... fire in a crowded theater and all that. That's not just an expression, it was actually used by a justice in a Supreme Court ruling.

And a very bad ruling, at that. Find out why.

This has baffled me. I know you can be held accountable for yelling fire in a crowded theater. But even then, the act of yelling fire in a crowded theater is not illegal itself. Just the deaths as a result of yelling fire can be attributed to the yeller.

Anytime someone mentions fire in a crowded theater, I think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

"Fire, fire, fire, fire. Now you’ve heard it. Not shouted in a crowded theatre, admittedly, as I seem now to have shouted it in the Hogwarts dining hall. But the point is made. Everyone knows the fatuous verdict of the greatly over-praised Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, when asked for an actual example of when it would be proper to limit speech or define it as an action, gave that of shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre.

It’s very often forgotten what he was doing in that case was sending to prison a group of Yiddish speaking socialists, whose literature was printed in a language most Americans couldn’t read, opposing Mr. Wilson’s participation in the First World War, and the dragging of the United States into that sanguinary conflict, which the Yiddish speaking socialists had fled from Russia to escape. In fact it could be just as plausible argued that the Yiddish speaking socialists who were jailed by the excellent and greatly over-praised Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes were the real fire fighters, were the ones shouting fire when there really was a fire in a very crowded theatre indeed."

People offer it as an example of the limits of free speech, all the while completely unaware of the saying's origin.

They also accounted for warranted searches. It's not self-incrimination to surrender your shed keys when you've got a naked co-ed chained inside.

A key is a thing I have, not a thing I know. That may be enough to make the difference. Actual knowledge of the co-ed's presence can also make the difference.

"He knew the password, the police had probable cause, and he intentionally impeded an investigation. I can't speak to British legal procedure, but in America that'd almost certainly be enough to be charged with obstruction of justice."

You're wrong about America. The law is far from settled, but in some jurisdictions probable cause is hardly enough to compel a suspect to reveal an encryption password. Actual knowledge of the drive's contents may be necessary to compel a person to decrypt it, as otherwise it would violate the suspect's right against self incrimination.

Yelp's terms of service are irrelevant. Public statements against public figures aren't libelous unless they are false. Factual statements made by non customers are factual by definition. False statements made by customers are likewise necessarily false. The libel is in claiming something happened that never did. It doesn't matter whether the person who wrote it was a customer.

Humans get a dopamine boostfrom being outraged and feeling morally superior.

I bet it's good to know you are better than all those people.

Well there is this thing in legal theory called "standing".

It's a good thing we don't need standing to express ourselves in public.

[International agreements], exactly, is what gives.

OK, but aren't such agreements usually limited to those specific terms which signatories agree to incorporate into local law?

Do these agreements instead create a situation where US copyright holders can sue in the United States without regard to what the law says in the defendant's place of residence?

How does a US federal court gain jurisdiction over a company located in Panama?

A ruling prior to this settlement held that Hotfile could be subject to vicarious liability for failing to comply with the DMCA (they allegedly ignored a bunch of DMCA takedown requests and failed to shut down a bunch of accounts despite repeat infringements), but the DMCA is US law, not Panama law. Unless copyright is somehow a special case (due to, say, international agreements), I fail to see why Hotfile should be subject to US copyright law anymore than US companies should be subject to Chinese or Iranian censorship laws.

What gives?

"The passwords ... are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said."

How does that work?

Something's rotten in the state of Texas.

"In the real world if I walked into a jewelry store and stole a $3,000 Rolex and offered the owner $100 for the watch, I would be guilty of shoplifting."

Thank you, Captain Obvious, for letting us know that if you stole a watch you'd be guilty of shoplifting.

"If you want a dedicated connection with a 1:1 contention ratio you're going to have to pony up more than $50/mo."

There's a difference between the natural degradation of signal due to demand and the intentional throttling of bandwidth according to content, IP address, or protocol. The problem is not contention, but neutrality.

No rational person would claim the coffee shop has to provide more than 300 gallons of coffee to a single customer.

No rational person would think a person can drink 300 gallons of coffee in a single visit. However much a person might drink outside your silly imaginary world, however, the coffee shop damn well better deliver.

"With the ISP I work for currently, 0.1% of our customers cost us 50% of the bandwidth. It isn't right that a few punks think they can try to destroy service for everyone else with what looks like an attack."

It isn't right to advertise high speeds only to cripple people's connections for making full use of the advertised bandwidth. If you can't deliver on what you promise, stick to promising 28.8 kbps and see how that works out for you.