To be clear, when I say “protestors” I mean the average Joe who changed his Facebook profile pic and made some topic on a forum about how terrible it is, not actual businesses whose livelihood depends on the Internet. For businesses, I can understand how such a law would be prioritized so highly.
But let’s get back to the average Joes of the world. Government regulation of the Internet is bad, period, end of story (bonus, off-topic note, a lot of the same people who are protesting SOPA want the government to pass “net neutrality” laws, weird). I am not the least bit in favor of SOPA, PIPA, or whatever new bill will surely be next, somewhat watered down, but probably just as bad.
But I cannot seem to stomach much outrage over this particular bill. I didn’t call my Congressman. I didn’t even bother to check to see which way my Congressman was going. Perhaps you didn’t hear, but about a month ago, the Congress passed and Obama signed the NDAA, which gives the executive branch (via the military) the power to indefinitely detain American civilians without a trial, without representation, and without due process of any kind so long as they are deemed (by the military or the justice department, presumably) to belong to a terrorist group or “associated forces” (nobody seems to know what constitutes an “associated force”). Don’t worry though, Obama said he had reservations about this power. I’m sure he’d never use it.
Of course, prior to the NDAA being signed, it was revealed (and commented about on THIS VERY BLOG) that the President had already claimed the authority to actually KILL American citizens who were suspected of terrorism with no due process whatsoever. Basically, some unknown panel can put people (including American citizens) on a secret kill-list. We don’t know who is on that list right now. We don’t know what criteria are used to place people on that list. All we know is that someone in Washington can decide you’re a terrorist, and then Obama can order a drone to drop a bomb on your house (and your 16 year old son).
The Internet doesn’t seem to care about these things too much. The government claims the authority to ACTUALLY KILL YOU based on unknown criteria, and nobody minds. The government threatens to take down some websites, and everyone freaks out. The SOPA protestors need to seriously re-examine their priorities. A free and unregulated Internet isn’t really all that free if the government can kill you for saying something bad about it on said Internet. Wikipedia won’t do you much good when a predator drone just created a smoldering crater where your house used to be. I encourage everyone who was outraged about SOPA to keep digging and looking closer at just what authority the government has claimed over the last decade or so. Doing so will probably lead you to the inevitable conclusion that government is corrupt, and that we need less of it. A conclusion already held by many brilliant individuals!
the actual reason it didn't outrage you is because it outraged enough people to put you in the actual majority, and you just don't take any pride in being in the majority.
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No disagreement here! I've been diligently contacting my congressman about both issues! I do agree that it's a much more alarming affront to freedom than SOPA, but you really shouldn't let the fact that one issue is unheralded stop you from protesting others! It makes sense that the Internet is more up in arms about SOPA/PIPA since it will actually affect their daily lives. The "average Joe" probably won't spew enough anti-government propaganda to ever be put on a kill list, so they don't really care!
-- You saved science, SuperNiceDog! Call me numbers.
So you pretty much just spend all day thinking about which opinion you can decide to have that will get the most people on B8 to disagree with you, and then make a topic about it.
tereziWright posted... So you pretty much just spend all day thinking about which opinion you can decide to have that will get the most people on B8 to disagree with you, and then make a topic about it.
Pretty pitiful.
Do people here actually disagree with this topic??
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So you pretty much just spend all day thinking about which opinion you can decide to have that will get the most people on B8 to disagree with you, and then make a topic about it.
Pretty pitiful.
So you pretty much just spend your entire life thinking about which opinions I have so you can come into my topics and disagree with them?
Pretty pitiful.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
From: redrocket | #009 tereziWright posted... So you pretty much just spend all day thinking about which opinion you can decide to have that will get the most people on B8 to disagree with you, and then make a topic about it.
Pretty pitiful.
Do people here actually disagree with this topic??
Disagree is the wrong word. "Cause the most annoyance" is more appropriate.
From: SmartMuffin | #011 So you pretty much just spend all day thinking about which opinion you can decide to have that will get the most people on B8 to disagree with you, and then make a topic about it.
Pretty pitiful.
So you pretty much just spend your entire life thinking about which opinions I have so you can come into my topics and disagree with them?
GuessMyUserName posted... also, are you seriously making a topic whining that people are talking about one issue more than another, completely unrelated issue? dear god
No, don't you get it? They're related because you may be on the internet when the government nukes your house, duh.
