Viewing profile — sociotech

A rule (called prosecutorial immunity ) without which it would be almost impossible for the criminal law to function. Would you prosecute Bernie Madoff knowing he could tie you up …

You should look more closely at the history. RSS (at least, the branch of it that people use), CC, and Reddit would have exactly the same form they have today - exactly! - without …

It reads like a parody of journalism.

I don't know anything about the Smith case, and I am not saying you (and Cullen) are wrong to draw the comparison and ask questions about it. However, it is very difficult to make …

I saw that too and read the Standard Law Review article. He is not credited it in. He may have helped a law student write a Python script, which she then used. The article does men…

What exactly is Boyle's argument? He rehashes the now-typical hagiography. Then he seems to argue that should influence legal policy. This is wrong for two reasons. One, the hagiog…

"Crime" often relies on "pre-crime." The legal definition of "burglary" is breaking into a building with an intent to steal or commit another serious crime. Prosecutors have to dec…

Google: site: http://www.justice.gov "if convicted, * faces" 57,700 results. There are many things to criticize about the universe, but the standard form language on US Attorneys' …

I just read this linked article and think it is excellent and very thoughtful. It is much more human than any of Lessig or Doctorow's self-serving comments, and it fits with my rec…

"This makes me wonder whether your senses have been dulled by taking too much of that standard practice for granted." Yes, that is totally fair. I have been thinking hard recently …

Bingo. I've been trying not to say petty things out of respect for recently departed people and his family, with whom I sympathize for this terrible, terrible thing. But the radica…

But that's ridiculous. The only thing that made this case big news was his death. It's worth reading over old HN threads on the criminal case. The consensus was pretty close to my …

Look, I guess you have no reason to believe me, but this is just not how the US government works. There's no staffer in the Administrative Office of the courts who's upset at Aaron…

The alleged crime WAS NOT merely violating the terms of service of a website. People really need to study the law before critiquing it.

If the government couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he intended to distribute the public-domain part of the archive, he would have won the largest part of his case, or …

If you think US Attys prosecute people because they organize peacefully against copyright laws, you're living in a different world from the real one.

"If it were only a '6 month low security setting' being discussed, why wouldn't Aaron have been told of this?" He was told. If you can even imagine that he wasn't, you need better …

No, no. Some of the articles were in the public domain, but not all of them. (The precise ratio could have been a relevant fact at sentencing for some of the charges, because it wo…

Well, it's not true either way. But that too is very rare. There's just too much risk with it, and it's not how most nontechies think. Look what actually happened in this case: Ort…

Maybe. It's the administrative system we've got, though, and we should be talking about how to reform the whole thing. Note how much Orin Kerr recently agreed with the points I mad…

To a center-left lawyer like me, this piece sparks the same concerns and the same dismissiveness that I feel when I read Tea Party rants.

This "TOS" stuff is another red herring. Even the EFF said the new proposed change in that law wouldn't have stopped the charges in this case. This case was about more than doing s…

Archive.org has the whole docket. It used to be a reference on his Wikipedia page, but it looks like it's not there anymore. You can find it in the history.

I haven't looked into the details, but "new technology" means something different to the public than it means to us. Publicizing a valuable database sounds like it's in their manda…