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Whether something is a federal crime (you know, with warrants and handcuffs and all that) or not hardly seems pedantic. You're the one making the assertion here

Whether something is a federal crime (you know, with warrants and handcuffs and all that) or not hardly seems pedantic. You're the one making the assertion here, so do you have any legal sources to cite or are you sticking with the "pedantic semantics" argument when someone challenges your point?

rurounijones 14y ago
Ok, then for me breaking "The law" covers Civil Law and Criminal law. I never made any mention of Federal or not and don't see how that matters. I thought it was well known on HN that Apple used the DMCA ( Digital Millennium Copyright Act, aka, part of "the law" in the US) against the Hackintosh company Psystar, I guess I was wrong. A quick google will bring up the specifics if you want it. (e.g. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_psystar_dmca/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_psystar_dmca/) The reason I said it was a grey area was that the DMCA supposedly has provisions for compatibilty and personal use. So it could be argued that installing it yourself on your own hackingtosh (not commercially like Psystar did) does not violate the DMCA, but since this has not yet been tested in court (as far as I know) do this at your own risk.
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- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I think the reason we ended up down this road was that your original comment accused somebody of "illegal" use of OSX. Firstly this makes the assumption that the person fell under US jurisdiction at the time of their use of the system. It would also assume that the DMCA would apply to this specific person in this case. I don't know of any instance of a successful crimimal conviction against somebody for using their own legit software on a system they own themselves and we will not unless this is tested in court. "Unlawful" would probably be a better term in this context. You could argue that this is pedantry but I think that throwing terms like "illegal" around in this way could cause undue anxiety to people who do not understand the specifics.
  - rurounijones 14y ago
    Fair point on the first one, I did assume US & DMCA. For the second. A law is a law is a law, even if there is no successful conviction using it yet. It is a "Damocles Sword" hanging over every person in the country it was enacted until courts actually rule on it at which point we will know what the judiciary thinks of it. As for "illegal" vs "unlawful". As far as I am concerned they are synonyms.

rurounijones 14y ago

Ok, then for me breaking "The law" covers Civil Law and Criminal law. I never made any mention of Federal or not and don't see how that matters. I thought it was well known on HN that Apple used the DMCA ( Digital Millennium Copyright Act, aka, part of "the law" in the US) against the Hackintosh company Psystar, I guess I was wrong. A quick google will bring up the specifics if you want it. (e.g. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_psystar_dmca/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/02/apple_psystar_dmca/) The reason I said it was a grey area was that the DMCA supposedly has provisions for compatibilty and personal use. So it could be argued that installing it yourself on your own hackingtosh (not commercially like Psystar did) does not violate the DMCA, but since this has not yet been tested in court (as far as I know) do this at your own risk.

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jiggy2011 14y ago
I think the reason we ended up down this road was that your original comment accused somebody of "illegal" use of OSX. Firstly this makes the assumption that the person fell under US jurisdiction at the time of their use of the system. It would also assume that the DMCA would apply to this specific person in this case. I don't know of any instance of a successful crimimal conviction against somebody for using their own legit software on a system they own themselves and we will not unless this is tested in court. "Unlawful" would probably be a better term in this context. You could argue that this is pedantry but I think that throwing terms like "illegal" around in this way could cause undue anxiety to people who do not understand the specifics.
- rurounijones 14y ago
  Fair point on the first one, I did assume US & DMCA. For the second. A law is a law is a law, even if there is no successful conviction using it yet. It is a "Damocles Sword" hanging over every person in the country it was enacted until courts actually rule on it at which point we will know what the judiciary thinks of it. As for "illegal" vs "unlawful". As far as I am concerned they are synonyms.