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One Day, You’re Going to Die. Here’s How to Prepare for It

One Day, You're Going to Die. Here's How to Prepare for It

Thorin Klosowski

It’s a fact of life that we’re all going to die at some point. While it’s not something you probably want to think about, you can make things a lot easier on yourself (and your family) if you get everything in order now. Here’s what you need to do.

Your inevitable demise is hopefully not on your mind too often, but it’s still something you should think about long enough to get everything in order. Doing so ensures that everything in your life is organized so others can see what you want to happen after you’re gone, what you own, and how to handle a variety of situations.

Read the rest at Lifehacker

chores, legal Shortlink

Four of five Border Patrol drug busts involve US citizens, records show

citizens_feature_1[1]

There’s no argument that Mexico-based crime organizations dominate drug smuggling into the United States. But the public message that the Border Patrol has trumpeted for much of the last decade, mainly through press releases about its seizures, has emphasized Mexican drug couriers, or mules, as those largely responsible for transporting drugs.

It turns out that the Border Patrol catches more American citizens with drugs than it does Mexican couriers, according to an analysis of records obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Three out of four people found with drugs by the border agency are U.S. citizens, the data show. Looked at another way, when the immigration status is known, 4 out of 5 busts – which may include multiple people – involve a U.S. citizen.

Click to read more on cironline

drugs, economy, legal Shortlink

I don’t usually do this, but this is important.

Sometimes the system DOES work and here’s the entire post from Boing Boing:

The US Supreme Court has handed down a verdict in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, one of the most important copyright cases of the century. In it, the publisher John Wiley & Sons sought to block the import of legally purchased cheap overseas editions of its books by arguing that “first sale” (the right to resell copyrighted works) only applies to goods made in the USA. However you feel about cheap overseas editions and their importation into the USA, this was a disastrous legal theory. Practically everything owned by Americans is made outside of the USA and almost all of it embodies some kind of copyright. Under Wiley’s theory, you would have no first-sale rights to any of that stuff — you couldn’t sell it, you couldn’t even give it away. What’s more, the other “exceptions and limitations” to copyright would also not apply, meaning that it would be illegal to photograph anything made outside of the USA (no di minimum exemption) or to transform it in any way (no fair use, either). Thanks goodness the Supremes got this one right!

Here’s some choice bits of the decision (PDF)

These intolerable consequences (along with the absurd result that the copyright owner can exercise downstream control even when it authorized the import or first sale) have understandably led the Ninth Circuit, the Solicitor General as amicus, and the dissent to adopt textual readings of the statute that attempt to mitigate these harms. Brief for United States 27–28; post, at 24–28. But those readings are not defensible, for they require too many unprecedented jumps over linguis tic and other hurdles that in our view are insurmountable. See, e.g., post, at 26 (acknowledging that its reading of §106(3) “significantly curtails the independent effect of §109(a)”).

…In reaching this conclusion we endorsed Bobbs-Merrill and its statement that the copyright laws were not “in tended to create a right which would permit the holder of the copyright to fasten, by notice in a book . . . a restriction upon the subsequent alienation of the subject-matter of copyright after the owner had parted with the title to one who had acquired full dominion over it.” 210 U. S., at 349–350.

And here’s a serious smackdown of the “if I can make money doing it, copyright should protect it” theory of law:

Third, Wiley and the dissent claim that a nongeographical interpretation will make it difficult, perhaps impossible, for publishers (and other copyright holders) to divide foreign and domestic markets. We concede that is so. A publisher may find it more difficult to charge different prices for the same book in different geographic markets. But we do not see how these facts help Wiley, for we can find no basic principle of copyright law that suggests that publishers are especially entitled to such rights.

Supreme Court Upholds First Sale Doctrine



Update: a great comment from Shrikant, below:

It would appear that the Supreme Court has essentially just paraphrased Robert Heinlein from Life-Line:

“There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.”

The Heinlein short story Life-Line was published in 1939. 1939!

legal, to think about Shortlink

The Six Strikes System

I bet you haven’t heard about the CAS, or six strikes system, that’s about to go into effect. Why not? Probably because it’s not a law. Just a collusionary (if it’s not a word, it should be) agreement amongst the largest internet providers and content companies to punish those it thinks may be guilty of illegal filesharing.

Read the Daily Dot article for more info.

internet, legal, privacy, security, technology Shortlink

Journalism Programs Teaching UAV Reporting

Some universities have experimental classes to teach story research and reporting using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs.)

The practice is currently forbidden by the FAA, but if (when?) that changes, these kids will be ready.

Program note; whenever ‘the media’ incorrectly uses the word drone, please substitute the correct term UAV in the course of your internal dialog. Thank you.

Link to the story

education, legal, technology, to think about Shortlink

We Don’t Need No Stinking Warrant: The Disturbing, Unchecked Rise of the Administrative Subpoena

From Wired.com:

Anecdotal evidence suggests that federal officials from a broad spectrum of government agencies issue them hundreds of thousands of times annually. But none of the agencies are required to disclose fully how often they utilize them — meaning there is little, if any, oversight of this tactic that’s increasingly used in the war on drugs, the war on terror and, seemingly, the war on Americans’ constitutional rights to be free from unreasonable government trespass into their lives.

Read more.

citizenship, legal, politics, privacy Shortlink

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