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The problem is that this law -- like so much of the currently broken bits of IP law, like so much of the publishing business -- made a degree of sense before m

The problem is that this law -- like so much of the currently broken bits of IP law, like so much of the publishing business -- made a degree of sense before modern information technology came along. Now, however well-intentioned it may be, however real the problem may be -- and I agree, it's a real problem -- the law is completely broken. I don't think I can afford to have "mixed feelings" on this subject: The law has to be repealed, and its proponents have to try to come up with another answer. Here's a layperson's description of this German law (with the caveat that it comes from an extremely biased source): Alexander Stopp, the lawyer for the two men, noted that Germany's courts allow a criminal's name to be withheld in news reports once they have served a prison term and a set period has expired. This is the twenty-first century. There is no longer any such thing as a "news report", as distinct from a "history book", a "personal letter", or even a "word-of-mouth rumor". There was once a time when you could define, fairly objectively, what a "news report" was -- let's try this definition: "a piece of communications designed to be delivered to thousands or millions of people within a time period less than a month" -- but now that time is over. That definition is now rubbish. Anything I type here, anything I say out loud near a blogger, anything I write that comes into view of someone else's digital camera can be captured and distributed to the entire world, in much less than one day, for a price too cheap to meter. Anything that appears on the Internet, even if it is buried inside a dry Ph.D. thesis on a single web server in a locked basement on an isolated Pacific island, is one well-placed retweet away from becoming a "news report". I wish I knew how else to solve the problem, but even if you believe that censorship was the answer before, it isn't any more. The German legal system is literally trying to enforce the world of 1984: One is legally required to delete or rewrite history after N years.

jacquesm 17y ago
Not only that, it is searchable for eternity, whereas in the past you'd have to visit a newspaper morgue for that.
DrJokepu 17y ago
Of course there is a solution. The problem is that courts just don't scale. In the 21st century, courts around thw world work like if it was still the 19th century. Suing people is expensive (both in terms of effort and money). On the other hand, retweeting is cheap. Courts just can't keep up with the Internet. Now, imagine a world where you can find all the people retweeting 'illegal' information just as easilry as searching on Google and the cost of suing was just as marginal as retweeting itself. Maybe the system was aided by artificial intelligence (one of my college professors was researching the subject of application of AI in legal reasoning). That would change everything and I think this will happen sooner or later. (Sorry for my brevity, I was writing this from my phone)
- lucumo 17y ago
  > The problem is that courts just don't scale. In the 21st century, courts around thw world work like if it was still the 19th century. Suing people is expensive (both in terms of effort and money). On the other hand, retweeting is cheap. Courts just can't keep up with the Internet. This has always been so. Breaking the law is easy, convicting somebody isn't. Just look at serial killers.
kiba 17y ago
The publishing business and IP laws were alway backward. It doesn't make sense today, it doesn't make sense in the past. There's alway people who scream about piracy and censorship and there are alway people who will supply it. Cheap sheet musics. Banned books. Video tapes. Widespread British literature in America. Pirated poetry in Britain. The movie industry's move to California. The radio. Napster. Bittorrent. Copyright law has alway been a privelleges of the monopolists. The pirates are simply people who produces and distribute despite the law. All copyright and patent do is criminalizes the free production, distribution, and entrepeneurship in arts and the science for the alleged benefit of the public, authors, and inventors. If ye try to criminalize a perfectly good pink act, it shall be a black act, and continues underground. Also, please don't try to convince me about the morality of giving anyone a living. If an artist starve on the street and he refuse to find another, more fruitful occupation, than it shall be so. If customers do not wishes to buy arts, it shall be so that arts decases altogether. The customers are kings. All the rages about "right to make a living" is moot when laid at the soverigns. All of prosperity depends on satisifying the customers' subjective preferences and all survival in a free market economy depends on satisfications of customers. If no one is willing to pay for arts and games, why create it?
- lucumo 17y ago
  > The pirates are simply people who produces and distribute despite the law. I'll give you "distribute", but "produces" is plain nonsense. If I copy a book to give it to a friend, I'm not "producing" it, I'm "distributing" it. The act of producing was the effort that went into writing it, editing it, typesetting it, etc.
  - kiba 17y ago
    Pirates that prints books must "produces" it via their printing press. It depends on the context.
yason 17y ago
Exactly, this is the point. There are no news reports or history books, it's just the internet and that's live infinitely. I can't say I know what is the most correct way to integrate old media and new media. I can certainly say I'm in favor of keeping these mens' names unpublished if only that waspossible: their identities are known and can be looked up if needed but IMHO there's no need to have it readily available. I can, also certainly, say that this ideal is impossible on the internet: everything is readily available. And you can't control internet and you shouldn't, because beautiful things will get conceived when the internet is allowed to unravel freely. Much else can't be said about the court case itself: different nations have different laws and there's no general solution to how two different jurisdictions merge. Germany certainly has no say about the US jurisdiction and US certainly can't enforce their free speech policy in foreing countries. I assume the outcome is pretty random and I hope it doesn't set any significant precedents either way.

