The question here isn't whether she's liable. It's for how much.

Alito's dissent (starting on page 26) is interesting, and gets into just how thorny a problem it is to prove an "innocent infringer" defense under 17 U.S.C. 504. (And again, an "innocent infringer" isn't off the hook--it just reduces the minimum statutory damages that may be awarded to the rights-holder.) Basically, the girl argued that she was too young, too technically unsophisticated--not a willful infringer for the purposes of awarding damages. The judge who originally reduced the damages more or less agreed with her (his ruling can be found here. The court of appeals then looked at the argument differently. (There order is here.. They considered the innocent infringer defense directly under 17 U.S.C. 402(d) (full text available here. Basically, that says you can't be an innocent infringer if you have "access to" published recordings that have the copyright notice on them. The court of appeals pretty broadly said that this provision prevented Ms. Harper from claiming innocent infringement. Bottom line, she never disputed that she had access to such recordings (whatever that might mean).

Alito doesn't like the appeals court saying that this "access to" argument may act as a matter of law to prevent someone from being an innocent infringer. I think he's right about that--access should be a question of fact that needs to be decided on evidence, and it seems like nobody in this case really talked much about it.

It is legal to sell R rated movies to minors, or to allow minors to see such films in theaters. Some theaters may have internal rules disallowing it, but private policies like this have never had the force of law.

That's the difference with the video game legislation at issue. The ESRB was originally intended to be a private ratings group like the MPAA--just an organization to give suggestions on content to conscientious parents. It was never intended to be a government watchdog. Now California wants games and ESRB ratings treated differently--more like the restrictions in place on providing pornography to minors. It'll be an interesting case--several courts have found that games count as speech, though the issue hasn't reached the Supreme Court until now.

As a side note, I don't find it at all ironic that an icon of the film industry wants games treated differently from film. Hollywood can't be too fond of the gaming industry competing for youth entertainment dollars, and you can bet the film studio lobbyists have the governor's ear on this issue. It makes perfect economic sense; from the MPAA perspective, if Timmy can't buy Halo, he can still go see Hostel.

...for a community whose lockstep mantra much of the time is "correlation is not causation."

I'm not trying to troll, but all we can really say is that there was a spike in sales (and the original article doesn't make clear just how much of a spike--I can't get to the author's blog from work) following a conversation on 4chan. Those two pieces of information, by themselves, don't seem to me to mean all that much. I would love to believe (as many here seem to) that they translate directly into "if you respond to pirates on internet forums they will all rush out and buy your stuff," but I think we need a lot more information before it's reasonable to draw that conclusion.

I don't believe I ever said you shouldn't. I said if you dislike the conditions being placed on your consumption, you shouldn't consume, particularly where those conditions are given the force of law. However, at this particular point in history, there is more information available for free, unrestricted consumption than there has ever been. (Libraries are just one example. I love gutenberg.org, which is another.) Have at it, and be fulfilled.

Possibly.

Again, not sure where this is coming from. I suggested restraint in consuming things you don't need when you don't like the asking price, nothing more. Blanket arguments against artificial restrictions on distribution ("IP is imaginary property! DRM is bad!") are often asserted by people who don't like the conditions of consumption, then circumvent them to consume anyway. (Please note that I do not mean to suggest that you are such a person.) I think it makes more sense, if you're really interested in protesting the condition (as opposed to just getting something you want without paying for it), to simply decline to consume.

As to fulfillment, see above.

I am fully in agreement that writing is extremely low on the scale of relative potential profitability. I don't agree that the author receives no benefit from my purchasing a book from a major publishing house, although you're very correct to point out that the publisher is going to get the lion's share of my purchase money.

This is both a great boon to potential authors, and a great problem. If I'm writing a novel, I no longer need a major publisher to get it out to the reading public. If I self-publish, all profits go to me. However, because anyone can take my book and redistribute it, restriction-free, my actual profits may be zero. I've gone from a meager return on the time investment that went into the novel (with the publishing house) to potentially none at all (because my self-published novel is now on bittorrent). Some form of artificial restriction on technological consumption seems reasonable to me, because while some people will pay an author for his work even if they don't have to, I'm cynical enough to think that there aren't enough of those people to keep a talented author afloat long enough to make a name for herself. Even people who do some degree of self-publishing these days are usually quick to snap up book deals with major publishing houses when the opportunity presents itself, because publishers still offer marketing possibilities that aren't available to individuals.

OK, I'll jump in on this (largely off-topic) post.

First, the DRM schemes on the library copies are an artificial restriction on the quantity of an otherwise infinitely reproducible digital artifact. I know a lot of folks around here deplore such restrictions, but please remember that it's an artificial restriction on something you are not paying for, as a condition to access something that would not otherwise be available to you. It doesn't strike me as all that unreasonable--you're getting your ebook on the same terms you'd get any other library book. Libraries have to acquire them, I assume, on terms similar to those that govern acquisition of physical copies. I will stress again that this is a library service--it's free. Even hardcore copyleftists should have a hard time getting upset about this.

