3 ms·

If I defined "contingent ownership" as a "perpetual license for use that only expires if either party violates the terms of the contract," would all of this mak

If I defined "contingent ownership" as a "perpetual license for use that only expires if either party violates the terms of the contract," would all of this make much more sense? Then, Bob never owns Steve's secret and is only permitted to use it in certain circumstances, none of which include Bob making Steve's secret available to you. In fact, Steve explicitly disallows Bob from doing that in the contract, and Bob agrees to this. If Bob violates his agreement, breaks his word, and you know he did that but accept Steve's secret anyway, is that immoral, to you?

fluoridation 3y ago
As I said previously, bits are not exactly the same as physical goods. You own a string of bits as long as you keep it secret (i.e. within your control). Regardless of what any law says, once Steve told Bob his secret, he lost ownership of it. If someone steals your car, there are, conceivably, things the law can do to get it back to you, because a physical item can only exist in one place at any given time. If Bob finds out Steve's secret, there's nothing any law can do to make Bob forget Steve's secret. Any law or contract that attempts to treat strings of bits as equivalent to physical items is fundamentally flawed.
- WendyTheWillow 3y ago
  > Regardless of what any law says, once Steve told Bob his secret, he lost ownership of it. This, therefore, means you don't believe in the enforceability of contracts, or that someone is free to make agreements as they see fit. That's kind of a problem in a capitalistic society, as contracts run, well, everything more complex than a simple transfer of ownership, which IP rights are not. Besides, we're not really talking about the legality of any of this, we're focusing on the morality. In this case, the morality of asserting you won't do something, and then doing that anyway. To apply our hypo, if Bob told Steve he wouldn't do something in order to satisfy Steve's conditions of transfer of ownership to Bob, but then Bob does what he claimed he would not, is that immoral?
  - getwiththeprog 3y ago
    I think you are focussing on the legality, and then equating morality with legality. I would say that video piracy (if by that we mean watching what we want) is ethical, but is sometime not legal.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      Can you point specifically where I've mentioned legality at all, because I have deliberately tried avoiding it.
  - fluoridation 3y ago
    >This, therefore, means you don't believe in the enforceability of contracts It means don't believe in the absolute enforceability of contracts. If a contract contains clauses that require the physically impossible to happen, such a contract cannot possibly be enforced in its totality. >To apply our hypo, if Bob told Steve he wouldn't do something in order to satisfy Steve's conditions of transfer of ownership to Bob, but then Bob does what he claimed he would not, is that immoral? Your question is too abstract to answer. If Bob promised Steve he wouldn't release the slaves, I'd say it's outright immoral to keep that promise. If Bob promise Steve he would make another payment in 30 days, it's probably at least unethical to not keep that promise, absent any additional circumstances. If Bob promise Steve he wouldn't do something with Bob's own property, I'd say Bob is within his right to do whatever he wishes, regardless of anything else.
    - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
      Even so, the moral act would be to refuse to agree to the contract, not duplicitously agree to the contract with zero intent on doing what you claimed. And no, watching Avengers: Endgame is not on the same moral level as freeing slaves. I will not cede that ground.
      - fluoridation 3y ago
        >Even so, the moral act would be to refuse to agree to the contract, not duplicitously agree to the contract with zero intent on doing what you claimed. The moral (if you insist) act would be to not offer a nonsensical contract. If I want to do something and I have to agree to a nonsensical contract to do it then I'll agree to it and then do whatever I want. If the other party doesn't like then next time they can offer a reasonable contract, and if they don't I'll just do it again. Sorry, but you don't get my firstborn just because you put it in an EULA that I had to agree to when I installed your software. >And no, watching Avengers: Endgame is not on the same moral level as freeing slaves. I will not cede that ground. Interesting. However, the one who made a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable clauses in a contract was me. The way you posed your question in your last comment implied that you think that, if you've already entered into an agreement not to do it, pirating a movie and freeing slaves are ethically equivalent. It would seem that respecting your word to you trumps everything else, no matter what. If that's really what you think, then fine, I can respect that. However, if it's possible that you could enter into an agreement that would require you to act in a way that you find unacceptable and you would rather breach the agreement than act in that way, you will need to concede that what you find unethical is not breaching the agreement per se, but the specific manner in which the agreement is breached. In other words, in such a case we have a simple difference of opinion. You think slavery is bad and pirating is bad (perhaps to different degrees, but still, they're bad), and I think slavery is bad and pirating is not bad. That there's an agreement or whatever else is just a distraction.

