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Morally I agree that something you buy is yours to do what you want with, but in practice there are routinely restrictions on what you can/can't do, each with t

Morally I agree that something you buy is yours to do what you want with, but in practice there are routinely restrictions on what you can/can't do, each with their own degree of right/wrongness. For instance most people find it reasonable that you can't: -Modify/bypass emissions equipment on your car. -Saw off the barrel of your shotgun, or modify semi-auto -> Full auto -Buy one copy of a movie then show it to the whole neighborhood and charge admission

nkassis 16y ago
The car one is easy, there is plenty of non street legal cars around. Race cars is just one example. The gun example is the only one I can refute Movies are licensed not sold. You own the disk, you can hack saw the disk all you want you just aren't supposed to make a copy and sell it.
- elehack 16y ago
  I don't like the "licensed not sold" line. A copy was sold, U.S. law (generally) backs that up, and that means there are certain things you can do with it such as loan it out or give it away/resell it. You can't copy it, but that's because of copyright law, not because it's licensed-not-sold.
fingerprinter 16y ago
I think in all those cases you mentioned it would be usage restrictions rather than actually being able to change the physical object you bought. And it would be the government saying you can't do something, not BMW or Colt handguns. Again, INAL, but I thought you could modify a semi-auto and saw off the barrel as long as they were used at the shooting range (for instance...probably a state by state law as well). And I'm fairly certain you can bypass the emission on the car to modify to make it a track car, for instance, or make it farm equipment. Again, not really up on the law, more anecdotes I've seen in my personal life.
- megaframe 16y ago
  I agree... usage issue: another example is modify a phone so it transmits at non-standard frequencies I'm in my right to do it. If I'm at home or a non-public place that's shielded I can do what I want, but the public airways outside are under FCC regulation and then I'm breaking the law not for doing the modification but for using it in regulated space. It's the same way a companies tests out development phones and transmitters before getting a licence.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  I thought you could modify a semi-auto and saw off the barrel as long as they were used at the shooting range (for instance...probably a state by state law as well Nope, it's a federal law that prohibits you from possessing a short-barreled shotgun or a full-auto anything. This is since the National Firearms Act of 1934. Selling such a shotgun (after being goaded into it and entrapped by a ATF agent) was what precipitated the Ruby Ridge massacre. In fact -- and you'd think this would fall foul of the 1st Amendment -- it's illegal to distribute a pamphlet that tells someone how to convert their rifle to full auto.
- chris_j 16y ago
  > And it would be the government saying you can't do something, not BMW or Colt handguns. I think this is a key point. Is it the government telling you that you can't do something (that is against the law) or a company using the law to prevent you doing something that they don't want you to do. I would guess that the former would be governed by criminal law and the latter by civil law - please correct me if I am wrong. In this case, it is Sony using the law to try to prevent people learning how to root their PS3s and doing so through civil courts.
modeless 16y ago
Most people absolutely do not find it reasonable that you can't buy one copy of a movie and show it to the whole neighborhood. In fact they assume you can; people do it all the time.
- rosser 16y ago
  AIUI, showing it to the neighborhood is okay; it's charging admission that's verboten.
  - X-Istence 16y ago
    No, public performances, even if no money is traded hands is not allowed. Read the FBI warning, you know, that thing you haven't seen for years ...
    - rosser 16y ago
      Looks like you're correct; thanks.
X-Istence 16y ago
For your first point (and I only know this from accidental experience), it is extremely easy to bypass emissions equipment on a car, 1995 or newer. On cars from 1995 an up all cars had to have an OBDII compatible port that lets car manufacturers read out the codes, but it was primarily designed to speed up emissions testing. Instead of putting the car on the tread mill now all they have to do is plug in the computer and get the codes back from the car. The car is continuously monitoring its output anyway to get the right fuel/air mixture to get the best possible gas mileage. The way it does this is with a series of O2 sensors that are placed near the exhaust port on the engine and continuing down the exhaust for one or two more. The thing is that if one of those sensors is faulty or dirty it will return that code, however since cars also have to run when the sensor has broken or just isn't installed the computer will completely ignore it and not fire a code for it at all. On my car all of my O2 sensors were broken, and I didn't know it until I brought it into a mechanic as I didn't think it was running correctly. I had passed emissions since my computer said everything was fine, but if it had been put on the tread mill (which would have cost me the same $27.50, so the state makes the same money whether they computer it or run it) it would have had "high" emissions because the fuel/air mixture was not right and I was basically dumping unburnt fuel into my exhaust. After the O2 sensors were fixed my car ran much better. It surprised me that my car didn't throw a code for the O2 sensors being completely gone as far as the computer was concerned, but it just goes to show that some things are easy to bypass.

