3 ms·

You should tell that to the tech people. They have a thing named DRM and they may "go to jail" if they try to modify even the software not to mention the hardwa

You should tell that to the tech people. They have a thing named DRM and they may "go to jail" if they try to modify even the software not to mention the hardware. They are treated like criminals.

kbenson 3y ago
To my knowledge the difference that allows that is that you license the software, you purchase the car. You can purchase software, it's just not the common case. Companies but other companies and parchase the software that they developed along with that, and scammers purchase the software of popular browser extensions so they can use them against the existing user base (which are licensed, even if implicitly). Evem with open source you're almost always using software under a license. For the vast majority of people, the only software they'll ever actually own is something they wrote themselves.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  When you purchase a car, you're not allowed to build copies of that car and sell them. You purchase the design of a car the same way you purchase a copy of software. You own the physical storage the software comes on, the same way you own the physical metal, rubber, and plastic of the car, but the design isn't yours. Why are we allowed to look under the hood of a car we buy and even install our own modifications, but when we purchase software? Why can we alter and replace metal frames, but not alter the storage cells on our phones and computers?
  - kbenson 3y ago
    My understanding is that you are allowed to sell copies of a car, as long as you don't advertise it as the thing you're copying, except for anything that is patented, for which you need to get a license. That's the point (or one of them) of a patent, to prevent people from making legal copies for a time period as a reward to the inventor and promote invention of novel things. Isnt that what this was about? The very bad Ferrari stickers instead of emblems worked in favor of the person sued, but if there was something indicating it absolutely wasn't a Ferrari there wouldn't have been any question at all.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Patents, trademarks, and copyright can all be issues with making duplicates of something. Making and selling “Fake” handbags which you make really clear are fakes can result in prison. The concern are twofold, someone buying it may try and resell the items as “real” or someone seeing a poor copy with another brands trademark on it can dilute the brand. This is less of a concern if the item looks nothing like any of the actual products and isn’t being sold. Tie-dying a 5$ tote bag and stenciling Chloé, Burberry, Gucci, and a few other brand names at the same time is clearly not trying to be a fake.
      - kbenson 3y ago
        > Making and selling “Fake” handbags which you make really clear are fakes can result in prison. The concern are twofold, someone buying it may try and resell the items as “real” or someone seeing a poor copy with another brands trademark on it can dilute the brand. I'm pretty sure the issue there is whether the item itself advertises that it is something it's not, even if you're clear it's not a legitimate copy, and also whether you are doing it in furtherance of a crime. Making knock off Gucci bags and selling them as fakes when you're sure they're being bought by middlemen to sell as authentic (at least when your main purpose is to sell to this market and they can "prove" it), could possibly make you complicit (depending on what they can show in court). In that specific case, even leaving off any branding (to make it easier for someone to add fake branding later) could possibly be found complicit, if they could prove that it was for the purpose of furthering the crime (as I understand it). I'm not going to act like companies and prosecute rs don't overstep their bounds/rights/authority, but I think it's pretty clear why some of these cases and laws exist (even if we might think they aren't quite the right response to the problem in some cases).
    - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
      In case of Ferrari what you can do with the car is quite restricted. They even restrict car resales or any modifications. I'm not sure by what legal means, but you're probably signing some contract that is far reaching.
      - 3y ago
  - TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
    Because only one person in a million is capable of taking the source code of a commercial software product and modifying it for their own benefit in a useful way. When you start a new job, do you look at the codebase and immediately think "Ok, I get this, all I need to do is..."? It's fantasy and wishful thinking to believe that it's even possible for someone to build Windows, MacOS, Photoshop, an AAA game, Chrome(ium), or even a commercial mobile app without a huge learning curve and likely quite a bit of commercially sensitive support infrastructure - never mind make useful changes to them. Adding some custom features to a car is trivial in comparison.
    - solarkraft 3y ago
      Missing the point. The whole argument is about people who are willing to put in the time and effort.
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> You should tell that to the tech people. They have a thing named DRM and they may "go to jail" if they try to modify even the software not to mention the hardware. They are treated like criminals. In my experience many tech people are quite opposed to DRM, and of those who do have the skills to develop tools for circumventing DRM mechanisms (which is of course only a small fraction of the tech people), there exist quite a few people who actually do invest a good deal of their free time to secretly develop such semi-legal tools.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  Every time I see a conflation between "executives at giant companies in the tech industry" and "actual tech/engineering workers", somehow it always seem to be to protect the former. It's weird, imagine if the actions of McDonalds was supposed to reflect "the fast food people", or the action of Disney was supposed to reflect "animators", etc.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

