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> though it'd be better if it was embedded into law and couldn't go away down the line I'd go further and say that there's nothing of any significance in this

> though it'd be better if it was embedded into law and couldn't go away down the line I'd go further and say that there's nothing of any significance in this decision since it will likely go away down the line since it was not codified in law.

xoa 8y ago
>I'd go further and say that there's nothing of any significance in this decision since it will likely go away down the line since it was not codified in law. I don't believe you're correct here. If down the road the LoC and USCO did not continue this exemption, it still would have applied for the whole intervening time and anybody who took advantage of it during that time would be in the clear. At a bare minimum this is a specific material benefit to many people, and any knowledge, tooling and techniques developed to aid that during that time would still be valuable. That's not insignificant. More long term, ultimately this is politics and that can definitely be influenced by "temporary" measures which later become permanent. In general in politics it's much harder to take away something specific granted to people who gain a concentrated benefit from it then it is to not offer it in the first place. Before having it people may not be able to visualize a future benefit, but after getting used to it they'll resent having it removed if it was at all useful. Constituencies develop. So if for 3+ years some people were more easily and cheaply able to get something dealt with or saw more competition for it and in turn better quality/reliability/price, and then all of a sudden one day they walk in and get told "well the politicians just rescinded this so suddenly you can't but only because they said so" well that tends not to go over so well. Particularly if it seems like "common sense" and there is no harm any general member of the public can see from it either. Appeals to distant corporate profits tend to be curiously unmoving...
- deleted 8y ago
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monocasa 8y ago
Case law is law in our system, and having explicit legislation doesn't protect you anymore from future changes than case law does.
mathieuh 8y ago
The US legal system is based on English common law, which uses precedent to make decisions. Companies will submit test cases to be judged to inform whether what they're doing is likely to be found legal or illegal.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

xoa 8y ago

>I'd go further and say that there's nothing of any significance in this decision since it will likely go away down the line since it was not codified in law. I don't believe you're correct here. If down the road the LoC and USCO did not continue this exemption, it still would have applied for the whole intervening time and anybody who took advantage of it during that time would be in the clear. At a bare minimum this is a specific material benefit to many people, and any knowledge, tooling and techniques developed to aid that during that time would still be valuable. That's not insignificant. More long term, ultimately this is politics and that can definitely be influenced by "temporary" measures which later become permanent. In general in politics it's much harder to take away something specific granted to people who gain a concentrated benefit from it then it is to not offer it in the first place. Before having it people may not be able to visualize a future benefit, but after getting used to it they'll resent having it removed if it was at all useful. Constituencies develop. So if for 3+ years some people were more easily and cheaply able to get something dealt with or saw more competition for it and in turn better quality/reliability/price, and then all of a sudden one day they walk in and get told "well the politicians just rescinded this so suddenly you can't but only because they said so" well that tends not to go over so well. Particularly if it seems like "common sense" and there is no harm any general member of the public can see from it either. Appeals to distant corporate profits tend to be curiously unmoving...

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

monocasa 8y ago

Case law is law in our system, and having explicit legislation doesn't protect you anymore from future changes than case law does.

mathieuh 8y ago

The US legal system is based on English common law, which uses precedent to make decisions. Companies will submit test cases to be judged to inform whether what they're doing is likely to be found legal or illegal.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]