Some geek decided to put a 1986 Mac Plus up against a brand spanking new dual core AMD box in a productivity challenge. He found, unsurprisingly, that routine tasks take about as long on the Mac Plus as they do on the new PC, with the Mac Plus actually taking less time in 9 of 17 tests.
This shouldn't be particularly surprising. As the article points out, while the AMD does have 250 times as much RAM, 1,000 times as much processing power, and 3,000 times as much storage space, its operating system is 1,500 times larger. Vista is 15,000 times larger. If anything, the bloating of modern code--MacOS 6.0.8 is written in assembly and only takes up 1MB installed--has lead to a decrease in overall functionality in terms of pure computing efficiency. This is to say nothing of Vista which deliberately cripples the user experience.
Then again, the modern PC can do things the Mac Plus could never dream of. Even the Microsoft applications like Word and Excel are much more advanced. Don't believe me? Scare up a copy of Office 1997 and see how it feels. The GUI has been drastically streamlined and Excel is capable of doing a lot more than it was ten years ago. The author didn't even bother trying to surf the web, as there aren't really many browsers that work, and surfing on a 9" black and white screen kind of lacks somehow.
I'd say that the author's conclusion that there has been no increase in productivity is not strictly accurate. There certainly hasn't been an increase in computing efficiency--the opposite of anything--but there has indeed been an increase in productivity as such, as I'm doing far more with my computer than my old Mac SE30 could ever have done.
Cliche as that may sound, it's the title of a book of my brother's I found around the house: Body Piercing Saved My Life: Inside the Phenomenon of Christian Rock. It's an outsider's look at what has been one of the most bizarre and conflicted cultural developments of the last 40 years, and it's really worth a read. The author winds up talking about some pretty great artists--Sufjan Stevens comes to mind, and one of the people he interviews plugs Funeral--as well as a surprisingly in-depth discussion of the history and theology of American evangelicalism.
I find it rather telling--and somewhat unsurprising--that the thing that seems to have thrown him for a loop is a conference at Calvin featuring Reformed perspectives on culture:
"I noticed a prevailing skepticism among the Calvin students regarding the convergence of conservative Christianity and politics in the U.S. Already this wasn't what I'd been expecting. I hadn't heard a single word about Terri Schiavo, the pope [both of whom died that week], or even The Da Vinci Code [also in the news at the time]. I'd come completely unprepared.
"We broke for workshops, and I decided to attend Ken Heffner's called "Holy Worldliness--Culture and the Problem of Evil," figuring that I'd easily get some fire and brimstone there. Again, I was unprepared. Hefner called the concept of holy worldliness "a small, elegant oxymoron" and then began to argue persuasively for his reading of Jesus' instructions for the delicate dance of being in the world but not of it."
It was clear that the Reformed tradition, which I knew he was dealing with even if the author didn't, has a perspective on these things that he totally hadn't expected.
The lecture also included a critique of a very popular CCM hit at the time, criticizing it for being unimaginative and bland. Which is a valid critique of most "Christian" music, if you ask me.
But I think the part I enjoyed the most was the author's account of attending a worship service at the Gospel Music Week in Nashville (probably in 2005):
"Quentin Crisp once said, 'A lifetime of listening to disco music is a high price to pay for one's sexual preference' I'm not saved and don't think I ever will be, but if such a miracle were to take place, I can't imagine anything worse than being forced to pay for my salvation by listening to worship music for the rest of my days.
"Worship music is the logical conclusion of Christian adult contemporary music--not just unappealing but unbearable to anyone not already in the fold [and, I would add, some already in it]. Every song follows the same parameters. It opens gently, with tinkling arpeggios or synthesized harp glissandos that portend the imminence of something celestial in glacial 4/4 time. In the second verse, the band--invariably excellent players [oh, would that it were so!]--soft-pedals in, gaining in volume to the bridge. And then the chorus. Heavens, the choruses. They could put U2 out of business for good, they're so huge. Another verse. A middle eight. Then, a breakdown when the audience takes over singing. Another massive chorus. Fin.
