I can potentially see some value in penalizing outright corporate espionage in that way, but I draw a distinction between that and simply leaking trade secrets. Leaking the information should certainly be justification for being fired, or even for the company refusing to do business with you in the future; it should not be justification for criminal penalties, or even civil fines.
Where I don't understand things is on the question of what public benefit there is to having such legal restrictions. With patents, the public trades a limited period of exclusivity for the guarantee that the knowledge will be public domain after that period; with trade secrets, as far as I can see, the public trades permanent exclusivity - and the costs of enforcing that, on behalf of the companies involved - for... not much.
I read you as arguing that the public trades that exclusivity for the lack of onerous, draconian security practices on the part of the companies involved. For one thing, I don't find it convincing that this trade-off is necessarily worth it; for another, I'm not sure that it's plausible that many companies would actually be willing and able to go that far, in the face of possible-to-likely public objection to such policies.
One famous example of a trade secret is the recipe for Coca-Cola. I see no public benefit from imposing penalties under the law for making this recipe public. If Coca-Cola thinks the benefits of keeping that recipe secret are sufficient to outweigh the costs of doing so (including the public-image cost of draconian security policies), they are free to do that as much as they want - but if they want the law to enforce their control of that recipe, they should have to file the recipe publicly, under one or more of the established categories of intellectual property (the most plausibly relevant being "patents"). If they don't want to publicize the recipe, they should not get legal protection against having it used by or shared with other people, unless the public receives a commensurate benefit to counterbalance the cost (of not having access to the recipe, and of enforcing that lack of access).
I think the reason it becomes a confusing area of law is because a lot of companies misuse or, by claiming things are trade secrets which are not.
I'm a little confused. As far as I'm aware, the definition of a "trade secret" is essentially "information which the commercial entity which controls it declares is a trade secret, and refuses to reveal", which would mean that anything which a company claims to be a trade secret is a trade secret. Is there a legal definition which does not boil down to that? Can you give an example of something which is claimed to be a trade secret, but is not really a trade secret, and explain why it is not one?
This article brings to mind something that I've never understood.
I understand the rationales for granting legal protection to (and, for that matter, creating) copyrights, patents, and trademarks. I may not agree with the ways those things have taken shape in real-world practice, but the underlying reasons and reasoning seem sound.
But why do we grant legal protection to trade secrets?
Trade secrets are the problem which patents were invented to fix. Once we have patents, what public benefit is there to having a penalty under the law for exposing trade secrets, or otherwise using those secrets without permission?
I certainly understand why a company would want to keep something secret - but that doesn't mean that it's in the best interest of the public to support the company's ability to do so; in fact, part of the rationale underlying the creation of the patent system was specifically to discourage companies from doing this.
Why are we both discouraging companies from keeping things secret, by way of the patent system, and encouraging them to do so, by providing legal protections for trade secrets?
I've looked for answers to this before, but all I've managed to find online is articles about how to obtain legal protection for (my) trade secrets; I haven't found one single piece discussing why trade secrets should be protected under the law.
For another comparison: consider a warrant to search the contents of a locked container, such as a safe or a jewelry box, based on probable cause to believe that evidence of a crime is contained within that container.
If the container is easily found, no further analysis is needed.
But if the container is hidden and you don't know where it is, the warrant to search the container does not - by itself - grant you the authority to search the house looking for the container. That should require its own warrant, based on probable cause to believe that the container is in fact within the house.
(It's entirely possible to present both types of probable cause in the same warrant application, and have one warrant cover both points, but it's also easily possible to have a warrant that covers only the former.)
There's something wrong with the formatting on this article - the lines extend beyond the width of the allocated center column, meaning they get cut off and can't all be read. The same effect is visible on the front page.
Not sure what could be causing that, unless it's something about the imgur embed...
The reason is that I have my mail client set to display the plain-text version of the message, and apparently that version omits the newline between the confirmation URL and the "If you did not request a password reset", so doing a right-click and "Copy URL" on the link gives you a URL with the word "If" appended to the confirmation code - which of course gets interpreted as an invalid confirmation code.
Paste the URL into the address bar and delete the "If" from the end, and you'll probably see it work just fine.
(This should still be fixed on the backend so that future reset mails get sent out with the plain-text copy correct, of course. This is just a workaround.)
Of the subversion methods you listed, I'd think the FEC would be the _least_ important, aside possibly from "pressuring voters to vote a certain way". What basis do you have for considering it "probably the main systemic reason for third party candidates getting suppressed"?
Actually, he's right about that part. If you had a right to force people to hear you, then for a third party to delete your comments on their Website - or even to prevent you from posting them in the first place - would be unconstitutional.
