Bricker, I didn’t read that. I don’t really know how to read those things, so I’m sure I missed a few things.
I can’t believe they didn’t prepare. There’s tons of evidence. Papers explaining why CSS isn’t copy protection, mailing-list logs showing that DeCSS was developed for Livid, a DVD-player for Linux, etc.
Oy.
A correction to a statement I made in my post of 4:33 am on 2/14:
I referred to a “law” professor who had some students pursue some death-sentence convictions in IL, which eventually influenced that state’s governor to put a moratorium on the death penalty in that state. Make that a journalism professor, which strikes the reference as relevant to my discussion. I have seen articles in the papers, however, of lawyers and judges pursuing, on their own, the correcting of serious false past judgments, of course. I recall that some judge in Fresno, CA.US was onto something of that nature, and that a lawyer, I think, actually accomplished a similar thing in Contra Costa County, CA.US. I was just commenting that this sort of thing, while admirable, in no way is any appreciable compensation for the systematic foul play that is rampant within the legal industry.
WhiteNight:
In your post of 3:46 pm on 2/14, you mistakenly attributed a quote, which you proceeded to comment upon, as one from manhattan to ranulfa. It was actually from me to ranulfa, the one where I agreed with him (an attorney) that your statement accusing the particular judge, in that particular case, of bribery was libel.
In this post of yours containing that quote, you deny something nobody said you said. Then you claim a different accusation about that judge than you originally made.
Going back to Square 0 (as programmer’s do), the record at SDMB says you said, on the morning of Feb. 5, at exactly 11:58 am, CST:
I don’t know why you’re now saying you said something different, but technically, having prefaced that above sentence with “I’ll wager”, I don’t believe the statement could actually be charged as libel. The “I’ll wager” makes it really only an opinion. If you had said ‘He pocketed a hefty bribe,’ without having any evidence to substantiate that accusation, since bribery is a crime, this statement would’ve been libel per se, without need of any further clarification of the context of the statement. I think the attorneys here would pretty much agree with that conclusion, and I don’t think it matters what jurisdiction, wherein English-based law applies, such a statement is made.
I don’t know what the taking of a random name from a list could have to do with what you or anyone here said. Now you say you said:
Well, there’s no “I’ll wager” preferencing that statement, and “crooked”, which refers to the commission of a crime, now does make that statement libel *per se[/] – if you cannot produce sufficient evidence to back up such a statement. The phrase “based on his actions” doesn’t influence anything, and the “or criminally stupid” is just blather without either commonsensical or legal meaning.
The essence of the differnce between this and condemning all judges or some hypothetical judge is the realizability of damages. To adjudge you as libelous, the judge would have to claim and substantiate damages, but that would be fairly easy for a singel, real such judge to do; whereas, “all judges” or some supportive organization for same could never establish damages across the class of all judges or any one of them, based on such a generic statement, right?
So, maybe one of our insulted lawyers here could clean that up some, but I think it’s basically right.
In order to avoid a libel suit but yet raise a fuss in respect to the specific court decision, you’re “I’ll wager. . .” preface should get you by, but something like ‘I could believe. . .’, I think, would more clearly establish that what you’re saying is only your opinion. However, if you think some of my statements about lawyers and doctors are too extensive, you ought to think about the fact that there could be a large stretch in the logic of causality in such a conclusion of bribery of a judge. Judges certainly don’t have to be bribed to make biased, vituperative, stupid (but not criminally stupid 
) or whatever decisions. They do it all the time. With a few systematic changes I’ve implied around this board, they might do it less. You could’ve otherwise also exposed yourself to libel by saying the MPAA criminally threatened the judge, while you likewise had no evidence of that either.
Based only on whatever went on in that trial that wasn’t systematically defective throughout the legal system you were condemning, yes, you couldn’t rationally attack the whole system. If you recognized an instance of something systematic being fouled up, I’d say you could put part of the blame on the rest of the system for that foul-up, because it’s the system of all of them, and they’re all responsible for maintaining it in decent order – judges, attorneys and the whole |<-nine yards->|. Look at it from my perspective.
Ray (The first one that libels me around here. . .------->>>>>>>>>>>> courthouse to be pro-pared )
Now I’ve been slandered. Nanobyte assumes I’m a “he”. Sheesh.
Ooooooooooppppppssssss!
I’d normally figure a final ‘a’ meant female, but hmmmmmm. . . I’m probably then guilty of criminal libel. . .and a hate crime against women.
