Recent posts by wolfinthesheep on Kongregate

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by donseptico:

Whilst it would not be ‘reasonable’ nor practical to check that each developer does hold all the necessary individual licenses… it would be perfectly reasonable to require the developer to provide copies of license agreements on receipt of a complaint from the copyright holder and then to act appropriately. Which is one thing that would distinguish a ‘legit’ site from a ‘rogue’ one.

But even that can be far too harsh a definition. Imagine this: A copyright holder thinks a game is infringing on his IP, and files a DMCA. Kongregate must then notify the developer, who can challenge the takedown request in court, and since he probably lacks the funds or the time, does not. The game is taken down.

This is the situation that already exists with DMCA laws.

Now, consider SOPA, which adds a further requirement of reasonable proactive measures. If the copyright holder well known and commonplace, game developers create a lot of material that is similar to theirs (think Angry Birds clones, or something), so they may send dozens of takedown notices for dozens of games. After a sufficient amount of time, they may decide to take legal action against Kongregate, noting that even after repeated complaints, the website still allows these games to be uploaded, despite it being “clear” that the copyright holder considers them infringing.

Before SOPA, Kongregate would only have to show that they were following DMCA law, and that they weren’t doing anything to specifically encourage that material, which is relatively easy to do. Under SOPA, they would be required to show that their protective measures do meet minimum standards, and prove that it is unfeasible for them to actually check games for possible infringing material (and know if the material is infringing or not). Moreover, it’s not about showing it in court, it’s about convincing a judge before a trial is underway that the complainant’s requests are not possible to meet.

Now, this is Kongregate we’re talking about, which is a fully funded and staffed business. Imagine this was a personal blog, one that allowed comments. As will all comment sections, spam bots will load your website with links to Warez sites, knockoff goods, and all kinds of counterfeited and infringing material. A single person can’t be expected to monitor their page constantly, and more than likely won’t want to go to court, regardless of how much in the right they believe they are. So you have a situation here where the safest option is to disable comments entirely, and not allow any communication on your website.

And that’s essentially what the main fear of SOPA-like laws are. Increased costs to police content posted on your website, regardless if you’re directly responsible for it or not, which either means the website doesn’t exist or that user-created content will not be allowed. The trouble isn’t entirely that copyright holders can shut down websites willy-nilly (though that is a possibility in some circumstances), but that the requirements needed to protect yourself from threat of a court case will make it unfeasible for websites to operate entirely.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by donseptico:

Would SOPA not make it a criminal rather than civil matter? Either way you agree that there are at least two stages where a legit site can prove itself to be legit before it even faces the possibility of being shut down by a pre-trial injunction.

Firstly at the investigation stage a secondly, in front of the grand jury/court (as applicable)… as you so succinctly put it;

You’re right, SOPA is purely for criminal law. I’d forgotten about that. Nonetheless, I’m fairly certain that no copyright infringement/counterfeiting case could warrant a Grand Jury.

If, and only if, a site fails to demonstrate that it is legit (and one assumes that a legit site would defend itself) at either of the two stages mentioned above could a prosecutor ask for a pre-trial injunction against the whole, or part of, a site.

Well, once again, this is the preliminary hearing. You’re not going through the full motions of the trial, you’re trying to convince the judge that the accusations against you are so lacking merit that a trial is completely unnecessary.

And, unless I’m missing something very obvious (entirely possible on 4 hours sleep)… warning – the following comment is based on the UK legal system and may not be applicable to the US, so don’t shoot me if wrong!

‘Current’ / civil: Allegation investigated, if ‘credible’ taken before a court, if court agrees injunction served, eventual trial.
‘SOPA’ / criminal: Allegation investigated, if ‘credible’ taken before the GJ/court (as applicable), if the GJ/court agrees injunction served, eventual trial.

The burden of proof required in a civil case is on the balance of probability in a criminal matter, however, it is beyond reasonable doubt. If introducing SOPA makes IP infringement a criminal matter this would increase, rather than decrease, the burden of proof on the copyright holder (via the state) no?

