4 ms·

I’ve been hearing about this for years. I have to assume it’s intentionally not being changed. Qui bono?

bruce511 2y ago
The problem with closing loopholes that are being exploited is that it can be hard to do without causing unwelcome side effects. In other words, the loophole exists for a reason. If you "close" it you may cause good in one area but harm in others. So at the very least one should move slowly to at least understand the issue properly, beyond just the obvious exploitation. For example (and since I know nothing about small parcel imports, I'll use something I'm more familiar with) there's often a knee-jerk reaction to the exploitation of IP laws (trademark, copyright, patents). Some suggest killing it all. Some favor dumping patents but keeping the rest, and so on. But any change will have "unexpected" consequences. These tools are used by businesses of all sizes and means. Killing copyright because you dont like Microsoft would equally kill things like Free Software (because it would invalidate the freedoms enforced by the GPL.) So while "immediate action" seems like a good thing at first glance, it seldom works out that way. Throwing tarrifs on imported goods protects local jobs, but equally drives up prices (aka inflation). So charitably I interpret "intentionally not neighbors changed" to "being changed intentionally, with care to achieve the desired effect not some unwelcome side effect.
- Arnt 2y ago
  This "loophole" is likely to be motivated be the cost of processing small transactions. If customs officers spend two minutes per parcel, then it makes sense to exempt parcels for which the expected revenue doesn't even cover one minute's labour cost. Where I live, parcels with an expected revenue below the price of a cup of espresso are exempt. The definition is different, of course.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > Killing copyright because you dont like Microsoft would equally kill things like Free Software (because it would invalidate the freedoms enforced by the GPL.) The point is a good one but the example was chosen a little quickly. It'd kill the GPL because the GPL is part of copyright law. That much is simple to see. But it'd probably be a net win for user freedom. Right now, people choose to use free software either because it is good (and would see no difference if the GPL disappeared) or because it is free (and, again, would make decisions the same way in a no-IP world - only use software where the source is available). So the only risk is people copying an OSS project as free riders, withholding source changes and using some sort of embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. But EEE relies on proprietary extensions, so that strategy probably doesn't work without the support of IP law. The OS projects could clone features back in. Proprietary providers could fight back with a client server model - but AWS for example already does that so it isn't really new and the equilibrium is generally to contribute upstream anyway. I would expect software freedoms to improve if we lost the GPL as part of a big removal of IP laws. There'd be tactical instances where people were worse off, maybe. But strategically the OSS community would just be in a better position. They can keep doing what they do, it is harder to sue them and difficult to profit off their work in ways that aren't already possible.
- commodoreboxer 2y ago
  > Killing copyright because you dont like Microsoft would equally kill things like Free Software (because it would invalidate the freedoms enforced by the GPL.) Without copyright, the GPL wouldn't need to exist because the freedoms it protects would be impossible to suppress.
  - peeters 2y ago
    I'm not sure I see how that's true. The GPL puts a legal onus on modifiers to publish their modifications to the source with distributions of the software. Without copyright, any other party might be legally entitled to use and redistribute said modifications, but the modifier wouldn't be compelled to publish them.
    - bruce511 2y ago
      Exactly what I meant. GPL requires modifications to be released. That us precisely what differentiates it from public domain.
    - samus 2y ago
      That's not really the problem the GPL is intended to fight against. The source code can usually somehow be recovered via decompiling. But that's illegal in the presence of copyright, and even reverse engineering is a legal minefield further encumbered by patents.
      - labcomputer 2y ago
        Ok, so why is are GPL licenses so popular compared to BSD and MIT licenses? Why did the GNU foundation even bother writing a license at all? Those other licenses do not require republishing, so it seems that authors of OSS value the additional republication requirements provided by the GPL license. Even in under the current copyright regime, one can (perhaps other-than-legally) decompile binary to recover source-like code, and then launder and reinject the learned improvements back into the open source project. And the GPL license does not universally grant patent rights back to the source project.
- yunohn 2y ago
  The word “loophole” usually means a bypass of a law/rule in its spirit due to its language, thus leading to a void / gray area of enforcement that is beneficial to the exploiter. I say that because everytime the topic of “closing a loophole” comes up, HNers act like it’s metaphysically impossible. But if you just think a little bit more, you’d realize that the existence of a loophole shows that the said law is specifically NOT covering the edge cases, but is covering the general cases without problems. Hence, fixing it would most likely affect the exploited case, not the beneficial case.
  - surgical_fire 2y ago
    Not always. Many times a loophole is something that exists as a logical consequence of other laws and regulations, and people (actually normally corporations) abuse those to their own benefit.
