Quotulatiousness

August 14, 2009

EFF slaps Burning Man around over “creative lawyering”

Filed under: Law, Liberty, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 13:01

The annual Burning Man event has a reputation for quiet (and sometimes not-so-quiet) anarchy, but this year the event organizers are attempting a quick legal coup:

In a few weeks, tens of thousands of creative people will make their yearly pilgrimage to Nevada’s Black Rock desert for Burning Man, an annual art event and temporary community celebrating radical self expression, self-reliance, creativity and freedom. Most have the entirely reasonable expectation that they will own and control what is likely the largest number of creative works generated on the Playa: the photos they take to document their creations and experiences.

That’s because they haven’t read the Burning Man Terms and Conditions.

Those Terms and Conditions include a remarkable bit of legal sleight-of-hand: as soon as “any third party displays or disseminates” your photos or videos in a manner that the Burning Man Organization (BMO) doesn’t like, those photos or videos become the property of the BMO. This “we automatically own all your stuff” magic appears to be creative lawyering intended to allow the BMO to use the streamlined “notice and takedown” process enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to quickly remove photos from the Internet.

It’s not particularly anarchic to use one of the most restrictive pieces of post-modern fascism legislation to attempt to control the way event attendees use their photographs and video footage.

Philadelphia signs Michael Vick to 1-year contract

Filed under: Football — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:46

I didn’t think they’d be the team which would eventually sign Vick, but the Eagles are his new employers:

According to Fox Sports, Vick will be paid $1.6 million this year, with a chance for the three-time Pro Bowl quarterback to make $5.6 million as part of a 2010 option. None of the money is guaranteed, according to an Eagles source.

Vick, 29, was the first overall pick in the NFL draft by the Atlanta Falcons in 2001. He received a 23-month federal sentence after being convicted for running a dogfighting operation in Newport News, Va. He spent 18 months in prison and was released from federal custody July 20.

The Eagles’ decision was driven by coach Andy Reid, who made it clear after the 27-25 loss that he felt as though Vick deserved a chance to turn his life around.

“I’m a believer that as long as people go through the right process, they deserve a second chance,” Reid said. “Michael has done that. I’ve done a tremendous amount of homework on this, and I’ve followed his progress. He has some great people in his corner, and he has proven that he’s on the right track.”

I’m not in the least surprised that Vick has caught on with a team: he’s still a very talented quarterback, regardless of his legal woes. I didn’t think it would have been anyone in the NFC East, however. I’d rather imagined it would have been a team in the AFC West . . .

If it isn’t Astroturf . . .

Filed under: Health, Politics — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:34

. . . maybe it really is grassroots? Jesse Walker decodes some of the hysteria around both the protests and the official responses:

Clashes keep breaking out at the “town hall” meetings devoted to discussing health care reform. Usually the excitement amounts to some angry questions and heckling, but sometimes there’s more. Six people were arrested at a demonstration outside a meeting in St. Louis. Violence erupted at a town hall in Tampa after opponents of ObamaCare were locked out of the building. A North Carolina congressman cancelled a meeting after receiving a death threat; the pro-market group FreedomWorks, which was involved in some of the protests, fielded a death threat of its own. Supporters of the president’s health care reforms, who used to tout the support he’d received from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, are now accusing the very same companies of riling up “mob violence” to stop the plan.

As the charges and countercharges fly, here are three maxims to keep in mind:

1. It isn’t Astroturf after the grassroots show up.

[. . .]

2. It isn’t unprecedented if there are obvious precedents. When someone like New York Times columnist Paul Krugman claims that the “mob aspects” at the meetings are “something new and ugly,” all he’s demonstrating is that he’s an economist, not a historian. When it comes to bands of angry citizens being disruptive, it isn’t hard to find earlier examples in American history. It isn’t even hard to find earlier examples in 21st century American history. Just go to Google and punch in phrases like “guerrilla theater,” “antiwar protest,” and “Code Pink.”

[. . .]

3. It isn’t fascism if…actually, you can stop there. IT ISN’T FASCISM, you numbskulls.

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