Obama DOJ Sides With RIAA Again In Tenenbaum 528
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Despite having had some time to get their act together, Obama's Department of Justice has filed yet another brief defending the RIAA's outlandish statutory damages theory — that someone who downloaded an mp3 with a 99-cent retail value, causing a maximum possible damages of 35 cents, is liable for from $750 to $150,000 for each such file downloaded, in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum. The 25- page brief (PDF) continues the DOJ's practice of (a) ignoring the case law which holds that the Supreme Court's due process jurisprudence is applicable to statutory damages, (b) ignoring the law review articles to like effect, (c) ignoring the actual holding of the 1919 case they rely upon, (d) ignoring the fact that the RIAA failed to prove 'distribution' as defined by the Copyright Act, and (e) ignoring the actual wording and reasoning of the Supreme Court in its leading Gore and Campbell decisions. Jon Newton of p2pnet.net attributes the Justice Department's 'oversights' to the 'eye-popping number of people [in its employ] who worked for, and/or are directly connected with, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music's RIAA.'"
Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
or not. Obama or not, remember that Hollywood greases Republican and Democrat pockets alike. Many of the big guys at the MPAA and RIAA are Democrats too, which must surely help.
As long as Hollywood gives politicians glamour by attending fundraisers, and actual cold hard cash, you won't find anyone in the government willing to speak out against Big Content. The only thing that can change this is public opinion.
Really? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm having that "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" moment that I really didn't want to have.
Or . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Or maybe is has something to do with the fact that his party receives significant contributions from the entertainment industry.
Obama was a Constitutional Law Prof. (Score:5, Insightful)
How he can abide this DOJ finding is really unknowable, outside of politics. It is behavior and outcomes like this that cost his party Mass. last night, and may well cost him his re-election bid in 2012. Pollingplace.com showed that last night in Mass., 37% of voters that voted for this independent that won, did so in protest of Democrats favoring Wall Street in the bailout.
The lesson is simple: Either the DOJ and the Obama administration stop taking sides against Main Street and for the big corporate interest, or they will keep losing.
Travesty (Score:3, Insightful)
Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get it. Who were we supposed to vote for?
Only Obama and McCain had any real chance of winning (sorry guys, the Green Party and Libertarians have been, and always will be, fringe groups run by potheads with a pro-drug agenda) and it was beyond obvious that McCain was willing to run this country into the ground for the sake of the almighty dollar. So I picked Obama, mainly because I love America and want the best for this country. But has he delivered?
Patent reform? No.
Environmental protection? No.
Taxing the middle class when he said the rich would finally be made to pay their taxes? Hell no.
Stopping the war? No.
Stopping the MPAA/RIAA from walking all over American citizens? Nope.
It's frustrating because I want Obama to be great and he is ending up being another Jimmy Carter. A nice guy, and a hell of a diplomat, but completely inept and useless at running the country. I cannot possibly explain how sad this makes me.
Clearly the RIAA is at fault here, and Obama's DOJ is doing as the RIAA instructed them to do. Shameful.
Deep breaths here people (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not the first time and will not be the last that a President, through his officers, defends a law he isn't thrilled about. Just because DOJ lawyers show up with a brief in support of a law does not mean that the President--or even the DOJ lawyers, for crying out loud--believe either 1) that the law is worth defending, or 2) the validity of their own arguments. They're just doing their jobs.
Re:Enjoy your choice (Score:1, Insightful)
I know it's popular to say that the Democrats and Republicans are exactly the same, but that's simply not true.
The Republicans are at least competent when it comes to pushing through their agenda in spite of the will of the people.
Newsflash: DOJ's Job in Litigation Against US Law (Score:5, Insightful)
People, the DOJ's job is to defend the laws as standing as passed. They would not be doing their jobs if they said, "nah, you're right, this law should be overturned."
Lrn2USLegalSystem and US Government, please.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
And public opinion is molded by Big Content. We are fucked.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
Though it should be noted that Hollywood contributes much more to the Democrats than the Republicans.
76% to Dems in 2010 (so far), 78% to Dems in 2008, not less than 62% in any election cycle in the last two decades.
So it's insane to assume that a Democratic administration is going to rein in the entertainment industry. It's not likely that a Republican administration will either, but they're more likely to be able to give up the relatively small amount of money they get from Hollywood than the Dems will.
Re:Deep breaths here people (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the President's job folks: to defend the laws passed by Congress
The requirement to defend the Constitution comes first. Unreasonable fines or punishment or something?
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
or not. Obama or not, remember that Hollywood greases Republican and Democrat pockets alike. .
That is patently false. If you look at political donations from Hollywood, it overwhelmingly favors Democrats. If one looks at executives of RIAA and MPAA companies the imbalance is even greater.
Re:Really? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm having that "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" moment that I really didn't want to have.
Look at all the dirty money he got to fund his campaign with. Goldman Sachs didn't give him all that money because they thought Obama was a reformer.
I still don't get why it is legal in the US to bribe politicians. In other countries a person giving money to an elected official goes in front of a firing squad.
Re:Deep breaths here people (Score:2, Insightful)
The DOJ defends the laws. The courts decide on Constitutionality.
I realize that "emotional appeals" and what not are en vogue lately when it comes to politics, though I dunno what exactly people think it helps.
It'd be far worse if the DOJ started picking and choosing which laws they wanted to enforce/defend.
What did you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Lawyers run the DOJ. Lawyers run Congress. Of course they want to be able to sue for large amounts.
Off topic perhaps, but this is why we won't see meaningful tort reform in the near future.
Hello?... (Score:5, Insightful)
Folks, what part of "The RIAA is in your pocket, and in your life" are you not getting? For the love of Pete, the Vice President is a media hit-man... what do they have to do before it's clear, carve their initials in your forehead? There is no law, no juris-prudence, no honest, decent, or rational bit of thinking that the RIAA won't pave over, pay to have overturned, ignored, or publicly gutted, to protect their charges' strangle hold on media. Once they are finished with this little piece of business, they can move to the next piece. Make all use public or private payable, maybe they can even get a tax passed on the presumed number of people at anytime who my be humming a tune to themselves. That and make all new music created from that day forward, which is not owned by an affiliate of the RIAA illegal to listen to. They want a monopoly on sound, and they want to own your ears, and they want to utterly destroy anybody who get's in the way of what they want. CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW...
Hope my @ss. (Score:5, Insightful)
I smelled this coming when he sided with the Telcos on the wiretapping.
I knew we were in for it when he kept Gitmo going.
ACTA secrecy pretty much cemented my opinion.
This is just icing on the cake.
And yes ladies and gentlemens, I voted for him...hoping he wouldn't be what he's showing himself to be...just another crooked pol, interested in being elected and nailing a sweet deal speaking deal once he's thrown out on his ear.
meh.
Re:Newsflash: DOJ's Job in Litigation Against US L (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll cut Obama slack when he has to choose the lesser of two evils. This is not one of those cases.
Re:Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Only Obama and McCain had any real chance of winning
They did a study once that a person is more likely to die on the way to the polls than having any meaningful effect on the election. So saying that someone wasted a vote by voting their conscience is nonsense.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be interesting to see if Obama learns from his mistakes and picks up the leadership. If not, he will accomplish little his remaining three years, and will be replaced (assuming Republicans can come up with a more compelling candidate than Kerry was).
Re:Crap (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't get it. Who were we supposed to vote for?
Only Obama and McCain had any real chance of winning (sorry guys, the Green Party and Libertarians have been, and always will be, fringe groups run by potheads with a pro-drug agenda) and it was beyond obvious that McCain was willing to run this country into the ground for the sake of the almighty dollar. So I picked Obama, mainly because I love America and want the best for this country. But has he delivered?
Then you are to blame. You voted for the guy, and are now reaping the "rewards" of it. You have many choices as there are many parties out there, the only ones who keep them from gaining strength are people like you who say it's hopeless. If you don't like the two parties then vote for a different one. Voting the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil, and still leavers you responsible. In the end dose it matter if your candidate doesn't get elected? Would you call it a wasted vote if you voted for a republican and lost? How about a democrat? If not then why would you call it a wasted vote if you voted for a third party and found they didn't win? They can win if people weren't so pessimistic about it.
Re:Enjoy your choice (Score:1, Insightful)
"Also the Republicans are the 'spend and borrow' party..."
Don't worry. We're in the middle of purging these Democrats in Republicans' clothing from our ranks.
