RIAA Sues the Wrong Person 686
Cildar writes "In the 'oops' category, the RIAA was forced to withdraw its suit against a 66 year old computer neophyte (read Apple User for god's sake) when they discovered she thought 'Kazaa' was a magician playing at local kids' birthday parties. The story is as reported in the Boston Globe." Update: 09/24 15:19 GMT by T : Note, the magician crack is a joke ;)
BWAHAHAHAH! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:BWAHAHAHAH! (Score:5, Funny)
Don't underestimate their secret weapon, complete ignorance and total fucking arrogance. And of course their not-so-secret weapon, fat wads of cash.
Re:Dealt with Foley Hoag (Score:3, Informative)
Colin Zick: Lawyer at Foley Hoag
Rosen: Presumably another Lawyer at Foley Hoag
Schwartz-Nystrom: Another firm, presumably pure scum.
It was in English.
Re:BWAHAHAHAH! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:BWAHAHAHAH! (Score:3, Funny)
I'll gesture while I talk then.
Manners maketh man... (Score:5, Insightful)
Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote
What an asswipe.
Re:Manners maketh man ... And Countersuits Maketh (Score:3, Interesting)
They will apologize only when the court orders them to apologize. Anyone in these same circumstances should countersue, or in this case file a new complaint. Causes of action would be chiefly malicious prosecution, but also illegal business practices, wiretap violations, infringement of privacy, etc.
After all, they have no reason to have her personal information on file. If they choose not to do the right thing then they should themselves be compelled in the courts to do the right th
Legal fees? (Score:4, Interesting)
That sucks.
Re:Legal fees? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmmmm...I do sense a litigation opportunity after all.
Re:BWAHAHAHAH! (Score:3, Interesting)
The whole thing seems pretty fishy. Or rather, it seems like a fishing expedition. Just like the "Step up and we'll forgive you" schpiel they were handing out a few wee
That's great. (Score:2, Funny)
But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hm.. maybe that would be a good use for VMware or similar... "I dont even have Kazaa installed on my computer".. And your VMWare installation is ofcourse - gone...
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:5, Interesting)
A more probable cause is someone used a net sniffing program and changed their IP address hi-jacking her assigned address to protect their identity. On a cable system, it's not too hard to do. It's also possible she has a laptop and has a wide open Wi-Fi. One of her neighbors could have borrowed her connection protected by NAT. I'm sure there will be investigations into this. If I was the wireless neighbor and saw this in the news, I would be ditching all my wireless gear about now and changing out my hard drive.
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:3, Insightful)
>A more probable cause is someone used a net sniffing program and changed their IP address hi-jacking her assigned address to protect their identity. On a cable system, it's not too hard to do
Uh, head hurts. How do the packets get routed back to the spoofer's machine? You can spoof IPs for sending datagrams, but it's pointless for connection oriented protocols.
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:3, Informative)
honestly think granma has a wireless Lan setup? (Score:3, Insightful)
If she really is a computer neophyte, do you truly believe she has a Wi-Fi setup? I'm not very Mac aware; do they come with Wi-Fi out of the box or something, waiting to be sniffed? I doubt it.
Re:honestly think granma has a wireless Lan setup? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why change out your hard drive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Would look too much like a cover-up with old drive/new install. Easier to claim the HD fried so you replaced the dinky drive with a bigger new drive. The old drive is in the landfill. For charges of the cost of my house per song, ditching the old drive and all wireless gear is very cheap insurance.
Time for full disclosure.. I'm still on dial-up
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:4, Informative)
While funny, this is completely true. Here are the relevant three paragraphs from the article indicating the RIAA is ready and waiting to do exactly that:
Moreover, Ward uses a Macintosh computer at home. Kazaa runs only on Windows-based personal computers.
Beeler complained to the RIAA, demanding an apology and "dismissal with prejudice" of the lawsuit, which would prohibit future lawsuits against her. Foley Hoag, the Boston firm representing the record labels, on Friday dropped the case, but without prejudice.
"Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant," Colin J. Zick, the Foley Hoag lawyer, wrote to Beeler.
See, they're ready to refile at any moment against this grandmother for using Kazaa with her Mac.
