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Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm 248

Posted by timothy from the w-randolf-clark-ships-slowly dept.
Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including word from the worlds of corporate patent lawsuits, secretive publishers vs. inquisitive readers in Canada, and the pitiful teachers versus the splendid kids in Pennsylvania. Read on for the details.
Sir, this sentence mangling machine is Pl88^74djliivc33mq again! I posted a story earlier this week which scrambled in its summary the facts of the matter. My post, as reader Raymond Fingas points out, said that the "Internet archive ... has been sued by the firm Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey." Fingas was one of several readers (thanks to all!) to correct me on this, writing "According to the linked article that isn't the case; instead they are being sued by Healthcare Advocates, represented by the firm McCarter & English. Further, the article says that Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey is actually being sued along with the Internet Archive.."

Alacritech settles litigation with MSFT and BRCM An anonymous reader writes "Alacritech, Microsoft Corporation and Broadcom Corporation today announced that they have entered into agreements that settle all outstanding disputes between Alacritech and Microsoft, as well as provide Microsoft and Broadcom access to Alacritech's patent portfolio relating to scalable networking. (Previously mentioned on Slashdot here and here.)"

Sir, you have no right to read about your rights. Hobart writes "Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot - in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for. A memorable quote in the Times article says '...There is no human right to read.'"

Don'tcha think felony is a bit strong for a few button presses? ZombyHero writes "In a follow-up to a previous story, the 13 high school students from Kutztown, PA charged with felony computer trespassing for violating district usage policy are fighting back. They've hired lawyers have begun talking with the Assistant DA. As a former student of the school, I know that the district is used to getting its way. Hopefully this will knock them down a few notches."

Starship Exeter flies again! An anonymous reader writes "There's a new episode of Starship Exeter, a fan-made feature set in the original series Star Trek universe. The new episode, The Tressaurian Intersection, follows on from The Savage Empire, which was featured on Slashdot before. This time it's better than ever... better than the original series, in fact! You can watch the entire episode online."

Treasure hunts, commence. We've posted quite a few interesting applications for Google's mapping service; now phauly writes "I created an Animated Google Map (with some gnus and mozillas attacking Microsoft office) using Google Maps API. I think it would be easy to create real playable Games on Google Maps. For sharing ideas (and implementations!) I created the Games on Google Maps wiki page. For now some ideas are: risk, freeciv, freecraft, car races on real maps! Feel free to edit the page suggesting/revising/implementing ideas."

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Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm More

Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm

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  • brings some corrections, clarifications...? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:01PM (#13068558)
    Isn't that what dupes are for?

  • Exeter (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) * <semi_famous@yah o o . c om> on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:01PM (#13068559) Homepage Journal
    This is interesting as a business model (if Paramount doesn't shut them down). Much like PBS they're operating off mostly donations from viewers (who get a behind the scenes DVD as a premium). But if they can get the funding they need to continue profitably and on a reasonable schedule, it shows that the networks/studios can continue shows with large enough fan bases, moving the revenue over to a 'made for DVD' model rather than a broadcast sponsorship model.

    They're not there yet in terms of funding, it seems. But if unfettered fanfic productions could compete, it begs the question of whether the competition would weed out the weak and determine the best as the winner or if it would fracture the support of the fan base so much that no project could obtain sufficient funding.

    • Re:Exeter (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:30PM (#13068723)
      To make a quick correction to the Slashback, you can't yet watch the whole 2nd Starship Exeter film online; they are releasing it one act a week starting with the teaser two weeks ago, and both last weeks and this weeks this weekend (due to some lost footage).

      Anways, judging from the teaser, Exeter has improved by leaps and bounds from episode one. Being frank, the it takes great effort for me sit through episode one of Starship Exeter (or the first episode of New Voyages [newvoyages.com] for that matter). However, this episode is written by Dennis Bailey, who wrote an episode of The Next Generation (Tin Man, with Gumtu the space snail), and has actual CG effects (as opposed to an AMT model and horrendously bad play-dough dinosaur, not to mention the acting greatly improving.

      And I guess I'll throw in a plug for my other favourite TOS fan film. The next Star Trek: New Voyages episodes will be written by two Deep Space Nine writers (Jack Trevino and Ethan Calk), and the one after that by D.C. Fontana [imdb.com], who wrote 11 original series episodes, six Next Generations, not to mention a load of other great TV show episodes. The fourth episode will also guest star Walter Koenig, whose name is very familier to anybody who has read this far.

