Me too. However maybe the SEC is trying to make a point? Is it a slippery slope - can we easily and objectively determine when a post to facebook friends not public? 200k people? 20k people? 2k? 200?

While this instance is fairly far out towards "public" on the public-private spectrum, this may be an attempt by the SEC to establish boundaries about what sort of behaviour it considers appropriate for the CEOs of large and publicly traded corporations.

If memory serves, the original post I linked was written by Scott Chacon, and was served on GitHub proper/blog for some time. The link I gave appears to be the last remaining mirror that Google finds.

If the rumours are true, BitBucket was a blatant screen-for-screen imitation of GitHub's design:

If the owners of Bitbucket have no qualms about stealing GitHub's creation ... should you really trust them with yours?

I thought it was worth $7 per month to go with GitHub for this reason.

YMMV.

This is a fascinating post. Thank you for posting it. Not enough is written about the fall of Sony.

Incidentally, from a previous post I wrote:

The history of Sony's management is quite fascinating. I've lost the link, but I recall there being an article about Sony's decision over who to replace their then-CEO around 1999 (Norio Ohga), who had been CEO for ages and brought Sony to new economic heights. The choice of his successor was either the head of Sony Entertainment (i.e. the copyright/media side of Sony) or the head of Sony Computer (i.e. the head of the electronics side). They ended up choosing the head of the copyright/media side of Sony, Nobuyuki Idei.

Anecdotally, since that decision, I've noticed that Sony's technology shine has dropped completely off my radar (i.e. I don't even turn to them to find out what the latest and greatest tech is, whereas at one point they were certainly a contender for something that I'd consider cool), while their foray into rent-seeking for their copyright has also gone off the deep end.

I might be wrong about the details of the history - I'd be interested in finding the article again, or having the background.

If it's true, I believe the change in the "personality" or "culture" of Sony reflects the decision that they made to make the head of their copyright/media division the head of the company. I believe their shareholders have been paying for that decision ever since.

Thanks. That makes me curious how the arbitrator selection would work i.e. whether arbitrators may be selected by the corporation based on prior favourable results. IMHO, that might expose the award to judicial review based on a systemic bias.

I would be grateful for the opportunity to review an example agreement of this sort, if you happen to be in a position to share.

I doubt you know many lawyers.

It seems the lawyers you do know are not doing well.

I have done well. I am proud to count among my friends some of the most influential lawyers the world has ever known. I would tell you who they are, but you wouldn't know them.

You seem confused. LMGTFY. You shall find that the links say that arbitrations generally have fees split between the parties because, you know, that's what actually happens.

I can't even begin to imagine what you're talking about by a civil suit being devastating. For no apparent reason, that comment reminds me of the X-Files - sort of a dark, mysterious and sinister quality to it. Anyway, the result of a civil suit concluded by judicial determination is an enforceable award (which we commonly refer to as a "judgment"), which is effectively the same result as an arbitral award. Here, have a look, N.Y. CVP. LAW Â 7510 : NY Code - Article 75, Section 7501:

So there you have it. You win at arbitration and what's the prize? The right to get a Court to enforce it or turn it into a judgment. I know. Totally fascinating, right?

See, oh there's so many ... here, you can't get clearer than this: Waheed v. Pfizer Canada Inc., 2011 ONSC 5057 (CanLII), retrieved on 2012-10-31:

> [27] Where there is a cause of action, an identifiable class, common issues, and a settlement, there is a strong basis for concluding that a class proceeding is the preferable procedure because certification would serve the primary purposes of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992; namely, access to justice, behavioural modification, and judicial economy.

If I may: You seem terribly indifferent to, or painfully unaware of, essential facts on this topic that determine the reality of those that live in it, and you concurrently lack a certain ... je ne sais quoi ... that normally inhibits people who know nothing about something from saying anything about it. Your post is utterly devoid of fact or insight, and aside from my personal entertainment while the family is in bed and I man the door for trick-or-treaters, your post has added nothing to the world and perhaps wasted someone's time other than my own. That's not very nice of you. I'm going to have to go ahead and ask you to refrain from further posting to the internet until you have remedied this whole reality - inhibition thing you've got going on. We'd all appreciate it out here. Thanks.

This is nonsense. I've been a lawyer, arbitrator and class action litigator for nearly a decade now.

Let's break down your post.

First, lawyers do fine with or without arbitration clauses; I honestly don't care what the process is. Arbitration clauses do tend to increase the cost of litigation to individual litigants for several reasons, including:

1. Arbitrations are private; a finding of liability has no impact on subsequent cases, unlike a finding in Court;

2. Arbitration is generally more expensive than litigation, for several reasons including the obligation of the complainant to pay the arbitrator fees, contrary judges who are paid by taxpayers;

3. Arbitrations, except for the rare multi-party arbitrations, do not permit the resolution of common issues for all similarly situated litigants, unlike class actions.

All of the above discourage litigation against big, bad clients because the big bad clients increase the cost and risk of seeking compensation for wrongs. I have noted a trend across jurisdictions that those where the perceived costs of seeking compensation for wrongs is subject to high procedural barriers correlates with the pervasiveness of apathy and helplessness.

Class proceedings reduce (and often eliminate) risk to individual litigants.

