TScheisskopf
World News Trust
join:2005-02-13
Belvidere, NJ
 ·Sprint Broadband D..
| reply to Vamp
Re: Thats stupid..
Another take by Matt Yglesias, who is no dummy:
I've been finding the press coverage of the Supreme Court's unanimous decision in favor of copyright holders in the Grokster case to be shockingly unenlightening, but as I read Justice Souter's opinion (PDF) this may not be quite so bad as it seems. He upholds the old Sony rule that the mere fact that a technology has infringing uses is not grounds for holding its maker liable for infringement. He also seems to reject the plaintiffs' desire to transform "substantial non-infringing use" from a qualitative standard (are there non-trivial legal uses of the technology) to a quantitative one (is the technology, in fact, mostly used legally). Instead what I think he's saying is that Grokster and StreamCast can be held liable not for their technology, but for their marketing campaign which was allegedly geared toward advertising their products' infringing uses.
More: »yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/···5956/954 |
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snot on your life
| did you ever have any doubt they would win?
Look at how they just ruled on the ability for one private organazation's ability to "Steal" someones property from them without (in my opinion) adequate compensation...
Say for example, I have a little place with easy access to the sea, and some large comercial company wants to put up a nice hotel there.... Think I'll get yearly payments on what I lost.... snot on your life... |
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Kaltes
Premium
join:2002-12-04
Los Angeles, CA
| reply to TScheisskopf
assorted stupidity
#1. Yglesias is a partisan liberal blogger isn't he? Wow, some credentials. I can see how that makes him qualified to render opinions on intellectual property law 
#2. Yglesias grossly mistates the Sony rule, probably because Souter himself misstated it and Yglesias doesn't know any better.
#3. Non-lawyers can't understand a supreme court case that deals with a techical legal field like IP merely by reading the opinion. You would have to go read another dozen or so cases that form the backbone of copyright law BEFORE you could even begin to grasp how this case fits into the puzzle, let alone offer insightful conclusions about what this case does and does not mean. |
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TK Junk Mail
Go ahead, make my day
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Margate City, NJ
clubs: | And are you that legal expert?? |
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Kaltes
Premium
join:2002-12-04
Los Angeles, CA
edit:
June 27th, @01:33PM
| said by TK Junk Mail  :And are you that legal expert?? I am an IP attorney. I am by no means the last word on this subject, but I am waiting for the opinions of lawyers who are familiar with IP law to see where they come down in their analysis. I haven't finished reading the opinion. It is hard for me to read much of it without rolling my eyes and moving on to something else. I am going to have to force myself through it, of course, because I will need to know this case well for work, but I am very disappointed in the analysis thus far. When compared to the outstanding analysis in the trial court case, this just goes to show how the supreme court will radically alter the law merely to reach the result they want to reach in a particular case.
No one can dispute that Grokster is an enterprise founded on impropriety. The problem was, how do you punish them without also putting innovation itself in peril? You can't. You have to cause collateral damage if you want to nail Grokster.
My tentative:
It looks like the USSC went ahead with a annoyingly-ambiguous rule which replaced a clear, powerful rule handed down in the betamax case. The practical effect of this will be that EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING TECHNOLOGICAL DEVICE MANUFACTURER OR SOFTWARE PROGRAMMER, will be hauled into court and hammered for years potentially by RIAA/MPAA cartel lawyers. This allows the copyright monopolists to squash innovation with litigation, EXACTLY what the pro-innovation types were afraid of. Getting bankrupted fighting off lawsuits that allege you were out to infringe all along, and spawning endless rigged and manipulated 'polls' and 'studies' that purport to prove that such and such device is primarily used for infringement.
I have little hope that my final conclusion will turn out any cheerier given the language I have read thus far.
edit: finished reading the case. it is as bad as I thought. clear rules established both in Sony and many other cases in regard to contributory infringement have been SKEWERED, and replaced with a strange, moronic rule that focuses on the INTENT of the defendant. Theoretically, as long as you hide your evil intentions well, never mentioning your love of infringement in internal memos, marketing, etc, you could get away with it. Of course regardless of intent, you WOULD BE SUED and hammered in court until you proved, probably after a trial, that you have no 'unlawful objective'. This is so ludicrously fact-sensitive that it allows the RIAA/MPAA to haul almosy anyone into court and subject them to a lengthy, expensive process, which would EASILY destroy any new upstart innovator. This is exactly what the betamax opinion tried to prevent. We have already had printer companies (lexmark) try to use the DMCA to hold a monopoly on ink cartridges, and that was before this case! Now there is the potential for things to get much worse.
The only silver lining is that IP lawyers are going to get a lot more work, so I will probably benefit financially from this ruling. |
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Class Clown
| Hey Kaltes,
Please do us all a favor n' tell us what you really think! 
So far... I think I could read between your lines.. and I anticipate you are likely hitting the nail on the head using a mexican speed wrench.. or is that a wench?? I ferget... |
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russotto
join:2000-10-05
Collegeville, PA
| reply to TScheisskopf
Re: Thats stupid..
Right. Software writers dodged a bullet here -- the Supreme Court delivered a 9-0 decision where they weaseled out of confronting the issues head on (a SCOTUS specialty since 1789 or so). Much better than what I expected, a 5-4 decision gutting Betamax.
Basically this seems to stick with established law concerned vicarious liability. |
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IT Guy
Your God Smells Funny
join:2004-07-29
Las Cruces, NM
 ·Comcast
| reply to snot on your life
Especially now that local municipalities looking to expand their property (and subsequently their tax base) can bull-doze your place down, if you don't want to sell it off. Thank GW for granting local politicians the right to invoke eminent domain and put their citizens out on their ass. |
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boog
Premium
join:2000-07-24
Trenton, OH
| Your off topic, and GW didn't grant anything in that. It was the supreme court, and how many supreme court judges had GW appointed? if you look here »www.supremecourtus.gov/about/bio···rent.pdf they were appointed by Regan, Ford, George Herbert Walker Bush, and Clinton, and if you look into their histories, they mostly lean to the liberal side. They are all old and out of touch in my opinion, just think how easy it is to get your grandpa or grandma scared/worked up over something that they don't understand....
