Posts by fredfs 6 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jul 2017
The "damages" claimed in this type of patent suit are always telling -- the damages are scaled exactly like the toll at a bridge commandeered by thugs or corrupt officials. The toll is not related to the cost of building or maintaining a bridge. The toll doesn't consider whether you need to cross one bridge or a hundred bridges to get to your destination. The only thing that matters is the value of the cargo you want to carry across that particular bridge.
of the wastefulness of the existing patent/copyright economy. We now have an economy largely based on *not* letting people use things that improve their lives. From patents, EULAs, and dongles to DRM, DMCA, ebooks, five-lobed screw heads, and geo-locking, the lucrative business today is to obstruct, not to facilitate. Even though the world is full of problems still requiring solutions, millions are instead directed toward legions of patent and copyright lawyers to prevent people from using known solutions. This is a waste of law-school resources, a waste of court time, and a waste of useful ideas.
Limited patents and copyrights can serve some good, but this particular copyright fight is not about making sure the developers and artists get paid -- this fight is only about making sure that some multi-billionaires can become even more multi-billionaired.
were hiding out in a embassy, I could get into the bail-jumping-is-bad discussion, but that is far from the case.
The important issues here are the United States committing war crimes, the NSA exceeding its constitutional limits when collecting data on citizens, backroom deals keeping Bernie Sanders off of the ballot, and the CIA stockpiling hacking tools. One case of bail jumping simply does not compare.
All the arguments about extradition procedure don't hold water either. It has been an extremely dark decade and a half for the United States, and legal norms do not necessarily apply. We had legislators calling for the execution of Chelsea Manning, a New York Times reporter in jail for contempt of court, at least one prisoner dying of hypothermia at a dark site, torture around the world, and during this whole period, we have had prisoners at Guantánamo Bay who have yet to receive due process. Anyone who truly jeopardizes this power structure can legitimately fear extrajudicial retaliation by Washington. That is why an embassy shielded this particular bail jumper.
As many have said before, you don't have to like Julian Assange. He may not have the style of a Gandhi or Mandela; he may be more of a self-promoter than a Manning, Snowden, or Aaron Swartz. But recognize that what little social progress we make every decade, we owe that progress to the misfits, the fed-up, the brave, and the difficult -- and we punish them severely for it.
Because it's a war.
This is not a panel of experts having a good-faith discussion about the best public policy. This is one group of people using political connections and money to push an agenda that consolidates power just so some executives can have bigger yachts -- while a much larger group of people stand to lose the open internet, something upon which they depend for their education, livelihood, health, entertainment, and participation in democracy.
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