4 ms·

I liked this bit by Doctorow recently https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/ https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/ If you're getting tariffs anyway, why n

by komali2 9mo ago

I liked this bit by Doctorow recently https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/ https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/ If you're getting tariffs anyway, why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders? Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware for iphones, or Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors.

alephnerd 9mo ago
> why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders... Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did. As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3]. It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6]. Edit: can't reply > how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization' IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating. This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8]. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arnault-slams-proposed-billionaire-tax-2025-09-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna... [1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-bernard-arnault-the-world-s-richest-man-is-expanding-his-empire_6083553_5.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be... [2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-arnault-joins-french-ceos-backing-macron-over-le-pen https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-ar... [3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la-croisade-culturelle-de-vincent-bollore https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la... [4] - https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca596b https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca5... [5] - https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b1f9 https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b... [6] - https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-will-exclude-agriculture-von-der-leyen-says/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-... [7] - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/canada-rescinds-digital-services-tax-to-advance-broader-trade-negotiations-with-the-united-states.html https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/can... [8] - https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-crapo-call-on-biden-administration-to-fight-eu-digital-trade-policies-that-discriminate-against-us-workers-and-employers https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-cra...
- pm90 9mo ago
  SGTM? :D
- saubeidl 9mo ago
  I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that would be a bad thing?
  - alephnerd 9mo ago
    I'm saying it won't get to that, because any European leader who even threatens such an action would face the threat of a no-confidence motion by a now well funded opposition.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- shlip 9mo ago
  > Because that means we may as well quasi-nationalize [...] I'm not quite sure how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi-nationalization', care to explain your reasoning here ?
- blibble 9mo ago
  > As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3]. I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around we don't have the cancer that is fox news some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
  - alephnerd 9mo ago
    > some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results Arnault already has. He's the reason Élisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0] and why the billionaire tax failed [1]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [2] > we don't have the cancer that is fox news Instead you have Vivendi and Canal+ who are now owned by Bolloré [3], who has been using the Murdoch/Fox News strategy as well [4]. [0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanuel-macron-a-certain-idea-of-power_6736228_5.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanu... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arnault-slams-proposed-billionaire-tax-2025-09-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna... [2] - https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-murdoch-carried-le-pen-s-far-right-to-the-brink-of-power https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-m... [3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la-croisade-culturelle-de-vincent-bollore https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la... [4] - https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinformation-contre-rsf-progressif-media-une-bo%C3%AEte-d-influence-sulfureuse https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinfo...
mrtksn 9mo ago
Because they are terrified that there will be unpredictable and turbulent times for the major industries? Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.
- phs318u 9mo ago
  Except that increasingly, pro-US is looking a lot less like pro-stability. People forget that nationalism doesn’t have to have a right-wing flavour.
  - Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
    Nations (even left wing) need the ability of sovereignty to apply their ideas/iterate on them. Make the existence of their sovereignty a threat and all factions will stand united setting their differences aside (usually). Like its one of the most effective ways to unite a complete nation against a cause, in this case its against America and its calling the wrath of not just the danish people but the whole EU as it feels not just a threat on Greeland but EU itself.
general1465 9mo ago
> Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement. > Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.
- komali2 9mo ago
  > That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, Sure, but it's a crime to provide these tools to people or instruct them how to bypass controls, is it not?
  - general1465 9mo ago
    If it is a crime, then chip tunning companies are having suicidally noisy marketing. Furthermore one of HN users has this repo up https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash It is doing what chip tunning companies are doing but in less polished package. If it is a crime, why is it still up?
  - jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
    Yes. That's the point Cory wisely makes: that America has forced other countries to agree to our draconian & anti-human brutal felony-offense-of-business-nidel IP laws, as a condition for other trade agreements. Most regions do have these laws. Enforcement sometimes is lax, yes, but America and it's businesses do go after people internationally sort of at their pleasure. Having a world where it's not illegal to understand & look at how the devices around us work is a bare minimum, imo, spiritually, for government to stop being in opposition to honor erectus, man, the tool maker. Letting us do things too lets us live up to our namesake of homo sapien, man the brain-ed one.
SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
This article is just wrong about the facts. Doctorow says "Anticircumvention law originates in the USA", but anticircumvention law originates in the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which all EU members and all their major trade partners are signatory to. The DMCA was passed to 2 years after this treaty was signed to implement the American obligations under it.
- jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
  Where did the WIPO come from SpicyLemonZest? Where huh where? Honk (It was shaped and driven by US and other big business interests.)
  - SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
    The “and” is doing a lot of work there! You have to respond to US aggression by targeting US interests - it completely defeats the point to do things that also hurt your other trade partners and domestic big businesses. Do European big businesses (or Japanese big businesses) not want anticircumvention laws?
    - Kim_Bruning 9mo ago
      Some large businesses probably do WANT anti-circumvention laws , but that doesn't mean it's good for them. Kids always want more sugar than is good for them too. Those kinds of laws are great for incumbent moats, much less for innovation. Compare eg. China. (or early USA or Japanese industrialization)
- mentalfist 9mo ago
  Well, many jurisdictions copied or were pressured to adopt DMCA-like language, especially via trade agreements. Modern, expansive, DMCA-style anticircumvention regime that now dominates global law can be said to originate from the US.
aebtebeten 9mo ago
Related: EU-US trade deal 'on hold' after new Trump tariffs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46662068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46662068 > The EU's ... Anti-Coercion Instrument, offers a range of punitive measures ... Among them are ... limits on intellectual property protections.
svilen_dobrev 9mo ago
reverse engineering -everything-technological- was a national/state-funded (amateur and also professional) sport not so long ago, in quite a few countries around..

