New efforts!

[Arcana]

Since we are on the subject of hard drives and many of you have a lot of experience with computers I would like to ask about 4,5,6 and 8 TB hard drives.I would like to move my stuff to larger drives but I keep hearing about how the larger the drive the faster it fails.My 2 and 3 TB drives have lasted for years but I could really use the extra space.

I haven't heard that one myself, but to be honest the 6TB consumer drives haven't been around long enough for anyone to have good reliability experience with them one way or the other.  I just make sure I keep two copies of important stuff around to address the issue of reliability.

[Vee]

I know the odd numbered tb Seagates had an unusually high fail rate for some reason. I've had no trouble with my 4tb seagate or my 4tb samsung.

[JoshexProxy]

Joshex, has anyone ever told you the other part of "keep an open mind"?  It's "Don't let your brains fall out".  As I posted some days ago, sometimes you need to cool it man.

We all have our faults around here,  I cannot say I am perfect(and many certainly know my flaws here).  But there is always a time when one needs to look at oneself and ask "maybe I should lay off on that topic".  Hell many people ask if you need actual help and even I agree with them on that.  Just, cool it once in a while.  Relax.

And don't go believing every single little paranoid rumor on the internet.  It's bad for your health, seriously.

point taken.

[JoshexProxy]

I haven't heard that one myself, but to be honest the 6TB consumer drives haven't been around long enough for anyone to have good reliability experience with them one way or the other.  I just make sure I keep two copies of important stuff around to address the issue of reliability.

I'm still waiting for the holographic storage system developed by a student at the university of Tokyo, a 1inch cube of quartz can store 20 TB of information, the only problem is it cannot be rewritten over existing data. But for a lot of people that is not an issue. I can think of some companies which could profit from it, such as image and file storage sites. plus it's kinda handy for back-ups.

we lost a lot of data here on the interwebs when megaupload died, a lot of sites went dead too some don't even exist on the internet archive. yeah, would have been handy.

[Kaos Arcanna]

So what do you guys think of this data storage system?

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/eternal-5d-data-storage-south-hampton-university/?fb=dd

[hejtmane]

So what do you guys think of this data storage system?

http://www.dailydot.com/technology/eternal-5d-data-storage-south-hampton-university/?fb=dd

Silicon oxide circuits break barrier

Just down the road from where i work in 2010 A Rice professor (yep 5+ years ago)
http://www.understandingnano.com/silicon-oxide-nanowire-memory.html

Update 2013
http://scitechdaily.com/researchers-develop-one-kilobit-memory-chips-based-on-silicon-oxide/

Lot of that stuff is down to keep the grant money flowing on these articles but it usually takes a long long time to make it into a usable or viable product

[Fanta]

I haven't heard that one myself, but to be honest the 6TB consumer drives haven't been around long enough for anyone to have good reliability experience with them one way or the other.  I just make sure I keep two copies of important stuff around to address the issue of reliability.

I have a home 25 TB NAS/home server, and a 12 TB DAS as well. I keep an off site backup at a family members home just in case my house burns down. With the cost of storage as it is, and if you have people you can trust, I think if you had multiple people working for a good backup it would be cheaper for everyone. Just saying, don't count on any single drive no matter how large or small they are, failure happens! Back your
data up.

[Victoria Victrix]

Thanks very much, Arcana, for the two posts.  You are, in fact, entirely correct about the use of other peoples' creations in prose.

In principle, it's an extremely bad idea.  In application, as long as no one is trying to make any money off it, whether or not you can get away with it (fan fiction) varies wildly.  Some publishers and media companies not only allow it, they encourage it.  Some take the nuclear option.  Case in point, Disney, who at one time was suing daycare centers for hand-painted murals of Disney characters on their walls.

However, if you are or intend to make any money on your project, even if it is 2 cents per click from a sidebar ad, you may not in any way, shape, nor form use other entities' creations in your writing.  Period.  End.

Joshex's interpretation of this was a nightmare, and guaranteed to get whoever followed his advice into trouble.

[Tubbius]

I had a somewhat horrific thought the other day about the game's return.

I know: that's nothing new, right?

Simply put, if the game does come back, is there anything out there that would prevent Marvel or DC or whoever else trying to pull a repeat of Marvel's lawsuit?  For instance, could Marvel retry it but focus on the new company and clean up the argument and learn from past mistakes?

I know American laws have the issue of double jeopardy--not being able to be tried for the same thing twice, basically.  But I'm not 100% sure that would apply here, given it's a new company who would have the game instead of NCSoft.

Thank you for your time and consideration, folks.  What are your thoughts?