-- SEP Nash, Smelling Like the Vault since 1996 Step FOUR! Get Paid! http://img.imgcake.com/stevenashgifpu.gif
The issue of oppressive government overreaching its authority is NOT unrelated.
Personally, I think the leap of logic between "SOPA will result in Wikipedia being seized by the government" and "the NDAA will result in average citizens being detained" is about equal. SOPA obviously was not created for that intention, people are just worried (and RIGHTFULLY SO) that the government will use it to overreach their authority in unintended ways.
That's the exact same fear people have about the NDAA. It's just that if SOPA goes wrong, oh well, you don't have Wikipedia. If the NDAA goes wrong you're ****ing dead.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
the actual reason it didn't outrage you is because it outraged enough people to put you in the actual majority, and you just don't take any pride in being in the majority.
this. You come across as somebody who has opinions on things for indie cred right now.
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Disagree is the wrong word. "Cause the most annoyance" is more appropriate.
What exactly is annoying about this topic?
No, don't you get it? They're related because you may be on the internet when the government nukes your house, duh.
They are related because they are both examples of Congress passing laws that grossly and blatantly abridge fundamental Constitutional rights. Why are people acting like they have nothing in common? They have a lot in common.
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From his looks Magus is Macho Man Randy Savage as an anime zombie. The black wind howls, and one of you will snap into a Slim Jim ooh yeeeah! -sonicblastpunch
Personally, I think the leap of logic between "SOPA will result in Wikipedia being seized by the government" and "the NDAA will result in average citizens being detained" is about equal. SOPA obviously was not created for that intention, people are just worried (and RIGHTFULLY SO) that the government will use it to overreach their authority in unintended ways.
I don't agree. SOPA is much closer to direct censorship of the internet (China style) than NDAA is to average citizens being detained (Stalin USSR style). Obamacare leading to death panels is somewhere in between.
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Both are horrible bills of course and should be stopped. But people often do not think about events with a low probability and extremely high damage if it happens. For example, take minor property theft crimes like shoplifting. Your gain is low, the probability of being caught is low, the potential damage to lifetime expected income is astronomically high. But people do it.
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I don't agree. SOPA is much closer to direct censorship of the internet (China style) than NDAA is to average citizens being detained (Stalin USSR style). Obamacare leading to death panels is somewhere in between.
I don't see what you're basing this on. It's the SAME government bureaucracy we're talking about here. If we don't trust the government to make good decisions about which sites are really hotbeds for distributing pirated goods, why do we trust them to make good decisions about which people really are violent terrorists?
This is like looking at your creepy neighbor down the street and saying, "Well, I don't think he's responsible enough to water my plants while I'm on vacation, but I don't see the harm in allowing him to babysit my twelve year old daughter!"
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
I don't see what you're basing this on. It's the SAME government bureaucracy we're talking about here. If we don't trust the government to make good decisions about which sites are really hotbeds for distributing pirated goods, why do we trust them to make good decisions about which people really are violent terrorists?
Because there are real people in government, and they are not necessarily evil. Often what a bureaucracy does is not what the people in it intend, but they do have some say. It takes more time for us to fall down the slope to what people think are truly horrible things than to what people think are less horrible things. We agree that death is worse than internet censorship, so it'll be harder for death to be implemented.
Remember, each step down the slope is not inevitable, so being further away from the bottom means both that we are further from it in time, and also in probability that we will finally arrive there.
I want to say if it wasn't clear that I do not think the NDAA is less bad than SOPA. The bottom is worse to a great enough extent that it's a worse bill, even if the bottom outcome is less likely and further away. But many people do not think that way.
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Ok, so the government can legally kill me, or my friends, with predator drones. I don't think they actually will. I've never gotten so much as a traffic ticket (even though I totally deserved one, but got away with the cop just giving me some friendly pointers. I must come across as a total ditz). Seriously, what motivation does the government have to kill me? Do they not like the taxes I give them?
Having Youtube shut down, on the other hand, would suck, and there are companies who actually have the motivation to do so.
And this isn't even entirely hypothetical--there's quite a bit of game development in China these days; it's not inconceivable that I might spend some time there. I'm pretty sure I'd personally be a lot more bothered by the government blocking websites than I would by the fact that technically the government can legally kill me. I mean, yeah, being killed would really suck, but China is an economically motivated government--being employed and bringing technical expertise, they honestly want me around.
