Defense Against the Dark Arts of Copyright Trolling

In this Article, we offer both a legal and a pragmatic framework for defending against copyright trolls. Lawsuits alleging online copyright infringement by John Doe defendants have accounted for roughly half of all copyright cases filed in the United States over the past three years. In the typical case, the plaintiff\u27s claims of infringement rely on a poorly substantiated form pleading and are targeted indiscriminately at noninfringers as well as infringers. This practice is a subset of the broader problem of opportunistic litigation, but it persists due to certain unique features of copyright law and the technical complexity of Internet technology. The plaintiffs bringing these cases target hundreds or thousands of defendants nationwide and seek quick settlements priced just low enough that it is less expensive for the defendant to pay rather than to defend the claim, regardless of the claim\u27s merits. We report new empirical data on the continued growth of this form of copyright trolling in the United States. We also undertake a detailed analysis of the legal and factual underpinnings of these cases. Despite their underlying weakness, plaintiffs have exploited information asymmetries, the high cost of federal court litigation, and the extravagant threat of statutory damages for copyright infringement to leverage settlements from the guilty and the innocent alike. We analyze the weaknesses of the typical plaintiff\u27s case and integrate that analysis into a strategy roadmap for both defense lawyers and pro se defendants. In short, as our title suggests, we provide a useful guide to the defense against the dark arts of copyright trolling

Defense Against the Dark Arts: Harry Potter and the Allegory for Evil

My thesis involved studying Rowling\u27s Harry Potter series as it relates to history, as an allegory for the Holocaust, Freudian psychology, and the Campbellian hero. I considered why Rowling\u27s work, though children\u27s literature, is still important: indeed, its importance is largely derived from the fact that it is written for children. It imparts moral teachings without being didactic and it relates to the struggles children encounter and Rowling addresses that every individual has the potential for both good and evil within themselves. By looking at the connections between the hero and villain through the lenses of psychology, the hero\u27s quest, and just war theory I came to the realization that the overarching connection lay in the latent good and evil present within everyone and the choices we make as individuals that turn one into the archetypal hero or villain. By Rowling addressing these problems in an easily accessible way, the reader can come to a deeper understanding of themselves, their society, and their past. No one is destined to be the hero or the villain but if we realize the potentialities for both within ourselves and others, we can be better prepared for all eventualities

Defense Against the Dark Arts: Justice Jackson, Justice Kennedy and the No-Compelled-Speech Doctrine

According to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, The right to think is the beginning of freedom, and speech must be protected from the government because speech is the beginning of thought. If this is so, and I believe it is, then the greatest threat to freedom, the darkest of the dark arts of government, occurs when the law compels persons to speak and thus commandeers their intellectual autonomy. Only a vibrant First Amendment is an adequate defense against this darkest of the dark arts. This Article traces the Supreme Court\u27s First Amendment jurisprudence protecting speaker autonomy and the right not to speak from its origins in the flag salute cases to the present. In particular, I focus on two magnificent judicial opinions defending this fundamental free speech right, the majority opinion of Justice Jackson in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and the concurring opinion of Justice Kennedy in National Institute of Family & Life Advocates v. Becerra (NIFLA). These two eloquent and powerful opinions are true landmarks of liberty and strong shields against an authoritarian government\u27s tyrannical attempts to coerce ideological orthodoxy by compelling individuals to say things they wish not to say. In Justice Kennedy\u27s case, his concurring opinion in NIFLA was issued near the end of his final term on the Supreme Court, and thus it represents an exclamation point on his wonderful legacy of protecting freedom of thought and freedom of speech. Although these opinions are separated by seventy-five years, they share a common understanding of the importance of the First Amendment for the protection of intellectual autonomy from authoritarian officials and compelled ideological conformity