"This isn't music to appreciate; it's music to experience. People at a worship service close their eyes and, as ecstasy spreads across their faces, begin to rock rhythmically, arms out, mouthing the lyrics. It's more than a little sexual and a tad uncomfortable if you're sitting next to an attractive person who's been overcome by the Spirit.
"Worship tunes tend to evince an adolescent theology [see, if even outsiders get it, why can't the church?], one that just can't get over how darn cool it is that Jesus sacrificed himself for the world. "Our God is an awesome God." "O Lord, you are glorious." "How can it be/That you, a king, should die for me? [Hey, some Wesley? Dumbed down though." Moreover, it's self-centered in a way that reflects evangelicalism's near-obsession with having a personal relationship with Christ. It's me Jesus died for. I just gotta praise the Lord.
"Not for nothing is "Amazing Grace," which marvels at the author's salvation, one of the few traditional hymns to be regularly included in modern worship services. Absent is any hint of community found in hymns such as "The Church Is One Foundation"--the Jesus of worship music is a mentor, a buddy, a friend whose message is easily distilled to a simple command: praise me. Not "feed the poor, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner." Simply thank Him for His gift to you (and make sure to display copyright information at the bottom of the screen so royalties can be disbursed).
"All of which I could bear, or at least imagine defending, if all the songs didn't sound the same. Now, I don't want to be a total bully here. Obviously, worship music means a lot to many people, and there are worship songs that stand up on their own, as music--I left Nashville humming one called "Blessed Be Your Name" for weeks [it is rather catchy]--but they're in the minority. As is any hint of evangelizing--this is music by the saved only, for the saved only, an art form where the images projected on giant screens are more fruitful sources of meditation and reflection than the lyrics superimposed on them."
I couldn't agree more. Some of the people that do the music for church services are obviously up there because they asked to be. No one in their right mind with any hint of aesthetic sensibility would have asked them on their own initiative. Most of them are really nice whom I like him personally. But they can't sing, I play the piano better than they do (which is saying something), and they wouldn't know a proper hymn if you smacked them across the forehead with the complete works of Isaac Watts.
So yeah, read the book. Fascinating.
The Canadian Supreme Court has handed down a ruling rejecting the concept of a general right to legal counsel whenever one's rights or obligations are implicated. The Court recognized that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does impose the right to counsel when one is arrested or detained--a right guaranteed in this country by the Sixth Amendment and its attendant jurisprudence--but does not impose a general right to counsel whenever one goes to court.
At issue is a tax on legal services imposed to pay for legal aid. A sound enough principle, but in what seems to be a glaring miscalculation, there is no exception for legal aid services themselves. As a result, the respondent in this case--ironically killed in a cycling accident while raising money for legal aid--was unable to continue his legal aid practice because though he frequently was not paid for his services the government required him to remit the taxes on those services. He argued this was a violation of his clients' right to legal counsel. Though the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed with him, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the idea.
While seemingly harsh, I think this is best result. The argument advanced by the respondent did not seem to make a distinction between being a plaintiff and being a defendant. While I can see some basis for a right to legal counsel when one is sued, I see no basis for such a right when one wishes to sue someone else. Before you know it you'll have anyone with a grievance demanding state assistance to sue everyone in sight. Besides, people who cannot afford legal services are unlikely to be sued in civil court anyways--they by definition have no money, so suing them seems like a waste of time. I'm sure it happens--especially in landlord/tenant cases--but it's not the norm. On the other hand, people who cannot afford legal services have a huge incentive to sue people with money, especially if they don't have to pay for their own representation.
The court also observed that access to the courts is important to the rule of law but does not seem to be a fundamental right as such. The reason given is that in Canada--and the US as well--the legislature is capable of modifying the criteria under which plaintiffs may bring suit. A prime example in the US would be the amount in controversy requirement--$75,000--for bringing suit in federal court on the basis of diversity jurisdiction. If the legislature is capable of affecting the right in question in this way, it does not seem to be as fundamental a right as, say, the right to vote or the right to freedom from racial discrimination.
