Is that actually any worse than (for example) whatever indemnification -- or lack thereof -- Oracle gives you for violating patents when using Java code in something else?

Georgia -- see O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a)

Depends on where you live and what laws you're subject to. In some states speeding is considered a civil infraction.

In Georgia, it is indeed a misdemeanor (see O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a)).

Considering the average speeding ticket is about $100-200...

Notwithstanding the "maximum fine" verbiage in the law I linked, by the time the court finishes tacking on the assorted fees, driver's safety class tuition, and possibly fees for probation (if you hadn't already completed that safety class before coming to court, you will be on probation until you take it), the average speeding ticket in GA (or at least, metro Atlanta) is more like $300-$500 (plus another $200 if you were doing more than 85 on a highway, or 75 on a two-lane road).

Part of the reason for that is that speeding less than about 10 MPH or so over the limit isn't really prosecuted at all. Many interstates in GA have a speed limit of 70 MPH and traffic speed regularly averages 10 MPH over that, which means going 5 MPH above the flow of traffic might result in a police officer completely ignoring you... or giving you a $500+ "super speeder" ticket. There isn't really any middle ground.

In Georgia, even "speeding by itself" is a misdemeanor -- see O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a)

Just hire a lawyer. Usually for about $100...

I assume you just forgot to type the last 0, because when I got a speeding ticket (just a simple speeding ticket! Not racing, not "super speeding," not reckless driving, just plain two-points-on-your-license speeding) I called literally almost a dozen lawyers, and none of them were willing to help me for much less than $1000. Every single one of them wanted to charge more than the maximum penalty (fine + court fee + driver's safety class fee) for the offense.

It was far more cost effective to preemptively take the safety class and then negotiate with the damn prosecutor myself.

But I ask you, How would you propose to make this fair but still enforce the law?

To start with, court procedure should be designed such that pleading not guilty does not cost more than pleading guilty -- at the very least, it ought to allow defendants to mail in their not guilty plea and skip the arraignment!

Second, they should abolish the concept of "plea bargaining." Either the defendant deserves the charge, in which case the prosecutor should not be reducing it, or the defendant doesn't deserve the charge, in which the prosecutor should not have levied it in the first place. Piling on bullshit extra charges in an attempt to bully or scare the defendant into pleading guilty to "something" is unethical, full stop.

The best reform would be that every offense should be tried by a jury. If there are so many people breaking the law that this is impractical, that should be your first clue that THE GODDAMN LAW ITSELF IS WRONG!

O.C.G.A. SS. 40-6-1 (a) It is unlawful and, unless otherwise declared in this chapter with respect to particular offenses, it is a misdemeanor for any person to do any act forbidden or fail to perform any act required in this chapter.

Oh! No, not at all. I was responding strictly to the GP's claim that [in the general case] "when you are in criminal court, the rules are skewed to favor the defendant."

In this particular case, the system actually worked.

Don't be railroaded, take a lawyer next time.

But don't you see, that's part of the problem! If you get accused of speeding, you will be punished whether you're guilty or not.

1. If you plead guilty, you pay (e.g. $300 fine + a $100 traffic safety class + points that will jack up your insurance rate).
2. If you try to plea bargain, you have to have already spent money on a traffic safety class to get a decent deal (e.g. a $100 traffic safety class + $200 fine for the lesser offense).
3. If you try to go to trial without a lawyer, you will lose and therefore have to pay (e.g. $??? + court costs + $100 class + points).
4. If you hire a lawyer, you pay (e.g. $500+ for a lawyer).

If you get merely accused, your choices are to pay, pay, pay, or pay!

The legal system doesn't really care who you pay -- the court itself, its private defense lawyer cronies, or its moonlighting-cop traffic school teacher cronies -- but the system extracts its pound of flesh regardless.

And that's not all! The less willing you are to submit to the system, the more just jumping through the procedural hoops will cost you. If you want to plead guilty, all you have to do is mail in the fine. If you want to try to get a plea bargain, you have to take off work to show up for the arraignment. And if you want to actually plead not guilty? Ha! Then you have to show up for the arraignment, show up again for the second arraignment (because 'uppity' people who want to exercise their rights have their cases upgraded from recorder's court to state court) and then show up again for the trial! (Having never actually gotten that far, I might even be underestimating.) That's at least three days of missed work -- $174 for someone making minimum wage, or a whole lot more for the typical IT-worker Slashdotter -- just to exercise your right to plead not guilty!

No, you're wrong. Speeding is a criminal offense. It may be a misdemeanor rather than a felony (which might be what confused you), but even misdemeanors are still criminal and are still [theoretically] held to the same "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard of proof.

Have you ever actually been in a criminal court? Defending yourself against even an offense as trivial as a speeding ticket is enough to make it blatantly obvious how defendants get railroaded in this country.

What? You mean the Randian tea party bullshit I posted was wrong? I'm shocked -- shocked!

(My previous post was an experiment in satire. Thanks for playing along.)

A llama ate it.

The government would then have to react to that

Why? The market will sort it all out. After all, the only thing suspending the corporate charter does is remove undue governmental influences from the market anyway (since that's what incorporation is: government meddling to give special status).

IIRC, it was a "you can fork it, but you can't call the fork 'TrueCrypt'" kind of deal -- which is why the new versions in TFS have different names.

A: an under-served market. Most likely because the costs of providing service are too high to support more than one player.

An "under-served market," huh? Alright then: the market I'm talking about is in almost the middle of the ninth largest metropolitan area in the United States, about four miles from the middle of downtown (which, in Atlanta, is not very far at all). If that's not dense enough to support more than one provider, then where the fuck is?!

It is not a government-enforced monopoly, it is a defacto monopoly

Yes, and a de-facto monopoly is still a monopoly.

It doesn't change the fact that one of those players (AT&T) got huge government subsidies to wire it up in the first place and then more huge subsidies to upgrade it for "broadband" (money it simply pocketed instead of performing the upgrade, by the way), and the other player (Comcast) actually is a de jure monopoly for services delivered over coaxial cable (it has a franchise agreement with the City of Atlanta, which prohibits other cable providers such as Charter from coming in).