Care to elaborate? I'm not a driver myself, so I haven't had to experience speed limits first hand. What's the problem with just driving under the posted speed limit?
1. Speed limits are slow and people are impatient. 55 MPH on a highway feels quite pokey in clear conditions when 75 MPH is easily possible with no appreciable loss in safety. And 30 MPH on surface streets is positively crawling. They are designed low knowing that the average user will exceed them, similar to the MPAA's tax on blank recording media where the expectation of violating is built into the product.
2. Blending in with the crowd. If the speed limit is 55 but everybody is going 75, it is safer for you to drive at 75 in smooth traffic flow rather than go 55 and create waves of darting and merging traffic trying to go around you.
3. Speed limits are sometimes applied dishonestly in the name of safety, when the real goal is revenue generation from violators. Such a law is immoral and unjust - government abusing its monopoly cartel power - and breaking it represents civil disobedience. This is more what the ancestor posts are getting at.
So, I'm not a traffic engineer, but I do work with several on different projects.
In the city, speed limits are not designed for revenue or assuming most people will exceed them. They are designed because that is the safest speed to drive. They assume several things here:
1. Non-ideal conditions with many traffic lights require slower speed limits.
2. Views are often blocked by building, landscaping etc.
3. There are many types of traffic that do not conform to our "car society" but are still legal users of roads. (bicycles, pedestrians, etc.)
The 55 MPH speed limit was also not a matter of safety, but of energy savings. That's a whole different issue, however.
You can think what you want, but I can assure you that speed limits inside cities are not some sort of conspiracy. It's far more likely that most people feel they are better drivers with quicker reaction times than they actually have.
EDIT: Quick elaboration. There's a saying in architecture, "You design a parking lot for a busy Saturday, not the day after Thanksgiving." Speed limits are a compromise. You likely can go faster often (though like I said, most people are not nearly as good drivers as they think they are), but you must consider the times when you cannot go faster when designing the road (night, rush hour, rain, etc.). Speed limits are designed to find a good compromise. Remember, if this were a conspiracy, you don't have to be speeding to get a ticket, you can be pulled over for "too fast for the conditions".
The thing to remember is that speed limits are not set by politicians, they are set by engineers.
In the end they are set by politicians. Not for malicious reasons; politicians don't need to be malicious in order to make bad decisions, they have plenty of other reasons for that. In many parts of the US, surface road speed limits are quite reasonable, but freeway speed limits are ridiculously low.
You are correct, by the way, as far as I know, that the 55mph speed limit was originally an energy conservation thing. This was during the oil crisis of the 70s, when it was federally imposed. Ever since the federal mandate was lifted, speed limits have been creeping back up, but at very different rates in different states.
To give a comparison, in France freeway speed limits are roughly 80mph in dry weather and 70mph in rain (I say roughly because they are, of course, in metric.) In Belgium, and the Netherlands it's 75mph, although The Netherlands has introduced many variable speed limits (electronic signs based on congestion) and recently bumped it up to 80mph on certain rural stretches (rural by Dutch standards). Germany, of course, has no speed limits at all on many long-distance Autobahns (about 50% of the network), although in metropolitan areas, contrary to popular mythology in the US, they often do have speed limits, which go by the charmingly long-winded name of "Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkung," often shortened in colloquial speech to "Tempolimit." The de facto speed limit on the unrestricted Autobahns is 125mph, since that's the fastest unmodified German cars will go.
So did some technocratic bunch of engineers evaluate the conditions in each of these countries and decide that somehow some subtle difference of geography that Germans are capable of safely driving a full 65 mph faster than Hawaiians?
I doubt it.
May I also remind the reader that East Germany used to have a rigorously enforced 60mph limit that was rather promptly lifted after the reunification, which was by no means an event of particular relevance to traffic engineering.
Politics definitely does influence speed limits. Example 1: a freeway was planned for decades, and when construction was finally ready to start, environmentalists sued to halt construction. Several years later, part of the settlement was a 55MPH speed limit.
Example 2: a small town declares with pride that all streets controlled by the city finally have limits of 35MPH or slower, even though there are several roads capable of much higher speeds.
I'll tell you what, try riding a motorcycle sometime. You'll gain a lot more appreciation of what it means for you and the people all around you to be moving at 55mph (let alone 70+) in 2 ton metal boxes, in relatively close proximity. I think the problem is not that speed limits are too slow, it's that modern cars are too comfortable, lulling you into a false sense of security.
The problem is that 'safe driving speed' is completely dependent on road conditions(weather, traffic, pavement quality, time of day, day of the week(lots of drunk drivers on weekend nights), traffic makeup, etc.). Metal boxes with seat belts and airbags are far safer than motorcycles, but it's not appropriate to go 80 when motorcycles are nearby.
Try cruise-controlling at 55, even when everybody else is going 75. You'll get 4/3 the fuel economy, and it's so much less stressful, dirty looks or no.
Usually, posting an Ayn Rand quote on the Internet is a good way to start a flame war. But there's one quote in particular that few intelligent people will disagree with, and that even fewer will be able to dispute.
“There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any
government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes
impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
By itself, speeding is a victimless crime: if you hit something or someone with your car, you were doing something wrong besides just speeding. The main idea behind speed limits is to "make criminals," in Rand's words. They are a tool that gives law enforcement a valid reason to pull over virtually anybody and everybody on the road. At the end of the day, the result is less respect for traffic laws and police in general, but more revenue for police departments, municipalities, and insurance companies.
