The state is saying Malamud called his own actions "terrorism". I think it's irresponsible how the lawyers worded this in their suit. I also think it's irresponsible for the NYT to print this without this context. From the suit[0]: Carl Malamud, has indicated that this type of strategy has been a successful form of “terrorism” that he has employed in the past to force government entities to publish documents on Malam…
Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
81–90 of 186 posts
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
> USA is one of few countries where there is close to nothing amounting to codified criminal abuse of office laws There is a lot of law, at the federal and state levels, concerning abuse of power [1]. This takes the form of both statutes, which tend to use the term of art "malfeasance in office," e.g. [2], and court precedent (both of which are the law). > there was at least a minimal acknowledgement [in the USSR] th…
> There is a lot of law, at the federal and state levels, And that law is of very abstract, and ephemeral kind — the very criteria of fault in how USA approaches official crimes. And as I stated above, most of that law is state level patchwork and case law rather than federal level statutory rules.
> that law is of very abstract, and ephemeral kind — the very criteria of fault in how USA approaches official crimes
No, it's highly specific, drawing from cases going back to the founding of the Republic.
> most of that law is state level patchwork and case law rather than federal level statutory rules
Statute isn't stronger than case law. They're both law in a common-law system [1]. (Insider trading, for example, isn't defined in federal statute, but it's still commonly penalized.)
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#83The state is saying Malamud called his own actions "terrorism". I think it's irresponsible how the lawyers worded this in their suit. I also think it's irresponsible for the NYT to print this without this context. From the suit[0]: Carl Malamud, has indicated that this type of strategy has been a successful form of “terrorism” that he has employed in the past to force government entities to publish documents on Malam…
Mods, do you mind fixing up the title? This fact is relevant and leads to confusion among the commenters.
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#84Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.
To be clear, the "abuse" of "terrorism" in this case amounts to rhetoric. They called the guy's tactics (posting the text of laws online) a "strategy of terrorism". The actual case seems to be a copyright dispute over whether or not the State of Georgia can copyright its own laws.
They're claiming he referred to his own actions as terrorism here (in the prologue): https://museum.media.org/eti/
I disagree with that claim and I think it is irresponsible for a lawyer to call what he was doing a "form of terrorism" or "part of a strategy of terrorism". I think it's even more irresponsible for a lawyer to equate what he was doing and his words, a "form of standards terrorism", to unqualified "terrorism".
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#85The Republic of Georgia claims that the legal code establishing the rights and obligations of its citizens (including annotations commissioned and approved by the state) should not be freely available to its citizens or anyone else, because it is copyrighted by the state. According to the article, 20 other states around the world are making similar copyright claims. The written laws of a state (along with annotations…
The text of the laws themselves are open-source. It's the annotations that are the issue and this is, at least, an area where there is a reasonable ambiguity. Hopefully one that will be resolved in favour of greatest openness, but the state's position is at least not totally unreasonable. What is unreasonable, and why this is getting attention on HN is because Malamud's actions in publish the annotations has been des…
He sounds like he himself described them as terrorism, and is now getting accused of them being such....
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be clear, the "abuse" of "terrorism" in this case amounts to rhetoric. They called the guy's tactics (posting the text of laws online) a "strategy of terrorism". The actual case seems to be a copyright dispute over whether or not the State of Georgia can copyright its own laws.
They're claiming he referred to his own actions as terrorism here (in the prologue): https://museum.media.org/eti/ I disagree with that claim and I think it is irresponsible for a lawyer to call what he was doing a "form of terrorism" or "part of a strategy of terrorism". I think it's even more irresponsible for a lawyer to equate what he was doing and his words, a "form of standards terrorism", to unqualified "terro…
Yeah, but it's not a criminal prosecution of a terrorism charge. It's a copyright case.
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#87Your country is broken
I don't know if we can recover. There seems to be a strong trend towards the breakdown of large societal systems, and no appreciable efforts towards reformation. If very basic things like posting the laws of the state on your website receives this kind of response, then what hope do we have of tackling major problems? I used to be much more of an incrementalist, confident that the hard, slogging work of slow political activism could lead to a surprising amount of change over the long term, and I was dismissive of catastrophists who just threw up their arms and declared that everything was futile. But now, half of my life I have just seen the political process in the US grind to a complete halt, with no realistic path towards any major reforms. This kind of stasis is not sustainable in a world that is changing as much as it is, and I fear that the resolution will not be the un-gumming of the political system... it will be the collapse of US society into something unrecognizable.
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#88Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.
I'm not sure on which law this whole fad is based on. Is it an old law? > [...] The last time the Supreme Court addressed the matter, in 1888, it ruled that “the whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all.” A solution to how ridiculous old laws are is automatically expire them. That way, the politicians…
That reminds me of the "Armed Forces Act" that the UK Government has to pass every 5 years to keep a standing army as these were actually prohibited by the Bill of Rights in 1689:
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#89Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.
I'm not sure on which law this whole fad is based on. Is it an old law? > [...] The last time the Supreme Court addressed the matter, in 1888, it ruled that “the whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all.” A solution to how ridiculous old laws are is automatically expire them. That way, the politicians…
> it ruled that “the whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law,
And on that "the whole work done" is also another prominent anachronism of US flavour of British common law.
Other common law countries, let alone mainstream civil law countries do not maintain automatic correctness, authoritativeness and infallibility of institute of justice, from which stems the absence of unqualified immunity of judges in a lot of nations.
A scope of legal authority must be very strictly and clearly defined, and based upon constitutional and fundamental legal principles, with easy pathways to invalidate it if done in wrong. In other words, there must be critical criteria of its validity.
In US on other hand, in principle and in theory, a judge or juror can issue a ruling completely contravening a law in most the most antithetical, polar way, and nothing will be able to do anything with him, and his ruling will be legally valid.
Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not quite. With Aaron Swartz there was no question of copyright infringement. He was infringing. He wasn't. He was 100% entitled to use his library access, and download every file he did download.
I'm not sure about that. I'd think you'd be breaking the TOS by mass downloading all papers. Certainly, putting them on the internet after the fact isn't legal. I say all this, but I want to be clear that the punishment he received was far in excess to the underlying crime.
"Terms of service" is not copyright infringement. Especially when when dealing with public records.