He's just wrong about what that means in practice.
Comcast's FAQ on the new Roku beta correctly notes that this technically isn't a net neutrality violation, because this traffic never actually touches the general internet:
The Xfinity TV service delivered through the Xfinity TV Beta app is not an Internet service and does not touch or use the Internet. Rather, it is a Title VI cable service delivered solely over Comcast's private, managed cable network, so it will not count toward your Xfinity Internet Data Usage Plan.
Is the bandwidth available over your Internet connection while using this service the same as the bandwidth available over that connection while the service is not active?
If so, then yes, I would agree that this is not a net-neutrality violation.
If, however, they're using (a differently labeled segment of) the same pipes - such that this service consumes resources which would otherwise be available for use with other services - then it's still just as much a violation as any other form of zero-rating.
(If the cable company permanently segregates off a chunk of the cable bandwith for its TV services, and never uses that bandwidth for Internet service - not even for people who don't receive TV service at all - then using that bandwidth for this service wouldn't reduce the available bandwidth for the Internet service, and so would not be a (new) violation. It would also mean less Internet bandwidth than would otherwise be available, however, so I wouldn't be surprised if cable companies don't do this.)
I don't know if she'd still be physically up for it, but I read a few years back that Angela Lansbury would love to return to the role of Jessica Fletcher, despite being in her late 80s (she'd be 91 now, per Wikipedia). If anything can show old-person as outstanding-protagonist, that would do it.
Re: Re: Waiting for charges to be filed against Ishit Poo
His poll numbers don't reflect that popularity (though, to be fair, they didn't reflect his electoral victory either); IIRC, he started out at a 38% approval rating, and barely a month later is now down to 32% with no end in sight.
Also, as I understand matters, his final album; he's fulfilled the requirements of his contract, and will be releasing songs individually (rather than as part of larger albums) henceforwards.
At a guess: because the circumstances today are different from the circumstances back when those results were achieved, and different circumstances require different methods.
Or I imagine that's what the reasoning would be, anyway. I'm not convinced that it necessarily holds true.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Article is very inaccurate in substantial matters
I think that the idea is that "conspiring to commit a civil offense constitutes a criminal offense", regardless of what the civil offense is.
I also think that this is exactly the idea which you are objecting to as absurd, and I might well agree, after I spend the time to think it through fully - but its being absurd would not prevent it from being the law in some jurisdictions, and if it's the law in NZ (I haven't checked), then this ruling would make perfect sense.
I think what he meant is that if that there is proof that a crime was committed, the government doesn't have to prove who committed it in order to be able to charge someone with aiding and abetting whoever did commit it.
See the comment below from ArkieGuy. Basically, if you don't make an argument up-front, you can't make that argument on appeal. If I'm not mistaken (which is possible; I most certainly am not a lawyer), that is what is referred to by "procedural posture"; the derivation of the phrase is a little complicated to explain, although it makes structural sense in my head.
That's one major reason why you see so many legal filings which make a case for prevailing because X, then say "even if X doesn't hold, we still prevail because Y; even if Y also doesn't hold, we still prevail because Z", et cetera. That way, all arguments are made up-front, and the right to use those arguments is preserved for appeal.
(One consequence of this is that if a lower court is bound by higher court precedent saying that argument X fails, and what you want is to have the higher court (or a court above it) overturn that precedent, you do in fact have to make argument X to the lower court even though the court has no choice but to reject it; otherwise, the higher court will reject your appeal out of hand.)
I suspect their idea was about the free-association rights of the representatives. (Bear with me here.)
The state university is a facet of the state government, particularly in light of being publicly funded.
Using a logo of an entity creates an association between oneself and that entity.
The government, just as much as the rest of society, has a First Amendment right to freedom of association - the right to choose who to associate with, and who to not. (Even if that doesn't hold for the government as a whole, it certainly holds for the representatives of that government.)
Thus, by granting the student organization permission to use this logo, the state university is creating an association between this organization and the entirety of the state government, including but not limited to the representative in question. (As well as engaging in political speech itself.)
What's more, being publicly funded, the university must have used public funds in creating the logo and the trademark thereon, and must also use public funds in maintaining that trademark.
Thus, by using the trademark in political advocacy (even with permission), the students are effectively causing the _government_ and its representatives to engage in political activity in _support_ of their campaign.
And so by having that permission rescinded under threat of withholding public funds, the government is actually staying _out_ of political speech, while at the same time protecting its representatives' own First Amendment right to freedom of association.
On the post: Disappointing To See Google's Waymo Sue Over Patents
Re: Re: Why protect trade secrets by law?
