5 ms·

I just wished people who have obviously no expertise whatsoever in law yet consider themselves to have enough of it to publish about it because they've read a f

by roel_v 15y ago

I just wished people who have obviously no expertise whatsoever in law yet consider themselves to have enough of it to publish about it because they've read a few Wikipedia articles and a judgement here or there would stop said publishing already. With nonsensical statements asking 'if fansubs would be derivative enough to warrant fair use protection' it's a dead giveaway that the author has no clue whatsoever about copyright law, or law in general for that matter. If a lawyer started posting here on HN or on a programming forum elsewhere claiming that obviously programming language X is better than Y because X has pointers and Y doesn't we'd laugh him/her out of the room too. Why do we think it's acceptable to do the equivalent to other fields?

randomdata 15y ago
If you want to use an analogy, it seems more akin to a lawyer publishing his very first PHP program, full of bad structure and MySQL exploits. But everyone has to start somewhere. We all made those mistakes at one point or another and by publishing more and more software, we eventually saw the error of our ways, developed better habits, and eventually could be considered "experts." This is no different. The article may very well be full of errors, but as he continues to work on his law skills, he will get better. The flaw is our thinking that everyone should be perfect on day one. It takes a lot of time to become good at what you do. We should be nurturing his early efforts, not scolding him for trying.
- roel_v 15y ago
  Writing articles claiming x y and z is not 'working on your skills'. He's claiming things that are flat-out nonsensical, and portraying it as if he knows what he's talking about. One doesn't learn about law by writing a lot of articles on it. He could write 20 articles like this every day for 20 years and still be writing nonsense. "Early efforts" are not writing blog posts acting as if you know stuff, it just wastes everybody's time. As is evidenced by the upvotes this is apparently getting - there are probably people believing what he's writing!
  - randomdata 15y ago
    The publishing is for peer review. If you write your first PHP script with errors galore and nobody else ever sees it, you might be left thinking what you have done is perfect. Posting it invites people to show you your errors in thinking. By writing about how he interprets the law, he will receive feedback about the errors he has made, and can take steps to correct those errors. The portrayal of truth goes back to the old joke: If you ask "how do I do X in Linux?", you will not receive a response. If you state "Linux sucks, it cannot do X", you will be flooded with solutions to your problem. If you make bold statements, people will be keen to correct you. That is how you learn.
    - roel_v 15y ago
      This is such nonsense I can't tell if I'm being trolled or if you're serious. If everybody who wants to learn something needs to do so by writing egregiously bad article so that people who do know something about it can correct it, nobody who knows anything could get anything done because they'd have to correct all the 'learners'. Are you seriously suggesting that this guy's post will get criticism that will help him learn about law? Where is he going to get it - here on HN? Please. How many lawyers do you think there are that surf around the web correcting anonymous strangers' blog posts? How do you become a surgeon in your world? By cutting people open until they stop dieing? If he's serious about learning, he should just go to law school like everybody else, not waste everybody's time with this nonsense.
      - randomdata 15y ago
        I guess I just do not understand your point. - When someone writes a poor program, we celebrate their attempt. The fact that they tried at all puts them well above the efforts most people are willing to put in. - When someone writes a poor article, we blast them for not having everything just perfect. Only those with decades of industry experience are worthy of writing that perfect article. This makes absolutely no sense. What is wrong with someone writing an article that is full of flaws, like someone who writes a program that is full of flaws? It is a personal blog, not a prestigious legal journal. Who cares if he made some errors? I don't think this person is going to be gunning to pass the bar exam any time soon. Learning about the legal system is a valid hobby like any other. The learning process requires many mistakes in the beginning. You do not have to be perfect in your understanding from day one. You are entitled to your opinion, but I, for one, hope we see more people learning about the legal system as a hobby. It can only yield positive results.
Xylakant 15y ago
Well, aside from the fact that the authors analysis may or may not be wrong, the problem he points out certainly does exist. How does a cyberlocker assert who owns copyright or not. Megaupload certainly was shady, but actually, in germany it might be perfectly legal to rip your sopranos DVD, upload it to Megaupload and share it with friends. We do have legal provision for sharing media with friends (actually, we pay a couple of cents for each empty CD or DVD we buy that is supposed to compensate for that). Sharing an episode with the rest of the world remains illegal, but how can the hoster know? It's certainly clear that megaupload targeted those users, but actually, so does my cable provider. Practically noone needs 200MBit connections if not for filesharing. > If a lawyer started posting here on HN or on a programming forum elsewhere claiming that obviously programming language X is better than Y because X has pointers and Y doesn't we'd laugh him/her out of the room too. Why do we think it's acceptable to do the equivalent to other fields? Certainly not. If it were a lawyer who needs to be genuinely interested in my field of work because it directly influences his field of work, I'd be willing to put up with a couple of false statements as long as the general questions remain valid. And whether we like it or not, those lawyers that try to put the megaupload staff in jail may be after our own startup just as fast if we stray too close to the border to what interested parties consider illegal. And those interested parties push the border further and further deep into what used to be plainly technical territory. See SOPA/PIPA or other similar laws that try to push for solutions that are obviously (to us) not technically feasible or even damaging to the underlying technology. Thats why we as well need to try and understand what's going on on the lawyers side of things and why we need to assert how we think things may turn out. Certainly, we do make mistakes and may have incorrect ideas of how the law works, but I still think it's important to write that up and put it up for discussion. You're certainly right to point out errors, but that's just part of the process.
- endersshadow 15y ago
  Your DVD example wouldn't be legal. Germany is a member of the Berne Convention[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention
  - Xylakant 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
drzaiusapelord 15y ago
This is harsher than it should be, but its been bugging me for a long time. The assumption that geeks are good at everything and that we'll one day take over and everything will be perfect is too often taken as a given. Geeks can't do law. Its pathetic when we try, but because this kind of thing falls into the general category of "politics" its tolerated. 80% of what I've read about SOPA has been wrong (not that I'm defending it). I'm not even going to go into the commentary regarding how the Megaupload takedown was illegal. Or how 90% of the commentary on here reddit, and slashdot just follow the childish "I want to download anything and if you get in my way, you're the problem" attitude that is not only tolerated but promoted as reasonable. Also, geeks can't do fiction, comedy, or movies. We're too obsessed with quoting aging one-liners and believe tired old memes are hilarious. Geeks take down Hollywood? Please. I'm not even going to go into geek politics (Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, anti-progressive, anti-federalism). Or this whole armchair revolutionary crap like "Twitter and facebook are responsible for the Arab spring, not people risking their lives in the streets." We're good with computer crap. Lets stop pretending otherwise. Good self-learning and analytical skills don't mean "instant expert." Funny how the "Learn x in 10 years" rule applies to everyone but us.
- qdog 15y ago
  I wasn't aware I had to subscribe to any particular political viewpoint to be a geek (I am totally down with Fedaralism, anti Rand,Paul, and progressive). This article on law might be bad, but it's likely most articles on law are bad. I'm pretty sure that John Yoo's law opinions were pretty damn wrong, for starters. But yeah, if it doesn't say "I am a lawyer and this is why I think this" and go into some caselaw, I'll probably take it with a pail of salt. Also, I know there are plenty of geek lawyers, but few(if any) of them spend their days filling up reddit/hn with silly stuff.
- SilasX 15y ago
  In fairness, law can't do law either. One of the most basic expectations of the legal system is that a citizen should be able to know, with confidence, whether they're breaking the law based on a reasonable search of available resources on the matter, without having to contact a specialist (lawyer). Yet lawyers advise you that pretty much everyone is breaking some law.

