Shia Labeouf Brilliantly Parodies Intellectual Property With Plagiarized Apologies And Defense Of Plagiarism

from the do-keep-this-up dept

I'll admit that, other than knowing his name and that he was a Hollywood actor in some big budget films, I didn't know very much at all about Shia LaBeouf. However, apparently he's been facing some "controversy" over a few different examples of plagiarism in his work, with the "biggest" being plagiarizing a cartoon by Daniel Clowes called Justin M. Damiano with the short film HowardCantour.com. Others also pointed out that, in a comic book created by LaBeouf, he apparently plagiarized a bunch of others, including Kurt Vonnegut and Charles Bukowski (if you're going to plagiarize, plagiarize from the best, apparently).

While plagiarism scandals pop up every so often, there are a variety of standard responses -- usually involving some sort of apology and then someone laying low for a while before reappearing (just ask Joe Biden). LaBeouf initially appeared to be following the same script... tweeting out apologies, before people started realizing that the apologies themselves were "plagiarized." That includes using Tiger Woods' apology after his scandal: "I have let my family down, and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart." Also, former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara's famous apology concerning his role in the Vietnam War: "I was wrong, terribly wrong. I owe it to future generations to explain why."

From there, he finally admitted on New Year's eve that he was really mocking everyone -- which should have been obvious from the beginning, by saying:

You have my apologies for offending you for thinking I was being serious instead of accurately realizing I was mocking you.

Oh, and if you hadn't figured it out already, that line is also plagiarized.

He then decided to give an email interview with BleedingCool, much of which itself appears to be plagiarized as well. BleedingCool initially claimed that it believed the statements were "original" to LaBeouf, but then has gone back and noted repeated lines in the interview that are plagiarized from others. I'm guessing that they're missing quite a few others.

But what comes out of it is what is likely a highly plagiarized defense of plagiarism, as well as a condemnation of the state of copyright law today, and how it limits forms of expression. Take this tidbit, for example:

The problem begins with the legal fact that authorship is inextricably
bound up in the idea of ownership and the idea of language as
Intellectual property. Language and ideas flow freely between people
Despite the law. It’s not plagiarism in the digital age – it’s repurposing.
Copyright law has to give up on its obsession with “the copy”
The law should not regulate “copy’s” or “reproductions” on there own.
It should instead regulate uses – like public distributions of copyrighted work -
That connect directly to the economic incentive copyright law was intended to foster.
The author was the person who had been authorized by the state to print there work.
They were the ones to be held accountable for the ideas.
THE FIRST LAWS ON AUTHORSHIP WERE USED TO CENSOR & PERSECUTE
THE WRITERS WHO DARED PUBLISH RADICAL IDEAS.
Simple – should creation have to check with a lawyer?

At least some of that is from Larry Lessig. Almost certain other parts are from others. But, in a way he's proving the point. He is creating something new, unique and interesting, even as he's plagiarizing others, even to the point of talking about outdated copyright laws.

For what it's worth, even this idea is not unique. Back in 2007 we wrote about author Jonathan Lethem writing an entire defense of plagiarism, which was 100% plagiarized. If Labeouf is looking for more material, he might want to check that one out, if he hasn't already. Oh, and also Malcolm Gladwell's 2004 defense of plagiarism, which has some great quotes as well.