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Because there are real people in government, and they are not necessarily evil. Often what a bureaucracy does is not what the people in it intend, but they do have some say. It takes more time for us to fall down the slope to what people think are truly horrible things than to what people think are less horrible things. We agree that death is worse than internet censorship, so it'll be harder for death to be implemented.
Here's the thing though, bureaucracy KNOWS how this works and has already put in a lot of failsafes designed to circumvent this. It's not as if there's some Judge Dredd figure running around getting to be judge, jury, and executioner on these matters. They use the separation of duties to obtain an immoral result, while each person in the chain gets to pretend that they aren't being all that immoral at all.
There will be one group in charge of determining what groups are "terrorist groups" and what groups aren't.
There will be a different group in charge of determining what "forces" are "associated" with the already defined terrorist groups.
There will be another group in charge of investigating the various individuals who comprise the already defined "associated forces."
There will be another group in charge of determining which of those individuals are truly dangerous and worthy of being indefinitely detained and/or killed.
There will be another group in charge of actually carrying out the detention and/or killing of those who have already been defined as "terrorists."
No person in this chain will feel like they perpetuated some great evil. Do you think for one second that the guy piloting the drone who killed Al-Awlaki thinks he did something terribly wrong? Do you think that guy did extensive research or was given a complete and thorough briefing on why it was okay to assassinate this man? Do you think he even cared to have one if it was offered to him (which I'm quite sure it wasn't). Of course not.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Here's the thing though, bureaucracy KNOWS how this works and has already put in a lot of failsafes designed to circumvent this. It's not as if there's some Judge Dredd figure running around getting to be judge, jury, and executioner on these matters. They use the separation of duties to obtain an immoral result, while each person in the chain gets to pretend that they aren't being all that immoral at all.
Separation of powers slows this down, not speeds it up. That's why our system of government with its checks and balances has worked for so long.
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Separation of powers slows this down, not speeds it up
It's not about speed or efficiency though. You're right that separation of powers makes things take longer, but it also makes immoral actions more likely to occur.
It's like how if someone is in trouble and there's a crowd of people standing around, you don't shout "somebody help!" because everyone will assume someone else is going to help. You point at one person and say, "Hey you, in the green shirt, do X" because then he feels personally responsible, and if he is morally decent, will most likely do X.
Your logic of "government officials are moral human beings and therefore won't kill Americans for dumb reasons" only holds if the people doing the killing and the people in charge of dealing with the reasons are the same. The average police officer doesn't know the intimate details of the case against the person he is sent to arrest. The average soldier isn't given the argument and justification as to why so-called-terrorist so-and-so needs to be killed. That way, the cop and the soldier don't feel guilty, it's not their responsibility. Meanwhile, the people making the decisions that lead to the immoral outcome are so far removed from witnessing the outcome that they don't have to deal with the psychological ramifications of it either.
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
1) I agree that it's messed up 2) it shows the influence $$ has. No particular businesses were threatened by ndaa. Many were threatened by soupkite 3) baby steps. Some intermittent participation is better than none.
Meanwhile, the people making the decisions that lead to the immoral outcome are so far removed from witnessing the outcome that they don't have to deal with the psychological ramifications of it either.
They do have to deal with it. Ultimately for the bad outcome to happen the leader(s) have to either want it to happen, or rationalize it by believing that it's for the greater good. Granted, it's not that hard for that to happen, but it's still true that the more checks and balances are in place, the longer it takes.
And I'd argue that the longer it takes, the less likely it is to happen in the end. Why? Because time changes the situation very, very, quickly. Other countries interfere. Economics interferes. New technology interferes. Moreover, as we get closer and closer to the bad outcome, we necessarily have more and more power in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Or else we will never reach the bottom. But that means it becomes easier for someone in a position of power to break the chain. We just need to luck out and have someone in there who wants to do it, whereas before, when we were dealing with a huge bureaucracy, no one was in charge and no one could stop it.