As a young driver, speed limits on open highways -- or simply the idea that an untrained, politically-appointed bureaucrat in Washington, DC has any insight into what's optimal for drivers on I-10 in West Texas -- were my very first encounter with the idea she's referring to.
>By itself, speeding is a victimless crime: if you hit something or someone with your car, you were doing something wrong besides just speeding.
This is so untrue I don't even know where to begin. The number of accidents that could be prevented if people would just slow down is amazing. Icy, rainy, foggy... going too fast is by far the most common cause of accidents.
I said this in another reply and I will say it again, speed limits are designed by engineers, not by "untrained, politically-appointed bureaucrats". Of all the things you could come down on the government for, this is one of those first-world problems that just makes you look uninformed.
Icy, rainy, foggy... going too fast is by far the most common cause of accidents.
Your mistake is in confusing "going too fast for conditions" with "going too fast for a sign at the side of the road." The relevant laws are more complex than your beliefs. Failure to maintain appropriate speed for conditions does indeed get people killed, but it has nothing to do with "speeding."
Under the wrong conditions, even driving 10 MPH below the speed limit can be suicidally reckless. Under the right conditions, driving at twice the speed limit confers negligible incremental risk.
I said this in another reply and I will say it again, speed limits are designed by engineers, not by "untrained, politically-appointed bureaucrats"
You can say it as much as you want, but this not being Harry Potter Land, it won't make it true. Speed limits are typically set by engineers by taking the 85th percentile speed into consideration, but it's trivial to find countless examples where local and state politics have dictated lower limits for the sake of revenue-raising, misguided ideas of what makes for safe driving conditions, or both.
Considering all anyone has done is make assertations with no proof, I will take the view of the many traffic engineers I work with over your so called "trivial to find" examples, none of which you or anyone else has been able to provide or prove. I'm sure your expert driving skills keep you very safe, but I will count myself lucky that the 17 year old that cruises down my street at 45 MPH despite his percieved ability got pulled over.
Incidentally, do you propose that "too fast for conditions" be the law? I find that surprising, considering how much discretionary power that would put in the hands of the government.
Speeders are falling for the old "99% of people rate themselves as above average" thing. Most people feel safe speeding because they have never personally gotten into an accident. The lack of consequences creates a feeling of being invincible, or competence at the very least.
The fact is, if you hit a person at 35 they have a much higher chance of dying than if you hit them at 25. We encourage people to drive slowly so that they have more time to react to unexpected conditions and that if they fail to react, other people are not injured. Speeding is like dumping toxic waste into the nearby river: pure selfishness.
Incidentally, do you propose that "too fast for conditions" be the law?
It is the law. The fact that you're even asking this question suggests that I'm wasting my time arguing with you.
You need to consult your state's driver's handbook, rather than asking some random guy on HN. Chances are it uses almost the same phrasing you're asking about. Failing that, have a look at the Michigan State Police's site: http://www.michigan.gov/msp/0,4643,7-123-1593_30536_25802-16... . I didn't read the whole page but it seems to do a good job explaining the difference between prima facie speed limits and "basic speed law."
I find that surprising, considering how much discretionary power that would put in the hands of the government.
Artificially-low speed limits give them that discretion now, which is sort of the whole point of my mini-rant.
>It is the law. The fact that you're even asking this question suggests that I'm wasting my time arguing with you.
Yes I know it's the law. I should have been more clear:
Do you propose it be the exclusive law.
And the point of my reply is that speed limits are not artificially low, that's simply your contention, one that you have failed to provide any proof for.
I don't know. I'm not a traffic engineer, and that's the sort of question they would be best equipped to hash out. It certainly needs to be a component of the law, or a policeman would have no legal way to stop some lunatic who drives at the posted 75 MPH limit in a foggy blizzard.
I do know that "reasonable and prudent" was the exclusive rule on Montana's highways prior to the 55 MPH Federal NMSL law in the 1970s, and that they tried returning to it for a time after the NMSL was repealed. For whatever reason, it didn't work for them, and they went back to setting specific limits.
And the point of my reply is that speed limits are not artificially low, that's simply your contention, one that you have failed to provide any proof for.
Sorry, I'm not a librarian either. I'm satisfied that my position is correct and I have the same right (or lack thereof) to state it here that you do.
As far as our disagreement is concerned, it might help if we could drill down and find out exactly where our opinions diverge. Here are the premises I'm working from:
1) To optimize safe and efficient traffic flow, speed limits should be set by traffic engineers, and not by mayors, police chiefs, legislators, or soccer moms. (My main concern is highway speed limits, as I almost never find myself exceeding posted limits in populated areas, but I assert that this is true in all cases.)
2) However, not all speed limits are set by traffic engineers. It's indisputable that some are set for political reasons, and no, I am not going to "provide citations" for something this obvious. Subjectively, as my initial post in the thread stated, I'd go so far as to say that most limits are politically influenced. An organization such as www.motorists.org would be a better place to look for cases and statistics.
3) People who have the political authority to set or influence speed limits, and who are not qualified traffic engineers, almost always want lower limits than the engineers would advise setting for the conditions at hand.
From these I conclude that it cannot be the case that speed limits are always set at the optimal point for safe and efficient traffic flow. Experience as a driver suggests that speed limits are not commonly set at artificially high values. That leaves only one conclusion: that at least some speed limits are set artificially low.
