This situation illustrates why these domain seizures are not just simple things like seizing a bunch of illegal drugs. With the complexity of copyright law, it is often very difficult to tell the illegal from the legal. Even experienced IP attorneys have trouble telling the difference. It takes a careful inspection of the facts by a court, and quite possibly an appeals court to make a determination.
The fifth amendment is for things other than cop shows
The inquisition would torture people until they confessed. Part of the confession process was a requirement to give up the names of other conspirators.
Isn't that exactly what we have going on here? And what ever happened to the fifth amendment? I guess it went to join the first, fourth, and fourteenth.
So the record labels are wanting to create 50,000 angry voters per day? They are disappointed that they are only creating 2000?
At some point voters may have a Hadopi backlash. If the labels are lucky at that point the backlash will only be a repeal of the Hadopi law. However, if the anti-RIAA lobby really gets rolling it is very possible the law will swing the other direction and make file sharing legal.
I was hoping for multiple jurisdiction filing, actually.
I figure that if they get lawyers involved in enough jurisdictions they will eventually hit one where the local or state bar association cares what is going on enough to disbar someone for running a extortion racket.
Anyone who sets themselves up to be the Morality Police is destined to look foolish and hypocritical. Anyone who runs a business and tries to be the Morality Police is destined to look foolish and hypocritical AND piss off customers.
There definitely is a capacity constraint on subways. The total capacity of the subway system is one cap, of course. But even if you don't get to that cap, there is a cost of running additional cars. If you only ran one car on each train, then you would hit capacity pretty quickly. There is a pretty significant cost in running a subway car, so the marginal cost is considerably greater than zero. If you didn't charge for subway rides then ridership would shoot up and you would not have a way to fund the cost of the additional riders.
I am finding a lot of ebooks that cost more than the printed edition even though there is no printing, shipping, or inventory costs. My students pay more for "textbooks" than the same book costs as a trade book.
Type II errors have interesting costs. From a pure microeconomics perspective, if marginal costs are zero and there are no capacity constraints then the cost of a type II error are zero. Making digital copies of an existing file would be an example of this. The subway would be an example where there is a capacity constraint associated with a type II error because a person without a ticket might prevent someone with a ticket from boarding.
In practical terms there would be a cost to type II errors if buyers change from buyers to freeloaders because of lack of enforcement. rational buyers will compare the cost of the fine, the ratio of the original cost versus the fine times the percentage chance of being caught. Buyers might also figure in the value of feeling honest versus the cost of a guilty conscience.
In practice the chance of being caught is a critical factor. In a subway there are choke points where everyone going by that point must have a ticket and it is easy to identify who should have a ticket. The problem with the Internet is that there really are no checkpoints and there is no easy way to know what a person is doing. At one time Napster was a checkpoint but the RIAA shut that down. Recently they assumed torrent freak and similar sites were checkpoints and tried to shut them down. That isn't a winning strategy because traffic just moves elsewhere.
Strong enforcement can keep the the cost of becoming a freeloader high, but the cost of enforcement can be enormous. That is why the RIAA and MPAA want the government and ISPs to do that for them.
DRM has upfront costs plus opportunity costs of lost customers. In addition, people find their ways around it so DRM just doesn't work in the long term.
That leaves the ratio of price to fines. If the chance of getting caught is low them fines must be enormous. Ask Jamie Thomson about that. At some point the fines get so high the courts won't or can't enforce them.
There is one other way to address the price to fine ratio. Drop the price to the marginal cost of production. Economics always wins in the end.
It may not be sloppy layering. He may be going for a presettlement. His lawyers may have known that they had such a weak claim that they didn't want to state it explicitly. A lot of IP lawsuits are based on the hope that the defendants will think it is cheaper to settle than it is to fight.
If the plaintiffs had too pay the defendant's legal fees on summary judgments there would be a lot fewer on these lawsuits no matter whether they were due to a weak case or sloppy lawyering.
I stopped at a convenience store over the weekend. They had a big selection of wrapping papers, incense, oddly-shaped glass vases that could be assembled in interesting ways, and little tiny plastic bags that would be the perfect size for holding small amounts of meth or rocks of crack. They also had the biggest collection of sweets and munchies that I have ever seen in a convenience store.
It was pretty obvious who the shop was catering too, and most of the products I saw were going to be used in association with illegal activities. A cop came in while I was there. He bought a candybar and took a hard look at me.
What the store was selling wasn't illegal. Apparently the police are using it as a source of information. I assume the cop probably ran my license plate before he came in.
It seems to me that the DCMA safe harbor itself is about the "general knowledge" problem. By registering a site as a safe harbor the site owner of the site is acknowledging that infringing activities are taking place or likely taking place. If congress thought that general knowledge was a violation of copyright law, they would not have put a provision in the law that allowed companies to register as safe harbors.
The first article I saw on this said that at least some of the people who used the pirated copy converted over to paid before Avast took any action.
Global marketing is expensive and nearly impossible for a small company. Avast saw what happened as a marketing opportunity. That seems like it would be a more profitable approach than the approaches taken by some other companies and organizations.
A lot of folks settled upon getting the presettlement letters. The racketeers probably made money on the deal anyway. The lawsuit was a sideshow and not the main part of the business model.