I can potentially see some value in penalizing outright corporate espionage in that way, but I draw a distinction between that and simply leaking trade secrets. Leaking the information should certainly be justification for being fired, or even for the company refusing to do business with you in the future; it should not be justification for criminal penalties, or even civil fines.
Where I don't understand things is on the question of what public benefit there is to having such legal restrictions. With patents, the public trades a limited period of exclusivity for the guarantee that the knowledge will be public domain after that period; with trade secrets, as far as I can see, the public trades permanent exclusivity - and the costs of enforcing that, on behalf of the companies involved - for... not much.
I read you as arguing that the public trades that exclusivity for the lack of onerous, draconian security practices on the part of the companies involved. For one thing, I don't find it convincing that this trade-off is necessarily worth it; for another, I'm not sure that it's plausible that many companies would actually be willing and able to go that far, in the face of possible-to-likely public objection to such policies.
One famous example of a trade secret is the recipe for Coca-Cola. I see no public benefit from imposing penalties under the law for making this recipe public. If Coca-Cola thinks the benefits of keeping that recipe secret are sufficient to outweigh the costs of doing so (including the public-image cost of draconian security policies), they are free to do that as much as they want - but if they want the law to enforce their control of that recipe, they should have to file the recipe publicly, under one or more of the established categories of intellectual property (the most plausibly relevant being "patents"). If they don't want to publicize the recipe, they should not get legal protection against having it used by or shared with other people, unless the public receives a commensurate benefit to counterbalance the cost (of not having access to the recipe, and of enforcing that lack of access).
I'm a little confused. As far as I'm aware, the definition of a "trade secret" is essentially "information which the commercial entity which controls it declares is a trade secret, and refuses to reveal", which would mean that anything which a company claims to be a trade secret is a trade secret. Is there a legal definition which does not boil down to that? Can you give an example of something which is claimed to be a trade secret, but is not really a trade secret, and explain why it is not one?
On the post: Disappointing To See Google's Waymo Sue Over Patents
Why protect trade secrets by law?
This article brings to mind something that I've never understood.
I understand the rationales for granting legal protection to (and, for that matter, creating) copyrights, patents, and trademarks. I may not agree with the ways those things have taken shape in real-world practice, but the underlying reasons and reasoning seem sound.
But why do we grant legal protection to trade secrets?
Trade secrets are the problem which patents were invented to fix. Once we have patents, what public benefit is there to having a penalty under the law for exposing trade secrets, or otherwise using those secrets without permission?
I certainly understand why a company would want to keep something secret - but that doesn't mean that it's in the best interest of the public to support the company's ability to do so; in fact, part of the rationale underlying the creation of the patent system was specifically to discourage companies from doing this.
Why are we both discouraging companies from keeping things secret, by way of the patent system, and encouraging them to do so, by providing legal protections for trade secrets?
I've looked for answers to this before, but all I've managed to find online is articles about how to obtain legal protection for (my) trade secrets; I haven't found one single piece discussing why trade secrets should be protected under the law.
On the post: Federal Court Tells ATF It Can't Just Help Itself To Cell Phone Data Seized By Another Law Enforcement Agency
Re: What 4th Ammendment ??
If the container is easily found, no further analysis is needed.
But if the container is hidden and you don't know where it is, the warrant to search the container does not - by itself - grant you the authority to search the house looking for the container. That should require its own warrant, based on probable cause to believe that the container is in fact within the house.
(It's entirely possible to present both types of probable cause in the same warrant application, and have one warrant cover both points, but it's also easily possible to have a warrant that covers only the former.)
On the post: 'Fake News' Now Means Whatever People Want It To Mean, And Legislating It Away Is A Slippery Slope Toward Censorship
Re:
On the post: 'Fake News' Now Means Whatever People Want It To Mean, And Legislating It Away Is A Slippery Slope Toward Censorship
Not sure what could be causing that, unless it's something about the imgur embed...
On the post: Just To Be Safe, We're Resetting All Techdirt Passwords In Response To Cloudbleed
Re:
The reason is that I have my mail client set to display the plain-text version of the message, and apparently that version omits the newline between the confirmation URL and the "If you did not request a password reset", so doing a right-click and "Copy URL" on the link gives you a URL with the word "If" appended to the confirmation code - which of course gets interpreted as an invalid confirmation code.
Paste the URL into the address bar and delete the "If" from the end, and you'll probably see it work just fine.
(This should still be fixed on the backend so that future reset mails get sent out with the plain-text copy correct, of course. This is just a workaround.)