Iron Law: 1914 2014

• Posted on January 2, 2014
• by Clyde Lewis
• in Articles

IRON LAW: 1914 2014

Last night during my show with Jerry Hoskey, I was listening to all of the various intuitive predictions of 2014 and I was struggling with the urge to once again use history as a mirror to the possible future that will transpire in 2014.
I was well aware that many shows similar to mine were either striking an esoteric impression with numerology or were also consulting the contemporary soothsayers for a glimpse into the blurry and nebulous future that is the New Year.
After Jerry left the program and the little lights on my phone were dropping because most of the people on the phone wanted to know their futures, I gave into my urge to draw from history. What I was realized is how 100 years has past from 1914-2014 and it is ample time for the powers that be to, once again, exercise the iron law of oligarchy.
I know I did the same comparisons last year, but the advantage we have is that we live in times where technology is available for us to look back 100 years and realize that it is easy for the oligarchy to push their globalist agendas because there are many people who really don’t bother to learn from history. There are others who also believe that history rarely repeats itself. I think Mark Twain said that “history rhymes.” That is a little how I see things, but I also take on the conspiratorial view of that those who forget history is very likely to repeat it.
Today there is a media that is now in place that make it a point to delete it. The failure of the fourth estate and the controls that are now in place have been crucial in creating a warped climate of nationalism, ideologically or religiously-motivated violence, politically correct speech, dismissive talking points, political and religious fanaticism, manufactured racial tension, pseudo science, and fear.
It was this type of climate that was crucial in developing resentment and anger that existed 100 years ago in the pre-World War I era.
These accepted narratives took on a life of their own and today they are efficient tools in providing the psychological excuse for a revolt.
For years we have been warned that the conditions are ripe for another world war. The climate 100 years ago was similar as the Catholic Church was warning the world that a new war was at hand. The seriousness of the warnings wore off as the church had been using the prophecy of war as a tool for congregations to get well with God, but they knew of the underlying spiritual apocalypse that was being demonstrated in the early 20th century.
Even at the passing of the new year into the 1900’s, mankind was preoccupied with apocalyptic thinking and the religious authorities had already warned that the beginning of “the war to start all wars” was at hand. It didn’t turn out to be Armageddon, but it most surely appeared to be the fulfillment of eschatological beliefs.
In the apocalyptic apostasy and the unraveling of truth, we see the repeat performance of relentless slaughter, perceived religious persecution, civil upheaval, and the Luciferian ideal of “war against all” until the purification is at hand. I know that this sounds a bit over dramatic, but the constant talk from the religious empires and the imperial cults of 100 years ago was that the “law of the jungle” prevailed. In an attempt at a globalist world order, it was crucial to keep the notion alive that mankind had fallen and that there were “others” that were totally depraved individuals and deserved to burn in the fires of righteous war.
At the turn of the 20th century it was this warped vision that permeated political, economic and even health and biological ideologies. Isn’t it a bit synchronistic that in 100 years we are focused on the healthcare issue and how we are going to take on the responsibility of caring for the aging baby boomer and the underlying fear and rumor is that the only solution is death panels and eugenics directives?
Back in 1914, eugenics directives were privately supported practices. There were health officials that secretly practiced euthanasia or even supported that idea of selective genocide.
As Paul Lombardo wrote in his essay, ‘Eugenic Sterilization Laws’:
“Legally-mandated sterilization was the most radical policy supported by the American eugenics movement. A number of American physicians performed sterilizations even before the surgery was legally approved, though no reliable accounting of the practice exists prior to passage of sterilization laws.
Advocacy in favor of sterilization was one of Harry Laughlin’s first major projects at the Eugenics Record Office. In 1914, he published a Model Eugenical Sterilization Law that proposed to authorize sterilization of the “socially inadequate” – people supported in institutions or “maintained wholly or in part by public expense. The law encompassed the “feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf; deformed; and dependent” – including “orphans, ne’er-do-wells, tramps, the homeless and paupers.” By the time the Model Law was published in 1914, twelve states had enacted sterilization laws.”
While these measures are considered barbaric today, there are some people that see the Affordable health care act as a well devised plan to ultimately employ some of the same types of directives.
Some of the Laughlin models were the inspiration for Hitler’s T4 programs.
Hitler’s T4 directives were aimed at euthanizing the incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. There were organizations that were part of the Hitler’s health care directives and physicians were given the responsibility of determining which patients were incurable and were need of mercy killing.
It was a new government health program and bureaucracy headed by physicians that was established with a mandate to kill anyone deemed to have a “life unworthy of living.” Some physicians active in the study of eugenics who saw Nazism as “applied biology” endorsed this program without question. However, the criteria for inclusion in this program were not exclusively genetic, and it wasn’t necessarily based on infirmity.
It was based on the patient’s economic status.
It is downright peculiar to see through the looking glass of history darkly and understanding that the ‘iron law of the oligarchy‘ was just as real and unceasing in 1914 as it is in 2014.

OBAMA ENDORSES EUGENICS KILLING 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIsiXn5oesI

The more things change the more they go full circle and the problems of the past need to be recognized as similar problems today and that warning signs point once again to “experimental times” where our morals will be tested for the so called New dawn of the global order.
The oligarchy in 1914 gave us what was known as the “Modern Enlightenment” and dictated ex cathedra just what “liberty and freedom” meant in the changing century.
The same applies today as we are encouraged to “wake up” to the same struggle; however, we are now being asked not to fight against the globalist overreach, but accept it as the only solution to the perils that await us in a nebulous and dangerous future.
We are asked to accept that we must be disarmed, that we must be spied upon, and we must pretend as though we are not aware that the so-called health plans proposed are being implemented in order to gradually introduce genetics directives that were plaguing the world 100 years ago.
The common theme that has been told over and over again for decades is that, even after the second world war, most government’s don’t outgrow their fondness for despotism. There will always be people that have resented the power of the state and have had a swift and violent reaction, such as by the so-called 1 %, against the priorities of the oligarchs who have seized control of the government that is no longer for the people by the people.
That is why it is a compelling notion that the same climate exists for another world war.
The details of history may be boring to the average person, but we see comparisons of the Balkan conflicts of the past with the Middle Eastern crisis. We are also hearing more and more about how aggravated people have become with regard to the Zionist controls of the world. It most certainly is a concern; however, the obsession can be overstated to the point of ignoring the evil that exists with any kind of imperialism and the expansion that was seen in 1914 with the Serbs. Israel has now shown themselves as being our modern day Serbians expanding and swallowing up occupied territories in Palestine, bombing Syria and threatening Iran with a possible nuclear strike.
I know we are all told that we have a choice in our futures, but the Iron law of the Oligarchy is fueling the tragedy of repeating the cycle of 100 years of war.
Before we all close down the notion as some cooked up conspiracy theory, it is important to understand that these sentiments are not limited to so-called conspiracy theorists and doomsayers.
Professor Nicholas Boyle of Cambridge University can be considered the first doomsayer of 2014 – except he said it back in 2010.
Boyle says that history is a harsh mistress and that when a century is in its first decade there seems to be a major turning point or event that shapes the next decade. 2014 and 2015 is the midpoint where a major world event could change the course of the world leading up to 2020.
In the Daily Mail article from June 17, 2010, ‘World could be plunged into crisis in 2014′: Cambridge expert predicts ‘a great event’ will determine course of the century, it says:
“In the last 500 years there has been a cataclysmic “Great Event” of international significance at the start of each century, Boyle claims. Occurring in the middle of the second decade of each century, they include events which sparked wars, religious conflict and brought peace.”
Boyle provides a few events to prove his point.
“In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door of Wittenburg church, sparking the Reformation of the church and rise of Protestantism.
1618 marked the start of the 30 Years War and decades of religious conflict in Western Europe. That conflict ended with the establishment of the Hanoverians in 1715. They ruled over Great Britain and Ireland, and Hanover (in Germany).
The enlightened Congress of Vienna took place in 1815, following the defeat of Napoleon, and heralded a century of relative stability across Europe.
In 1914 the First World War broke out, a catastrophic conflict that would claim millions of lives and set the tone for international discord throughout the 21st century.”
So now we ask ourselves: Will a war break out in 2014 or 2015 in order to continue the patterns of history?
The oligarchy proposes once again that the solution to world crisis is global government. The threat of war persists in the attempted repeat of the fight to stop the New World order.
The question is whether or not we are satisfied with dependence on a global oligarchy. Do we still have the spirit of independence as our constitution faces ruin in the new century?
Sadly I am seeing that people are too tired to fight the globalist overreach and have concluded that the inevitable is most certainly coming to the United States. We are now facing the reality that our republic will eventually accept being ruled under a world government, saluting a new flag and answering to one world power.
However, no world government will succeed when it is forced upon an unwilling world. Tyranny, even if it is established under the hollow excuse of the betterment of humanity, will most certainly spark a new world war.
It is a peculiar proposal that we all have to face in 2014 and that is the surrender of the national family for the benefit of a global oligarchy. The global unification and the imperialism that seems to be in the blueprint will most certainly lead to all out war and experimental methods of killing those who rebel and nurture those who submit.
Don’t expect a major global event to insure the open dialogue for New World Order to happen spontaneously. We have seen throughout history that false flag events trigger these movements toward tyranny and the surrender of human rights.
It is already being planned. You can bet on it and you should expect it.
History shows that it echoes over and over again in transit.