      I predict the next few years will see a load of flood of fan films on the net, with some of them possibly even being good.

      -Clinton
      • A quicker correction to your correction.

        The 3rd episode of New Voyages is the one with Chekov, and is also written by D.C. Fontana, and the fourth is written by the DS9 writers.
      • "Anways, judging from the teaser, Exeter has improved by leaps and bounds from episode one."

        Agreed. Now I'm not trying to dump on the show here, but if you don't have a taste for the original series, this isn't going to impress you.

        That said, the production quality was quite good. Not only did they manage some great color (hard to do with the typical cameras used for fan films...) but they also made it aesthetically appealing while retaining most of the style of the original series. I know that sounds

  • Linux Desktop of the Future Follow Up Article (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:05PM (#13068586)

    The author of the controversial Linux Desktop of the Future [slashdot.org] essay has posted a follow up article [blogspot.com] containing clarifications and defying misconceptions.

  • Taking over the world...One ZIP Code at a time! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MindNumbingOblivion ( 668443 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:13PM (#13068628)
    I have yet to RTFL, but using the Google Map API to write Risk or Civ style games sounds like a wonderful (and just a little scary) application for megalomaniacs like myself.

    Imagine the complexity one could introduce to the game...Maybe not use individual troops, but use something similar to Axis and Allies, where each piece represents approximately one division/squadron/task force (maybe ships only represent one ship... has been awhile). Lay siege to your hometown, and animate peasants running through the streets.

    Then again, maybe we can adapt Trogdor [homestarrunner.com] to play out against SCO's offices...

    • Not just creating games, but one could plot out reenactments of actual battles. It is said the United States has always collected as much detailed information as possible about every battle they've ever engaged in. This could help history classes to get kids interested in past events.

      And then plotitng the settings of books that used real locations as their settings. Simulate the Martian attack from Woking to London, or from Grover's Mill to New York City, and sync it up with multimedia.

  • When someone puts up a website... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Seminal ( 698722 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:17PM (#13068646) Journal
    That is their property. Nobody has a right to take a snapshot of it, store it, or recreate it.

    Or do we need patents on website content? Copywrites? Or can we trust people to not steal?

    For example, say there is a college kid who really likes beer and porn. He likes it so much, he sets up a website that becomes popular, it lists different beers, and reviews porn. One drunken night, this college kid uses his cell phone to take a couple low resolution pictures of himself having sex, and he puts it up.

    A few years pass, somehow he graduates and starts looking for work. Someone tells him that his website comes up when googled, and that might not be the best thing when it comes for finding work.

    So the guy pulls the plug. beerandporn dot com dies. Or did it? It seems others liked his hobby as well, and downloaded all the content, and started hosting it. Problem is, google now links to these new sites, with his face and work for the world to see.

    Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?

    I'll give one more example. A woman who is 26 years old has 2 kids, and no skills. She got knocked up by a bum. Now she is working in a grocery store, as a check out clerk for $7 an hour, not enough to feed and cloth her family.

    She starts up a website where she gets naked. She is making good money, and she manages to make enough to get a nicer place to live, feed her kids, and go to college. A couple years later, she takes down the website. She has a good job. But someone decides to put the content back up. Her kids are now 13 years old. Her employeer also knows how to use google. Should people judge her based on who she used to be, what she did to survive within a specific context of existance?

    If someone wants to put up a website, they have that right. But it appears that people don't have a right to remove their content from circulation. That is the problem.

    The great thing about life is people can change, they can move away to a new community, they can start over. The internet in some ways is making that impossible. It is like jobs that do credit checks, to work as a secretary they want to know how much money you owe, and if you paid it off on time.

    • Re:When someone puts up a website... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:24PM (#13068680) Journal
      Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?

      Not any more. Semantics aside, it was publicly broadcast at the time. The world doesn't work like Outlook and its "Recall Message" feature, as much as you would appear to wish it did. People create history as they go through life.... or would you prefer some 1984-esque alternative?

      Perhaps he should have lived by the old axiom of "Never say something that you wouldn't want repeated in court."
    • Your right to forget your past ends at my mind. No one has the right to make other people forget things.

    • You can't erase your past (Score:5, Insightful)

      by e9th ( 652576 ) <e9th@[ ]odex.com ['tup' in gap]> on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:31PM (#13068730)
      Forget the digital age -- authors have never been able to unpublish their books, nor models their images.

