Agreed that it's not in the summary, but as you correctly note, it's just a "summary". Anyone who reads the underlying blog post will read this among the facts on which the court based its opinion: "The public was allowed to search by keyword. The search results showed only the page numbers for the search term and the number of times it appeared; none of the text was visible."

So those readers who RTFA will be in the know.

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. )

Mine is a HP LJ 4000N. 17 years, 36000+ pages, and still going.

Not necessarily. The report in question is an estimate based on previous studies, including one from 2005 which originally suggested the 1 in 4 number. That 2005 paper decided that cell phone usage was "associated" with the accident if the phone was being used up to 10 minutes before the crash. So in other words, an accident was counted if a driver had a brief conversation, hung up the phone, put it away, drove five miles, and then was hit by someone running a red light. It's pretty easy to see that this accident would likely still have happened without the phone usage. What's not clear is what percentage of the accidents are like this.

A fair point, but the name he goes by isn't Satoshi; it's Dorian. So, if he were starting work and not thinking about anonymity, presumably the work would have been published under Dorian Nakamoto. Instead, then, we have to postulate this weird set of events where he began work, but decided to use a name other than the one he uses everyday (presumably to hide himself a little bit), but which still can be traced back to him laughably easily.

You do know that that wasn't the only other alternative, right? Looking back, might it not have been better to post a message *before* you started redirecting a sizable section of the traffic that said, "we appreciate the feedback we've been getting on the beta site, and we're working on implementing many of the changes that have been requested. We know that that there are still issues with several components of the site, but in order to get feedback from a larger sample size, we're going to redirect 20% of the users to the beta site as a trial for the next N weeks. After that trial is over, we'll go back to classic Slashdot while we continue improving our new design." It's called managing expectations, and would have had the added benefit of giving people a place to put the Beta protests.

Also, you keep saying that the comment system is being worked on, but your "Beta News" section doesn't list it under "what is not in Beta yet" as one of the "key areas being worked on." So, it's perhaps natural for people to assume that you're not currently as concerned about its problems.

I once got asked a question which I found hurtful and offensive, and felt tempted to 'blow up' the interview at that point. Fortunately, I resisted the temptation. As it turns out, the question was his way of introducing the next thing, which was telling me that he was offering me the job.

Here's my report on the actual ruling which is being reviewed: 2nd Circuit affirms denial of plaintiffs' preliminary injunction motion in WNET v Aereo

I guess it would take a litigator to notice this, but it's quite unusual that a preliminary injunction denial would be getting this kind of appellate attention.

In the first place, it was unusual for an interlocutory appeal to be granted from the denial of the preliminary injunction motion. In federal court usually you can only appeal from a final judgment.

Similarly, apart from the fact that it's always rare for a certiorari petition to be granted, it's especially tough where the appeal is not from a final judgment, but just from a preliminary injunction denial which does not dispose of the whole case.

Funny, I had the same reaction when I read it. He seemed like a salesman for Google or something.

Dear Prince Bernard, If you're talking about my bank account, you're barking up the wrong tree :)

Fair use cases are very fact specific. If you start monkeying with the facts, Judge Chin might not feel the same way about it.