AFAIK, and IANAL, the UK does not have the same protections for free speech and a free press that the U.S. has.
Haven't you been reading the news lately? Just yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States let stand a decision which threatens prison to two journalists who refuse to identify two unnamed sources.
I'm not saying the US is worse, and I'm not saying our nation's founders might not have tried to make things better here. But the fact of the matter is that the US government could do exactly the same thing here as the UK government can there. In fact, here in the US the government could do it without even getting a judge to sign off on it.
If you hate copyrights, like me, then it forces you bow your head and say "I'm using this to not because I think copyrights suck, but becasue of lame sounding reason A"
Not using, not even creating, but distributing.
It's unclear to me though whether this would apply to someone simply distributing software which was created and marketed by someone else (for whatever reason). Is it the software itself which is considered illegal to distribution, or is it only distribution by someone certain entities? What if someone anonymously created the software and the software itself was distributed via P2P?
That's not good enough, because even a company that creates software that is blatantly obviously targeted for only illegal uses can get away with it by saying "oh, we didn't know".
No, but it's apparent that you didn't read the dissenting opinions. Both make the same blurs between "public use" and "public good"
Where does the Thomas dissent do this? Actually it seems to me his dissent is essentially an argument against this blurring:
The Framers embodied that principle in the Constitution, allowing the government to take property not for "public necessity," but instead for "public use."
Also, the only disagreement was with respect to how broad an interpretation the terms "public benefit" was WRT earlier eminent domain cases.
The liberals got you. The question was what the term "Public Use" means, not "public benefit". The majority opinion continually used the term "public benefit", but as Clarence Thomas pointed out in his dissent, the term used in the Constitution is "Public Use".
Although I sympathise with the owners who are being forced out of their long-time homes and I don't like the fact that the representatives made their decision in favor of a developer vs. the people, I see no alternative to the majority decision.
The alternative is that the property taken under eminent domain must actually be used by the public, not merely used in a way which benefits the public.
Don't forget that the constitution does, actually, mandate copyright
But while you're at it, notice that contributory copyright infringement is neither in the constitution nor the law.
That's right, contributory copyright infringement was created solely by the Judiciary. It's an example of something called "legislation from the bench".
They came up with the best possible outcome, which is a compromise, stating that pitching software as primarily a way to infringe copyright is not okay.
I can think of a better compromise, like saying that "a copyright owner must show that the technology developer had (1) knowledge of specific infringments (2) at a time when it could do something about those infringements." You know, like in the appeals court ruling.
in the united states, it's legal to sell armour-piercing ammuniction -- bullets whose sole purpose of design is to go through bullet proof vests; obviously a device designed to kill or maim human beings.
by comparision, a device that may or may not be designed for, but is certainly capable of, infringing copyright is deemed illegal.
Well, copyright infringement is illegal, and killing isn't. That's at least one difference.
Considering that you think a contract has to be signed in order to be valid at least I know more than you do about contract law. Then again, maybe we're both right, and you just live in a very strange jurisdiction where people have to sign things all the time.
Saying spam is subjective is like saying 'carbon dioxide emissions' are subjectives, because there could be trucks driving around at the factory and people walking around, all emitting CO2, so how is the government going to enforce anything.
And saying spam should be illegal is like saying carbon dioxide emissions should be illegal. OK, maybe it's more similar than I thought.
Spam that is spam is similar to pollution in the aspects that the GPP mentioned.
It is similar in some aspects, though I wouldn't say that people are forced to use bandwidth or storage space in the same way as they are forced to accept pollution. But it's not anywhere near "equivalent". The economic externalities of spam are negligible compared to the pure annoyance factor. Although, I wouldn't even call it an externality, since the internet is a private system and not a commons. Companies on the internet have chosen to offer email receiving at no cost to the sender, but they aren't forced to do so. In many ways, legislating against spam would be like legislating against trolling slashdot.
And it's not like pollution is illegal. Sometimes it is, but the kind of fractions of a penny it costs to transfer and store email aren't the kinds of things that there are laws against.
The problem isn't filtering it at source but preventing a modified peer client from inserting bad things which it then sends on to end users.
If you send wiki source between clients, or even if you just filter bad html before displaying it, then this wouldn't be a problem. Like I said, freenet is doing it, so it's not something that hasn't already been solved.