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Well, you guys lived under the patriot act for a while, which was more or less functionally identical and didn't implode. Which is not to say the patriot act was good legislation in any way, shape, or form (they're both god awful), but there's also the annoying functional problem of this being legislation that includes budget implementation so doesn't like, no one in the military get paid unless the NDAA is signed? (like, I dunno how it works, so yeah)
There's also the thing where the track record of the US Govt, while pretty poor on that front is nothing compared to the RIAA/MPAA record for suing everyone, their granny, and their kids into oblivion. You could be reasonably certain the govt won't immediately start jailing and executing everyone they suspect of terrorism once the NDAA went into effect. In contrast, you can be reasonably certain that the RIAA/MPAA would shut down everything they could reasonably make a claim for at the first possible opportunity available to them.
We're STILL living under the patriot act, and in fact, the patriot act was the inspiration for the NDAA. Part of the reason people like Obama excused it was by claiming "well we probably already have these powers from the patriot act anyway so who cares?"
And red sox, it seems that you've now changed your argument. You were saying nothing bad would happen because people in government were too moral. Now you're saying that it won't happen because it takes awhile and is inefficient.
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Well, you guys lived under the patriot act for a while, which was more or less functionally identical and didn't implode. Which is not to say the patriot act was good legislation in any way, shape, or form (they're both god awful), but there's also the annoying functional problem of this being legislation that includes budget implementation so doesn't like, no one in the military get paid unless the NDAA is signed? (like, I dunno how it works, so yeah)
Yeah, but Obama or congressmen opposed to the bill could have called the supporters' bluff and said: if you don't pass a military spending bill without this, and the troops don't get paid, it's your own fault. And you will pay at the next elections.
There's also the thing where the track record of the US Govt, while pretty poor on that front is nothing compared to the RIAA/MPAA record for suing everyone, their granny, and their kids into oblivion. You could be reasonably certain the govt won't immediately start jailing and executing everyone they suspect of terrorism once the NDAA went into effect. In contrast, you can be reasonably certain that the RIAA/MPAA would shut down everything they could reasonably make a claim for at the first possible opportunity available to them.
With the RIAA/MPAA, you have a court system protecting you at least. They can't sue you into oblivion unless you actually did something wrong.
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And red sox, it seems that you've now changed your argument. You were saying nothing bad would happen because people in government were too moral. Now you're saying that it won't happen because it takes awhile and is inefficient.
Oh no, I always meant it would take time. Individuals being moral just slows the thing down.
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With regards to the RIAA/MPAA though, I'm pretty shocked by the astronomically high jury verdicts. Do people on these juries have no idea how the market works? Like, the RIAA probably tries to select jurors who never ever listen to music, but how is it they can succeed when the defense gets to screen out jurors too?
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From: red sox 777 | #034 With regards to the RIAA/MPAA though, I'm pretty shocked by the astronomically high jury verdicts. Do people on these juries have no idea how the market works? Like, the RIAA probably tries to select jurors who never ever listen to music, but how is it they can succeed when the defense gets to screen out jurors too?
Keep in mind though, must jurors are still probably old people who have no idea how the Internet works.
As the "Internet generation" grows up, you're going to see it get much harder to convict people on these things. Jury nullification anyone?
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Keep in mind though, must jurors are still probably old people who have no idea how the Internet works.
As the "Internet generation" grows up, you're going to see it get much harder to convict people on these things. Jury nullification anyone?
Well, I'm not talking about jury nullification here, but just using basic sense in deciding what damages are. How much does uploading a song hurt the company? Maybe a few cents per download. Free songs and bought songs aren't substitutes.
Though I guess if jurors do act that way, people would have pretty much carte blanche to upload/download as much as they like, because the RIAA/MPAA will have to just stop litigating the cases. They're not going to spend upwards of 100k paying lawyers to sue someone and end up getting less than $1000 in damages. It's a weird sort of reverse class action.
I wonder if that's what the jurors that have awarded these massive damages are thinking- that they need to protect the industry. May be giving them too much credit.
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SmartMuffin posted... We're STILL living under the patriot act, and in fact, the patriot act was the inspiration for the NDAA. Part of the reason people like Obama excused it was by claiming "well we probably already have these powers from the patriot act anyway so who cares?"
Isn't the NDAA only in effect for one year, being a budget implementation bill? (again, I dunno how the American system works, just going off how ours works) Isn't that then functionally doing pretty close to nothing?
I mean, bad legislation's bad, but if it literally changes the status quo in no way, it's really hard to get people up in arms about it.
red sox 777 posted... Yeah, but Obama or congressmen opposed to the bill could have called the supporters' bluff and said: if you don't pass a military spending bill without this, and the troops don't get paid, it's your own fault. And you will pay at the next elections.
