Posts by Andrew Norton 340 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Aug 2007
And the reason they didn't do it for the year and a bit he was on a daily walk, in a rural area, unprotected, at hte same time, over the same route to a rural police station for his bail is?? a so-called snatch-squad could easily have made off with him in 2011. or half of 2012.
They didn't because they don't want him.
One's a press release, has no evidential basis. And Trump's always been big on 'loyalty' and he'll try and push for leakers of his administration.
As for the second, where's the indictment then? no indictment, no charges, no extradition order. Oh it's sealed? Sealed so that he'll be unaware of its existance and thus won't attempt to destroy or conceal evidence that may be gathered against him (the reason for sealing)
The problem with this is that Assange has actually done everything possible to make a sealed indictment a legal no-go. As he thinks there's one, he'll act as if there is one, and thus it's not possible to justify sealing it. And if they had got an indictment that wasn't sealed, we'd already know about it. In addition, since it hadn't been presented for the basis of an extradition warrant, it's now invalid as it was not acted on in a timely manner.
It's these little things that torpedo his claims.
Actually, we do already know. they don't want him.
not only have they stated that themselves at numerous points, Everyone else in the grand jury investigation (those that did the work and not just write the press releases) have not been snatched, or extradited. They've not even had problems when they've visited the US.
Additionally, for someone who feared the US, funny how he went from a country that doesn't extradite to the US for political crimes (Sweden) straight to the country with the lowest bar for US extradition (UK). The only reason he'd have gone to the UK is if he needed to leave Sweden quick (that evening) and wanted to stay more than 30 days, as he only had 21 days left on a schengen visa at the time. As a commonwealth citizen, he had no visa requirements and leave to stay for 180 days - ideal if your lawyer has just told you that you'll be arrested at the interview scheduled for the morning.
He then spent 600 days in the UK, in a known address, walking the same route at the same time, to a rural police station. If he was afraid of extralegal incarceration (extraordinary rendition) why wasn't it a problem then? Why was it only suddenly a problem 2 days after a final order to send him on to Sweden had been sent down.
Next, to this day, no indictment. I believe the grand jury has even been disbanded, so no new one can come down. Under the speedy trial act, they've got 180 days to act on the indictment or its dead, so any that had been handed down would be dead unless sealed, and it wouldn't be sealed, because there's no point - they get sealed just to prevent the knowledge of them, but since he believes theres one, there's no justification possible for sealing it. So no indictment, means no extradition.
Legally, factually, there's absolutely no basis to believe that there was ever a threat of involuntary US holidays for Assange ,but it's a useful bogieman for him to trot out and feed his paranoia.and it has essentially become the cornerstone of the Assange branding.
Yes, we've all considered 'extraordinary rendition' and 'unfortunate accident'.
Problem is, he spent 600 days in the UK where he traveled a fixed route on foot, in a rural area, at a set time every single day (when he was reporting for bail). If there was going to be an extraordinary rendition, or an accident, it would have happened there and then.
Likewise with a US extradition request, which would have competed with the Swedish one (leading the Foreign office and the judiciary to come to a decision) at least right up until the final Supreme Court ruling, two days before he ran to the embassy which made the Swedish extradition final and permanent.
Also, more fun facts, every one else investigated by the [now disbanded] Grand Jury, has had no such fears, even though they did the actual work on the cables and videos, and didn't just write a press release. Some even visited the US in 2013 and had no problems, no arrests, etc.
If you have (or had) little kids, you'll understand the bedtime problem. Every time it's bedtime, there's something else that just came up that means they can't go to sleep; they're hungry, they want a glass of water, there's a monster under the bed, read them a story etc. The claims about the US are nothing but 'monster under the bed is going to eat me' claims.
"I'm not sure these is any circumstances that Sweden would hand assange over to the US.
I base this off the fact of a US airman that went awol and illegally entered Sweden and Sweden to this day refuse hand him over."
Sweden does not extradite to the US for 'political crimes'. That includes espionage, going AWOL, etc.
Sweden was the second most common destination after Canada for those dodging the Vietnam draft (after canada because of its proximity) because of this.
