User talk:Birdymckee

Application of Federal Copyright law to submissions

After reviewing Wikipedia, and reviewing (carefully) the chart for placing photographs into the public domain; I see an error. Federal copyright law specifically states that photographs more than 100+ years old, may be placed into public domain, by any person Provided, that the reason for placing such a photograph into the public domain is to either (a) comment upon the content of the photograph; (b) use the photograph for demonstrative purposes, or, (c) clerify a point made for educational purposes. The chart reflecting an adversion for accepting photographs that are 100+ years old, without providing ownership needs to be corrected. The reason for this Copyright law was to provide a means to place historical (100+ year old) photographs into the public domain thereby relieving the contributer of the necessary task of proving ownership. It is interesting to note, that many photographs currently in the public domain, are without the necessary step of providing adequate proof of ownership, this is reflected both in federal modern law as well as the laws of Nations. Birdymckee (talk) 09:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC) Birdymckee

, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harv. L. Rev. 193 (1890). , 48 Calif.L.Rev. 382, 389 (1960), quoting, §§ 652A-652E. Sullivan v. Pulitzer Broadcasting Co., 709 S.W.2d 475, 477 (Mo. banc 1986). In, Inc.446 F.2d 313, 318 (5th Cir. 1971). "Very simply put, the plaintiff may not recover for invasion of privacy when, his/her privacy remains inviolate.' Citing as support Hanson and Prosser, the court noted that "[t]ext writers on the subject generally agree with this view.

Birdymckee (talk) 09:47, 30 March 2010 (UTC)Birdymckee, 30 March, 2010 0231 hrs.

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Why Impose Criminal Sanctions For Computer Crime?

[Author's Note: In modern times, and due to the nearly pervasive use of the World Wide Web, it is particularly necessary to prosecute those individuals who have [for some reason or other] committed criminal acts with the use of the computer. It is necessary for the United States Courts to set examples that this type of behavior will not (can cannot) be tolerated; however due to the amount of cases being processed by the Federal Courts, only +/- 1% of all computer crime is actually  prosecuted]

The determination to impose criminal sanctions for any activity even one previously subject to civil liability is never one that should be made lightly, particularly given what some regard as the over-criminalization of American law.1 However, the Criminalization of intellectual property violations and computer misuse are grounded in both traditional and modern justifications for imposing criminal liability: preventing fraud, enforcing commercial honesty, punishing theft of property, and enhancing market reliability.2

Intellectual property now plays an increasingly important role in the economic well-being and security of the United States.3 In response to this recognition, Congress has significantly broadened the scope of existing criminal laws that protect intellectual property rights 4 and has passed several laws.5 Such laws are necessary to deter copyright pirates, trademark counterfeiters or trade secret thieves who might otherwise regard civil penalties as the cost of doing business. In addition, criminalization of violation of intellectual property rights embodies important values expressed by the criminal law: deterring fraud, protecting property, and facilitating commercial interaction.6 These values, which reflect concerns with morality, punishment and efficiency are analogous to those expressed by the criminalization of forgery.7 Criminal law is essential to further these goals, by asserting certain sanctions on behalf of those ill-positioned to do so themselves.8 Of the three identifiable classes of victims of copyright piracy or trafficking in counterfeit goods and services-purchasers or end users of the pirated or counterfeit goods or services, foreseeable third parties in society at large, and legitimate owners of the copyrighted goods or authentic marks only the third group might ever find civil sanctions under the Copyright Act or Lanham Act a possible remedy, must less a realistic one.9 Finally, under a modern law and economics analysis of criminal law, the essential role, for example, of trademarks and service marks in facilitating commerce makes counterfeiting an excellent candidate for criminal protection.10 More specifically, copyright piracy and trafficking in counterfeit goods is tantamount to fraud in that the purchase of the counterfeit product is often not getting what they expected. Prohibitions against fraud have long been codified by federal as well as state law, either as a separate crime or as part of a comprehensive theft statute. In comparison to many traditional forms of fraud such as check kiting, copyright pirates or trademark counterfeiters can perpetrate their fraud on a much larger scale. Counterfeit goods can be widely disseminated without requiring the presence or active involvement of the defrauder. With the digitization of consumer products and the Internet, counterfeit goods may be quickly and cheaply disseminated throughout the world.11

Further, because of the ease with which pirated digital copyrighted works and misappropriated trade secrets can be reproduced and distributed, once the proverbial “cat is out of the bag” with respect to that material, there is very little that the victim can do to prevent further harm. While the criminal prosecution of that particular defendant for that particular crime does not make that particular victim whole, it may serve to deter future criminal violations of intellectual property rights.