      This is not a new problem.

    • When someone puts up a website... That is their property. Nobody has a right to take a snapshot of it, store it, or recreate it.

      Um, do you realise that just by visiting a webpage, a copy of it is transferred from the server to your computer, and then cached by your browser? That amounts to taking a snapshot of it, storing it, and, if you use your back button, recreating it.

      A more legitimate question would be if people such as Google or archive.org are allowed to redistribute content it finds on sites, wh

    • Re:When someone puts up a website... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by booyabazooka ( 833351 ) <ch.martin@gmail.com> on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:32PM (#13068737)
      When you release something to the public, you DON'T have a right to take it out of circulation. To use an analogy-

      You're viewing a website like a poster that you put up on your front door. Of course, a year later you have the right to take that down, and no one should be allowed to forcably place that back on your door.

      But the web doesn't work that way. When I put up a website, I'm not putting up a poster; I'm setting up a news stand and handing out copies to everyone who walks by. Do I have a right to take back all of those papers I handed out, and disallow every person who took one from showing it to somebody else?

      • When I put up a website, I'm not putting up a poster; I'm setting up a news stand and handing out copies to everyone who walks by. Do I have a right to take back all of those papers I handed out, and disallow every person who took one from showing it to somebody else?

        Yeah, but the copies you are handing out to people exist only as long as they are at your website. Your analogy of opening a newspaper stand and handing out copies is not right. It is more like if you have a reading room, and anyone who com

        • Yeah, but the copies you are handing out to people exist only as long as they are at your website.

          Hell fucking NO. Every caching proxy between you and me, not to mention my OWN cache has a copy.

          As to the rest of your ranting, you're right, some past indiscretion that has since been rectified shouldn't be held against someone, but to believe that the internet caused this problem, or that breaking the internet will somehow make people stop behaving this way, ignores human nature and the plight of many, m

        • Re:When someone puts up a website... (Score:4, Interesting)

          by mc_barron ( 546164 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @10:01PM (#13069253) Homepage
          Here's the fundamental problem to all of your anecdotes: they involve someone who regrets a past decision. The results of their decision was willingly made publically available. Now they regret their actiona. Two words: tough shit. Everyone has a history, everything must be viewed in context.

          Here's an example: presidential candidate was a member of the KKK in his early years, but has since disassociated himself from the klan. Now he wants to make it illegal for the newspaper to publish his old rantings on race.

          I don't know about you, but I sure as HELL want the REAL history of people I know/employ/vote for, not some crazy hazy version that they molded themselves. The ability to change history is the ability to lie...and people don't have the right to lie.
        • You have a very interesting view on the world.
          Too bad it's not based in reality.

          I get the impression that you have done some really stupid things in your time that you really _really_ hope never get out in the open. Too bad. You do something stupid, than do another stupid thing by telling the whole world, and then expect to be able to revoke that information on a whim?

          You sir are on crack.

          My biggest problem though is that you're not the only one, and you're pissing in my pool.

          Kindly quit pissing in my p
      • When I put up a website, I'm not putting up a poster; I'm setting up a news stand and handing out copies to everyone who walks by. Do I have a right to take back all of those papers I handed out, and disallow every person who took one from showing it to somebody else?
        According to copyright law: yes.

    • it's very simple (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ChipMonk ( 711367 )
      If you don't want something to come back and bite you in the ass, don't do it.

      If you don't want all the world to see your life on the Internet, don't expose it.

      Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations? Only if he feels like enforcing the copyright on public record.

      Should people judge her based on who she used to be? Only if she's less than honest about it, in which case she has already judged herself.

      And before you try to tell me I don't know what it's like: Yes, I do. I have a w
    • "But it appears that people don't have a right to remove their content from circulation"

      Sure they do; the problem is one of theory and practice. In practice, it's like Linus once said: "real men don't backup; they upload the contents of their RAID array to an ftp server and let the whole world mirror their data!" (yeah, I know I mangled the quote :)). Online data has a habit of sticking around.

      I think what you have highlighted is one more problem which technology brings, alongside of the benefits. But tha
    • Or do we need patents on website content?

      Seeing as website content is not an invention, I'd say not.

      Copywrites? [sic]

      Anything published is given automatic copyright -- and copyright is the thing that would disallow all the examples you gave below.

      So the guy pulls the plug. beerandporn dot com dies. Or did it? It seems others liked his hobby as well, and downloaded all the content, and started hosting it. Problem is, google now links to these new sites, with his face and work for the world to see.