In 1992 the *ONLY* CIA officer to defect to the USSR was arrested in Sweden and the US requested extradition. Sweden refused and let him go, because espionage is a 'political crime'. Do note that the President at the Time - Bush Senior - was Vice president at the time of the defection (85) and was a former CIA director. To say Bush had an interest in the case was an understatement.
And Assange knows this. In fact in his press conference to announce he was applying for Swedish residency in the summer of 2010 (just days before the first alleged sexual assault) he specifically mentioned that the inability of the US to extradite him from Sweden for 'political crimes' was a major factor in his decision to move there.
Funny how he conveniently forgot that bit on his website touting his Swedish extradition to the US fantasies...
"Neglecting Assange's concern that he will be "Extraordinarily Rendered" or simply have an "unfortunate accident" between any two points of your plan."
Yeah, only downside is that he voluntarily ran to the Uk. No-one who ever fears extradition to the US would ever go to the UK, certainly not a non-UK citizen, because of the 'express extradition treaty'. It ONLY makes sense if you look at it as an Australian looking to leave Sweden immediately (that night) for a country he can stay in for more than 30 days.
He then sat in the UK for 600+ days (618 I think) in a known spot most of the time, with a well publicized daily walk down a predictable path to a rural police station at the same time every day. If you're afraid of 'rendition' or 'accidents', you don't do this.
His decision to run came just 2 days after a final ruling about the Swedish EAW was handed down. At that point US extradition was impossible, he knew that (in fact when he went to Sweden, he made a public note that they have a honest judiciary, a free press, and a ban on extraditing to the US for political crimes with history to back it up (in 1992 they refused to extradite the *ONLY* CIA officer to ever defect to the USSR - Edward Hoawrd defected via finland 5 years earlier, escaping arrest in the US - letting him go freely. That was a US citizen indicted on espionage charges, with a President who'd not only been vice president when the defection happened, but was a former head of the CIA)
The whole 'US wants him' story is a fantasy, with nothing to substantiate it except Assange's own claims, and lots to destroy the narrative, including Assange's own actions and statements.
Nope.
first off, a lot of the more recent 'scoops' have been comeplete 'nothingburgers'. The DNC leaks told very little that anyone who bothered to learn how the system works and is designed to work didn't already know. They whipped it up into a frenzy of 'great revelation' though.
There have been other times when the content could have been partially redacted to obscure Personally Identifyable info, and still gotten the message across - because he's lost so many people who do the actual work, they don't have time to do that any more, not and keep up a race to dump as much nonsense and spin it as news, because people catch on it's another storm ina teacup.
And if you think Assange's personal issues were a detraction from the core mission of Wikileaks, you're not alone. He should have stepped back from Wikileaks, and focused on his problems, while letting wikileaks carry on (since he does very little work himself, except for press releases and management). He chose to not do that, DELIBERATELY.
Why? Well, because his entire defense rests on 'but I'm Wikileaks, and I'm awesome, and they're trying to shut wikileaks down'. Kinda glosses over the fact that now they're not so much a whistleblower, as the document version of a moneylaunderer for people who want documents of dubious public interest published. His entire justification for his embassy run is 'the yanks want me cos wikileaks', he's the one thats taking wikileaks and distracting it with Assange's problematic personal activities. Thats the only way they can distract from them having nothing, and very little credibility left.
Right, and more importantly, Sweden does not extradite to the US for political-based offenses. In the 90s they refused to extradite the one and only CIA officer to defect to the USSR; they were the second most popular destination for Vietnam draft dodgers too. Assange knows this, he made a point to highlight it when he had the press release about him applying for residency there, along with something about the courts being very impartial and fair...
He also didn't go to the embassy until 2 days after the Supreme court's final ruling, which gave him 3 weeks until extradition, apararantly, then (and only then) did he realise that there was such a thing as a US extradition, despite him having been in the UK for 600+ days at that point, and that with the SCOTUK final verdict, any US extradition request would have been put to the back of the queue until the Swedish situation was dealt with.
