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ZeroAdunn said:
I don't normally comment on these sort of things, but I have two very important things to say:
1: I think the U.S. would do well to adopt a looser pay law. Basicly, in a court case, the losing party has to pay the entirety of court costs. As it stands many companies just settle outside of court because it could potentially be cheaper. There are drawbacks to this sort of thing, but I think this sort of law would really solve a lot of problems.
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Yes, it would solve quite a few. But you're right; such a thing is double-edged. It would cause others. Especially during transition.
Would it work for the US the same way as it has for other countries? Would it be worth it? Difficult to say with any reasonably degree of certainty beforehand.
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ZeroAdunn said:
2: While I am a big fan of free speech, I think americans don't fully understand their rights. Free speech doesn't extend to slander or profanity. Two of the biggest things that the internet is flooded with.
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Slander and libel, fairly definately not good things; deliberate falsehoods with intent to harm are rarely, if ever, a good thing.
Profanity? Well, try defining it. Language changes. Differing cultures find different things offensive. Yesterday's perfectly normal and acceptable word becomes an offensive term; gimped, crippled, handicapped, disabled, physcially challenged - listed in roughly cronological order, that's one such strand; gimped people objected to gimped, and so crippled was born. Crippled, having been used to refer to the same category as the previous gimped, became offensive to crippled people, and so handicapped was born. Handicapped, having been used to refer to the same category as the previous crippled.... I may have the history a bit confused, but that's basically the way of it. We have a curse word that was a portion of a person's last name - the inventor of the flush toilet.
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ZeroAdunn said:
I still think this lawsuit is bull****.
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See your own point number two on the last word in that sentence. By your own statement number 2, was that sentence protected under free speech, or not?
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ZeroAdunn said:
I am way against corporations being expected to do any sort of policing, and if this guy wins it is another step in the wrong direction.
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Probably; and if successful, one of many that have already been taken. Hardly definitive, but if done exactly right, some good could potentially come from it. If the official owners of the words are held responsible for harm from them, a number of potentially good effects could occur:
1) Companies will stop trying to grab the rights to everything everyone says across their medium (notably AOL chat rooms, in this instance), which would likely lead to
2) Individuals might start being held accountable for what they say.
Granted, that's a small number....