Of course, if you were running a modified peer client, then you'd be vulnerable, but as long as you get the client from a trusted source you'd be fine. I mean, if you download a modified version of Firefox you're vulnerable when you go to Wikipedia, too.
Hard to prevent that because the attacker has control of everything which is being sent from the peer.
Maybe I just don't understand what you're saying. Do you know how freenet works? The peer client is a webserver, and you access it by connecting to localhost using your web brower. So the attacker can send anything to the peer client, the peer client is just going to filter out any of the nasty stuff before sending it to the web browser.
Well, that's certainly a better way of implementing it, but still, you shouldn't have to pay money to send someone an email. I guess if you frame it that way it's not unconstitutional, but it would violate the federal moratorium on internet taxation.
But unless you're talking about "noise pollution", or "light pollution", which from your description it's clear you're not, spam isn't equivalent to pollution. Pollution is a physical fact. It is very easy to define. Spam in is the eye of the beholder. It is impossible to define. In fact, if you could define what is and what isn't spam, then we'd just create spam filters to automatically filter it.
Well, I have the database. I downloaded it. That's a fact. In order to get permission to download the whole database, I had to claim that I was an exempt organization. According to the website, "Exempt Organizations include charities or non-profit organizations, organizations engaged in political solicitations or surveys, or Sellers or Telemarketers that call ONLY consumers with whom they have an established business relationship or from whom they have obtained the express written agreement to call." Also according to that website, exempt organizations are not required to pay for access to the database.
I applied as an exempt organization (I'm a Seller who only calls consumers with whom I have an established business relationship), was approved, and downloaded the full national list.
I remember how easy it was to get the DNC list from donotcall.gov for five different area codes, for free (if you lied a couple times about your tax information or something like that).
I got a copy of all the area codes for free without lying at all. I am a seller of products who calls only consumers with whom I have an established business relationship or from whom I have obtained the express written agreement to call. So I'm an "exempt organization", and therefore I can access the entire do-not-call list for free, and I have done so.
They're going to charge for the list? Can that possibly be Constitutional? Even with the controversial building code laws one can still access a copy of the law for free.
No, you're not the only one. In fact, I agree with both of your points. However, I don't see how enforcement of a do-not-email list is censorship any more than enforcement of a "No Trespassing" sign.
Well, it'll certainly apply to companies doing business in Utah who send messages to people in Utah who has e-mail servers in Utah.
Yes, it'll be pretty useless at first, but this is how the do-not-call lists started too. Of course, even once it becomes national, it still won't stop international email, but it's fairly easy to identify email coming from other countries and block it.
The receipt that the cash register spits out that says "One CVS camcorder@$29.95". THAT'S the contract.
That's pretty ambiguous. Can you buy these things online? I've looked around and I can't find them. I guess I'd have to go to the store and ask. That'd be one way to know for sure.
Show me where CVS claims ownership of the camera after you hand them US$30.00.
I haven't bought the damn thing, and I don't plan on it. Maybe you're right, but you're certainly not doing a good job of arguing it.
P2P is a security problem. People can always modify P2P programs to add nasty content and Wikipedia has already seen people trying to upload that and has filters in place to catch and block some things.
I think the point is to transfer the content via P2P, not to let anyone create the P2P software itself. Wikipedia's wiki syntax has become extremely complicated, and maybe a P2P version would have to scale that down at least until some people could go through with a fine-toothed comb and ensure that it can't represent unsafe HTML, but this is a problem which is already faced by Wikipedia. I'm not sure I'd phrase the solution as putting filters in place, you really need to create a formal syntax definition which doesn't allow malevelovent code in the first place. But I'm probably just misinterpreting what you said; as I understand it Wikipedia has already begun working on formalizing its syntax, and by now it's probably finished (I haven't been following in months).
And now that I think about it, this problem is already probably being resolved by the folks who make freenet. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but I'm also not aware of any security holes with browsing freenet sites.
Of course, in the longer run you'd probably want to have a custom browser anyway, then you could turn off javascript, java, and whatever else could lead to that bad stuff. From my understanding something like this is already being worked on by the KDE crew.
Slashdot Mirror
AFAIK, and IANAL, the UK does not have the same protections for free speech and a free press that the U.S. has.
Haven't you been reading the news lately? Just yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States let stand a decision which threatens prison to two journalists who refuse to identify two unnamed sources.