True, but it could just be seen as stubbornness on their part for essentially looping in legislation that does nothing.
With the RIAA/MPAA, you have a court system protecting you at least. They can't sue you into oblivion unless you actually did something wrong.
The wonder of SOPA/PIPA is that you can shut down sites without due process at all.
With regards to the RIAA/MPAA though, I'm pretty shocked by the astronomically high jury verdicts. Do people on these juries have no idea how the market works? Like, the RIAA probably tries to select jurors who never ever listen to music, but how is it they can succeed when the defense gets to screen out jurors too?
This is a world where SOPA/PIPA were seriously considered. Legislation which literally doesn't solve the problem at all (workarounds as obvious and simple as "just type in an IP address instead" and "resolve with a foreign DNS") and rife with potential for abuse.
People understand absolutely jack about these things.
red sox 777 posted... With the RIAA/MPAA, you have a court system protecting you at least. They can't sue you into oblivion unless you actually did something wrong.
They have a very successful record of suing the s*** out of people for pretty minor crimes (I don't see how anyone could reasonably decide that the damages for downloading a single song are like $10k or $100k or whatever the ridiculous amount the RIAA claims they are). Furthermore, under SOPA/PIPA you'd have a "shut down websites now, justify it in court later" situation, so the MPAA/RIAA/etc get exactly what they want with no consequences unless one of their victims can prove they acted in bad faith (which is pretty damn hard to do).
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Well, I'm not talking about jury nullification here, but just using basic sense in deciding what damages are. How much does uploading a song hurt the company? Maybe a few cents per download. Free songs and bought songs aren't substitutes.
Personally, I've always thought a fair punishment is "twice the value of what was stolen." In other words, if you stole like five movies, you have to pay the full retail price of those five movies, times two (once to replace what you stole, and once more for the purposes of punishment).
I wonder if that's what the jurors that have awarded these massive damages are thinking- that they need to protect the industry. May be giving them too much credit.
I believe there are federal guidelines for these things. Obviously you're talking civil and not criminal, but I think the criminal charges can be used as a guideline, and they're something ridiculous, like a thousand dollars per offense or something, and of course, the RIAA (or the government) would see each individual song as a separate offense. One of my friends was in the business of selling pirated PSX/DC games back in the day, and we once calculated that if he were caught and prosecuted, he could be like $300k or something.
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Now that I think about it, SOPA sounds like a response to jurors not awarding enough damages, making the entertainment industry feel like they can't protect their IP through the civil justice system. I was thinking about what I'd do if I were in their place and jurors did start awarding lower sums.
Now that I think of it, they probably have lost money overall suing people. For every million dollar verdict, they have hundreds of cases settled for a few thousand, and they probably paid their lawyers more than that on them. (Costs them $500-$1000 an hour, as they are probably hiring top, expensive, law firms) And I doubt they actually got anywhere near a million dollars from so much as a single defendant so far, because they don't have that much money.
So, basically, the industry hasn't been using its lawsuits to actually make back losses from pirating. They couldn't hope to manage that, because they have to sue each defendant separately and it costs them $500+/hr to sue a defendant. They've been using the lawsuits as a way of making people stop pirating out of fear of being sued. SOPA basically has the same goal, only it gets the government to take legal action instead of the RIAA/MPAA, saving them from having to pay attorney's fees.
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No, that's not how the RIAA worked; they basically sent you a letter notifying you that if you didn't pay them like $15000 or something, they would sue the s*** out of you; I'm fairly certain they didn't sit down and settle with the people individually. I've never heard of them losing a case; I imagine most of the letters they sent out resulted in payment with little expense on their part.
A lot like a shakedown IMO.
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Personally, I've always thought a fair punishment is "twice the value of what was stolen." In other words, if you stole like five movies, you have to pay the full retail price of those five movies, times two (once to replace what you stole, and once more for the purposes of punishment).
I think people have been hit with big damages for uploading, not downloading. They don't go after people who only download, because it's obvious they're not going to get an amount worth their time. But if you upload, thousands of people can download what you uploaded, and that's where they get the insane damage calculations. Like, retail price x number of times downloaded. That assumes that each person who downloaded would have bought the item otherwise, which is flatly untrue.