A court in Finland has just ruled that Finnish--and by implication EU--copyright laws only protect "effective" DRM. CSS, the DRM used to protect DVDs since their release in the 1990s, was ruled ineffective, and thus legal to crack.
Kind of a circular argument at root, but I think it's sound nonetheless. It's illegal to crack DRM that hasn't been cracked yet, but once it has been cracked...
Does this mean that AACS is also "ineffective"? I mean there are already HD-DVD movies up for download on BitTorrent. Sometimes even before they're released. Certainly something that easily available can't be effective.
With another hat tip to MeFi comes this great piece on the evils of organic food. The bare facts? Organic food is significantly more likely than industrial food to give you E. coli (both outbreaks last year were traced to organic produce), contains exactly the same nutritional value with nastier pesticides, and takes up far more undeveloped land.
Money quote: "If you demand organic soybeans, then you should have the courage to stand up and say that you don't care whether black and brown people around the world have enough to eat or not."
Other great articles: "No Blood for Oil" (fact: after Saudi Arabia, very little of oil comes from Iraq or hostile Middle Eastern countries); Chiropractic (bogus to the extent that it departs from modern medicine), SUVs (fact: most are mechanically identical to normal passenger cars), wheatgrass juice (fact: ick).
The author of the site, Skeptoid, is also something of a religious skeptic, and that comes through in his posts devoted to religion. So just don't read those if you don't like that.
Antigua has formally petitioned the WTO for permission to suspend its intellectual property obligations to the US. If approved, this would give Antigua unlimited permission to copy and distribute any and all intellectual property subject to American IP legal protection: patent, copyright, you name it. Trademarks would be up for grabs too, but not nearly as useful. All The Pirate Bay needs to do is shift their servers to Antigua and they will be legally untouchable.
How did this happen? Because the US has repeatedly ignored Antigua's WTO complaints about internet gambling. Congress set up discriminatory legislation which hurt Antigua's business and essentially protecting US businesses. Last month the nuclear option of ignoring IP treaties was suggested as a possibility, but it's come to fruition.
I can't wait.
The St. Petersburg Times is running a three part piece about a black journalist's experience teaching at Stillman College, a historically black college in Tuscaloosa, AL. So far parts one , "I Had a Dream" and two, "A Dream Lay Dying", have been published, with part three forthcoming. (Hat tip: MeFi)
Money quote from part two:
"My colleagues and I were witnessing the result of low admission standards. Were we expecting too much of young people who scored poorly on the SAT, who were rarely challenged to excel in high school, who were not motivated to take advantage of opportunities to learn, who could not imagine where a sound education could take them."
These students regularly set fire to their dorms, leading to a situation which leads to "a team of white firefighters trying to save a dormitory named for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that black students had trashed."
The argument is that the poor are that way because they've received the short end of the stick and just haven't had the right opportunities. What is a society that has done its best to offer opportunities to those who had none to do when those who are the recipients of societal largesse burn down their own dorms?
Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, __ U.S. __ (2007) with a 7-2 ruling. The case is an antitrust action, but has implications far beyond antitrust law. The heart of the issue on appeal is the standard under which motions for dismissal for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Rule 12(b)(6). The previous standard, set forth in Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957), states that a complain should not be dismissed unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts which would entitle him to relief.
In Twombly, the Court held that the "'no set of facts' language has been questioned, criticized, and explained away long enough by courts and commentators, and is best forgotten as an incomplete, negative gloss on an accepted pleading standard: once a claim has been stated adequately, it may be supported by showing any set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint. Conley described the breadth of opportunity to prove what an adequate complaint claims, not the minimum standard of adequate pleading to govern a complaint’s survival."
This is a higher standard than in Conley, and it seems that the court has formally adopted the "plausibility" standard endorsed by many commentators who are dissatisfied with the "no set of facts" standard. The new standard is "enough fact to raise a reasonable expectation" that discovery will bear out the allegations in the complaint.