The Echo: August 31, 2007

Two-year jail stay sends message – Habecker says cell phone tower is coming to Upland – Taylor is No. 1 – Taylor welcomes new faces – Hall director baby boom brings toothless grins to TU – Students deal with major dilemma – Scintillating? – The good, the bad and the ‘Superbad’ – Josh Porter’s High Five: summer movies ’07 – Harry Potter: defense against the dark arts – The right to protest – Moving Taylor beyond the motto – Re-Vision 2016 – Calling Taylor home – Volleyball defeats NCAA D-II foe – Trojans prepare for season opener – Singing the BTN Blues – Trojan Sports – Head-to-head with Tabitha Boguehttps://pillars.taylor.edu/echo-2007-2008/1001/thumbnail.jp

Defense Against the Dark Arts: The Diversity Rationale and the Failed Affirmative Defense of Affirmative Action

Over the past forty years, affirmative action advocates have participated in a defensive campaign where they have admitted that affirmative action is a form of justified discrimination. This Article finds this a dangerous strategy because it allows for the practice of misguided beliefs about race and remedies for racism. When schools fail to fight the pernicious perception that affirmative action is a racial preference, they allow the bulk of society to participate in the belief that there are no other remedial justifications for affirmative action—like remedying an institution’s history of discrimination, or curing a school’s present and ongoing discrimination by accounting for bias in admissions measures like grades, standardized testing, and letters of recommendation which are the products of racial bias. Given this fact, affirmative action is neither a racial preference nor a form of “benign” racial discrimination. Instead, affirmative action acts as a corrective function. This Article argues that the Supreme Court’s dismantling of affirmative action in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (“SFFA v. Harvard”) was not solely the work of conservatives. Advocates of affirmative action implemented an over forty-year, weak affirmative defense strategy that centered diversity and treated race conscious remedies as a form of preferential treatment. This Article discusses how portions of the SFFA decision that are critical of the diversity rationale align with principles of racial equality. Additionally, this Article discusses equality, the critiques of the diversity rationale, and calls for advocates of affirmative action to abandon diversity in the wake of SFFA

Bullying By Teachers: Preventative Measures in Hogwarts

In our case study, the Battle of Hogwarts, we decided to address the problem of bullying by teachers against students in the forms of discrimination, indoctrination, and maltreatment of students and how that might result in negative educational outcomes such as a lack of self-esteem, racist beliefs, discrimination, and stress. Students who were bullied before, during, and after the battle may have long-lasting problems that resulted from such instances of mistreatment. For example, professors such as Snape and the Carrows discriminated against Muggle-born students like Hermione. During the take-over of Hogwarts by the Death Eaters, Defense Against the Dark Arts was changed to the Dark Arts, therefore indoctrinating the students to Voldemort’s belief system. Finally, the use of the Cruciatus curse on misbehaving students was a form of maltreatment perpetrated by professors of Hogwarts. After reviewing the literature, as the founders of the New Age of Hogwarts, we have proposed a multidimensional and holistic solution that we will describe after defining our subject matter

Conjuring Her Self: Hermione\u27s Self-Determination in \u3ci\u3eHarry Potter\u3c/i\u3e

In most classic children’s literature, a female protagonist, though the center of the story, does not exhibit agency; rather, power “arrives in the form of rescue” and is acted upon her by a male hero (Sweeney). Recent feminist children’s literature, such as The Princess and the Admiral and The Ordinary Princess, empowers the protagonist to be her own rescuer. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series may not fit the expected mold of feminist children’s literature, but one of the main characters, Hermione Granger, is certainly the books’ only girl feminist. Hermione separates herself from other models of girlhood, such as the silent, passive, melodramatic, and superficial girl stereotypes, to formulate her own authentic character. Rather than replicating these models, she makes her unique voice heard. These stereotypes reveal the extent to which the magical world of Rowling’s stories portrays the actual state of society: the wizarding community is not a utopia of gender equality but rather a reflection of our non-fictitious world. Unlike the female students around her, Hermione is an essential element in the books, especially in the battle against Voldemort. Through her manipulation of common narrative tropes and subversion of expectations of femininity, Hermione creates her own construction of girlhood. As a result, she emerges as the most self-actualized character in the Harry Potter series