The criminal fines are of course disproportionate to the crime, but their purpose is pretty clearly to be a deterrent. That's not what's supposed to happen in a civil trial, legally.
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In any case, why AREN'T we talking about jury nullification?
The reason the NDAA is so dangerous is because so long as you're accused of being a "terrorist" rather than a criminal, you don't get a lawyer, due process, or a trial by a jury of your peers.
For any trials where there IS a jury though, nullification can be used to fight unjust laws, whether it's piracy, the drug war, or whatever. The media will never tell you this, but there are plenty of first-hand accounts of jurors who acquitted people who were quite obviously guilty of drug possession.
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No, that's not how the RIAA worked; they basically sent you a letter notifying you that if you didn't pay them like $15000 or something, they would sue the s*** out of you; I'm fairly certain they didn't sit down and settle with the people individually. I've never heard of them losing a case; I imagine most of the letters they sent out resulted in payment with little expense on their part.
A lot like a shakedown IMO.
Well the thing is they probably lose several hundred thousand dollars on every case that does go to trial. They get a $1M+ verdict, which is useless because the defendant can't pay it, and they're stuck paying very high attorney fees. High because these were high profile cases, which they could not afford to lose or get a low amount of damages on, because that would open to floodgates to more piracy.
There are also probably plenty of people who initially refuse to settle but ultimately do settle before trial for something in the single digit thousands. They lose money on these cases too because they've spent more on litigating it by the time they reach the settlement than they get in settlement. And then you have people who receive their letter in the mail and send back a check. Those people they do make money on, although even there it's offset in the expenses incurred in finding out who they are and getting enough info to think they are going to have a good chance of winning a case.
They really really want you to settle, that's why they offer settlements in the single digit thousands when all the cases that have gone to trial have resulted in damages in the hundreds of thousands to millions. And they try to make you settle by using the only weapon they have here- albeit a very powerful weapon- that you can't afford to lose a million dollars taking this case to trial, while they can.
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I'm not entirely sure about all these attorneys fees you're referring to. Wouldn't these industry behemoths have salaried attorneys already on staff anyway? And if not, don't most attorneys charge a commission rather than a flat fee?
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all I see is that the average Joe is more affected by SOPA/PIPA/whatever than the stuff you mentioned it doesn't seem hard to understand why one is causing a bigger uproar than the other
I'm not entirely sure about all these attorneys fees you're referring to. Wouldn't these industry behemoths have salaried attorneys already on staff anyway? And if not, don't most attorneys charge a commission rather than a flat fee?
Attorneys are not going to agree to work on a contingency fee on a case like this, because they know the defendant doesn't have the money to pay up. That's the problem in suing a person who is not rich for large sums of money. Even if you win you don't win.
They probably do have salaried lawyers on staff, yeah, and that's probably cheaper than hiring an outside law firm, but it's still expensive because they've still got to put in the same hours on the case. Why would a lawyer work for the RIAA or MPAA if he can get paid more at a law firm? The RIAA/MPAA gets to save themselves their contribution to a law firm's profits by hiring salaried lawyers directly, but it's still pretty expensive- note that they would hire fewer attorneys if they weren't litigating all these piracy cases.
I find this discussion pretty interesting, because there are workarounds for the more common situation, where the roles are flipped. Individuals suing a large company can bring one case together as a class, saving a lot of litigation costs. (Or at least could.....the Supreme Court's latest ruling that people can waive their right to be part of a class action by contract is rather disturbing for this reason). And, because the large company has money, the lawyers will probably agree to be paid a percentage of the damages awarded.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.
note that they would hire fewer attorneys if they weren't litigating all these piracy cases.
Theoretically yes, but of course that requires you to believe in efficient markets and capitalism working and all that crazy cooky right-wing stuff everyone on this board denies!
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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized - http://img.imgcake.com/smartmuffin/barkleyjpgde.jpg http://dudewheresmyfreedom.com/
Theoretically yes, but of course that requires you to believe in efficient markets and capitalism working and all that crazy cooky right-wing stuff everyone on this board denies!
Well that's obviously true, and I'm sure large companies who are actually doing business are quite well aware of it. Er....whether or not markets are 100% efficient, most people (and definitely large companies) can agree they are efficient to a pretty high level.
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Congratulations to SuperNiceDog, Guru Winner, who was smart enough to pick your 7 time champion, Link.