Well, a couple things to this. One, IP infringement is already both civil and criminal. As I’d said above, I’d forgotten SOPA only applies to criminal investigations, so civil suits aren’t relevant. However, for criminal charges, SOPA does reduce the burden of proof.

Currently, under US law, there is a term known as “Safe Harbours”, which basically says that a 3rd party cannot be held liable as long as they respond properly to DMCA takedown requests, and that they don’t actively encourage IP infringement. The case against MegaUpload could only go through because there was evidence that its owners and administrators actively encouraged the uploading of illegal files.

Under SOPA, you can be found liable for not taking reasonable precautions and not implementing reasonable countermeasures. What that is, and how the law defines “reasonable” in terms of technology is unknown. Whatever the case, before the prosecution had to find evidence that you were encouraging illegal activity, and SOPA would lessen that requirement to a failure to take proactive measures.

And again, “beyond a reasonable doubt” only applies to court verdicts. The penalties of SOPA are used under the much looser requirements of a preliminary hearing.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by donseptico:

The ‘seizing of assets’ (which can obviously include websites) is also apparently relatively commonplace on indictment (before an actual trial).

The main issue with this is the revenue cut-off, which essentially forces website owners to settle or concede long before any trial has reached a conclusion, because 3-5 years of a non-existent site might as well be a permanent takedown.

None of that changes the fact, however, that in order to get that far the AG has to investigate a complaint and decide there’s enough evidence to present to the grand jury. Again, I don’t know how you do things in the US… but here that would involve looking at the evidence, interviewing the accused, etc… so that’s one stage where one would expect legit sites to be able to show that they are, indeed, legit thus avoiding even going to the grand jury, let alone being shut down.

While I might be somewhat confused, I’m almost 100% certain that a Grand Jury is not used except in the most serious of crimes, and certainly not for a civil matter like Copyright Infringement (unless possibly for a large-scale criminal investigate for something like MegaUpload).

For most civil cases, the prosecution presents the case to a judge, the defendant is allowed to arguing against the validity of the case, and then the judge weighs in on if there is enough evidence to go forward with a trial.

In terms of the preliminary injunction, the prosecution has to argue that damage will be caused throughout the course of the trial, and that the balance of fairness tips toward them in terms of harm prevented and caused.

Once again, the issue of SOPA isn’t about making things possible, because everything I’ve stated above already applies to infringing websites. The sole purpose of SOPA is to lessen the burden of proof on the copyright holder, and to increase the impact of damage done against the target of the complaint before any trial has occurred.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve no doubt the bill could be abused by the content industries but, contrary to some of the posts here and opinions I’ve read elsewhere, I see no evidence that ‘site reported = site shutdown’ (with the promise of being reinstated on acquittal at an eventual trial).

I agree, there are an annoying amount of people who have overreacted to the laws without trying to understand them.

However, the promise of reinstatement is basically moot, because, once again, your website will have become irrelevant after 3-5 years, and you’ll be forced to reestablish the revenue sources that kept it afloat.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by donseptico:

Standards for reasonableness and facilitation do exist within law, as exemplified earlier. Doubtless, if a website were taken to court, this would be one of the first things the court would decide upon and, as pointed out earlier, only the court can impose sanctions (which one assumes they’d not do if they’d decided the site was legit).

And this is where your main confusion lies, donseptico. The whole point of preliminary injunctions is that action is taken before any official court decision is made. The site being legit is irrelevant, because that’s what the entire court proceeding is for. An injunction is applied solely on the basis of the plaintiff (and the AG, assumedly) providing a convincing enough argument that the site will cause significant damages during the course of the trial.

The point of SOPA isn’t to determine what is legal or not, it solely provides content industries easier and faster means of doling out punishments with a lower burden of proof.

Think of cases such as YouTube vs Viacom. YouTube was found not liable after a 4 year trial. Under SOPA (and if YouTube was hypothetically a foreign website), it’s almost certain that it would be considered “facilitating copyright infringement” since it allows users to upload infringing material, and because it does host quite a large amount of infringing material. So, during those 4 years, YouTube would have lost its domain, lost its advertising support, and more than likely would have become irrelevant when it was finally declared a legal website.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by donseptico:

In the case of a site like kongregate, who have performed due dilligence, etc it is the individual uploader that would be held responsible for any infringing material they have uploaded.

