5 ms·

So would it be illegal if my team of emus, pecking 0s and 1s at keyboards, collaboratively created a file that, when packed into segments of size 8 and converte

by acuozzo 14y ago

So would it be illegal if my team of emus, pecking 0s and 1s at keyboards, collaboratively created a file that, when packed into segments of size 8 and converted from ASCII to binary, is bit-for-bit equal to a decrypted a DVD? I hope not! It probably is illegal considering: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_numbers. Man, the law just isn't rigorous enough for me.

Splines 14y ago
IANAL, but if you happened, purely by chance, to create a file that was bit-for-bit equal to a decrypted DVD, that would be fine (since it's practically impossible to do, anyway). It's the intent that matters anyway. What the government has now is a stick they can hit people with (they had the stick already, now they have permission). Like speeding, if you rip your copy of E.T. you bought at Walmart and put it on the family's iPad so the kids be quiet, or by god you're going back to Winnipeg, nobody is going to be knocking on your door. However, if you start a site called www.dvdtomp4.com and offer a mail-in DVD-to-MP4 service, you could expect to receive an interesting visit at some point in the future.
- acuozzo 14y ago
  I agree with everything you wrote, but I'm going to continue with the ridiculousness for the sake of discussion. > It's the intent that matters anyway. What if I intend to sell the product of my emu-packing operation? Surely, we did our own work!
  - wmf 14y ago
    Then when advertising your own work you would surely make no references to the names of any Hollywood movies that are not your work, right?
klodolph 14y ago
And would it be illegal if my space avocado farmers were to use microwaves from the future to beam a perfect copy of a DVD into the hieroglyphs in Egypt where a team of cryptozoologists... Seriously, they say there are no stupid questions but if X is impossible then "is X illegal" is probably not a productive question to ask.
- acuozzo 14y ago
  > Seriously, they say there are no stupid questions but if X is impossible then "is X illegal" is probably not a productive question to ask. The point of asking such a ridiculous question is to show the silliness of attaching __so_much__ value to what are, essentially, very large numbers. Here's a less ridiculous question for your consideration: What if a team of Mathematicians accidentally generate a copyrighted commercial MP3 during research? Is it illegal for them to hold on to that very large number? Furthermore, is it illegal for them to publish it?
  - andreasvc 14y ago
    No it's still ridiculous because that remains effectively impossible. Think of this analogy: it would be like running into someone with your exact same genes, but who isn't your twin. Genomes can be seen as a series of bits, and they're sufficiently large that getting the same sequence twice cannot happen by accident. Furthermore it's a misunderstanding to say that people attach value to a 'large number', the value is in the effort it took to arrive at it and the fruits it can give in the context of society. The sequence of bits by itself is meaningless because it only becomes a song or a movie using the right interpretation & context.
Danieru 14y ago
What your talking about is addressed by the famous law for programmers essay, "What Colour are your Bits?": http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 Its a good entertaining read and elaborates on the absurdity of evaluating law as an algorithm.
deleted 14y ago
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by acuozzo 14y ago

Splines 14y ago

IANAL, but if you happened, purely by chance, to create a file that was bit-for-bit equal to a decrypted DVD, that would be fine (since it's practically impossible to do, anyway). It's the intent that matters anyway. What the government has now is a stick they can hit people with (they had the stick already, now they have permission). Like speeding, if you rip your copy of E.T. you bought at Walmart and put it on the family's iPad so the kids be quiet, or by god you're going back to Winnipeg, nobody is going to be knocking on your door. However, if you start a site called www.dvdtomp4.com and offer a mail-in DVD-to-MP4 service, you could expect to receive an interesting visit at some point in the future.

acuozzo 14y ago
I agree with everything you wrote, but I'm going to continue with the ridiculousness for the sake of discussion. > It's the intent that matters anyway. What if I intend to sell the product of my emu-packing operation? Surely, we did our own work!
- wmf 14y ago
  Then when advertising your own work you would surely make no references to the names of any Hollywood movies that are not your work, right?

klodolph 14y ago

And would it be illegal if my space avocado farmers were to use microwaves from the future to beam a perfect copy of a DVD into the hieroglyphs in Egypt where a team of cryptozoologists... Seriously, they say there are no stupid questions but if X is impossible then "is X illegal" is probably not a productive question to ask.

acuozzo 14y ago
> Seriously, they say there are no stupid questions but if X is impossible then "is X illegal" is probably not a productive question to ask. The point of asking such a ridiculous question is to show the silliness of attaching __so_much__ value to what are, essentially, very large numbers. Here's a less ridiculous question for your consideration: What if a team of Mathematicians accidentally generate a copyrighted commercial MP3 during research? Is it illegal for them to hold on to that very large number? Furthermore, is it illegal for them to publish it?
- andreasvc 14y ago
  No it's still ridiculous because that remains effectively impossible. Think of this analogy: it would be like running into someone with your exact same genes, but who isn't your twin. Genomes can be seen as a series of bits, and they're sufficiently large that getting the same sequence twice cannot happen by accident. Furthermore it's a misunderstanding to say that people attach value to a 'large number', the value is in the effort it took to arrive at it and the fruits it can give in the context of society. The sequence of bits by itself is meaningless because it only becomes a song or a movie using the right interpretation & context.

Danieru 14y ago

What your talking about is addressed by the famous law for programmers essay, "What Colour are your Bits?": http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 Its a good entertaining read and elaborates on the absurdity of evaluating law as an algorithm.

deleted 14y ago

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