The case itself is directed specifically at complaints invoking § 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, so its applicability to other complaints would be by analogy. Here, the Court seems to be motivated in avoiding discovery abuse by plaintiffs seeking a settlement without much hope of establishing their case in discovery. Discovery in antitrust suits can be incredibly expensive, so the incentive to settle for a significant sum can be higher than in other cases. Still, it is likely that this new plausibility standard will be the rule for 12(b)(6) motions from here on out.
Kind of between things at the moment. Got back to PA last Wednesday evening after a drive that was longer than it should have been--at least a dozen construction zones between the Indiana/Ohio border and Harrisburg. My background check for my internship this summer is still in process, moving at the speed of government, and I can't start work until that comes through, so I'm trying to get a leg up on my reading for journal write-ons.
I also snapped the antenna off the wireless card on my desktop, so that's kinda offline for the moment. Should be getting a new card by the end of the week. And the gym I go to in Harrisburg closed on Friday for reasons that are not immediately clear. That's great.
I spent most of today reading FISA, Youngstown, and touching up some rust spots on my car. The latter won't look new when I'm finished, but it will stop rusting, so that's something anyways. Beats shelling out $500 to have someone else do it, that's for sure.
The Democrats are agitating for a no-confidence vote against Attorney General Gonzales. Which is interesting because there isn't any such thing. I mean, sure, they can take a vote of no-confidence, and they can even potentially get through both houses.
What then? Umm, nothing. There is no provision in the Constitution for such a vote, and the Supreme Court will immediately reject any attempt by Congress to remove a duly appointed executive superior officer such as Gonzales.
So basically we're going to get to watch the Democratic Congress pitch a fit. If it weren't so depressing, the legal incongruity could keep me entertained for weeks.
Remember the key that was circulated a few weeks ago? The one that could be used by a savvy hacker to crack the protection on HD-DVDs? Remember how that key was "revoked", so that future HD-DVD releases wouldn't be affected by the publication of that supposedly-private key?
The new key has been cracked a week before it was scheduled to be released. We've thus crossed the threshold to the least-optimal iteration of DRM: the technology causes a headache to legitimate users--who need to update their software--while not causing even a slight delay in the distribution of unauthorized copies.
Somebody call the porter. Those deckchairs need rearranging before the ship sinks.
Jerry Falwell has died. Rather suddenly, from all appearances. Given his previous health scares, it's likely to have been cardiac in nature. He was found unresponsive in his office and pronounced dead an hour later.
I'm sure the man had a positive influence through his various ministries, and I know people who've gone to Liberty University, so I don't have any desire or need to say anything bad about him. But I will say that his contribution to American politics will not be missed.
If there was anything that fit the definition of "cruel" punishment it would have to be this. The Attorney General has proposed legislation--obviously at the prompting of the media industry--that would drastically increase the penalties for copyright infringement and make "attempted infringement" a felony as well.
"Attempted infringement". Boy howdy, if there was a way of saying "We don't want any customers" it would have to be supporting legislation like this.
This completely destroys the difference between malum in se and malum prohibitum. The former denotes acts which are wrong in and of themselves: violent crimes, fraud, etc. The latter denote acts which are not wrong in and of themselves but are nonetheless illegal, mostly for public policy reasons: speeding, drug use (arguably anyways), jaywalking, gambling, etc. Gonzales is right when he says that it is a longstanding tenet of criminal law that one who attempts to commit an offense but fails to complete it is as morally culpable as one who had completed it: the intent was there, and but for external circumstances that prevented the completion, there would have been an offense.
But malum prohibitum offenses don't come with moral culpability. No one has ever been arrested for "attempted speeding" or "attempted illegal gambling". These are the kinds of things which you either do or you don't, but as they aren't recognized as being inherently wrong, attempting to do them isn't generally criminalized. Furthermore, malum prohibitum offenses are considered less serious than malum in se and carry much lighter sanctions, usually in the form of fines, though activities which pose a risk to the health or safety of others--drunk driving, drug dealing, etc.--can come with prison terms.
