|
About romeosidviciousJust some cowpunk with a technology addiction who somehow became an HPC guru. Huge fan of copyfighting but will admit that my positions make me see the world through blinders. I also will admit I don't want to see the world differently. Hey at least I am honest. |
Re: Re: Re: Re: It gets better
This is the exact free market that the right advocates, they claim that anyone can refuse service to anyone (see: cakes and gay people) right up until it affects them. The irony is thick here. Free association is just that. These companies have chosen to not associate themselves with a platform that allowed literal calls for violence, rape, insurrection, and so on. It's a call that the right wing claims is allowed unless, apparently, it's against one of their own darlings.
Yes the baker and gay people analogy is bad. It's apples and oranges. LGBTQIA+ aren't literally calling for others to be injured. I use it only to highlight the hypocrisy here.
It's also completely ironic that the CEO of a platform that allowed calls for physical harm, death threats, rape threats, and more is now afraid to return to his home because of the very thing he allowed to be directed towards others. I abhor death threats but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't amused at the poetic nature of what's happening.
Re: Re: WHAT HARM? Simple: Google has too much POWER. (as Slightly Confused)
Re: Re: Re: (as Romeosidvicious)
Re: Re: Re: (as RomeoSidVicious)
Re: Re: Re: Wonder if it'll happen... and whether thay'll count properly if it does.
Re:
Re: I know, but....
It doesn't matter if someone was making money or not the fact is the voters struck down the law and at this point the city is operating the cameras without a law to back them up. I know they want the revenue and I can appreciate that (have recently driven on Westhiemer they certainly need if) but the fact is that the law the cameras operated under is now null and void. They should shut off the cameras or at least cease issuing citations. To continue issuing citations is most likely illegal and there is already a class action in the works to get it stopped. I expect the class action will succeed pretty quickly and before the 120 days notice requirement is fulfilled. The city should have never signed a contract that did not include a provision for the voters to strike down the law. That provision is not the concern of those being issued citations now that the law has been struck down but rather for the city lawyers. Any ticket issued after the vote was certified needs to be declared null and void.
Re: Re: Re: The citations were *never* valid. Ignore them.
So your assumption is incorrect. In Houston, at the very least, the civil code covers traffic cameras and makes it a civil offense but they kept tickets issued by actual officers of the law completely separate and those are still criminal offenses. I suspect, without any evidence at all, that most municipalities have done the exact same thing are your above interpretation is completely incorrect.
Re: New law but old crime.. its not going to protect you..
Firstly the new law applies to lawsuits and not content so it covers this threat of a lawsuit regardless of the age of the post or comment in question. Secondly you apparently do not understand U.S. law regarding free speech. You can say anything at any time about anything with few restrictions. If the things you are saying could be damaging, and the offended party must be able to prove damages, then you may cross the line into libel or slander depending on the medium however if the statements made are true then you have a defense. If what you say is opinion and not represented as fact you also have a defense against lawsuits. There are other situations but they don't apply here. In fact the two situations mentioned don't apply here because Mike did not say the things that have offended Mr. Morris. The things in question were said by posters on this website and Mike is protected from liability for comments made on the site by U.S. law which is one thing that makes this lawsuit laughable. The new law to which Mike refers only aims to keep U.S. citizens from having their rights violated by foreign laws. You are dead wrong on your statement that if your webpage is available in the UK then you are subject to UK law. Jurisdiction depends on where the server is physically located which, in this case, is in the U.S. so British law does not apply to Mike's site. The only enforceable judgement, provided Mike doesn't travel to the UK, is the site being blocked in the UK which I am not sure happens anyway. The UK has absolutely no right to try and apply its laws to citizens of the United States who are operating legally and physically inside of the U.S. and you speak of the arrogance of Americans? For the UK to think they can apply their laws to citizens outside of their country is much more arrogant than US citizens practicing their right to free speech. He could have gone after the actual culpable parties which are the people that made the posts. Mike is not legally responsible for the posts made by others on Techdirt. You may be used to living without freedom or protection of speech but here in the US we take that sort of thing seriously. Attempts could have been made prior to the threat of a lawsuit which Mike clearly states was the first action. Mr. Morris's attorneys decided that attempting to file suit without any way to enforcement a judgement would be a good first step. There were other options. Have you read any of the comments on the years old post to which this threat is related. The "racist" comments are comments accusing Mr. Morris of giving preference to Jewish employees. The only racism in the thread is