by komali2 9mo ago

alephnerd 9mo ago

> why not just take the yoke of American business protection laws off your shoulders... Because that means we in the US may as well quasi-nationalize major European investments in the US like VW, Siemens, Saint-Gobains, OnSemi, NXP, Arm, and Nexperia and target European luxury cultural exports like Cognac (LVHM), Wine (LVMH), designer clothes (LVMH), designer purses (LVMH), and others like China did. As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3]. It's the same story across Europe [4][5]. And any domestic capacity that could have remained within the EU is going to start leaving on January 27th [6]. Edit: can't reply > how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi- nationalization' IP Law protection is sacrosanct in any US trade deal, as we are a services exporter. If faced by actions like those mentioned above, we wouldn't be above retaliating. This is why American tech companies successfully lobbied both the Biden and Trump administration to tamp down on any attempt on a Digital Services Tax by any country, such as with Canada [7] and the EU [8]. [0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arnault-slams-proposed-billionaire-tax-2025-09-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna... [1] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-bernard-arnault-the-world-s-richest-man-is-expanding-his-empire_6083553_5.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2023/08/07/how-be... [2] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-arnault-joins-french-ceos-backing-macron-over-le-pen https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-05/lvmh-s-ar... [3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la-croisade-culturelle-de-vincent-bollore https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la... [4] - https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca596b https://www.ft.com/content/9b3d057c-16cc-4ab9-93bb-ed82c9ca5... [5] - https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b1f9 https://www.ft.com/content/cc06031c-f4a9-45db-ba3a-a3a23404b... [6] - https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-will-exclude-agriculture-von-der-leyen-says/ https://www.euractiv.com/news/exclusive-eu-india-trade-deal-... [7] - https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/canada-rescinds-digital-services-tax-to-advance-broader-trade-negotiations-with-the-united-states.html https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2025/06/can... [8] - https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-crapo-call-on-biden-administration-to-fight-eu-digital-trade-policies-that-discriminate-against-us-workers-and-employers https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/-wyden-and-cra...

pm90 9mo ago
SGTM? :D
saubeidl 9mo ago
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that would be a bad thing?
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  I'm saying it won't get to that, because any European leader who even threatens such an action would face the threat of a no-confidence motion by a now well funded opposition.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
shlip 9mo ago
> Because that means we may as well quasi-nationalize [...] I'm not quite sure how you get from IP law abrogation to 'quasi-nationalization', care to explain your reasoning here ?
blibble 9mo ago
> As a result, oligarchs like (eg.) Arnault (LVMH) would metaphorically slap Macron like they did on multiple occasions [0][1], and threaten to switch to supporting the RN. If they made Macron in 2017 [2], they can unmake him in 2026 [3]. I don't think americans quite understand how much the population has shifted from being pro-USA to anti-USA in the space of a year, as the orange cretin has been throwing his wrecking ball around we don't have the cancer that is fox news some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results
- alephnerd 9mo ago
  > some billionaire who makes fancy handbags saying he's going to support a different political party will have zero impact on election results Arnault already has. He's the reason Élisabeth Borne is no longer the PM [0] and why the billionaire tax failed [1]. And his rival Bolloré is the reason why the RN is at the cusp of power [2] > we don't have the cancer that is fox news Instead you have Vivendi and Canal+ who are now owned by Bolloré [3], who has been using the Murdoch/Fox News strategy as well [4]. [0] - https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanuel-macron-a-certain-idea-of-power_6736228_5.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/12/18/emmanu... [1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arnault-slams-proposed-billionaire-tax-2025-09-21/ https://www.reuters.com/world/frances-richest-man-lvmhs-arna... [2] - https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-murdoch-carried-le-pen-s-far-right-to-the-brink-of-power https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240627-how-the-french-m... [3] - https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la-croisade-culturelle-de-vincent-bollore https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/culture-et-idees/dossier/la... [4] - https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinformation-contre-rsf-progressif-media-une-bo%C3%AEte-d-influence-sulfureuse https://rsf.org/fr/derri%C3%A8re-la-campagne-de-d%C3%A9sinfo...