Which specific assertion(s) do you disagree with, and why? I'd invite you to show this reply to your friends in traffic engineering as well, so we could see what areas they would agree/disagree with.
> if you hit something or someone with your car, you were doing something wrong besides just speeding.
Only if you assume the driver has perfect knowledge of the nearby pedestrians, the road surface, what other road users are going to do before they do it, arbitrarily fast reaction speeds and flawless judgement. Oh, and brand new brakes.
Shit happens. Speeding makes it much worse when it does.
Shit happens. Speeding makes it much worse when it does.
Statistics repeatedly fail to bear out your assertion. Promised increases in death rates that accompany increased highway speed limits essentially never materialize.
Modeling drivers as ideal gas particles whose collision rate is proportional to speed is simply wrong.
I'll leave off the usual pedestrian fatality statistics here, because you seem not to be interested in that, and it's shooting fish in a barrel.
> Promised increases in death rates that accompany increased highway speed limits essentially never materialize.
From the second link's abstract:
...a speed limit increase from 55 to 65 mi/h on the average section would
be associated with a 24% increase in the probability of an occupant being
fatally injured, once a crash has occurred.
That study looked at actual collision data. Where people had raised the speed limits, and actually seen actual increases in actual death rates.
> Modeling drivers as ideal gas particles whose collision rate is proportional to speed is simply wrong.
Don't do that, then. It's not directly proportional to speed, but there is a positive correlation. If you're going to convince me that speed limits are pointless and irrelevant, you're going to need to explain away some pretty basic physics.
I present this more as a interesting anecdote than a real argument but the fatality rate on the roads in Germany (where the autobhans have no enforced speed limit and seeing someone drive at 150mph is not uncommon) is considerably lower than in the US.
The reason this isn't a particularly great comparison is that driver training, car design and even the German attitude to driving are all built around the potential for high speeds.
When the speed limit went up on
four stretches of road between Nephi and
Cedar City, accidents went down by 20 percent,
according to the three-year study by UDOT.
Collision rate isn't what we want to minimize; fatality rate is. And the odds of pedestrian death in a collision are about 5% at 20mph, 45% at 30mph, and 85% at 40mph. Source: http://humantransport.org/sidewalks/SpeedKills.htm
As a side note, when claiming statistics support your point of view, please cite those statistics. Keeps everyone honest. Thanks.
He is talking about highway speeds not side streets in a city.
I grew up in Maine, I-95 while I was younger had a completely baseless speed limit of 65mph. North of Augusta there is an average of about 20 miles between exits and very few travelers, there is no reason what-so-ever to impose a 65mph speed limit.
I now live in Boston and I-95 north to Maine travels though New Hampshire (for a whopping ~10 miles). Everyone knows that you follow the letter of the law in regards to the speed limit in New Hampshire. Why? I assure you it has nothing to do with safety, just as the $2 toll has nothing to do with maintaining 10 miles of highway. The state farms income from that highway in the form of tolls and tickets.
I'll give you speed limits make sense in cities, but given the fact that I've lived in Boston for 6 years now and seen about 3 people pulled over for speeding in that time, it doesn't really appear to be much enforced. Highways on the other hand have absurdly low speed limits and are farmed for ticket income regularly.
I don't think anyone here wants to raise speed limits in pedestrian-heavy areas. Talking about pedestrian fatalities is not constructive to an argument about freeway speed limits.
It's not an argument about freeway speed limits, but about speed limits in general and in principle. I don't know where "freeway" was introduced as a limiter.
Different roads have such widely differing conditions that it's not possible to discuss speed limits in general and come to any meaningful conclusion. Since the implicit point of an argument is to come to a meaningful conclusion, it can be assumed that arguments which do not terminate in a meaningful conclusion are excluded. "In principle" is also not an argument that will fly with a lot of hackers who reject deontology.
That still doesn't change a simple fact: no one said "highway speed limits". That was introduced when things started to look bad. "Speed limits are an artificial government limit designed to make people criminals" was the contention. You can't change the scope of the argument when it suits you. If you believe that speed limits are ok in pedestrian areas, you are not categorically opposed to speed limits. You may be opposed to speed limits on the highway, but that changes the scope of the discussion.
There is implicit context in every argument, which I made explicit in my previous comment. Arguing over the scope of the discussion instead of the substance is counterproductive to arriving at a meaningful conclusion. I bet you were loads of fun in your high school debate class.
>Example 2: a small town declares with pride that all streets controlled by the city finally have limits of 35MPH or slower, even though there are several roads capable of much higher speeds.
Other relevat comments that set the discussion:
>Or so simple as speeding when you drive? There are many laws which do not function as they should.
and
>By itself, speeding is a victimless crime: if you hit something or someone with your car, you were doing something wrong besides just speeding. The main idea behind speed limits is to "make criminals," in Rand's words. They are a tool that gives law enforcement a valid reason to pull over virtually anybody and everybody on the road. At the end of the day, the result is less respect for traffic laws and police in general, but more revenue for police departments, municipalities, and insurance companies.
So yes, it sounds to me like we're not limiting this to highways, but rather to the governments right to set things like speed limits and whether those limits are effective. Now, if you think that there should be a right to set speed limits in town but not on highways, we need to establish that.