    • Those cases are all clear cut (Score:4, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:56PM (#13068882)
      When you publish, that's it - you cannot retract what you put in public for others to read.

      Furthermore while you should be allowed to no longer present what you like, for research needs I absolutly think that anyone who is capabile of doing so shoudl be able to store and re-present data you have publically published.

      To go back to your example, lets say years later that woman (or that man) runs for president. Would you (as a citizen) want that hidden or want a clean vetting of a persons past details?

      Now lets take this another way. Say you can make whatever you publish disappear. So then is it OK for news sites or blogs to change what they had published in the past, while disallowing anyone to make note of there being a change and what the old content was?

      If you plan to do embarrassing things, don't do them in public. people need to be RESPONSIBLE for past actions. I said some dumb things on Usenet when I was younger in college (incidentally usenet archives are why we'll never see a technically oriented gen-Xer in a high-ranking public position) but I just have to deal with whatever happens as a result of past actions.

      Personally I think the site in question falls into the category of historical recording, and I think is important. If it can't store anything we are all screwed from the standpoint of having any accurate history of out time.
    • Both of your examples involve the effort to erase the past. That either of those people put porn up and don't want people to know about it. The problem with this is that you are wandering into the realm of fact which is not supposed to be under the same constraints as a creative endevor.

      While profiting off of somebodies old porn site without permission is likely immoral, is preserving what actually happened as a non-profit the same?
    • If you'd used 'private intranet' or even 'password protected' I'd have bought it. Your obviously overlooking some things.

      Primarily the fact that the internet is not by definition a private place. Websites are very public.

      A more astute analogy for your innocent porn loving beer drinker would have been if in college he liked hanging out in strip clubs and on day decided to have public sex, a few years later a friend of his tells him he googled and found an image of him having (public) sex.

      Public webp
    • When a woman poses for Playboy, does she have the right to censor herself out of back issues?

      Yeah, it sucks, but you can't magic yourself out of every situation on the internet any more than you can in physical reality.
    • That is their property. Nobody has a right to take a snapshot of it, store it, or recreate it.

      Or do we need patents on website content? Copywrites? Or can we trust people to not steal?

      It is only because of copyright that people do not have the right to recreate it. There is no "stealing" involved.

      Should people judge her based on who she used to be, what she did to survive within a specific context of existance?

      Websites don't judge, people judge.

      She published her nekkid pictures to the public, and t
    • Should people judge her based on who she used to be, what she did to survive within a specific context of existance?

      No, they shouldn't judge her based on that. But that's a moral statement about what they should do, not what she should be able to do to keep them from judging. She has no right to erase the past; if she can't appeal to her employer's conscience and convince him that having made porn in the past won't interfere with doing her job today (or simply that it's none of his damn business), then he

    • Haunting past (Score:3, Informative)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      People have had foolish incidents from their past haunt them long before the internet was around. People do stupid things, and one of the deterrants against doing stupid things is that they may catch up to you in the future. Plenty of people have had their reputations/careers impacted upon when an old news article, police report, etc has surfaced... sorry but we don't need dumn legal wrangling to protect people from their own stupidity.
    • once released, it is now in public circulation. just like a newspaper, it can be stored and brought up at the worst time. fact is, it was release.

    • Re:When someone puts up a website... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @11:45PM (#13069807) Journal
      For example, say there is a college kid who really likes beer and porn. He likes it so much, he sets up a website that becomes popular, it lists different beers, and reviews porn. One drunken night, this college kid uses his cell phone to take a couple low resolution pictures of himself having sex, and he puts it up.

      A few years pass, somehow he graduates and starts looking for work. Someone tells him that his website comes up when googled, and that might not be the best thing when it comes for finding work.

      So the guy pulls the plug. beerandporn dot com dies. Or did it? It seems others liked his hobby as well, and downloaded all the content, and started hosting it. Problem is, google now links to these new sites, with his face and work for the world to see.

      Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?

      No, he shouldn't. If we're ever going to get over judging each other for such stupid bullshit when most of us have done something comperable or worse, the first thing we need is to have them all out in the open.

  • Oh boy (Score:4, Funny)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:22PM (#13068673) Homepage Journal
    Does anyone else think that this might be the end of RMS? I mean, it's one thing to take on the software industry, but it's quite another to take on the publishers of Harry Potter.
    • Don't worry. They have wizards, but RMS could probably count on the aid of the avatar of a god [catb.org].

