LawGeek

Feminists Have More Fun, Better Sex, Better Relationships

Feminists Have More Fun:

Feminism boosts sexual satisfaction for both men and women, a new study suggests.

Busting stereotypes that peg feminists as men-haters, a new study shows that having a feminist partner is linked with healthier, more romantic heterosexual relationships.

The study, published online this week in the journal Sex Roles, relied on surveys of both college students and older adults, finding that women with egalitarian attitudes do find mates and men do find them attractive. In fact, results reveal they are having a good time, maybe a better time than the non-feminists.

...

The researchers looked at people's perception of their own feminism, their partner's feminism and whether they had positive views of feminists and career women. Other survey measures included overall relationship quality, agreement about gender equality, relationship stability and sexual satisfaction.

For example, relationship quality was measured with questions such as: How often do you and your partner laugh together? And how often do you and your partner quarrel? For stability measures, participants answered how often they considered terminating the relationship, as well as how often they thought their romantic relationship had a good future.

Among the findings:

• College-age women who reported having feminist male partners also reported higher quality relationships that were more stable than couples involving non-feminist male partners.
• College guys who were themselves feminists and had feminist partners reported more equality in their relationships.
• Older women who perceived their male partners as feminists reported greater relationship health and sexual satisfaction.
• Older men with feminist partners said they had more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction.

Overall, feminism and romance do go hand in hand, the scientists say.

Movie losses the MPAA doesn't talk about

When MPAA companies talk about lost revenue, the first and only topic they will mention is "piracy."  Why? Because piracy is an easy scapegoat and something for which they do not have to take any responsibility.  It is also something few, if any, will defend.

Yet while unauthorized copying is almost certainly one source of lost revenue, there can be many others.  For example, a recent Advertising Age article (Bad Box Office? Blame 'Halo') suggests that it may be honest competition with other media, not illegal copying, that is looming as the biggest threat to Hollywood's reign:

Industry expectations for "The Heartbreak Kid," the date movie that re-teamed him with the Farrelly brothers (the duo who made him a megastar in "There's Something About Mary"), called for a $20 million to $25 million opening for the film. Instead, "Kid," which cost north of $60 million to make, managed only $14 million in the U.S. and Canada -- heartbreaking, indeed.

But there's more. Total industry ticket sales were only $80 million for the Oct. 5 weekend the film opened, a whopping 27% below the same weekend the year before, according to research firm Media by Numbers. That's the industry's worst performance for an October weekend since 1999. Overall, domestic receipts are down 6% from last fall.

Blame the Master Chief.

Many film executives are convinced audiences stayed home to play Microsoft's carpal-tunnel classic, "Halo 3," which went on sale on Sept. 26. The game sold an astonishing $170 million worth of copies on its first day, before going on to sell well over $300 million.

It doesn't appear the Chief stayed in shrink-wrap for long, either: More than 2.7 million gamers have played "Halo 3" on Xbox Live -- Microsoft's multiplayer gaming offering -- in the first week, representing more than one-third of the 7 million Xbox Live members worldwide. Within the first day of its launch, "Halo 3" players racked up more than 3.6 million hours of game play, and that number increased to 40 million hours by the end of the first week. For those keeping score, that's more than 4,500 years of continuous game play.

For Microsoft, it's no wonder video games, and in particular "Halo 3," are competing with blockbusters for opening weekends. "We marketed it like a film," said Josh Goldberg, a "Halo 3" product manager at Microsoft, adding, "and now, we're just as big or bigger than film." He said "Halo 3" was marketed as an event film in terms of its partnerships, with beverage, automotive, fast feeders and mobile-phone companies all joining up.

"The audience on this game is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you'd see in cinemas," said Mike Hickey, an analyst at Janco Partners, a Denver research firm, adding that "this could last for several weeks."

The next time the MPAA issues a report or has one of its executives testify before Congress about the health of its industry, it would be nice if they at least mentioned factors like these as part of their calculations and not only "piracy." Otherwise, they're not telling the whole story.

Another good question (for the GOP Debate)

Good question

Sack Cartoons

Permanent Injunction in MGM v. Grokster, Pt. 2

Part two of the trial court's permanent injunction decision in MGM v. Grokster deals with the proper role and scope of the injunction in the case of a defendant that induces others to infringe copyrights. (see here for Part 1 of my analysis re: presumptions and proof of irreparable harm).