You, yourself, included non-highways in this discussion. I respect your decision to exclude them but clearly you are limiting the scope of the discussion from what you personally set it at.
And of course the scope matter, the relevant facts change(i.e. the politically influenced decision to lower speed limits to 55 MPH) when you change the scope. This isn't a matter substance, it's a matter of deciding what we are all talking about. If you want to just talk about highways, you should do that, but clearly not everyone else feels we are talking exclusivly about highways or they wouldn't have brought it into the discussion.
My other comment was in response to your assertion that speed limits are set by engineers. It was a simple proof by counterexample. I don't see a point coming out of all this, so I'll most likely withdraw from the discussion now.
My God, this is entirely, entirely, wrong. When you speed, you're JUST as culpable of killing someone whether you actually kill them or not. This is an old ethics issue: you can imagine two scenarios, both of which you do exactly the same actions: speeding down a road. The difference is that in one of them, a pedestrian doesn't see you bearing down on him, and you kill him. The pedestrian may or may not be there, but in one scenario, you're a monster, and in the other, you're just a speeder - even though your actions are identical in each case!
The right answer is that you're a monster in BOTH scenarios, and you should never fucking speed.
I think you missed the entire point of the discussion.
Where speed limits are set arbitrarily or cannot be set at a consistently appropriate level, there is no moral consequence of exceeding them.
Thought experiment: A geriatric, possible senile driver runs his car into a traffic barrier at 5mph on a busy road. In my infinite wisdom I declare that 5mph is clearly too fast for geriatric, possible senile old men and set the speed limit to 3mph. Is it then immoral for you to exceed 3mph on this road?
How about 4mph? 5? Etc. up to arbitrary speed limit.
You're conflating driving at a certain speed with driving at a speed which is unsafe, which is purely a question of degree. 10mph may be marginally more dangerous than 5, but that doesn't make it immoral to drive at 10mph.
Therefore, if you drive at a speed which is unsafe and likely to result in your scenario above, you are morally responsible for your actions. But there is nothing immoral per se about an expert driver, in clear conditions, exceeding a speed limit while maintaining control of the vehicle and being aware of their surroundings.
It's a waste of time. My suspicion is that we're arguing with a bunch of folks who spend a lot of time riding buses, and/or who don't even hold drivers' licenses.
What a load of absolute tosh. Governments provide a lot more than 'cracking down on criminals'. Or are you one of these supposedly 'intelligent' people who see public schools as a sequestering station for criminals? When an industry receives a government subsidy, how is that 'cracking down on criminals'? Perhaps we should ask the street-sweepers how effective they are at 'cracking down on criminals'? What about firefighters and paramedics, how are they turning the common citizen into a criminal?
Why must libertarians so egregiously misdefine common terms? Why are they so wilfully self-delusional?
Try keeping your kid home from public school without obtaining permission to withdraw them, and see what happens.
Permission is actually not that hard to get. Try talking to someone who home-schools their kids. As for 'see what happens', are you suggesting that the parents get jailed? Could you please cite some references? Because otherwise you're just using weasel words, leaving it 'out there' for the imagination, rather than actually specifying what happens.
I have to say also that it's a neat trick of yours to turn the entire educational system into a 'system to create criminals' simply because you think it's hard to homeschool.
Try not paying your share of the tax money that the government is turning over to the industry, and see what happens.
Uh... taxation is separate to subsidies. I know that libertarians try and turn everything into an argument about tax, but saying 'subsidies are an exercise of power making people criminals because... tax!' is just being childish. Rand's comment is saying that the government can only act through punishment, and clearly it does other things as well.
Hey, embassy staff helping out a citizen who has run into trouble in a foreign country... well, that's the evil of the government coming to the fore... because... tax!
Hey, government interpreters translating materials for new immigrants so they know their rights and responsibilities... well... that's the evil of the government coming to the fore... because... tax!
Hey, government-provided lawyers to represent you if you can't afford one... well... evil tax!
Street maintenance is not an exercise of "power."
It is a power the government has - which proves Rand's comment incorrect. Rand didn't say "Governments exercising power can only make criminals", she said "the only power a government has is to crack down on criminals".
Fire/paramedic services are not exercises of "power."
Ditto.
Libertarian arguments rely on the government being turned into a fantasy boogyman. All governments have problems, but how do you expect a pragmatic solution to them if you don't actually care about using truthful definitions?
Governments have many powers besides cracking down on criminals, that speed limits are designed to make criminals is a baseless claim, and bureaucrats in Washington, DC don't decide them - federal speed limits were repealed in 1995. In particular, the speed limit on West Texas are set by the Texas Department of Transportation.
In particular, the speed limit on West Texas are set by the Texas Department of Transportation.
Not when I was driving there, it wasn't. (This is called "showing my age," for the benefit of those who haven't had the opportunity to catch themselves doing that yet.)
Governments have many powers besides cracking down on criminals
What are some examples, apart from foreign policy where the basis of power is ultimately military?
This is purely pedantic, but making printing money illegal is controlling the supply of currency, which is different than controlling the money supply.
The money supply is elastic and can't strictly be controlled by anyone. The government will artifically increase it by printing currency or loaning money, however, which has essentially the same effect.
The DRM argument for piracy is a bit of a straw man.
Music hasn't been sold with DRM for over three years, but it still makes up a sizable portion of The Pirate Bay's offerings. You could say that musicians are being tyrannical by choosing to distribute their recordings in the way that maximizes their profit instead of choosing to give it away. I would reply that some people do choose to give away their work. I'm happy to live in a world where people get to make that choice of what to do with something they've created.