  - AmericanChopper 2y ago
    The possibility you’re not acknowledging is that the “spirit of the law” is trying to achieve something that cannot be done, or at least not done without massively modifying the way a system works to an unacceptable level. Law makers know this, but it’s not really a problem for them because they can write their bad law, leave it full of “loopholes” to be “exploited”, and then just cry about some loophole exploiting boogeyman to their constituents and donors as the reason their law making efforts have failed. If you wanted to be cynical you might even suggest that this is the desired outcome and a way of managing circumstances where donor and constituent interest are in conflict, or perhaps just a way of signalling that you’re delivering on a policy promise, when in reality you can’t. Corporate tax avoidance is a great example of this. The only feature you need your laws to have to facilitate corporate tax avoidance is the ability to incur a deductible expense to an offshore entity. The only thing corporate tax law loophole closing ever achieves is to make corporate tax avoidance procedures more complicated, thus making them only accessible to more sophisticated tax avoiders. There is no conceivable way of closing these “loopholes” without extreme protectionism or isolationism. It would basically require ending globalization or at least removing your country from the globalized economy. A solution that most people would find completely unacceptable.
papichulo4 2y ago
This may have an inflationary effect. Perhaps they want to delay it as much as possible: Can we produce Milwaukee branded silicone spatulas 3-for-$6.99?
- yunohn 2y ago
  There is no “may” be inflationary. The entirety of Western civilization is built on and its future is predicated on a perpetual cheaper labor class both at home and abroad. That’s the only way the people can even survive right now. The moment things change, like minimum wage, oil prices, input costs - anything produced (even partially locally) jumps in cost. We have been seeing this happen constantly over the past decade.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    That used to be true, but automation is real. Low cost labour simply delays automation.
    - yunohn 2y ago
      I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news over the past decade, but most low cost labor countries like China are aeons ahead in automation. They’re just optimizing further and further, while the West just offshores and outsources everything.
      - mensetmanusman 2y ago
        Yes, that is why increasing tariffs and using that savings to subsidize automation in the US is the correct policy.
        yunohn 2y ago
        I don’t think tariffs will solve much, since people still want to buy those goods. USA just needs to start building ASAP - eat the initial losses, but put the effort in and make local manufacturing happen. Then it’s just classic capitalistic competition, which the USA claims to be the best at doing.
Stealthisbook 2y ago
The de minimas threshold allows for lots of things that would otherwise be difficult to document or not worth the effort, from grandma mailing a sweater for Christmas to getting a replacement part shipped directly.
breerbgoat 2y ago
US is sensing China's severe weakness and finally going for the detachment from China. That's why the recent passage of bans for TikTok, DJI, 100% tariffs on BYD, and now closing this loophole. - Consumer giants from Starbucks to General Mills have one big sales problem: China. Starbucks reported China same-store sales dropped by 14% in the quarter ended June 30, far steeper than the 2% decline in the U.S. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/07/us-consumer-giants-have-one-big-sales-problem-china.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/07/us-consumer-giants-have-one-... - Foreign investors pulled a record $15 billion out of China last quarter https://fortune.com/asia/2024/08/12/foreign-investors-pull-record-15-billion-china-last-quarter/ https://fortune.com/asia/2024/08/12/foreign-investors-pull-r... - China’s startup ecosystem has almost completely collapsed in the last 5 years. https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1834201320212898179?mx=2 https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1834201320212898179?mx=2 - IBM Decides To Move R&D Out Of China https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2024/09/07/ibm-decides-to-move-rd-out-of-china/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2024/09/07/ibm-dec... - Microsoft shuts down physical retail presence in mainland China https://www.retail-systems.com/rs/Microsoft_Shuts_Down_Physical_Retail_China.php https://www.retail-systems.com/rs/Microsoft_Shuts_Down_Physi... - The world’s biggest luxury brands are hurting as Chinese shoppers rein in spending https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/26/business/lvmh-luxury-firms-china-slowdown/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/26/business/lvmh-luxury-firms-ch... - Japan’s Companies Sour on China After Years of Brushing Off Risk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-08/japan-inc-sours-on-china-after-long-years-of-brushing-off-risks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-08/japan-inc...
- Prbeek 2y ago
  It's not China collapsing but local brands eclipsing western ones.
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    OP did not say collapsing; everyone agrees with the current situation of severe weakness. Consumer spending as dropped dramatically, deflation is occurring, population is decreasing millions per year and set to accelerate, foreign direct investment is down 10x, inept foreign policy has strengthened China’s neighbors relationship with the US, entrepreneurs are demoralized, etc.

