3 ms·

This is engineer logic. This kind of thing would never fly in court. If you want an example, go back and look at what happened to Aereo back in 2014. They came

This is engineer logic. This kind of thing would never fly in court. If you want an example, go back and look at what happened to Aereo back in 2014. They came up with a clever hack to work around broadcast TV copyright. It went to the U.S. Supreme Court and got shot down.

amelius 3y ago
I don't think so. Assume A is the copyrighted work. Now construct a file of random bits and call it B. Then assuming A=B^C, then you can solve C=A^B (where ^ is the XOR operator). Both B and C appear to be completely random. Assume you are sued because C is found on your harddrive and if you XOR it with B (found on someone else's harddrive) you get copyrighted work A. To construct your defense, take a work in the public domain, and call it P. Compute D=C^P. Now tell the judge that there is a file D on a friend's harddrive, that allows you to reconstruct P. Alternatively, tell the judge that you are researching random numbers and C is just a file you work with. It is not illegal to have random numbers (bits) on your harddrive.
Dylan16807 3y ago
I see it pretty differently. I mean, the XOR thing is a bad idea, because obviously at least one of those files is violating copyright. Trying to feign innocence is not engineer logic, it's failed logic. But Aereo I'm still mad about. They saw that distribution is what cable companies have to pay lots of money for, so they removed distribution. It should have been fine. The effect of the decision is that it's legal for a person to set up a remote antenna for personal use, but it's a copyright infringement to pay a company to set it up for you. Or, perhaps, that it's possible to pay a company to do so but only if it's your idea as a one-off. Either way, that doesn't make any sense as a copyright issue. And after the supreme court decision, they tried to pivot to legally being a cable service... only to get denied recognition as one!
- fulladder 3y ago
  I'm sort of mad about Aereo too. My view is the same as yours. It's unfortunate that it got shut down. My point in the GP comment was more that if the entire justification for your technical architecture is to make an end run around some law, you have to consider the possibility that a judge is going to see what you're trying to do and may have a different interpretation. There's a big human element in the law that I think engineers, especially "code as law" blockchain people, often overlook or misunderstand. Maybe in the future we'll have AI judges and AI lawyers and your case will be decided in 100 milliseconds. However, that's not what we have today.
  - amelius 3y ago
    > There's a big human element in the law that I think engineers, especially "code as law" blockchain people, often overlook or misunderstand. The point with the XORing is that you can't blame one person for the infringement. Imagine twin brothers. One of them steals a painting and is caught on camera. The judge knows that one of the twins is guilty. However, he can't convict either of them exactly because of the human element in the law.

amelius 3y ago

I don't think so. Assume A is the copyrighted work. Now construct a file of random bits and call it B. Then assuming A=B^C, then you can solve C=A^B (where ^ is the XOR operator). Both B and C appear to be completely random. Assume you are sued because C is found on your harddrive and if you XOR it with B (found on someone else's harddrive) you get copyrighted work A. To construct your defense, take a work in the public domain, and call it P. Compute D=C^P. Now tell the judge that there is a file D on a friend's harddrive, that allows you to reconstruct P. Alternatively, tell the judge that you are researching random numbers and C is just a file you work with. It is not illegal to have random numbers (bits) on your harddrive.

Dylan16807 3y ago

I see it pretty differently. I mean, the XOR thing is a bad idea, because obviously at least one of those files is violating copyright. Trying to feign innocence is not engineer logic, it's failed logic. But Aereo I'm still mad about. They saw that distribution is what cable companies have to pay lots of money for, so they removed distribution. It should have been fine. The effect of the decision is that it's legal for a person to set up a remote antenna for personal use, but it's a copyright infringement to pay a company to set it up for you. Or, perhaps, that it's possible to pay a company to do so but only if it's your idea as a one-off. Either way, that doesn't make any sense as a copyright issue. And after the supreme court decision, they tried to pivot to legally being a cable service... only to get denied recognition as one!

fulladder 3y ago
I'm sort of mad about Aereo too. My view is the same as yours. It's unfortunate that it got shut down. My point in the GP comment was more that if the entire justification for your technical architecture is to make an end run around some law, you have to consider the possibility that a judge is going to see what you're trying to do and may have a different interpretation. There's a big human element in the law that I think engineers, especially "code as law" blockchain people, often overlook or misunderstand. Maybe in the future we'll have AI judges and AI lawyers and your case will be decided in 100 milliseconds. However, that's not what we have today.
- amelius 3y ago
  > There's a big human element in the law that I think engineers, especially "code as law" blockchain people, often overlook or misunderstand. The point with the XORing is that you can't blame one person for the infringement. Imagine twin brothers. One of them steals a painting and is caught on camera. The judge knows that one of the twins is guilty. However, he can't convict either of them exactly because of the human element in the law.