Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 186 posts

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#111

Post by amyjess »

stupidcar wrote: post #49
cs702 wrote: post #14

The Republic of Georgia claims that the legal code establishing the rights and obligations of its citizens (including annotations commissioned and approved by the state) should not be freely available to its citizens or anyone else, because it is copyrighted by the state. According to the article, 20 other states around the world are making similar copyright claims. The written laws of a state (along with annotations…

The text of the laws themselves are open-source. It's the annotations that are the issue and this is, at least, an area where there is a reasonable ambiguity. Hopefully one that will be resolved in favour of greatest openness, but the state's position is at least not totally unreasonable. What is unreasonable, and why this is getting attention on HN is because Malamud's actions in publish the annotations has been des…

> What is unreasonable, and why this is getting attention on HN is because Malamud's actions in publish the annotations has been described as "terrorism".

He described his own actions as "terrorism", and the state is throwing that back in his face by basically going "See, even he called it 'terrorism'! That means he knew what he was doing was wrong!"

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#112

Post by amyjess »

teddyh wrote: post #106
macspoofing wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that. I'd think you'd be breaking the TOS by mass downloading all papers. Certainly, putting them on the internet after the fact isn't legal. I say all this, but I want to be clear that the punishment he received was far in excess to the underlying crime.

> I'd think you'd be breaking the TOS by mass downloading all papers. Still not a breach of copyright, and not even a crime, I believe. > Certainly, putting them on the internet after the fact isn't legal. But he didn’t do that. He may very well have planned to do that, but he never did, and this was never a factor in the case against him, IIRC.

Violation of TOS is trespassing on private property. You are only allowed to access someone's private property under a particular set of conditions, and Swartz violated those conditions.

What really did him in was that he went out of his way to use an alternative means of access _after_ being kicked off. He knowingly trespassed again after being told that he wasn't welcome, which completely obliterates any defense of "I didn't know what I was doing wasn't allowed".

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#113

Post by baybal2 »

macspoofing wrote: post #57
baybal2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not quite. With Aaron Swartz there was no question of copyright infringement. He was infringing. He wasn't. He was 100% entitled to use his library access, and download every file he did download.

I'm not sure about that. I'd think you'd be breaking the TOS by mass downloading all papers. Certainly, putting them on the internet after the fact isn't legal. I say all this, but I want to be clear that the punishment he received was far in excess to the underlying crime.

> breaking the TOS by mass downloading all papers

If you watched the case, even that point was nearing defeat.

The TOS they cited were pulled and inspected. Really, nowhere there the "oblige to not to abuse the system with means of viruses, logical bombs, ..." term was breached, unlike what initial hearing with technically illiterate judge found.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#114

Post by saalweachter »

salawat wrote: post #104
brobdingnagians wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rule of law is important. And if you want to get rid of old laws, you should just get rid of them by vote. If the vast majority of old laws are functioning well, then you can keep them functioning, if there are a few ridiculous ones then you can go through normal channels of government. England had a case in the 1800s where everyone forgot that trial by battle still existed from the middle ages. Someone invoked it an…

The problem with that is that that basically ensures most blue laws stay on the books by way of legislative DoS. As every repeal bill takes up the same legislative slot as adding a new law. An approach with sunset dates ensure the most important laws are at the forefront of national discourse, and ensures that lawmaking doesn't degenerate to "keep trying til you pass it, then smooth sailing because no one ever active…

Which do you think is most likely.

Each aspect of the law is carefully considered and debated every N years before being reaffirmed or rejected?

Or,

Every N years the legislature passes a pro-forma "the laws are still the laws" bill, which no one bothers to read or debate or modify in more than a cursory sense?

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#117

Post by throw2016 »

This is poisoning discourse. Accusing Malamud of 'terrorism' is a kind of terrorism, using the power of the state and law to demonize dissenters by using emotionally charged hyperbolic language.

But delving into the details the failure is judges and other referring to annotations of laws as the interpretations of the laws which then build history and are held precedent, without first making sure any such interpretations are freely available to the wider public.

The judiciary is a specially empowered part of democratic process and has powers but also responsibilities, and has a primary responsibility to uphold the democratic process and free access to the the entire process of laws and their interpretations, and a deviation from this calls into question an individuals suitability for such an important role in the democratic process.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#118

Post by gdhbcc »

naasking wrote: post #109
Fnoord wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure on which law this whole fad is based on. Is it an old law? > [...] The last time the Supreme Court addressed the matter, in 1888, it ruled that “the whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all.” A solution to how ridiculous old laws are is automatically expire them. That way, the politicians…

> A solution to how ridiculous old laws are is automatically expire them. Or to eliminate prosecutorial discretion.

Better yet, do both

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#119

Post by verelo »

saalweachter wrote: post #114
salawat wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that that basically ensures most blue laws stay on the books by way of legislative DoS. As every repeal bill takes up the same legislative slot as adding a new law. An approach with sunset dates ensure the most important laws are at the forefront of national discourse, and ensures that lawmaking doesn't degenerate to "keep trying til you pass it, then smooth sailing because no one ever active…

Which do you think is most likely. Each aspect of the law is carefully considered and debated every N years before being reaffirmed or rejected? Or, Every N years the legislature passes a pro-forma "the laws are still the laws" bill, which no one bothers to read or debate or modify in more than a cursory sense?

Yeah, it sounds like a hell of a lot of work to re-evaluate every law every X number of years. Probably not the best use of time...

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#120

Post by lmkg »

saalweachter wrote: post #114
salawat wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is that that basically ensures most blue laws stay on the books by way of legislative DoS. As every repeal bill takes up the same legislative slot as adding a new law. An approach with sunset dates ensure the most important laws are at the forefront of national discourse, and ensures that lawmaking doesn't degenerate to "keep trying til you pass it, then smooth sailing because no one ever active…

Which do you think is most likely. Each aspect of the law is carefully considered and debated every N years before being reaffirmed or rejected? Or, Every N years the legislature passes a pro-forma "the laws are still the laws" bill, which no one bothers to read or debate or modify in more than a cursory sense?

Between A and B, I go with B+.

Every N years, a pro-forma bill is drafted, but a few legislators will take the opportunity to grandstand about the existing legislation that relates to the theme of their upcoming re-election campaign. This result in a few high-visibility but ultimately low-impact tweaks.

Two edge cases will also arise less frequently. First, the extra importance of the pro-forma bill means that fillibuster threats have extra leverage. This will play out similarly to the government shutdown. Second, in instances where one party controls both houses and the Presidency during re-up time, sweeping legislative reforms are more likely (e.g. repealing Obamacare would have been easier if repeal was the default).

Post reply on HN