[Tubbius]

Thanks very much, Arcana, for the two posts.  You are, in fact, entirely correct about the use of other peoples' creations in prose.

In principle, it's an extremely bad idea.  In application, as long as no one is trying to make any money off it, whether or not you can get away with it (fan fiction) varies wildly.  Some publishers and media companies not only allow it, they encourage it.  Some take the nuclear option.  Case in point, Disney, who at one time was suing daycare centers for hand-painted murals of Disney characters on their walls.

And this is exactly why I don't write many updates on my ongoing Waddle the Penguin story on here. . . well, that and not having the time to do so.

[MM3squints]

I know American laws have the issue of double jeopardy--not being able to be tried for the same thing twice, basically.  But I'm not 100% sure that would apply here, given it's a new company who would have the game instead of NCSoft.

Thank you for your time and consideration, folks.  What are your thoughts?

I always wondered about that. I would imagine double jeopardy would not take effect because the two parties involved was not CoX the IP itself vs Marvel, but was Marvel Vs. NCSoft and CoX was just used as the substantial evidence.

https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Marvel_v_NCSoft/20041115_marvel_ncsoft.pdf

The complaint states, Marvel Enterprise, Inc accused NCSoft Corporation of Copyright, Trademark infringement with intentional interference of using them for an economic advantage. From the introduction, Marvel lawyers are using CoX toon tool as an evidence. I would think in this case, the new company can be brought up for IP infringement if Marvel/DC wanted to because it is a new entity and the what has been settled between NC Soft and Marvel is null due to CoX no longer being in the control of the former accused party (NC Soft), but the same evidence for the first case can't be used to support the second case, or it will fall under the "Same Offense clause" This was ruled on by Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161(1977)

the defendant had first been convicted of operating an automobile without the owner's consent, and later of stealing the same automobile. The Supreme Court concluded that the same evidence was necessary to prove both offenses, and that in effect there was only one offense. Therefore, it overturned the second conviction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Jeopardy_Clause

So yes, a company can bring up IP infringement under the new management. They ("the damaged party") can't use the toon creator as a supporting evidence for the case.

Edit: Course I am not a paralegal, just my understanding of how a section in the 5th works via the case and the power of Wiki.

[Vee]

Pretty sure double jeopardy only applies to criminal cases.

[MM3squints]

Pretty sure double jeopardy only applies to criminal cases.

Put those two phrases in Google and Google agrees. So you can use the same evidence for civil cases that was used for previous cases?

[Remaugen]

Put those two phrases in Google and Google agrees. So you can use the same evidence for civil cases that was used for previous cases?

Yes, as we saw in the OJ Simpson Trials.

[Arcana]

Simply put, if the game does come back, is there anything out there that would prevent Marvel or DC or whoever else trying to pull a repeat of Marvel's lawsuit?

Nope.  But:

For instance, could Marvel retry it but focus on the new company and clean up the argument and learn from past mistakes?

A couple of things.  First, as previously mentioned, double jeopardy is not an issue because double jeopardy only applies to criminal cases.  That's because there is no "jeopardy" in civil cases: the jeopardy being referred to is the threat of being convicted of a crime by the state.  This is a whole complex legal issue unto itself, but totally irrelevant here.

Second, Marvel would not be "retrying" the case.  Although double jeopardy doesn't apply, there is still the presumption of the finality of the verdict.  You can't just keep trying a case over and over again until you win.  Once a court rules in a civil case, you cannot simply refile that case without some legal justification for doing so.  You can only attempt to appeal the verdict itself.

The "case" that Marvel pursued was the case of accusing NCSoft of creating tools and an environment that both enabled and promoted others to violate their copyrights to "comic book characters."  That case is done.  The final result in that case does not prevent Marvel from filing another copyright infringement case against anyone else for similar or different reasons.  The fact that the reboot corporate entity would be simply launching City of Heroes again doesn't provide them with any legal immunity.  However, I suspect any good lawyer would point to the fact that the original case was settled and that has some relevance.

However the terms under which that case was settled may be significant.  For example, NCSoft may have agreed to certain administrative protocols to satisfy Marvel that they were not actively encouraging infringement.  They could have agreed to put infringement reporting procedures in place and dedicated some amount of resources to following up on them.  If that is the case, then anyone operating City of Heroes today *without* those administrative protocols could subject themselves to legal action by Marvel.  Alternatively, it is also possible that the legal stipulations NCSoft agreed to are legally required to pass onto any future operator of the game, which may be one of the million things that have to be negotiated between NCSoft and the negotiation team.  It actually just occurred to me now this is Yet Another potential legal complication to attempting to negotiate this deal: there may be many legal strings attached we aren't aware of.

