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Even if this argument holds water (and as a US citizen you're bound by US law whether or not you're in the US), you still agreed to a contract that you wouldn't

by waps 13y ago

Even if this argument holds water (and as a US citizen you're bound by US law whether or not you're in the US), you still agreed to a contract that you wouldn't do this. Now given that contract you agreed to with netflix, I think is pretty safe to say that you're violating the law in every last jurisdiction on earth. Sure they won't sue you for it, generally speaking. But you're definitely violating the law.

brownbat 13y ago
'Bound by US law in any jurisdiction' is too hasty a generalization. Some laws, tax laws, apply regardless of jurisdiction, because jurisdiction is found by some connection of yourself to the state. But if you commit murder in Canada, that's a violation of Canadian, not US law (unless you're a member of the US armed forces, in which case it's a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice). But more importantly, it's not illegal to break a contract. You can't even get punitive damages for a breach. One example illustrating this is US Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, 936 F. 2d 692 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1991. Judge Posner explains why the law favors this in "Economic Analysis and the Law" as follows: "Suppose I sign a contract to deliver 100,000 custom-ground widgets at $.10 apiece to A, for use in his boiler factory. After I have delivered 10,000, B comes to me, explains that he desperately needs 25,000 custom-ground widgets at once since otherwise he will be forced to close his pianola factory at great cost, and offers me $.15 apiece for 25,000 widgets. I sell him the widgets and as a result do not complete timely delivery to A, who sustains $1000 in damages from my breach. Having obtained an additional profit of $1250 on the sale to B, I am better off even after reimbursing A for his loss. Society is also better off. Since B was willing to pay me $.15 per widget, it must mean that each widget was worth at least $.15 to him. But it was worth only $.14 to A – $.10, what he paid, plus $.04 ($1000 divided by 25,000), his expected profit. Thus the breach resulted in a transfer of the 25,000 widgets from a lower valued to a higher valued use."
- waps 13y ago
  In order for any action to justify damages (under public law), one must indicate to the satisfaction of the judge : 1) that action was illegal (violated law, contract provisions, ...) 2) that damages were incurred 3) that there was a causal connection between the action and the damages It is pretty obvious what happens in most situations. For example if you damage someone without violating the law, you cannot be punished for that (well, not legally). It is also pretty obvious that if you violate a contract, but it has no consequences for anyone, you can't be punished for this (this is a major difference between our -mostly- canon law and judaic or sharia law, where the state/everyone is responsible to punish you even if no one was bothered by your actions (the state in judaic law, everyone in sharia law, although muslim states are in the process of changing this, because despite allah's "wisdom" the part of sharia where everybody should attack everyone they believe to have broken the law turns out to be massively counterproductive and destructive. There are many such changes, the one I like to remind muslim nutcases of is that sharia specifies the death penalty to any muslim not living under an islamic state (something they thoroughly implemented during the crusades for example), and there's plenty of fatwas of this) What the judge illustrated is that he judged that condition 2 was not satisfied in this case. There are lots of qualifications though. First, anyone who was damaged was reimbursed (A), not just for the price he would have paid, but on top of that for the resulting damages. I doubt you'd want to use this very often, as it does mean paying damages. Also : this is a very "American" judgement, and on the extreme side even for America. I would expect this not to work on most judges. Well sure, except that won't apply here since there is ample precedent of courts finding copyright breaches do damage the copyright holder.
stephen_g 13y ago
It's not actually a contract you have with Netflix - just a terms of service and those aren't legally binding. The worst Netflix themselves could do is terminate your account.

by waps 13y ago

brownbat 13y ago

'Bound by US law in any jurisdiction' is too hasty a generalization. Some laws, tax laws, apply regardless of jurisdiction, because jurisdiction is found by some connection of yourself to the state. But if you commit murder in Canada, that's a violation of Canadian, not US law (unless you're a member of the US armed forces, in which case it's a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice). But more importantly, it's not illegal to break a contract. You can't even get punitive damages for a breach. One example illustrating this is US Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, 936 F. 2d 692 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1991. Judge Posner explains why the law favors this in "Economic Analysis and the Law" as follows: "Suppose I sign a contract to deliver 100,000 custom-ground widgets at $.10 apiece to A, for use in his boiler factory. After I have delivered 10,000, B comes to me, explains that he desperately needs 25,000 custom-ground widgets at once since otherwise he will be forced to close his pianola factory at great cost, and offers me $.15 apiece for 25,000 widgets. I sell him the widgets and as a result do not complete timely delivery to A, who sustains $1000 in damages from my breach. Having obtained an additional profit of $1250 on the sale to B, I am better off even after reimbursing A for his loss. Society is also better off. Since B was willing to pay me $.15 per widget, it must mean that each widget was worth at least $.15 to him. But it was worth only $.14 to A – $.10, what he paid, plus $.04 ($1000 divided by 25,000), his expected profit. Thus the breach resulted in a transfer of the 25,000 widgets from a lower valued to a higher valued use."

waps 13y ago
In order for any action to justify damages (under public law), one must indicate to the satisfaction of the judge : 1) that action was illegal (violated law, contract provisions, ...) 2) that damages were incurred 3) that there was a causal connection between the action and the damages It is pretty obvious what happens in most situations. For example if you damage someone without violating the law, you cannot be punished for that (well, not legally). It is also pretty obvious that if you violate a contract, but it has no consequences for anyone, you can't be punished for this (this is a major difference between our -mostly- canon law and judaic or sharia law, where the state/everyone is responsible to punish you even if no one was bothered by your actions (the state in judaic law, everyone in sharia law, although muslim states are in the process of changing this, because despite allah's "wisdom" the part of sharia where everybody should attack everyone they believe to have broken the law turns out to be massively counterproductive and destructive. There are many such changes, the one I like to remind muslim nutcases of is that sharia specifies the death penalty to any muslim not living under an islamic state (something they thoroughly implemented during the crusades for example), and there's plenty of fatwas of this) What the judge illustrated is that he judged that condition 2 was not satisfied in this case. There are lots of qualifications though. First, anyone who was damaged was reimbursed (A), not just for the price he would have paid, but on top of that for the resulting damages. I doubt you'd want to use this very often, as it does mean paying damages. Also : this is a very "American" judgement, and on the extreme side even for America. I would expect this not to work on most judges. Well sure, except that won't apply here since there is ample precedent of courts finding copyright breaches do damage the copyright holder.

stephen_g 13y ago

It's not actually a contract you have with Netflix - just a terms of service and those aren't legally binding. The worst Netflix themselves could do is terminate your account.