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How is it that software makers are culpable when their product us used to commit a crime but not gun manufactures? Is it that copyright violation is such a "he

How is it that software makers are culpable when their product us used to commit a crime but not gun manufactures? Is it that copyright violation is such a "heinous" crime that special rules apply?

cryptoz 9y ago
Not sure what your point is here. Google went to-the-max apeshit insane in their censoring/blocking of gun-related product searches recently, to the point that Google Products search wouldn't return anything labelled with the color burgundy. Surely Google thinks gun manufacturers are so intensely bad as to have 'punished' them via search controls Far, far more than they have here with Kodi. Aside: Neither of these seems like useful exercises for Google.
- TomMckenny 9y ago
  "armalite" auto completes and even helpfully suggest the AR15, the exact weapon used in all the most spectacular massacres. I'm not suggesting Google interfere with either. I'm suggesting copyright forces have an unreasonable amount of clout, much of it invisible. More even than a mass movement against school massacres.
  - bendbro 9y ago
    Try searching for "shopping" results for "ar15", "armalite 15", and "ak47". It will show they have explicitly filtered out "ar15" shopping search results
  - grawprog 9y ago
    Lol and so? If school shooters had used ak47's, which fire a larger caliber bullet, are extremely available, have higher capacity magazines and will never breakdown. No one would give the slightest fuck, because everyone already knows bad guys use ak's. American's just have their panties.in a knot because the good guy guns are being used by bad guys. Hell you can go buy a semi automatic shotgun with a big enough clip that would leave a classroom splattered with nothing but pieces of children....but yeah....ar15's...Lol.
- SippinLean 9y ago
  Google prohibited gun-related sales since 2012. The "burgundy" incident followed the Parkland shooting where 17 were murdered, it was a mistake quickly rectified. Many sites changed their policies regarding guns in anticipation of the changes to Section 230.
alexbeloi 9y ago
Unlike victims of gun crimes, the victims of copyright violation have the money and lobbying power to effect change.
- protomyth 9y ago
  No, unlike gun owners and manufacturers, software developers have no effective lobbying organization and get treated liked 2nd class citizens. No one fears angering software developers before an election.
  - alexbeloi 9y ago
    I agree with you (regarding gun owners as a protected class) and I believe our two claims are complementary rather than adversarial.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > No, unlike gun owners and manufacturers, software developers have no effective lobbying organization They just haven't been clever enough to organize their own customers, or some other mass front, politically the way the gun industry has.
    - protomyth 9y ago
      I think your reversing that, as the customers are out front. That's the mistake that keeps getting made by the NRA's opponents. The NRA is only effective because its people over industry. Industry-lead groups need a whole lot more funding to be effective. Any software developer that is looking for leadership from the software industry is going to be very disappointed. Often, the industry doesn't really have the best instance of developers in mind.
- madmax96 9y ago
  Unlike victims of gun crimes, the victims of copyright violation do not need to contend with a fundamental right to effect change.
OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago
That logic is absolutely terrible.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
One has a Constitutional amendment. The other doesn't. Also, gun owners are better organized than content consumers or technologists.
- kevinh 9y ago
  There's no constitutional amendment protecting gun manufacturers from being sued. Only a law.
  - SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
    Along with precedent and logical thinking.
- TomMckenny 9y ago
  The vast majority of use cases of Kodi would be covered by the 1st amendment. In recent decades even the most frivolous copyright claims supersedes the 1st amendment in the eyes of both the courts and corporations. I imagine if they were invented today, the xerox, tape-recorder or printing-press would have a very hard time. But you are right, consumers and technologist have near zero clout.
jsgo 9y ago
Whether one agrees or not, Google is within their rights to remove Kodi from their autocomplete product. Whether one agrees or not, Dick's Sporting Goods is within their rights to remove partial/all (can't remember what they did exactly, honestly) gun sales. So they're not really all that different. Kodi isn't considered culpable for people using it in a bad way here, just Google is removing it from autocomplete in a precautionary manner. Likewise, guns and Dick's.
- throwaway2048 9y ago
  Nobody is talking about weither google is legally allowed to do this, stop conflating legality with morality.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    I think that they clearly aren't conflating the two. "Whether one agrees or not" is "Regardless of whether you consider Google's/Dick's actions moral". The question was why gun manufacturers aren't legally accountable for crimes committed with their products while software developers are. The (paraphrased) answer provided is "They aren't; Google removing Kodi from autocomplete is similar to sporting goods stores removing guns from sale".
    - prepend 9y ago
      The Kodi project is not legally accountable for civil infringement committed with their devices for the same reason that gun manufacturers aren’t. Because both have legal purposes. The fact that people do illegal things with them is not the manufacturer’s fault in this case. In the US, tort law defines manufacturer liability and there is no negligence or design defect. There are manufacturers who solely make piracy boxes running Kodi who are frequently charged (https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/25/kodi-box-guilty-reversal-court-brian-thompson/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/25/kodi-box-guilty-reversal...). And if gun manufacturers marketed a device with a primary purpose of murder they would likely be charged. In business law class, we had a case about a switchblade manufacturer adding features only useful for stabbing people. But I can’t find a real reference on Google. Link- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

How is it that software makers are culpable when their product us used to commit a crime but not gun manufactures? Is it that copyright violation is such a "heinous" crime that special rules apply?

cryptoz 9y ago

Not sure what your point is here. Google went to-the-max apeshit insane in their censoring/blocking of gun-related product searches recently, to the point that Google Products search wouldn't return anything labelled with the color burgundy. Surely Google thinks gun manufacturers are so intensely bad as to have 'punished' them via search controls Far, far more than they have here with Kodi. Aside: Neither of these seems like useful exercises for Google.