The court starts out with a fairly innocuous statement: "The scope of the injunction should be coterminous with the infringement."  Fair enough. But as the court then makes clear, what that scope is exactly is hard to define.  Inducement of copyright infringement in the P2P content is a funny beast.  As the court recognizes, it is a combination of both behavior (promotion/encouragement of illegal acts) as well as the provision or distribution of technology.  When that technology has legitimate non-infringing uses, an injunction banning that technology completely is beyond the scope of the infringement and not coterminous.

So what's a court to do? Well, instead of simply mandating that StreamCast stop all infringement, it sorts through the various options and settles on filtering.  While the court justifies filtering on the premise that it is an option that will not shut down the Morpheus system (an overboard approach) but still addresses the issue of infringement, I also think the court found it to be the most flexible option, leaving it with a feeling that it could easily revisit the issue by raising or lowering the sensitivity and burden of the filtering requirements as needed.

In discussing the scope of the filter, the court quickly dismisses any requirement that it be "perfect" as that would effectively shut down StreamCast and ban distribution of the Morpheus software.  Instead, the court required StreamCast "to reduce Morpheus's infringing capabilities, while preserving its core noninfringing functionality, as effectively as possible." This boils down to two things:

1. Installing a filter as part of future Morpheus software distributed to the public; and
2. Taking steps to encourage legacy users of the old Morpheus software to upgrade to the new filtered versions.

Of course, phrases like "effectively as possible" are bound to be the subject of dispute, but the court did make it clear that it is not expecting StreamCast to go bankrupt trying to filter out every possible work.  It also required the Plaintiffs to submit information about each copyrighted work to be filtered so that StreamCast couldn't be held in contempt for innocently leaving out a song or movie from its list.  Finally, the court ordered the appointment of a special master to help evaluate the "highly technical" aspects of StreamCast's implementation of the filtering program and how effective it should and can be.

One other interesting aspect of the court's decision was its discussion of whether a company distributing a P2P system found to be inducing infringement could ever be free of its intent to induce.  In this decision, the court found that no, it could not.  Once an inducer, always an inducer, or as the court said, "The bell simply cannot be unrung."  This means that tech companies must be extremely careful never to be found to be inducing, else they forever bear that mark in litigation.

Permanent injunction issues in MGM v. Grokster, Pt. 1

Over two years after the Supreme Court's decision in MGM v. Grokster, the trial court has issued its ruling on remand concerning whether and what type of permanent injunction should issue against Streamcast, the lone remaining defendant/manufacturer of the P2P file-sharing software at issue. (Grokster previously settled out of the case).

The order is quite lengthy -- 83 pages -- and contains a wealth of analysis.  Of particular interest is the court's analysis of whether or not there should be a presumption of "irreparable harm" in favor of an injunction.  Traditionally, many courts had presumed when intellectual property rights were involved that such presumptions were proper in order to preserve the IP owner's exclusive right to control their copyrighted or patented material.  However, after the Supreme Court's recent eBay v. MercExchange decision, courts have been questioning this presumption, asserting that IP case are like any other civil case and IP owners should not receive special favors toward meeting their burden of proof.

However, despite finding there is no presumption, the court goes on to find irreparable harm to copyright owners from the P2P software provider for two reasons:

1. Streamcast's inability to pay statutory damages for all the files it induced infringement of, and
2. The ongoing viral nature of infringements empowered by the P2P architecture that Streamcast helped to create.

On this second point, the court emphatically states that StreamCast is responsible for irreparably harming copyright owners because Morpheus end-users "obtain 'perfect copies' of Plaintiffs' work that can be inexpensively reproduced and distributed ad nauseam."

It also found that StreamCast's inducement has "eviscerated Plaintiffs' ability to protect and enforce their statutorily-created property rights" because "Plaintiffs' power to control their rights has been so compromised by the means through which StreamCast encouraged end-users to infringe (digital files plus the internet) that the inducement amounts to irreparable harm."

So, if one follows this logic, a viral distribution system on the internet could well lead to a presumption of irreparable harm for any infringements it induces.  Given that the power of the Internet is based on such dynamics and efficiencies, this could be a dangerous rule for future distribution technologies.

[More on the filtering discussion later]

Which would you rather have: More war in Iraq or healthier children?

howmanydays
Originally uploaded by ripleydj.

More here.

EFF Seeks Grantwriter/Development Assistant

EFF Seeks Grantwriter/Development Assistant

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an Internet civil liberties nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, is seeking a fulltime Grantwriter/Development Assistant to work in our Mission District office. The Grantwriter/Development Assistant is responsible for writing grant proposals, researching foundations and other funding sources, maintaining grant calendar and foundation files, and providing administrative support for special events and membership. The position is part of EFF's development team and works closely with the Executive Director, the Associate Director of Development and the Membership Coordinator.