jacquesm 17y ago

Not only that, it is searchable for eternity, whereas in the past you'd have to visit a newspaper morgue for that.

DrJokepu 17y ago

Of course there is a solution. The problem is that courts just don't scale. In the 21st century, courts around thw world work like if it was still the 19th century. Suing people is expensive (both in terms of effort and money). On the other hand, retweeting is cheap. Courts just can't keep up with the Internet. Now, imagine a world where you can find all the people retweeting 'illegal' information just as easilry as searching on Google and the cost of suing was just as marginal as retweeting itself. Maybe the system was aided by artificial intelligence (one of my college professors was researching the subject of application of AI in legal reasoning). That would change everything and I think this will happen sooner or later. (Sorry for my brevity, I was writing this from my phone)

lucumo 17y ago
> The problem is that courts just don't scale. In the 21st century, courts around thw world work like if it was still the 19th century. Suing people is expensive (both in terms of effort and money). On the other hand, retweeting is cheap. Courts just can't keep up with the Internet. This has always been so. Breaking the law is easy, convicting somebody isn't. Just look at serial killers.

kiba 17y ago

The publishing business and IP laws were alway backward. It doesn't make sense today, it doesn't make sense in the past. There's alway people who scream about piracy and censorship and there are alway people who will supply it. Cheap sheet musics. Banned books. Video tapes. Widespread British literature in America. Pirated poetry in Britain. The movie industry's move to California. The radio. Napster. Bittorrent. Copyright law has alway been a privelleges of the monopolists. The pirates are simply people who produces and distribute despite the law. All copyright and patent do is criminalizes the free production, distribution, and entrepeneurship in arts and the science for the alleged benefit of the public, authors, and inventors. If ye try to criminalize a perfectly good pink act, it shall be a black act, and continues underground. Also, please don't try to convince me about the morality of giving anyone a living. If an artist starve on the street and he refuse to find another, more fruitful occupation, than it shall be so. If customers do not wishes to buy arts, it shall be so that arts decases altogether. The customers are kings. All the rages about "right to make a living" is moot when laid at the soverigns. All of prosperity depends on satisifying the customers' subjective preferences and all survival in a free market economy depends on satisfications of customers. If no one is willing to pay for arts and games, why create it?

lucumo 17y ago
> The pirates are simply people who produces and distribute despite the law. I'll give you "distribute", but "produces" is plain nonsense. If I copy a book to give it to a friend, I'm not "producing" it, I'm "distributing" it. The act of producing was the effort that went into writing it, editing it, typesetting it, etc.
- kiba 17y ago
  Pirates that prints books must "produces" it via their printing press. It depends on the context.

yason 17y ago

Exactly, this is the point. There are no news reports or history books, it's just the internet and that's live infinitely. I can't say I know what is the most correct way to integrate old media and new media. I can certainly say I'm in favor of keeping these mens' names unpublished if only that waspossible: their identities are known and can be looked up if needed but IMHO there's no need to have it readily available. I can, also certainly, say that this ideal is impossible on the internet: everything is readily available. And you can't control internet and you shouldn't, because beautiful things will get conceived when the internet is allowed to unravel freely. Much else can't be said about the court case itself: different nations have different laws and there's no general solution to how two different jurisdictions merge. Germany certainly has no say about the US jurisdiction and US certainly can't enforce their free speech policy in foreing countries. I assume the outcome is pretty random and I hope it doesn't set any significant precedents either way.