Chris wrote:
There is, though, this little thing called excessive punishment. Copyright violations are a civil matter, not criminal (unless you're, like, selling the stuff and getting thousands of dollars for it).
And:
Set wrote:Chris pretty much hits the nail on the head regarding this. The punishment is extremely excessive for the "crime". People are getting jail sentences and fines in the MILLIONS for copying music.
The people who are getting nailed are the ones who are downloading
a lot of music, videos, games, etc. That's the equivalent of shoplifting thousands of dollars worth of CDs from a "brick and moartar" store. You steal thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, and it is NOT a civil matter, I assure you. The punishment
entirely fits the crime.
Set wrote:AND IN CASE YOU MISSED IT here are the definitions of sharing and theft:
And if someone posts a copy of something licensed for single use only, and you obtain a copy online in violation of copyright, it is
not "sharing" anymore, it is "theft".
kitetsu wrote:That's what you get for understocking games I want, setting prices upwards to $115 for new or popular titles... but don't you DARE dismiss my protest as a lame excuse.
That's right, kitetsu. Stuff is overpriced, so that makes stealing stuff okay -- Oh, wait. I'm sorry. What I meant to say was "That makes stealing
luxury goods like video games okay". I dismiss your protest as a lame excuse.
Chris wrote:...constantly-lengthened Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension...
Okay, I'll agree with you on that one. The copyright laws need to be changed, and the Disney thing is the best example of why. I doubt that there are many people out there who would dispute that. However, copyright protection does encourage invention, and artistic expression --
because it keeps people from taking something that they didn't create and reproducing it so that the actual creator cannot profit from his creation. Just because the law is flawed, or you just don't agree with it, does NOT mean that you have some sort of moral right to violate it.
Chris wrote:There's a difference between having the data public, and the source of the data public, though. What you say in a public forum is public, sure. But that it was you that said it is a different matter. If I only give my real name and address to my ISP, and never post it online, I very much have a right to privacy that people online won't find it and post it themselves. Or that my ISP would release it for any reason other than for what they're legally obligated to.
Dude, the data and the
source of the data
are the same thing. It's kind of like if you call someone on the telephone and they have caller ID, only
there's no technical way to turn your identification off. Your IP address is embedded in
all actions you take on the internet. The system cannot route without it. As for your ISP, unless you have a very unusual company, I'll bet that if you read your contract with them very carefully, you'll probably discover that they're not "legally obligated" to do sh**. You could probably find an obscure ISP out there that would be willing to offer a contract in which they agree not to sell your personal information to third parties, but be prepared to pay a premium. That's life.
Chris wrote:The problem is that the [ACTA] meetings should not be closed. They''re drafting treaties/laws which we, as citizens of the countries part of the negotiations, will be required to abide by. We should have every damned right to know what our representatives are negotiating so that we can voice our support, or lack thereof. Doesn't it bother you to not know what the people you voted for, are themselves voting for? To have absolutely no say (even indirectly) in the laws which we will eventually get from it?
Yeah it does... a little. These agreements have to include lots of other countries in order to be effective. Some of those countries are not as big on open government as others are, and if it was insisted upon being an open conference many of the major players would probably just not show up (and if we're talking about intellectual property piracy havens like Nigeria or the Ukraine, that would be bad).
Set wrote:The first woman had a gun, yes. She also had dementia and heart problems. The point was they USED A TAZER ON AN 87-YEAR OLD.
I think you watch too much TV. If someone is armed, they have the ability to fire the weapon, and you have reason to believe that their discharging of that weapon is imminent, (we call this the "Use of Deadly Force Triangle" -- Capability, Opportunity, and Intent) a law enforcement official's ONLY responsibility is to nullify that threat. Period. An 87 year old with no teeth, sitting in a rocking chair, and crapping into a colostomy bag (if armed with a firearm) can totally-kill-you-dead. No lie.
Set wrote:And what, pray tell, separates a digital library from a physical one?
Well, let's see -- A physical library loans out a book. When you're done reading it, you give it back. While you have it nobody else can read it. So, there really isn't any such thing as a "digital library". It's more like a digital printing press, making copies of books -- and not paying the legitimate publisher anything.
Set wrote:Uh...you do realize that the united States government does not and should not hold any sort of police jurisdiction over another country, right? Right...?
It's called jurisdictional nexus. If any part of the criminal activity took place inside U.S. jurisdiction (like data being relayed through a router inside the U.S. or being transmitted through any part of the American telecommunications grid (like stuff the FCC has authority over)), the Feds can nail you just fine. If your sorry butt just happens to be in a country that has extradition treaties with the U.S., the Feds can
demand that
your own country's cops arrest you and turn you over to the Americans. Oh, and if you're an American citizen and want to pull that kind of B.S. on another country -- it works in reverse too.
Set wrote:Why is that silly? I don't need to be an expert in XYZ to see when people are doing something blatantly stupid. Delaying putting the cap on the well will only allow MORE oil to spill into the Gulf.
WHY DO YOU SEEM TO THINK I NEED A DAMNED DEGREE TO UNDERSTAND THAT?
Because they're doing highly technical stuff for highly technical reasons. It's like some guy off the street watching open-heart surgery, and arm-chair-quarterbacking the surgeon. Exactly
why do you think you're an expert on hydro-dynamics, metallurgy, and tele-robotics as applied to an aquatic environment
five freaking thousand feet underwater? Yeah,
you probably need a degree to understand that.
Set wrote:You seem to very much be the kind of person who's perfectly okay with being and having other people be someone else's b****. Do forgive me if I cannot understand your point of view.
Well, then, don't buy an Apple (or any of their associated products), and don't buy anything made in China (good luck).
Set wrote:She was FILMING A BIRTHDAY PARTY. She just happened to catch what...20 SECONDS...of the film while doing that. OMFSM, the sheer eeeevil of this act must be punished! With the most ridiculously over-the-top sentence that can be gotten away with!
And if she was told not to film, and she decided that the rules didn't apply to her... well, TFB.