BTW, for WhiteNight, here’s the BC libel statute. I’d say libel published on this MB would be “broadcast libel”, as defined here; however, I don’t see any reference here to prima-facie libel, so maybe WN can make the judge’s lawyers work for their money.
Now, let’s move on to sedition (?) in the US:
majormd suggested the Gburg Address as an oratorial model for terse posts here. I’d like to point out that this speech was slightly longer originally, though not by much:
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
Final Version (after review by presidential political and legal advisers and Mary Todd):
http://www.cybernation.com/gettysburg_address.html
Rough Draft by “Honest” Abe:
87 yr ago, some Limeys spawned you here and set up their own tax depository, because they thought it better to keep their money in their own pockets rather than in King George’s. Cotemporaneously, they conceived of something called ‘liberty’, which, depending on your skin color, they considered letting you smell a little of. In case you hadn’t heard, there’s a civil war raging around you, which may threaten said immaculate conception. You’re now standing where some of the participants fought.[sup]1[/sup] I thought I’d tell you that we plan to plant bodies from that battle right here under your feet. An EIR we had printed up makes this kosher.
But we can’t make this dirt holy, because the bodies, prehumously, already did that. The world won’t hang onto my babble here. . .unless some idiot from the press has a pocket recorder running [cue]; but that world likes to remember wars in order to encourage its kids to play with guns, so it will remember the fight staged on this dirt. Now, we have to prolong whatever those guys were doing and do more of it – in order that their effort not have not gotten anywhere – that our tax depository be reborn free to roll you more efficiently – and, oh yeah [cue to extend mikes], THAT GOVERNMENT OF LAWYERS, BY LAWYERS AND FOR LAWYERS SHALL NOT DISAPPEAR AND DEPRIVE THIS NOISY LAWYER OF HIS JOB.
Honest Abe (Subject to review by my counsel, as to whether it could be more lawyerly. . .at the expense of honesty.)
[sup]1[/sup] Pasture donated by J. P. (why this speech is going to be billed as the G’burg Address. All wealthy J. P.'s are known to be suckers for requests for donations to the right causes.)
And, I’m told that, because there weren’t a whole lot of lawyer jokes back in Abe’s time (American lawyers then just beginning to learn how to fully express their natures), he was pretty good at n***** jokes.
Ray (at least his-story)
My excuse is that I don’t have a good oratorium.
But, BTW, are intellectual-property lawyers required to be intellectuals?
Ray (ex-EE who has been labeled on this message-bored place as ‘pseudo-Intel-ekshooall’)
NanoByte, I think the misunderstanding comes in with the libel/morally wrong question.
I think it is morally wrong to attack a whole group for the actions of some of their members. This leads to racial/etc prejudices.
I do not feel that libel is necessarily morally wrong, though in some cases it could be.
So…
I feel it is morally wrong to say “All judges …” or “All lawyers …” based on the actions of less than all of them.
I do not feel it is morally wrong to make claims about one person “John Doe …” based on that person’s actions.
To lie about that person, yes. But to perhaps make an overbroad assumption, no.
It would be a lie if I claimed I had proof that the judge did something illegal, and this I feel would be wrong. But, I do not feel it is morally wrong to suggest that he might have done something morally wrong, because that just raises the question, it doesn’t try to answer it.
As to the issue of libel…
I may or may not be guilty of libel. The chance of me actually coming to problems because of it, even if I were plainly guilty is fairly low.
I don’t think it’s relevant to this because I think Manhattan and others were saying that I did a morally wrong thing, slighting someone, not that I’d better watch out because I might have legal trouble. But, that said, I think my statements made it obvious that what I said was opinion. Even a statement (not suggestion) that it’s stupidity or criminal acts is still an opinion until there’s a universaly agreed upon standard for stupidity. And, I honestly think that the MPAA’s actions have bordered on bribery enough (the Norwegian parliment is reportedly looking into the issue of bribery because the police arrested someone in connection with this issue even though he wasn’t accused of violating any laws, nor even suspected of it.) that to claim that they might bribe someone would be allowable, partly because I’m not not claiming to have anything other than belief to back me and also because of their apparently shady dealings in the past.
Anyways, as summary. I think the moral crime is in insulting a group based on the actions of one person, and because I didn’t do this, I feel I haven’t been morally wrong.
But, morals aren’t the same for everyone, so you may feel differently.