The problem with footage and eyewitnesses is that the account they can provide almost invariably starts in Act 2. They see the police interacting with someone in some way; what they don't see is why.
The classic case is Rodney King, another "footage of police beating" incident. The guy with the camera didn't see the high-speed chase that the severely intoxicated King led the police on, endangering the lives of himself, his passengers, the police, and innocent civilians. It also didn't show him behaving in bizarre ways and making comments that led the officers on the scene to believe he was under the influence of not only alcohol but PCP as well.
All it showed was the arrest, and subsequent beating after King resisted arrest, and that's all that got broadcast on TV. When an impartial jury considered all the facts, they found the officers not guilty. But they had already been convicted by the media in the court of public opinion, and it touched off a riot.
Recorded evidence (audio and video) can have a very powerful emotional impact, and when used irresponsibly it can cause serious problems. (See also: the 911 call in the Trayvon Martin case that the reporter edited to manufacture the appearance of racism where none existed.)
With the way people keep pulling stupid crap like this, it's not hard to understand why even good police don't like being taped. If I was a cop I wouldn't like it either, and not because I wanted to avoid responsibility, but because there's plenty of precedent to worry about that video being used irresponsibly and undermining the public safety that I had taken an oath to protect!
The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.
- Isaac Asimov
No, since the United States never legally entered into ACTA in the first place. It was illegally signed by President Obama under false pretenses, but to be valid the Constitution requires that it be ratified by Congress. That never happened.
This law--or at least the counter-anti-circumvention provision quoted above--is 22 words too long. DRM is an abomination, as is any legal protection thereof.
In the interest of fairness, Prenda did not say something that ridiculous. They did not say "because Judge Wright's order came from a state where gay marriage is recognized, it can't be honored in Georgia, where it is not."
What they said was that "because Judge Wright's order came from a different state than here in Georgia, which happens to hold to some very legal precedents than Georgia does, (and here's a list of several important ones, such as gay marriage,) it should not be honored here."
That argument is a whole lot less ridiculous, and actually makes sense. It's wrong, as Mike pointed out, due to it being based on matters of federal, not state, law, but it's not crazy.
Really, these guys manage to screw things up enough on their own, frequently venturing into "truth is stranger than fiction" territory. We really don't need to invent fictitious screwups for them.
I wonder if this Author's Guild representative has ever heard of Brandon Sanderson.
In between writing and publishing some highly innovative novels that have made him one of the biggest names in modern Fantasy, and finishing up The Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's death, Brandon teaches writing at BYU, which I don't think anyone would equate with Berkeley on the political spectrum.
He pushes strongly for digital innovation in books, personally making sure that all of his novels are available electronically and in audio-book formats as soon as possible, preferably at the same time as the print launch. (Though he's been known to get some push-back from Harriet, Robert Jordan's editor, on the The Wheel of Time books. Apparently she's a bit of a Luddite, unfortunately.) In fact, when a friend of mine found out I was going to meet him at a book-signing tour, she asked me to specifically thank him for his efforts in this, because she's blind and it's pretty much the only way she can enjoy literature.
Did I miss something? When did the ACLU become a useful group going after actual problems? Last I heard, they were just a bunch of scuzzy bullies using the force of the court system to ram a mangled-beyond-recognition personal interpretation of the Establishment Clause down everyone's throat, much like the fine folks at the MPAA like to do with their personal interpretations of copyright law.
For example, always-connected DRM that introduces a functional dependency on a remote server for the game to operate is DRM, but is not "hacking" by any definition -- nobody is directing the operation of your computer except you.
I wouldn't say that. Just look at the most recent example of always-connected DRM: the new SimCity. It does not "introduce a functional dependency;" it actively breaks the whole system. It has been shown by a few modders that no real "functional dependency" exists; the game is perfectly capable of playing with no internet connection.
The only thing that the DRM does is take control of the system away from you by making you unable to run the program without complying with requirements that do nothing except satisfy the DRM. This is holding your game, that you paid for with your own money, hostage. This is an act of hacking, period.
Not around here they don't. It's like pulling teeth getting UPS or Fedex to deliver anything to me, because they only deliver during "regular business hours," which, surprise surprise, are the same hours that I, as an employee of a regular business, am at work and therefore NOT AT HOME AND ABLE TO PICK UP A FREAKING PACKAGE.
And trying to do something as simple and obvious as get them to attach a note to my package to deliver it to the apartment manager because I won't be home to accept delivery generally involves hours of runaround over the course of multiple phone calls, and then coming home and finding the "could not deliver" sticker on my door anyway. How either of them are able to remain in business under conditions so hostile to their customers is beyond me!
USPS, on the other hand, always delivers packages shipped by them to my box without hassle. I've never had a shipping problem with them.
DRM that allows hackers to take control of gamers' machines.