Second, throwing Jesus into the mix is a cute trick, which underlines a lot of the moral problems with the arguments leveled against copyright. The Jesus story involved providing food for hungry people. My New Testament is a little rusty, but I don't recall Jesus having anything to say about digital books, mp3s, or movies, all of which are luxuries, not necessities. (Jesus may have had a thing or two to say about luxuries, but that's another story.) If you're dealing in necessities, arguments against artificial restrictions on supply make a lot of sense, since obviously people die if they don't get enough to eat. If you're dealing in luxuries, those same arguments lose a lot of their moral coherence, since it's a bit harder to argue that you have some underlying, morally compelling need for, say, a Dean Koontz novel or a video game.

In sum, if you are bothered by some artificial restriction on your consumption of a luxury item, the way to deal with that is quite simple--don't consume. You'll be none the worse off for it.

My own humble county library (Utah, U.S.A.) has had this program for a while now.

It loans e-books in a variety of formats (ePub, Mobipocket), and also has software to loan audiobooks in downloadable formats. I use a B&N nook for the ePub books (the nook's compatibility with the library was actually what sold me on it over the Kindle), and a Zune for the audiobooks (just about any mp3 player will do the trick). So it's not entirely Sony's creation.

Does Duke Nukem still have "massive name recognition?" I vaguely remember playing DN3d when I was in high school. It was a somewhat interesting FPS, based on some fun little 2d platforming games (which I'm sure most people have forgotten by now, and few people under 30 have ever even played). It was mildly transgressive for its inclusion of pixelated strippers, and had a few fun mechanics (remote trigger pipe bombs?), but otherwise wasn't terribly unique even for its time. Since then, we've seen a glut of much prettier shooting games, with much more refined play in both single and multiplayer. These days, Duke Nukem is a chuckle-inducing byword; what name recognition it has comes from the internet memes mocking its perpetual vaporware status. If it ever is released, I can't imagine buying it, even for its kitsch value.

A lot of people seem to be piling on the "this is transparent retaliation" bandwagon. Why do Swedish law enforcement authorities care if Assange embarrasses the American government? Am I missing something?

I'm going to gently point out that some people have been known to do good things in the name of whatever god they worship. Set up hospitals/shelters/disaster relief efforts. Even missionary efforts in less developed areas. Sure, they'll hand out the Bible/Koran/Book of Mormon, etc., but that may also entail teaching people to read, setting up schools where none existed before, or teaching basic hygiene and health habits to communities that might not otherwise receive those benefits.

If you want to argue about religion, blast away, but it's not entirely honest to cite only the bad things that flow from it, without acknowledging the good.

Once upon a time, adapting video games to film made a kind of sense. You take the low-res pictures from a much-beloved digital property, and pump millions of dollars into a really pretty film. Sure you lost interactivity, but you gained some things early games didn't have--plot, characters, and eye candy.

We're not there anymore. Mass Effect was essentially interactive cinema. With lots of eye candy, production values comparable to a big-budget film, more characters, plot, and character development than would be possible even in a very long, expensive movie. BioWare did a very good job of leveraging its medium to create an experience that was in a way more than cinema could provide.

So in making a film from that property, we lose interactivity, as well as significant depth of character and plot. And in exchange, we gain...what, exactly?

I have a feeling that, at $5-$10 a month, it would get a lot less ubiquitous.

Wow! You took this:

and turned it into this:

That's no small leap. What he's really saying is that hosting porn isn't Wikimedia's (not Wikipedia's) primary purpose, and that admins should act accordingly. Seems sensible enough to me.

As a side note, there exists a wiki-based encyclopedia where there is no debate over what's informative or acceptable. Hop on over there and see how useful it is for even basic research purposes.

The summary is actually lifted directly from the linked article. What a sterling piece of objective, non-editorial journalism.

The Supreme Court will of course decide no such question. Measures are already in place to help parents keep violent content away from children; those parents that care to keep informed about the sorts of entertainment that their children consume have more resources and information available to them now than they have ever had. The question becomes whether the state can hold retailers criminally liable for failing to fill a role that the parents have apparently abdicated. Also from TFA:

This isn't clearly the case at all. The case will revisit the issue of whether violence (not sex) can constitute regulable obscenity under the First Amendment, a parallel that courts have repeatedly refused to draw.

Largely because that isn't what the rating system was designed to do. The whole point to the ESRB is to allow parents to make informed decisions as to what their children can watch, play, etc. The ESRB was never intended as a deterrent against children consuming that content without parental knowledge, or with parental consent. The notion behind the California law (and others in many other states that have been struck down) is that because the ratings aren't doing something that no one ever expected them to do, the state needs to have power to punish retailers for selling a product that (unlike tobacco or alcohol) has a strong component of judicially-recognized speech. I'll be interested to see what SCOTUS does with this...

Is there a single phrase in that weird, rambling paragraph that makes a lick of sense? This is a messaging issue? We want to salvage problems?

This came through loud and clear:

Interestingly, Mr. Yerli says nothing at all to rebut this "appearance."

I can come here and read a headline containing the words "scandal" and "cheating," and the underlying story deals with StarCraft rather than some public figure's extramarital adventures.