More pseudoscience. They say that they're not sure whether this means that porn shrinks your brain, or if the shrunken brain causes porn viewing. But, this leaves out the very real possibility that this correlation means nothing whatsoever. The site below collects correlations that look pretty convincing in the graphs, but quite obviously are unlikely to be cases of causation in either direction:

http://www.tylervigen.com/

Don't I wish.

A cynic might argue that the key difference in this case was that, for a change, the ISP's, and not merely defendants, were challenging the subpoenas; but of course we all know that justice is 'blind'.

An ingrate might bemoan the Court's failure to address the key underlying fallacy in the "John Doe" cases, that because someone pays the bill for an internet account that automatically makes them a copyright infringer; but who's complaining over that slight omission?

A malcontent like myself might be a little unhappy that it took the courts ten (10) years to finally come to grips with the personal jurisdiction issue, which would have been obvious to 9 out of 10 second year law students from the get go, and I personally have been pointing it out and writing about it since 2005; but at least they finally did get there.

And a philosopher might wonder how much suffering might have been spared had the courts followed the law back in 2004 when the John Doe madness started; but of course I'm a lawyer, not a philosopher. :)

Bottom line, though: this is a good thing, a very good thing. Ten (10) years late in coming, but good nonetheless. - R.B. )

No, it's not theft. It's just the Super Chicken rule: they knew the job was dangerous when they took it.

Bond purchasers know that currencies may be debased, and that governments may even just default; happens all the time. But they gambled that the likelihood of getting a return on their investment was greater than of losing it, and that it was a better option than putting the money elsewhere. But there's no rock solid guarantee that absolutely cannot be broken.

Next you'll say that discharging debts in bankruptcy is immoral or something similarly stupid.

It could be cleverly disguised as a bit of MD5 but is actually something encrypted with a 33 character one time pad.

Well if the movie studios had their way, you wouldn't be able to rent movies cheaply on disc either. They have no interest in customer satisfaction, convenience, or affordability.

This technique works best when combined with cold fusion. Also, don't forget about step 3.

You mean like the frosted glass commonly used for bathroom windows and shower doors? I see this as being a form of image processing that will rapidly be perfected.

Sigh.

No, publicity rights are a branch of state tort law. Copyrights are a sui generis branch of federal law.

And a copyright release is just a copyright license (or more rarely, an assignment), which means that it pertains to a particular creative work. A publicity release has to do with using someone's face, image, statements, etc. While you could conceivably have them both in the same form, it's rare that you'd need to or want to.

And I assure you, they are not related even the teeniest tiniest bit. Not in their policy goals, or how they originated, or which governments created them, or who gets them, or how long they last, or what they cover. There is no commonality.

Are you too lazy to google for the difference between copyrights and publicity rights? Perhaps this web page from the Library of Congress will help you out: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/co...

Copyright law is utterly unrelated to publicity rights. You're just stringing words together.

No, not quite.

A mere performance, by itself, is not copyrightable. In order to be copyrightable, a performance must be fixed in a tangible medium. This always raises the question of whether the person doing the fixation is the actual author, or at least a joint author, with equal rights in the work. Basically it hinges on creativity. If the actor is in charge of their own costuming, lighting, cinematography, and direction, and everyone else is just following orders like a robot, with no creative input, and we set aside issues of works made for hire, then yes, the actor would be the sole author of the film. But if the actor isn't in charge of everything which, along with the performance, is being filmed, then they may be only one of many authors, and if it's the actor who is following orders like a robot, the actor may not have contributed any sort of authorship at all.

Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony is what you'll want to take a look at.

Got some cases you can cite for that?

And publicity and privacy rights, which are what you get releases for, are not copyrights. They are not even vaguely related.

They may not even need any fine print. Accepting compensation can affect your right to seek damages later.

I never even said a word about the lawyers making money. Perhaps you meant to reply to someone else?