Re:Newsflash: DOJ's Job in Litigation Against US L (Score:3, Insightful)
People, the DOJ's job is to defend the laws as standing as passed.
Yes. PS The Constitution of the United States happens to be one of our laws. In fact, it's our highest law. Any "law" which conflicts with it is invalid.
They would not be doing their jobs if they said, "nah, you're right, this law should be overturned."
Yes they would be doing their jobs. By ignoring the Constitution, they are failing to do their jobs. The United States Supreme Court has spoken loudly and clearly that punitive awards of this nature violate the Constitution.
Why is this "Obama's" department of justice? (Score:2, Insightful)
It was never "Bush's" doj or "Clinton's" doj before.
It used to just be the Department of Justice.
Why is it that suddenly everything one disagrees with is Obama's fault?
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. I hoped Obama would be a good President, I feared he would not. He's just a politician, not the god folks were making him out to be.
So far I'm starting to lose hope in him; first the "health care reform" that does nothing but line insurance executives' pockets, now Tanenbaum and the RIAA.
Change, my ass.
Re:Really? Seriously? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you're just now having that moment, as opposed to way back when Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate, then perhaps you should try adding a little variety to your news consumption.
Re:Deep breaths here people (Score:5, Insightful)
It'd be far worse if the DOJ started picking and choosing which laws they wanted to enforce/defend.
You misunderstand what the Constitution is. It is a law. And it is the highest law, in the sense that any law which conflicts with it is invalid. The Supreme Court is the interpreter of the laws, and has determined that the Constitution does not permit damage awards which are 'disproportioned' to the actual damage sustained. The DOJ, as attorneys, swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, as did the President, as did the Supreme Court justices.
Re:"Obama DOJ"? Come on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is it the "Obama DOJ" when last year it wasn't the "Bush DOJ"?
I used the term "Obama DOJ" because
-Mr. Obama when campaigning, did so upon a platform of "change"
-he campaigned as though he would be working on behalf of the people, rather than large corporations, and
-there was a great deal of skepticism about his appointment of RIAA lawyers to many of the highest positions in the DOJ.
So I think it is a legitimately significant point to note that on this issue there has been no "change", and that the DOJ continues to act as an intellectually dishonest rubber stamp for Pres. Obama's RIAA overlords.
This isn't helpful (Score:4, Insightful)
That someone who downloaded an mp3 with a 99-cent retail value, causing a maximum possible damages of 35 cents
The essence of P2P is file sharing.
Meaning that uploads - unlicensed and unlimited redistribution - is always in the picture. Which is why statutory damages is always in the picture.
The defendant knows, of course, that he was never entitled to free copies of his mp3 downloads - and unless he - and his lawyer - are idiots - the last thing he wants to see entered into evidence is a full accounting of every infringing mp3 he possesses.
The downloader collects files like a cheap woolen suit collects lint.
Willful and reckless disregard of the law makes a very good case for the imposition of punitive or statutory damages.
The geek knows how the game is played.
The trial judge and jury know how the game is played. That is why the outrage when these cases come up on appeal is never quite convincing.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Really? Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
You actually believed all that crap they feed democrat voters before the election??? Jebus. Seriously?!?!
You really think the millionaire Democrats aren't just condescending to you when they fly in on their private jets and tell blue collar stories over a philly cheese steak (with swiss cheese no less)?
Sucker.
Re:Really? Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
The way around it is public pressure. If enough people stopped only saying "something needs to change" and started calling their congressmen, they will be forced to listen. This is working for Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill (317 cosponsors in the House, 31 in the Senate) and it will work for anything that has the broad support of citizens. All that has to happen is for enough people to say, "I do not like this policy, and if you continue to follow it I will give my vote to someone else."
The key is to put into practice the understanding we all have that our congressmen are representatives for us in name only, and their biggest concern is re-election. If people were willing to put in the minimal effort to take their guy to task when he does something they don't like, many of the abuses of congress would be stopped cold.
A few voices won't do it, which is why organizing is vital. The EFF does a decent job of getting the word out, but they would be more effective if they took a page from the Campaign For Liberty playbook and had a certain day or week to have people call their congressmen about a particular issue. Other orgs like DownsizeDC will send a message to your state's senators and your district's rep with a few clicks. Tools like these actually enable the public to make their opinions known directly to those responsible for representing them and ensure that they have an impact.