The Shift towards an Authoritarian Future: Why the West Slowly Abandons its Civil Liberties

By Werner de Gruijter

Global Research, January 02, 2014

Region: Europe, USA

Theme: Culture, Society & History, Police State & Civil Rights

By Werner de Gruijter, Arnout Krediet and Sven Jense

Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic who construct an image of toughness – tough on crime, on terrorism, on humanistic-inspired idealism etc. – are tapping into a sensitive spot that blocks critical thought among the public. Obama’s brute and harsh reaction on Edward Snowden’s revelations is just another example. Somehow it seems like  “We, the people…”  lost track of ourselves. Four main reasons why we abandon our once hard fought civil rights.

Many countries in the West, like Britain, France, Spain the US and the Netherlands have experienced in recent years an exponential increase in technological surveillance and a resolute decline in parliamentary and judicial control over state police and secret service.

Issues like the ban on torture, the possibility of detention without charge, privacy and freedom of speech were in the public debate reframed in favour of state control. And everybody accepted it. To be fair, there was some opposition – but it lacked intensity. Why is this happening?

To give an example, under former British Prime Minister Tony Blair 45 criminal laws were approved creating 3000 new criminal offences. British writer John Kampfer argues that in the past ten years more criminal offences were made in his country than in a hundred years before. All this was legitimized by the idea that a ‘terroristic’ virus attacked Western civilization. Of course, there is some truth in it – but these risks were grossly exaggerated. Still, we fearfully went along with the proposed measures.

This cultural shift towards perhaps a more authoritarian future for the West is no coincidence of nature. It is manmade. If the opportunity is there, top down induced shifts happen only if politicians, corporations, media pundits and other cultural icons are able to find the right symbols and techniques to get a new message across.

 But first, besides these techniques, famous American psychologist Abraham Maslow is probably aware that there is also something else which stimulates our apathy in this respect. He signified the importance of leisure time for our own personal well being as well as for the well being of the community as a whole – it creates so to speak the possibility to make well informed decisions. Currently our leisure time is under assault. Thirty years of income stagnation in the midst of rising prices – people have to struggle to earn a living – meant that for most of us there is less time for critical thought.

 But it has even been made harder to reflect on important issues since politicians and opinions leaders use marketing tools in order to seduce. Remember that soon after the 2008 banking bailout the discussion was reframed in such a way that government spending instead of the unregulated financial sector itself, was the root cause of all ‘evil’ – this message was repeated like a commercial, over and over again. This technique of repetition effectively neutralizes critical thinking. Hence, Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebels, was on to something when he famously stated:

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Long after Goebbels died, psychologists experimentally discovered that it is a natural tendency of human beings to react more receptive to whatever kind of message the more they are exposed to it. They call this “the law of mere exposure”. We should question ourselves if this habit is healthy for our general welfare.

 Furthermore, psychologists discovered that our ability to think critically is severely limited when we act under stress. Frightened people tend to perceive reality through a prism of simple right and wrong answers, leaving the complexities aside. Scared, we are easily fooled. Politicians and corporations can’t resist the temptation to manipulate this animal instinct – like when we started a war without having been shown any serious proof of its legitimacy.

 One could expect that the mainstream media in its role as guard dog was attacking those politicians that create black & white polemics. However, currently most (privately owned) media echo the voice of corporations, which these days doesn’t differ much in substance from that of the government. As a result alternative and more nuanced voices are underrepresented in cultural discourse which, again, makes it harder to produce well informed decisions.

And, when considering the information that is filtered thru to a broad audience – one also notes the slow, but steady disappearing of the separation line between news media and entertainment. American academic Daniel Hallin argues that the average time for sound bites politicians are given in media performances has shrunk from forty seconds in the 1960s to ten seconds in 1988. Hallin’s crucial point is that he believes that the biggest victim of this still on going process is the careful scrutinizing of social problems. This results in so called ‘horse race’ news – news about politics presented as a game of  “who’s the most witty” in which politicians try to be popular instead of reasonable. The blur of catchy one-liners reaching the audience creates a further alienation from reality.
Taken together an assault on leisure, repetition of information, fear policies and the transformation of our media outlets from guard dogs to lap dogs create a situation wherein our spirit for the common good slowly dissolves into an ocean of noise, distraction and misinformation.

Meanwhile, the social environment which politicians, corporations and media gurus are constructing produces anxieties and illusions in order to make profits or political gains. Together these social forces act as a gravitational pull for government and corporate empowerment. That is to say, they pull away strength from the people to participate in the maintenance of a mentally healthy, meaningful democratic environment.

Thomas Jefferson once argued that a government should fear the power of the people. In that respect the apathy with which the audience in general responds to the revelations of Snowden is a cynical demonstration of our time frame. Although, however little, a message this confronting does still stir society a tiny bit. We are not completely brain-dead – and there is some hope in that.

Probably the best question contemporary Westerners can ask themselves is: will today’s power structure be able to obscure these clear violations of human civil rights or is this message too loud to ignore?
Or to say it more bluntly than that: will there be a transition to a meaningful democracy in the West or to an advanced form of authoritarianism? What’s your point of view… 

How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research?

no shit ! :O

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data

By Global Research News

Global Research, January 02, 2014

plosone.org 1 May 2009

Theme: Science and Medicine

by Daniele Fanelli 
The image of scientists as objective seekers of truth is periodically jeopardized by the discovery of a major scientific fraud. Recent scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk’s fake stem-cell lines [1] or Jan Hendrik Schön’s duplicated graphs [2] showed how easy it can be for a scientist to publish fabricated data in the most prestigious journals, and how this can cause a waste of financial and human resources and might pose a risk to human health. How frequent are scientific frauds? The question is obviously crucial, yet the answer is a matter of great debate [3], [4].
A popular view propagated by the media [5] and by many scientists (e.g. [6]) sees fraudsters as just a “few bad apples” [7]. This pristine image of science is based on the theory that the scientific community is guided by norms including disinterestedness and organized scepticism, which are incompatible with misconduct [8], [9]. Increasing evidence, however, suggests that known frauds are just the “tip of the iceberg”, and that many cases are never discovered. The debate, therefore, has moved on to defining the forms, causes and frequency of scientific misconduct [4].
What constitutes scientific misconduct? Different definitions are adopted by different institutions, but they all agree that fabrication (invention of data or cases), falsification (wilful distortion of data or results) and plagiarism (copying of ideas, data, or words without attribution) are serious forms of scientific misconduct [7], [10]. Plagiarism is qualitatively different from the other two because it does not distort scientific knowledge, although it has important consequences for the careers of the people involved, and thus for the whole scientific enterprise [11].
There can be little doubt about the fraudulent nature of fabrication, but falsification is a more problematic category. Scientific results can be distorted in several ways, which can often be very subtle and/or elude researchers’ conscious control. Data, for example, can be “cooked” (a process which mathematician Charles Babbage in 1830 defined as “an art of various forms, the object of which is to give to ordinary observations the appearance and character of those of the highest degree of accuracy”[12]); it can be “mined” to find a statistically significant relationship that is then presented as the original target of the study; it can be selectively published only when it supports one’s expectations; it can conceal conflicts of interest, etc… [10], [11], [13], [14], [15]. Depending on factors specific to each case, these misbehaviours lie somewhere on a continuum between scientific fraud, bias, and simple carelessness, so their direct inclusion in the “falsification” category is debatable, although their negative impact on research can be dramatic [11], [14], [16]. Henceforth, these misbehaviours will be indicated as “questionable research practices” (QRP, but for a technical definition of the term see [11]).
Ultimately, it is impossible to draw clear boundaries for scientific misconduct, just as it is impossible to give a universal definition of professional malpractice [10]. However, the intention to deceive is a key element. Unwilling errors or honest differences in designing or interpreting a research are currently not considered scientific misconduct [10].
To measure the frequency of misconduct, different approaches have been employed, and they have produced a corresponding variety of estimates. Based on the number of government confirmed cases in the US, fraud is documented in about 1 every 100.000 scientists [11], or 1 every 10.000 according to a different counting [3]. Paper retractions from the PubMed library due to misconduct, on the other hand, have a frequency of 0.02%, which led to speculation that between 0.02 and 0.2% of papers in the literature are fraudulent [17]. Eight out of 800 papers submitted to The Journal of Cell Biology had digital images that had been improperly manipulated, suggesting a 1% frequency [11]. Finally, routine data audits conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration between 1977 and 1990 found deficiencies and flaws in 10–20% of studies, and led to 2% of clinical investigators being judged guilty of serious scientific misconduct [18].
All the above estimates are calculated on the number of frauds that have been discovered and have reached the public domain. This significantly underestimates the real frequency of misconduct, because data fabrication and falsification are rarely reported by whistleblowers (see Results), and are very hard to detect in the data [10]. Even when detected, misconduct is hard to prove, because the accused scientists could claim to have committed an innocent mistake. Distinguishing intentional bias from error is obviously difficult, particularly when the falsification has been subtle, or the original data destroyed. In many cases, therefore, only researchers know if they or their colleagues have wilfully distorted their data.
Over the years, a number of surveys have asked scientists directly about their behaviour. However, these studies have used different methods and asked different questions, so their results have been deemed inconclusive and/or difficult to compare (e.g. [19], [20]). A non-systematic review based on survey and non-survey data led to estimate that the frequency of “serious misconduct”, including plagiarism, is near 1% [11].
This study provides the first systematic review and meta-analysis of survey data on scientific misconduct. Direct comparison between studies was made possible by calculating, for each survey question, the percentage of respondents that admitted or observed misconduct at least once, and by limiting the analysis to qualitatively similar forms of misconduct -specifically on fabrication, falsification and any behaviour that can distort scientific data. Meta-analysis yielded mean pooled estimates that are higher than most previous estimates. Meta-regression analysis identified key methodological variables that might affect the accuracy of results, and suggests that misconduct is reported more frequently in medical research.
[above text is the Introduction]
Copyright Daniele Fanelli, plosone.org, 2009 

