Now lawyers for the woman — if they don’t broker a settlement with the Recording Industry Association of America — are likely to go before Davis to attack the award. If they take Berkman’s approach, they have a big hurdle: The U.S. Supreme Court once rejected a cruel-and-unusual challenge to a 50-year prison term received by a California man caught shoplifting golf clubs.

For some good technical information about the Constitutional problems raised by the $1.92 million Jammie Thomas-Rasset decision, note this blog post from the EFF. However, the author of this article has a point. For a look just exactly how weak the Supreme Court thinks that the 8th amendment is, check out Lockyer v. Andrade.

On November 4, 1995, Andrade stole five videotapes from a K-Mart store in Ontario, California. Two weeks later, he stole four videotapes from a different K-Mart store in Montclair, California.

As a result of his prior convictions, Andrade was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life in prison.

"Andrade, like the defendant in Solem, was a repeat offender who committed theft of trifling value, some $150, and their criminal records are comparable, including burglary (though Andrade's were residential), with no violent crimes or crimes against the person." Because Andrade was 37 at the time of the offenses in this case, the 50-years-to-life sentence was effectively life without parole...

This is the sort of thing that people in the future will look back upon and remark about how barbaric and primitive we are.

Will File-Sharing Case Spawn a Copyright Reform Movement? | Threat Level | Wired.com

The worst thing about the Tiananmen square massacre is that it was totally effective. Movements for democractic reform ended in China, and through out the communist world. They have not returned. Chinese youth have become depoliticized. The protestors still remain in prison.

The lesson of history is clear. Iran is already threatening to "crack down" on the protestors. Eventually, they'll make good on those threats. Its going to be ugly, and as long that the state can prevent local media from accurately reporting about the events, its going to be the end of the movement for liberalization in Iran.

The problem with public street demonstrations is that they are only effective if the people being protested care about the opinions of the demonstrators or about the opinions of people who are influenced by the demonstrators. That is rarely the case.

The Party leadership expelled Zhao Ziyang from the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (PSC), because he opposed martial law, and Zhao remained under house arrest until his death. Hu Qili, the other member of the PSC who opposed the martial law but abstained from voting, was also removed from the committee. He was, however, able to retain his party membership, and after "changing his opinion", was reassigned as deputy minister of Machine-Building and Electronics Industry. Another reform-minded Chinese leader, Wan Li, was also put under house arrest immediately after he stepped out of an airplane at Beijing Capital International Airport upon returning from his shortened trip abroad, with the official excuse of "health reasons." When Wan Li was released from his house arrest after he finally "changed his opinion" he, like Qiao Shi, was transferred to a different position with equal rank but mostly ceremonial role. Several Chinese ambassadors abroad claimed political asylum....

State media mostly gave reports sympathetic to the students in the immediate aftermath. As a result, those responsible were all later removed. Two news anchors who reported this event on 4 June in the daily 1900 hours (7:00 pm) news report on China Central Television were fired because they showed their sad emotions...

Several editors were arrested, with Wu Xuecan, who organised the publication of an unauthorised Extra edition, sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

Rob Gifford, a National Public Radio journalist, said that much of the political freedoms and debate that occurred post-Mao and pre-Tiananmen ended after Tiananmen.... Gifford added that people born after 1970 had "near-complete depoliticization" while older intellectuals no longer focus on political change and instead focus on economic reform...

The Tiananmen square protests dampened the growing concept of political liberalization in communist countries that was popular in the late 1980s; as a result, many democratic reforms that were proposed during the 1980s were swept under the carpet. Although there has been an increase in personal freedom since then, discussions on structural changes to the PRC government and the role of the Communist Party of China remain largely taboo.

Iran and Tiananmen Square

Awesome Music, Beer, Festival Food, and Artist Markets... beat that....

Red Stripe will host the longest day of the year party at Candler Park. There are over 40 vendors in the Artist Market this year. That means that you can score some cool stuff from some of the area's most talented residents.

