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Why I’m Suing the US Government

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231–240 of 327 posts

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#231

If you're in this thread to support this EFF-backed action, I would strongly consider donating to a cause you support: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/

Also be sure to click their Amazon affiliate link before buying stuff, it's an easy way to give for free.

You can also set them as your designated recipient for Amazon Smile and use a browser extension to put all applicable purchases through that program:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-always/jgpmh...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/amazonsmilere...

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#232

If you're in this thread to support this EFF-backed action, I would strongly consider donating to a cause you support: https://supporters.eff.org/donate/

What's the EFF stance on this particular lawsuit?

As linked at the end of the blog post:

https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-se...

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She barely takes home minimum wage and she is self-employed. Most of her peers are in a similar position. It is not a vocation you get in to for the money. Edit: A common problem in her sector, and other therapy sectors, is that all the recognised diagnosis and treatment systems get bought by the likes of Pearson and other big technical publishers who will demand recurring payments to use the system. For example Owls…

How much do you think it'd cost to replicate the software as an open source tool? I've written grants before for funding open source projects, and this anecdote boils my blood.

> I've written grants before for funding open source projects

Is this a common thing? I would absolutely love to be funded to work on a bespoke open source project for such a good cause.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you email me with the name of the software? Thank you.

Nice try DMCA

:D

I'm looking for potential new open source projects. Knowing about the software and its use helps me figure out if its doable (for me).

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#235
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does your wife charge as a therapist? Everyone needs to make money. HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry. Everyone hates laws until its in their best interest to have said laws.

She barely takes home minimum wage and she is self-employed. Most of her peers are in a similar position. It is not a vocation you get in to for the money. Edit: A common problem in her sector, and other therapy sectors, is that all the recognised diagnosis and treatment systems get bought by the likes of Pearson and other big technical publishers who will demand recurring payments to use the system. For example Owls…

How does she barely make minimum wage as a speech therapist? My mother worked in the school system for 20 years making nothing. Now works in skilled nursing, people that just had strokes and other trauma learning to speak, eat, or breathe correctly again. She makes around 80k and regularly picks up side jobs at other facilities for $50+ an hour.

I have another friend from college who works in a hospital and makes 70-80k. Although there isn't much increase over the years in a hospital.

Just curious because I'm familiar with the field. Are things different in Europe?

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am curious why, if they actually believe they have a good chance of success, this is only being filed now rather than in prior years? Has something changed? You need standing and money to sue. Based on the EFF release: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-se... > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, whe…

So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders? I don't find this litigant to be sympathetic in the least (the second one, Green, is much more reasonable - though redundant to the John Deere case going on). My initial impression is that I might actually want Huang to lose, if the…

And that merely makes you a copyright maximalist. Others feel differently, and the law itself is essentially an encoding of policy because here are no natural rights for retaining ownership of all derivative works in perpetuity.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No customer is or should be obligated to make obeisance to a company's "sacred" business model.

this company has not taken action to enforce DMCA or any other licensing gripe with the guy, so as yet he hasn't forced to pay obeisance to anything, and he didn't, so that issue is not really on the table. you are essentially taking the position that the company should be forced to sell its software unbundled with hardware because you would prefer it that way. Under your logic, the unicorn Uber could be forced to pr…

But you can still buy a car without signing up for uber.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if this suit is successful, it would mean that Section 1201 violates your First Amendment rights which in turn means that EULA also violates your First Amendment rights.

Under American contract law you can sign away any of your constitutional rights. Be careful what you put your magic squiggles on.

Not true: for example, you can't sign a contract that makes you a slave.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#239
post #49

This post about the damage inflicted by 1201 reminded me of another 1201: Halon 1201, banned because it depletes the ozone layer. A serendipitous coincidence, with this post talking about 1201 like an ecological threat. More seriously, the GPLv3 contains an interesting provision. Search for "Anti-Circumvention" in this to find the section: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0-standalone.html The second paragraph is p…

I'm not a lawyer either, but I doubt that clause has much effect, if any. The DMCA defines "effective technological measure" as follows:

> [A] technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

This seems like an objective metric, not something the copyright holder can arbitrarily "deem".

However, in the usual case people worry about, where a user is "circumventing" by modifying software on their own device, one could argue that given the "Installation Information" clauses and the other parts of the GPLv3 aimed at ensuring the user has the ability to modify the software, it does not "in the ordinary course of its operation" require permission from the copyright holder. The "no covered work shall be deemed" clause could be seen to clarify intent.

There are other cases, like if the GPL software was, say, a web server that someone had configured to password protect files they had copyright over, and a hacker bypassed the password protection. This would normally be covered by the CFAA and other hacking statutes, but the DMCA could apply too. In this case, the GPL's "waive any legal power to forbid circumvention" clause wouldn't apply because the hacking wouldn't be "effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work". But if the "no covered work shall be deemed" clause is effective, it would close off using 1201 against the hacker anyway...

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#240
post #210

What we need is the legal right to fork any IP. An open licensing model where no one needs permission. They just need to maybe pay an IP tax that trickles up to the previous contributors that helped produce what was forked. IP is completely flawed because it grants a monopoly on the fruits of specific knowledge or a work as if they are static end products, whereas in reality anything that is not evolving is dying. So…

who pays this tax? the person that forks the github repo?
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