Adam Wasserman’s Techdirt Profile
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About Adam Wasserman
Adam Wasserman has spent the last decade working as a high-level strategist in technology-based product management and business development.
From 2004, he worked as an independent management consultant, assisting high-tech startups and venture capitalists in identifying, validating, and measuring demand for new technology-based products.
From 1998 to 2004, he was CTO for the International Air Transport Association (IATA), building the operations for its online businesses.
Prior to that, Adam was Product Manager of Internet Solutions at MPACT Immedia (which became Bell Emergis), and before that, Enterprise Solution Specialist at SHL Systemhouse. He spent another 7 years as a high-end network and connectivity specialist.
Adam sits on the Advisory Board of Little Animation.
Blog at www.adamwasserman.net
http://www.linkedin.com/adamw |
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Would he have even cared?
I like to think not.
Is there a lawyer in the house?
Can somebody tell me why USPTO refers to the "doctrine" of fair use?
I had always thought that doctrines were legal practice as established by precedent.
Fair use is a section of the copyright law. It is a legal right. This part at least I am sure of.
So is it normal to refer to legally guaranteed rights as "doctrine"?
FUDBuster
Is FUDBuster still around?
Do you still feel that your prior (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110423/01033814013/another-judge-slams-righthaven-chilling-effec ts-that-do-nothing-to-advance-copyright-acts-purpose.shtml) interpretation of the law is the valid one in light of the fact that federal judges disagree with you?
Re: Re: What is anonymous?
I have frequently had opinions that I either hesitated to post or did not post at all for a variety of reasons ranging from a desire to remain civil to a fear of repercussions from the growing police state.
And I choose not to post these latter opinions anonymously because I feel that if I lack the courage of my convictions then why should anyone take me seriously?
As far as my inability to spell truely correctly, it is a chronic condition, an affliction really, and has plagued me for as long as I can remember. The shame, although intense, has become such a constant spectre in my life that I have become inured to the taunts of those more fortunate than I.
Finally @Keith, I understand the point you make re: providing a pseudo. You seem to assume some sort of technology that would make it impossible for someone to ever open more than one account and provide more than one pseudo.
Did you understand the point I was making (and confirming in my admission of self-censorship)?
What is anonymous?
As one to the very few *truely* non-anonymous posters I would like to point out that the vast majority of commenters on this site are anonymous.
In fact I have marginally more sympathy for the Anonymous Cowards who I can generously imagine are simply taking the path of least resistance. Less so the people who take the time to register and then supply a made up name, deliberately obfuscating their identity.
Not only have I provided my name, but my profile contains enough information to verify who I am, where I live, and that I am who I say I am. I have been posting on the Internet since before there was a web (Usenet days), and I have always used my full name. It has caused me some grief at times, but I learned in high school to never say anything if I was not willing to live with the repercussions of saying it.
From my perspective almost *all* commenters on Techdirt are anonymous, making this discussion a nit picking exercise abut what *kind* of anonymity is best.
So...
Has Righthaven won even one case? Do you still feel that your interpretation of the law is the valid one in light of the fact that federal judges disagree with you?
(untitled comment)
Fascism. It's the new democracy.
Re:
See my comment above
Re:
"Why the heck is IP enforcement an issue of national security?"
I believe that the Washington establishment (both Democrats and Republicans) have decided that the US has already lost the manufacturing war and will lose world dominance unless we can convince the world to pay the US for "inventing" things to manufacture.
I think that the Rand Corporation et al has been telling our policy makers that ideas are the new oil, and whoever controls ideas will control the world.
Deconstructing
*****Didatic Alert! Boring Content follows*****
Not really the correct use of the term.
A (over)simplification of deconstruction is: to identify the common central themes that are "obvious" and then *ignore* them, while promoting and focusing on the obscure peripheral meanings that everyone else ignores.
It was a pretty obscure form of literary analysis, so idiosyncratic that only Derrida could really do "properly"
*****End of boring content*****
Re: Re: Exclusive rights
Would you agree that the Strategic Alliance Agreement provides grounds to assert that Righthaven is a straw man due to the fact that they do not have have a genuine interest in the property. That all forms of interest other than pursuing lawsuits originates with, and are retained by, Stephans Media?
For example, do we know if Stephans Media has to share with Righthaven revenues from sub-licensing of copyrighted works?
Exclusive rights
@FUDbuster, you claim that "Righthaven is exercising its ownership by granting rights to its exclusive licensee, Stephens Media."
so what is your explanation of the Strategic Alliance Agreement showing exactly the opposite: that the original copyright holder Stephens Media retains all rights and grants to Righthaven ONLY the right to sue?
Article and PDFs of relevant documents here: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-righthavens-secret-contract-is-revealedwill-its-strategy-collapse /
Independant film financing
Mike,
There are couple of different ways a film can be financed. I am only familiar with the independent production way.