    • Re:Oh boy (Score:3, Funny)

      by michaeldot ( 751590 )
      it's one thing to take on the software industry, but it's quite another to take on the publishers of Harry Potter.

      I don't know about the publishers, but if he takes on the kids then he's a dead man!

      Clearly RMS does not have children.

    • ... simply visit stallman.org and follow tinyurl. What troubles me more is that in the very same moment he removed his cellurar phone number given for anonymous contact from illegal HP readers, and i'm not sure i have his web page in cache.

  • Spelling problems (and for once, it's not /.) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MourningBlade ( 182180 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:28PM (#13068703) Homepage

    You know, as much as the community complains about /. spelling problems, when you see this printed as the headline in a newspaper article:

    Student's to fight charges

    it's a sad, sad day.

  • Berks county, home of illiterates (Score:5, Funny)

    by gkuz ( 706134 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:30PM (#13068721)
    The Berks County newspaper that writes about this comes out looking mighty fine, with a spelling mistake in the f'ing HEADLINE of the article, and at least three more in the article itself.

    Maybe the damn editor should go back to high school.

    • Small town papers tend to have quality issues. I used to get bonus points from my Junior High English teacher for bringing in articles from the newspaper that had spelling/grammar errors in them. She gave up on the practice after about a month. The local paper made it waaay too easy.
  • Hobart writes "Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot - in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling

    By the way, if anyone contacts me anonymously giving me some of the plot information that these Canadians have been forbidden to read in the books they bought, I will post the information. I am not a Harry Potter fan, and I would not have greatly minded whether I learned the plot of this book t

    • Did this guy just put up his phone number on the internet??

      apparently, but i got nothing more than a geeky sounding RMS voicemail.

    • This reminds me of the movie "Basic Instinct", with Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone (the movie where she shows her twat). Anyways, some lesbian-homo weirdo group, in protest that the movie makes lesbians look like werdios, decided to leak the ending. They group had people go to movie theaters and talk about the ending of the movie, while people waited in line to buy the tickets.

      What does this have to do with anything? I didn't see any mention of RMS trying to force the plotline down people's throats be

    • Speaking of phone numbers, and regarding the psychotic school district who charges their curious and evil hacker children as felons when they try to do naughty things with their impenetrable Macs...

      The phone number of the Kutztown Borough Police Department is 610-683-3545 and the extension of Officer Walt Skavinsky, who wrote this beautiful thing [cutusabreak.org] is 145. If he is not in, please leave a message and he will return it as soon as possible, so says the letter.

      If you'd rather fax him something, 610-683-927

  • Nature of the internet vs copyright (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:33PM (#13068748) Homepage Journal

    The case against the wayback machine is particularly interesting here, as it shows the internet's natural route-around-censorship/deletion (through things like the google cache, and archive.org) being contested by those who hold the copyrights on said material. Its been long acknowledged that storing people's websites indefinitely is something that could place mirror/cache hosters in a legal grey area, but it seems that most knowledgeable internet publishers have come to accept that their content will be archive & stored and place safeguards accordingly (like approval-to-publish CMS systems and in-house content review).

    Business websites are perhaps a special case, as to me their public front represents almost a brochure of their services, with advertising text and relevant numbers. I don't really see why data like that being historically available (as it would be in any other format) is such a big problem, especially for a trademark dispute.

  • Canadian Supreme Court (Score:5, Informative)

    by JohnWiney ( 656829 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:34PM (#13068749)
    It was not the "Canadian Supreme Court" that made this ruling, it was the Supreme Court of British Columbia, according to the link new report. I know foreign geography is tough for Americans. It does make a difference - I am virtually certain that the injunction would be declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada if it was ever taken that far.

  • Yet again Slashdot mangles the story (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lew Pitcher ( 68631 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:35PM (#13068756) Homepage

    No, it was not the Canadian Supreme Court (aka the Supreme Court of Canada) that permitted the injunction.

