SOPA
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@Neospector (View Post)Implying everyone lives in America and can actually vote on these things.Also, yes corporations do control the government however indirectly.
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devast8a:
@Videogamer555 (View Post)RIAA didn't have digital distribution rights in their contract so no they didn't do it lawfully.As far as I understand reverse engineering for interoperability between one independently written program and another is perfectly allowable under law. So no it wouldn't be a DMCA case either, however it's moot point anyway as Dropbox claimed it was an accident originating from a bug in their automated file take-down software. Later changing their API to stop the functionality of dropship.Regardless if the intent of the examples given were malicious or not, it shows that there's room for abuse in copyright laws.The fact of the matter is that the steps that SOPA is bringing in to "stop" piracy, wont.Domain name blocking is simple to get around.The issue of funding wouldn't be terribly difficult either.There's simply no point in combating piracy with law. It's the wrong approach.If SOPA won't stop piracy then it only serves to increase the avenues in which someone can abuse copyright law.
RIAA didn't have digital distribution rights but they had other distribution rights. As such, digitally distributing it is still piracy. Just because a company offers a DVD for sale, doesn't mean that you can download a pirated copy and then say "they didn't have digital distribution rights, so my download was legal". The fact is digitally distributing something that is normally not sold digitally, just so you don't have to pay the fee for the DVD or CD, IS PIRACY. It's not that they claimed they could distribute it digitally, the problem is it was being distributed digitally to get around the non-digital distribution that RIAA was doing so they could get for free digitally what they would normally have to pay for non-digitally, and thereby hurting RIAA's non-digital distributions.
On the reverse engineering issue, you obviously don't understand EULA's. When you use a product your act of using it is to the EULA what a person's signature is to a contract. In fact a EULA is a contract for software. Using the software legally binds you to the EULA. While the law does provide for interoperability reverse engineering, if the EULA specifically states (and for MOST software it does) that you may not reverse engineer it, then THAT takes precedent over the law. In other words if you use software who's EULA says you may not reverse engineer it, you are literally signing away your right to reverse engineer it. And since you are legally bound to that contract, you ARE in violation of your contract if you then proceed to reverse engineer any aspect of that software, even if the specific act of reverse engineering that you performed was only for interoperability.
Same goes for game copying. Super Nintendo cartridge "backup devices" are illegal, not because they violate copyright law, but because they are designed to violate Nintendo EULAs. While the law does give the individual the right to make one backup copy of their software for archival purpose (i.e. so you can still use the software even if your storage medium containing the original copy breaks), Nintendo's EULA (the text of which comes in the manual with EVERY game they have ever produced) specifically bans the use of copiers. So these copiers even when NOT being used for piracy but ONLY for a personal backup in keeping with the copyright law, ARE STILL ILLEGAL TO USE because they violate the contract between the end user and Nintendo. In other words, when playing an SNES, N64, GC, etc game you are signing away rights which are normally allowed according to the copyright law.
So yes the guys who reverse engineered the communication protocol in question WERE doing something that was WITHOUT A DOUBT ILLEGAL, as it violated their contract! I have no sympathy with them. When you try to break a law or a contract, you are taking a risk, and you should not do so if you don't have the guts to accept whatever consequences you may receive for this violation. -
@devast8a (View Post)The bill only affects those in America, so yes, everyone the bill applies to can actually vote on these things.And explain, how indirectly? Unless Toyota spontaneously begins creating new amendments for the Constitution, there is still no way they're going to have any real power over the internet or the domains it contains.
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@Videogamer555 (View Post)RIAA did not own the digital distribution rights, the creators of the content ie. Radio Head did.I concede on the dropship case, I overlooked the EULA.The problem is that the bill affects more than just the US.Lobbyist groups & Advertising mainly.Anyway, this is off topic.The reality is that SOPA won't stop what DMCA already can't.There's no benefits to bringing this bill into action.
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@devast8a (View Post)It should not affect anything outside of the United States, because, obviously, the US has no jurisdiction. If the company is owned and operated in the US, or services the US community greatly, it will be affected. However, since any corporation partaking to the latter is going to be rather large, it's unlikely to be affected due to having so many lawyers or loopholes around the copyright. That means that the only websites which have even a remote chance of being shut down are American owned, American operated, copyright infringing, small companies. A website has to be all these things in order to be shut down. Thus, the likelihood of any innocent website caught in the crossfire and shot down by this bill is near-zero, nada, zilch, not a thing, zippity-doo-da zippity-aye.Which has been one of my major points all along; any form of large-scale shutdowns because someone badmouthed a product or is a competitor is major, paranoid, conspiracy-theory bull****. The government using the bill to stampede on public rights over the internet is, again, major, paranoid, conspiracy-theory bull****.
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devast8a:
@Videogamer555 (View Post)RIAA did not own the digital distribution rights, the creators of the content ie. Radio Head did.I concede on the dropship case, I overlooked the EULA.The problem is that the bill affects more than just the US.Lobbyist groups & Advertising mainly.Anyway, this is off topic.The reality is that SOPA won't stop what DMCA already can't.There's no benefits to bringing this bill into action.
RIAA though still owned the non-digitial distribution rights. Radio Head could not use digital distribution because it took away potential RIAA customers. In effect Radio Head was pirating their own music, providing a cheap and easy alternative to RIAA's non-digital distribution, and thereby hurting RIAA's business. Downloading something for a lower price is not legal in a case like because it means that you aren't buying the officially released physical medium (CD or record), which then in turn hurts the person with non-digital distribution rights and costs them business, which is ultimately what piracy is; finding a cheap (or even free) NON-OFFICIAL release of a piece of music for DOWNLOAD that normally you'd have to pay more for from the OFFICIAL company to get (often on a PHYSICAL medium like a CD or record).