I wonder if the credit card companies have other motives. Are they afraid of some type of Wikileaks exposure in the future? Supposedly the next round of leaks is going to involve a banking scandal, and MC/Visa are creatures of the banking system.
On the post: Homeland Security's 'Evidence' For Domain Seizures Also Included Songs Sent By Labels
There is a reason for going to court
On the post: Court Shoots Down Mass Porn Copyright Infringement Lawsuits
$350 filing fee
On the post: So After Torturing Bradley Manning For Months, US Officials Offer Him A Deal If He Says Assange 'Conspired' With Him
Re: Re: The fifth amendment is for things other than cop shows
On the post: So After Torturing Bradley Manning For Months, US Officials Offer Him A Deal If He Says Assange 'Conspired' With Him
The fifth amendment is for things other than cop shows
Isn't that exactly what we have going on here? And what ever happened to the fifth amendment? I guess it went to join the first, fourth, and fourteenth.
On the post: Record Labels Angry That Hadopi Isn't Kicking People Off The Internet Fast Enough
50,000 angry voters per day?
At some point voters may have a Hadopi backlash. If the labels are lucky at that point the backlash will only be a repeal of the Hadopi law. However, if the anti-RIAA lobby really gets rolling it is very possible the law will swing the other direction and make file sharing legal.
On the post: More People Calling US Copyright Group's Bluff
I was hoping for multiple jurisdiction filing, actually.
On the post: Another Reminder That You Don't Own Your eBooks: Amazon Removing More eBooks You 'Bought' From Archives
Morals Cops
On the post: Weighing The Benefits And Costs Of DRM: Type I & Type II Errors
Re: Re: Costs of type II errors
On the post: Author Slams 'Piracy,' Then Admits To A Huge 'Pirated' Music Collection And Counterfeit Purses
Overpriced?
How can she say that books aren't overpriced?
On the post: Weighing The Benefits And Costs Of DRM: Type I & Type II Errors
Costs of type II errors
In practical terms there would be a cost to type II errors if buyers change from buyers to freeloaders because of lack of enforcement. rational buyers will compare the cost of the fine, the ratio of the original cost versus the fine times the percentage chance of being caught. Buyers might also figure in the value of feeling honest versus the cost of a guilty conscience.
In practice the chance of being caught is a critical factor. In a subway there are choke points where everyone going by that point must have a ticket and it is easy to identify who should have a ticket. The problem with the Internet is that there really are no checkpoints and there is no easy way to know what a person is doing. At one time Napster was a checkpoint but the RIAA shut that down. Recently they assumed torrent freak and similar sites were checkpoints and tried to shut them down. That isn't a winning strategy because traffic just moves elsewhere.
Strong enforcement can keep the the cost of becoming a freeloader high, but the cost of enforcement can be enormous. That is why the RIAA and MPAA want the government and ISPs to do that for them.
DRM has upfront costs plus opportunity costs of lost customers. In addition, people find their ways around it so DRM just doesn't work in the long term.
That leaves the ratio of price to fines. If the chance of getting caught is low them fines must be enormous. Ask Jamie Thomson about that. At some point the fines get so high the courts won't or can't enforce them.
There is one other way to address the price to fine ratio. Drop the price to the marginal cost of production. Economics always wins in the end.
On the post: Paul Allen's First Attempt At Patent Trolling Flops As He Forgets To Say Who Actually Violated What And How
Failure is always an option.
If the plaintiffs had too pay the defendant's legal fees on summary judgments there would be a lot fewer on these lawsuits no matter whether they were due to a weak case or sloppy lawyering.
On the post: Torrent-Finder Plans To Fight Domain Seizure
Re:
It was pretty obvious who the shop was catering too, and most of the products I saw were going to be used in association with illegal activities. A cop came in while I was there. He bought a candybar and took a hard look at me.
What the store was selling wasn't illegal. Apparently the police are using it as a source of information. I assume the cop probably ran my license plate before he came in.
On the post: Movie Exec Says Studios Should Stop Sending Out DVD Screeners For The Oscars
Central Question
On the post: Copyheart: Encouraging People To Copy
Subversive!
On the post: Homeland Security Gets Walmart To Tell You To Inform On Your Neighbors
People at one mosque seem to know how to report
Apparently the folks at one mosque knew how to notify authorities: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336166/FBI-informant-Craig-Monteilh-scares-Muslim-suspects- report-HIM.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
On the post: Even IP Lawyer Trade Group Thinks Viacom Is Wrong About Its DMCA Interpretation
General Knowledge
On the post: Avast Claims Single Pro License Installed 774,651 Times Around The Globe
Some people converted
Global marketing is expensive and nearly impossible for a small company. Avast saw what happened as a marketing opportunity. That seems like it would be a more profitable approach than the approaches taken by some other companies and organizations.
On the post: US Copyright Group Drops Thousands Of Cases... But Will It Refile?
They still made money
On the post: Visa & MasterCard: KKK Is A-OK, But Wikileaks Is Wicked
Other motives
On the post: Getting Rid Of Fantasy Numbers In The Copyright Debates
important numbers
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