    Instead, it was the Supreme Court of British Colombia that made that ruling. There's a world of difference, just like the difference between the State Supreme Court of California and the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

    It would be nice if the submitter of the story (or the editor who summarized it) could RTFA, but I guess that would be too much for Slashdot

  • "You can watch the entire episode online."
    Not correct.
    Here's quotes from the official page about it
    Part one:
    " This portion of "The Tressaurian Intersection" is
    in the final stages of post production.
    for details, please visit EXETERSTUDIO.COM."
    Part two:
    " This portion of "The Tressaurian Intersection" is
    scheduled for release on Friday, July 22, 2005."
    Part three:
    " This portion of "The Tressaurian Intersection" is
    scheduled for release on Friday, August 5, 2005."
    Credits:
    " This portion of "The Tressaurian Intersec
  • The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids

    Best Book EVER.

    http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380 578026/102-5071418-2785734?v=glance [amazon.com]

  • The Tressaurian Intersection episode is great! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:40PM (#13068785)
    Wesley crosses a Tressaurian street in flagrant violation of the Tressaurian "Don't Walk!" sign and is sentenced to death, with sexy results.

  • No human right to read (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chris Burke ( 6130 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:41PM (#13068794) Homepage
    Remember that phrase, you're going to hear it a lot.

    The crime that was committed was unauthorized distribution by the store selling the books. Copyright owners do not have any authority over you reading a book, only copying it. But they want that authority. And "no right to read" is the phrase they will use to get it.

    I think I liked the old universe better. You know, the one where Richard Stallman seemed like a nut with crazy predictions of the future?

  • Protest Against WHO? Clearly Canada Sucks (Score:3, Funny)

    by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:47PM (#13068825) Homepage
    I've heard of worst protests than the one Richard proposes...
    a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for.
    But, quote the article:
    But readers will be unable to share their knowledge after Raincoast Books, the book's Canadian publisher, was granted a "John Doe" injunction prohibiting the buyers from even reading their copies before the publication date.You need to hurt Raincoast Books and the Canadian Supreme Court, not J.K. Rowling, or the U.S. publisher of her books, Arthur A. Levine Books, or anyone else.

    To protest the publisher, don't buy ANY Raincoast Books. If you are a .ca resident who wants to protest, but also wants to read Harry Potter, grab it from you library or pick up an import copy. If you want to protest the Supreme Court, don't obey this mandate, write protest letters, and work on getting better justices picked.

    If you aren't in Canada, laugh at them. What else do you expect from a counyty where a pizza can get to your house faster than an ambulance, there is handicap parking places in front of a skating rink, and people leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put useless junk in the garage?

    • Missing tag (Score:2, Informative)

      by Noksagt ( 69097 )
      Clearly the article didn't quote THAT much...Corrected:

      I've heard of worst protests than the one Richard proposes...

      a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for.

      But, quote the article:

      But readers will be unable to share their knowledge after Raincoast Books, the book's Canadian publisher, was granted a "John Doe" injunction prohibiting the buyers from even reading their copies b

      • where a pizza can get to your house faster than an ambulance

        Ah, yes, but that's because our health care doesn't cost us anything. The reason the US ambulances are so fast is because they can smell your money, and they're trying to stay ahead of the pack of lawyers chasing them.

      • Re:Missing tag (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Jardine ( 398197 )
        there is handicap parking places in front of a skating rink

        And just where should the handicapped park if they want to go skating?

  • private property! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:55PM (#13068878) Homepage Journal
    There is no right to read. If I write something, there is no body in the universe that should force me to publish the writing. However, if I have a contract to write something and supply it to a certain entity, I then have the obligation to supply that writing in accordance to the contract.

    In the end This is not realy abut the right to read, but property rights. If I legally buy a product, that is legally available(and by that I mean that is in not on a government list of contraband), then I should be able to use it any way unless it was stipulated prior to the purchase that such use was forbidden.

    Certainly all that is idealized, and it is often necessary to put restrictions on certain property after the fact, but what we are talking about in this case it a book. I do not know of any law that says it is illegal to buy a book before the official release data. I know of no law that says it is illegal to talk about a book before the release date. There are contract terms that prevent these things, but i doubt the purchasers of this book signed any of those contracts. It is really the fault of the retail outlets that sold the books, and any consequences are theirs

    If I cared about this lame corporate utterances, and had a copy of the book, i would have read it and posted a review. I am happy that the kids have something to read, and that they are reading, but at the end of the day this just proves that absolute power leads absolutely to evil.

    • Excellent post... pretty much sums up my thoughts on the legal side of things.

      What troubles me just as much about this whole thing is the fact that Rowling, et al., think it is so bloody important to protect the content of these books in this manner. I mean, really, these are, for all intents and purposes, just children's books (which happen to appeal to some adults, as well). Why are they being safeguarded like classified information?