Re:But theyre still gonna keep an eye on her. (Score:5, Funny)
RIAA also get sued(again) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RIAA also get sued(again) (Score:5, Informative)
Your link doesn't work. [cnn.com]
neophyte = Apple User? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although a great many Apple users are not neophytes, the fact that a neophyte can run an Apple is a testament to their ease of use.
So there.
Re:neophyte = Apple User? (Score:4, Insightful)
She has an Apple and thus couldn't run Kazaa on her platform.
not
She has an Apple and thus is a neophyte and anyway she would gladly pay for overpriced shit like CDs although she would probably have iTunes anyway being the brainless anti-conformist conformists that Apple users are.
So calm down.
Re:neophyte = Apple User? (Score:3, Flamebait)
yeah...but you know that's what we were all thinking
Re:neophyte = Apple User? (Score:5, Informative)
Um, I think they were trying to make the point that she has an Apple as Kazaa doesn't run on Apple, per TFA.
Let's read the comment again:
In the 'oops' category, the RIAA was forced to withdraw its suit against a 66 year old computer neophyte (read Apple User for god's sake) when they discovered she thought 'Kazaa' was a magician playing at local kids' birthday parties.
It is quite clear that neophyte is being equated to Apple user and the comment is meant to be read as "She's obviously clueless about computers, after all, she's an Apple User. And she thinks Kazaa is a magician. What a moron!" In other words, the person who submitted the article was just being a jackass and doesn't deserve to be defended. Her computer's ability to run the software was never brought up; instead, she was portrayed as too clueless to use it. And since there are Kazaa clients available for Macs, the point about her not being able to run it is moot.
Magician (Score:5, Funny)
And does anyone know where I can download David Blaine, the popular P2P filesharing program?
Re:Magician (Score:5, Funny)
Collateral Damage? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats not the way our system works. The civil system is seperate from the criminal system. The police, in general, investige criminal charges.
OJ Simpson was found innocent of the criminal charges of murder leveled against him, but he was still sued successfully in civil court. Likewise, many of the crooks on Wall Street are being pursued in civil court, because, in many cases, there isn't enough evidence, or even a legal fr
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Notice that the civil suit was AFTER the criminal one? The state gets first dibs on felons. If he had been convicted, then proving culpability in the civil case would've been a slam dunk.
there isn't enough evidence
The police are quite good at collecting evidence. In most of the RIAA music-trading lawsuits that have been filed so far, it would've been possible to assemble enough evidence for a criminal conviction ("Beyond reasonable doubt"). If the plaintiff could reach the 51% margin of guilt needed to win a civil suit, then handing that evidence to the police would've brought them to the the even lower degree of proof needed to get a search warrant. Then they could kick in doors, seize hard drives, and do whatever else is needed to build an ironclad case.
The chance of any nonprofessional infringer managing to wipe her hard drive before the police cut power is minimal. And computer-forensics can recover stuff like that. A hard drive full of 3000 MP3s, with no sign of owning the CDs, and corraborating records of P2P transfers made by the defendant... that's more than enough to convict someone. The evidence is there, if the cops are interested in grabbing it.
If we change the system so that you can only sue in civil court someone who is convicted criminally,
I'm not talking about all the non-crime, non-felony things lawsuits can be based on. I'm saying that if something is clearly a crime (as the RIAA claims), then the police should be eager to arrest someone. Or at least make an investigation. Instead, they only care about commercial infringement.
And let's look at it from the PR aspect. Who does the (flag-waving, Bush-voting, PATRIOT-supporting) US Citizen trust more? The government, or a corporate consortium? More importantly, who do they fear more? If they could get a half-dozen P2P sharers dragged to jail in handcuffs, it would do wonders for the chilling-effect.
Re:Collateral Damage? (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole problem with the US court system is that you can bankrupt someone with a frivolous lawsuit and just because you withdraw it at the
Magician at Kids' Parties? WTF? (Score:4, Informative)
That's super funny; only one problem. It doesn't seem to mention the magician thing anywhere in the linked article.
Re:Magician at Kids' Parties? WTF? (Score:3, Funny)
Loose Cannon needs controlling (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is a lose cannon at the moment, it thinks it can do what it pleases, without any consequences for itself.