A bachelor's degree and/or two years experience in development or related field required. Excellent writing skills are essential, as are good research and organizational skills. Specific experience writing grant proposals and maintaining membership databases a plus. Familiarity with Convio and/or Salesforce.com would also be great, as would an interest in EFF's issues. The job includes providing general administrative support to the development team and includes filing and preparing mailings (including folding t-shirts).

Salary high '20s to low '30s plus full benefits.  To apply, send a cover letter and your resume to grantwriter-at-eff-dot-org.  No phone calls please!  Principals only.

My brother, dad and me at my Grandpa's wedding

The handsome Schultz men
Originally uploaded by San Fran Annie.

Congress should not assist in a cover-up of NSA spying

Written by Cindy Cohn, Legal Director at EFF and appearing in Today's SF Chronicle: Congress should not assist in a cover-up of NSA spying:

When Congress rushed to pass the so-called "Protect America Act" on its way out the door for its August recess, San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, expressed great regret, telling the New York Times on Aug. 5 that the new law "does violence to the Constitution of the United States." She vowed to take steps to correct the temporary measure long before it expires in February 2008.

Now is the time for Speaker Pelosi to make good on that promise, or at least prevent any further harm. In the last couple of weeks, the Bush administration has stepped up the pressure on Congress to surrender even more of individual citizens' privacy and civil liberties. At the top of the Bush administration's list: granting retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that have been participating with the National Security Agency in the widespread and incontrovertibly illegal warrantless surveillance of ordinary Americans since 2001. Granting this immunity would prevent the courts from ever ruling on the legality of the "dragnet" surveillance and from imposing needed restraints. Not content with the sweeping new powers granted to it by Congress in August, the Bush administration is essentially demanding that the now Democratic-led Congress cave in to a cover-up.

San Franciscans have a special reason to be concerned about the Bush administration's retroactive immunity push. The best evidence of the dragnet surveillance comes from AT&T's building at 611 Folsom St. in San Francisco. AT&T's own documents show an NSA-controlled room on the sixth floor of that building where millions of e-mail messages to and from ordinary San Franciscans are being indiscriminately copied for the NSA. The 40 or so lawsuits challenging this warrantless surveillance are all being heard here in San Francisco. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals - just a few blocks from the AT&T spy room - heard the leading case in mid-August and is expected to rule soon. The courts appear to be handling the litigation with extreme care: doing their job to ensure that the law is followed without endangering national security.

So what could make Speaker Pelosi, along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, who is a member of the key Senate Intelligence Committee, consider bending to this latest administration effort to muscle the courts out of their role in enforcing the law? Some say the Democrats are so afraid of looking soft on terrorism that they would rubber-stamp anything the administration labels "terrorism-related" - even handing over millions of innocent communications between ordinary Americans. Others fear that most Democrats in Congress don't really know the details of what's actually going on. The administration has only publicly admitted "targeting" individuals located abroad whose messages happen to pass through the United States.

Maybe Speaker Pelosi and Sen. Feinstein don't realize that there is hard evidence that the NSA is engaging in the wholesale interception of everyone's communications with the help of the telecommunications companies like AT&T. Or maybe the phone companies are arguing that, if they are not let off the hook scot free this time, they might refuse the next time the NSA asks for wholesale access to the communications of Americans. But isn't that exactly what we want them to do? Shouldn't a polite "come back with a warrant and we'll jump right on it," be the telecommunication carriers' response to government requests that violate customer privacy and the law?

Given recent struggles with the Republican minority, it may be that Speaker Pelosi cannot fix all of the problems with the temporary Protect America Act now. But she cannot and should not make things worse. Granting blanket, no-questions-asked immunity for the telephone companies - particularly retroactive immunity with the aim of ending critical ongoing cases now before federal courts - is a bad idea that must be taken off the table.

The courts must be allowed to determine whether the NSA's wiretapping is illegal and, if so, to put a stop to it. Ordinary San Franciscans have a personal stake in this and, with it, a unique opportunity and responsibility to tell the speaker and senior senator from California - their hometown representatives - what they think. The most fundamental of American freedoms is at stake, and there's no time to lose. Speaker Pelosi's San Francisco office number is (415) 556-4862. Sen. Feinstein's is (415) 393-0707. The local carrier for those calls? AT&T.