Why I’m Suing the US Government • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#111

Post by gerbilly » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:35 PM UTC

ryanswapp wrote: post #28

I studied section 1201 thoroughly during law school and I think this post doesn't give a fair characterization of it. The reason this statute exists is because companies were unable to devise protection for copyrighted works that hackers were not able to immediately circumvent. As a result, the government stepped in and created 1201 to make it illegal for someone to circumvent some form of access control that a compa…

>The purpose of the statute isn't to destroy

What difference does the intended purpose make if it does indeed destroy ?

If that was indeed the purpose of 1201, the the law as written has unintended consequences.

But my feeling is that they knew damn well that they were going to sweep up non commercial tinkerers as well.

These days the line between commercial and non commercial is blurred. With the internet a hacker can publish some circumvention method and software with the same reach as a large company.[1]

[1] I personally see no problem with that. BTW. The law is being used here to prop up outdated, often monopolistic, business models. That's the company's problem, and shouldn't be externalized onto all of society.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#112

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:35 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #109

astazangasta wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem, of course, is that the Internet today consists almost exclusively of private companies profiting from other people's content. Twitter doesn't pay its users, it makes money off their tweets AND by having them look at ads (yes, this is work). Similarly with Facebook, or with any review aggregator (Yelp, Amazon, Google+), monetizing the free labor of others. The DMCA protects certain forms of property…

Twitter exists as a platform that allows politicians, entertainers, businesses and more communicate more quickly and cheaply with people interested in them than ever before. The profit a user gets out of Twitter depends on what is put into it.

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#113

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

mountaineer22 wrote: post #97

alexbock wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens if we let people modify their microwaves and a terrorist uses his to give kids cancer!?!? I know this was said in jest, but given the (generally unfounded) fears some people have about microwaves and cellphones I want to point out that exposure to unshielded microwave radiation isn't going to cause cancer (at least not any more than anything else that heats you up could somehow cause cancer) because mi…

What about cooking the marrow in bone?

If that's not a weird joke, I really want to hear why you think marrow is going to absorb more microwaves than any other part of your body. Because it won't, it's an overall heat like sitting in a sauna. At low power it's warm, past that it's unpleasant, past that you have heat stroke.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#114

Post by hiou » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

mountaineer22 wrote: post #93

astazangasta wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter has a market cap of $13 billion mostly because of content produced by its users. The only possible way it can make money is by showing ads to users (getting them to do free labor).

What does profit have to do with market cap.?

I didn't down vote you because I don't agree with anonymously down voting people when I disagree with a comment like a sneaky coward, but maybe I can shine a little light on a possible disagreement.

Twitter is made up of it's shareholders and workers. The workers have been receiving a salary(profit essentially). Twitter shareholders make money when the market cap goes up(profit essentially). It's likely a semantics discussion about what "profit" specifically means to each person more than anything.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#115

Post by dmix » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #101

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #94

Good. My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice. It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it. The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people a…

How much does your wife charge as a therapist? Everyone needs to make money. HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry. Everyone hates laws until its in their best interest to have said laws.

HN is hardly an active supporter of unicorn style VC pump and dump. We poke fun of it all the time.

This is a common criticism of HN I hear on Twitter by people who clearly don't spend much time here.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#116

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

ProAm wrote: post #101

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #94

Good. My wife is a speech therapist and uses a system that is designed to help people who have had strokes regain their voice. It comprises a piece of software that comes with a "specially calibrated USB microphone". The microphone is actually a Samson laptop USB mic that had the voice improvement systems logo stuck on it. The system came with lots of legal warnings about not copying, not telling unqualified people a…

How much does your wife charge as a therapist? Everyone needs to make money. HN is a weird place to bemoan prices when many here are seeking unicorn valuations while disrupting industry. Everyone hates laws until its in their best interest to have said laws.

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#117

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

6stringmerc wrote: post #21

fweespeech wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am curious why, if they actually believe they have a good chance of success, this is only being filed now rather than in prior years? Has something changed? You need standing and money to sue. Based on the EFF release: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-se... > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, whe…

So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders? I don't find this litigant to be sympathetic in the least (the second one, Green, is much more reasonable - though redundant to the John Deere case going on). My initial impression is that I might actually want Huang to lose, if the…

> So you're telling me Andrew Huang's business model is to make derivative content devices, for profit, without permission or compensation from the original creators and/or rights holders?

You realize a TV fits that description, right?

There is no reason for every device in the pipeline to kick back money to the content creator. You only need to pay for it once.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#118

Post by dang » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

A related article by Matthew Green is at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12137437, and by the EFF at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12136682.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#119

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

IME many US people do not resonate with the creativity arguments, but do with the freedoms. The land of the free lately doesnt feel like it and I think many US people are feeling it too. It may help to phrase your arguments in the wording that the constitution is meant to protect -- in terms of freedom.

Re: Why I’m Suing the US Government

#120

Post by iaw » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 4:43 PM UTC

astazangasta wrote: post #67

rayiner wrote: post #33

Circumvention by itself definitely shouldn't be illegal, and it's probably unconstitutional to make building and researching circumvention mechanisms illegal. But I don't buy Step 2. > EFF is representing plaintiff Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a prominent computer scientist and inventor, and his company Alphamax LLC, where he is developing devices for editing digital video streams. Those products would enable people to mak…

The real problem, of course, is that the Internet today consists almost exclusively of private companies profiting from other people's content. Twitter doesn't pay its users, it makes money off their tweets AND by having them look at ads (yes, this is work). Similarly with Facebook, or with any review aggregator (Yelp, Amazon, Google+), monetizing the free labor of others. The DMCA protects certain forms of property…

Some people seem to be downvoting you because they disagree with your view point.

I'm not sure I agree with you but your views are valid and a positive contribution to this thread. Just want to call out that I'm a bit disappointed with the rest of the community for targeting you.