nkassis 16y ago

The car one is easy, there is plenty of non street legal cars around. Race cars is just one example. The gun example is the only one I can refute Movies are licensed not sold. You own the disk, you can hack saw the disk all you want you just aren't supposed to make a copy and sell it.

elehack 16y ago
I don't like the "licensed not sold" line. A copy was sold, U.S. law (generally) backs that up, and that means there are certain things you can do with it such as loan it out or give it away/resell it. You can't copy it, but that's because of copyright law, not because it's licensed-not-sold.

fingerprinter 16y ago

I think in all those cases you mentioned it would be usage restrictions rather than actually being able to change the physical object you bought. And it would be the government saying you can't do something, not BMW or Colt handguns. Again, INAL, but I thought you could modify a semi-auto and saw off the barrel as long as they were used at the shooting range (for instance...probably a state by state law as well). And I'm fairly certain you can bypass the emission on the car to modify to make it a track car, for instance, or make it farm equipment. Again, not really up on the law, more anecdotes I've seen in my personal life.

megaframe 16y ago
I agree... usage issue: another example is modify a phone so it transmits at non-standard frequencies I'm in my right to do it. If I'm at home or a non-public place that's shielded I can do what I want, but the public airways outside are under FCC regulation and then I'm breaking the law not for doing the modification but for using it in regulated space. It's the same way a companies tests out development phones and transmitters before getting a licence.
CWuestefeld 16y ago
I thought you could modify a semi-auto and saw off the barrel as long as they were used at the shooting range (for instance...probably a state by state law as well Nope, it's a federal law that prohibits you from possessing a short-barreled shotgun or a full-auto anything. This is since the National Firearms Act of 1934. Selling such a shotgun (after being goaded into it and entrapped by a ATF agent) was what precipitated the Ruby Ridge massacre. In fact -- and you'd think this would fall foul of the 1st Amendment -- it's illegal to distribute a pamphlet that tells someone how to convert their rifle to full auto.
chris_j 16y ago
> And it would be the government saying you can't do something, not BMW or Colt handguns. I think this is a key point. Is it the government telling you that you can't do something (that is against the law) or a company using the law to prevent you doing something that they don't want you to do. I would guess that the former would be governed by criminal law and the latter by civil law - please correct me if I am wrong. In this case, it is Sony using the law to try to prevent people learning how to root their PS3s and doing so through civil courts.

modeless 16y ago

Most people absolutely do not find it reasonable that you can't buy one copy of a movie and show it to the whole neighborhood. In fact they assume you can; people do it all the time.

rosser 16y ago
AIUI, showing it to the neighborhood is okay; it's charging admission that's verboten.
- X-Istence 16y ago
  No, public performances, even if no money is traded hands is not allowed. Read the FBI warning, you know, that thing you haven't seen for years ...
  - rosser 16y ago
    Looks like you're correct; thanks.

X-Istence 16y ago

For your first point (and I only know this from accidental experience), it is extremely easy to bypass emissions equipment on a car, 1995 or newer. On cars from 1995 an up all cars had to have an OBDII compatible port that lets car manufacturers read out the codes, but it was primarily designed to speed up emissions testing. Instead of putting the car on the tread mill now all they have to do is plug in the computer and get the codes back from the car. The car is continuously monitoring its output anyway to get the right fuel/air mixture to get the best possible gas mileage. The way it does this is with a series of O2 sensors that are placed near the exhaust port on the engine and continuing down the exhaust for one or two more. The thing is that if one of those sensors is faulty or dirty it will return that code, however since cars also have to run when the sensor has broken or just isn't installed the computer will completely ignore it and not fire a code for it at all. On my car all of my O2 sensors were broken, and I didn't know it until I brought it into a mechanic as I didn't think it was running correctly. I had passed emissions since my computer said everything was fine, but if it had been put on the tread mill (which would have cost me the same $27.50, so the state makes the same money whether they computer it or run it) it would have had "high" emissions because the fuel/air mixture was not right and I was basically dumping unburnt fuel into my exhaust. After the O2 sensors were fixed my car ran much better. It surprised me that my car didn't throw a code for the O2 sensors being completely gone as far as the computer was concerned, but it just goes to show that some things are easy to bypass.