Isn't that all DRM everywhere? When you get down to it, the fundamental point of DRM is to transfer basic control over the functionality of the machine from the machine's owner to a remote programmer, to make it do what the DRM author wants instead of what the owner wants. If that's not an act of hacking, I don't know what is.
Also, he tiptoes around the question of whether or not the Alan Cooper who showed up in court is "Alan Cooper" who was a corporate representative of the shells. Such tapdancing is unlikely to go over well with an angry judge who already thinks you're bullshitting him.
The mental image of Hansmeier trying to tapdance on tiptoes is a rather amusing one... ;)
I can understand why TWC decided to try to shut down the various accounts, but, in the end that's probably exactly what Selvig and Stiefler wanted, as it merely serves to call that much more attention to their antics.
Mr. Warner? I've got a Mrs. Streisand on line 1...
My brother is in a local band. (He lives nowhere near Boston, BTW.) They've done house shows a few times.
Before each show, they go around and let the neighbors know what's going to be going on, when the show will be, and when it will be over, and make sure they're OK with it. If not, they find another venue.
They've never had the police called on them or gotten any noise complaints. A little courtesy goes a long way, even in this day and age...
And what are you gonna do to stop them? Penalize them for being too successful?
The Randroids always show up with that particular strawman when anyone starts talking about curbing corporate abuses. Sane people understand the truth, though. No one wants to penalize success; but people taking success and abusing it, turning it into economic exploitation, does need to be penalized strenuously if you want to maintain a healthy society.
OK, I'm confused here. You say you disagree, and then you go and agree with my point. That is exactly the way it would have to work under a Common Carrier system. If Viacom wanted a video taken down, they'd have to go after the person who uploaded it, not the site they uploaded it to. And the "safe harbor" law is what establishes the extralegal recourses of the "guilty until proven innocent" DMCA takedown system. Get rid of that and you fix the entire system.
Did you seriously not just read what I wrote at all?
Yes, I want the so-called "safe harbors" gone! The term is an Orwellian abuse of the language. They do nothing useful for the Internet. They do not keep anyone safe, and they don't protect anyone from liability; they actually create liability that would not exist in their absence, to say nothing of the extralegal abomination that is the DMCA takedown system--which is an intrinsic part of the "safe harbors." Why would any Internet user want to keep them around?!?
(untitled comment)
Then who should make that decision? Or do you believe there's no such thing as "obscene"?
Re: Re: The trouble with footage
Yeah, way to completely miss the point of my entire posting.
The trouble with footage
The problem with footage and eyewitnesses is that the account they can provide almost invariably starts in Act 2. They see the police interacting with someone in some way; what they don't see is why.
The classic case is Rodney King, another "footage of police beating" incident. The guy with the camera didn't see the high-speed chase that the severely intoxicated King led the police on, endangering the lives of himself, his passengers, the police, and innocent civilians. It also didn't show him behaving in bizarre ways and making comments that led the officers on the scene to believe he was under the influence of not only alcohol but PCP as well.
All it showed was the arrest, and subsequent beating after King resisted arrest, and that's all that got broadcast on TV. When an impartial jury considered all the facts, they found the officers not guilty. But they had already been convicted by the media in the court of public opinion, and it touched off a riot.
Recorded evidence (audio and video) can have a very powerful emotional impact, and when used irresponsibly it can cause serious problems. (See also: the 911 call in the Trayvon Martin case that the reporter edited to manufacture the appearance of racism where none existed.)
With the way people keep pulling stupid crap like this, it's not hard to understand why even good police don't like being taped. If I was a cop I wouldn't like it either, and not because I wanted to avoid responsibility, but because there's plenty of precedent to worry about that video being used irresponsibly and undermining the public safety that I had taken an oath to protect!
The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.
- Isaac Asimov
Re: Choosing Research
This is another bill from Lamar Smith. Mr. SOPA himself. Did anyone expect it would actually be useful?
Re:
No, since the United States never legally entered into ACTA in the first place. It was illegally signed by President Obama under false pretenses, but to be valid the Constitution requires that it be ratified by Congress. That never happened.
Nice idea, but too big
This law--or at least the counter-anti-circumvention provision quoted above--is 22 words too long. DRM is an abomination, as is any legal protection thereof.
Re:
In the interest of fairness, Prenda did not say something that ridiculous. They did not say "because Judge Wright's order came from a state where gay marriage is recognized, it can't be honored in Georgia, where it is not."
What they said was that "because Judge Wright's order came from a different state than here in Georgia, which happens to hold to some very legal precedents than Georgia does, (and here's a list of several important ones, such as gay marriage,) it should not be honored here."
That argument is a whole lot less ridiculous, and actually makes sense. It's wrong, as Mike pointed out, due to it being based on matters of federal, not state, law, but it's not crazy.
Really, these guys manage to screw things up enough on their own, frequently venturing into "truth is stranger than fiction" territory. We really don't need to invent fictitious screwups for them.
A very vocal group of guys from Berkeley?
