It's now illegal to turn on your computer

Vaughn Treude vltreude at deru.com
Mon Dec 31 17:46:55 MST 2007


keith smith wrote:
> Can you imagine what the law would look like and how hard it would be if 
> we had stuff like -
> 
> Burglary is stealing stuff from a yard after 10pm and before 6am or from 
> a residential structure while it is occupied.
> 
> If the residential structure is not occupied and it is after 6am but 
> before 10pm it is aggregated theft.
> 
> If stuff is stolen from a non-residential structure it is always a 
> burglary except if it takes place on New years Eve, then it is a foolish 
> drunken person steeling and must be given a misdemeanor citation unless 
> their sur name starts with a Y.
> 
> The law is hard enough to figure out.  I think two things are happening 
> 1) keep it simple, 2) protect people from those who do not have respect 
> for others.
> Under Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) one can place a " reasonable notice 
> prohibiting entry" on their property which automatically makes anyone 
> entering without authority in violation of ARS 13-1502.
> An why not.  If I buy some land don't I have the right to say who can 
> come on it?
> 

Certainly.  But I don't particularly want to be taxed to pay for the 
defense of said property, especially if the owner doesn't put any effort 
into it himself.

To use another metaphor, trademark law requires that the owner of the 
trademark make an effort to defend their property or lose it.  That's 
good for the cause of individual responsibility, but I'll admit that 
it's bad in the sense that it encourages corporations to make frivolous 
and over-broad claims, such as McDonald's going after everyone who uses 
a "Mc" in a product name.  (Perhaps they could be sued by the country of 
Scotland!)  So, yes, it does go both ways.

> 13-1502. _Criminal trespass in the third degree; classification_
> A. A person commits criminal trespass in the third degree by:
> 1. Knowingly entering or remaining unlawfully on any real property after 
> a reasonable request to leave by the owner or any other person having 
> lawful control over such property, or reasonable notice prohibiting entry.
> 2. Knowingly entering or remaining unlawfully on the right-of-way for 
> tracks, or the storage or switching yards or rolling stock of a railroad 
> company.
> B. Criminal trespass in the third degree is a class 3 misdemeanor.
> ---
> If I sell software or music or anything don't I have an expectation that 
> people will not "share" it?  And should I not have the right to revenues 
> for anyone who uses it.
> 

Again yes.  But, in the individual case, almost impossible to enforce 
except by (a) voluntary consent or (b) a police state.  The concept of 
"fair use" is I think partly a nod to the unenforce-ability of laws 
against casual violators.  Egregious, blatant, commercial piracy 
operations are another matter.  That's why, although I'm "right wing" in 
my support of the concept of property, I'm "left wing" enough to say it 
must be tempered with common sense and a general concept of fairness.

> I prescribe to the book example.  Many can read a book, however for the 
> most part only one can be doing so at any given time.
> 
> Funny thing is Ashton-Tate, the creators of dBaseII, dBaseIII, and 
> dBaseIII+ found that pirating actually increased sales.
> 
> During the mid 80's there was a lot of copy protectioning going on.  It 
> was such a hassle and then there was software to help you copy your 
> software....
> 
> It was such a hassle that most software vendors quit doing it.  That is 
> when Ashton-Tate found out sales went up.
> 
> Ironic.
> 
> 

Indeed.  I would hope, from an anarchist perspective, that either copy 
protection "worked" or they would find some other workaround that would 
precluded dependence on Big Brother for protection.  Unfortunately it 
hasn't quite worked out that way.  Open-source, though, is a hopeful 
alternative.

Vaughn

> 
> 
> */Vaughn Treude <vltreude at deru.com>/* wrote:
> 
>     Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>      > On 12/31/07, Vaughn Treude wrote:
>      >
>      >> I can't resist joining the fray!
>      >>
>      >> On the one hand, I've personally never produced anything of
>     value that
>      >> wasn't "intellectual" property. On the other hand, a society that
>      >> actually tried to _enforce_ the copyright laws as they stand
>     would be
>      >> totalitarian indeed.
>      >>
>      >
>      > just to further clarify my stance here, although the linux world has
>      > managed to create a world class OS...
>      >
>      > do you really think that the Open Source 'bazaar' form of
>      > organization could create the theoretical basis behind eg. context
>      > switching or IPC? not a chance. Not to insult anyone, but it was
>      > quite an undertaking just to decide what CMS to use for the PLUG web
>      > site. So my concern is that if we choose to abandon IP altogether, we
>      > may be abandoning progress. My personal interests probably lie on the
>      > left side of things, but I know that unless some kind of balance is
>      > introduced to the debate, these issues will never see the light of
>      > day.
>      >
>      > I guess at some level I wish for an IP system that actually works
>      > for the common man, rather than the total abolition of it.
>      >
> 
>     Agreed! Though I haven't quite decided what that would be, especially
>     in the anarcho-capitalist system that I espouse. The current state of
>     intellectual property reminds me of the bozos who plant "no
>     trespassing"
>     signs around a vacant lot they haven't bothered to fence. Government,
>     protect my stuff! (Of course, the signs may just be there for liability
>     purposes.) :-)
> 
>     Vaughn
> 
>      > -jmz
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> 
> ------------------------
> Keith Smith
> (480) 584-4772
> PHP Programming <http://www.netcodeman.com/>
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