Admitting you did what you're accused of is admitting "guilt". This is a factual decision, and so witnesses are able to testify on that matter. "Liability", on the other hand, is legal obligation to someone else due to your guilt. It is a legal decision, and so witnesses are (generally) not supposed to testify on that matter, especially when that legal decision is the central issue of the case. The question was improper as it apparently called for something beyond the scope of the witness' testimony. I'm not sure it actually was (the issue of "I am liability" versus "I am liable" is subtle...) but that's the idea.

(a) The whole "life sentence" concept isn't valid. By that reasoning, poor people should just commit massive financial damages against people, because they wouldn't be subject to paying those damages.
(b) He's going to just declare bankruptcy anyway, so it's rather silly as an aside.
(c) Separately, his lawyers appear to be grossly unable to handle the case; their "fair use" defense was beyond laughable, and they failed to preserve the easiest possible appeal (which would have, at least, probably allowed a retrial).

It's more problematic than that. Amazon cannot risk rending existing Kindles and books inoperable; they'll have to change the DRM on all their books, etc. More likely, they'll win anyway (due to, among other things, prior art) and/or settle and license the patent.

Blaming everyone else is bad, but you're completely inanely conflating viruses, etc. and porn.

The truth is, the best situation is to educate the child enough that they can be trusted to navigate the online world without either visiting porn inappropriately (i.e. w/ anyone else around) or downloading malware. The reality is, you have to educate children while using some protections against their mistakes.

So, teach her about sex, etc. Explain the issues as best you can, and discourage her from visiting it too much (and certainly set rules). But don't pretend she'll never check it out. The truth is, there's no harm in her checking it out occasionally.

Malware, on the other hand, is actually destructive, hence the use of spam, virus, etc. filters. So, teach her about it, hope she doesn't accidentally infect your system, but use tools to support her.

The key idea is to support your child's growth, not to restrict it.

That logic doesn't follow. It assumes, among other things, that: (a) we ever had a lower rate (i.e. that it has 'become' anything), and (b) we're not just better at dropping cases before they go to trial where the person is innocent (which would be a good thing).

It's sort of fascinating that you've posted the exact sort of response TFA expects. I'm tempted to think you're being ironic.

Here's the thing: a lot (i.e. the majority, actually) of these technical arguments you've referred to here are just silly. For example, you complain that the RIAA evidence links only to the computer, not the user. This is, of course, true. However, in the case of a family home that means the prosecution can narrow it down to the household members, so your argument would merely be "Well, you don't know if it was the dad or the son, so you can't sue", and that'll end up just bumping into group liability (which I won't bore everyone with here).

In the case of a shared computer, you'd have more of an argument, e.g. one a library computer or whatnot. But realistically, how many prosecutions have involved such a machine? So far, as far as I know, all the prosecutions have involved machines in private homes or apartments, so what exactly are you arguing?

I don't think it's revisionist at all: the reason you couldn't be aware of the law was not just your illiteracy, but the difficulty in distributing the information. Today, it's not a function of literal illiteracy (i.e. inability to read) but rather figurative illiteracy of the law (i.e. inability to digest the readily available legal materials). We can solve that need by (a) educating everyone on all law, (b) continuing to rely upon lawyers, or (c) re-writing the law to be accessible to everyone.

Everyone (especially on forums like this) likes to jump on option (c), forgetting the basic problem that a system is definitely not automatically bad just because it's complex. Far from it, when you're describing a tremendously detailed world such as our own, it is inevitable that your laws would become complicated and labyrinthine.

The law has not "become" so complex; from day one, the entire reason for the legal profession was that the average citizen (then, in the European nations) couldn't possibly be expected to know all the procedures of the courts, not to mention all of the details of substantive law.

I don't think you read the documents involved (including the stipulated damages issues already posted here).

Basically, Blizzard isn't just selling the software to users, but also the ongoing experience of the MMO which involves not only operating the servers and updating software, but also ensuring that the use of the software by legitimate customers isn't interrupted by illegitimate users.

A tremendous number of players find themselves disrupted by these Glider bots, and that's the damage.