Someone is not clear on the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
This completely misunderstands the issue. It's not about downloading, it's about sharing. The 'alleged' damages are not the value of the files Tenenbaum GOT but the value lost when he SHARED (both directly and indirectly). The RIAA would never get anywhere fast attacking the individual downloads, but the uploads have an exponential effect making the damages monsterous and frightening. The RIAA plan is to stop the sharing and the downloads will take care of themselves...
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, but I think putting Obama at the front of the article instead of just focusing on the DOJ itself is sensationalist. Instead of leading the reader to consider poor DOJ policies or practices it sends the focus to rhetoric and party spin.
I really think this would have been better served leaving the presidents name out of the title and letting the criticism of the Administration enter as relevant to the discussion. In any event, it's a good article. Thanks for posting it.
Re:Really?! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is entirely true, yet unrelated to these cases. "Business" in the quote is "business in general", not a very specific industry or group of companies. Favoritism - which is what we're dealing with here - hurts business in general, and is *not* good for America.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Money = Speech so they say (Score:2, Insightful)
Anonymous because there's a fellow a few pages up that I'd like to give +1 Insightful.
The problem is - how do you divide up the money? Should every candidate get exactly the same amount of money? If so, you'd have the PURGE THE HEATHENS party campaigning on exactly the same level as a (sic) "legitimate" party - not to mention the potential for some whack-job to defraud the taxpayer (certain extremists might be willing to take the punishment and funnel the money offshore, for example). Should then each party be paid by last elections' performance, either proportionally (eg, $1/vote) or graded at thresholds (eg, $1,000,000 for every million voters)? If so, how on earth would a new party emerge? As parties slowly died out over time, it would end up with being a legally enforced two-party (or even one!) system (remember, no-one can privately fund their campaigns, as that would leave a massive loophole for "donors").
If I were asked for a proposal, I'd suggest a "loan" system - where each election campaign borrows from a specific national fund (their campaign finances would be public, and would have to correlate with the loan amount), and they repay their loan by getting a certain number of votes (or paying off the balance for the votes they didn't get). That way, a politician would be "betting" on themselves - and no-one likes to lose a bet (even if they can afford it), so the mega-rich wouldn't have as much of a natural advantage. But even that has flaws; it would discourage politicians from taking risks (which are sometimes necessary and good) and encourage vote rigging (because they're more liable).
Re:Newsflash: DOJ's Job in Litigation Against US L (Score:3, Insightful)
Correct me if I am wrong, but the DOJ does not file a brief in every case, and does not always agree with the outcome of all cases tried in court. When the DOJ files a brief, this has nothing to do with their activities in the enforcement of the law, but rather their opinion about the judgement of the court after the fact.
In this case, this was a civil suit, right? What enforcement of the "law as passed" was every required of the DOJ in this case?
On behalf of we who warned you about Obama, (Score:5, Insightful)
I told you so.
Not that McCain would have been any better.
Stop voting for the state-approved candidates.
Stop relying on a party to do your homework for you.
Stop believing that either of the main ones has your interests in mind.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
The second, more powerful way is to get people interested, build popular support, and then the bill pretty much passes itself, no matter who is opposing it. Not easy to do, but it has power that you have seen in action: remember when Bush went to war in Iraq? He built up support publicly over the year (using various tactics), so by the time he wanted to declare war, nearly 80% of the US public supported him. In that situation, very few people dared oppose him. Congress gave him what he wanted. Even Hillary Clinton voted for it. Do you see how it works? Get people interested, get them supporting you, pass the bill.
This is the exact opposite of what Obama and congress have done. They had broad public support for healthcare reform. People wanted something done, business wanted something done. In the words of one of my friends, "I just want access to healthcare I can afford." That is the problem people want solved. If the democrats were smart, they would have built on that.
They didn't do that. Instead they gave the impression to a lot of people that they were more interested in a government takeover of healthcare than they were in making sure people have access to healthcare they can afford. They came out with a convoluted bill that no one understands, and the parts that people do understand don't seem to fix the problem. I won't go over all the problems in the bills in the senate and the house, but no one likes them, not on the right or on the left. Popular support for the healthcare plans in congress is now about as popular as George Bush.