      Someone might say that, in today's book market, there is a lot of money

  • Wrong Supreme Courg (Score:5, Informative)

    by darkonc ( 47285 ) <stephen_samuel AT bcgreen DOT com> on Thursday July 14, 2005 @08:58PM (#13068895) Homepage Journal
    It's not The Supreme Court of Canada [umontreal.ca], It's the Supreme Court of British Columbia [gov.bc.ca]. The later is more like a State Superior Court in the US. It can be overruled by the BC Court of Appeals which can then be overruled by the SCC. It's a little bit confusing, but -- hey! It's law.

    The Pecking Order for BC:

    1. Supreme Court of Canada Court of last resort
    2. BC Court of Appeals Normally sits as 3 judges but can reconsider it's own rullings with a bank of 5 or 7
    3. BC Supreme Court Civil court, major felonies and appeals of lower courts
    4. BC Provincial Court non-indictable crimes
    Somewhere about the provincial court level you can also throw in family and small claims court.

    BTW: The injunction is probably unconstitutional, but I can't see anybody appealing it.. By the time the appeal went thru, the book would be released. I'm guessing that the judge who issued it just didn't want to face down his/her kids for not protecting 'ol Harry.

  • RMS doesn't understand the meaning of free speech (Score:4, Interesting)

    by geekee ( 591277 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @09:06PM (#13068936)
    from RMS's website:
    " Here's the text of a complaint that I am sending to the TSA for misleading treatment at Logan Airport.

    When I continued to verbally criticize the conduct of the agents, and didn't sit down and shut up, they called the State Police, and one Officer Gillespie told me that "Unless you shut up I will throw you out." I asked if that meant he would arrest me for speaking, and he said, "No, for making a scene." (Different words for the same act.) I told him that was bullying and abuse of power, and refused to shut up. "

    Stallman doesn't seem to understand that the right to free speech doesn't also mean the right to a platform for free speech. Airlines rent space at airports, and if they don't want you there because your a belligerent ass, then they have the right to call the cops to kick you out. You don't have the right to make people listen to you, RMS.
    • And also, federal employees, i.e. TSA employees, aren't required to listen to RMS's speech either under the constitution. TSA security is there to enforce security, not put up with his bs. If he thinks TSA procedures are wrong, or doesn't like the conduct of a particular agent, arguing with the agent isn't going to solve anything. He should try exercising his "free speech" in a court room, and see how long before they throw him out after he fails to obey the judge telling him to shut up.
    • RMS has never understand that the right to free speech is NOT the right to force others to listen to your bullshit. But he isn't alone in that; we're surrounded by people who believe the very same thing and refuse to accept a world where anyone not interested in what you have to say can simply walk away.

      Or, if you're on their property, tell you to either shut the fuck up or leave.

      Max
    • Uhhh, a state police officer has no right to throw you out of anywhere for "making a scene".
      • Wrong. If the owner or their designated agent request it, the police an remove a person from anywhere, and issue a trespass warrant barring one's return. You don't even have to make a scene.

        Disturbing the peace is a crime. Making a scene can be disturbing the peace and can get you arrested.
        • Wrong. If the owner or their designated agent request that you leave their property and you refuse the police can remove you. They can't just assult you without provocation. God I hate you bend-over-for-the-man wussies.
          • Wrong again.

            From personal experience, I know what I am talking about. I was in a store. Someone didn't like my looks and called the cops. I didn't do anything and no one asked me to leave. Cops came, the manager swore out a trespass warrant, and I was escorted from the property.

            God I hate you think-you-know-it-all dumb asses.
            • Sigh, "escorted" is not the same as "dragged kicking and screaming".. it's really simple, IF you are asked to leave AND you refuse THEN the police (or the owner or owner's delgate) may use force to remove you. If they don't ask you to leave and just start assaulting you they are breaking the law. Otherwise how would you know the difference between someone assaulting you to get you out of the store vs someone assaulting you because they didn't like your T-shirt. Oh, and BTW, if you have paid for goods an
  • If you didn't RTFA then you missed the student's website [cutusabreak.org]

  • Harry Potter Plot (Score:3, Funny)

    by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @10:32PM (#13069421) Homepage
    Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot

    I haven't read any of the books or seen any of the movies but I can guess the plot is something like "stupid dork gets picked on by bullies but through virtue of some hidden talent he manages to defeat a great evil and save the world".

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @11:09PM (#13069591)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

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