What takes the piss more, now that RIAA is cracking down on all these things, and with copy protected CDs - the RIAA still expects levies on CDRs etc to compensate for lost revenue. RIAA must be laughing - free money.
Re:Loose Cannon needs controlling (Score:3, Insightful)
Record companies (who the RIAA represent) screw record artists. Many upcoming artists do struggle and it doesn't help that record companies give as little royalities to the artists as they can. Oh, please don't say that its the artists fault, they need to negoite (spelling) better. For many, getting a record contract to begin with is a Godsend, something they don't want to lose.
From the levies put on CDRs, and income from iTunes Music Store etc, do the artists get a share of that money
You've gotta love this part: (Score:5, Interesting)
The attorneys for the RIAA still plan to investigate her: "Please note, however, that we will continue our review of the issues you raised and we reserve the right to refile the complaint against Mrs. Ward if and when circumstances warrant"
A user with a Mac, who can't even use Kazaa, and who has never shared music. Now that's obstinance for you.
William
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:3, Informative)
</pedant>
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:5, Informative)
Unlike criminal cases where a judge is involved from the very first, civil cases, i.e. mere private squabbles over money, aren't State issues. It is often months after a filing before the parties have so much as a priliminary hearing and are strongly encouraged by the system to settle things amongst themselves long before that date.
If someone breaks your window and you sue them to recover damages, then they come to you and say "Hey, what gives? Why don't I just fix your damned window?," and you say ok, then there is no longer any issue of law to be settled.
You go down to the courthouse and say, "Ummmmmm, nevermind," and it's over.
No judge.
The RIAA withdrew its complaint (while reserving the right to refile. Nice guys).
KFG
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'll expand my anaolgy using your own example.
What if your window got broken during a Little League baseball game and you weren't really sure who broke it or who is really legally responsible, so you filed suits against all the players and coaches individually?
Only you didn't know all of their names and culled them from newspaper articles.
One of these names turns out to be a 66 year old who was just mentioned in an article incidentally, wasn't there, doesn't have any grandkids and doesn't even like baseball.
It wouldn't be unreasonable, even for a lawyer, to do a quick check of her story through publicly accessable means, then send her a letter saying, "Ooops, sorry," and then procede with the other 260 cases you have pending.
Especially since actually hauling a 66 year old in front of a judge claiming she's a Little League player who broke your window, with all the pissed of townspeople there watching, could be highly embaressing and prejudice your other cases.
KFG
Re:You've gotta love this part: (Score:3, Informative)
This is the function of the priliminary hearing, for the judge to make a determination of whether the suit bears enough merit to be heard formally. (Two suits against McDonald's for making people fat have been thrown out for being without grounds at this point in the procedings)
All grievences have a right to procede at least this far. Grievences, by their very nature, require some sort of th
Without a REAL Judge (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point it should be made very easy for this woman to sue the RIAA, but without the resources of a large corp. it is just going to seem like an impossiable task for her. Thus the lawsuits from the RIAA will just continue with the harassment and scare tactics.
Re:Without a REAL Judge (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why, ultimately, I think the subpoena process the DMCA grants will be found unconstitutional.
It basically allows PRIVATE "search and seizure", under the guise of the courts, without ANY due process, judicial review/oversight, etc...
And, no one ELSE except someone invoking the DMCA has, or has ever had, such carte blanche unsupervised subpoena power. It's unprecedented. And quite untested in the courts.
Basically, it violates half the Constitution.
Not that the Constitution matters very much to judges these days.
In order to subpoena, you have to FILE a lawsuit, and get it approved by the presiding judge. Subpoenas are part of the discovery process IN an actual lawsuit.
The DMCA allows witchunts and fishing expeditions, UNSUPERVISED by a court, yet invoking it's power.
Methinks if some lawyer makes that point strongly enough to one of our fine, meglomaniac, unelected king for life Federal judges, it will get struck down.
Not just because it flies in the face of the 4th, 5th, and 14th Amendments, but because it is a REAL threat to judicial powers!
Re:Without a REAL Judge (Score:3, Insightful)
Getting rid of the carte blanche subpoena power of the DMCA will remove most of the law's teeth, with respect to being able to go after USERS of applications that allow infringement.