Of course, anyone fearing US extradition wouldn't come to the UK anyway, not with the express extradition treaty. There's only one reason he'd have come to the UK, and thats after his lawyer was informed he would be arrested the next day at questioning, he needed to get out of the country for a period. Other Schengen countries wouldn't do, too much cooperation and he had less than a month of time left.Australia was too late, he'd missed any flights that day, and he'd be vulnerable in the air on the aircraft for a long time. Most other countries would require a visa, which left the UK as the only close, easy to access country with no visa requirements and the ability to stay over a month (as an Australian citizen he can enter without a visa and stay for 180 days, long enough he thought for this to blow over)
And there's still no indictment, and never has been from the US, and everyone else investigated in that grand jury (the people that did the work while he wrote press releases) have visited the US without a problem since at least 2013 (which was when I was invited to have dinner with one of them in NYC)
As for the breakdown, could it have been this - http://ktetch.co.uk/2017/01/assange-painted-into-corner-with-manning-boasting/ I'm not a lawyer, but I have done a LOT of research into this over the years, and I've had a lot of favourable feedback from those who have covered this extensively and who have worked with Assange in the past.
the special 301 report is one that has one point and one point only. It's to push other countries for stronger laws. It's not about good laws, or valid laws, and it's certainly not about national soverignty, or about other countries misusing such laws to the detriment of American citizens and/or companies.
It's an MPAA/RIAA/BSA talking point report only. Nothing more. The only comments the USTR will listen to or pay any attention to when compiling it, are those that ask for stronger laws in other countries, and you don't even need any sort of supporting evidence for that claim.
As an objective or substantive report, it's utterly useless. It is quite literally an executive branch office shilling for industry lobby groups, and nothing more.
I never get downvoted, but that's because all my posts go straight into moderation, and then get 'rejected' it seems (I've even had one approved, then the next day it was rejected)
BTW, as someone who was on the show in question, i can say that while it was the stated name of the points, in reality it was fantasy. The producers decided the winners (often ahead of time) then edited the matches to suit. There was even once instance where they edited two matches that took place 2 weeks apart into one. And one really amusing and notable instance where they'd made the deals about merchandising&appearance deals about who was going to win, only for it to be COMPLETELY the other way, and so they had to make up a new rule to disqualify the winner and get the one they wanted to win to win.
There's a reason it was listed as 'childrens entertainment show' rather than 'gameshow',and that was it. Which is why I took my participation to the US events, which were open competitions, and didn't have an arena which quite literally had the structural rigidity and protection of a telephone box.
This is an area I've studied for a while, and I don't mean 'poked around on Google for the last few months in my spare time'.
At the time Napster came out, I was working for my uncle's record company in the Greater London area, as a copyright enforcer (part time, basically keeping my ears open for his songs at places and making sure the likes of PRS were crediting his songs, as well as looking for performers selling their own versions out of a bag), and so I remember trying to push him towards MP3's. He resisted, didn't 'get' why anyone would be interested, especially because of the lower sound quality. He 'got' technology (he was also big into Steel, used to supply Toyota with much of their steel in the 80s) but didn't see it as anything but a fad. His contemporaries, however, tended to have a bigger problem. Control.
As a small label, he was 'left out' of much of the stuff. He was never told which stores would count for chart sales that week for instance, and he'd get last-minute notice of 'music industry' events, which meant he never had the ability to even change things in the industry, because it was always a fait accompli.
The music industry is, and has been for many decades, about 'control'. from the 50s on, music bosses understood that they could shape the population through music, make trends, break them, even spawn movements. It's hard to relinquish that sort of control. It becomes somewhat of a god complex. So when you see yourself as 'masters of culture', it's incredibly hard to disabuse yourself of that, and recognise that your time has passed, and you're now just selling a digital commodity, and your overall place isn't what it was. They're also afraid that any kind of acknowledgement of that, will devalue their prestige in the eyes of others, even though record bosses aren't the mythical creatures of wonder they believe themselves to be, and haven't been considered such for decades.
Happens somewhat in TV and movies now as well. A year or two later I was working on a TV show in the US for a Viacom channel. I was the only non-US crew member (based in Liverpool) and since it was a competition, part of my role was to sell it to people in the UK to get them to take part. I worked for the competition, which was televised by the channel, produced by a 3rd party production company. The issues I had just getting clearances to play episodes of the show to interested gatherings was incredible, because I wasn't a Viacom employee, and so was not under THEIR control, despite my only purpose being to promote the show and make the next season even better.