In the case of a site dedicated to the provision of fake drugs, distribution of copyrighted material, etc, etc then it is, quite understandably, the site that would be shut down (if domestic) or be ‘blacklisted’ (to restrict access) if ‘foreign’ (to the US, obviously).

But you’re speaking entirely from the intent of these two bills, which is what got everyone so pissed off in the first place. You can try to pretend that only sites “dedicated to distribution of copyrighted material” will be shut down, but if you take 10 minutes to read through the proposed laws, you’ll see that the wording is so vague that a huge number of legitimate sites fall under them.

For example, you say Kongregate has done due diligence. It hasn’t, under definition of the laws. There are no qualifications stating what the required amount of preventative measures are, so relying on a user vetted system to notify administrators may not be good enough.

And what’s worse, all of the punitive actions of SOPA and PIPA occur before a trial occurs, so an entire site could have itself hidden away with all financial support cut-off until 5-10 years later, when it’s finally determined that the site was legal.

Topic: Kongregate / "Hey! Are you running an ad blocker?"

Originally posted by EndlessSporadic:

And it is that kind of attitude that is ruining Kongregate, not the actions of Kongregate itself. If you want to whine about it, go ahead and leave. Natural selection at its finest.

Natural selection indeed. If Kongregate can’t be the best alternative on the web, then it will die. Survival of the fittest.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by donseptico:

Yes, it could get messy but, ultimately, the individual developer is the one who is accountable.

That’s the problem of SOPA and PIPA, though. Both of them put more responsibility of the shoulder’s of the service providers and web hosts. It’s not the individual developer who is accountable, because the industry already tried that and found it was too expensive, so now they want the ability to force entire websites to shut down because of the actions of users (or make the entire internet be the police of their content).

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

The lobbyists (especially the MPAA) are getting ridiculously petulant now. For God knows what reason, they’re still insisting the resistance to the Bill is “Google’s doing”, and refuse to acknowledge the other major organizations opposing them, not to mention the millions of people who wrote to their representatives…

It’s starting to resemble a temper tantrum, what with the talks of:

1) Hollywood threatening to pull campaign support (For the love of God, do it, I’m sick of Hollywood increasing Copyright into infinity).

2) Whining that their voices can’t be heard compared to the internet – despite the MPAA and RIAA practically controlling all broadcast radio and television.

3) The head of the MPAA basically stating on live television that campaign contributions are given in exchange for passing laws.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by Longshot145:

Several main reasons why people don’t like those bills:
1. They can’t download free content (aka pirating) from the internet.
2. Most websites will be taken down by this due to having infriging on copyrighted work, such as some idiot on youtube (no offense) who goes and create a music video using someone elses song and posting it on major sites. (Facebook, major video sites, etc.)
3. Sites cant defend themselves in court against charges of stealing copyrighted work and would be taken down without a second thought.

1) There is always a means of pirating. People who pirate are the least affected by laws like this, because technology always routes around these issues.

2) The problem isn’t being taken down, per se. It’s that there are massive additional costs that are required to make websites compliant with SOPA/PIPA. Take Kongregate, for example. It uses a “notice and take-down” approach to people uploading content that isn’t theirs. Under the vaguely written laws of SOPA/PIPA, the fact that Kongregate isn’t preemptive with piracy is contentious.

3) The bigger issue is that SOPA’s punishments are handed out before any court decision. You can have your entire funding sources cut off entirely years before your first court date.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

Originally posted by Twilight_Ninja:

Thank God he’s got our back on this one. But it doesn’t take a genius to see that

Or, more accurately, no one except Hollywood would be stupid enough to suggest legislation that almost all of the population, along with multiple 100 billion dollar companies, are in total opposition to.

Topic: Kongregate / K+ or bust!

