Zitat des Tages von David Boies:
The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.
When you think of Napster, you think of music. But the first thing that struck me was that this was an important case not only for the music industry but for the whole Internet.
I win virtually every case I should win, and I win a number of cases that people think I shouldn't.
We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.
Here you have a new technology, and if that technology is going to work, you must allow people to provide central indexes of the data. It's just like a newspaper that publishes classified ads.
It is human nature to favor individuals and institutions who we know or for whom we feel responsible.
The Audio Home Recording Act directly says that noncommercial copying by consumers is lawful.
Embrace a diversity of ideas. Embrace the fact that you can disagree with people and not be disagreeable. Embrace the fact that you can find common ground - if you disagree on nine out of 10 things, but can find common ground on that 10th, maybe you can make progress. If you can find common ground, you can accomplish great things.
I don't really believe in moral victories. You can have them when you're dealing with public opinion, but in litigation, you want to win the case. I want to win.
Unlike people of my generation, my children and my grandchildren have grown up living with, knowing, people who were outwardly gay and lesbian. And they have learned that they're just like us... And when you see that they're just like us, the rationale for discrimination melts away.
Napster's only alleged liability is for contributory or vicarious infringement. So when Napster's users engage in noncommercial sharing of music, is that activity copyright infringement? No.
You wouldn't go to a hospital, you wouldn't go to a law firm where the doctors and lawyers were not retained on merit: where they all had tenure regardless of competence. Parents feel the same way about schools that they send their children to.
You never know when you lose a case whether it was because the facts were against you, or because the judges had already made up their minds, or if you could have done something differently.
Obviously I'm a lawyer; I like to have cases.
We must bring the rule of law to its full fruition in the United States, and when we do, we will have achieved the goals and rhetoric of our Founding Fathers.
Once I take a case, I'm stuck with it.