by roel_v 15y ago

randomdata 15y ago

If you want to use an analogy, it seems more akin to a lawyer publishing his very first PHP program, full of bad structure and MySQL exploits. But everyone has to start somewhere. We all made those mistakes at one point or another and by publishing more and more software, we eventually saw the error of our ways, developed better habits, and eventually could be considered "experts." This is no different. The article may very well be full of errors, but as he continues to work on his law skills, he will get better. The flaw is our thinking that everyone should be perfect on day one. It takes a lot of time to become good at what you do. We should be nurturing his early efforts, not scolding him for trying.

roel_v 15y ago
Writing articles claiming x y and z is not 'working on your skills'. He's claiming things that are flat-out nonsensical, and portraying it as if he knows what he's talking about. One doesn't learn about law by writing a lot of articles on it. He could write 20 articles like this every day for 20 years and still be writing nonsense. "Early efforts" are not writing blog posts acting as if you know stuff, it just wastes everybody's time. As is evidenced by the upvotes this is apparently getting - there are probably people believing what he's writing!
- randomdata 15y ago
  The publishing is for peer review. If you write your first PHP script with errors galore and nobody else ever sees it, you might be left thinking what you have done is perfect. Posting it invites people to show you your errors in thinking. By writing about how he interprets the law, he will receive feedback about the errors he has made, and can take steps to correct those errors. The portrayal of truth goes back to the old joke: If you ask "how do I do X in Linux?", you will not receive a response. If you state "Linux sucks, it cannot do X", you will be flooded with solutions to your problem. If you make bold statements, people will be keen to correct you. That is how you learn.
  - roel_v 15y ago
    This is such nonsense I can't tell if I'm being trolled or if you're serious. If everybody who wants to learn something needs to do so by writing egregiously bad article so that people who do know something about it can correct it, nobody who knows anything could get anything done because they'd have to correct all the 'learners'. Are you seriously suggesting that this guy's post will get criticism that will help him learn about law? Where is he going to get it - here on HN? Please. How many lawyers do you think there are that surf around the web correcting anonymous strangers' blog posts? How do you become a surgeon in your world? By cutting people open until they stop dieing? If he's serious about learning, he should just go to law school like everybody else, not waste everybody's time with this nonsense.
    - randomdata 15y ago
      I guess I just do not understand your point. - When someone writes a poor program, we celebrate their attempt. The fact that they tried at all puts them well above the efforts most people are willing to put in. - When someone writes a poor article, we blast them for not having everything just perfect. Only those with decades of industry experience are worthy of writing that perfect article. This makes absolutely no sense. What is wrong with someone writing an article that is full of flaws, like someone who writes a program that is full of flaws? It is a personal blog, not a prestigious legal journal. Who cares if he made some errors? I don't think this person is going to be gunning to pass the bar exam any time soon. Learning about the legal system is a valid hobby like any other. The learning process requires many mistakes in the beginning. You do not have to be perfect in your understanding from day one. You are entitled to your opinion, but I, for one, hope we see more people learning about the legal system as a hobby. It can only yield positive results.