The problem with closing loopholes that are being exploited is that it can be hard to do without causing unwelcome side effects. In other words, the loophole exists for a reason. If you "close" it you may cause good in one area but harm in others. So at the very least one should move slowly to at least understand the issue properly, beyond just the obvious exploitation. For example (and since I know nothing about small parcel imports, I'll use something I'm more familiar with) there's often a knee-jerk reaction to the exploitation of IP laws (trademark, copyright, patents). Some suggest killing it all. Some favor dumping patents but keeping the rest, and so on. But any change will have "unexpected" consequences. These tools are used by businesses of all sizes and means. Killing copyright because you dont like Microsoft would equally kill things like Free Software (because it would invalidate the freedoms enforced by the GPL.) So while "immediate action" seems like a good thing at first glance, it seldom works out that way. Throwing tarrifs on imported goods protects local jobs, but equally drives up prices (aka inflation). So charitably I interpret "intentionally not neighbors changed" to "being changed intentionally, with care to achieve the desired effect not some unwelcome side effect.

Arnt 2y ago
This "loophole" is likely to be motivated be the cost of processing small transactions. If customs officers spend two minutes per parcel, then it makes sense to exempt parcels for which the expected revenue doesn't even cover one minute's labour cost. Where I live, parcels with an expected revenue below the price of a cup of espresso are exempt. The definition is different, of course.
roenxi 2y ago
> Killing copyright because you dont like Microsoft would equally kill things like Free Software (because it would invalidate the freedoms enforced by the GPL.) The point is a good one but the example was chosen a little quickly. It'd kill the GPL because the GPL is part of copyright law. That much is simple to see. But it'd probably be a net win for user freedom. Right now, people choose to use free software either because it is good (and would see no difference if the GPL disappeared) or because it is free (and, again, would make decisions the same way in a no-IP world - only use software where the source is available). So the only risk is people copying an OSS project as free riders, withholding source changes and using some sort of embrace-extend-extinguish strategy. But EEE relies on proprietary extensions, so that strategy probably doesn't work without the support of IP law. The OS projects could clone features back in. Proprietary providers could fight back with a client server model - but AWS for example already does that so it isn't really new and the equilibrium is generally to contribute upstream anyway. I would expect software freedoms to improve if we lost the GPL as part of a big removal of IP laws. There'd be tactical instances where people were worse off, maybe. But strategically the OSS community would just be in a better position. They can keep doing what they do, it is harder to sue them and difficult to profit off their work in ways that aren't already possible.
commodoreboxer 2y ago
> Killing copyright because you dont like Microsoft would equally kill things like Free Software (because it would invalidate the freedoms enforced by the GPL.) Without copyright, the GPL wouldn't need to exist because the freedoms it protects would be impossible to suppress.
- peeters 2y ago
  I'm not sure I see how that's true. The GPL puts a legal onus on modifiers to publish their modifications to the source with distributions of the software. Without copyright, any other party might be legally entitled to use and redistribute said modifications, but the modifier wouldn't be compelled to publish them.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    Exactly what I meant. GPL requires modifications to be released. That us precisely what differentiates it from public domain.
  - samus 2y ago
    That's not really the problem the GPL is intended to fight against. The source code can usually somehow be recovered via decompiling. But that's illegal in the presence of copyright, and even reverse engineering is a legal minefield further encumbered by patents.
    - labcomputer 2y ago
      Ok, so why is are GPL licenses so popular compared to BSD and MIT licenses? Why did the GNU foundation even bother writing a license at all? Those other licenses do not require republishing, so it seems that authors of OSS value the additional republication requirements provided by the GPL license. Even in under the current copyright regime, one can (perhaps other-than-legally) decompile binary to recover source-like code, and then launder and reinject the learned improvements back into the open source project. And the GPL license does not universally grant patent rights back to the source project.
yunohn 2y ago
The word “loophole” usually means a bypass of a law/rule in its spirit due to its language, thus leading to a void / gray area of enforcement that is beneficial to the exploiter. I say that because everytime the topic of “closing a loophole” comes up, HNers act like it’s metaphysically impossible. But if you just think a little bit more, you’d realize that the existence of a loophole shows that the said law is specifically NOT covering the edge cases, but is covering the general cases without problems. Hence, fixing it would most likely affect the exploited case, not the beneficial case.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  Not always. Many times a loophole is something that exists as a logical consequence of other laws and regulations, and people (actually normally corporations) abuse those to their own benefit.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  The possibility you’re not acknowledging is that the “spirit of the law” is trying to achieve something that cannot be done, or at least not done without massively modifying the way a system works to an unacceptable level. Law makers know this, but it’s not really a problem for them because they can write their bad law, leave it full of “loopholes” to be “exploited”, and then just cry about some loophole exploiting boogeyman to their constituents and donors as the reason their law making efforts have failed. If you wanted to be cynical you might even suggest that this is the desired outcome and a way of managing circumstances where donor and constituent interest are in conflict, or perhaps just a way of signalling that you’re delivering on a policy promise, when in reality you can’t. Corporate tax avoidance is a great example of this. The only feature you need your laws to have to facilitate corporate tax avoidance is the ability to incur a deductible expense to an offshore entity. The only thing corporate tax law loophole closing ever achieves is to make corporate tax avoidance procedures more complicated, thus making them only accessible to more sophisticated tax avoiders. There is no conceivable way of closing these “loopholes” without extreme protectionism or isolationism. It would basically require ending globalization or at least removing your country from the globalized economy. A solution that most people would find completely unacceptable.