To Read the Complete article click here

Simpsons Pirate Ordered to Pay Fox $10.5 Million in Damages

• Andy
• January 2, 2014
• 82
• fox,
  The Simpsons
• Print
• 
  

A lawsuit against a man who ran websites which linked to episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy has ended in the most expensive way possible. The judgment, which awards Fox $10.5 million in statutory and punitive damages, is the highest amount ever awarded by the Federal Court in Toronto, Canada. Speaking with TorrentFreak, the target of the lawsuit says that he is now going through a bankruptcy and Fox are chasing “as hard as they possibly can” for the money.
In the wake of the isoHunt settlement in October, TorrentFreak reported on another big copyright infringement case that had flown entirely under the radar.
It involved a pair of now-shuttered websites – Watch The Simpsons Online (WTOS) and Watch Family Guy Online, launched 2008 and 2009 respectively. Both websites gave visitors the chance to watch episodes of the named TV shows via embedded web players utilizing external video sources. Neither site hosted infringing content.
Together the sites had around 87 million visitors during their lifetimes and as a result attracted the unwanted attention of Fox. During 2008, WTSO was targeted several times and had to keep shifting hosts and at one stage had its domain seized following a WIPO dispute. In 2010 the MPAA began filing its own cease and desists.
Although the sites continued to operate without further major incident, it was the calm before the storm. Early October 2013, Fox filed a copyright infringement lawsuit at the Federal Court of Canada, alongside requests to keep its contents secret pending a raid on the site operator’s home. That was carried out October 9.
With the site admin unwilling to fight Fox in an expensive case he knew he could not win, matters proceeded without him. Just before Christmas the defendant found out the case had been concluded in his absence.
Details sent to TorrentFreak by Timothy Lowman, a lawyer at the Sim & McBurney lawfirm which handled the case for Fox, spells out the extent of the judgment.
“The Judgment awards $10 million [CAD] for statutory damages, $500,000 for punitive damages and fixed/assessed solicitor client costs of $78.573.25 (in addition to an earlier cost award of $107,665.55),” Lowman explains.
“The significant judgement in this case points up the risk courted by those who engage in internet piracy, in particular for commercial purposes. The Federal Court considers that such activities warrant significant assessments of statutory damages, in this case $13,888.88 per work infringed, and that such misconduct is also deserving of substantial awards of punitive damages to achieve the goal of punishment and deterrence of the offense of copyright infringement,” he concludes.
According to Lowman the statutory damages and punitive damages awards in this judgment are the largest given to date by the Federal Court of Canada and according to the person expected to pay them, the admin formerly known as ‘Joecool6101′, the amount is simply unmanageable. He cannot pay but Fox are pressing ahead anyway.
“Fox are pursing for the money and they are doing so as hard as they possibly can. They’ve ruined my life and continue to do so as long as they don’t leave me and my family alone. As it’s been referenced by a lawyer: ‘they are killing a fly with a nuke’,” he told TorrentFreak.
“This experience was the worst thing I could possibly imagine, Fox takes no mercy when destroying your life as you once knew it and then begins to drag your new life down as much as possible as well. I don’t wish this upon anyone and simply wish the dinosaurs would just give their consumers what they want — which is to be able to stream their videos online easy, fast, worldwide.”
The judgment also forbids JoeCool from infringing Fox’s copyrights in future, but rest assured there will be others to fill the gap – unless Fox takes his advice of course.