I'm not saying the US is worse, and I'm not saying our nation's founders might not have tried to make things better here. But the fact of the matter is that the US government could do exactly the same thing here as the UK government can there. In fact, here in the US the government could do it without even getting a judge to sign off on it.
If you hate copyrights, like me, then it forces you bow your head and say "I'm using this to not because I think copyrights suck, but becasue of lame sounding reason A"
Not using, not even creating, but distributing.
It's unclear to me though whether this would apply to someone simply distributing software which was created and marketed by someone else (for whatever reason). Is it the software itself which is considered illegal to distribution, or is it only distribution by someone certain entities? What if someone anonymously created the software and the software itself was distributed via P2P?
That's not good enough, because even a company that creates software that is blatantly obviously targeted for only illegal uses can get away with it by saying "oh, we didn't know".
Well, I don't see anything bad about that.
No, but it's apparent that you didn't read the dissenting opinions. Both make the same blurs between "public use" and "public good"
Where does the Thomas dissent do this? Actually it seems to me his dissent is essentially an argument against this blurring:
Also, the only disagreement was with respect to how broad an interpretation the terms "public benefit" was WRT earlier eminent domain cases.
The liberals got you. The question was what the term "Public Use" means, not "public benefit". The majority opinion continually used the term "public benefit", but as Clarence Thomas pointed out in his dissent, the term used in the Constitution is "Public Use".
Although I sympathise with the owners who are being forced out of their long-time homes and I don't like the fact that the representatives made their decision in favor of a developer vs. the people, I see no alternative to the majority decision.
The alternative is that the property taken under eminent domain must actually be used by the public, not merely used in a way which benefits the public.
So are they really promoting copyright infringment?
That's up to the jury to decide. The Supreme Court didn't answer this question.
Don't forget that the constitution does, actually, mandate copyright
But while you're at it, notice that contributory copyright infringement is neither in the constitution nor the law.
That's right, contributory copyright infringement was created solely by the Judiciary. It's an example of something called "legislation from the bench".
They came up with the best possible outcome, which is a compromise, stating that pitching software as primarily a way to infringe copyright is not okay.
I can think of a better compromise, like saying that "a copyright owner must show that the technology developer had (1) knowledge of specific infringments (2) at a time when it could do something about those infringements." You know, like in the appeals court ruling.
in the united states, it's legal to sell armour-piercing ammuniction -- bullets whose sole purpose of design is to go through bullet proof vests; obviously a device designed to kill or maim human beings.
by comparision, a device that may or may not be designed for, but is certainly capable of, infringing copyright is deemed illegal.
Well, copyright infringement is illegal, and killing isn't. That's at least one difference.
I'm a little confused about what you're saying. Are you saying you agree with me?
Considering that you think a contract has to be signed in order to be valid at least I know more than you do about contract law. Then again, maybe we're both right, and you just live in a very strange jurisdiction where people have to sign things all the time.
Saying spam is subjective is like saying 'carbon dioxide emissions' are subjectives, because there could be trucks driving around at the factory and people walking around, all emitting CO2, so how is the government going to enforce anything.
And saying spam should be illegal is like saying carbon dioxide emissions should be illegal. OK, maybe it's more similar than I thought.
Spam that is spam is similar to pollution in the aspects that the GPP mentioned.
It is similar in some aspects, though I wouldn't say that people are forced to use bandwidth or storage space in the same way as they are forced to accept pollution. But it's not anywhere near "equivalent". The economic externalities of spam are negligible compared to the pure annoyance factor. Although, I wouldn't even call it an externality, since the internet is a private system and not a commons. Companies on the internet have chosen to offer email receiving at no cost to the sender, but they aren't forced to do so. In many ways, legislating against spam would be like legislating against trolling slashdot.
And it's not like pollution is illegal. Sometimes it is, but the kind of fractions of a penny it costs to transfer and store email aren't the kinds of things that there are laws against.
The problem isn't filtering it at source but preventing a modified peer client from inserting bad things which it then sends on to end users.
If you send wiki source between clients, or even if you just filter bad html before displaying it, then this wouldn't be a problem. Like I said, freenet is doing it, so it's not something that hasn't already been solved.