They will have to use other means to collect " cause" to file a suit, THEN get discovery to subpoena ISP records. This would be nearly impossible to do on a large enough scale, and would be horribly expensive to do. And it's a process that is in the open, and subject to review and challenge.
In any conventional
Re:Without a REAL Judge (Score:3, Informative)
This is interesting. I hadn't really thought about it either. Could I create a piece of software called "MILF Hunter" that would interpret a JPEG to let you know if it contains a MILF? Can I copyright this and put it out for sale at $200 a pop and then start subponeaing people that have files matching "MILF Hunter" in their Kazaa sea
A strategy by the ISPs? (Score:5, Funny)
"Oops sorry, the DHCP must have reassigned that address,we THOUGHT it was the one you wanted...Sorry."
This would let their customers still enjoy what they initially signed up for (filesharing, you've seen the adds, etc.)
Re:A strategy by the ISPs? (Score:3, Interesting)
Regardless of whether you or I approve of the way the subpeona's are, it's still a legal order.
Most likely the RIAAs timestamps were off. Comcast uses DHCP, the lease times aren't all that long, a few months or so. My IP has changed three times in the year I've been with them.
This isn't as big a deal as slashbots make it out to be, and won't change th
Re:A strategy by the ISPs? (Score:3, Interesting)
>Knowingly responding to a subpeona with false information would get them so deep in shit their great grandchildren would be shovelling
Says who? The subpoenad information is addressed to the plaintiff, not the court, so it's not perjury. Remember, the RIAA don't swear to the truth of their claims, they just argue their validityy in court. I doubt that a third party can be held to a higher standard.
Any actual lawyers want to chime in on this one?
IANAL, But... (Score:3, Interesting)
I honestly feel bad for people who have already given in, but I can't say I really blame them with the "go for the jugular" tactics the RIAA is using.
wow ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:wow ... (Score:4, Informative)
My impression of Canada on IP is that they fall in line behind the U.S. for fear of trade retaliation like higher tariffs.
I beg to differ [slashdot.org].
Re:wow ... (Score:5, Interesting)
DCMA gives an assistant/clerk(?) the authority to allow identification based on a subpoena.
I guess the RIAA doesn't know about Virtual PC (Score:4, Interesting)
~Philly
Strike 2 (Score:4, Funny)
Foolproof (Score:3, Funny)
The RIAA will think anyone who saw the Shaq movies is too crazy to sue.
The U.S. Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-US European governments used to be notorious for going after people without a leg to stand on. But it didn't matter. All that mattered was the witch-hunt-like frenzy. That was enough to get them hung or at least imprisoned.
That's when my good pals Hancock, Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson, along with a few other buds, got together and came up with this whole fair trial system. And that was pretty cool up until a few years ago when people really started using the internet.
Thats when, well everybody in congress, who's names are too many to mention, (and not worth mentioning considering what they did) overturned two centuries worth of a tried and true system.
And where does it get you? Sueing grandmas.
I guess those old guys really had some stuff figured out. Their system isn't really silly or outdated like some people might think.
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:5, Funny)
ObSpicoli: "So, what this Jefferson dude was saying was, we left this England place because it was bogus, but if we don't get some cool rules, pronto, we'll just be bogus too. Yea?"
Re:The U.S. Constitution (Score:4, Interesting)
The most important of which is (was) limits on the scope of government. Only by overturning these limits have we arrived at the system we have today: an overly complex, ambiguous, highly exploitable web of nonsense laws.
Get out of jail free card.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Concern? What concern? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Concern? What concern? (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps you have misunderstood the difference between a subpoena and a request for a comment.
Paul
Scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Most annoying part (Score:4, Interesting)
So yeah, we screwed the pooch - but we might be back anyway!
On the one hand, I think that the RIAA has a legitimate issue with P2P services sharing their music.
Does that mean that I support the lawsuits? No - I think it's a civil end run around legitimate search and seizure. If I was the RIAA would I be using the lawsuits? No.