Simpsons Pirate Ordered to Pay Fox $10.5 Million in Damages

• Andy
• January 2, 2014
• fox,
  The Simpsons

A lawsuit against a man who ran websites which linked to episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy has ended in the most expensive way possible. The judgment, which awards Fox $10.5 million in statutory and punitive damages, is the highest amount ever awarded by the Federal Court in Toronto, Canada. Speaking with TorrentFreak, the target of the lawsuit says that he is now going through a bankruptcy and Fox are chasing “as hard as they possibly can” for the money.
In the wake of the isoHunt settlement in October, TorrentFreak reported on another big copyright infringement case that had flown entirely under the radar.
It involved a pair of now-shuttered websites – Watch The Simpsons Online (WTOS) and Watch Family Guy Online, launched 2008 and 2009 respectively. Both websites gave visitors the chance to watch episodes of the named TV shows via embedded web players utilizing external video sources. Neither site hosted infringing content.
Together the sites had around 87 million visitors during their lifetimes and as a result attracted the unwanted attention of Fox. During 2008, WTSO was targeted several times and had to keep shifting hosts and at one stage had its domain seized following a WIPO dispute. In 2010 the MPAA began filing its own cease and desists.
Although the sites continued to operate without further major incident, it was the calm before the storm. Early October 2013, Fox filed a copyright infringement lawsuit at the Federal Court of Canada, alongside requests to keep its contents secret pending a raid on the site operator’s home. That was carried out October 9.
With the site admin unwilling to fight Fox in an expensive case he knew he could not win, matters proceeded without him. Just before Christmas the defendant found out the case had been concluded in his absence.
Details sent to TorrentFreak by Timothy Lowman, a lawyer at the Sim & McBurney lawfirm which handled the case for Fox, spells out the extent of the judgment.
“The Judgment awards $10 million [CAD] for statutory damages, $500,000 for punitive damages and fixed/assessed solicitor client costs of $78.573.25 (in addition to an earlier cost award of $107,665.55),” Lowman explains.
“The significant judgement in this case points up the risk courted by those who engage in internet piracy, in particular for commercial purposes. The Federal Court considers that such activities warrant significant assessments of statutory damages, in this case $13,888.88 per work infringed, and that such misconduct is also deserving of substantial awards of punitive damages to achieve the goal of punishment and deterrence of the offense of copyright infringement,” he concludes.
According to Lowman the statutory damages and punitive damages awards in this judgment are the largest given to date by the Federal Court of Canada and according to the person expected to pay them, the admin formerly known as ‘Joecool6101′, the amount is simply unmanageable. He cannot pay but Fox are pressing ahead anyway.
“Fox are pursing for the money and they are doing so as hard as they possibly can. They’ve ruined my life and continue to do so as long as they don’t leave me and my family alone. As it’s been referenced by a lawyer: ‘they are killing a fly with a nuke’,” he told TorrentFreak.
“This experience was the worst thing I could possibly imagine, Fox takes no mercy when destroying your life as you once knew it and then begins to drag your new life down as much as possible as well. I don’t wish this upon anyone and simply wish the dinosaurs would just give their consumers what they want — which is to be able to stream their videos online easy, fast, worldwide.”
The judgment also forbids JoeCool from infringing Fox’s copyrights in future, but rest assured there will be others to fill the gap – unless Fox takes his advice of course.

Another Beloved Family Pet Shot by Cops at the Wrong House, Who Tell the Owner, “Don’t worry…the bill’s on us”

truther January 2, 2014

Kimberly Paxton

When thugs…I mean, cops …attempted to serve a warrant on a hooker known as Josie Bobbitt, Holly Hill, Florida, citizen Richard Stohler rejected to allow them access, saying that the lady they were looking for did not live there, and that he had no idea who she was.

The fearless cops, however, were decided to serve the warrant and went into Stohler’s lawn, where his two dogs were responsibly fenced in. Like any self-respecting dog, they barked at the trespassers. Being dogs, of course, they did not distinguish between trespassers in a uniform and every day, garden variety trespassers.

 

After about 10 minutes of talking with officers, Stotler said he closed the door and went back to watch television in his living room with his back door open. Two minutes later, he heard gunshots, he said.
“I ran through the front door with my hands raised asking them what they had done,” Stotler said. “They started yelling at me to get on the ground, handcuffed me and put me in the back of a car.”
Stotler said his girlfriend, Crystal Hightshoe, followed a trail of blood and found Lady hiding in their bedroom closet and started putting ice packs on her wounds. After officers realized what was going on , they released Stotler and started shouting at him to get the dog to take it to a an emergency animal clinic.
According to police, the dog was taken in a police car to the Emergency Animal Care Center at 696 S. Young St. in Ormond Beach. The city is picking up the vet bill, said police Capt. Steve Aldrich.
“The bill right now is $3,018.76,” Stotler said. “But she has to go back in 10 days to be checked out and get her stitches removed.”
Aldrich declined to release more details on the incident Monday, saying his department is conducting a thorough investigation of all aspects related to the call for service at the home. The captain also declined to release the name of the officer who shot the dog, citing the ongoing investigation. Police still have not been able to find Bobbitt, Aldrich said Monday. (source)

Stohler says that the dogs are traumatized by the shooting and that Lady, the friendly and beautiful rescued Rottweiler, is now scared to go outside after dark and refuses to go in the backyard.  This picture, captioned, “Poor Lady, this is the closest she will get to the backyard now….” was posted on Facebook.

Stohler is determined to be as public as possible about what happened to Lady at the hands of police. See his interview on the local Channel 2 News.

Dog shot by police in Holly Hill recovering

He has also launched a Facebook page to bring awareness to what he calls “a senseless and reckless shooting” by police.  The page, Justice for Lady, has over 2300 “likes” and is growing rapidly.  (If you have an account on Facebook, “like” the page to show your support!) The goal of the page is to bring awareness to shootings like this. “This is an effort to stop acts like this,” Stotler said of his social media page. “This happens all the time against, Rottweilers, German shepherds, Doberman and other big dogs and we need to stop these acts based on appearance.”
Sadly, the shooting of family pets being shot by police officers is becoming increasingly common.  Lily Dane, staff writer for The Daily Sheeple, wrote:

Statistics on how many dogs are killed by law enforcement officers don’t seem to exist, but some activists have counted dog shootings that have been reported in the media. One group says that according to their calculations, a dog is shot by law enforcement every 98 minutes. (source)

Check out the entire article to find more information on the epidemic of innocent dogs being shot by cops with no repercussions.
Incidentally, the woman charged with prostitution, Josie Bobbitt, has still not been located by police.