In addition, end users may be widely dispersed and thus their losses are dispersed. Many consumers of mass market products may be deceived, with one suffering only a minor monetary loss. Moreover, they are often not in direct contact with the copyright pirate or counterfeiter. Since end users may not know who deceived them, or even that they were deceived, and in many cases has suffered only minimal damage, an individual end user may have insufficient information or incentive to bring a civil action against the copyright pirate or counterfeiter. Thus, a copyright pirate or counterfeiter who has defrauded thousands of end users and profited greatly, but caused minimal damage to each individual, may avoid paying any damages. A criminal prosecution can be crucial for providing any measure of justice under such circumstances and for deterring potential violators.12 Intellectual property is increasingly treated like other forms of property. Consequently, its theft might be similarly criminalized. Indeed, a company's intangible assets such as its trade secrets may be worth far more than its tangible assets and the damage caused by the theft of a company's trade secrets may be far greater than the theft of any of its tangible assets. Since the harms caused to victims of intellectual property violations are as real as those caused by the theft of tangible property, the need for criminal sanctions is the same.13

While the victim of conventional theft can sometimes deter crime through self-help security measures such as by hiring additional security guards or attaching anti-theft tags to the merchandise, it is very difficult to do so in the case of intellectual property violations.14 Government prosecution can play a uniquely critical role in deterring such crime and providing meaningful protections, such as investigation, to victims of intellectual property violations.15

1 See Goldstone and Toren, “The Criminalization of Trademark Counterfeiting,” 31 Conn. L. Rev. 1, 8 (Fall 1998) (hereinafter “Trademark Counterfeiting”). See also, Mann, Punitive Civil Sanctions: The Middle Ground Between Civil and Criminal Law, 101 Yale L.J. 1795, 1802 (1992) (“This, I advocate the shrinking of the criminal law in order to fit it into its proper role in the law of sanctions, next to an expanding arena of punitive civil sanctions”).

2 See Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 9.

3 For example, according to the legislative history of the Anti-counterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-153, 110 Stat. 1386:

“American companies spend millions of dollars to research, develop, test, and market their products. Developing high-quality goods requires substantial investment before profits can be recouped. The theft of the value of intellectual property is devastating, regardless of whether the product is a shoe, a software program, or a motion picture.” S. Rep. No. 104-177, 104th Cong., 1st Sess., at 8, (Nov. 28, 1995).

4 Congress enacted the first criminal law protecting intellectual property in 1909. See Act of March 4, 1909, Ch. 28, 35 Stat. 1082. The law covered only copyright violations and only at a minimal level. Since then, Congress has gradually and consistently expanded the role of federal law enforcement in this area, by imposing felony penalties for unlawfully reproducing or distributing motion pictures or sound recordings in 1982, see Pub. L. No. 97-180, 96 Stat. 92 (May 24, 1982), by broadening the protection to all types of copyrighted works in 1992, see Pub. L. No. 102-561, 106 Stat. 4233 (Oct. 28, 1992), by making a copyright violation a “specified unlawful activity” for money laundering in 1994, see Pub. L. No. 103-325, 108 Stat. 2111 (Sept. 23, 1994), by including copyright violations as predicate offenses under RICO in 1996, see Pub. L. No. 104-253, 110 Stat. 1386 (Oct. 9, 1996), and in 1997, by passing the No Electronic Theft Act (NET) Act, which criminalizes copyright infringement even in certain circumstances where the infringer does not act for commercial purpose or private financial gain. See 18 U.S.C. § 2319(b)(1).