accusations thereof. And furthermore why should Mike take them down? Isn't it better to address filth like racism, or accusations of racism, in public where refutation can occur or is it preferable to sweep it under the rug? Mike is taking responsibility for his posts he is just not, nor is he required to, take responsibility for other's comments on his posts. And Mike doesn't remove posts he doesn't like he removes spam which is another matter entirely. There are tons of posts which disagree with Mike all over this site and some of them are quite well thought out and well reasoned but they still stand. It's just a guess but I predict your idiotic post will stay just like all the rest all over the site. Constitutional freedoms are why the US has a less than stellar international reputation. In fact some of the reasons can be argued to be a violation of the very same. We have had some bad leaders and that's not debatable but whatever the idiots in Washington do or look like no foreign government is allowed to trample on the rights of US citizens and we just passed another law to make sure of it. Sorry if that offends you. Ok I am not sorry but it sounded good at the time. I don't see anyone in the US government threatening to pass laws to prevent the mosque from being built. What you see if public outcry which is well within the rights of the people. You can say what you want but I have the right call you on your bullshit. Just like the folks wanting to build a mosque have a right to build it anywhere they own land, depending on zoning which I think is stupid anyway, I have the right to tell them they are being inconsiderate assholes for building it where they are. Neither of us has violated the rights of the other. They offend me by building where they want to build but I would take up arms if the federal government told them they couldn't but until that happens I'll keep calling them assholes and hoping they build somewhere else. You apparently have no grasp of how freedom actually works. You are right. And British law is not international law and the British are not the governing system for the planet which is why the US passed laws protecting its citizens from being subject to oppressive laws from other countries. The British don't get to come and enforce their laws on Americans. If you think they can and can get away with just look at the history of the United States. They did it once and we are still making sure no-one else can do it again. Of course our own leaders are whittling away our rights but that's another story. We don't expect the rest of the world to abide by our laws. We expect them to respect our laws on our soil which is all this hoopla is about. Some British twat has threatened an American with British law to which he is not subject and now we are laughing at the British twat. You are wrong about jurisdiction here. Mike is US citizen and the server is in the US which makes him subject only to US law. The US government wouldn't allow British laws to be enforced in the US for something that is perfectly legal in the US and happened in US jurisdiction and to even think for a second they would allow an extradition based on a case like this is lunacy. I know I am not supposed to feed the trolls but I couldn't help it this time...
Re:
Re:
(untitled comment)
Re: Who's right is more important
Re: A couple more points.
Secondly you are dead wrong about the constitution being entirely concerned with individual rights. The first amendment is about two individual rights (freedom of religion and speech) and two group rights (freedom of press and assembly). Your arguments here are entirely moral and irrelevant to the law of the land. Past cases show the judge is beyond his authority in banning the publishing of this photo. No matter how much it sucks no matter how immoral it may be they press has a right to publish the photo that is laid out clearly and has been upheld by the courts over and over again. Your moral arguments may well hold water but the law is not concerned with morality in cases like this. And yes in cases like this the group right of freedom of the press does trump any right to privacy the accused may have once the press has a picture or a story. You may not like. It might not even be morally right but that's the way it is and restricting the press is not an option if we want to continue living in a free country.
(untitled comment)
Re:
You may be on to something about keeping persons of interest and suspects private until an arrest is made but the onus would have to be on law enforcement with penalties for leaks on that side of the game. The press must be free to publish the information it receives or we don't have a free press.
The issue of honesty in the press is one the consumer needs to address and cannot be addressed by law. Unfortunately our society rewards the drivel that's being published so those who do care about honesty from the press are a minority that is rarely heard from.
Your last statement is completely wrong. There is very little that supersedes our first amendment rights and some of what does now is already crap. Factual reporting should never be superseded by the chance of embarrassment. The accused could sue for libel or slander depending on the method of delivery if more than the facts were presented but the press must be allowed to remain free. It sucks for the accused to be sure just like it sucks for the families of military families to have deal with Fred Phelps and his crew of disgusting douchebags at funerals but this is the way it must be if we are to have a free society. You cannot place restrictions on the press like this and still claim freedom and once you allow the restrictions to be placed you only open the door for more.