mrtksn 9mo ago

Because they are terrified that there will be unpredictable and turbulent times for the major industries? Just look at the public opinion polls, EU citizens are ready to take on Americans and even the most pro-US countries are barely on the green in public opinion towards US. The problems is that the old guard, the establishment is fanatically pro-US and pro stability. Which means that the current politicians are in odds with what the public wants and eventually either the public will have to become pro-US again or the anti-US politicians will take stage. US Doing stuff like tariffs that can destabilize the stability folks can push things to much earlier.

phs318u 9mo ago
Except that increasingly, pro-US is looking a lot less like pro-stability. People forget that nationalism doesn’t have to have a right-wing flavour.
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
  Nations (even left wing) need the ability of sovereignty to apply their ideas/iterate on them. Make the existence of their sovereignty a threat and all factions will stand united setting their differences aside (usually). Like its one of the most effective ways to unite a complete nation against a cause, in this case its against America and its calling the wrath of not just the danish people but the whole EU as it feels not just a threat on Greeland but EU itself.

general1465 9mo ago

> Let French engineers sell jailbreaking hardware It is sold by Israeli engineers for at least a decade and mostly bought by law enforcement. > Romanian developers sell unlock keys for John Deere tractors That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, but it is usually done by Italians or Swiss. And specifically for John Deere we had some Ukrainian company, I don't remember exact name.

komali2 9mo ago
> That infrastructure exists since year 2000. Called chiptuning tools, Sure, but it's a crime to provide these tools to people or instruct them how to bypass controls, is it not?
- general1465 9mo ago
  If it is a crime, then chip tunning companies are having suicidally noisy marketing. Furthermore one of HN users has this repo up https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash https://github.com/bri3d/VW_Flash It is doing what chip tunning companies are doing but in less polished package. If it is a crime, why is it still up?
- jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
  Yes. That's the point Cory wisely makes: that America has forced other countries to agree to our draconian & anti-human brutal felony-offense-of-business-nidel IP laws, as a condition for other trade agreements. Most regions do have these laws. Enforcement sometimes is lax, yes, but America and it's businesses do go after people internationally sort of at their pleasure. Having a world where it's not illegal to understand & look at how the devices around us work is a bare minimum, imo, spiritually, for government to stop being in opposition to honor erectus, man, the tool maker. Letting us do things too lets us live up to our namesake of homo sapien, man the brain-ed one.

SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago

This article is just wrong about the facts. Doctorow says "Anticircumvention law originates in the USA", but anticircumvention law originates in the WIPO Copyright Treaty, which all EU members and all their major trade partners are signatory to. The DMCA was passed to 2 years after this treaty was signed to implement the American obligations under it.

jauntywundrkind 9mo ago
Where did the WIPO come from SpicyLemonZest? Where huh where? Honk (It was shaped and driven by US and other big business interests.)
- SpicyLemonZest 9mo ago
  The “and” is doing a lot of work there! You have to respond to US aggression by targeting US interests - it completely defeats the point to do things that also hurt your other trade partners and domestic big businesses. Do European big businesses (or Japanese big businesses) not want anticircumvention laws?
  - Kim_Bruning 9mo ago
    Some large businesses probably do WANT anti-circumvention laws , but that doesn't mean it's good for them. Kids always want more sugar than is good for them too. Those kinds of laws are great for incumbent moats, much less for innovation. Compare eg. China. (or early USA or Japanese industrialization)
mentalfist 9mo ago
Well, many jurisdictions copied or were pressured to adopt DMCA-like language, especially via trade agreements. Modern, expansive, DMCA-style anticircumvention regime that now dominates global law can be said to originate from the US.

aebtebeten 9mo ago

Related: EU-US trade deal 'on hold' after new Trump tariffs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46662068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46662068 > The EU's ... Anti-Coercion Instrument, offers a range of punitive measures ... Among them are ... limits on intellectual property protections.

svilen_dobrev 9mo ago

reverse engineering -everything-technological- was a national/state-funded (amateur and also professional) sport not so long ago, in quite a few countries around..