In the films I have worked on where I was close enough to the production to know what was going on, each film is setup as a limited partnership where the producer (or production house) is the general partner, and the investors are the limited partners.
So you could say - in a way - that each film is like a VC fund of its own, where the whole fund goes into one investment.
As limited partners they share in the revenues, but also -as with startups and VCs - there can be a liquidity event of some sort, where the property gets bought. For example a distributor or studio might buy a successful independent film to add to its catalog. (Later on the property might even get sold again, and again) Then the limited partnership winds down. I have also seen cases where the producer has bought out the property and wound down the LP.
Re: phone snooping
It seems (from the CelleBrite website) that it uses a physical connection (as well as Bluetooth).
You see decisions like that of the Califrnia Supreme Court make it OK for police to insist on a physical connecton for no reason.
Re: Nearly all online poker sites...
See my comment below.
You have no idea what efforts are currently underway to conduct thorough investigation and proper legal proceedings.
Re:
You have no idea what the FBI is or is not doing in regards to being effective. Your comment is based on prejudice and assumption.
While not thoroughly informed, I have been present at a two conferences attended by a mix of industry, academia and law enforcement.
You sarcasm is misplaced.
The issues are *extremely* tangled, involving international law and countries openly hostile to the US. Countries who feel that there is absolutely nothing wrong with defrauding little old ladies out of their life's savings... as long as they are *American* little old ladies.
LE is not like in the movies where they go gun down the bad guys. They operate under rules that are very restrictive (unlike ICE which I will point out is not a traditional law enforcement agency) and it takes a long time to collect proper evidence and then in many cases it takes even longer for the Attorney General to act on that evidence.
This is just me, but I try not to say disparaging things when I do not know what I am talking about.
For once...
For once ICE is doing something remotely related to their mandate.
Online poker really *is* used extensively for money laundering by organized crime.
The boss sits down at a virtual table with several of their underlings, and they "just happen" to lose every hand. The boss's online account is - of course - under a false name with winnings transferred to an offshore account in some corrupt Baltic country.
The Online site are complicit. They accept the flimsiest and most obviously forged "identification" and allow people to set up these obviously fraudulent accounts. They do no monitoring of statistically impossible wins and losses (lose *every* hand?).
And money laundering is in fact traditionally the domain of US Customs.
So... I am shocked! Shocked I tell you! To learn that gambling has been going on here!
Re: Re: Re: What numbers would be useful?
Beyond my ability to say. Lots of things could happen. Many of them unplanned.
I am sure that reality happens, we will all be equally surprised at how it turned out.
Re: Re: Oops
>So, if copyright was created in 1709, around 80 years
>prior to the Constitution in 1787, it couldn't exactly
>have been designed in 1790 to 'promote the progress' given
>the US Copyright act of 1790 was a 'copyright infringing'
>rip off of the 1709 Statute of Anne, now could it?
Where to start (sigh)?
a) Personally I would not call it a "rip off". The adoption and evolution of Common Law has never been considered a "rip off" by anyone of any seriousness that I have ever heard of. The whole US Constitution is based on previous philosophy and law.
b) You seem stuck on the idea that copyright was "invented" for the first time in 1709. Sure whatever, have it your way, it does not really affect the substance of what Mike (or I) have to say.
>The Constitution doesn't mention copyright...not to grant
>the author a transferable monopoly.
Dude, you're preaching to the converted. No argument from me here.
>If you believe in copyright as devoutly as a religion then
Have you even read what I wrote? I think, that you think, that I am in a very different place then I actually am.
Re:
>Should there be copyright?
No. With the costs of creating copies and distributing them down to almost zero, I believe that the financial risk involved in publishing has been diminished to the point where it is no longer necessary to create a monopoly to ensure that the initial investment get recouped. The amount of risk involved with being a publisher is now low enough for it to be economically viable without copyright.
>How long should copyright last?
Obviously I feel not even a day, but if copyright was unavoidable and it was up to me to set a term I would say 18 months is long enough for anyone with a blockbuster hit to get rich off of it, and that is what the copyright maximalists are all about after all - the dream of striking it rich - doing a finite amount of work and getting rewarded for it infinitely.
>What exceptions should be permitted?
Again, if copyright was a given that I could not debate, and all I could debate was what exception should be permitted, I would say that all non-commercial use of the Work should be permitted, and only copies of the Work sold for a price should be considered infringing.
>Who should decide whether something falls under the exceptions or not?
A federal judge.
>What should the remedies be for infringement?
The original constitutional remedies. Injunction and double actual damages as calculated by the number of copies sold by the infringer.
>What should the limits be on those remedies, if any?
I should never be investigated, prosecuted or in any way paid for by the public. All investigation, filing, and prosecution should be assumed entirely by the plaintiff. Just like with any other tort.