5 In addition to criminalizing trademark infringement in 1984, see Pub. L. No. 98473, 98 Stat. 2178 (1984), Congress in 1996 criminalized the theft of trade secrets by passing the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. Pub. L. No. 104-294, 110. Stat. 3488 (1996).

6 See Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 11. 7 Id. See also, McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition § 3:8, 3-15 (4th ed. 2003):

“Trademark infringement between competitors is infringement in the same sense as if someone goes to your bank and passes himself off as you, using copied identification. That person cashes a check, drawing funds from your account because the bank teller has been confused by the similarity of the identification.”

8  Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 11. 9  Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 11. 10 Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 17-20. 11 Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 13. 12 Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 11. 13 Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 16. 14 Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 17. 15 Goldstone and Toren, N. 1 supra, 31 Conn. L. Rev. at 17.

The use of computers to commit crimes began as far back as the 1960s, but because of the limited numbers of computers and the lack of inter-connectivity, computers were generally a tool used by criminals to commit a traditional offense such as fraud. Use of computers in this manner was similar to other technological advances that benefited society but could also be used for criminal purposes, such as automobiles that could be used to escape from a bank robbery or telephones that could be used by scam artists to contact potential victims. In response to such technological advancements, the federal government and states amended their existing substantive criminal law or enacted new laws to  cover such  activity.1  While  the  changes  in  technology prior to computers did provide individuals with opportunities to commit new crimes or made it easier to commit traditional crimes, the threats posed to society by the use of technology remained acceptable and could generally be managed by local or state law enforcement.

However, with the proliferation of the personal computer and the worldwide interconnection of such computers through the Internet, modern computer crime presents risks to society and unique challenges to law enforcement than in the past. The criminal threats posed by the Internet is based on a vastly more complex technology than the automobile, for example, computers allow criminals to commit more crimes in less time than ever before, giving law enforcement less time to react to any potential criminal threat. In addition, because of the anonymity provided by the Internet, a criminal can engage in criminal activity with very little risk of apprehension.

Moreover, the worldwide reach of the Internet allows a cyber-criminal to cause harm to thousands, if not millions, of victims that may not,

1 For example, the Supreme Court in United States v. Turley, 352 U.S. 407, 413-414, 77 S. Ct. 397, 1 L.Ed.2d 430 (1957), explained the necessity of a federal criminal statute prohibiting the theft of motor vehicles:

“By 1919, the law of most States against local theft had developed so as to include not only common-law larceny but embezzlement, false pretenses, larceny by trick, and other types of wrongful taking. The advent of the automobile, however, created a new problem with which the States found it difficult to deal. The automobile was uniquely suited to felonious taking whether by larceny, embezzlement or false pretenses. It was a valuable, salable article which itself supplied the means for speedy escape. ‘The automobile [became] the perfect chattel for modern large - scale  theft.’  This  challenge  could  be  best  met through use of the Federal Government's jurisdiction over interstate commerce. The need for federal action increased with the number, distribution and speed of the motor vehicles until, by 1919, it became a necessity. The result was the National Motor Vehicle Theft Act.”

even be located in the same geographic area. In the case of computer crime, national borders lose all significance. To make matters worse, such acts may not even be a crime in the originating jurisdiction. For example, the individual who created and distributed the “Love Bug” virus that caused an estimated $15 billion in damages worldwide, could not be prosecuted in the Philippines where he lived because such conduct was not a crime in that country at that time.2

In response to how computers can be used to facilitate traditional crimes and to the rise of cyber-crimes for which there is no analogous traditional crime, Congress has pursued a dual approach. First, Congress has updated existing laws to ensure that such statutes could be used to prosecute those types of crimes committed with the aid of a computer, although, not all of these attempts have been successful.3 Second, in 1984 Congress enacted the first statute that was expressly designed to cover computer crime in which there is no analogous traditional crime.4 Since then, Congress has repeatedly amended and revised this statute to be a more effective weapon in fighting computer crime.5 In general, the existing version of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, like its predecessors, seeks to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data and systems.6 The Act contains seven major provisions that create liability for crimes against “protected computers”—those used in interstate or foreign commerce or communications, and any computer connected to the Internet.7

2 The virus infected tens of thousands of computers worldwide including computers at the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency, Congress, and private companies such as Microsoft, and Dow Jones & Co.

