Imagine if GMail only allowed you to send Google Mail(TM) to other @gmail.com addresses. Email's decentralization allows us to ignore the fact that other people may be reading on an iphone, yahoo mail, or emacs.
Decentralization isn't (only) for neckbeards. It's about giving users freedom to socialize with those who choose a different client. Isn't it bizarre that I use LinkedIn, you use Facebook, therefore we can't be friends?
First we build the decentralized social network, then I will decide if I want to social network with you via google, yahoo, or emacs.
It depends on the jurisdiction and circumstances. In Federal Court, there are sanctions as a penalty (to deter more frivolous action) and damages (to compensate the other side). See http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/rule_11#rule_11_c
A court may:
- Order one side pay for the other side's attorney's fees
- Order one side to pay for the court's wasted time
- Dismiss the case
- Issue a public reprimand
Also, an attorney may violate professional responsibility laws which could have other penalties, such as being disbarred.
If you have the time, definitely give your representative a call, but you can also check out the Open Congress page for SOPA (H.R.3261): http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261
If you need specific advice about tax liability or incorporation decisions, you may want to talk to an attorney.
Incorporating in Delaware does not necessarily make a corporation a Delaware resident only. If a corporation operates in California, it is probably subject to California taxes. In general, a corporation can be a resident of both the state of incorporation and the state of its principal place of business.
For sales/use tax, owning property in California or having regular employees in California may be enough.
This is not legal advice, just common sense: be careful what you admit online! In some cases, willful use of someone's trademark may entitle them to punitive damages or lost profits.
Apple would not get an injunction, but it could get a declaratory judgment. Apple could get a judgment for invalidity or non-infringement.
You are right though, legally Apple is in a different position from the app developers that are being sued, and that probably poses some problems. The terms of Apple's license with Lodsys might hamstring some of their arguments. Apple might not even have standing to get a judgment of non-infringement. On the other hand, if Apple had filed for declaratory judgment, it could have chosen a venue other than the Eastern District of Texas, the plaintiff-friendly federal court that Lodsys chose.
It's a complicated decision for Apple, and it's more than just choosing to stand up for developers or not. Apple was probably in the process of evaluating the strength of their position when Lodsys rushed the issue to the courthouse.
There is no clean-cut loophole here. People have tried similar services before (e.g., VHS, in a smaller area, such as a single video store or hotel building) and the Courts found a violation of the public performance right. See Redd Horne (749 F.2d 154, http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/749_F2d_154.htm).
More precisely, the question is this: are they transmitting a performance of the DVD to the public? This gets a little convoluted thanks to the circular definition of "public" in § 101. There is an argument that the transmission is only to private homes, if Zediva puts restrictions on how/where their service can be used.
Sometimes people forget that reproduction isn't the only way to infringe. Depending on how their technology works, there may also be infringing reproduction in the buffer.
Here are a few guesses—
1. The Constitution doesn't prevent it.
2. Citizens haven't voted to stop it.
3. People still want citizenship/residence, so they must be "worth" the tax burden.
4. The tax code doesn't really care about tax-payer's use of resources. Not using public resources is no excuse for not paying federal income tax.
5. The U.S. government is afraid of people hiding income overseas. We lose money. Countries may begin a income tax race to the bottom.
Note, the government doesn't tax all foreign income, only citizens and residents. There are even deductions available to citizens living abroad.
There are two big concerns with a state's ability to tax: the due process clause and the "dormant" commerce clause[0]. Quill Corp v. North Dakota[1] is the most recent SCOTUS case on point, and it really confused more issues than it settled.
The short, minimally accurate version goes like this: The analysis under the due process clause and the commerce clause looks very similar—they both deal with fairness and the connection ("nexus") the taxpayer has to the state. There is older precedent, Bellas Hess, that required a physical presence for nexus under both the due process and commerce clause. In the 67 years after Bellas Hess, the due process doctrine changed a lot, so courts around the country began to wonder if Bellas Hess was still relevant. North Dakota jumped the gun, and tried to overrule Bellas Hess for the Supreme Court. The Court was not pleased. So Quill holds that the nexus requirement is different under the due process and commerce clause. Due process does not require physical presence, but the Bellas Hess physical presence test is still the law under the commerce clause.
There are some state court decisions applying Quill every which way.
Why does this all matter? The due process limit is unavoidable, by the courts, the federal government, and the states.
The commerce clause, on the other hand, is a limit on states, but it is within congress's powers to redraw. For example, Congress clarified the state's power to tax income in P.L. 86-272.
I think states are losing revenue that is rightly theirs. Amazon has basically built a business model around avoiding sales tax. I like buying cheap stuffs on Amazon as much as anyone, but I also like having state-funded universities, decent roads, and the rest of the goods that sales/use taxes fund. States shouldn't have to suffer because so much of their economy is moving online. As long as states mind the ruptured, tangled mess left of Quill, and follow any rules thrown down by congress, I think states can get theirs without any constitutional problems.
[0] The dormant commerce clause is like the shadow of Article 1, Section 8. Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce, so even where Congress has yet to regulate (such as use tax land), states are still prohibited from certain actions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dormant_Commerce_Clause
"The relevant market consists of a 'catalogue' of goods and/or services which are considered substitutes by the customer. Such a catalogue is considered 'worth monopolising' if should only one single supplier provided it, that supplier could profitably increase its price without its customers turning away and choosing other goods and services from other suppliers."
So the question is this: if Apple were to increase its share of revenue by 5% to 10%, would developers move to Android, BlackBerry, or WP7? Absolutely. Even at the current level, there is plenty of cross-over between Android and iOS applications. In antitrust terms, the AppStore is not a market.