In any case, I suspect it is highly unlikely Marvel would come after a restarted CoH at this point in time.  Since then, MUO came and went, DCUO launched, Champions Online launched, and I suspect everyone agrees that boat has sailed.

[Baaleos]

I would imagine a civil case could only be bought against a new developer / studio running CoH - if

1. The studio were doing something that Marvel did not agree to let NCSoft do previously.
     The argument becomes - We didn't let NCSoft do this, so why would we agree to let you guys do this when it harms our brand.

2. If NCSoft agreed to some terms behind closed doors in exchange for the case being settled, then they might expect the new studio to agree to the same terms - otherwise it goes to court and a judge could rule in the case.

Even if a new case was bought forward, the historical impact of the previous lawsuit attempt may have an effect on the outcome.
A party could argue -
'You tried to sue NCSoft for doing exactly the same thing, but in the end you settled - so obviously mediation is possible.'

It also doesn't help Marvels case that they basically manufactured evidence the last time they tried to attack City of Heroes - while this wont be immediately reference-able in a court of law, it is something that any good lawyer would look for given they were caught doing it once before (the screenshots of 'characters' matching Marvel character designs).

The only thing about the previous lawsuit and any future law suits -
I think because the previous one was settled before a judgement was ruled, it means they would have to go through the whole process of court etc to arrive at a ruling and evidence from the first attempt would likely be excluded for fear of contamination of the judicial process.
Eg:
No guilty/at fault party was decided in the first law suit - because they settled - therefore neither side could really use evidence from that case to try and win a current case.
At least - that's my interpretation.


Not a lawyer - just watch too much Law and Order.

[Tubbius]

Thanks for the input, folks.  :)

[brothermutant]

I always wondered about that. I would imagine double jeopardy would not take effect because the two parties involved was not CoX the IP itself vs Marvel, but was Marvel Vs. NCSoft and CoX was just used as the substantial evidence.

https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/Marvel_v_NCSoft/20041115_marvel_ncsoft.pdf

The complaint states, Marvel Enterprise, Inc accused NCSoft Corporation of Copyright, Trademark infringement with intentional interference of using them for an economic advantage. From the introduction, Marvel lawyers are using CoX toon tool as an evidence. I would think in this case, the new company can be brought up for IP infringement if Marvel/DC wanted to because it is a new entity and the what has been settled between NC Soft and Marvel is null due to CoX no longer being in the control of the former accused party (NC Soft), but the same evidence for the first case can't be used to support the second case, or it will fall under the "Same Offense clause" This was ruled on by Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161(1977)



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Jeopardy_Clause

So yes, a company can bring up IP infringement under the new management. They ("the damaged party") can't use the toon creator as a supporting evidence for the case.

Edit: Course I am not a paralegal, just my understanding of how a section in the 5th works via the case and the power of Wiki.

I agree however, even if the company is not the same in the original court ruling, NCSoft can make sure that whomever gets access to the "game" follows any legal rulings so that Marvel or whoever sued before has no grounds to retry the case. Point is, if "I" am following the same steps to ensure compliance with the original ruling, couldn't a judge dismiss any new claim by me referencing what was done to avoid a future claim? Plus, the IP is what is being used, and if the original ruling was in regards to the IP, how could reusing the IP in a frozen way (hated zombie being attached to what this purchase represents) be a "new" infringement? Nothing has changed, so why would you be able to sue the new company?

[MM3squints]

Yes, as we saw in the OJ Simpson Trials.

I was about to use Simpson case as an example, but I found an article (I'll keep looking, but I can't find right now) that stated some of the same evidence could be used in both criminal and civil trials because the criminal and civil courts are two separate entities and they don't overlap. Meaning there was no way OJ could be tried for murder again due to winning the criminal case, but, OJ can be held liable for the deaths of Ron Goldman and Nichole Brown in monetary constipation.

[Baaleos]

The other thing to remember that the burden of proof is less in civil cases, because generally speaking, they aren't talking about taking away your
1. Life
2. Liberty / Freedom

Learnt that one from Peoples Court. :D

The offset of that is that sometimes the burden of proof is more on the defendant to prove their innocence opposed to the claimant.
The judicial process can be more vulnerable to bias - so the defendant really needs to work to ensure he gets a favorable outcome.

That being said - if both sides have 0 evidence, usually Not Guilty or Not at fault would be the verdict.
That being said - I have seen Judge Judy cases where she just didn't like the defendant and ruled in the plaintiffs favor, even though there was no evidence what so ever.
That's what I mean by bias - if the judge just doesn't like you, they can abuse their position and it is a pain to rectify such a scenario.