papichulo4 2y ago

This may have an inflationary effect. Perhaps they want to delay it as much as possible: Can we produce Milwaukee branded silicone spatulas 3-for-$6.99?

yunohn 2y ago
There is no “may” be inflationary. The entirety of Western civilization is built on and its future is predicated on a perpetual cheaper labor class both at home and abroad. That’s the only way the people can even survive right now. The moment things change, like minimum wage, oil prices, input costs - anything produced (even partially locally) jumps in cost. We have been seeing this happen constantly over the past decade.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  That used to be true, but automation is real. Low cost labour simply delays automation.
  - yunohn 2y ago
    I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news over the past decade, but most low cost labor countries like China are aeons ahead in automation. They’re just optimizing further and further, while the West just offshores and outsources everything.
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      Yes, that is why increasing tariffs and using that savings to subsidize automation in the US is the correct policy.
      - yunohn 2y ago
        I don’t think tariffs will solve much, since people still want to buy those goods. USA just needs to start building ASAP - eat the initial losses, but put the effort in and make local manufacturing happen. Then it’s just classic capitalistic competition, which the USA claims to be the best at doing.

Stealthisbook 2y ago

The de minimas threshold allows for lots of things that would otherwise be difficult to document or not worth the effort, from grandma mailing a sweater for Christmas to getting a replacement part shipped directly.

breerbgoat 2y ago

US is sensing China's severe weakness and finally going for the detachment from China. That's why the recent passage of bans for TikTok, DJI, 100% tariffs on BYD, and now closing this loophole. - Consumer giants from Starbucks to General Mills have one big sales problem: China. Starbucks reported China same-store sales dropped by 14% in the quarter ended June 30, far steeper than the 2% decline in the U.S. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/07/us-consumer-giants-have-one-big-sales-problem-china.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/07/us-consumer-giants-have-one-... - Foreign investors pulled a record $15 billion out of China last quarter https://fortune.com/asia/2024/08/12/foreign-investors-pull-record-15-billion-china-last-quarter/ https://fortune.com/asia/2024/08/12/foreign-investors-pull-r... - China’s startup ecosystem has almost completely collapsed in the last 5 years. https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1834201320212898179?mx=2 https://x.com/alecstapp/status/1834201320212898179?mx=2 - IBM Decides To Move R&D Out Of China https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2024/09/07/ibm-decides-to-move-rd-out-of-china/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/miltonezrati/2024/09/07/ibm-dec... - Microsoft shuts down physical retail presence in mainland China https://www.retail-systems.com/rs/Microsoft_Shuts_Down_Physical_Retail_China.php https://www.retail-systems.com/rs/Microsoft_Shuts_Down_Physi... - The world’s biggest luxury brands are hurting as Chinese shoppers rein in spending https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/26/business/lvmh-luxury-firms-china-slowdown/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/26/business/lvmh-luxury-firms-ch... - Japan’s Companies Sour on China After Years of Brushing Off Risk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-08/japan-inc-sours-on-china-after-long-years-of-brushing-off-risks https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-08/japan-inc...

Prbeek 2y ago
It's not China collapsing but local brands eclipsing western ones.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  OP did not say collapsing; everyone agrees with the current situation of severe weakness. Consumer spending as dropped dramatically, deflation is occurring, population is decreasing millions per year and set to accelerate, foreign direct investment is down 10x, inept foreign policy has strengthened China’s neighbors relationship with the US, entrepreneurs are demoralized, etc.