Personally, I'd take all the millions in lawyer fees and do something useful, like promote the iTunes Music Store, or pressure Sony and Buymusic.com to not suck more ass than a freshman prison inmate. I'd set up legitimate music downloading services based on Janis Ian's model, where all songs warehoused could be purchased for $1, or an album for $10. I'd set up 128 bit MP3's for $1, have 192 bit for maybe $1.25 - $1.50. Of that, 50% of the profit would go to the artist, 50% to the publisher. Note the word "profit" - it is assumed that the publishers would be taking a fair (bwahahaha - oh, sorry, I almost said that with a straight face) cut based on how much it costs a song to be stored in a central server and bandwidth costs (and that price should not go above $0.50 per song).
It should also be set up like Peanutpress.com, where once you buy a song, you can go back and download it again whenever you want, or can have it streamed wherever you are. (Since songs are much larger than eBooks usually, though, I can see some sort of minor "storage fee", like $0.01 per song per month - it should be your responsibility to back up your own stuff.)
And a quick note for the "$1 per song is too much", I'm sorry if you take this personally, but fuck you. $1 is perfectly legit for a song, $10 for a music album. If you're too damn cheap to pay any price at all for music, at least have the decency not to claim that the cost is too much. Just come out and say "I can't afford $1 after buying my $300 iPod!"
Then, and only then, if people were "sharing songs", then you could sue them, and I would feel you had done your due diligence in serving your customers and could have a solid leg to stand on for the lawsuits.
Only going after the worst offenders... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a hard knock life (Score:3, Funny)
What about airport? (Score:3, Interesting)
She pays her h4x0r neighbor kid to install her new Airport Extreme network, the kid opens it up and with the money she gives him he buys a cheap wireless card.
Bingo Bango! All the free music he wants.
Legally unjustifiable actions (Score:5, Insightful)
The suits claim damages of $150,000 per song. If one music company stole a song from another company, and published it separately, this may be a reasonable claim. The RIAA could claim maybe $150,000 TOTAL lost sales, plus whatever was made by the infringing company.
The problem is, they are holding EVERY FILESHARER liable for the entire amount of lost sales. This isn't just double-dipping on their damages, this is n-dipping. I can imagine that the company might lose $150,000 in total sales of a single song, but if only 1000 people shared the song (an extremely conservative number, probably only relevant for unpopular songs), their claims in total are $150 million in lost sales per song, which is just ludicrous.
This absolutely reeks of the record companies trying to capitalize on filesharing and count each share as a purchase. If the judges awarded the RIAA what they are asking for across the board, they stand to make orders of magnitude more money than they could ever dream of by their own devices. This puts huge questions on their claims of mitigating their damages - they allowed filesharing to go on for many years before starting lawsuits... to build up their claims of lost sales??
Statutory Damages (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Legally unjustifiable actions (Score:3, Informative)
That's not the case at all. They're suing for statutory damages not lost profits. The difference is that while lost profits are actual damages, statutory damages are punative damages. Please see 18 USC Sec. 504(c)(2) [cornell.edu].
Mistake because of wrong IP? (Score:3, Funny)
In that case, I hope they mess up the next IP address and get 127.0.0.1. That would make for an interesting day.
Nice write-up (Score:5, Insightful)
As for this being yet another PR disaster; the RIAA knows almost everything they do these days is going to be a PR disaster. They simply do not care: [com.com]
Clearly, record companies and the RIAA had some concerns about backlash before going into this. Certainly the story about the 12-year-old in public housing who was sued hit the headlines fast and hard. Are you at all concerned about public relations backlash?
We knew that this was not going to be a good PR experience from the get-go. But the (record) companies were of the view that this was something we had to do without regard to the PR implications. If PR were the dominant consideration, we would not have taken these actions, and the problem would be continuing unabated, and people would not be thinking twice about the legality of what they're doing. If bad PR is the price, it's a relatively small one compared to the size of the problem.
Take it to court!! Oh wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't that the crutch of the matter? It really doesn't matter if what they are doing is right or wrong, as long as they have the money to take it to court and the people they are sueing do not, this will always be the case. What would really be nice would be for some noble rich person to start a trust fund for RIAA 'victems' to help pay for their legal battle if they so wish to fight this in the courts.