Copyright infringement is as pure an example of malum prohibitum as I can imagine. This is something which the legislature has seen fit to propertize and protect for public policy reasons: it says as much in Art. I, § 8, in the clause which grants Congress the power to authorize patents and copyrights: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". It poses zero risk to the health or safety of others, yet the penalty for copying a single song is 1000 times larger than actually stealing a CD from a record store. The current copyright--and patent--regime does nothing to protect the progress of the arts. If anything, it is blatantly used to suppress the it.
The dystopic visions of a future rule by draconian IP rights cartels seems closer every day.
So yesterday was my last final. I've just finished my first year in law school. But no rest of the weary. Starting next week sometime I'll begin work on my Comment for the write-on competition for the law journals. 12 page document with about 275 pages of research to get through. And I start working at the USA Office in a week.
But yeah, I'm now technically a rising 2L, assuming I pass all my courses. Not worried about that, but it is rather important, you know?
Some lawyer's gonna get fired. Why? For giving two previously unheard-of DRM companies--BlueBeat and Media Rights Technologies--the bogus legal advice that the DMCA, which prohibits the circumvention of DRM, actually mandates the use of available DRM implementations. The theory is that "circumvention" includes not using DRM where one technically could. Under this theory, the companies have send cease and desist letters to Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, and Real, insisting that they stop not using their DRM.
The DMCA, obviously, contains no such mandate. This situation is called "failure to state a claim", and should these companies be silly enough to file a lawsuit, the defendants would simply file a motion to dismiss on that ground, which would be granted before the ink has dried.
A friend with a sense of humor sent me this link. The headline? "Oral sex can cause throat cancer". There's some sense to this, as HPV, the primary cause of cervical cancer, can be transmitted through such activities, increasing the risk of throat cancer by up to 250% for those who have had five or more oral sex partners.
But if you read all the way to the end of the article, tacked in the last paragraph is the information which makes it all really irrelevant. Currently, throat cancer has an incidence rate of about 2 cases per 100,000 adults. So a 250% increase means there would be, what, 7 cases per 100,000? So we've gone from a 0.002% chance to a 0.007% chance. Which is slightly higher than the odds of being killed by lightning and significantly lower than the chances of being murdered.
I don't know if the journalists responsible here deliberately scaremongering or just plain ignorant, but I suspect the latter.
Couldn't have made this up if I tried. The CEO of Time Warner, Inc. has actually compared traditional media outlets and corporations as the Sioux nation and Google et al as Custer.
This is fantastic. Yes, Google may lose in Viacom v. Google, it's entirely possible. But defeating Custer didn't prevent the Massacre at Wounded Knee or the ultimate marginalization of the Sioux as a significant socio-political force. Today, they fare no better than any other of the American Indian tribes and have been either assimilated into the population at large or scrape out a living on reservations. Old media may be entrenched on the ground and fancies itself as having some kind of moral high ground, but Google represents the new settlers on the digital frontier, and even if they're bloodied after this particular battle, you can't turn back the clock or make them go away.
I really don't think that's what Richard Parsons was getting at, but I think that's what's going to happen. Couldn't have said it better myself.
A merchant in Wisconsin has fallen afoul of Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which sets minimum prices for gasoline. Whether or not this is a good idea is left as an exercise for the reader, but it is unquestionable that the states are allowed to do this kind of thing (the federal government probably can but would have a much more difficult time).
Anyways, the merchant was offering a discount to senior citizens and people who supported local extracurricular sports teams. A worthy endeavor, but prohibited by state law. The Wis. Dept. of Agriculture sent him a nastygram saying that he'd face legal action if he continued the practice.
Fortunately, there is an easy way of getting around this. Keep selling gas at uniform prices, and instead of offering a discount as such, offer gift cards with bonuses attached. There's actually an organization, Scrip, that does this kind of thing for schools, etc. You drop, say $100 on grocery cards through the school, which are good for $100 in groceries at the issuing store, but the store then gives the school a cut of your spending. You don't pay any less for gas/food/what-have-you, but your spending also benefits the organization of your choice.