I'm not going to explain how badly the democratic party has messed up, I will save that for Jon Stewart [thedailyshow.com].
Someone is still drinking the Kool Aid I see (Score:5, Insightful)
No what we got is exactly what we should have expected with someone with his limited experience. Someone with his "school intelligence" that never was tested, tried, and perfected. In other words, we got a directionless administration which was driven by someone who truly thinks they are special. His self references in many speeches makes clear to me he isn't yet figured out he is here to lead, here for us, instead he is there for himself. Its a me complex.
So if your expecting the second year to be the equivalent of a MMORPG Miracle Build I think you will be disappointed. He didn't know how to lead, he was used to campaign staffers and sycophants who fell over themselves to do what he asked for, not Washington which marches to its own drummer
Re:This isn't helpful (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the problem is that the $22,750 in statutory damages for each of the 30 infringements that the court ruled to be just, could be construed as excessive. The intent of statutory damages is to recover the losses incurred by the infringement in cases where actual damages are difficult to determine and in some cases incur an additional penalty as a disincentive for future infringement. In order to reach $682,500 in actual damages it would have required proving that the defendant uploaded nearly 2 million copies of the offending MP3s. If my calculations are correct, it would take nearly 8yrs of continuously uploading at 256kbps to do that.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:2, Insightful)
The law was written with the original purpose of stopping people from counterfeiting media. The penalties as such were designed to be imposed on someone who was mass producing VHS/Cassettes/CDs/DVDs for sale. Now we have people who could have potential supplied a song to thousands of people who are being charged with the same penalties as people who HAVE created thousands of fake copies for sale. When you look at torrents, sure there have been 1000 people connected to the same bit-torrent you are connected to, does that mean you and everyone involved each created 1000 copies? The RIAA thinks so.
The law is outdated. People should pay for the crimes that they have committed, not the crimes they potentially could have committed. The making available argument cannot be used for damages. It is the equivalent to saying that we caught you shoplifting, so now you are charged with grand larceny because you could have taken the entire store.
The per song damages are equally as appalling. If I break my neighbors window, I pay for the window. A song that is available for 99 cents is not a loss of thousands of dollars to the recording labels.
In short, if you agree with the penalties that currently exist then you probably think that jay walking should be a death penalty offense and that not putting 25 cents into the coffee bank at work should be grand larceny.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
I really think this would have been better served leaving the presidents name out of the title and letting the criticism of the Administration enter as relevant to the discussion.
In most cases you'd be right. However I feel that by campaigning on a promise of "Change" and "Hope" that these kinds of comparisons are quite fair. This is the opposite of change, and cuts against the will of many who went to the polls and elected him.
In short, he brought it on himself through his own campaign rhetoric.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:3, Insightful)
The Federal US government is unfixable. Too much money and power, power and money, and too many average US citizens who think "more government" is the solution to their problems.
See my earlier post [slashdot.org], or my sig, for details on a more realistic target.
Re:Enjoy your choice (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't count on it.
- A Canadian
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:3, Insightful)
The buck stops [wikipedia.org] at the Oval Office (and no, it doesn't matter that Harry S. Truman is no longer president; just because no other president has had the spine to admit it doesn't mean the buck didn't stop then and there and doesn't stop there and now.).
Re:Newsflash: DOJ's Job in Litigation Against US L (Score:3, Insightful)
So.. you're asserting that the DOJ is filing briefs for the defense in every case to ever land in federal court? Somehow, I doubt that is in fact occuring. This is not the DOJ's case, and the federal government is not a party to the case. The filing is contrary to the supreme law of the land. You know.. the constitution. And the DOJ can either be aware of the Constitution, its previously noted interpretations by the court, and the legal code (in which case it is acting unethcially) or the DOJ can be unaware of some/all of that and thus be acting ineptly.
Or both.
Re:Obama was a Constitutional Law Prof. (Score:2, Insightful)
He was president of the Harvard Law Review his second year. Getting on a law review isn't cake and becoming president, especially at Harvard, is a huge fucking accomplishment. Besides, he graduated magna cum laude. No transcript necessary to know that he means he was really good at a really good law school.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
Any volunteers to take a pay cut?
Yeah, I volunteer the for-profit insurance companies who are motivated to not spend your premiums on health care.
