On 02/19/2014 06:39 PM, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 3:21 PM, Jonathan Wilkes <jancs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"Now say that the user has installed a third party add-on that either
accidentally or intentionally (through design or through compromise) blocks
or otherwise prevents my "TV Web Application" from delivering that EAM to
the user, and, consequently their house is destroyed, potentially with loss
of life.
Or what if they looked away from the screen?
The future of web-browsing?
https://d2nh4f9cbhlobh.cloudfront.net/_uploads/galleries/31492/a-clockwork-orange-475864l.jpg
Advertisers would love it.
I don't discount that there are indeed arguments that fringe
liabilities could exist— someone could even, as my silly example says,
sue you because they looked away. But fringe effects are not part of a
reasonable duty of care.
Yeah, but I didn't insert the guy's quote as a barrel of fish to shoot
at. I inserted it to show that people who work under the assumption
that content trickles down from the top are quite effective at making
the net a place where those companies can continue creating content
using a model they prefer. How effective are these people at their
work? So effective that such a fringe argument actually results in the
relevant language being removed in its entirety from the standards document.
Meanwhile, what's the risk to a student who wants to test the boundaries
of fair use? Where's the infrastructure available to a scientist to
release important pay-walled journal articles on public health as they
come to his/her attention? What's the likelyhood he/she would even post
a magnet link to such material that someone else is seeding? How can we
take the meager resources available and build out infrastructure that
lets artists, scientists, activists, etc., create and distribute content
using a model they prefer? And without creating in them a palpable fear
that they're endangering their future by experimenting with an
alternative model? An anonymity overlay is the best thing I can think
of that gropes toward that end.
Honestly, I'm just frustrated looking at how light the other end of the
scale is. Somebody should make an app that delays critiques of the
current state of affairs until one spends equal time writing/improving
documentation for Tor or Gnunet.
-Jonathan
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