Recent submissions

Comment · 2 years ago
Not if the damages are presumed (e.g., if the false defamatory statement published to a third party consists of a claim that the plaintiff has a venereal disease, is unfit for their profession, or is a sexual deviant). Then, damages are presumed to exist.
Comment · 2 years ago
Well, I’m glad at least I know the things that make you lose in court now. I’m appreciative for the lesson.
Comment · 2 years ago
I interpret it completely differently given that the voice actor does not sound like SJ.

1. OpenAI wants to make a voice assistant. 2. They hire the voice actor. 3. Someone at OpenAI wonders why they would make a voice assistant that doesn’t sound like the boss’s favorite movie. 4. They reach out to SJ who tells them to pound sand.

Accordingly, there is no misappropriation because there is no use.

Comment · 2 years ago
Carbon Robotics has a tractor attachment system that burns weeds with lasers. Pests can’t be far behind.
Comment · 2 years ago
If anyone at Spotify is reading this, I just cancelled my account. You guys deserve considerably less money than you have now, but this is the best I can do.
Comment · 2 years ago
Heck, you could do it with a pair of alligator clips at a punch down panel. The telco was fun before everything went digital.
Comment · 2 years ago
1. Advance medical directive

2. Plan for guardianship/conservator ship as appropriate

3. House owned by joint tenancy w/ right of survivorship or jusrisdiction’s equivalent

4. Transfer on death / payable on death beneficiary for bank/equity accounts

5. Trust

6. Will that dumps anything unconsidered by the above into the trust

If any of that doesn’t immediately make sense, go see an estate attorney. A wise investment for anyone who will die.

Comment · 2 years ago
You’re right that a random person’s voice is not IP, but SJ is not a random person. She’s much more like Mr. Waits or Ms. Milder than you or I.

I don’t believe the burden would be to prove that the voice actor was impersonating, but that she was misappropriating. Walking down the street sounding like Bette Midler isn’t a problem but covering her song with an approximation of her voice is.

You are dead right that the order of operations recently uncovered precludes misappropriation. But it’s an interesting situation otherwise, hypothetically, to wonder if using SJ’s voice to “cover” her performance as the AI in the movie would be misappropriation.

Comment · 2 years ago
The insurance company-driven model for industry specific safety improvement that worked so well for fire safety and auto safety has proven impossible because of three factors:

1. Cryptocurrency allows for unimaginably huge untraceable ransom payments that Amazon gift cards did not support,

2. No liability in tort for insecure software, and

3. Lack of computer security regulation (e.g., your car must have a seatbelt and ABS but your software can be arbitrarily bad without being prohibited).

Insurance. Is not going to fix cybersecurity.

Comment · 2 years ago
The software company would argue that the lawbreaking hacker was a supervening cause, while the consumer would argue the criminal was foreseeable. In the case of security software, the consumer might have a point. In practice such a claim is not usually successful.
Comment · 2 years ago
Fifty state insurance commissioners could make this more or less happen overnight, except to the extent firms are using something other than cyber coverage to pay ransoms.

In my eyes, this would do almost as much to improve cybersecurity as liability in tort for insecure software.

Comment · 2 years ago
Nothing quite like a contract’s consideration consisting solely of a pre-existing obligation. I wonder what they were thinking with that?
Comment · 2 years ago
The “dial” on a rotary phone broke the connection in rapid sequence a number of times corresponding to the number dialed. If your dial broke, you could place calls by “flashing” the “hook” the right number of times with pauses between.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton