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Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free

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Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free

#81
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are wrong , the whole reason the GP is so long is because EU law is much more complicated than the average nerds' vision of what law should be like (i.e., a rule-based decision tree). It is no 'loop hole', it is a fundamental feature of EU law to not be a federal system where the Commission sets the law in a uniform way across the territory.

Your point about the complexity of EU law is irrelevant. If there is even one single EU country in which the law is implemented in such a way that the standard referenced by the EU document becomes de facto law, then that standard ought to enter the public domain at least within that country. The detour via the EU is irrelevant.

Look, just read everything that was said above again until you understand it and then come back, there's no point in me repeating the same thing several times. You're literally talking nonsense - 'de facto law', 'public domain within that country', 'detour via the EU' - everything you say indicates you don't understand the points being made here.

Not to be an asshole about it, but between you and me, there is only one person with a law degree.

Re: Germany threatens to jail Carl Malamud for making the law available for free

#82
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about the complexity of EU law is irrelevant. If there is even one single EU country in which the law is implemented in such a way that the standard referenced by the EU document becomes de facto law, then that standard ought to enter the public domain at least within that country. The detour via the EU is irrelevant.

Look, just read everything that was said above again until you understand it and then come back, there's no point in me repeating the same thing several times. You're literally talking nonsense - 'de facto law', 'public domain within that country', 'detour via the EU' - everything you say indicates you don't understand the points being made here. Not to be an asshole about it, but between you and me, there is only on…

Not to be an asshole about it, but if you really have a law degree, then perhaps that explains your inability to see the moral dimension of what is going on here. Time to take off your lawyer hat and read again what I wrote.

I have not written whether I believe the publication of those standards is legal under current (copyright) law or not. The point is that it ought to be legal because it is moral. It is moral because (at least for some of the standards, according to everything I have read about the topic) the de facto way of following a certain law is to follow the standard that was published. Whether there are other ways of following that law is made irrelevant by common practice (again, from a moral point of view, thought perhaps not according to current copyright law).

If necessary, the (copyright) law should be changed so that the law follows morality.

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