Of course, if you were running a modified peer client, then you'd be vulnerable, but as long as you get the client from a trusted source you'd be fine. I mean, if you download a modified version of Firefox you're vulnerable when you go to Wikipedia, too.
Hard to prevent that because the attacker has control of everything which is being sent from the peer.
Maybe I just don't understand what you're saying. Do you know how freenet works? The peer client is a webserver, and you access it by connecting to localhost using your web brower. So the attacker can send anything to the peer client, the peer client is just going to filter out any of the nasty stuff before sending it to the web browser.
Well, that's certainly a better way of implementing it, but still, you shouldn't have to pay money to send someone an email. I guess if you frame it that way it's not unconstitutional, but it would violate the federal moratorium on internet taxation.
Think about spam as being equivalent to pollution
But unless you're talking about "noise pollution", or "light pollution", which from your description it's clear you're not, spam isn't equivalent to pollution. Pollution is a physical fact. It is very easy to define. Spam in is the eye of the beholder. It is impossible to define. In fact, if you could define what is and what isn't spam, then we'd just create spam filters to automatically filter it.
Well, I have the database. I downloaded it. That's a fact. In order to get permission to download the whole database, I had to claim that I was an exempt organization. According to the website, "Exempt Organizations include charities or non-profit organizations, organizations engaged in political solicitations or surveys, or Sellers or Telemarketers that call ONLY consumers with whom they have an established business relationship or from whom they have obtained the express written agreement to call." Also according to that website, exempt organizations are not required to pay for access to the database.
I applied as an exempt organization (I'm a Seller who only calls consumers with whom I have an established business relationship), was approved, and downloaded the full national list.
I remember how easy it was to get the DNC list from donotcall.gov for five different area codes, for free (if you lied a couple times about your tax information or something like that).
I got a copy of all the area codes for free without lying at all. I am a seller of products who calls only consumers with whom I have an established business relationship or from whom I have obtained the express written agreement to call. So I'm an "exempt organization", and therefore I can access the entire do-not-call list for free, and I have done so.
The authorities won't enforce the law in that case. But surely some ISPs will offer email accounts which don't accept email from these countries.
Unless you're talking about using an open relay (of which there are pretty well maintained lists), I don't see how it's easy to fake your IP address.
They're going to charge for the list? Can that possibly be Constitutional? Even with the controversial building code laws one can still access a copy of the law for free.
No, you're not the only one. In fact, I agree with both of your points. However, I don't see how enforcement of a do-not-email list is censorship any more than enforcement of a "No Trespassing" sign.
Well, it'll certainly apply to companies doing business in Utah who send messages to people in Utah who has e-mail servers in Utah.
Yes, it'll be pretty useless at first, but this is how the do-not-call lists started too. Of course, even once it becomes national, it still won't stop international email, but it's fairly easy to identify email coming from other countries and block it.
The receipt that the cash register spits out that says "One CVS camcorder@$29.95". THAT'S the contract.
That's pretty ambiguous. Can you buy these things online? I've looked around and I can't find them. I guess I'd have to go to the store and ask. That'd be one way to know for sure.
Show me where CVS claims ownership of the camera after you hand them US$30.00.
I haven't bought the damn thing, and I don't plan on it. Maybe you're right, but you're certainly not doing a good job of arguing it.
P2P is a security problem. People can always modify P2P programs to add nasty content and Wikipedia has already seen people trying to upload that and has filters in place to catch and block some things.
I think the point is to transfer the content via P2P, not to let anyone create the P2P software itself. Wikipedia's wiki syntax has become extremely complicated, and maybe a P2P version would have to scale that down at least until some people could go through with a fine-toothed comb and ensure that it can't represent unsafe HTML, but this is a problem which is already faced by Wikipedia. I'm not sure I'd phrase the solution as putting filters in place, you really need to create a formal syntax definition which doesn't allow malevelovent code in the first place. But I'm probably just misinterpreting what you said; as I understand it Wikipedia has already begun working on formalizing its syntax, and by now it's probably finished (I haven't been following in months).
And now that I think about it, this problem is already probably being resolved by the folks who make freenet. I'm not sure exactly how they do it, but I'm also not aware of any security holes with browsing freenet sites.
Of course, in the longer run you'd probably want to have a custom browser anyway, then you could turn off javascript, java, and whatever else could lead to that bad stuff. From my understanding something like this is already being worked on by the KDE crew.