On the post: Federal Election Commission Member Quits, Says Agency Refuses To Address Campaign Finance Violations
Re: Re: works the other way, also
On the post: Arizona Legislators Approve Bill That Would Allow Government To Seize Assets From Protesters
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Justice
On the post: Arizona Legislators Approve Bill That Would Allow Government To Seize Assets From Protesters
Re: Re: Violent Protests
He's just wrong about what that means in practice.
On the post: Comcast's Decision To Charge Roku Users A Bogus Fee Highlights Its Uncanny Ability To Shoot Innovation In The Foot
Qualifications for being a violation
Is the bandwidth available over your Internet connection while using this service the same as the bandwidth available over that connection while the service is not active?
If so, then yes, I would agree that this is not a net-neutrality violation.
If, however, they're using (a differently labeled segment of) the same pipes - such that this service consumes resources which would otherwise be available for use with other services - then it's still just as much a violation as any other form of zero-rating.
(If the cable company permanently segregates off a chunk of the cable bandwith for its TV services, and never uses that bandwidth for Internet service - not even for people who don't receive TV service at all - then using that bandwidth for this service wouldn't reduce the available bandwidth for the Internet service, and so would not be a (new) violation. It would also mean less Internet bandwidth than would otherwise be available, however, so I wouldn't be surprised if cable companies don't do this.)
On the post: Lindsay Lohan Won't Put Her GTA5 Lawsuit Out Of Its Misery
Re: Compare to Vanna White
On the post: Judge Blocks California's IMDb-Targeting 'Ageism'' Law, Citing Free Speech Concerns
Re: Re: Re: Of Course It's IMDB's Fault
I don't know if she'd still be physically up for it, but I read a few years back that Angela Lansbury would love to return to the role of Jessica Fletcher, despite being in her late 80s (she'd be 91 now, per Wikipedia). If anything can show old-person as outstanding-protagonist, that would do it.
On the post: If New FCC Boss Ajit Pai Is So 'Pro Consumer,' Why Does The Telecom Industry Need To Pay People To Say So?
Re: Re: Waiting for charges to be filed against Ishit Poo
On the post: Former RIAA Executive Attacks Fair Use
Re:
On the post: UK Schools Experiment With Police-Style Body Cameras To Tackle 'Low-level Background Disorder'
Re:
Or I imagine that's what the reasoning would be, anyway. I'm not convinced that it necessarily holds true.
On the post: New Zealand Court Says Kim Dotcom Still Eligible For Extradition... But Not Over Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Article is very inaccurate in substantial matters
I also think that this is exactly the idea which you are objecting to as absurd, and I might well agree, after I spend the time to think it through fully - but its being absurd would not prevent it from being the law in some jurisdictions, and if it's the law in NZ (I haven't checked), then this ruling would make perfect sense.
On the post: New Zealand Court Says Kim Dotcom Still Eligible For Extradition... But Not Over Copyright
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Techdirt Survival Fund: I Support Journalism
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Strategy?
That's one major reason why you see so many legal filings which make a case for prevailing because X, then say "even if X doesn't hold, we still prevail because Y; even if Y also doesn't hold, we still prevail because Z", et cetera. That way, all arguments are made up-front, and the right to use those arguments is preserved for appeal.
(One consequence of this is that if a lower court is bound by higher court precedent saying that argument X fails, and what you want is to have the higher court (or a court above it) overturn that precedent, you do in fact have to make argument X to the lower court even though the court has no choice but to reject it; otherwise, the higher court will reject your appeal out of hand.)
On the post: Sony Music Issues Takedown On Copyright Lecture About Music Copyrights By Harvard Law Professor
I haven't found any coverage of later developments in this incident or in the takedown's reversal, but apparently it has been dealt with.
On the post: Pro-Marijuana Student Organization Wins Court Case Over Using School Logos
Re: Why were government employees lobbying?
The state university is a facet of the state government, particularly in light of being publicly funded.
Using a logo of an entity creates an association between oneself and that entity.
The government, just as much as the rest of society, has a First Amendment right to freedom of association - the right to choose who to associate with, and who to not. (Even if that doesn't hold for the government as a whole, it certainly holds for the representatives of that government.)
Thus, by granting the student organization permission to use this logo, the state university is creating an association between this organization and the entirety of the state government, including but not limited to the representative in question. (As well as engaging in political speech itself.)
What's more, being publicly funded, the university must have used public funds in creating the logo and the trademark thereon, and must also use public funds in maintaining that trademark.
Thus, by using the trademark in political advocacy (even with permission), the students are effectively causing the _government_ and its representatives to engage in political activity in _support_ of their campaign.
And so by having that permission rescinded under threat of withholding public funds, the government is actually staying _out_ of political speech, while at the same time protecting its representatives' own First Amendment right to freedom of association.
(Is that logic twisty enough for you?)
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