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Comment Re:Someone with balls and cash needs to sue (Score 1) 597

In the "best" (minimum actual damages) case, Google will reinstate the work in short order and damages will be limited to that caused by a few hours' down-time plus a few hundred dollars of the plaintiff's time plus legal costs.

What about compensation for the reputation damage done by the [false] statement:

This video contains content by XXX, who has blocked it on copyright grounds.

published and on display for those few hours?

Comment Re:There is a $500 fine for this (Score 1) 597

I can think of two ways of imprisoning a corporation:
  1. (1) When in prison a person is unable to continue their normal day-to-day activities; an imprisoned corporation is barred from trading.
  2. (2) A corporation is run by its directors/officers who manage it on behalf of the shareholders; it is their decisions that affect the course of the corporation. To imprison the corporation, the managers/officers of the corporation should spend time in prison in lieu of the corporation itself and during their time there be barred from acting on behalf of the corporation.

Unfortunately, option (1) leads to too much fallout with the actual workers of the corporation, thus (2) is a better option. Aiding and abetting a criminal is no excuse for not being fined, so aiding and abetting the corporation to commit criminal acts should see the aiders and abettors duly punished.

Comment Re:awesome publicity for public awareness (Score 1) 597

Do the YouTube TOS contain any reference to absolving them from libelling you on behalf of another?

This video contains content from Scripps Local News, who has blocked it on copyright grounds. Sorry about that

The implication of that statement is that the video posted contained material copyrighted by Scripps - in fact it is much clearer: it is stating that [some] material contained in the video is owned by Scripps and that the video poster should not have posted the video. However, the truth is that all the material in the video is owned, and copyrighted, by the video's poster (NASA) and none of it by Scripps. So YouTube have published a false statement that is harming the reputation of the poster of the video - that sounds very much like libel [caveat lector] to me.

They may have published the statement not knowing it was false information (but surely they are required to have due diligence to ensure that it is not misleading and false information that they are publishing - a case of negligence at least), but it is false information that has been published and it is more than likely liable to harm the reputation of the video poster in the eyes of someone who comes across it - this latter may not return and find the video replaced (if at all) and so believe the false published information. The minimum requirement should be a published apology, something like:

This video was claimed to contain content by Scripps Local News (who had blocked it on copyright grounds).
However, this is false and we apologise for the libellous statement made about XXX, the poster of the video.

that all users to YouTube would get next time they connected. A permanent link to all these apologies should also be required noting the details of the videos blocked (it would make interesting reading to see who makes the most false takedown requests).

Comment Re:awesome publicity for public awareness (Score 1) 597

...and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

The exclusive right [on the video] belongs to NASA, not Scripps. So for Scripps to claim that they have the exclusive right they are guilty of Copyright infringement as a minimum; unless NASA has authorized Scripps to act on their behalf, Scripps is surely committing perjury in claiming that they are permitted to act over the alleged infringement when having the DCMA takedown notice issued in their name?

Comment Re:awesome publicity for public awareness (Score 1) 597

Not forgetting that all those viruses and worms that have infected machines with Windows as the OS were just automated systems.

Either those who created these automated systems (viruses and worms) are liable or not. If YouTube's automated takedown system's writers are not liable, then neither are the viruses and worm writers. If the viruse and worm writers are liable, then so must the writers of the automated systems at YouTube (which, presumably being under contract to YouTube, means YouTube must be liable).

From an accounting point of view, companies are legal entities with property rights and property rights include the making good when that property causes harm to another; if a company's property (eg an automated system) harms another, then that company is required to make good the harm. If that harm is caused by the company's automated system being fed incorrect information by some other entity, then it is up to the company to deal with that other entity regarding that false information, but they themselves are still responsible for the harm caused.

Comment Re:Henry the VI, Act IV, Scene II (Score 1) 597

The *AA want statutory damages, so an incorrect DCMA takedown notice should require statutory damages (something more like $725?) against the instigator of that notice as the instigator of that notice is assumed to be issuing it as an agent of the copyright holder and if the copyright holder has themselves have put it there, then they cannot be acting as an agent of the copyright holder and so must think themselves as the copyright holder (or acting on behalf of the copyright holder, which they are clearly not) which means that they have infringed the copyright holder's copyright.

