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> keep people from gaming the system When the system is there to protect the company, I understand this position. When it's a system forced on them by law, I r

> keep people from gaming the system When the system is there to protect the company, I understand this position. When it's a system forced on them by law, I really don't think playing games with their users serves any reasonable purpose. Laws should be black and white and people "toeing the line" should be treated no differently beyond verifying that they are indeed on one side or the other. I get that the law puts the onus on companies to verify compliance and that creates an incentive for companies to draw an artificially strict rule of their own. Nevertheless I think it's important to keep the distinction between a company acting as the police and a company that has a policy serving its own interests. When you're the police you don't get to hide the evidence or the charge against the person you've arrested at least in free countries.

kbenson 7y ago
> Laws should be black and white Laws are almost never black and white when put into practice, because that's not justice. There are plenty of times extenuating circumstances change how laws are applied by judges and by juries, and that's how it should be, because the law can never accurately portray every possible situation in real life, even if the lawmakers would have wanted an exception for that circumstance. That's why there's talk about the "spirit of the law", which is meant to convey what the law attempts to do. > I get that the law puts the onus on companies to verify compliance and that creates an incentive for companies to draw an artificially strict rule of their own. As soon as you shift responsibility to a company, they are going to do the thing that's best for them, whether that be thr cheapest, easiest to defend, or best to drive more business. That's their incentive structure, they will apply that to anything they are told to do. No point in us getting mad about it, if we don't want that incentive applied to the problem, don't make companies responsible for it (there are other solutions, such as implementing a tax that's used by third partied for reviewing cases, or any number of other things). > When you're the police you don't get to hide the evidence or the charge against the person you've arrested at least in free countries. You don't when there's a court. But without a requirement for a court, sure you do. If it's not a court, such as with state and federal fines, I think often it's down to whether the statutes give you ways to dispute something, and otherwise if it somehow infringes on your rights. I'm not sure being told you aren't allowed to use a company's service infringes on your rights, as they generally reserve the right to refuse service.
msla 7y ago
> Laws should be black and white and people "toeing the line" should be treated no differently beyond verifying that they are indeed on one side or the other. There are some laws for which this will never be the case: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-... > In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an infringement. > So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general guidelines and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation. Yes, that means that any of the "rules" about things which are guaranteed to be Fair Use you were taught are wrong. The law doesn't work that way, it's designed to not work that way, and the courts will never be persuaded that it ought to work that way.

kbenson 7y ago

> Laws should be black and white Laws are almost never black and white when put into practice, because that's not justice. There are plenty of times extenuating circumstances change how laws are applied by judges and by juries, and that's how it should be, because the law can never accurately portray every possible situation in real life, even if the lawmakers would have wanted an exception for that circumstance. That's why there's talk about the "spirit of the law", which is meant to convey what the law attempts to do. > I get that the law puts the onus on companies to verify compliance and that creates an incentive for companies to draw an artificially strict rule of their own. As soon as you shift responsibility to a company, they are going to do the thing that's best for them, whether that be thr cheapest, easiest to defend, or best to drive more business. That's their incentive structure, they will apply that to anything they are told to do. No point in us getting mad about it, if we don't want that incentive applied to the problem, don't make companies responsible for it (there are other solutions, such as implementing a tax that's used by third partied for reviewing cases, or any number of other things). > When you're the police you don't get to hide the evidence or the charge against the person you've arrested at least in free countries. You don't when there's a court. But without a requirement for a court, sure you do. If it's not a court, such as with state and federal fines, I think often it's down to whether the statutes give you ways to dispute something, and otherwise if it somehow infringes on your rights. I'm not sure being told you aren't allowed to use a company's service infringes on your rights, as they generally reserve the right to refuse service.

msla 7y ago

> Laws should be black and white and people "toeing the line" should be treated no differently beyond verifying that they are indeed on one side or the other. There are some laws for which this will never be the case: https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-use/ https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/what-is-fair-... > In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. In other words, fair use is a defense against a claim of copyright infringement. If your use qualifies as a fair use, then it would not be considered an infringement. > So what is a “transformative” use? If this definition seems ambiguous or vague, be aware that millions of dollars in legal fees have been spent attempting to define what qualifies as a fair use. There are no hard-and-fast rules, only general guidelines and varied court decisions, because the judges and lawmakers who created the fair use exception did not want to limit its definition. Like free speech, they wanted it to have an expansive meaning that could be open to interpretation. Yes, that means that any of the "rules" about things which are guaranteed to be Fair Use you were taught are wrong. The law doesn't work that way, it's designed to not work that way, and the courts will never be persuaded that it ought to work that way.