And it's not that uncommon a story in general. When the 08 recession happened and a lot of well-to-do middle class people lost their jobs, many people carried on as before, trying to keep up the veneer, and project an aura of 'no change', eating through their savings, and then loading themselves up in debt, just so people won't think times have changed and everything's all good.
But as anyone in a stormy area knows, trees die and rot from the inside out, and look strong and healthy until they're blown over, causing massive damage, because they rot from the inside out. We have no 'tree surgeons' to clear out the dead wood in the content market however.
Exactly.
You wouldn't believe the number of people that have told me 'but it's up see CR or EE or <other TLD>, even on the TF pieces in question which specifically state the opposite.
Doesn't help when most 'news orgs' don't bother to do any kind of checking and mislead people.
And even the isohunt.to (NOT affiliated at all with Gary Fung or the old ISOhunt site) version has amusing screwups, like the audio of my annual panel discussions on law, technology, and the internet (this year we had the EFF as lead guests, last year Chris Soghoian of the ACLU, and in 2012, Bruce Schneier), which are classified as 'adult'. (The only panels we don't record are the adult ones). No real danger of the torrents dying though, they're all on Mininova as well (yes, it still exists)
This past week of ultracrepidarianism about torrent sites has just about driven me crazy though.
Andrew "K`Tetch" Norton
Torrentfreak community manager
well, I did an event (Sci fi con) in the Imperial hotel in 2000 (in fact, 14 years ago this coming weekend)
Not only were hte hotel rooms badly cleaned, their facility rooms were not set up - they hadn't bothered. they 'lost' some of our event reservations (so Dave [Vader] Prowse had to get a room at the hotel next door), and to cap it off, the hotel staff started stealing from the [locked] dealers room overnight.
We even changed the A1 standee sign on an easle at the front door to say 'welcome to the Imperial Hotel, prepare to be robbed'.
Oh and my old mate Mike Sheard (RIP mate) said 'did the staff all go to Grange Hill?' before turning to Dave and saying 'you should choke the Manager, he makes me look like a competent admiral'.
No wonder it stopped being used for party conferences. (and I was doubly irritated at having to stay up the full 72 hours of the event, having JUST flown back from two weeks of 20 hour shifts filming BattleBots in Vegas for Comedy Central - just meaning driving to Blackpool from Gatwick stopping home in Liverpool just long enough to swap suitcases)
You give 4 examples that were just like where I used to live in the US. I had a choice of two providers when I moved in there in 2006 - hughsnet satellite internet ($200/month for 8Mbit) or AT&T DSL ($55/month for 6/0.5Mbit DSL)
When I moved out in the summer (partly because Nominet had revealed my home address, and harassment from JHammond supporters was starting) my choices were... exactly the same, at the same price. Oh, except you could also get Verizon LTE service for the last 12 months, it was only $50/2Gig of data....
It was a comcast area, the whole county was, but Comcast hadn't bothered to lay a single wire in the county (a metro Atlanta county, with a significant film industry presence). In 07 AT&T techs told me they were going to upgrade their systems to fiber for U-verse, they had the fiber waiting and just waiting for the dig permits.
Then comcast announced they weren't going to lay anything, but weren't going to give up their 'franchise', so AT&T never had to bother, so they didn't. The only difference was they stopped calling it broadband in 2010, because even the top tier package (which I had) didn't meet FCC minimum standards for broadband (4/1 Mbit)
Now I've moved, I've got two choices. Charter [cable], and Windstream [DSL]. My price is a bit lower, and my speed is a bit better, but it's still slow compared to everyone else for the money -$45 for 60/4Mbit cable.
And that's because there's no real competition here, AT ALL
"This call may be recorded" - it can be viewed that that is granting permission, in that you MAY do that.
And if they're recording the calls, they can't object to you doing it.
That's the long and short of it (had a fun time in Federal court last year listening to two lawyers argue on that).