Re:
I also disagree with Mike that challenges to CC licenses could end up harming what little rights the public has left. As long as the licenses only grant rights and do not restrict rights I think everything will be fine. I don't see the courts allowing a license to remove rights and they have not ruled that way yet. The same dangers to the public rights granted by copyright exist in any challenge to a EULA, the GPL, or any other license that relies on copyright as its base. I don't think the treat Mike sees exists and I think it's pretty much crying wolf to demonize CC licenses when the EULAs are likely a much larger threat.
If you think there is a threat then the GPL is likely a much larger threat than CC licenses due to the complexity. CC licenses only grant rights and take nothing away and if you don't agree with them you are limited to fair use. A CC license, in essence, gives the end user of the content a defense in court and the owner of the content more control of their work while allowing them to allow other to make use of their work. Since copyright is not like trademark the only other real option is selective enforcement of copyright as it does not cause you to lose your copyright. I would much rather see CC licenses used to spell out an end users rights and have those rights granted to all end users, or all non-commercial end users in some cases, than have copyright holders never say what they will allow and have the public find out only by who they sue for what.
It's no often I disagree with Mike on copyright issues but here I do. I do not believe that CC licenses are a threat and I actually believe this lawsuit is a good thing as the producer of the content has allowed use of their work that basic copyright would not and their goodwill has been taken advantage of by the defendant. Licenses are contract law and always will be and enforcing them has to be done through contract law (IANAL) as far as I know. The end user of the content in question made use of the content outside of the stated allowed uses. I would have preferred to see this handled through a series of exchanges where the end user admitted they screwed up and stopped but that didn't happen so the next recourse is a lawsuit. I am rooting for the plaintiff in this case. If they win we have court decisions that say (at least at the time of this posting):
1. You can't remove rights through a license
2. You can grant extra rights through a license
And with those two decisions out in the wild I think the world of copyright will be a better place.
I won't get into positing on the implications for a lot of licenses such as the GPL if it was to be found that you couldn't grant extra rights through a license. If you are worried about CC licenses then you should be just as worried about challenges to the GPL.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Re: Re:
(untitled comment)
Years back I worked for a towing companies that did private property as well as accidents. Not a single one of them had a good BBB rating because even if I hooked a car that didn't have a handicap tag in a handicap space people would complain to the BBB. And then some asshole who thinks it's alright to park in a handicap space, fire zone, or other obviously marked non-parking space for just a few minutes files yet another complaint after the first one gets a response. Eventually the companies stop bothering to respond because it doesn't change anything. So the F rating from the BBB likely applies to any towing company that handles private properties. Since towing companies that handle private properties, accidents and repos don't generally require any sort of customer satisfaction on the part of the towee the cost associated with responding to the BBB with the volume of complaints they frequently don't bother.
Here in Texas there are very specific laws concerning towing from private property and while there are operators who hook cars outside of those laws they are stopped pretty quickly because the fines are steep enough that it doesn't make any business sense and the driver doing it will get fired on top of being responsible for the fines.
Also a property owner can sign a tow slip for a legally parked vehicle (fire zones and handicap are the only illegal as far as the law is concerned parking areas) and it's a legal tow whether the owner of the vehicle likes it or not. Once a vehicle is on private property the owner of the property has control of whether or not the vehicle stays. At that point all the towing company can do is tell the owner of the car to speak with the property owner which also leads to them being hated. If it comes down to the police requesting a tow outside of an accident then it's their responsibility once their name and badge number is on the tow slip. The point is that the towing company may have no idea about any shady practices the property owners engage in and be operating completely legally. At least here in Texas it's in their best interest to do so.
People hate wrecker drivers and tow companies and this company isn't helping the situation. If they acted legally and continue to do so then a lawsuit isn't the way to handle these complaints. It would be easy to require their drivers to take pictures of the illegally parked vehicle (I was required to do so) and simply post them in response to these complaints. If they are just doing their job, which they claim, then these complaints could easily be shown to be sour grapes after someone got caught parking illegally. The way they are handling this makes very little sense and makes me, a former wrecker driver, think they might have something to hide.
More comments from romeosidvicious >>
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by romeosidvicious.
Submit a story now.
Tools & Services
TwitterFacebook
RSS
Podcast
Research & Reports
Company
About UsAdvertising Policies
Privacy
Contact
Help & FeedbackMedia Kit
Sponsor/Advertise
Submit a Story
More
Copia InstituteInsider Shop
Support Techdirt