The Higher Education Bubble: Student Debts and the Bankers’ New Socially Engineered Trap

By 21st Century Wire

Global Research, January 02, 2014

21st Century Wire and

According to recent figures from the National Bureau of Statistics, there is only one job vacancy for every five college graduate applicants in America today. In the last 15 years, college tuition in the US has risen a staggering 900%, while wages have jumped an impressive… well, err, an average 10%. For the bright, young, and gifted, this equation should really be studied very carefully.

Regardless of how bleak the outlook is, America has always been the land of positive thinking and no wonder, as there is no shortage in the US government loan window queue of 17 year olds dying to (literally) sign their life away to JP Morgan, Citi Bank and Wells Fargo in exchange for a debt pile of around $60K – $100K in student loans.
Add another $2K-5K per year on additional student credit card debt and you can see students even deeper in the red. It’s the ultimate ‘head start’ in the game of debt slavery, with the odds in favour of landing either an unpaid internship, or if you are lucky – some paid work as a waiter or bartender upon graduation.
Students getting into this scam now should expect to be writing out a monthly cheque to their government-bankers until at least the ripe age of 50 years old.
Here’s another throwaway statistic: by anyone’s estimate, approximately 10% of that loan total will likely be spend on alcohol and other party-related endeavors during college. Good investment?
OK then, if students are being shafted and the higher education bubble is a big scam, then who benefits? Answer: universities fill their war chests, bankers get their securitised paper and the US federal government turns a tidy profit off of your borrowing.
.

$1 trillion owed and rising

Donald Trump’s Trump “University” is not the only organization accused of running a scam. The whole world of higher education is suspect.
Making emphatic promises of a better tomorrow, but being artfully vague about the details, higher ed has turned into a high growth industry with no accountability, unlimited prestige, and utter callousness towards its customers.
Sound familiar?
Sounds a lot like Wall Street or Washington or BP on the Gulf Coast, doesn’t it?
Who is going to pay back the $1 trillion?
What impact will this have on a generation?
By the way, $1 trillion is still a lot of money especially when it’s taken directly from the pockets of consumers in 22 to 40 years of age. – See more at: http://www.realecontv.com/videos/us/the-student-loan-bubble.html#sthash.bAcptkbC.dpuf

Making emphatic promises of a better tomorrow, but being artfully vague about the details, higher ed has turned into a high growth industry with no accountability, unlimited prestige, and utter callousness towards its customers. Sound familiar? Sounds a lot like Wall Street or Washington or BP on the Gulf Coast, doesn’t it?
Who is going to pay back the $1 trillion? What impact will this have on a generation? By the way, $1 trillion is still a lot of money especially when it’s taken directly from the pockets of consumers in 22 to 40 years of age.
Real Econ TV

MUST WATCH VIDEO
by Glenn H. Reynolds

The Higher Education Bubble

Glenn H. Reynolds explains the causes and effects of this bubble and the steps colleges and universities must take to ensure their survival.

America is facing a higher education bubble. Like the housing bubble, it is the product of cheap credit coupled with popular expectations of ever-increasing returns on investment, and as with housing prices, the cheap credit has caused college tuitions to vastly outpace inflation and family incomes. Now this bubble is bursting.
In this Broadside, Glenn H. Reynolds explains the causes and effects of this bubble and the steps colleges and universities must take to ensure their survival. Many graduates are unable to secure employment sufficient to pay off their loans, which are usually not dischargeable in bankruptcy. As students become less willing to incur debt for education, colleges and universities will have to adapt to a new world of cost pressures and declining public support.

YOUNG AMERICANS: FORGET YOUR STUDENT LOANS AND MOVE TO GONZO TOWN

June 15, 2011 By 21wire /http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RWYzyZtYhg

Stone Pinkerton Gonzo Town
Getting ahead? Going to college? Whether they know it or not, millions of young Americans are joining the ranks of the over-qualified and under paid and unemployed. But heck, you can still give it the “old college try” anyway, but be informed of the pro’s and cons of your decision.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, there is only one job for every five college graduate applicants in America today. And with most jobs in the US being off-shored to the Far East and Latin America, it’s a safe bet that stat is not changing anytime soon, at least for the next 10 years, unless of course you are going for a position under the Golden Arches.

In the last 12 years, college tuition in the US has risen a staggering 900%, while wages have jumped an impressive… well, err, an average 10%. For the bright, young, and gifted, this equation should really be studied very carefully. Regardless of how bleak the outlook is, America has always been the land of positive thinking and no wonder, as there is no shortage in the queue of 17 year olds dying to (literally) sign their life away to JP Morgan, Citi Bank and Wells Fargo in exchange for in many cases, around $80,000 in student loans.

Brain, No Gain: College a bad investment for jobless US grads

 

STUDENT LOAN SUB-PRIME BUBBLE: Cheap loans can really stack up, but the benefits don’t.
Before we rush to judgement, let’s be fair and breakdown what the kids are getting for their 80K. First and foremost, they get that golden fleece, the sheep skin also known as The Degree. In addition, millions of young Americans will be given a four year window in which to master the fine art of drinking beer and how to both hold and suck cannabis smoke from a perspex cylinder. If they have spent their 80K wisely, they will also be gifted cheap tickets to Division I football and basketball games and their fantastic after parties. As a keen sportsman myself, perhaps to best value for the money was the free campus gym membership and intramural sports programs which kept me fit enough to withstand non-stop weekends of partying. On top of all this fun stuff, it’s also a bottomless trough of free time to play computer games in your apartment, eat pizza, screw around with your guitar, and of course, ample opportunities for scouting out members of the opposite sex. Apparently, it all looks good on your CV.