You should tell that to the tech people. They have a thing named DRM and they may "go to jail" if they try to modify even the software not to mention the hardware. They are treated like criminals.

kbenson 3y ago

To my knowledge the difference that allows that is that you license the software, you purchase the car. You can purchase software, it's just not the common case. Companies but other companies and parchase the software that they developed along with that, and scammers purchase the software of popular browser extensions so they can use them against the existing user base (which are licensed, even if implicitly). Evem with open source you're almost always using software under a license. For the vast majority of people, the only software they'll ever actually own is something they wrote themselves.

jeroenhd 3y ago
When you purchase a car, you're not allowed to build copies of that car and sell them. You purchase the design of a car the same way you purchase a copy of software. You own the physical storage the software comes on, the same way you own the physical metal, rubber, and plastic of the car, but the design isn't yours. Why are we allowed to look under the hood of a car we buy and even install our own modifications, but when we purchase software? Why can we alter and replace metal frames, but not alter the storage cells on our phones and computers?
- kbenson 3y ago
  My understanding is that you are allowed to sell copies of a car, as long as you don't advertise it as the thing you're copying, except for anything that is patented, for which you need to get a license. That's the point (or one of them) of a patent, to prevent people from making legal copies for a time period as a reward to the inventor and promote invention of novel things. Isnt that what this was about? The very bad Ferrari stickers instead of emblems worked in favor of the person sued, but if there was something indicating it absolutely wasn't a Ferrari there wouldn't have been any question at all.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Patents, trademarks, and copyright can all be issues with making duplicates of something. Making and selling “Fake” handbags which you make really clear are fakes can result in prison. The concern are twofold, someone buying it may try and resell the items as “real” or someone seeing a poor copy with another brands trademark on it can dilute the brand. This is less of a concern if the item looks nothing like any of the actual products and isn’t being sold. Tie-dying a 5$ tote bag and stenciling Chloé, Burberry, Gucci, and a few other brand names at the same time is clearly not trying to be a fake.
    - kbenson 3y ago
      > Making and selling “Fake” handbags which you make really clear are fakes can result in prison. The concern are twofold, someone buying it may try and resell the items as “real” or someone seeing a poor copy with another brands trademark on it can dilute the brand. I'm pretty sure the issue there is whether the item itself advertises that it is something it's not, even if you're clear it's not a legitimate copy, and also whether you are doing it in furtherance of a crime. Making knock off Gucci bags and selling them as fakes when you're sure they're being bought by middlemen to sell as authentic (at least when your main purpose is to sell to this market and they can "prove" it), could possibly make you complicit (depending on what they can show in court). In that specific case, even leaving off any branding (to make it easier for someone to add fake branding later) could possibly be found complicit, if they could prove that it was for the purpose of furthering the crime (as I understand it). I'm not going to act like companies and prosecute rs don't overstep their bounds/rights/authority, but I think it's pretty clear why some of these cases and laws exist (even if we might think they aren't quite the right response to the problem in some cases).
  - the_mitsuhiko 3y ago
    In case of Ferrari what you can do with the car is quite restricted. They even restrict car resales or any modifications. I'm not sure by what legal means, but you're probably signing some contract that is far reaching.
    - 3y ago
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Because only one person in a million is capable of taking the source code of a commercial software product and modifying it for their own benefit in a useful way. When you start a new job, do you look at the codebase and immediately think "Ok, I get this, all I need to do is..."? It's fantasy and wishful thinking to believe that it's even possible for someone to build Windows, MacOS, Photoshop, an AAA game, Chrome(ium), or even a commercial mobile app without a huge learning curve and likely quite a bit of commercially sensitive support infrastructure - never mind make useful changes to them. Adding some custom features to a car is trivial in comparison.
  - solarkraft 3y ago
    Missing the point. The whole argument is about people who are willing to put in the time and effort.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> You should tell that to the tech people. They have a thing named DRM and they may "go to jail" if they try to modify even the software not to mention the hardware. They are treated like criminals. In my experience many tech people are quite opposed to DRM, and of those who do have the skills to develop tools for circumventing DRM mechanisms (which is of course only a small fraction of the tech people), there exist quite a few people who actually do invest a good deal of their free time to secretly develop such semi-legal tools.

Terr_ 3y ago
Every time I see a conflation between "executives at giant companies in the tech industry" and "actual tech/engineering workers", somehow it always seem to be to protect the former. It's weird, imagine if the actions of McDonalds was supposed to reflect "the fast food people", or the action of Disney was supposed to reflect "animators", etc.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]