You didn't mention that while it was for the "Digital citizens Alliance" (a nice astroturfing group) the other company involved (and who wrote the report) is none other than 'NetNames' (who share equal billing with DCA). for those that don't know, NetNames is more of a corporate oriented version of Web Sheriff, and describe themselves as "Leaders in online brand protection and domain name strategy, assisting global brands to Search-Find-Stop brand abuse online."
The 'findings 'then are totally predictable. Also wouldn't surprise me if this report had a little backdoor funding from PIPCU, as their last report basically justified the extra-judicial actions of PIPCU.
All they need to do now is expand their coverage so people can actually use it.
I'm on Verizon, and even in this backwards area of Georgia, in a town of 270, I have a 4G connection. Friend has T-Mobile, and lives in Marietta, in a pretty urban area, has trouble keeping a signal; in the greater metro Atlanta area, she has signal at interstates and US highways only, most of the time.
Until they actually start covering areas, it won't matter how great their plans are.
Indeed Andrew, it goes in cycles though, as you well know.
Of course, there could be another possibility. In 2009 I was running Pirate Parties International for the 9 months leading up to the election, This time around we'd had a completely useless German (he's a LOTUS NOTES EVANGELIST for Zarquons sake!) who was kicked out a month before to be replaced by a Belgian and a Hungarian. Not enough time to overcome the damage, and they weren't me anyway.
The other, more prosaic explanation had something to do with the major Swedish Media refusing to cover the party AT ALL, leaving them off predictions, and polls (but including some parties who have been around longer, and won no seats, and still didn't this time) So a significant percentage of the Swedish Population thought they weren't running before they got to the polls (and if you don't select a pirate party ballot you don't cast a vote for them).
Personally, this year, I have been more focused on getting the US party (and it's composite state parties) running. It's the long game...
"The UK's three Pirate candidates got nowhere near Reda's vote: they appear to have collectively won fewer than 10,000 votes, or just 0.05 per cent of those cast."
Which would be a valid statement if the election was a national PR system. It's not. It's a regional constituency. As they were only on the ballot in the North West region, giving their votes in context to people they couldn't possibly get votes from is.... misleading.
The reality was 0.49%.
There were also local elections the same day and in Manchester, Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye got 3.75% (in a single seat, first past the post election, which is traditionally harder on small parties) All parties have complained about just how big the NW constituency is and judging by reactions on twitter after the announcements, the lower vote is probably down to just not being able to reach everyone.
Matches with down in Vassell ward, in Lambeth where another Pirate candidate was on the local ballot, and despite running a 'snap campaign' (last month or two only) managed 1.6%
"It's like Nancy Pelosi saying, "We have to pass it before we can tell you what's in it." "
ARRGGH. One of my pet peeves is the misquoting and misunderstanding around this.
Read it in context, then understand that what she's saying is WHAT IS IN THE CONSTITUTION.
She was asked what would be in the final bill, she doesn't know. You know why? Because until it's gone through the House (where she is) and the Senate, we won't know what's in the final bill. We couldn't look at the effects of the bill until we have the final bill, thanks to Amendments. Especially as the bill in question had an Olympic swimming pool load of proposed amendments.
So, you have to pass the bill [out of the house] to know what's in it [for the senate]. Please hand back your citizenship, and your voting privileges, until you've read the Constitution, and passed a citizenship test, is that better?
Considering Hammond plead guilty to it, I'd say it's probably true (despite a week earlier his lawyer claiming on TV that he came in afterwards, and had nothing to do with it, despite being convicted in 06 for... hacking a political website and stealing 5000 credit card numbers and planned to make charges on)
I dealt with Hammond 2006-2010, and he was quite boastful of his actions (he boasted to me of his mob-action on the chicago olympic announcement that same night). Probably why he got the max, with the gloating and smirking during sentencing.
I use Tetley English blend (I'm in the US) but before I moved here I was a strong supporter of pyramid bags (and still get them on occasion when I get homesick and go to the British import store)
Anyway, what's it say about me that I use a thermal mug, and have it brew for 6-8 hours? Of course the mug is a little larger than a normal mug (its 64fl oz (1.9l) but that and a splash of 2% (semi-skim) and its a wonderful thing.
no.