Obviously movies, tv shows, and books are another matter. Personally, I think it's only a matter of time until those go DRM-free too, but a "matter of time" might longer than any of us would wish for. This is more of a matter of business model. There never really was a rental model for music in the physical media era, however, consumers seem to have a demand for a digital version of renting movies. With books, I think the parallel is libraries where you could sign out a book and return it. In any event, consumers seem to prefer paying a lower price for the ability to consume a movie/tv show/book for a limited time window to paying a higher price for the ability to keep it.
It should go without saying in this community that a rental model for media without DRM simply wouldn't work. Because there would be no means to return the movie/tv/show/book other than making the user promise to delete the file, a DRM-free "rental" would become equivalent to a sale. The result would be less consumer choice.
As for when the "sale" option goes DRM-free, I think someone will come along and offer movies in three tiers:
1. rental (with DRM, obviously), for about $4
2. sale, with DRM limiting how many times it can be copied, for about $8
3. sale, DRM-free, for maybe $12
It will be interesting to see how many people opt for #3. Getting a critical mass of people to choose to spend a little more for a DRM-free product is how we'll get to a future without DRM. The number of people using sites like The Pirate Bay won't even be a major factor in those discussions.
Expecting people to know and care about DRM, is like expecting people to read and understand the Table of contents in food.
The Hambuger seller:
1. A picture of an Hamburger $4 2.Sale, with just a tiny bit of arsnic in it, $8. Sale, Arsnic free, for maybe $12.
With this hypothetical Humburger product, most people will still pick option 2, not thinking about reading the table of content or understanding the effect arsnic has on the body (maybe they do not know what the word arsnic mean). They will look at the price and pick the cheaper one of two semi-looking identical products.
The way to get food arsnic free is not about teaching the average man what arsnic is, what its effects are on the human body, and that they might prefer the arsnic free food. That its their responsibility, and noone else, to identify food that are arsnic free.
DRM is by its definition a program, created to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems. This is an identical definition to that of malware. That DRM is indistinguishable from Rootkits should make it obvious to society as a sign that DRM is harmful.
DRM should thus be illegal in commercial sold products, identical to the food industry regulation. Consumers are protected from food that is directly harmful (like arsnic sprinkled hamburgers). If a program is written to be directly harmful, it too should be illegal to sell. If the goal of the program is to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems, it should not matter if a song is attached to it.
I actually really like your idea of comparing the choice of DRM-encumbered vs DRM-free files to choices we make with respect to how our food is produced.
I think many Americans have a general idea that the food they eat is the product of a corporate farming system that can be pretty sketchy. We expect the government to get involved when the practices of food producers create a food safety issue, but otherwise we leave it up to consumers to choose. And some consumers do choose to buy grass-fed beef, free-range chickens, and organic produce, and pay extra for it.
There are probably some parallels to be drawn with respect to product labeling. (Should Amazon and iTunes be forced to warn consumers that the movie they're about to buy includes some type of DRM?)
More importantly, though, both of these situations require consumers to be educated in order to make informed decisions about which product to buy. If we as a culture want our farming system to be more humane to animals and better stewards of the earth, we need to teach our peers how to read food labels and understand what they mean. If we as a technical community want DRM to not be forced into the files we buy, we need to educate our peers on the drawbacks of DRM and persuade them to make it an issue.
> DRM is by its definition a program, created to disrupt computer operation and gain access to private computer systems. This is an identical definition to that of malware. That DRM is indistinguishable from Rootkits should make it obvious to society as a sign that DRM is harmful.
I think you must be thinking of a different DRM. DRM means Digital Rights Management, and describes any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that are not desired or intended by the content provider. And that's it.
I'm guessing you're thinking of Sony's 2005 rootkit incident, which was an example of DRM implemented in a completely stupid and dangerous way. And it wasn't legal at the time nor is it now - Sony was forced to recall the CDs and settled a class-action lawsuit. But regardless of this, the fact that the program "gained access to private systems" was completely secondary to its goal of making the CD's content uncopyable.
I'm not saying I support it, but you're not helping your cause by telling hyperbolic lies about what DRM is.
DRM for music is deeply entrenched in the ecosystem. The most overt of DRM layers can't exist on old media CDs, but it's still everywhere.
None of the major online music services allow unlimited sharing (of files), and even getting this far was a long legal mess, representing part of the extensive history where DRM has attempted to parasitize the legal system.
I work for a small record label in my spare time. We submitted a song for pressing (on vinyl), and received a warning from the RIAA not to sell it. The record contained a (very interpreted) cover of a pop song.
DRM at every level of the industry. The lack of direct software enforcement in digital music files really doesn't mean anything.
I think you're stretching the definition of DRM a bit. In my comment, I was referring to the set of technologies used to make it harder to copy a legally purchased file.
In any event, we're talking about technical solutions to licensing problems.
I haven't read any reports of Google or Amazon's cloud music players adding DRM to files after they've been uploaded. Has anyone heard differently? I thought the whole reason they were legally in the clear is because they're basically file lockers with playback functionality.
The "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media" amendment to the AHRA may be an example of the Recording Industry's lobbying efforts being rewarded more than we'd like, but DRM it is not.
