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Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

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Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#151

Post by lovich »

quotemstr wrote: post #110
saurik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be shocked that Twitter convinced an entire generation of software developers that you need to obtain something called an "API key"--which can somehow be refused or even revoked once granted--in order to write a client for their protocol. "Back in my day", we just reverse engineered the official client and used whatever algorithm it used to talk to the server and called the war won :/.

Right. I've definitely noticed a certain technical meekness lately, and honestly, I'm worried that it's connected to the broader cultural trend toward deference to authorities. Break some rules!

In the past you could break rules on the internet and people would treat it as a joke or cool implementation of a technique at best and annoyance at worst. Now if you break those rules the system breaks you.

It's not meekness so much as the economics have changed and breaking rules isn't worth it for as many people anymore

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#152

Post by dragonwriter »

analognoise wrote: post #150
asfdsfggtfd wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not even remotely true (incidentally this would be illegal in the UK and a court would grant an injunction on publication under breach of confidence, precisely because it's such a shitty thing to do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_confidence_in_Englis... ). Yes but they would not charge you with theft. Which includes "the intention to permanently deprive"... Copying someone's private data is not thef…

So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good. IANAL - but I don't think this would fly in any jurisdiction anywhere. Is this definition specific to a country whose laws I'm not familiar with?

> So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good.

Theft in law generally only applies to tangible personal property, not intangible personally property and not real property. That's not a redefinition, just the long-existigng definition.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#153

Post by analognoise »

Endy wrote: post #120
analognoise wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#this I can't believe people here don't think it's piracy or stealing, just because it doesn't deprive someone else of their object (as in the case of a physical good). If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft. If someone stole bread, how would you feel about It? Screw that person righ…

> If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft. No, that's merely duplication and proliferation of media and information into the public domain; information wants to be free & media calls for an audience. The sole concern at that point would be how you gained access to the media - did you…

>information wants to be free & media calls for an audience

That's a nice bumper sticker, but also a bunch of shit.

So the nudes you take with your wife, demand to be free and an audience? The photos of your children in the tub demand to be free, and an...audience? Reality doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

"If you are depriving someone of a basic foodstuff, and their only means of procurement and providence is legally labelled as theft, then you are perpetrating an unjust society."

Oh right, so every society that's ever existed. Gotcha. Glad that doesn't happen on whatever planet you live on.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#154

Post by analognoise »

dragonwriter wrote: post #152
analognoise wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good. IANAL - but I don't think this would fly in any jurisdiction anywhere. Is this definition specific to a country whose laws I'm not familiar with?

> So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good. Theft in law generally only applies to tangible personal property, not intangible personally property and not real property. That's not a redefinition, just the long-existigng definition.

Did you plug "intellectual property theft" into Google before you came to this conclusion?

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#155

Post by analognoise »

pharrington wrote: post #121
analognoise wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#this I can't believe people here don't think it's piracy or stealing, just because it doesn't deprive someone else of their object (as in the case of a physical good). If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft. If someone stole bread, how would you feel about It? Screw that person righ…

"If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft." Yes, the original taking of the journal is literally depriving someone else of their object. A future return of the object clearly does not mean the original deprivation never happened. The point you're making about unauthorized distribution…

My arguments are based on ownership - you didn't create the (game, book, journal entries, code, artistic item, music, whatever), but somehow because you've decided to take advantage of content creators by belittling their ownership to declare theft a victimless crime.

Also, people are convinced by arguments they have an emotional connection to - not postulates. You're always instructing the reader how to feel - if the reader can't see what you're doing, and still consider your argument, they're uneducated. That's no sleight against them - as it is massively effective, and it is not permanent. Look at the last US election.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#156

Post by nerflad »

tomsmeding wrote: post #106
nothrabannosir wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be illegal for companies like Twitter to forbid this. Users should be free to access their data, and free to use any tool to do so. The revered network effect is anti consumer and it must be broken. This is the one regulation that could save a nation from FB, Twitter, Instagram and their ilk. Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support.

> Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support. That might be a bit overdone, but I get your point.

It's a reference to a statement the current president made during his campaign.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#157

Post by wu-ikkyu »

kbos87 wrote: post #65
pwaai wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As someone that was prevented from distributing Linux at high school because the administrators thought that any copying was piracy I remember having this discussion with in HS and also at work with people who were convinced pirating a PSX game is same as stealing, while not realizing there is no evidence that suggests a pirated copy means a lost sale (people can't afford it in places like Brasil where they still p…

A pirated copy doesn’t need to equate to a lost sale in order for it to be stealing. You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else. Whether it’s a physical or nonphysical good is completely beside the point.

>You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else.

By this definition every website you visit on the internet that you did not create yourself is stealing.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#158

Post by RepressedEmu »

tomsmeding wrote: post #106
nothrabannosir wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be illegal for companies like Twitter to forbid this. Users should be free to access their data, and free to use any tool to do so. The revered network effect is anti consumer and it must be broken. This is the one regulation that could save a nation from FB, Twitter, Instagram and their ilk. Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support.

> Any politician to run on this could shoot somebody in the middle of a crowded street without losing my support. That might be a bit overdone, but I get your point.

Its an (in)famous Trump line.

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#159

Post by davchana »

pwaai wrote: post #87
jeremy_wiebe wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equating “fair use” of a website to pirating software is a stretch. In the first case the method of access is at issue (not whether you can or not). In the second the company has not given you any _legal_ right to access. I don’t see how affordability (or lack of it) is justification to the game.

Stealing would mean the loss of property, but there are infinite copies of the digital good. Users for the most part do not read EULA agreements or Terms of Service of a website, the expectation is on the software company's side, it's not a a crime unless there is proof of damage (selling it for profit) from either copying that floppy disk or scraping a public website so hard you interfere with their operations. So b…

> Mozart...

I am interested, and I googled Mozart arrested, Mozart arrested for Copyright, Mozart arrested for Music, but couldn't find anything, could you please post a link/story about Mozart getting arrested?

Re: Courts: Violating a Website’s Terms of Service Is Not a Crime

#160

Post by taserian »

davchana wrote: post #159
pwaai wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stealing would mean the loss of property, but there are infinite copies of the digital good. Users for the most part do not read EULA agreements or Terms of Service of a website, the expectation is on the software company's side, it's not a a crime unless there is proof of damage (selling it for profit) from either copying that floppy disk or scraping a public website so hard you interfere with their operations. So b…

> Mozart... I am interested, and I googled Mozart arrested, Mozart arrested for Copyright, Mozart arrested for Music, but couldn't find anything, could you please post a link/story about Mozart getting arrested?

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/01/time-mozart-...
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