4 ms·
It's high time for legislation banning this crap, or at the very least mandating an up-front warning à la "this product will stop functioning after n uses".
by gspr 6y ago
It's high time for legislation banning this crap, or at the very least mandating an up-front warning à la "this product will stop functioning after n uses".
- Nextgrid 6y agoFixing existing legislation like copyright law so that it can't be abused to protect this behavior would be enough; the market will do the rest and there's going to be a whole (legalized) industry specializing in cracking and unlocking (effectively repairing) defective by design products.
- bluGill 6y agoYou don't want someone messing with emissions or doing other tweaks that make your nice used car into a money pit because it was abused. I'm not sure how you counter the above, but it really needs to be handled, otherwise too much power will fight against it. If you can find a good way to handle this I'm all for it.
- Natsu 6y agoIn theory, this sort of thing may constitute copyright abuse, but I think you'd have to fight against each case separately which makes it pretty much intractable. It'd be much better to simply ban lockout chip type nonsense for 3rd party parts, though I suspect they'd still find ways to make compatibility difficult :/
- cwkoss 6y agoUnfortunately it seems we can't fix it with legislation until we fix our democracy. 88% of democratic voters support Medicare For All, but the DNC just voted against including it as part of their platform. The elected leaders in this country no longer serve their constituents, instead serving corporations. I think the vast majority of people in technology understand the DMCA is a horrible law - but at least it doesn't kill people. But if we can't get politicians to recognize the immorality our our current state of "cancer will bankrupt your family, even if you're insured and it also kills you", I don't know what hope we have on fixing copyright.