I wonder if this Author's Guild representative has ever heard of Brandon Sanderson.
In between writing and publishing some highly innovative novels that have made him one of the biggest names in modern Fantasy, and finishing up The Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan's death, Brandon teaches writing at BYU, which I don't think anyone would equate with Berkeley on the political spectrum.
He pushes strongly for digital innovation in books, personally making sure that all of his novels are available electronically and in audio-book formats as soon as possible, preferably at the same time as the print launch. (Though he's been known to get some push-back from Harriet, Robert Jordan's editor, on the The Wheel of Time books. Apparently she's a bit of a Luddite, unfortunately.) In fact, when a friend of mine found out I was going to meet him at a book-signing tour, she asked me to specifically thank him for his efforts in this, because she's blind and it's pretty much the only way she can enjoy literature.
He also published one of his novels online as a free download under a Creative Commons license. This didn't stop the paper version from selling plenty of copies.
Doesn't sound like Mr. LaRocca speaks for him...
What happened to the ACLU?
Did I miss something? When did the ACLU become a useful group going after actual problems? Last I heard, they were just a bunch of scuzzy bullies using the force of the court system to ram a mangled-beyond-recognition personal interpretation of the Establishment Clause down everyone's throat, much like the fine folks at the MPAA like to do with their personal interpretations of copyright law.
Good to see they're growing up a bit...
Re: Re:
I wouldn't say that. Just look at the most recent example of always-connected DRM: the new SimCity. It does not "introduce a functional dependency;" it actively breaks the whole system. It has been shown by a few modders that no real "functional dependency" exists; the game is perfectly capable of playing with no internet connection.
The only thing that the DRM does is take control of the system away from you by making you unable to run the program without complying with requirements that do nothing except satisfy the DRM. This is holding your game, that you paid for with your own money, hostage. This is an act of hacking, period.
Re: Re: Umm
Not around here they don't. It's like pulling teeth getting UPS or Fedex to deliver anything to me, because they only deliver during "regular business hours," which, surprise surprise, are the same hours that I, as an employee of a regular business, am at work and therefore NOT AT HOME AND ABLE TO PICK UP A FREAKING PACKAGE.
And trying to do something as simple and obvious as get them to attach a note to my package to deliver it to the apartment manager because I won't be home to accept delivery generally involves hours of runaround over the course of multiple phone calls, and then coming home and finding the "could not deliver" sticker on my door anyway. How either of them are able to remain in business under conditions so hostile to their customers is beyond me!
USPS, on the other hand, always delivers packages shipped by them to my box without hassle. I've never had a shipping problem with them.
(untitled comment)
Isn't that all DRM everywhere? When you get down to it, the fundamental point of DRM is to transfer basic control over the functionality of the machine from the machine's owner to a remote programmer, to make it do what the DRM author wants instead of what the owner wants. If that's not an act of hacking, I don't know what is.
(untitled comment)
The mental image of Hansmeier trying to tapdance on tiptoes is a rather amusing one... ;)
(untitled comment)
Mr. Warner? I've got a Mrs. Streisand on line 1...
Re: Re: Re:
Isn't that exactly what he said? Teaching religion instead of science? ;)
Noise concerns
My brother is in a local band. (He lives nowhere near Boston, BTW.) They've done house shows a few times.
Before each show, they go around and let the neighbors know what's going to be going on, when the show will be, and when it will be over, and make sure they're OK with it. If not, they find another venue.
They've never had the police called on them or gotten any noise complaints. A little courtesy goes a long way, even in this day and age...
Re: Re: Okay, so regulate the hell out of them!
The Randroids always show up with that particular strawman when anyone starts talking about curbing corporate abuses. Sane people understand the truth, though. No one wants to penalize success; but people taking success and abusing it, turning it into economic exploitation, does need to be penalized strenuously if you want to maintain a healthy society.
Re: Re: We don't need to "fix the DMCA"
OK, I'm confused here. You say you disagree, and then you go and agree with my point. That is exactly the way it would have to work under a Common Carrier system. If Viacom wanted a video taken down, they'd have to go after the person who uploaded it, not the site they uploaded it to. And the "safe harbor" law is what establishes the extralegal recourses of the "guilty until proven innocent" DMCA takedown system. Get rid of that and you fix the entire system.
Re: Re: We don't need to "fix the DMCA"
...
...
Did you seriously not just read what I wrote at all?
Yes, I want the so-called "safe harbors" gone! The term is an Orwellian abuse of the language. They do nothing useful for the Internet. They do not keep anyone safe, and they don't protect anyone from liability; they actually create liability that would not exist in their absence, to say nothing of the extralegal abomination that is the DMCA takedown system--which is an intrinsic part of the "safe harbors." Why would any Internet user want to keep them around?!?
Re: We don't need to "fix the DMCA"
Argh. Why does Techdirt's comment system not have an Edit button? Something screwed up my formatting... :(