Stoatwblr 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: Malibu Media Seeks Order Forbidding Defendants From Discussing 'Copyleft' Blog Content

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 04:17pm

    Re: Re: "Unringing the bell..."

    "But if you exclude truth and justice from the court room, what's the point of having a court in the first place?"

    Sorry, you are confused.

    It's not a justice system. It never was a justice system.

    It's a LEGAL system. Justice only peripherally enters the frame. This is pretty much the first thing taught in Introductory Law 101


    WRT the "slanderous" statements - as far as I can tell those would be the previous judgements quoted on those sites and as such they're legally protected reports of events in a courtroom (You are immune from defamation proceedings for anything uttered in court or in parliament/congress - yes, really)

  • On the post: NYPD Sergeants Assoc. Using Flickr To Publicly Humiliate Homeless To Play Politics With Mayor De Blasio

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 04:11am

    Re:

    "I'm sure the Nazis considered themselves the 'Good Guys'."

    The Nazis had belt buckles inscribed with the words "God is with us"

    Hitler believed he was on a christian Mission from God - he even wrote it in the last page of Mein Kampf

    The Lord's Army is running round beheading people and kidnapping schoolgirls for forced marriages.

    The KKK believe that they're followers of "God"


    I'm sure you won't mind if I take issue with anyone who believes they can justify or excuse discriminatory or violent action on the basis of doing "god's work", no matter which "god" that may be.

  • On the post: NYPD Sergeants Assoc. Using Flickr To Publicly Humiliate Homeless To Play Politics With Mayor De Blasio

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 04:06am

    Re: Re:

    "oddly enough, the ONLY union NOT to be (generally) excoriated"

    There are plenty of others. They tend to be called "Associations" though - and they're also allowed to be self-policing when their members get up to illegal stuff.

    One rule for the rich, etc.

  • On the post: NYPD Officials Apparently Deleting Incriminating Communications Related To Alleged Illegal Summons Quotas

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 04:03am

    Re: Re: Re: If the NYPD wants to eliminate crime...

    I am surprised that the original filing didn't try to go for the backups that are legally required to be taken and retained.

    It's much harder to delete those without getting federal interest in what's going on.

  • On the post: NYPD Officials Apparently Deleting Incriminating Communications Related To Alleged Illegal Summons Quotas

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 04:01am

    Re: Re: If the NYPD wants to eliminate crime...

    In the "land of the free", braves live on "reservations".

    That's all you need to know to realise the way the USA really works.

  • On the post: Suspended Cop Sends Email To Department Thanking Them For The Paid Time Off

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 02:56am

    Re: I can't see how this is Markham's fault

    Given the gloating, it would be karma for the department to now try to recover the monies paid out.

    More to the point, this shows the power of police unions is on par with other corrupt entities such as teamsters and as such needs investigating.

    (Most unions are "good" and don't try to pull this stuff. The bad ones like this give power to those who wish to eliminate unions altogether)

    Covering for bad cops makes the cops involved bad cops too. It's clear that investigations of the entire setup are needed. Bad cops are why people don't trust police. Where else can you avoid criminal prosecution and get a paid holiday and get a pension to boot? not even the mafia offer that.

  • On the post: Suspended Cop Sends Email To Department Thanking Them For The Paid Time Off

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2015 @ 03:08am

    3 years is easy to achieve

    All he (or his union) had to do is keep fighting it every step of the way.

    The point being that each go-around adds a couple of months - and this has nothing to do with legal systems as it didn't go through the courts.

    By the way, the fact that he's been allowed to resign instead of being fired means that he doesn't have an official blot on his copybook which in turn means that he's likely to be able to walk into a LEO job next week. This happens regularly as there is no register of corrupt officials anywhere in the world. (The cop fired in Ferguson is already working in another police department, The county clerk fired for refusing to sign off on marriage certificates for gay couples is now working in the same position one county over. Cops allowed to resign in England for abuse of power simply sign up for another police department elsewhere in the country and carry on.)

    One of the _untapped_ powers of the Internet is that such people can now be tracked by the general public and their new employers called out on it. Of course this will never happen as anyone operating such a tracking site will be harrassed to death.