Originally posted by EndlessSporadic:

It also won’t succeed if it keeps its games free or doesn’t provide options of making money.

Except:
A) It’s not up to Kongregate to keep the games free, it’s the developers.
B) Kongregate’s primary source of funding is still advertising.

If they want to create pay-for options, I don’t have an issue with it. If they’re genuinely not worth paying for, though, and getting money only through people wanting to “support Kong”, then it’s a stupid business practice.

Topic: Kongregate / K+ or bust!

Originally posted by bobby71983:

when you donate $30 to charity, do you expect to get a reward?

same idea here. think of k+ as supporting kong. if you dont want to support it with money, then dont buy it and you wont be missing much of anything.

Kongregate isn’t a charity, it’s a business. If they can’t provide something that’s worth paying for, then it won’t succeed.

Topic: Serious Discussion / SOPA Bill: and now PIPA and ACTA

MPAA’s blog pots in response to the White House’s rejection of SOPA.

That blog post basically highlights the entire absurdity of this bill. The White House comes out and says it opposes SOPA and its shotgun approach, and the MPAA pretends it just received a thumbs up to push SOPA forward.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Are Rights Given or a Privilege?

Originally posted by Twilight_Ninja:

Originally posted by Spaghedeity:

If God grants us our rights, why didn’t he grant black people rights? Is it because they’re the devil’s children?

wtf

It’s called sarcasm.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Euthanasia

Originally posted by vikaTae:

There’s no rational reason to take someone’s life, or to assist them in taking it, when they will get better. They are low at the time, but they are not continuing to deteriorate without the ability to stop it: we can fix it, or stabilise things. They will regain a new life as full as the old, in time. This is true of most any disability, and a lot of elbow grease.

I have an honest question for you, vika: When the health care system already accounts for differing beliefs, different choices in procedures, and ultimately puts all health related decisions in the hands of the patient (except in extenuating circumstances), why should assisted suicide be the only black and white rule in the book?

It’s your opinion that their life will be “as full as the old”, and your opinion that they “will get better”. While that may very well be true of many people in the world, it is as equally as false for others. Why should you, or the system, or the government, have the right to force them to continue living if they are found to be of perfectly sound mind and sound judgment?

Topic: Serious Discussion / Is Conservipedia a joke?

It’s a well known fact that the person who owns and manages Conservapedia is 100% serious about his work, and it’s also known that a very large percentage of contributors and/or moderators are people intentionally trolling the owner by seeing how ludicrous they can sound while still getting him to agree with what is written.

Of course, the ratio of serious people to trolls is completely unknown, but places like 4chan and reddit have definitely made a sport of the whole thing.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Barred

Originally posted by Jantonaitis:

And I don’t know what reference you’re using for ‘traditional conservatism’, but heavy regulation and oversight has never been a conservative model in N. America. Possibly you’re thinking of Burkean Conservatism.

See…this is what I don’t get. Traditional Conservatism is all about slowing change to a gradual pace, both in terms of society, beliefs, economics, etc. That, in itself, is not a natural progression of the world…change happens in spurts, and will occur rapidly if left to itself.

Traditional conservatism is only about minimal regulation if and only if the shifts and changes occur slowly.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Barred

Originally posted by Jantonaitis:

@winna: Traditional conservatism believes in small government. The kind you’re discussing is more accurately called neo-conservatism and many American conservatives don’t subscribe to it, but it has been popularized as ‘what conservatism is now’. Neo-Conservatives also tend to be adamantly pro-Israel; something scoopolard isn’t, so it’s unfair to tar him with the usual stereotypes. Also the libertarian/authoritarian thing is completely full of shit and nobody pays the slightest attention to it except on the internet.

I’ve always wondered what “small government” means. It’s always sounded like a political talking point to me, because the only political leaning that actually wants to reduce the physical size and numbers of the government organization is Anarchy. And no, I’m not being snarky. I’m seriously wondering what the term “small government” entails.

Also, traditional conservatism actually believes heavily in regulation and oversight…unless you believe that the world and society – not to mention trade, commerce and growth – don’t change rapidly, which is another argument entirely.

