4 ms·

I'm not sure that the cognitive dissonance is in the ease of committing the tort, rather, I suspect that "intellectual property" doesn't really fit most (non-te

by mock 17y ago

I'm not sure that the cognitive dissonance is in the ease of committing the tort, rather, I suspect that "intellectual property" doesn't really fit most (non-technical) people's concept of what ought to be tortable. For most non-technical people (my mom, for example), having a thing implies the right to share it. When we treat a song or a piece of software or a movie as a "thing" we feed into this conception. Of course we, as technical people, know that it isn't really a thing. That in fact it's a licensing agreement granting you the limited ability to use information in certain ways. But that idea is complex, and not really well understood by most people (even technical people), and so we abstract it as "a thing" (intellectual property). So when some poor soul winds up incurring 60k of damages just for clicking a button to trade "free" music of course this comes as a surprise. All of a sudden their mental model of "things" has broken down with no real warning that the level of damage could hit such extremes so quickly or that a harm was even being committed. If we lived in a just society, the law would be re-evaluated to fit the ideas of right and wrong commonly held by the people (including content creators of course). Instead we will attempt to force a lossy abstraction on everyone and accept the inevitable unjust consequences.

tptacek 17y ago
There are lots of things where "having" it doesn't imply the right to share it. Two examples: a rental car, a Blockbuster DVD. I submit that it's not the law that needs to change. Rental-like terms (or per-user licensing) are perfectly reasonable. The issue is, people don't like per-user licensing. They have a legitimate response, which is to boycott the industry, and a totally illegitimate response, which is to attempt to coercively redefine the contract using technology. The illegitimate response is doing a bunch of bad things: * It's getting people sued for tens of thousands of dollars. * It's promoting heavy-handed DRM schemes. * It's dragging ISPs into content-monitoring regimes. * It's reconfiguring content from license purchase to streaming rentals. * It's migrating content from open formats (red book audio) to proprietary ones. * It's distorting the market for lawful online purchase by forcing it to compete with unlawful free clones.
- mock 17y ago
  I don't think we really disagree all that much. I think the problem is really that content publishers have been dishonest about what they're selling. When I "buy" a DVD what have I actually bought? What does my mom think I've bought? This difference is I think what fuels the gasps of shock and horror at the size of the damages when it inevitably goes to court. The rental car on the other hand, isn't sold as a bait-and-switch. Where we differ however, is that I don't see attempting to coercively redefine the contract as any less legitimate. If the law is an ass, especially if the law is an ass and has been completely captured by moneyed interests, then disobeying the law en masse until the weight of numbers brings the law into disrepute seems far more likely to push change (at least in this case) than passively boycotting. (FWIW I also believe in jury nullification, which should give you an idea where I stand in the push and pull of rule-of-law vs will-of-the-people) By using technology to put the power to coercively redefine the contract in the hands of the people, the content controller/producers are put in a squeeze. People don't have to pay them any more (which hits them in the wallet) - to fight that they will have to spend ever increasing amounts of money to buy laws and DRM technology. As they do so they will increasingly damage the economic and legal systems they depend upon by becoming ever more draconian, causing ever more collateral damage, with predictable consequences. It seems to me like a case of classic asymmetric warfare, and why they'll lose (or end up so changed from the fight that they'll wish they had).

by mock 17y ago

tptacek 17y ago

There are lots of things where "having" it doesn't imply the right to share it. Two examples: a rental car, a Blockbuster DVD. I submit that it's not the law that needs to change. Rental-like terms (or per-user licensing) are perfectly reasonable. The issue is, people don't like per-user licensing. They have a legitimate response, which is to boycott the industry, and a totally illegitimate response, which is to attempt to coercively redefine the contract using technology. The illegitimate response is doing a bunch of bad things: * It's getting people sued for tens of thousands of dollars. * It's promoting heavy-handed DRM schemes. * It's dragging ISPs into content-monitoring regimes. * It's reconfiguring content from license purchase to streaming rentals. * It's migrating content from open formats (red book audio) to proprietary ones. * It's distorting the market for lawful online purchase by forcing it to compete with unlawful free clones.

mock 17y ago
I don't think we really disagree all that much. I think the problem is really that content publishers have been dishonest about what they're selling. When I "buy" a DVD what have I actually bought? What does my mom think I've bought? This difference is I think what fuels the gasps of shock and horror at the size of the damages when it inevitably goes to court. The rental car on the other hand, isn't sold as a bait-and-switch. Where we differ however, is that I don't see attempting to coercively redefine the contract as any less legitimate. If the law is an ass, especially if the law is an ass and has been completely captured by moneyed interests, then disobeying the law en masse until the weight of numbers brings the law into disrepute seems far more likely to push change (at least in this case) than passively boycotting. (FWIW I also believe in jury nullification, which should give you an idea where I stand in the push and pull of rule-of-law vs will-of-the-people) By using technology to put the power to coercively redefine the contract in the hands of the people, the content controller/producers are put in a squeeze. People don't have to pay them any more (which hits them in the wallet) - to fight that they will have to spend ever increasing amounts of money to buy laws and DRM technology. As they do so they will increasingly damage the economic and legal systems they depend upon by becoming ever more draconian, causing ever more collateral damage, with predictable consequences. It seems to me like a case of classic asymmetric warfare, and why they'll lose (or end up so changed from the fight that they'll wish they had).