Admission is free, and wrist bands are available for 21+ for $5 to purchase beer.

Also, bring your dogs and kids, kids must be on leash..... I mean dogs.

Rusted Root and Guster will be playing along with other bands through out the day and they will have a Kids Zone & a Go Green Zone. The festival has something to offer for all genres of people, so come out and support a local Atlanta neighborhood!

Mid Summer Music Festival

As Nick has decided to air our dispute publicly, a response is obviously in
order. On many levels this makes sense, because the consequences of this
disagreement effect the entire community, and because an external perspective
might be helpful. With that, I thank you for taking the time to read about
something that you shouldn't have to get involved with. I'm sorry that we
have not been able to resolve this between us.

Nick and I are equal partners in Industrial Memetics, the corporate entity
that owns MemeStreams. This is reasonable because we've both contributed
approximately equal amounts of time and code to the project. However, since
the beginning I have born almost all of the financial responsibilities
associated with operating the site. The two primary servers belong to me,
I pay the monthly hosting costs, I pay for most of the domain names, and
I file the tax returns.

At the heart of this disagreement is the fact that I've never bothered to
write off my expenses on our corporate tax return. The reason is that in
order to write them off, I'd have to account for them accurately, and
time and effort associated with doing that isn't worth the money to me.

A couple years ago Nick decided to put advertisements on MemeStreams. I
was opposed to this decision from the outset for two reasons. The first
is that you can directly extrapolate the amount of money you are going
to make from the amount of traffic you get, and we were not going to make
a lot of money. The second is that any money we do make must be reported
on our annual tax return, thus generating the paperwork nightmare that I
have been trying to avoid.

Against my objections, Nick proceeded. At the time he believed, for some
reason, that we were going to make more money than we were going to make.
We concluded that we would not book the revenue until we actually received
money from Google. In some respects it was an experiment - how much would
this bring in? As I predicted, it brought in next to nothing. After several
years we have not generated enough revenue to reach the minimum amount
that prompts Google to cut you a check.

However, we have generated some revenue. Obviously, at some point, we're
going to have to take receipt of it and book it. It would be my preference
that we simply take the money, do the paperwork, and shut the ads off
so that we don't have to deal with this anymore. Nick doesn't agree. He
has recently become very concerned about dealing with this now and
dealing with it in his way.

In April, he started the conversation off by proposing that we take receipt
of the money from Google, and spend it as follows:

Part would go to registering the corporation in the State of Maryland
(where Nick lives).
Part would go to Nick's wife (who is a C... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: Decius and Rattle have reached an impass

WASHINGTON — Prisoners have no constitutional right to DNA testing that might prove their innocence, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a 5-to-4 decision.

This is an interesting case in that I can see both sides of the issue.

“After conviction,” Justice Alito added, “with nothing to lose, the defendant could demand DNA testing in the hope that some happy accident — for example, degradation or contamination of the evidence — would provide the basis for seeking postconviction relief.”

Is this concern reasonable - can DNS evidence degrade in a way that is both undetectable and which generates incorrect results.

Justices Reject Inmate Right to DNA Tests - NYTimes.com

There is just one problem: In Atlanta, The ‘California State of Mind’ is a Cancer. It is a disease. It has no applicability here and it destroys lives. The commonly stated idea that the differences between Silicon Valley and Atlanta is one purely of scale is false, and the implication of these differences cannot be understated. There are emergent properties of a startup economy that large, that do not exist at our scale whatsoever.

I can’t say that strongly enough. In Georgia, the California State of Mind will try to kill you and will ruin your life. Its not like us. It wants to kill your family. It belongs on the terrorist watch list. Without the supportive environment of the Valley, the valley game-plan has disastrous effects on human lives.

Jello wrote an article for Techdrawl as part of the series he is doing on Startup Geography. It is also up on Hacker News (presently the #1 item).

The previous piece is here.