Topic: Serious Discussion / AX: A little puzzler regarding Brain Hacking

Originally posted by vikaTae:

@Wolf: Your thoughts were extremely interesting, Wolf. The defense of automatism you mentioned, does have one possible flaw. It is contingent on the salient fact that there must be a total loss of control in order for the defense to apply. I suspect this is one we will have to see in court to determine if this defense can apply to this sort of case. Because it is perfectly possible (as in we can do it now) to issue commands to the peripheral nervous system, without reducing the loss of control over self that the person otherwise has.

For example, issuing the commands to the nerves of the arm, to manipulate it, such that the weapon was drawn and fired, can take place without interfering with the rest of the body. Only three trunk nerve bundles are involved, with a distinct signal pattern. So, the arm can be remote controlled, whilst say, the other arm and the legs, are not. Can automatism apply when only a single part of the body is under a different control system?

Total loss of control isn’t the same as not having control of your entire body. It means you had no control over the act that was performed. For example, hitting someone because your arm had a spasm doesn’t constitute assault.

Topic: Serious Discussion / AX: A little puzzler regarding Brain Hacking

Under current legal laws, assuming you can prove that your brain was hacked and your body was forced to act in a specific way, you are cleared of any legal responsibility under the defence of Automatism.

Topic: Serious Discussion / 5 Top Military Commanders in History

Originally posted by AirmanAlex:

2-Erwin Rommel, Greatest Tank Commander in history, tactics are still used today! (my personal favorite)

Makes me sad how few people know about Rommel. Not only an amazing general, but one of the most honourable military commanders the world has ever seen, and basically had the respect of every Allied leader, despite being a Nazi.

Takes a lot of character to be legendary on the battlefield and command a force that committed absolutely no war-crimes throughout WW2.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Zombiism Becomes a Reality

If it can be spread through any living creature, then all life on Earth will cease to exist. Imagine if every single insect on the planet could spread a disease to anything, and had their nature hardwired to ensure that they would spread it. Malaria alone is widespread and difficult to stop, and that’s worrying only about Mosquitos.

That’s assuming, of course, that the disease isn’t as contradictory as your premise states. If the only goal is to consume meat, then effectively everything that becomes infected would then, subsequently, be incapacitated because of damaged body parts (and, assuming they’re “undead”, they won’t ever heal). Not to mention that infected corpses are still meat…

Topic: Serious Discussion / Advertisements, and their growing intrusiveness

The stupidest part is, advertisers will spend millions creating a one-time commercial for the Superbowl, and make it something that people want to see, and then go the rest of the year creating the most obnoxious crap imaginable.

It’s like the internet advertising boom. Everyone was competing to create the most irritating banner imaginable, and now they’re shocked that people would block them.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Is it a valid legal argument?

Originally posted by Darkruler2005:

As I said, I didn’t know the details, so my reply was more of an inquiry. I seem to get from your post that nothing was enforced. I find it hard to accept we don’t take any actions at all. If this man’s sleepwalking is so tremendous that he can kill while doing as such, it is time to treat and reduce the effects. It’s a good thing he took the initiative, but it doesn’t seem required. I never said that he should be found “legally responsible”, but that these situations should be prevented in the future regardless of that. Not through punishment, though perhaps that medication (if it works) is a nice start.

Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the full-text of the case. Here is the wikipedia stub on it, which isn’t a whole lot (there’s a broken link to the court case).

From what I understand, though, the threat of recurrence was considered extremely small, because it was such a freak accident, that the court couldn’t reasonably force any corrective measures onto the defendant. It’s obviously based on some legal limitations and such, but as I said, I can’t find the full court case.

Topic: General Gaming / Proffesional Critics are too soft.

Originally posted by charredmonkeys:

Wouldn’t someone who is a lot more agile than all of the enemies have a better chance of beating them?

Professional fighters consider 20 pounds to be a major disadvantage, and that’s in a structured arena where it’s possible to beat your opponent on points.

Not to mention that it’s impossible to knock someone out for more than a few seconds without causing a concussion.