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

Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

khanacademy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 67 posts

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#51

Post by hesitz »

dhimes wrote: post #40
hesitz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "not particularly limited" in scope? It seems to me the intent of the provision is that more is required to run afoul of the provision, e.g., that a site also be "designed or operated primarily for the purpose" of enabling or facilitating illegal activity. I give you that the provision is ambiguous. If so, then that is the problem. Say "The provision is ambiguous." Don't say that it clearly allows…

If we need a law, let's put a law in place with clearly limited authority, not one where reasonable people can wholly disagree about what it says. I've never understood why lawyers tolerate ambiguity in the law. But maybe I'm wrong: how can abuse be prevented if this is passed? If abuse starts, how can it be stopped without court action? I'm still reeling from the '90s when Microsoft considered court battles just ano…

It's impossible to completely avoid ambiguity and vagueness in law. Lawyers don't enact laws, legislators do. And lawyers don't "tolerate ambiguity"; lawyers exist in large part because it takes experts to know how enacted laws will be interpreted by courts (in part because of their inevitable vagueness and ambiguity). Legislators can and usually do try to lessen ambiguity and vagueness in laws they enact, with varying degrees of success. (Like I said, there will virtually _always_ arise factual situations where a law previously though unambiguous and clear turns out to be not to have been unambiguous and clear _enough_. It is the nature of language and rule-making. E.g., how does one supposedly clear and unambiguous law interact with another clear and unambiguous law when they conflict and require different things? Or another example, how should a court interpret a particular statutory provision that, as written, appears to conflict with the general intent of the Act the provision is in? Interpret the particular provision as it reads in isolation? or interpret the provision in a way that seems somewhat odd when it's read in isolation but which makes perfect sense within its Act as a whole?)

I don't know about your iPhone TOS. You could do some research and/or retain a lawyer to get a legal opinion on what the law requires, which is presumably what a court would do if confronted with your case. If the issue (or a nearly identical issue) has previously been litigated, then the previous court decision will have some (varying) degree of precedential value for your own case.

In case of you and your iPhone issue, this is nothing new. Many everyday situations arise where there simply is no practical way to dispute another party's interpretation of a contract or license. This sort of "do what you can until somebody stops you" has been going on forever. (Class actions exist as one way to avoid this problem in situations where numerous individuals with limited resources are wronged in same way by a more powerful defendant, but the solution they provide is limited at best.)

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#52

Post by mr_luc »

nextparadigms wrote: post #10

Linking is not a crime. If we'll ever make any "Internet Freedom" laws or Constitutional Amendments, that definitely needs to be in there. The 1st Amendment should already cover linking as speech, but apparently MPAA/RIAA and some in Congress disagree.

It would make sense to have this as a central tenet of internet protection legislation.

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#53

Post by hesitz »

turar wrote: post #27
dhimes wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is saying that there are a lot of sites that offer services which could enable or facilitate pirating, because the terms 'enable' and 'facilitate' are not particularly limited in scope. It seems clear to me.

That are "primarily designed or operated" for pirating, and have "only limited purpose or use other than" pirating? What are some examples of such sites?

thepiratebay.org is one obvious example. Although this would seem to be a foreign site, it is actually a "domestic internet site" and a "U.S. directed site" under the terms of SOPA. This is because the '.org' domain (along with '.com' and some others) is a domestic top level domain under the terms of the SOPA. See Section 101. Definitions in the bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.R.3261:

Note that S.103 that we're talking about deals with "U.S. directed sites", among which, presumably most sites with domains of .com or .org would fall, since registrant for those domains is under U.S. jurisdiction, giving U.S. "minimum contacts" sufficient to assert its authority over the site. That's my reading, anyway.

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#54

Post by felipemnoa »

rhizome wrote: post #18
swalsh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am convinced that Sal Khan's contribution to education is so significant his work will be used in classrooms generations from now... though perhaps in the form of some kind of technological derivative. So congrats! You just had lunch with the historical equivalent of Einstein.

The guy really deserves some kind of recognition, but I don't think there's a Nobel or Pulitzer for education (telling).

Peace Prize? It could be argued that a better educated world is more likely to move towards peace. Allows people to be more critical thinking and thus not allow themselves to be fooled so easily by politicians.

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#55

Post by sunir »

zmmmmm wrote: post #34
tzs wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In a manner that" modifies "offering goods or services". The structure of this is: The site is illegal if it is primarily designed for use in X where X is "offering goods or services in a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates...".

I agree you can read it that way, but it doesn't change much to me. Any site that accepts user content as its main function still has a primary purpose that enables / facilitates the infringement.

A theoretical parsing of the sentence does not matter. When tested in court, a reasonable reading of the law would not find YouTube in violation. The clear intention of the Act is to burn down sites whose primary purpose is theft of U.S. property, like The Pirate Bay.

The problem is that is YouTube today. A lot of people forget that YouTube built its initial audience by "primarily" being flooded with pirated anime clips. Even if YouTube did not want to be a haven of copyright infringement, it users did. It would be easily arguable that YouTube would violate the law when it first started.

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#57

Post by meric »

sunir wrote: post #55
zmmmmm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree you can read it that way, but it doesn't change much to me. Any site that accepts user content as its main function still has a primary purpose that enables / facilitates the infringement.

A theoretical parsing of the sentence does not matter. When tested in court, a reasonable reading of the law would not find YouTube in violation. The clear intention of the Act is to burn down sites whose primary purpose is theft of U.S. property, like The Pirate Bay. The problem is that is YouTube today. A lot of people forget that YouTube built its initial audience by "primarily" being flooded with pirated anime cl…

"a reasonable reading of the law". Anyone relying on this when thinking about new laws deserves to have their constitutional rights slowly eroded year by year. Take Hong Kong as an example. Originally the idea universal suffrage would be applied in 2007. However due to less than "reasonable" readings of the law, the government now claims universal suffrage will apply in 2017. As of 2012 the government has performed zero actions in preparation for this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Hong_Kong#Universal...

The Hong Kong basic law stipulates the ultimate goal is universal suffrage, but every action until now by the government indicates it desires the delaying of this indefinitely.

Hong Kong was promised 50 years of autonomy, but after 10 years interference from the Chinese government has only increased. Why is the biggest and most funded political party in Hong Kong backed by the Chinese government?

See, you can only expect "a reasonable reading of the law" in reasonable times. When times are unreasonable the laws must be bullet-proof to be able to protect citizens.

When the average bill blows out to a thousand pages, it is in no way "bullet-proof".

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#59

Post by rhizome »

lincolnq wrote: post #46
rhizome wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes he has, but probably deserves more.

The Nobel Prize has a famous chilling effect on actual productivity. It's good to give people recognition for their work but I would be wary of giving them too much.

That's an excellent point, one that is illustrated in the book, "Punished By Rewards."

http://www.alfiekohn.org/books/pbr.htm

Re: Sal Khan explains SOPA / PIPA

#60

Post by EGreg »

Once again Salman Khan explains what needed explaining to many people.

However, SOPA has changed since then and now * specifically only applies to foreign sites * excludes the DNS cutoff

It is still "flawed", as Darren Issa says, and I think the OPEN act, deputizing the ITC is actually way better. It would first offer the offending foreign sites a chance to enter into arbitration before taking any unilateral action against them by the USA.

Post reply on HN