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Re: More FSF hypocrisy


From: Alan Mackenzie
Subject: Re: More FSF hypocrisy
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:40:49 +0000 (UTC)
User-agent: tin/1.6.2-20030910 ("Pabbay") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.11-RELEASE (i386))

In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <user@example.net> wrote:
> The Free Software Foundation is asking for permission to file an
> amicus brief in the current case of Sony v. Tenenbaum in the federal
> District Court of Massachusetts:

> "We are submitting this brief to bring to the Court's attention some
> of the growing body of authority suggesting that the State Farm/Gore
> due process test applicable to punitive damage awards is likewise
> applicable to statutory damages, and in particular bars the
> suggestion that each infringement of an MP3 file having a retail
> value of 99 cents or less may be punishable by  statutory damages of
> from $750 to $150,000 -- or from 2,100 to 425,000 times the actual
> damages."
> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20090321164736122

> The FSF thinks 2,100 - 425,000 times actual dahages is excessive!

> Well. . . Huh?

> In the current suit Free Software Foundation Inc. v. Cisco Systems
> Inc. the FSF is asking for monetary damages:

> "(2) That the Court order Defendant to pay Plaintiff?s actual and
> consequential damages incurred, in an amount to be determined at
> trial or, in the alternative, statutory damages as set forth in 17
> U.S.C. ? 504(c);"

> Since the limit as x-> 0 of 1.00/x approaches infinity, awarding
> monetary damages of even one dollar is more than trillions of times
> actual economic losses.

No.  The damage done by the copyright violater to the copyright holder is
non-zero, even though that damage is not caused by the flow or non-flow
of money.

> In filing its amicus brief, the Free Software Foundation is not
> seeking due process fairness. It is simply blathering its standard
> hypocritical socialist propaganda.

Can you really not make a point without adding in vitriolic irrelevance?

Actually, I wonder what the FSF is doing mixing in here, because the
file-sharing case doesn't seem to have much to do with free software,
except tangentially.  (Look it up in a dictionary!)

> Sincerely,
> Rjack :)

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).



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