilty in court—must go free (and ideally shouldn't be put through the wringer in the first place), even if they've actually done something wrong. It doesn't matter if it's a petty vandal or a terrorist mastermind being put on the stand.
On the post: NYC Artist Satirizes Law Enforcement Drone Program; Gets Book Thrown At Him By NYPD
Re:
They are not charging him with breaking into the advert boxes and replacing the contents. They are also apparently not charging any of the people who helped him. It's not even clear how much of a role he had in the actual swapping of the signage. Instead, they've charged only him with a bizarre set of crimes which you admit are inappropriate. Yet you seem to believe it's OK to convict him of something—anything—because you don't like the fact that the advert boxes were broken into.
What's worse, the abridgment of his free speech rights, or the injustice of a public which won't accept that he should not be punished at all if he is not found guilty, in a court of law, of the exact crimes with which he has been charged? The innocent—that is, those who haven't been found guilty in court—must go free (and ideally shouldn't be put through the wringer in the first place), even if they actually done something wrong. It doesn't matter if it's a petty vandal or a terrorist mastermind being put on the stand.
On the post: GEMA Feels It Isn't Killing German Nightclubs Fast Enough, Moves Towards Charging DJs Per MP3 On Their Laptops
Re:
On the post: Fixing Copyright: The Purpose Of Copyright
On the post: Fixing Copyright: The Purpose Of Copyright
Re:
On the post: Fixing Copyright: The Purpose Of Copyright
Re: Re: Re: "But, if we all agree that [Mike's fantasy] scenario B..."
On the post: Don't Let Retraction Distract From The Simple Fact: GOP Copyright Policy Brief Was Brilliant
Re: Re: Some Problems with the Whole DJ Section
The only exception is when there are periods: M.D. gets the apostrophe, DJ and TV do not.
Anyway, I do agree that the "DJ industry" section was weakly argued and given way too much space. The technical illegality of most DJ mixes is just one of many ways in which copyright acts in opposition to culture; it would be better to just talk about that subject and use DJing, remixing, re-editing, and sampling as examples.
On the post: Rep. Darrell Issa Wants To Make It Clear That You're Allowed To Rip Your DVDs
Re: Movie and Music Industry Abuses Stifle Innovation
Also, are you suggesting that Congress should do something about gratuitous violence, sex, political POV, and homosexual "social conditioning" in movies, which you consider "abuse" of consumers? Rein it in or GTFO.
On the post: Rep. Darrell Issa Wants To Make It Clear That You're Allowed To Rip Your DVDs
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re:
The starry-eyed author just got a reality check: now he knows big business doesn't give a crap about his facts or his idealism, and he knows his party isn't going to stick up for him if he challenges corporate authority.
Likewise, the GOP establishment just got a wake-up call about the younger generation, which doesn't blindly accept the status quo when it comes to intellectual property, and which actually considers the public interest to be worth the party's consideration. The old guard must recognize that these upstarts have not only infiltrated party ranks, but are on the verge of exerting an unwelcome influence on policy; something has to be done!
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: References
The RSC report: completely different document.
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stand Firm
There was indeed an opinion piece authored by the two lawyers on Nov 7.
Mike's previous post opened by mentioning it and saying there hasn't been much else of note ... until the RSC report (or Policy Brief or whatever you want to call it) that was covered at length. It was this RSC document which is at issue, here, not the op-ed.
How does that crow taste?
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re:
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Stand Firm
Feel better now?
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re:
We at the RSC take pride in providing informative analysis of major policy issues and pending legislation that accounts for the range of perspectives held by RSC Members and within the conservative community. Yesterday you received a Policy Brief on copyright law that was published without adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard.
Just sayin'...
On the post: That Was Fast: Hollywood Already Browbeat The Republicans Into Retracting Report On Copyright Reform
Re: Obama administration: "Piracy is flat, unadulterated theft"
I was going to say maybe someone should write to Secretary Locke and point out the gaffe, but he no longer holds that post. He is now Ambassador to China. His replacement stepped down. The current (acting) Secretary of Commerce is Rebecca Blank, Locke's former adviser and (apparently) co-author of the "IP and the U.S. Economy: Industries in Focus" report which was criticized here (click) earlier this year. Has anyone here made any effort whatsoever to transmit critical points of view to specific people in the Obama administration? Waiting for Republicans to do it doesn't seem like it's going to be very productive.
On the post: Toshiba: You Can't Have Repair Manuals Because They're Copyrighted And You're Too Dumb To Fix A Computer
Re: Injuries
On the post: Toshiba: You Can't Have Repair Manuals Because They're Copyrighted And You're Too Dumb To Fix A Computer
Re: Re: Toshibas have a tendency to overheat it seems
Toshiba never acknowledged the problem nor offered a fix for it publicly. Their low-level repair techs didn't know about it, and the phone support people just read from a script that, naturally, never acknowledged that Toshiba was shipping computers with crippled CPUs. But their upper-level repair techs knew about it and could use special software to change the settings to allow the CPU speed to change. Eventually this software made it into public notebook forums, where it was aggressively taken down by Toshiba, citing copyright and the other ridiculous excuses outlined by That Anonymous Coward, above.
After using the Toshiba CPU utility to get my system to dynamically adjust the CPU speed, guess what happened... overheating!
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