If you don't want you local politicians to be able to bulldoze your house, you better participate in your local government! |
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IT Guy
Your God Smells Funny
join:2004-07-29
Las Cruces, NM | Cripes... It's all a matter of semantics with you people. Lighten up and pull your head out of the sand. The CURRENT administration let it go through. |
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boog
Premium
join:2000-07-24
Trenton, OH | so, the current administration can stop the supreme court? |
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IT Guy
Your God Smells Funny
join:2004-07-29
Las Cruces, NM | Why would they want to? It's packed with conservatives and they are ruling the way the administration wants them to. The new bankruptcy laws are a good case-in-point. |
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Kaltes
Premium
join:2002-12-04
Los Angeles, CA
| reply to IT Guy
moronic, contrived Bush bashing
said by IT Guy :Especially now that local municipalities looking to expand their property (and subsequently their tax base) can bull-doze your place down, if you don't want to sell it off. Thank GW for granting local politicians the right to invoke eminent domain and put their citizens out on their ass. #1. Bush has NOTHING to do with the Supreme Court
#2. THE LIBERALS ON THE COURT are wholly responsible for "granting local politicians the right to invoke eminent domain and put their citizens out on their ass", EVERY CONSERVATIVE JUSTICE dissented from that opinion!
said by IT Guy :Cripes... It's all a matter of semantics with you people. Lighten up and pull your head out of the sand. The CURRENT administration let it go through. You lighten up and YOU pull your head out of the sand, and while you are at it go back to 2nd grade and learn how our federal government works. You must have missed school the day the teacher went over seperation of powers, checks and balances, stuff like that.
said by IT Guy :It's packed with conservatives and they are ruling the way the administration wants them to. Wrong and wrong. There are 4 liberals and 3 conservatives, with 2 swing votes. 'Packed with conservatives' my ass. Your ignorance of both basic civics as well as the most rudimentary info on a court you rant about in your quest to attack Bush is astounding. |
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boog
Premium
join:2000-07-24
Trenton, OH | reply to IT Guy
Re: Thats stupid..
I bet you also think the president can make more jobs around the country too! |
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tapeloop
Light, sweet triceratops.
Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
| reply to Kaltes
Re: moronic, contrived Bush bashing
said by Kaltes :#1. Bush has NOTHING to do with the Supreme Court Wow Kaltes, switch to decaf, eh? 
If it weren't for the Supreme Court, Bush likely wouldn't even be in office now.
And Bush does appoint S.C. justices (i.e. Rehnquist's replacement).
But true, he has nothing to do with the SCOTUS' current rulings. One could argue that he has influence over some of the conservative justices like Scalia, but that's more Cheney's bailiwick. (quack )
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Copyright infringement is illegal. Murder is illegal. Therefore, file sharing is murder. |
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IT Guy
Your God Smells Funny
join:2004-07-29
Las Cruces, NM
·Comcast
| reply to Kaltes
No matter what you little Bush minions have to say is irrelevant to me. It's the same crap I hear spew out of your mouths everyday with your so-called legitimate media, Faux News brainwashing. To sum it up, you're just wasting your breath. Bush and his admin SHOULD have NOTHING to do with the S.C. But government is so crooked, that it isn't the way it works in practice. |
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Kaltes
Premium
join:2002-12-04
Los Angeles, CA
| reply to tapeloop
said by tapeloop :If it weren't for the Supreme Court, Bush likely wouldn't even be in office now. False. An investigation of the Florida ballots confirms that had the US Supreme Court not intervened to overrule the Florida Supreme Court's illegal order to continue counting ballots, Bush would have won ANYWAY.
said by tapeloop :And Bush does appoint S.C. justices (i.e. Rehnquist's replacement). Bush has not appointed anyone to the USSC. This means Bush has, to date, had nothing to do with the US Supreme Court.
said by tapeloop :But true, he has nothing to do with the SCOTUS' current rulings. This is obvious, except to partisan liberals hell-bent on attacking Bush.
said by tapeloop :One could argue that he has influence over some of the conservative justices like Scalia, but that's more Cheney's bailiwick. Scalia can be friends with whoever he likes, that does not mean Cheney writes Scalia's opinions.
said by IT Guy :No matter what you little Bush minions have to say is irrelevant to me. It's the same crap I hear spew out of your mouths everyday with your so-called legitimate media, Faux News brainwashing. To sum it up, you're just wasting your breath. Bush and his admin SHOULD have NOTHING to do with the S.C. But government is so crooked, that it isn't the way it works in practice. Of course every good nutjob has to discredit every voice or reason as an agent of some evil shadowy conspiracy, otherwise some common sense might leak into your thinking and throw your whole freakish funhouse-mirror worldview upside-down. |
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tapeloop
Light, sweet triceratops.
Premium
join:2004-06-27
Airstrip One
| good to the last drop
Well, I should have known better than to jump in the middle of a bipartisan rant.
IT Guy: You won't win your argument with dogma, unsupported conjectures and name-calling.
Kaltes: You won't win your argument with dogma, unnecessarily caustic speech and name-calling.
Switching to decaf does wonders. Green tea is even better.
If anyone wants me, I'll be outside getting some sun. The LCD screen ain't cuttin' it.
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Copyright infringement is illegal. Murder is illegal. Therefore, file sharing is murder. |
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