Andrew’s Comments

• Feb 4th, 2013 @ 1:06pm

  Disappointing twitter comment from Campbell's

  on Campbell's Hack The Kitchen Shows Anyone Can Have An Innovative Idea, And Anyone Can Screw It Up
  I was extremely disappointed and put off by Campell's response to a blogger making point similar to this on twitter.
  
  In brief - Jamie Smyth suggested that the competition was just Campbell Soup 'inviting' people to do their work for them and (mostly) not paying for it.
  
  Campells head of social responded by rather snidely threatening, "noted. I'll assume we shouldn't send you or your organization any RFPs in the future. Thanks."
  
  Retaliating in that manner suggests to me that the whole exercise is not in any way a genuine engagement with the wider programming community - just another large corporate attempting to exploit "social media" and blindly punishing criticism instead of responding to it.
• Jun 18th, 2012 @ 6:36pm

  Re: Re: Costs

  on Carreon's Full Filing Reveals He Donated To Oatmeal Campaign Himself, Plus Other Assorted Nuttiness
  Of course it doesn't affect the strength of his substantive claim. Here, it's a pretty obvious and easy-to-follow rule. If the rule applies in the USA, it demonstrates even more ignorance on Carreon's part.
  
  Inman has already chosen a good lawyer, and I hope that he was chosen on the basis of experience and skill rather than price.
• Jun 18th, 2012 @ 3:05pm

  Costs

  on Carreon's Full Filing Reveals He Donated To Oatmeal Campaign Himself, Plus Other Assorted Nuttiness
  In New Zealand, a litigant in person is unable to claim costs (not having had to instruct or pay for a lawyer).
  
  Anybody know if that is also the case in the States?
• May 30th, 2012 @ 2:43pm

  Judge Harvey

  on New Zealand Judge Won't Rubberstamp Kim Dotcom Extradition; Orders US To Share Evidence
  FYI, the Judge dealing with this case literally wrote the book on technology law in New Zealand:
  
  http://www.wheelers.co.nz/books/9780408718134-internet-law-nz-selected-issues/
  
  http://www.med ialawjournal.co.nz/?p=150
• Sep 28th, 2011 @ 4:27pm

  Simply said

  on Righthaven Desperately Trying To Avoid Paying Legal Fees
  "Simply put, these sweeping contempt and judgment enforcement efforts unquestionably subject Righthaven to the immediate threat of irreparable harm by seeking to appoint a receiver over its affairs, as well as to seize and liquidate its tangible and intangible assets, which include the company’s intellectual property rights in and to copyright protected content that is directly at issue in this case, as well as those at issue in several other appeals pending before this Court along with content at issue numerous cases pending in the District of Nevada and the District of Colorado."
  
  If that is "simply put" I would like to know what "verbose and unnecessarily complicated" means.
• Jul 28th, 2011 @ 9:22pm

  Re: Re:

  on UK Court Orders BT To Block Access To Usenet Site Hollywood Hates
  No because there, the phone company doesn't have actual knowledge of a specific illegal event.
• Jul 28th, 2011 @ 6:40pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re:

  on UK Court Orders BT To Block Access To Usenet Site Hollywood Hates
  Well with that analogy - bear in mind that it's the police who have the delegated responsibility of enforcing the legal use of roads. If the police see you acting illegally on the road, they stop you and you might get fined or jailed.
  
  If it was a private road that I built on my own property and I saw you doing something illegal on it (maybe you start selling weed from a stall), I would probably stop you immediately. I certainly wouldn't object to a court order telling me to deny thoroughfare to people who come to buy weed from you.
  
  But this all assumes actual knowledge of a specific infringement. I doubt the ISP in this case had that - it seems to suggest the ISP only had general knowledge that "lots of infringement happened via the site". Ideally it should be:
  
  actual infringement, proven in court by a rightsholder -> that specific infringement being blocked by the ISP.
  
  Here it seems to be
  
  some infringement -> extensive and wider blocking than just the specific infringement
  
  That's not right.
• Jul 28th, 2011 @ 4:54pm

  Re: Re:

  on UK Court Orders BT To Block Access To Usenet Site Hollywood Hates
  Absolutely correct - but here (although I haven't read the judgment) the Judge appears to be saying "knowledge" has been proven already. That means this question is moot, the ISP actually knew about what was going on. That's different from the situation where the ISP is just acting as a carrier.
• Jul 28th, 2011 @ 4:12pm

  Re:

  on UK Court Orders BT To Block Access To Usenet Site Hollywood Hates
  Sorry, I said "be liable" when I meant "have to prevent access"
• Jul 28th, 2011 @ 4:10pm

  (untitled comment)

  on UK Court Orders BT To Block Access To Usenet Site Hollywood Hates
  "First of all, an ISP should never be responsible for the actions of its users, and yet that's what the court is saying here."
  
  I'm not sure that's quite correct. If the ISP has actual knowledge (i.e. ignoring issues of filtering, retaining and analysing traffic) - why shouldn't it be liable?
  
  The ISP's usual defence is that it *doesn't know* about the piracy and shouldn't be expected to try and find out because that would be wrong. That is a good defence.
  
  But once it knows of actual and specific infringement - which is implied in the excerpt from the judgment - its defence is undermined.