As for your warning letter from the RIAA: did they have reason to believe you wouldn't be paying your publishing royalties? I imagine your record label probably works with the Harry Fox Agency all the time. Was there something that was unusual about your case?
It's true I'm overloading the term. Originally we were talking about DRM as an excuse for piracy; my point was that the inconvenience and restriction is all over the market, not just on an album.
That particular case was years ago, and the only time we've brushed with the RIAA. We're a very small operation and didn't bother to get lawyers involved. Paying royalties wasn't something we'd consider as the work is only superficially related to the original (by my reckoning), riding the line between parody and fundamental re-interpretation. I feel the IP test for such works is unethically restrictive and greedy.
I disagree. Free software projects like the GNU foundation or the OpenBSD foundation are striving towards freedom.
ThePirateBay.se et al are simply filling in on market demand created by the utter absurdity of treating digital data as if it was a can of tomatoes or a bag of crisps.
Actually, if the app I just bought off the app store was a "can of tomatoes", couldn't I use it on any device of my choosing, give it to my friend or include it as part of my estate as a gift to my children?
The absurdity is that we are consumers not customers. We have no rights except the bare minimum. We are sold on the dream and yet we will all experience a rude awakening (this part is never advertised).
Sounds great. The big bad record companies can't treat music like a bag of crisps. Neither can independent artists. Neither can Notch, because a game is no more like a bag of crisps than a CD track.
The consumers can and do. We collectively decided that a .99 cents for a song or $15 for a physical album isn't worth it. Equilibrium will eventually happen, the smart artists are already making money in the new music industry.
Yes and no. The pirating situation isn't that simple. I used to pirate a lot of games, but then Steam came along and I've pretty much not pirated anything since. Pirating was, for me, not just about being free in cost, but also a way to get the games via the internet without having to go into a shop and see if they had it, then possibly wait until they ordered it in. There was also the pain of license keys when they didn't work - it only takes a couple to start making you gun-shy.
Admittedly it's not music and I'm not familiar with the pirating in that arena, but it seems to me that pirating is a more complex beast than most people paint it.
In the words of a good friend of mine:
"You wouldn't download a car? Man if I could download a car off the internet for free, you bet your sweet ass I would!"
There is no "FOSS", Free Software is software which respects the users freedom, Open-Source software is software which allow the ability to study the source code(not that some Open-Source licenses is kinda like Free Software licenses too, but some are even similar to non-free software). They are two completely different things. Yes, I support FSF and GNU more than TPB of course.
There is such a thing as FOSS. That stands for Free and Open Source Software. There is software that is "Free" and software that is Open Source and, as I'm sure you are aware, the software that belongs to both groups is the (vast?) majority of each respective group.
It is called Free _and_ Open Source Software, it is the intersection of the two groups, and it is a pretty useful group to think about when you want to be inclusive and avoid word definition collisions with the word "free".
Going back and reading the initial comment, I think I see where you are coming from. The poster says "FOSS projects like GNU..." and that is off base if he was implying that GNU has anything to do with OSS. You are right, no one should be talking about a GNU as a FOSS project due to their outright rejection of the OSS ideology.
But just so we're clear, it is possible to talk about FOSS itself (the software) in a meaningful way. It's not like the term is oxymoronic or something, in fact, the two descriptions are nearly redundant when it comes to describing the rights you get as a user, which is what you should be concerned with as a user of the software.
Why shouldn't we apply this to projects as well? I guess the questions I would ask to clarify the point are: 1) What do you call a project that would like to empower users with software freedom but would also like to embrace the development style of Open Source? 2) Given that there are so many projects out there that embrace exactly that combination, shouldn't we have a name for that?
As I said before, different names results in different ideas. I haven't seen any software stating it's a FOSS software, I've only seen people who don't know the difference between Free Software and Open Software use the term. I don't think you are one of those but many are and that's why I hate the term "FOSS".
Typically that's part of belonging to a community.
Are you morally free to kill your guards if you are in prison through a failure of the judicial system? I don't think you are.
How about if you are in a death camp, where your government has not made a mistake, but is executing its legislatively determined plan of genocide? I think you are morally free to kill your guards in that case.
I also think you are morally free to rob a store for medical supplies during a natural disaster, but not morally free to rob a bank to pay for a relative's life-saving surgery.
When to break the law should be a conscious decision, consistent with some framework of ultimate costs and benefits to yourself, your society and beliefs, not merely opportunism or a universal refusal to ever defer to the rest of the community's decisions.
I'm not the OP, but here is my opinion. As a rule of thumb I don't support illegal activities. Why would I? Most of the laws I agree with, like no murder/rape/robbery. However some laws I'm against. Like the public drinking ban in Norway, why can't I have a beer by the lake?
And on the topic of media industries vs. file sharing. I haven't really made up my mind. Especially after the media industry brought tanks and fighter jets to a knife fight.
There are so many laws, I don't know how you could possibly say in an informed manner that you agree with most of them.
Making ethical decisions is easy for the majority of us, but our knowledge of the law is universally poor. I don't see why we should factor the law into discussions of ethics; it doesn't do anything to simplify the discussion.
> There are so many laws, I don't know how you could possibly say in an informed manner that you agree with most of them.
Oh, come on now. You can be informed on the ones that matter to you the most, and the ones which are most commonly broken, which says a lot about the society you live in. It's not that hard.