Otherwise this will just continue. Let's face it, as fair or unfair as the RIAA may be, most people aren't going to stop buying cds because of this; IMO, most people will just say 'oh that's too bad' like they did with the 12-year old girl and then go out and do what they normally do, if that includes buying a cd than so be it.
The only way to stop such practices is to
a) Educate the masses
or
b) Fight this in court
Both take money unfortunately...
Just "License" the whole catalog (Score:3, Interesting)
The ultimate defense: P2P IP address spoof (Score:4, Insightful)
Legal defense in a nutshell (Score:3, Interesting)
Please Oh Please.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Even so ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The lawsuite will be quitely withdrawn and none of us will ever hear about it
What? (Score:5, Funny)
Where do I get that? Never heard of it... =P
What happens if they decide to persue her again? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the burden of proof is on the RIAA, then what can they do without a true warrant to search my home? That would go well beyond the powers granted to them by the DMCA and would require law enforcement intervention. There's no way to say "we know you don't own a Mac" without coming into my home to prove it.
If the burden of proof is on me, couldn't I just borrow a Mac or a receipt of a friend's Mac (assuming I was lying) to prove I do, in fact, own a Mac? Since RIAA can't come storming into your house (yet...), this seems like it would be more than satisfactory to meet a civil suit requirement for dismissal doesn't it...?
I hope this is a viable idea, and everyone uses it to stick it to the RIAA.
sheesh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? This is equivalent to saying "Sorry I pushed you down the stairs, but I reserve the right to do it again!"
This is complete and utter lack of respect to Beeler, but tells you alot of what it thinks of its own customers!
$100 says she used a wireless unsecured router (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously network pros are working on this. (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
his IP address was 192.168.1.101 so it couldn't have been him right?
Maybe the RIAA will go after THAT IP next....
IP Addresses Unique?! Funny! (Score:3, Informative)
If they are going on that fact why not have everybody spoof the RIAA IPs and have them suing themselves. Note: I am not recommending doing this just making a point.
She still loses (Score:3, Interesting)
Question on IP's and WiFi.... (Score:4, Interesting)
What if you are walking down to the local coffee shop and you hop on their "legally free and open" hotspot. You then proceed to share and dload tons of copy righted music. When the IP is traced it will go to that coffee shop, not to you. How do they find you? I assume they can't, unless your there and they are lookign for you at that time and see Kazaa open on your screen for some reason.
Question 2
What if you have a AP at your house that you leave open for your neighbors and friends to use and one of them is sharing files? The IP gets traced to you right, so are you responsible for their actions if you had no knowledge that they would or were doing that?
Inquireing minds want to know
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Abolishing copyright would make various open source licenses unenforcable..
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:5, Informative)
However, for some of us, the whole purpose of open source licenses is as a weapon against copyright. RMS talks about the rationalization that it was okay to use copyright, which he did not agree with, as a means to fight against copyright. Hence, copyleft.
It's interesting reading, even if you don't agree.
Re:whee, here we go again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:whee, here we go again. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:whee, here we go again. (Score:3, Informative)
peop;e who work for MS could release code
Abolishing copyright does not also abolish contract law, so NDAs would still be valid. And if the code covered trade secrets, it would be unusable.
To all those who say that GPL does not depend on copyr
Re:whee, here we go again. (Score:5, Funny)
Since they won't be able to sell their product because it takes them too long to develop them and the quality is barely acceptable in most cases, they'll just start sueing any company that did any work based on MS technologies (Novell/Ximian), any company that cloned the looks of windows (Lindows/Lycoris/Xandros), but also any user who ever used any pirated copy of any MS software (about 80% of the planet).
As you can see, we shouldn't be too worried about the future of Microsoft as a business entity.
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Abolish copyright, and this won't happen. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is using a car to getaway from a bank robbery. Abolish cars, and this won't happen ever again.
Someone died trying to get high by sniffing carpet cleaner. Abolish carpet cleaner, and this won't happen ever again.
Twit. Just because you never had a creative idea in your life, does not mean copyright does not serve a purpose.
Re:Anybody read between the lines? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Where? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Where? (Score:3, Funny)
You _MUST_ be new here (Score:3, Funny)
We _have_ diversified though. It used to be only MS that we'd bitch about constantly.
Re:Hmm, good advertising (Score:3, Funny)