...but apparently no one told the pope. He's threatening sanctions ranging from withholding communion to full excommunication against politicians who support abortion.
In theory, I support this kind of thing, because taking vows of church membership does create a binding obligation to submit to the government and discipline of the church. But come on. This looks a hell of a lot like an attempt to exert political power. I am perfectly aware that this is not necessarily the case, but it looks bad. It didn't really work with Henry IV, and it won't work now.
This is not the kind of authority the church needs to be exerting. It's bad for everyone involved, and until the Catholic hierarchy realizes this, they'll remain what they have been for 500 years: a relic people don't--and shouldn't--take seriously.
Both BoingBoing and /. have been going completely nuts over the proposed REAL ID regulation. In essence, the Department of Homeland Security is proposing that the states standardize their identification issuing practices and after May 1, 2008, federal agencies would stop accepting non-compliant ID.
For those who can't be bothered to read the regulation, the requirements would be:
"full legal name, date of birth, gender, a unique driver's license or identification card number (not the SSN), a full facial digital photograph, address of principal
residence (with certain exceptions), issue and expiration dates, signature, physical security features and a common machine-readable technology (MRT)".
My current drivers license has all of those things. The regulation does not propose the creation of a national identification database. It would require state databases to be compatible, but they mostly are already.
I really don't understand what the big deal is.
Florida and Utah have adopted legislation which presumes that dealing in used CDs is dealing in stolen goods. Because there's such a problem with that.
Can anyone else see the RIAA's greedy, bastardly, [unprintable] influence here?
In other news, I'm down 2 of 4 finals. Looking forward to some of that.
Saw Spider-Man 3 yesterday. My review.
Note to directors everywhere: if you're trying to chance someone's style to make them more intimidating, emo probably isn't the style you're looking for.
Published in the 5/1/2007 Crimson, this piece fits well with my post from yesterday.
Universities and other third-parties--including ISPs and website admins--should not be drafted into being IP enforcement police because content owners are unable to do it themselves. If content owners can't do it themselves (with the help of the courts, obviously), then it shouldn't be protected.
Paris Hilton is going to jail. She pleaded "no contest" in January and was sentenced to 36 months probation, which she promptly violated. She'll be in for 45 days with no alternatives available.
The law applies to everyone, miss. Being rich may make this easier to get away with, but not if you're that dumb.
Should I, God willing, make it onto a journal next year, here's something to write about: Congress is asking universities what they plan to do about online piracy stemming from their students. The question is phrased in a "we need to know whether to legislate here" kind of way, and the universities face no legal sanctions should they decline to respond. But they might have an interest in doing so if they don't want Congress to pass some ill-advised, crackpot law.
In tangentially related IP news, China is operating (via Slashdot) a knock-off Disneyworld (Chinese site), Bejing Shijingshan Amusement Park. Complete with knock-off Epcot center (Chinese site).
Disney's remedy here would be to sue the Chinese government for copyright infringement.
I'm hoping others find that idea at least as hilarious as I do.
Michael Ayers, chair of the AACS business group, doesn't get it (via BoingBoing. He's essentially threatened the Internet with legal action. Yeah, that's gonna work. Though it's completely idiotic, they probably can win most of any lawsuits they file. But what, they're going to sue 800,000 people? Even if they did that on a shoestring, it'd cost over half a billion dollars just to file the complaints.
DRM is dead. May it rot in hell.
Via MeFi, there's a really interesting article on marriage and infidelity. The author points out that though Americans cheat in monogamous relationships at similar rates as people in other countries, Americans seem uniquely devastated by it and are least likely to "recover".
The author points to three things which I think go a long way towards explaining this:
1) Americans have highly idealized views of marriage. Unlike other cultures, in which marriage is a significantly economic and occasionally political affair, where the spouses frequently don't get to choose each other, Americans marry by choice alone and usually for romantic reasons. When such lofty ideals are broken by infidelity, there's a lot farther to fall.