Xylakant 15y ago

Well, aside from the fact that the authors analysis may or may not be wrong, the problem he points out certainly does exist. How does a cyberlocker assert who owns copyright or not. Megaupload certainly was shady, but actually, in germany it might be perfectly legal to rip your sopranos DVD, upload it to Megaupload and share it with friends. We do have legal provision for sharing media with friends (actually, we pay a couple of cents for each empty CD or DVD we buy that is supposed to compensate for that). Sharing an episode with the rest of the world remains illegal, but how can the hoster know? It's certainly clear that megaupload targeted those users, but actually, so does my cable provider. Practically noone needs 200MBit connections if not for filesharing. > If a lawyer started posting here on HN or on a programming forum elsewhere claiming that obviously programming language X is better than Y because X has pointers and Y doesn't we'd laugh him/her out of the room too. Why do we think it's acceptable to do the equivalent to other fields? Certainly not. If it were a lawyer who needs to be genuinely interested in my field of work because it directly influences his field of work, I'd be willing to put up with a couple of false statements as long as the general questions remain valid. And whether we like it or not, those lawyers that try to put the megaupload staff in jail may be after our own startup just as fast if we stray too close to the border to what interested parties consider illegal. And those interested parties push the border further and further deep into what used to be plainly technical territory. See SOPA/PIPA or other similar laws that try to push for solutions that are obviously (to us) not technically feasible or even damaging to the underlying technology. Thats why we as well need to try and understand what's going on on the lawyers side of things and why we need to assert how we think things may turn out. Certainly, we do make mistakes and may have incorrect ideas of how the law works, but I still think it's important to write that up and put it up for discussion. You're certainly right to point out errors, but that's just part of the process.

endersshadow 15y ago
Your DVD example wouldn't be legal. Germany is a member of the Berne Convention[1]. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention
- Xylakant 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

drzaiusapelord 15y ago

This is harsher than it should be, but its been bugging me for a long time. The assumption that geeks are good at everything and that we'll one day take over and everything will be perfect is too often taken as a given. Geeks can't do law. Its pathetic when we try, but because this kind of thing falls into the general category of "politics" its tolerated. 80% of what I've read about SOPA has been wrong (not that I'm defending it). I'm not even going to go into the commentary regarding how the Megaupload takedown was illegal. Or how 90% of the commentary on here reddit, and slashdot just follow the childish "I want to download anything and if you get in my way, you're the problem" attitude that is not only tolerated but promoted as reasonable. Also, geeks can't do fiction, comedy, or movies. We're too obsessed with quoting aging one-liners and believe tired old memes are hilarious. Geeks take down Hollywood? Please. I'm not even going to go into geek politics (Ayn Rand, Ron Paul, anti-progressive, anti-federalism). Or this whole armchair revolutionary crap like "Twitter and facebook are responsible for the Arab spring, not people risking their lives in the streets." We're good with computer crap. Lets stop pretending otherwise. Good self-learning and analytical skills don't mean "instant expert." Funny how the "Learn x in 10 years" rule applies to everyone but us.

qdog 15y ago
I wasn't aware I had to subscribe to any particular political viewpoint to be a geek (I am totally down with Fedaralism, anti Rand,Paul, and progressive). This article on law might be bad, but it's likely most articles on law are bad. I'm pretty sure that John Yoo's law opinions were pretty damn wrong, for starters. But yeah, if it doesn't say "I am a lawyer and this is why I think this" and go into some caselaw, I'll probably take it with a pail of salt. Also, I know there are plenty of geek lawyers, but few(if any) of them spend their days filling up reddit/hn with silly stuff.
SilasX 15y ago
In fairness, law can't do law either. One of the most basic expectations of the legal system is that a citizen should be able to know, with confidence, whether they're breaking the law based on a reasonable search of available resources on the matter, without having to contact a specialist (lawyer). Yet lawyers advise you that pretty much everyone is breaking some law.