U.S. District Judge Michael Davis has declared a mistrial in the case of Jammie Thomas, who last year was convicted of copyright infringement and fined $222,000 for sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa network. In doing so, Judge Davis took direct issue with the fact that the RIAA argued against having to provide any proof that the songs were actually downloaded from Thomas’ computer in order to have her convicted — that by simply having the songs on the file-sharing network, copyright infringement was implied and she was therefore automatically guilty.

Disturbingly, Davis (who was the judge on the original trial) had bought into this argument, and had issued an instruction to the jury (Jury Instruction 15) that they could find her guilty under those conditions. However, he called both parties back to his courtroom last month of his own accord, and said he may have committed a “manifest error of the law.” He then ruled that the instruction given to the jury was erroneous and “that error substantially prejudiced Thomas’ rights.” Hence, a mistrial.

Davis’ decision isn’t going to stop these types of cases, but it at least is going to force the RIAA to actually prove someone guilty rather than just threatening them or sweet-talking the courts into being on their side. Thomas is still going to have to go through another trial, but the RIAA will be required to demonstrate that she actually distributed the songs, rather than just making them available. Which is how it should be, because up to this point it’s almost as if Thomas (and others) had been convicted simply for loading a gun but not shooting anyone with it. The RIAA’s tactics severely violate the “innocent until proven guilty” statute that is the basis of our criminal justice system (or is supposed to be…horror stories from air travelers especially make you wonder what country this is), and they seem to think that’s perfectly fine. Actual quote from RIAA lawyer:

“Requiring proof of actual transfers would cripple efforts to enforce copyright owners’ rights online – and would solely benefit those who seek to freeload off plaintiff’s investment.”

So, the RIAA shouldn’t have to actually prove someone’s guilty because…that would be too hard? Yeah, better that the courts just take the word of a special interest group. That always works out great. Apparently they believe they’re exempt from the law when gathering their “evidence” for these trials too.

Just yesterday, GM finally revealed the production version of one of the most anticipated cars of the decade, perhaps several decades — the Chevy Volt. Some information about the Volt has been available for a long time, but yesterday was the first time anyone outside of GM’s iron curtain laid eyes on what many hope will be the auto giant’s messiah.

The Volt will be different from popular hybrids available today (like the Prius) in that it will be a series hybrid instead of a parallel hybrid (read more about that distinction at Wikipedia, if you care). It’s quite simple: in parallel hybrids like the Prius, Civic hybrid, Camry hybrid, etc, a small electric motor and the traditional gas motor can both drive the wheels. In a series hybrid, only the electric motor can drive the wheels, and the gas engine is there purely as a backup generator to charge the batteries that drive the electric motor. This gives the series hybrid the ability to go a decent distance without burning a single drop of gasoline — in the Volt’s case, GM claims it will be 40 miles.

So 40 miles on just electricity, and since you can plug it into any electrical outlet to charge it (with a cost estimated at around $0.80 for a full charge) this thing will no doubt be very cheap to operate. Imagine how great it would be, if you live less than 20 miles from where you work, to be able to go to and from work all week without ever using any gas. Good for your wallet, good for the environment, everybody wins, right? This thing will be a revolution, won’t it? Ah, but you must be wondering what the Volt will cost.
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At long last, I have completed major work on my first complete site redesign in almost two years. I’m not exaggerating when I say I went through more than 20 concepts to get here before settling on this, one of the cleanest and simplest. I typically name my design concepts after ancient historical sites or mythical figures (Atlantis, Athens, Diablo, etc), but I couldn’t come up with one I liked that fit this design so I settled on the next best thing: Chocolate. Yeah, I don’t know either.

I haven’t done a redesign of RogersMJ.com since before I finished college (where I earned a decidedly non-design degree of Computer Science). Since then I have started working with real, actual designer-like people. I’ve learned a lot about presentation, and the vast array of designs and content organization methods I’ve run across have influenced my own methods. This design is a personal exercise to see how well I do at keeping the design elements simple and still present the content in an attractive way. Those who have been around these parts before will know that I have, at times, a tendency to get too friendly with gradients, drop shadows, and other visual cues that, while occasionally interesting, can easily overwhelm.

Since my last redesign, traffic has gone from 2,500 page views per month to more than 250,000, and judging by the emails I receive, the comments you’ve posted, and the browser stats you’ve left (most of you prefer something other than IE — you have the infinite, unwavering thanks of a grateful web designer), I’m blessed with a moderately tech- and web-savvy audience. Which brings me to the other, less visual part of this redesign: this blog, this site as a whole, will become more focused on a few core subjects. I haven’t entirely figured out the reorganization yet, but a majority of the content will fall under such categories as web design, emerging technologies and their relevance, internet legal issues and consumers’ digital rights, and probably a smattering of posts about amateur photography.

With a renewed focus on those subjects, I hope I’m able to write more frequently and provide you all with some interesting reading. I also hope I can get some feedback on the new design — good, bad, or otherwise.

I have a lot of video media stored on my server (almost 2 terabytes), and I need a way to stream it to my television so we can watch the stuff from a couch instead of a desk chair. Years ago I started with a basic PC running Windows, then moved to a hacked original Xbox with Xbox Media Center, then to a hacked Apple TV. Today, I replaced my hacked Apple TV with a Mac Mini running the excellent Plex media center software.

Plex is a fork of the original XBMC software that I used way back with my original Xbox. It has been updated and beautified, and definitely sports one of the sexiest user interfaces you’ll ever see gracing your screen. One of its greatest strengths is gathering information about your videos. You point it to your media, and as long as the files are named in a sane way it will go out and fetch all the metadata from online movie and TV databases — it downloads the episode/movie names, descriptions, and even cover art. This makes for a fantastic experience as you’re browsing through your media. You can see in the image here an example of this as I look at the movie “300″.

All in all, it’s fantastic using the Mini has a media center. I have full control over my huge media library using just my Logitech Harmony remote, but I can surf the web or do anything else I want with the computer just by pulling out the bluetooth keyboard and mouse from under the coffee table. Plex is a great piece of software already, and lots of improvements are planned. For digital media junkies, I think this is about as good as it gets right now.