So, in summary: lots of beers, drugs, sports, parties, games, sex, and 60-100K in the hole, with little chance of landing a job after four years. In fact, you will most likely be competing for lower level jobs against seemingly uncool debt-free people who never graduated from university. You might consider that you could achieve all that, and more, by simply going to Thailand for two years… at a cost of $5k.

For those fortunate sons and daughters, the Degree may hold some potential value, but for most its value is purely vestigial. In days gone by, this parchment represented the pinnacle in academic achievement and was your passport to career liberation. In a Darwinian race to land that 1 out of 5 jobs, you will need more than “a well-rounded CV”. This remains the case- only for 20% of the graduate herd, the lucky ones, and the ones with the best connections. The other 80% will unfortunately be disappointed, and will opt for a less glamorous career path like waiting tables, making cocktails or capucinos, lifeguarding, ‘delivering’ things, ‘guarding’ things, lap dancing and/or other forms of prostitution.

GRADUATE OPPORTUNITIES: Lots of cool jobs are waiting for US degree holders.

Even if you are an A or B student, it’s likely that you chose a degree that your high school career advisor told you would be “useful”, or your friends promised would be “easier” in the end analysis. If you fall into this category you would have chosen to pursue a degree in the following: communications, media communications, media studies, public relations, human development, psychology, sports psychology, marketing, advertizing, ”management”, business management, human resource management, occupational therapy, entrepreneurial studies, sports management, sociology, climate change, international relations, journalism, “art”, philosophy, or even (God help you) the once celebrated holy grail of qualifications known as… the MBA.

Yes, any graduate with an MBA who has no real business experience, is not worth a whole lot in the eyes of a real business. So keep working on that jump shot because by the maths, you’d have better luck trying for the NBA (better salaries too).

For the most part, all of these degrees mentioned above are either completely useless, or they are subjects one could learn in a year to 18 months as an intern in the working world. We could also say safely that none of them are worth $80,000 in student loans, credit cards and other institutional debt that will follow you long into life as your college experience becomes a fleeting, distant memory as you reach 50 years old- wrinkled, sans hair, overweight and kids to feed and cloth. They probably won’t tell you that at your College Orientation Day. That’s the reality of it though.

What’s the alternative? If you live in a socially advanced and utopia society like Gonzo Town, you would be provided with a number of viable and more economically sound options.

First option: Instead of over-hyping the alleged status of the over-priced university education con, we would advise our little Gonzo Sprites to get a job and go to Community College for two years. By doing this you have the following advantages over your mostly deluded elite counterparts at a four year university. You will have no debt, you can earn money, perhaps live at home and save money, get more or less the same curriculum the university college offers- at a fraction of the cost… and you will save your liver from getting hammered by a barrage of cheap beer every weekend. The draw backs are simply less parties, and you have to put up with your parents for a while longer. But, you can still gate crash spring break and with more money to throw around chasing girls or guys. Quids in, as they say.

Second option: Learn a trade and become a ‘skilled worker’. Here is a truly revolutionary concept, so radical in fact, the entire US and European modern economies were built upon it. Question: who earns more than a lawyer, a resident physician, or most company directors? Answer: a plumber. Do an apprenticeship, as a plumber, electrician, roofing engineer, X-Ray technician, or a building surveyor and you could probably save up enough money by the time you are 35 to fund a dotcom start-up, netting you another few million. Get it? I wish I had (I got my degree in art and philosophy and remain poor, but happy, to this day).

Third option: enlist in the armed forces. On paper the GI Bill looks like a brilliant option- all your bills paid for by US tax payers, no heavy student loans and you get a dose of that legendary “military discipline” we all hear about. Air Force, Navy and a few smart grunts and jarheads excluded, what they don’t tell you before you sign on the dotted line at your local strip-mall recruitment office is that you are now essentially running corporate security for the likes of Beaty Balfour, KBR, Haliburton, Unocal and Exxon. You may also risk having certain areas of your brain de-actived, and possibly removed. These include your moral compass, capacity for creative and original thought, flickering trance-like states induced by the American flag, national anthem, and a loss of your ability to distinguish Osama bin Laden from Ali Baba in Disney’s Aladdin. True hazards of the job.

Fourth option: Take your student loan money and buy gold and silver, wait 5 years, and you’ll probably be able to pay it all off plus a tidy profit on top, then go see the world for 10 years. That’s how Goldman Sachs makes their billions. Learn from the sharks. Or you can simple buy guns, lots of bullets and start a survivalist colony in Oregon. In the end, one can only feel sorry for all those bright young American students who have been sold the perpetual lie that a college education is somehow worth its weight in gold. If you are still a student, you should really be asking your elders and teachers why the last four US Administrations sold out the economy- aka your future jobs, off-shore to China and the like. And then go ask your Professor or Career Guidance Councilor if they themselves would pay $80,000, or $120,000 for a college degree with no job prospects at the end of the line. Send their reply here to Gonzo Town.

Question: Are students, like home buyers pre-2008, being lured into a huge Sub-Prime trap of easy loans and inflated asset (the asset here being a university degree) values?

So if students are being shafted and the higher education bubble is a big scam, then who benefits? Answer: universities fill their war chests, and the US federal government turns a tidy profit off of your borrowing.

And still, the richest dudes and babes (mind you, mostly divorced) I’ve known… never did graduate from university.

There it is kids. Go to the Debt-Slave Land of no jobs where you will be unwittingly lining the pockets of shameless banksters (and serving them drinks at the same time), or come study and work in Gonzo Town.