In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, El Tux says... > >On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 17:19:37 +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote: > >> El Tux wrote: >> >> [... Dowling v. United States, 473 U.S. 207 (1985) ...] >> >> >> Oh dear El Tux, that (1985) was long before December 16, 1997, when >> President Clinton signed HR 2265 -- the No Electronic Theft Act -- into >> law. > >Dear Alexander, that doesn't matter in the least because we're >discussing concepts here, not legal definitions which, BTW, tend to >use common words in uncommon ways. The poster cited a USSC judge's >comment to support the *concept* that file-sharing is stealing, and I >quoted another to show that not all USSC judges share the same >view. Simple black-and-white cases rarely make it to the USSC so it's >commonplace for the justices to disagree with each other. One can find >a quote to support either side of just about anything that's been >brought before the Supreme Court.
Your quoting a 1985 case on it, though, is akin to quoting traffic rules designed to keep horses from being frightened, in a 2008 auto traffic discussion. Completely different time, completely different concerns. In 1985 there was not an internet or other medium that enabled mega-copying that would drive the market cost of any creation that can be expressed in bits, to nearly zero. > >As for the No Electronic Theft Act and the later DMCA, voters never >asked for either. Those were all but written by the music and movie >industries and rushed through by their pet politicians. I do not >believe these laws represent the will of the American people and >neither, apparently, do most of the American people. Are you so sure about that? Once you leave your cozy abode in the linux groups, whoa - looky, people are arguing with you!! Maybe you need to get out more. The congress that passed that law are those elected by you and me in a representative democracy. >The rather high >percentage of the population that's engaged in file-sharing, A certain segment does that simply because it's free and easy. >the >surging sales in portable media players capable of holding ten times >more music than the average American buys in a lifetime, the high >demand for terabyte hard drives, and the strong demand for ever-faster >broadband all suggest that if we put it to the voters, they would >repeal the DMCA and NETA, explicitly legalize file-sharing, and >probably make some other long-needed changes in copyright law to >restore its original purpose of stimulating artistic and scientific >creativity. > >If you want people to respect the law, then they must first be able to >respect the process that created it. If you want to change the law, use that process to change it. But the hitch is - you'll have to make convincing arguments, not just point to how many file-copying buddies you have. I think that's what grieves ya. Banty _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