fluoridation 3y ago

As I said previously, bits are not exactly the same as physical goods. You own a string of bits as long as you keep it secret (i.e. within your control). Regardless of what any law says, once Steve told Bob his secret, he lost ownership of it. If someone steals your car, there are, conceivably, things the law can do to get it back to you, because a physical item can only exist in one place at any given time. If Bob finds out Steve's secret, there's nothing any law can do to make Bob forget Steve's secret. Any law or contract that attempts to treat strings of bits as equivalent to physical items is fundamentally flawed.

WendyTheWillow 3y ago
> Regardless of what any law says, once Steve told Bob his secret, he lost ownership of it. This, therefore, means you don't believe in the enforceability of contracts, or that someone is free to make agreements as they see fit. That's kind of a problem in a capitalistic society, as contracts run, well, everything more complex than a simple transfer of ownership, which IP rights are not. Besides, we're not really talking about the legality of any of this, we're focusing on the morality. In this case, the morality of asserting you won't do something, and then doing that anyway. To apply our hypo, if Bob told Steve he wouldn't do something in order to satisfy Steve's conditions of transfer of ownership to Bob, but then Bob does what he claimed he would not, is that immoral?
- getwiththeprog 3y ago
  I think you are focussing on the legality, and then equating morality with legality. I would say that video piracy (if by that we mean watching what we want) is ethical, but is sometime not legal.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    Can you point specifically where I've mentioned legality at all, because I have deliberately tried avoiding it.
- fluoridation 3y ago
  >This, therefore, means you don't believe in the enforceability of contracts It means don't believe in the absolute enforceability of contracts. If a contract contains clauses that require the physically impossible to happen, such a contract cannot possibly be enforced in its totality. >To apply our hypo, if Bob told Steve he wouldn't do something in order to satisfy Steve's conditions of transfer of ownership to Bob, but then Bob does what he claimed he would not, is that immoral? Your question is too abstract to answer. If Bob promised Steve he wouldn't release the slaves, I'd say it's outright immoral to keep that promise. If Bob promise Steve he would make another payment in 30 days, it's probably at least unethical to not keep that promise, absent any additional circumstances. If Bob promise Steve he wouldn't do something with Bob's own property, I'd say Bob is within his right to do whatever he wishes, regardless of anything else.
  - WendyTheWillow 3y ago
    Even so, the moral act would be to refuse to agree to the contract, not duplicitously agree to the contract with zero intent on doing what you claimed. And no, watching Avengers: Endgame is not on the same moral level as freeing slaves. I will not cede that ground.
    - fluoridation 3y ago
      >Even so, the moral act would be to refuse to agree to the contract, not duplicitously agree to the contract with zero intent on doing what you claimed. The moral (if you insist) act would be to not offer a nonsensical contract. If I want to do something and I have to agree to a nonsensical contract to do it then I'll agree to it and then do whatever I want. If the other party doesn't like then next time they can offer a reasonable contract, and if they don't I'll just do it again. Sorry, but you don't get my firstborn just because you put it in an EULA that I had to agree to when I installed your software. >And no, watching Avengers: Endgame is not on the same moral level as freeing slaves. I will not cede that ground. Interesting. However, the one who made a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable clauses in a contract was me. The way you posed your question in your last comment implied that you think that, if you've already entered into an agreement not to do it, pirating a movie and freeing slaves are ethically equivalent. It would seem that respecting your word to you trumps everything else, no matter what. If that's really what you think, then fine, I can respect that. However, if it's possible that you could enter into an agreement that would require you to act in a way that you find unacceptable and you would rather breach the agreement than act in that way, you will need to concede that what you find unethical is not breaching the agreement per se, but the specific manner in which the agreement is breached. In other words, in such a case we have a simple difference of opinion. You think slavery is bad and pirating is bad (perhaps to different degrees, but still, they're bad), and I think slavery is bad and pirating is not bad. That there's an agreement or whatever else is just a distraction.