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There’s also a social contract about respect for the law. It’s arguably much older. It involves aspects like “following the spirit of the law”. Also “technical

There’s also a social contract about respect for the law. It’s arguably much older. It involves aspects like “following the spirit of the law”. Also “technical ability is not the same as permission”. It’s why the old shopkeeper’s waning ability to see is no license for you from the produce displayed outside. (This is mostly to show that I, too, can argue with invented “contracts”).

wpietri 8y ago
There's also a social contract with government, such that laws are supposed to be thoughtfully written to achieve societal optimums, and rebalanced when that's not the case. In practice, American legislators have to raise large amounts of money just to say in office. So it's unsurprising that they listen mainly to the concerns of people with money: https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-... We are in an age where information distribution is approximately free. And where the costs of producing information-based products has declined drastically. Paywalls are not any sort of law; they're an attempt by information producers to have their cake and eat it too. They want the abundance of the new, computer-driven world. But they want artificial scarcity, so that they can charge like they did in 1970. My sympathy is with journalists here. But that doesn't mean I have to roll over and let them break the web. The laws in question here, the DMCA and the CFAA, are both too new and too old to be reflexively bowed to with "OMG spirit of the law!" Too new because they are obviously part of society's attempts to deal with technology, and are equally obviously driven by the interests of people who have piles of money and are trying to protect those piles. And too old because both, but especially the CFAA which was written in 1984, reflect a very early understanding of what computers are, what they're for, and how society should treat them. As far as I'm concerned, this is an ongoing negotiation. We need to find ways for journalists to get paid. We need to find ways to have a much more informed populace. We need to preserve as much as possible of the freedom computers and networks have given to every individual. If we want paywalls to be a part of law, then we should have a national debate about whether publishers deserve a special protection so they make all of their content available, let it be downloaded to any computer in the world, and then have that computer enforce any restrictions they think are good ones. We are not obliged to just concede that debate right at the beginning just because you think reading an infinitely replicable article already on your computer is exactly the same thing as stealing a unique piece of fruit from a blind man's store.
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austincheney 8y ago
Broad baseless claims are pedantic. > There’s also a social contract about respect for the law. Which law, and as it applies in which context?
decasteve 8y ago
If you’re selling something called wood, and I use a saw to cut it, I expect it to work because I paid for wood. That’s the implied contract. If the person who sells the wood puts some foreign substance in it to circumvent my saw I should not get in trouble for finding another way to cut it. I pay for my internet connection and I expect others who make use of the same network to follow its protocols. I expect HTTP to work as HTTP. If a bad network node chooses to circumvent how it works and I find a way around their circumvention then I should not be punished. On the other hand, if I republish and break copyright it is an entirely different matter.
dixie_land 8y ago
> technical ability is not the same as permission Exactly. 99% arguments here are essentially the equivalent to "since Marriott/SPG are horrible at cyber security, I am ENTITLED to use stolen credit cards from their leaks."
nkrisc 8y ago
If I notice the shopkeeper gives discounts to people wearing hats, is it wrong for me to come back wearing a hat for the discount? If I notice the WSJ sends different content to different user-agents, is it wrong of me to change my user-agent?

wpietri 8y ago

There's also a social contract with government, such that laws are supposed to be thoughtfully written to achieve societal optimums, and rebalanced when that's not the case. In practice, American legislators have to raise large amounts of money just to say in office. So it's unsurprising that they listen mainly to the concerns of people with money: https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-theories-of-american-politics-explained https://www.vox.com/2014/4/18/5624310/martin-gilens-testing-... We are in an age where information distribution is approximately free. And where the costs of producing information-based products has declined drastically. Paywalls are not any sort of law; they're an attempt by information producers to have their cake and eat it too. They want the abundance of the new, computer-driven world. But they want artificial scarcity, so that they can charge like they did in 1970. My sympathy is with journalists here. But that doesn't mean I have to roll over and let them break the web. The laws in question here, the DMCA and the CFAA, are both too new and too old to be reflexively bowed to with "OMG spirit of the law!" Too new because they are obviously part of society's attempts to deal with technology, and are equally obviously driven by the interests of people who have piles of money and are trying to protect those piles. And too old because both, but especially the CFAA which was written in 1984, reflect a very early understanding of what computers are, what they're for, and how society should treat them. As far as I'm concerned, this is an ongoing negotiation. We need to find ways for journalists to get paid. We need to find ways to have a much more informed populace. We need to preserve as much as possible of the freedom computers and networks have given to every individual. If we want paywalls to be a part of law, then we should have a national debate about whether publishers deserve a special protection so they make all of their content available, let it be downloaded to any computer in the world, and then have that computer enforce any restrictions they think are good ones. We are not obliged to just concede that debate right at the beginning just because you think reading an infinitely replicable article already on your computer is exactly the same thing as stealing a unique piece of fruit from a blind man's store.

deleted 8y ago
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austincheney 8y ago

Broad baseless claims are pedantic. > There’s also a social contract about respect for the law. Which law, and as it applies in which context?

decasteve 8y ago

If you’re selling something called wood, and I use a saw to cut it, I expect it to work because I paid for wood. That’s the implied contract. If the person who sells the wood puts some foreign substance in it to circumvent my saw I should not get in trouble for finding another way to cut it. I pay for my internet connection and I expect others who make use of the same network to follow its protocols. I expect HTTP to work as HTTP. If a bad network node chooses to circumvent how it works and I find a way around their circumvention then I should not be punished. On the other hand, if I republish and break copyright it is an entirely different matter.

dixie_land 8y ago

> technical ability is not the same as permission Exactly. 99% arguments here are essentially the equivalent to "since Marriott/SPG are horrible at cyber security, I am ENTITLED to use stolen credit cards from their leaks."

nkrisc 8y ago

If I notice the shopkeeper gives discounts to people wearing hats, is it wrong for me to come back wearing a hat for the discount? If I notice the WSJ sends different content to different user-agents, is it wrong of me to change my user-agent?