Bayosphere

Dan hits this right on the nose. With corporate scandals, terrorism concerns, etc… MS flies under the radar after the JD sell out. Sadly, once some of the $50M starts moving around, the consumer will lose again when the EU capitulates to a toothless remedy. As Dan suggests, some “free” markets are in jeopardy…

The way things are going, in a couple of decades Microsoft will own everything. Capitalism will end up being replaced with a feudal system, with every citizen held in vassalage to Bill Gates II.

The only force on Earth that can stop Microsoft now is the free market….aided by a sluggish econonmy. Free software has changed the playing field in some key MS markets (Servers and Office productivity products). I think we have a long road a head, but Open Source, and price competition from it, will begin to erode MS Hegemony.

What we really need is for government to declare they will only purchase, and deal in, software that supports open, non-patent encumbered file formats.

aNonMooseCowherd: BG II is actually BG IV. Get your facts straight.

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https://www.hushmail.com/login.php?subloc=termslite

Hush may terminate your access to the Service and any related service(s) at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately, for any reason whatsoever. Hush has no obligation to store or forward the contents of your account.

I have to say, I do love Vonage. And being a student, I truly never make business calls – though your concerns about the draconian terms of service are certainly justified.

I also wonder, can numbers be ported from Vonage to Packet8? I had to change my phone # when I first signed up with Vonage, and while I’d like to switch to Packet8 because of pricing, I’m hesitant to change my # yet again.

I used DSL for several years. Then Northpoint went bankrupt, and finally Telocity (DirectTV) dumped me and hundreds of thousands of users becuase they couldn’t become a monopoly. When it came time to find an new broadband provider, I had recieved such terrible tech support from SBC (the last mile provider for my DSL the whole time) I was determined to never deal with them.

So I went with (holds nose) Adelphia. It raised my cable bill $20. So not even SBC’s $29.95 per month, for the first year, DSL deal is even a close consideration. Who knows what it will cost after that first year is up? The competition should be dead by then if the government lets SBC have their monopolistic way.

DSL was great because it had a static IP address, but it was much slower than cable. I kept it anyway since it let me run Apache Web server on my Mac. Now I can’t, so I have to pay another web services provider a fee to have my web page. Such service! ISPs don’t need to offer adequate services when they have monopoly power. And we pay the price.

I hope some day I can just hook my computer up directly to the Internet and not have to let these monopolistic powers determine what I can and can’t do with my computer on the net. I know there are dangers to that, but I’ll take that over their trying to turn the Internet into another one-way cable TV revenue stream.

Why should the owners of the pipeline be allowed to control what flows through those pipes? Because they’re the ones with the money to sway political powers.

Dan, no offense, but I find this particularly ironic, given:

“Although we do not have any obligation to monitor reader comments posted to this Weblog, we reserve the right at all times to review them and to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us in our sole discretion and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request.”

You should be aware that packet 8 — or someone reselling their services — is a massive spammer.
Next time you speak with them, please ask them why they are willing to use such a disreputable
form of advertising.

I would be very hesitant to promote them because of that . . .

For more info on Packet8 and a $20 Packet8 discount coupon code, please visit http://solarice.typepad.com/packet8/

I think Packet8’s terms of service are not different than any other phone company!

I’m curious how this case will differ from the Verizon case? I haven’t seen that mentioned in any of the stories about this that I’ve read. It appears to be a difference of degree or volume, rather than of kind. So, how will the legal system get around the precedent of the Verizon case? Won’t we just end up with DMCA upheld, once again, and the Copyright Cartel still triumphant?

I should have said: “How will Pacbell get around the precedent of the Verizon case?”

Different federal circuit. Judges around here are savvier about technology.

I have to agree with both Dan and Kim, but I lean more to Kim.

While the judges are more savvy in the San Ramon area than others, our legal system is very precedent-savvy, as well. Sure, the volume is higher – and that, along with the “show us the suspicions” – will probably be the crux of SBC’s issues.

But break the case down, request by request. Each one – alone – is upheld to some degree by the Verizon precedent.

Just a bunch of the same, instead of one.

My take: SBC is NOT doing this for their customers. NO. They are doing it for two reasons: 1) To save themselves the time and effort (both this time and in the future; if there was keystroke combo that would e-mail the request info to RIAA, they’d do it…), and 2) To protect themselves against future lawsuits. From both the customers (who will make some sort of privacy-invasion argument), AND the RIAA — hey, if RIAA is correct, and SBC customers are trading pirated files…well, SBC can be held for some sort of contributory infringment.

And who will the RIAA go after first? The 15-year-old who trades InSynch files, or … a multi-billion dollar company?

Yeah, that’s a toughie…

Repeat after me: It’s all about the litigation (witness the SCO vs. IBM fiasco..)

My take? SBC probably got served out the wazoo and doesn’t want to do the work. We deal with them constantly as an ISP and they never fail to do the least work possible in their legal and billing departments.

Here’s hoping that the judge in that case does the right thing instead of bowing down to the RIAA like the rest of the government has been doing.

Dear Mr. Gillmor,

I’m afraid you fundamentally misunsterstand the subpoena process in civil litigation. In the federal courts, parties are empowered to issue subpoenas requiring others — both parties and non-parties — to hand over documents and appear for depositions, etc. This has been the case since at least the early part of the 20th Century (possibly earlier — I am not a legal historian), but in any case well before anyone had conceived of the Internet or the DMCA. The issuance of a subpoena does not require court approval; private parties issue them directly by themselves. Subpoenas are ALWAYS “based solely on one side’s allegations.” The recipient can, however, fight the subpoena in court. Nearly every subpoena seeks information that the recipient considers “private” and wishes to keep that way — business records, personal information, etc.

The expedited subpoena provisions of the DMCA are really not a major change from the situation in pre-DMCA days. Prior to the DMCA, the copyright owner could file suit against a “John Doe,” and then issue a subpoena to the ISP seeking the identity of the alleged infringer (with no court approval necessary for the subpoena). The DMCA’s expedited subpoena provisions simply streamline the process, allowing the copyright owner to issue the subpoena directly, BEFORE filing suit. But in neither case does a court have to look at a subpoena prior to its issuance to decide whether it is legitimate. Your quarrel appears to be with the civil discovery process in general, not with the DMCA in particular.

One last point: You say that SBC may get a different result in federal court in California because “Judges around here are savvier about technology.” This is not fair. First, many federal judges in the DC Circuit are savvy about technology. But, more importantly, I think you misunderstand the role of judges in such a case. The vast majority of judges decide cases by asking, “What does the statute require?” They do not — as you imply they should — ask, “Do I think it’s a good statute? And, if not, how should I write an opinion in accord with how I would have preferred the statute was written.” Like it or not (obviously you don’t), the DMCA authorizes the type of subpoenas that the RIAA has been issuing. But it’s the fault of Congress, not of the judges who are under an obligation to interpret the law faithfully as it was written — not as they might prefer it to be.