3 See, e.g., Ashcroft v. The Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. 234, 122 S.Ct. 1389, 152 L.Ed.2d 403 (2002) (portions of the Child Pornography Prevention Act which criminalizes the production, distribution, and reception of computer generated, sexual images of children were unconstitutionally over-broad because they proscribed speech which was neither child pornography nor obscene and thus abridged the freedom to engage in a substantial amount of lawful speech.).

4 Ashcroft, 535 U.S. 234, at 236. 5 Ashcroft, 535 U.S. 234, at 239. 6 Ashcroft, 535 U.S. 234, at 341. 7 See generally, 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

Birdymckee (talk) 16:32, 5 December 2012 (UTC)Thomas "Birdy" McKee

Nomination of Punishment for computer crime for deletion
A discussion is taking place as to whether the article Punishment for computer crime is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Punishment for computer crime until a consensus is reached, and anyone is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. TBrandley 17:11, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Thomas Hogan
Please see the discussion at Talk:Administrative Office of the United States Courts. TJRC (talk) 16:53, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikitravel
Contributed to, and joined the discussion of, Tabuaeran Island. Birdymckee (talk)Birdymckee

Invitation to WikiProject Portals
The Portals WikiProject has been rebooted.

You are invited to join, and participate in the effort to revitalize and improve the Portal system and all the portals in it.

There are sections on the WikiProject page dedicated to tasks (including WikiGnome tasks too), and areas on the talk page for discussing the improvement and automation of the various features of portals.

Many complaints have been lodged in the RfC to delete all portals, pointing out their various problems. They say that many portals are not maintained, or have fallen out of date, are useless, etc. Many of the !votes indicate that the editors who posted them simply don't believe in the potential of portals anymore.

It's time to change all that. Let's give them reasons to believe in portals, by revitalizing them.

The best response to a deletion nomination is to fix the page that was nominated. The further underway the effort is to improve portals by the time the RfC has run its course, the more of the reasons against portals will no longer apply. RfCs typically run 30 days. There are 19 days left in this one. Let's see how many portals we can update and improve before the RfC is closed, and beyond.

A healthy WikiProject dedicated to supporting and maintaining portals may be the strongest argument of all not to delete.

We may even surprise ourselves and exceed all expectations. Who knows what we will be able to accomplish in what may become the biggest Wikicollaboration in years.

Let's do this.

See ya at the WikiProject!

Sincerely,   &mdash; The Transhumanist   10:19, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much
The RfC discussion to eliminate portals was closed May 12, with the statement "There exists a strong consensus against deleting or even deprecating portals at this time." This was made possible because you and others came to the rescue. Thank you for speaking up.

By the way, the current issue of the Signpost features an article with interviews about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

I'd also like to let you know that the Portals WikiProject is working hard to make sure your support of portals was not in vain. Toward that end, we have been working diligently to innovate portals, while building, updating, upgrading, and maintaining them. The project has grown to 80 members so far, and has become a beehive of activity.

Our two main goals at this time are to automate portals (in terms of refreshing, rotating, and selecting content), and to develop a one-page model in order to make obsolete and eliminate most of the 150,000 subpages from the portal namespace by migrating their functions to the portal base pages, using technologies such as selective transclusion. Please feel free to join in on any of the many threads of development at the WikiProject's talk page, or just stop by to see how we are doing. If you have any questions about portals or portal development, that is the best place to ask them.

If you would like to keep abreast of developments on portals, keep in mind that the project's members receive updates on their talk pages. The updates are also posted here, for your convenience.

Again, we can't thank you enough for your support of portals, and we hope to make you proud of your decision. Sincerely,  &mdash; The Transhumanist   09:46, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

P.S.: if you reply to this message, please ping me. Thank you. -TT