Comment Re:Waiting for MS to underbid (Score 2) 319

They need a GUI way to fix things whenever something doesn't work.

No they don't. They just want a GUI way to fix things as they don't understand/consider other ways of interfacing with a computer. I'm always reminded of Scotty in Star Trek IV when he asks to borrow the computer to give the formula for transparent alumin[i]um when I hear this argument - his usual method of interface is spoken words, and when the computer doesn't respond Dr McCoy gives him the mouse for which his first instinct is that it is a microphone. [He's then offered the keyboard, says "How quaint" and then proceeds to use it faster than most people these days.] Scotty didn't give up in a huff because the computer didn't understand his spoken commands, he adapted to the situation.

If you have an automatic car (GUI) and someone tell you to put it into first (CLI manual car solution which is available in all automatic vehicles I've driven) to start off up a steep hill do you go off in a huff and moan that you've got an automatic (GUI) not a manual (CLI) and not bother trying the solution? Similarly going down a steep hill when being told to put it into a low gear (CLI solution) to provide engine braking when you've got an automatic car (GUI, but still has the ability for user gear selection)?

Read: CLI solutions are not quicker nor simpler, unless you already know how!

Exactly the same argument holds for GUI solutions - GUI solutions are not quicker or simpler, unless you already know how.

I'm much balder due to trying to find a GUI solution to problems I could solve with a CLI solution much quicker and simpler.

Why the difference? Simple: I took to computing then the GUI was not much more than an experiment at Xerox and so learnt the use of a keyboard instead of a mouse; when I have to deal with a GUI interface, I struggle going through menus/options to find what I want much more than finding the correct command in a CLI interface

Neither is whipping up a vim or an emacs session to edit some file in /etc/ anybody's idea of fun

Neither is whipping up a registry editor to edit the binary blob of the registry anybody's idea of fun.

It's interesting to consider that Windows 3 used INI files which were text files that cold be edited using a straight forward text editor. The result was that if the configuration was messed up, you could boot a CLI (oh, no, not that idea), either DOS or any other OS that could read the partition, run any old text editor and have a fairly good go at fixing the configuration.

Then came along Win 95 (and repeated with all windows versions) with its registry (a binary blob of a database that held all configurations) that now needs a special program to be able to edit it - GUI based. Which meant if that configuration in the registry is messed up so that the GUI can't run, you couldn't run the registry editor to fix the configuration. Really clever. Solution: take a copy of the registry, but on restoration, it'll destroy all the configuration changes for all programs made since the copy was made; solution: backup regularly and hope main configuration doesn't get messed up...

Comment Re:What are they trying to prove at this point? (Score 2) 452

But it's a red herring anyway. If there was a reason to remove it, sure. But there's no reason to. On the other hand, there was a very good reason for Sony to remove Other OS. Specifically, it was being used to hack the PS3.

[emphasis added]

The tow bars I've seen end in quite a small area which means it will provide quite large pressure (and hence destructive force) when the vehicle is used to reverse into, say, a plate glass window - based on your argument I would now expect every tow bar to be removed on the next service of all cars as they could be used for hacking [in the sense of a machete] into shops and banks, and so have an excellent reason to remove them.

Comment Re:Good Bye Sarah Jane (Score 4, Interesting) 132

Perhaps like me she would have been one of the first (most likely the first) assistants you remembered as I started watching Dr Who in the early '70s.

Even after watching later, and pre (on video), incarnations of Dr Who, Jon Pertwee + Elizabeth Sladen will always be the doctor and his assistant to me.

Comment Re:We need a readily available currency for everyo (Score 1) 519

Simples:

When the going rate is something like three deciduous forests to buy "one ship's peanut, to obviate the problem and effectively revalue to the leaf...embark on an extensive defoliation campaign and...burn down all the forests" [DA, HHGTTG, 1978] or use something like Agent Orange...

Comment Re:What's with minority governments recently? (Score 1) 307

Having PR is not guaranteed to be much better - see, for example, the Alabama paradox - than FPTP. There are further problems with some PR methods (for example STV) whereby if a candidate had won a seat, if their popularity had been larger they would not have won the seat! (A couple of chapters in "Archimedes' Revenge" by Paul Hoffman explain the paradoxes).

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