TomMckenny 9y ago
"armalite" auto completes and even helpfully suggest the AR15, the exact weapon used in all the most spectacular massacres. I'm not suggesting Google interfere with either. I'm suggesting copyright forces have an unreasonable amount of clout, much of it invisible. More even than a mass movement against school massacres.
- bendbro 9y ago
  Try searching for "shopping" results for "ar15", "armalite 15", and "ak47". It will show they have explicitly filtered out "ar15" shopping search results
- grawprog 9y ago
  Lol and so? If school shooters had used ak47's, which fire a larger caliber bullet, are extremely available, have higher capacity magazines and will never breakdown. No one would give the slightest fuck, because everyone already knows bad guys use ak's. American's just have their panties.in a knot because the good guy guns are being used by bad guys. Hell you can go buy a semi automatic shotgun with a big enough clip that would leave a classroom splattered with nothing but pieces of children....but yeah....ar15's...Lol.
SippinLean 9y ago
Google prohibited gun-related sales since 2012. The "burgundy" incident followed the Parkland shooting where 17 were murdered, it was a mistake quickly rectified. Many sites changed their policies regarding guns in anticipation of the changes to Section 230.

alexbeloi 9y ago

Unlike victims of gun crimes, the victims of copyright violation have the money and lobbying power to effect change.

protomyth 9y ago
No, unlike gun owners and manufacturers, software developers have no effective lobbying organization and get treated liked 2nd class citizens. No one fears angering software developers before an election.
- alexbeloi 9y ago
  I agree with you (regarding gun owners as a protected class) and I believe our two claims are complementary rather than adversarial.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > No, unlike gun owners and manufacturers, software developers have no effective lobbying organization They just haven't been clever enough to organize their own customers, or some other mass front, politically the way the gun industry has.
  - protomyth 9y ago
    I think your reversing that, as the customers are out front. That's the mistake that keeps getting made by the NRA's opponents. The NRA is only effective because its people over industry. Industry-lead groups need a whole lot more funding to be effective. Any software developer that is looking for leadership from the software industry is going to be very disappointed. Often, the industry doesn't really have the best instance of developers in mind.
madmax96 9y ago
Unlike victims of gun crimes, the victims of copyright violation do not need to contend with a fundamental right to effect change.

OnlyRepliesToBS 9y ago

That logic is absolutely terrible.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

One has a Constitutional amendment. The other doesn't. Also, gun owners are better organized than content consumers or technologists.

kevinh 9y ago
There's no constitutional amendment protecting gun manufacturers from being sued. Only a law.
- SlowRobotAhead 9y ago
  Along with precedent and logical thinking.
TomMckenny 9y ago
The vast majority of use cases of Kodi would be covered by the 1st amendment. In recent decades even the most frivolous copyright claims supersedes the 1st amendment in the eyes of both the courts and corporations. I imagine if they were invented today, the xerox, tape-recorder or printing-press would have a very hard time. But you are right, consumers and technologist have near zero clout.

jsgo 9y ago

Whether one agrees or not, Google is within their rights to remove Kodi from their autocomplete product. Whether one agrees or not, Dick's Sporting Goods is within their rights to remove partial/all (can't remember what they did exactly, honestly) gun sales. So they're not really all that different. Kodi isn't considered culpable for people using it in a bad way here, just Google is removing it from autocomplete in a precautionary manner. Likewise, guns and Dick's.

throwaway2048 9y ago
Nobody is talking about weither google is legally allowed to do this, stop conflating legality with morality.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  I think that they clearly aren't conflating the two. "Whether one agrees or not" is "Regardless of whether you consider Google's/Dick's actions moral". The question was why gun manufacturers aren't legally accountable for crimes committed with their products while software developers are. The (paraphrased) answer provided is "They aren't; Google removing Kodi from autocomplete is similar to sporting goods stores removing guns from sale".
  - prepend 9y ago
    The Kodi project is not legally accountable for civil infringement committed with their devices for the same reason that gun manufacturers aren’t. Because both have legal purposes. The fact that people do illegal things with them is not the manufacturer’s fault in this case. In the US, tort law defines manufacturer liability and there is no negligence or design defect. There are manufacturers who solely make piracy boxes running Kodi who are frequently charged (https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/25/kodi-box-guilty-reversal-court-brian-thompson/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/25/kodi-box-guilty-reversal...). And if gun manufacturers marketed a device with a primary purpose of murder they would likely be charged. In business law class, we had a case about a switchblade manufacturer adding features only useful for stabbing people. But I can’t find a real reference on Google. Link- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]