> I don't see why we should factor the law into discussions of ethics
Because laws, in many or most cases, reflect the moral or ethical views of a large number of people, or at least they did at the time they were passed. The fact that laws survived the lawmaking process at all means we should consider the thoughts that went into their creation. I'm not saying you should read every word of every statute. But a nation's laws are in many ways reflections of its cultural ethics.
The laws that "matter most" reflect ethics which are "no brainers". "Don't steal", "don't kill", "don't rape", etc.
These are ethical concepts that are easy to understand without resorting to consulting the law. The law in these cases is just an imperfect encoding of these obvious ethics. For the sake of governing, they work decently. However using them in an ethical discussion is using them for a purpose that they were not designed. There are so many better sources that we can look to in order to facilitate discussion.
Trying to use laws as a vehicle to discuss ethics is like examining Cheese Wiz to learn about dairy.
I support any activity that fits into my own set of moral rules.
Some activities are illegal but I support them because I don't see them as immoral. Other activities are perfectly legal but I don't support them because I see them as immoral.
I believe that, in general, supporting the law is good. Even in case of laws one deems silly. Even in a country where the lawmaking is somewhat corrupt.
Getting picky about which laws I obey would contribute towards social climate of not respecting the law in general. There are countries like that and their societies suffer as a result.
On the other hand for some laws the benefits of breaking them outweigh the above downsides.
The people who say that copyright laws are evil are generally the same people who say the laws that make DDOS attacks a felony are criminalizing "the digital equivalent of a sit-in"... but only when the DDOS is being carried out by people they agree with.
I can't speak for everyone, but when the US gov or the MPAA DDOS's a website they disagree with, I'm not angry because what they are doing is illegal, I'm angry about the hypocrisy in declaring something to be both legally and morally wrong, except when it serves their purposes.
I dislike illegal activities but I don't think many things around this is illegal. Note that TPB doesn't host any illegal copies, they doesn't distribute any either. The only illegal is the users themselfs.
1. copyright infringment, mainly a civil offense, that addresses speculatve monetary losses to
2. conspiracy to commit murder, a criminal offense with a history hundreds of years older than the notion of "copyright", that is aimed at preserving a human life?
How do you do that? That is an enormous leap. Is it some sort of mental gymnastics?
Is a human life more important than your "copyrighted work"?
Really bizarre thinking, or maybe it's just me.
I don't believe he was trying to make the two morally equivalent, just to say that there is a similar legal principle in question.
I think his point is that the same legal principle applies. TPB is clearly "in-league" with copyright violators. I will not weigh in on whether this is right or not, but it's obvious from their past behaviors (blog posts, etc.). They are guilty of "conspiracy to commit copyright violation".
My comment is not to do with TPB. My comment has to do with mixing legal principles (or more specifcally, areas of law) that are very different and do not mix well.
I disagree that "the same legal principle" applies, but then I'm not sure we have the same principles in mind. It sounds like you are thinking about the concept of conspiracy in general, or contributory infringement. But that's not what I was referring to.
In my mind, there is a clear delineation between what is criminal offence and involves bodily harm ("illegal") and what is simply an alleged violation of intellectual property or contractual rights (e.g. "alleged copyright infringment").
When someone jumps from one to the other, as the commenter did, it is very strange. Because to me they are two very different areas of law with their own distinct philosophical origins. That's why they are almost always separated into a criminal code and a civil code.
There are plenty of examples of conspiracy to commit civil offences. Ignoring them and using an example from criminal law, and in particular homicide, one of the most heinous of all crimes, seems unnecesary. It raises the suspicion that either the commenter is using this example merely for shock value or that his knowledge of the law is very narrow and not well-informed.
I agree with you, that is why I put "consipiracy to commit copyright infringment" in quotation marks. That's not a thing and I don't really have an opinion on whether it should be a thing.
I read you statement as you thinking he was making a moral equivlancy (conspiracy to commit murder was the same as aiding copyright infringement). My point was that he's not making a moral equivlancy, he's just pointing out that to say TBP is not culpable because they don't host the files on their servers is missing the point, at least missing the point as lawmakers might see it.
Correct: I purposely did not delve into any specifics, because I was simply trying to demonstrate that "I did not host the file or do the actual infringement" is really not a sufficiently complex argument to actually mean that you are not liable, and even if it means you are not liable under current law, I do not feel it is at all clear that in some larger ethical sense you shouldn't be liable, and I can sympathize with people who have campaigned to add such liability. And certainly, I did not attempt to argue "moral equivalence" between "murder" and "copyright infringement" (and feel that anyone who thinks I did, such as the guy who decided to hide behind the name "howcan", is just being argumentative: it serves no purpose in pushing forward a discussion and just drags down the conversation; you always need to draw parallels: that's how language works).
However, your statement "that's not a thing" is not entirely accurate: the DMCA's anti-tampering clause actually feels quite a bit like a law in the style of "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement". Specifically, it holds people who distribute tools that bypass protection mechanisms culpable, even if the primary use of that tool is not for copyright infringement (not so for the Pirate Bay), even if any and all marketing is for that positive use (not true for torrents: it is a rare torrent client that isn't marketing in a way that makes it clear "you could use this to infringe; in fact, here's a screenshot of another user doing so"), and even if there is a clear moderation effort and stance against piracy (again: certainly not the case with the Pirate Bay).