They were an information and analysis company. That also had a private investigation sideline.
A lot were people who had just subscribed to an analysis feed. You know, like a daily digest.
Seriously, the level of ignorance by those trying to justify things is staggering.
He IS an agressive bullying person.
He's also tracked down and stormed in (as part of a group) on a guy in a restaurant because he didn't like his beliefs.
He's also torched stuff in Chicago when they lost their Olympic bid, just to cause more trouble for the city council.
Fresh meat? He's already done a bunch of time inside. Not just these 20 months on remand, he was also in prison for a similar offense in 06.
He is pretty seperated from reality though, and I say that as someone that dealt with him before he went to prison for the Protest warrior, as well as when he came out until he went into hiding to do this.
Wow, now he's a Former Fuel Pool nuclear engineer? He changes his job title more than most MP's
Let's give him his real title shall we? 'Nuclear Engineer 72-76' perhaps? Or Perhaps "Anti-nuclear spokesman for hire 1979-present'.
He's a well known anti-nuclear activist, often hired to be an expert by like-minded groups. He's not a 'former fuel pool engineer' though. You have anyone credible, such as people who don't make their living demonising and exagerating nuclear power/safety?
And yet again Anonymous makes any kind of rational work in this area impossible, by making loud, brash, statements that they think gets them press. Sure it does, while also fostering and nurturing the very misunderstandings and fears that have been at the root of EVERY policy decision Anonymous claims to hate.
is it 'doing it for the lulz', or is it 'doing it so we always have something to whine about', or is it 'doing it because we're paid to provide a pretext and these muppets will go along with anything that sounds revolution-y'?
Indeed. I used mine from when I got it (second hand) in 86, until I moved to the states 10 years ago. used DRS to run all my businesses, had the floppy, boxes of tapes, and even went to the last dragon store (above a shop in Valetta, Malta) in the early 90s to pick up more stuff.
Heady days...
They need regular servicing, and people fall. They're big huge things without much else around them, and people will drive into them.
More importantly, when it's icy, they can throw a chunk of ice hard enough to go through a roof at a distance of a mile, or parts of the blade through a roof at 3 miles.
Oh, and then there's the biggest killer - FIRE.
If it's too windy, they have to be stopped. they are braked to a stop and locked down. Sometimes the brake fails, or is applied too late or not at all, and the friction makes the unit catch fire. Good luck putting that out - they usually don't bother, and try to deal with the flaming bits flying off to stop it spreading. Sometimes that doesn't work, and at least one turbine fire caused a wildfire that destroyed an area of Australian national park roughly the same size as the fukushima exclusion zone at it's peak.
There's been over 300 accidents just in 2011 and 2012, 26 of them fatal, just one accident in Brazil last year (where a bus crashed into a section of turbine) killed 17, (that's more than half the count of Chernobyl, and... 17 more than Fukushima, the only two level 7 nuclear events) and I bet you've never heard of it, I hadn't.
Reuters video - http://www.reuters.com/resources_v2/flash/video_embed.swf?videoId=231891110&edition=BETAUS
"They can't hear the phones when El Reg calls.
The noise of the shredders is quite loud. Give them a day or two to get rid of the backlog."
Er, they've already had a week (the subpoena was filed as evidence last Wednesday)
Since then, there's been a lot more going on just in this case, including requests to seal, the transcript of the July 2nd hearing being released, AND in a bit, deposition is due to start of the Plaintiff's representative.
Oh, and a few days ago, Comcast sent a DMCA nastygram over reprinting the PACER evidence filing.
It's a real fun case.
Andrew
Pirate Party "freetard", and defense expert in this case
About what I expected from him.
Had long dealings with him just before he went away for his first credit card theft conviction, then more when he came out (including some CFAA violations when on probation for said sentence). Wish I had contacted his probation officer now.
his core though, is credit cards. He can try and spin things any way he wants, but at the end of the day, he's a petty thief trying to clothe himself with the respectability of an activist.
As for what he did to warrant solitary, you might not be aware of the number of violent offenses he's already been convicted of in the past.
"With "copyfighters" it's all about choosing the evidence to back up your prejudice. You must reject all evidence that doesn't."