2) Americans have a significantly adolescent perspective on life. "We Americans are like a senior class about to graduate into the real world, socially green enough to think we'll all be friends forever and that nothing will change." This seems to be in keeping with adolescent attitudes about a wide number of things, including the idea that everyone is supposed to find the perfect career that perfectly meets all of their professional desires.
3) Americans,particularly American women, have significantly more rights--civil certainly, but especially social--than other cultures. Elsewhere, women can't necessarily obtain a divorce, and if they can legally, there are frequently significant social reasons not to do so. But there are still cultures in which women can be stoned to death for adultery, and plenty more in which a woman is incapable of supporting herself or her family should she leave her husband. America seems to be the only place where freaking out over infidelity is a viable option.
It's worth a read.
Yesterday Google filed its complaint in Viacom v. Google.
The WSJ has a blurb on their law blog. Apparently Google has retained the services of two of the most reputable litigators in the country. Duh.
Google has pulled out all the legal stops. They identify twelve legal defenses.
The strongest is first, the DMCA safe harbor provisions (17 U.S.C. § 512). This is the only statutory defense they present, but does seem to exactly cover what they're doing. Viacom is indeed arguing a new legal theory that the DMCA does not include, namely that wilful infringers are not subject to safe harbor protection.
Google also presents a number of common law defenses, listed here in order: alleged licenses by Viacom, doctrine of fair use, failure of Viacom to mitigate damages, defendant's innocent intent, misuse of copyrights by Viacom (!), estoppel (equitable kitchen-sink-type defense), waiver, the doctrine of unclean hands (wrongdoing on part of Viacom would preclude recovery), laches (similar to statute of limitations defense), and the doctrine of substantial non-infringing use (Betamax).
Raising these defenses in their answer doesn't necessarily mean that Google seriously intends to litigate them, but they're keeping their options open. The attorneys have probably listed the defenses in order of descending viability, though the last one seems pretty important to me.
The next hearing is currently scheduled for July 27. This should be fun.
Some are hailing last night's events on Digg as a major watershed, a kind of Wittenburg Door of the digital age. The thesis?
We are consumers, and if you will not sell us content that is Free as in speech, then we will find it free as in beer.
Though that may be a little dramatic, last night does represent a pretty major turning point: this is perhaps the first time that content providers have been so openly defied by the Internet at large. It's also the first time that the challenge has been aimed directly at a revenue protection technology (come on, who are we kidding by calling it "DRM"?), not the content itself. It's also the first time that a major website that's been threatened with legal action by a media corporation has refused to comply because of immediate retaliatory action on the part of its users.
Kind of a Scylla and Charybdis choice, where the existence of the sight might be threatened in the near future by adverse legal action from a major corporation on one hand, but immediate, concrete, overwhelming negative response from the very people that make the site's existence significant on the other.
I will be very interested to see what legal repercussions, if any, flow from this.
There's actually a Facebook group dedicated to spreading the AACS key.
What are they going to do, sue everyone on the Internet? Once information has been released into the wild you can never get the genie back in the bottle, and as someone on MeFi pointed out, the Internet routes around "damage", i.e. censorship.
And an update: Digg has bowed to the inevitable, and will no longer attempt to censor the code. It isn't like they could if they wanted to anyways.
Never really used Digg. Or any of its equivalents. It may be the coolest thing ever, but I never bothered to give it much of a look. Apparently it's pretty popular.
Well it looks like the HD-DVD overlords may have just killed it. Apparently there's this 32-digit hex code that can be used to break the encryption on HD-DVDs. It was gonna happen sooner or later, and apparently it happened sooner.
What's happening is that the moderators of Digg have received DMCA takedown notices about the key, and are actively attempting to censor any attempts to Digg pages related to the key. The users are in the process of revolting, and apparently at one point the entire front page of Digg was sites devoted to the key.
The kind of people who use Digg are exactly the kind of people will be royally pissed off by this sort of thing. As in there could be mass defections.
This could be interesting.