Oh but wait that's never going to happen. So there goes 60 cents on the health-care dollar before it has a chance to provide even the least efficient of health care.
Problem is UPLOADING, not downloading (Score:3, Insightful)
The DOJ brief only ever talks about "downloading and distribute", or (page 15) just "distributing" on its own.
The brief said that when you offer a song for distribution, it's hard to know how many people you've distributed it to. The number might be enormous. And so you're penalized between $750 and $30,000 for distributing it to this unknown number of people.
As to the penalty for downloading on its own, without distribution? -- NO ONE KNOWS. I don't think this issue has ever come to court. I can't imagine that it ever could come to court. The DOJ has not touched upon it.
Re:Someone is still drinking the Kool Aid I see (Score:3, Insightful)
So if your expecting the second year to be the equivalent of a MMORPG Miracle Build I think you will be disappointed.
That's ok. I don't have much choice at this point but to hope and wait until 2012. I'm a patient man, I can do that.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:4, Insightful)
The biggest difference between Federal and State is that you can move to another state.
You really can't move to another country which 1) has easy entry for foreigners, equivalent to the complete lack of barrier for a US citizen to move to another state, 2) A level of freedom -guaranteed- in a restricted level of power of the gov't, such as freedom of speech (Which most of Europe does not have).
It's all perfectly well if California wants to tax people who make more than 10k at 90%. A free marketplace of ideas can embrace such an experiment - until it fails miserably. Just so long as the people afflicted should be allowed to escape. However, such a marketplace would require things that are not currently possible. Like a hands off, absolutely no bailout, approach from the Federal gov't.
Re:Hope and Change, baby! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think putting Obama at the front of the article instead of just focusing on the DOJ itself is sensationalist.
I disagree. I deliberately downplayed the 2 briefs served by Obama's DOJ in RIAA cases when he'd been in office just a few months, because I know that lawyers need time to get up to speed on things. Those 2 early briefs were copy and paste jobs from the Bush administration.
I was deeply interested in what they would do after they'd had some time to think things through. A year was enough time to think things through. This brief tells me that the Obama DOJ is going to be exactly what we feared it would be, just as ignorant and servile as the Bush DOJ.
Re:Deep breaths here people (Score:3, Insightful)
Sigh. I don't know why NYCL and everyone else fails to understand that there were TWO separate and independent infringements, and Tenenbaum was found liable for both
Sigh. I don't know why the 3 trolls working this thread fail to understand that there were TWO separate and independent allegations of infringement, that neither of them was "uploading" or "downloading", that neither "uploading" or "downloading" is a copyright infringement, that the allegations were copying and distributing, and that while copying was proved, there was no proof of distribution.
Sigh.
Re:Improving the political climate in the US (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that you guys missed out on the whole youth revolution thing, and only went through the motions back in the sixties.
1. We were not going through the motions. It really happened.
2. I guess you didn't notice that we're the ones who started the youth revolution you're referring to.
Re:Someone is still drinking the Kool Aid I see (Score:2, Insightful)
John Stewart spoke the other day about an idea I've been trying to get across since April; Bush was able to do WHATEVER the hell he wanted with the barest of majorities. Obama can barely get his biggest and generally widely supported idea (reform healthcare) to even get through the Senate with a supermajority, and now some people are saying the plan is DEAD because they have a single vote less than a supermajority. To suggest that Democrats are anything but a herd of cats all pulling their own way is to deny the evidence. Republicans are much more united, much more focused, and much more self-assured than Democrats have been in a long time. If they just weren't evil, I'd be a Republican any day. Democrats could learn a thing or two from their opponents about sycophants and cult of personality. Frankly, I wish they would.
Re:Summary full of errors (Score:3, Insightful)
Thus, we can conclude that your previous statement
the courts have repeatedly explored and rejected his claims
was, and is, a lie. You're consequently not a troll, but a simple liar.
Well I'm glad you said it; I was afraid if I said something like that, it would sound impolite.
Re:Deep breaths here people (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll see that all of my posts include extensive explanation and reasoning.
Well you have a high opinion of yourself. Unfortunately, both the "extensive explanation" and "reasoning" escaped my attention. In fact your "reasoning" and "explanation" were not solid, kind of like the "explanation" and "reasoning" the RIAA uses.