As for class arbitration, the rules of arbitration generally do not permit class proceedings. However, there is nothing stopping individuals from agreeing to individual arbitrations heard and determined concurrently by way of contract. A properly crafted agreement would likely be as binding as an award from individual arbitration, and have many of the economies of scale inherent to class proceedings. This is rare because it would require the consent of a defendant, who has every financial (and public relations) incentive to increase the cost of and risk to every claimant.

As for lawyers receiving most of the damages, that is an entire topic to itself. Class proceedings exist for three purposes: (1) decrease the cost of individual litigation; (2) increase efficiency of the court system by determining common issues together; and (3) correct bad behaviour. On point one, it is almost always true, in my experience, that class proceedings are more cost effective than individual litigation --- you are almost certainly going to get more at the end of the day by being a member of a class proceeding than by hiring a lawyer to proceed on your behalf directly. All class proceedings in the world, as far as I know, give you the opportunity to opt out of the class and pursue your litigation on your own, in any case, so if you are quite so against the class proceeding benefitting the lawyers, you can bring pursue the litigation by yourself. It bears mentioning that many class proceedings are also highly speculative, and higher risk merits higher rewards - otherwise the competent lawyers would find something else to do with their time and many valid complaints would pass under the radar.

On the second point, arbitrations are typically significantly more expensive than litigation in court. You have to pay the arbitrator and due to the faster timelines it often proceeds to an actual determination more often, in my experience, than litigation (as litigation is often painfully slow and settlement is encouraged by way of process designed to be challenging and expensive - to encourage settlement).

Finally, correction of bad behaviour is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, and even if the lawyers achieved no financial compensation for the members of the class, it is worthwhile to reward those pursuing and advancing corrective behaviour through the adversarial process.

Which is all to say: Your post is not very well informed, and I would encourage you to bear the above in mind before posting similar nonsense in the future.

Sorry if I was unclear. Yes, everything I described was from a civil litigation standpoint. As a civil litigator, I see (and speak about) the universe through that lens. It's warped to most people, but has spectacular clarity on issues like this. :)

To be fair though, the discussion was about the distinction between copyright versus breach of contract or trespass, and almost all prosecutions of violations of any of these lot are civil.

With all due respect, as a litigator with nearly a decade of experience involving intellectual property and licenses, I respectfully offer some suggested corrections to the above.

If you agree to enter the property under certain terms, you are bound to abide by those terms if you enter the property. Damages that flow from failure to abide can include, but are not limited to, losses and restitution. Restitution - the more likely larger set of damages - can include the reimbursement to the property-holder of any unjust enrichment - namely, any profits gained by breaching the contract.

This sort of litigation is not uncommon. It is not a matter of "they do not want you to do it", but the fact that one agrees to terms when entering into privately controlled premises. The visitor is bound to the obligations set out in the agreement to enter, or otherwise trespasses on the property.

There are bounds on what the terms of contract may be, notably excluding illegal or unconscionable terms (e.g. racism, slavery, onerous financial terms for breach, etc). I would argue that a prohibition on photography is not an onerous restriction barred.

Typically, a breach can be construed by the law in one of two ways. Either the failure to enter into the contract resulted in a conclusion of trespass, or alternatively the failure to abide by agreed terms in a breach of contract. In both cases, the Court would seek to put the party into the position had the wrong not been committed (i.e. return the property-holder to the position they were in before the trespass, or the position they would have been in had the contract been abided by).

In addition, one need not actually enter into an agreement to be bound by reasonable terms. For example, there is case law where people have been held liable to pay the fee for a guided tour because they knew the terms of payment for the tour, failed to pay the fee, but tagged along and received the benefit of the tour - then refused to pay after-the-fact. The Court felt the visitor had benefitted from the performance of the tour-guide, and the visitor was obliged to pay the equivalent amount as if they had entered into an agreement.

So a contracting property-holder can do quite a bit more than ask one to leave. They can bring a civil lawsuit on grounds of breach of contract or trespass. Of course, photographs taken for personal use would have fairly nominal damages, and those damages would likely have to be proven (contrast statutory damages for copyright infringement). Nevertheless, most common law states have a legal framework of this sort.

I hope the above is somewhat illuminating. Of course, seek the counsel of a lawyer in your jurisdiction for specific legal advice.

I would add to your points that capital punishment is also remarkably ineffective and prohibitively expensive.

Select quote:

As a matter of interest, the right to enter the private property of the museum is granted pursuant to a license -- a contract. Depending on what that license says, taking photographs for commercial use may be a violation of the terms of entry. The legal effect of breaching the license could potentially be equivalent to or worse than a breach of copyright, but the license restrictions may apply regardless of whether there are copyrights on the work being photographed.

So if you do take the photo, and there are no copyright restrictions that apply to the work photographed, and there are no other restrictions on the photograph, the agreement to enter the museum may bar commercial use of the photograph. Any such commercial use may lead to a civil lawsuit for breach of contract, potentially including damages in the amount of any commercial gains from the use of the photograph.

Of course, the above is a generalization and not legal advice on any specific issue; please retain a lawyer for any specific legal advice.

Open question: Would the carrier need people on it if pilots were not necessary?

Nuke it from orbit?

StackExchange's Skeptics site has some related calculations for United Airlines that may be illuminating.

That word. I do not think it means what you think it means.