While 'copyrighters' don't have any evidence to back up their claims, and thus just make it up. They just reject all evidence.
Come on Andrew, this isn't a new issue. If every 'chicken little' prophecy of the damage of 'piracy' was true, and evidentially based, they'd have gone bankrupt a dozen times over by now. Kinda reminds me of the meetings/conferences I had to go to when I was a copyright infringement investigator for a UK record label in the late 90s.
And who can forget the lovely slapping down the IPO gave to industry claims with a request that claims be made WITH EVIDENCE (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/consult-2011-copyright-evidence.pdf), thanks to the Hargreaves review's call that policy be evidentially made, not lobbyist made.
You know, like that 'democratically mandated' law you mentioned, which got a major boost (and mired in 'wash up') after the head of UMG has a private meeting with Darth Mandy and feeds him a load of lies ('revenue down by half this year' - actually was up slightly)
By the way, I didn't notice any source for the 'under 10k/15k earnings figures on page 2. However, I *DO* recall a similar figure and claim being used by Fergal Sharkey a few years back (also unsubstantiated) to push for the 20 year EU extension of copyright terms for recorded music. Is that where you got it from, or has there been some 'evidence' behind it too?
Hmm, odd. I've been known to do a book or two. My wifehas worked in the publishing field for YEARS, most recently doing the graphics and preflighting books for a number of publishers (including textbooks from the likes of Oxford university press, MIT, etc)
eBooks are easier in a lot of ways, if nothing else there's less worry about inks, etc. and they don't have to wait for a printmatch to be printed, sent back etc.
ebooks take maybe 2/3 the work of a print version. Now if they're going to do a print copy too, they have to do all the steps as well, but combined it's maybe 105% the work of doing a print-only.
This is of course, the experiences of the middle-man company who gets the raw manuscripts and images, and outputs either a finished ebook file(s) or sends the print order to the printer of choice.
"First off, I don't think Prenda actually prosectuted anyone for copyright infringement, so none of its targets have been found guilty in a court of law. I believe that once a defendant started to put up a defence, they backed off. (Sorry, can't find the source for this right now)"
Wrong.
I know of at least one case where they went for it, and got a default judgement. Of cours,e less than a week later, the defendant had got his stuff together, hired an attorney and filed a response and a request to re-open the case. That was 2 months ago. Then Prenda decided to drop the suit (after getting a default win, just after the March hearing, and before the judge ruled on re-opening) so there was a sanctions motion filed. that's still ongoing, with the prenda lawyer firing any and all personal attacks on the defendants lawyer possible. The latest document there should be filed today
*disclaimer* I've been working with said defense lawyer.
Funny John, the story's spent the weekend (and the previous week) doing the rounds.
What you seem to have missed is that the files the DoJ used to get the warrants the NZ anti-terror squad used for the raid, was based on files not being taken down that CARPATHIA had been told to not touch, because of a warrant for the Ninjavideo case. Now, the DoJ had responded saying 'we never told MU not to delete it, we only talked to Carp, so when MU didn't download the files and were aware of it, it wasn't us that told them. Completely missing that carp told MU about the service of court orders they got from the DOJ.
So, on one hand, had MU deleted the files, they would have been prosecuted for tampering in an investigation and destruction of evidence. When they didn't touch them, they got this. DoJ wanted to have it both ways. It's really not that hard to grasp, especially as the DoJ's filings over the past week have basically confirmed the story.
She wasn't going to recomend 6 months; so not even her husband believes her. I say that because earlier this week, he (an IBM exec) launched a tirade on twitter about it (http://blogs.bostonmagazine.com/boston_daily/2013/01/15/carmen-ortizs-husband-twitter-aaron-swartz/), saying the PLEABARGAIN was for 6 months. When he turned it down, then Ortiz said they'd push for 7, which matches the rest of the claims.
Oh, and the INITIAL indictment was for 35 years max, with just the 5 charges "wire fraud; unauthorized access to a protected computer system; reckless damage to a protected computer system; aiding and abetting; criminal forfeiture"
Ortiz added more charges recently, upping it to 13 charges, and 50+ years max.
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