  • On the post: Warner Music Complains That Rock Band And Guitar Hero Need To Pay More For Music

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Feb, 2015 @ 01:24pm

    Re: Reminds me of..

    22 years ago.

    "In 1986 TVNZ took all music shows off the air following a dispute with record companies, who were demanding payment for video clips that were becoming increasingly expensive to produce. TVNZ refused to pay to screen them on the grounds that this was ‘a form of sales promotion’. The dispute was resolved by the end of the year and the shows returned to air. "

    That "dispute was resolved" is putting it nicely.

    The record companies _begged_ TVNZ to air music videos again as sales had fallen substantially (lack of exposure, plus the record-buying public put the blame for not seeing music videos firmly on the shoulders of the music industry.)

    Several weeks before the end of the dispute, TVNZ was paid full commercial advertising rates to air Michael Jackson's "Thriller" during an ad break in the 6pm news. It was subsequently aired several more times as a paid advert.

    That's not just a surrender, it's a full scale crying of "Uncle!"

    It's worth also noting that the seed of the idea for MTV came from New Zealand - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_with_Pictures

  • On the post: Hilariously Stupid Defamation Suit Against A Blogging Lawyer Tossed By New York Judge

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 12:33pm

    Re: Quick question

    IANAL anywhere, let alone in NY state, however:

    It's virtually impossible to have someone declared vexatious on a couple of cases, although individual cases can be declared vexatious - which normally results in the other party getting a judgement for all costs and ancilliaries.

    Once someone's declared as a vexatious litigant they have to apply for and get court clearance for anything which might possibly be remotely construed as a legal threat and such orders usually bind for 20 years.

    I've only ever seen one person declared vexatious and it effectively barred him from saying anything without court clearance. He was in court a few months later on contempt charges and the judge's ruled pretty much disembowelled him (it's amazing what a pissed off judge can order, even against a lawyer, if sufficiently irritated)

  • On the post: Unsealed Motions Shows How Team Prenda Sought To Hide Money

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 12:10pm

    Re: Re: Re:

    "The IRS does whatever the hell they want, you may think they may be constrained by rules, but they don't think so."

    The judge in tax-evasion cases is an ex-tax inspector, not a lawyer and they take a very dim view of lawyer posturing in tax courts.

  • On the post: Getty Threatens The Wrong IP Law Firm In Its Copyright Trolling Efforts

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 12:03pm

    Re: Getty's library is chock-a-block with copy fraud already

    Wouldn't Getty claiming copyright over items they do not own on that kind of scale constitute criminal copyright fraud?

    Or is it only criminal copyright fraud when the *AAs say it is?

  • On the post: New Zealand Supreme Court Says Raid On Dotcom's Home Legal Enough To Get A Pass

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 11:47am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "the court in HK have told the US to pay for Dotcoms legal defence in HK."

    A URL for this would be illuminating.

  • On the post: New Zealand Supreme Court Says Raid On Dotcom's Home Legal Enough To Get A Pass

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 11:35am

    Re: Re:

    This is exactly the point.

    By doing what they have done, the New Zealand govt has elevated a fairly noxious individual to somewhat of a folk hero.

    More worryingly, the fact they've demonstrated they're perfectly willing to throw away the rulebook to go after someone like Dotcom means they're equally as willing to throw away the rulebook if they decide they don't like YOU.

  • On the post: New Zealand Supreme Court Says Raid On Dotcom's Home Legal Enough To Get A Pass

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 11:32am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "They're essentially arguing that it's perfectly fine for a judge to issue a warrant without the legally required details, and that just does not strike me as a good thing."

    New Zealand policy when they prosecute anyone is to seize all their assets and finances, then force them to use public defenders (with limited hours available)

    The police were rubbing their hands with glee on this, as they thought they'd be pocketing the proceeds from seizures with Dotcom unable to mount an effective defence.

    There have been a large number of cases of miscarrriages of justice that finally ended up out of New Zealand at the UK Privy Council where convictions were overturned and extremely harshly worded comments about the behaviour of both the NZ courts and Police entered into the record.

