DeWitt Clause, or can you benchmark %database% and get away with it • Hacker News Board

Re: DeWitt Clause, or can you benchmark %database% and get away with it

#91

Post by HideousKojima » Sat, Jun 04, 2022, 11:18 PM UTC

eastbound wrote: post #66

rckoepke wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you pirate the database, then hide behind the fifth amendment to not reveal that you're a pirate while simultaneously asserting that you never agreed to any EULA? I'm not sure what the legal rights are here. I'm certain someone in say, China or Russia, could pirate the database and run benchmarks on it with no repercussions. Surprising that this isn't a business model for an overseas technology analyst firm.

The Fifth only protects the innocents. It’s a fun twist of this amendment - if you are guilty you do not have a right to keep silent.

Other way around, sadly:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States

Convicted felons are exempt from the portion of the National Firearms Act that requires that machine guns (and other NFA items like short barreled shotguns) be registered as it would violate their 5th Amendment rights.

Re: DeWitt Clause, or can you benchmark %database% and get away with it

#92

Post by HideousKojima » Sun, Jun 05, 2022, 12:44 AM UTC

geocar wrote: post #65

Nextgrid wrote: post #7

If you want to benchmark for internal reasons you don't publish the results and nobody knows. If you want to make a service to the community, run your benchmarks, download Tor and publish the results anonymously. I don't see what the big deal is? Is this only limited to marketing claims where you post it on your company's website?

> I don't see what the big deal is? The big deal is that it's slanderous. Oracle isn't making an attestation about performance that the benchmark addresses, the benchmark aims to make statements about Oracle for some other reason , and that's important: Rights to free-speech generally end when they cause harm, and bearing full costs in the defense of false benchmarks is certainly harm. Look at it this way: The clause…

>The big deal is that it's slanderous.

Then you don't need to forbid benchmarking in the terms, if someone posts a slanderous/libelous benchmark then sue them for that.

Re: DeWitt Clause, or can you benchmark %database% and get away with it

#93

Post by donatj » Mon, Jun 06, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

HideousKojima wrote: post #91

eastbound wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fifth only protects the innocents. It’s a fun twist of this amendment - if you are guilty you do not have a right to keep silent.

Other way around, sadly: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haynes_v._United_States Convicted felons are exempt from the portion of the National Firearms Act that requires that machine guns (and other NFA items like short barreled shotguns) be registered as it would violate their 5th Amendment rights.

Huh, that is one of the most interesting supreme court decisions I think I've read. I kind of agree with it in a text-of-the-law sense.

I would be very curious to see that logic hold up in court these days. They got Al Capone on tax evasion for instance, but wouldn't paying his taxes on ill-got funds have been incriminating?