A California State of Mind (As a Cancer on Atlanta)

I haven't read Bajakajain in detail, but out of curiosity I checked out Kennedy's dissent. There seems to be a fundamental disagreement between the judges in this case about just how culpable the defendant really was, and it colors both rulings. I haven't read too carefully, but Kennedy seems to suggest that the only kind of fine he would deem excessive would be a fine the defendant would be totally unable to pay.

There also seems to be a technical dispute about when to apply the 8th amendment. Kennedy writes:

So-called remedial penalties, most in rem forfeitures, and perhaps civil fines may not be subject to scrutiny at all.

It seems this case provides an opportunity to examine these questions more carefully. I'm all for it.

(As an aside, I think in rem forfeitures violate the due process clause but thats a whole other ball of wax.)

Kennedy's dissent in United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321 (1998)

zeugma wrote:
It is worth noting that if she had shoplifted the equivalent number of CDs in Minnesota, it would be considered a misdemeanor offense and she would owe a maximum of $1000 dollars in fines...

The eighth amendment states:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Apparently the only case in which excessive fines were considered was U.S. v. Bajakajian.

Here, Clarence Thomas wrote:

“Comparing the gravity of respondent’s crime with the $357,144 forfeiture the Government seeks, we conclude that such a forfeiture would be grossly disproportional to the gravity of his offense. It is larger than the $5,000 fine imposed by the District Court by many orders of magnitude, and it bears no articulable correlation to any injury suffered by the Government. … For the foregoing reasons, the full forfeiture of respondent’s currency would violate the Excessive Fines Clause.”

That sort of reasoning seems like it applies here.

The EFF is already raising this point in the press:

“The disproportionate size of the verdict raises constitutional questions,” said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the consumer group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

I think a Supreme Court decision invalidating the law that imposes these fines would go a long way toward restoring my faith in the ability of our country to make reasonable policy.

Lets see a Consitutional Challenge

skullaria wrote:
NOTHING is free in America. lol

Well, I was being sarcastic. I can, at least, complain about this result and petition that it be changed. I don't have to fear reprisal for expressing my opinions.

However, some results are so absurd that you cannot stop at complaining that they are wrong, you have to ask how it is possible for our system to reach such an obviously absurd result in the first place.

Here an industry with dollars to invest in lobbying has managed to get an insane judgement handed down through all of the checks and balances that are supposed to stop that from happening. Is this a unique situation? I don't think so. If we're this screwed up in an area of policy that I understand, I have to assume that we're just as screwed up in umteen different areas of policy that I don't understand or follow.

If it was really OK to close your eyes and trust the professionals to keep things running smoothly things like this wouldn't happen.

RE: The United States of America is a free country!

A federal jury on Thursday found Jammie Thomas-Rasset liable in the nation’s only Recording Industry Association of America file-sharing case to go to trial, dinging her $1.92 million for [sharing] 24 songs [on a p2p network].

We have mature, sophisticated political institutions in the United States of America that uphold justice and reach reasonable results.

We have credibility.

In fact, we set an example for the rest of the world. We are a shining light for freedom in which people of all nations find hope.

Our citizens are thankful that they live in a free country. They respect our legislators and judges - who have the most difficult task of maintaining and upholding our democratic values. These are intelligent people, our best and brightest, who faithfully represent the best interests of everyone in our country.

There are absolutely no widespread problems with our system's ability to cope with technological and social change. We are completely free of corruption and small minded authoritarianism. Our justice system meters out punishments that are righteous and appropriate, a fact which is ensured by our careful, deliberative processes in which checks and balances effectively contain the abuses of political power.

In sum, we are totally awesome, and there is absolutely no room for criticism of how we do things around here. Only evil people suggest that the fundamental structure of our institutions might need to be reconsidered. This is the end of history, and we represent the final form of political organization. There is no way that you could ever improve upon how we do things right now.

Man, what a great time to be alive!

The United States of America is a free country!