    As a direct result of these Privy Council judgements, in the 1990s the New Zealand government stripped the ability to appeal to the Privy Council and insituted a new "highest court in the land" composed of the very same judiciary whose impartiality had been fiercely criticised in Privy Council decisions.

    It's worth noting that New Zealand has been singled out as the country in the world whose economy has been most crippled by growing inequality across the board - inequality which has become increasingly rampant since the late 1990s.

  • On the post: New Zealand Supreme Court Says Raid On Dotcom's Home Legal Enough To Get A Pass

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 11:20am

    Re: 'Law', what's that?

    "So they admit that the warrant was vague, and easily open to interpretation, but ruled it legal anyway. The police in that country have got to love them."

    They do.

    Check out http://laudafinem.com/

    The problem is that NZ is a small country with everyone in power in everyone else's back pocket and a fairly pliable population who still believe that there is no way corruption could be hiding in backrooms and high offices. (That may have been true once, but it hasn't been since the 1950s at least)

    New Zealand media is complicit in this and anyone who threatens to rock the boat is usually quickly gagged by threats of civil defamation lawsuits from those who stand to be exposed (New Zealand has no "public interest" or "absolute truth" defences)

  • On the post: International Men Of Mystery: How Discredited German 'Anti-Piracy' Company May Secretly Be Behind Malibu Media's Copyright Trollery

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 06 Jan, 2015 @ 11:54am

    Bogus registered address

    It's worth noting that the company registered address given for Guardaley is a "virtual office" provided by CloudBuy

    http://cloudbuy.com/office-locations.html

    To the best of my knowledge, this is not legal under UK company law (nor is using a Mailboxes, etc or similar dropbox).

    It would be worthwhile getting some input from the UK's registrar of companies on the matter.

  • On the post: City Of London Police Drove 200 Miles To Arrest And Jail 'Industrial' Level Pirate… Only To Have Case Fall Apart And All Charges Dropped

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2014 @ 01:43pm

    Re:

    "I wonder how the UK citizens like the idea of FACT running around playing copyright cops with taxpayer dollars for private companies."

    My employer has recently made the decision to stop paying for FACT membership because they just keep jacking up the fees year upon year.

    The first thing FACT did was threaten raids and imply legal action if they didn't get a "closure meeting" - when we told them that all such meetings would be attended by lawyers and subject to audio/visual recordings which would be published on our websites they went very quiet.

  • On the post: City Of London Police Drove 200 Miles To Arrest And Jail 'Industrial' Level Pirate… Only To Have Case Fall Apart And All Charges Dropped

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2014 @ 01:38pm

    Re:

    Oh yes, very much so.

    They've had to settle a number of cases for high value amounts, but these tend to be out of court and subject to NDA (which is odd, given they would fall under FOIA rules)

  • On the post: IP Is No Excuse: Even If Someone Is Using Fake Chips, It's Not Okay To Kill Their Devices

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2014 @ 12:12pm

    Re: Yet another reason

    FTDI tried (and failed) to get the same driver mods pulled into the Linux kernel.

    The code there shows the bricking is deliberate - write something that the real chip will ignore, but fakes will act on.

    At the very least FTDI employees have committed criminal acts under the UK's Computer Misuse Act and a more likely result will be FTDI's exit from the usb-serial market entirely.

  • On the post: Revealed: ISPs Already Violating Net Neutrality To Block Encryption And Make Everyone Less Safe Online

    Stoatwblr ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2014 @ 10:55am

    The real error

    Is that they allow endusers access to world:25 AT ALL.

    Most ISPs nullroute such traffic and with good reason - it's the #1 vector for spam traffic.

    Endusers (you and me) use MUAs, not MTAs. MUAs talk to MTAs on ports 993 (imaps) or 465/587 (smtp auth).

    Allowing endusers to directly connect to an external MTA allows spammers to do their thing, which in turn means the IPs involved get blacklisted. If you have a few clues to rub together and can demonstrate you can run a MTA without annoying the world then most ISPs will punch a hole for you.

    The real question is "Why on earth do people such as Golden Frog think they can run a MTA from a consumer connection, without proving they're competent to do so?"

    The fact that they can't interpret a PIX firewall's responses show that they lack that competence.

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