Of course, neither the Pirate Bay nor torrent clients are protection mechanisms, so AFAIK these laws would not and could not be used, and the DMCA is a US-specific law and these people aren't operating here, so I'm not trying to say they are already breaking this law (another reason to not go into specifics: they really aren't directly relevant, and it then requires this massive hedge to make certain people don't start arguing some nitpick of an example off into the weeds); however, it is a clear example of "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement" as a real law that has been used with real consequences in the real world in situations where people have committed not a single act of piracy.
Note: the closest I have ever gotten to being a lawyer was a role as the off-stage voice of the judge in a college performance of 12 Angry Men; what I know about this subject comes from running Cydia, the alternative to the App Store dealing in everything other than an App for jailbroken iPhones, which has had me deeply involved in the hearings to get DMCA exemptions. I thereby also watched with much interest the results of Sony's lawsuit against GeoHot, who happened to also have been the first person to unlock the iPhone and an instrumental player in various jailbreaks that were released, and his related-but-separate DMCA exemption that is currently going through hearings.
What that does mean, however, is that I'm on the other side of this: so if anyone (like "howcan") wants to make an argument that I'm somehow making some moral stance that contributing, even accidentally, to copyright infringement of others is as problematic as murder, I should really only have to go "seriously? you're argument is that I shouldn't call myself a murderer?". It also means, and I say this quite sadly, that I have a front-row seat to the effects of these laws: if you want to claim that these laws do not have any teeth, or do not take the overall stance that "conspiracy to commit copyright infringement" is a relevant idea, I thereby feel I need to ask how much experience you have in these matters.
It just seemed like a very extreme example to use to illustrate conspiracy. That's all. You're not the only one I've seen draw such extreme examples. I am being argumentative. But that's only because I think there's an argument worth making. Apologies for singling you out. I probably misinterpreted your comment and chose the wrong time to make my argument.
As long as we understand what "illegal" means and the difference between criminal and civil, I'm happy. I think it's to the benefit of all hackers to know the difference and choose their examples carefully. It matters what you as a hacker think and how you understand these things. If you do not see a clear separation between the civil and criminal, it makes the job easier for those who seek to blur the line to further their own interests.
Anyway, I apologise if I misinterpreted your comment and used it as an entry point for a little rant about the difference between civil and criminal. My bad.
This have nothing to do with bittorrent, the bittorrent protocol and torrents came long before people started sharing illegal copies of software. It's a great technology and it's actually meant to make downloads faster.
First of all, I would like you to read my comment to the other person who replied to me, because I did not state that anyone in this situation was actively guilty, only that the argument that people were not doing anything illegal solely because they did not actively do the act is overly simplistic (and in fact generally incorrect with regards to piracy, as my example from the other post shows, even if it is specifically correct for this example, although that would require some support). I will also ask you to please pay attention to who wrote the arguments you are responding to, as all language will be more easily understood if you know how to better decode the other person's statements.
However, you have now drawn a parallel to a different group of people (people who make clients, as opposed to people who build search engines), and I think the results there are more easy to see. For context, I run Cydia, the alternative to the App Store for jailbroken iPhones. We specialize (and in fact only really care about) software that is not an "App" (and thereby could not ever be submitted for sale in the App Store); however, as Apple rejects many apps, we tend to often get people coming to us with their submissions that they feel Apple should not have rejected from their store.
Many of these rejected products are torrent clients, and when they come to Cydia, we now blanket reject them as well. The reason is that the people who write these clients really are attempting to promote piracy in a way that the gun shop owner is not attempting to promote murder: the majority of their users are using them to pirate, they know that this is the case and are profiting directly off of the result, and prominently feature piracy in their marketing by showing screenshots of people pirating along with "see how easy it is?".
This latter point is very important: the firearm shop in your example was probably started by someone who either likes explosives, likes the history of war, likes hunting, or feels some need to protect himself and his community from the government or thieves or any other random threat; the person who owns the shop probably is not himself out killing people, he probably did not make the shop to make it easier for himself to get guns, and he probably did not build a business with the idea "most of the people I sell these guns to are murderers".
The result is that you don't see firearm shops that have giant signs on the front of their store with a picture of themselves killing someone as marketing for how simple and effective their guns are. When someone comes into their shop asking how to more effectively kill someone with their gun, they do not happily and cheerfully help them with their support issue. They also don't run community events (to draw a parallel to web forums) for people to mingle and discuss how much fun they have killing people.
However, this kind of thing is what happens when people start selling a torrent client: these two situations are quite obviously not the same situation, and yet I keep seeing this firearm example come up in defense of selling torrent clients as "if I can sell firearms that someone might use to murder someone, why can't I sell torrent clients that someone might use to commit copyright infringement". I seriously dare people to temporarily ignore the moral issues (as they are irrelevant for this specific discussion) and assume that murder and copyright infringement are equivalent crimes (alternatively, replace murder with something like "stealing candy from babies" or some other humorous and petty physical crime), and then think about how the mindsets and activities of these two actors can be discerned.
Regardless, the result is that you simply can't be successful selling a torrent client unless you pander to the pirates in your advertising and support because the pirates are nearly all of your user community; thereby, I found that without constant vigilance every torrent client I accepted ended up going down this path where I'd find the vendor's official Twitter account promoting piracy, the description on the products would keep ending up with more and more demonstrations of piracy, and I'd find out from users that they were specifically helping with piracy-related use cases via e-mail. Now, whether the law makes these people particularly "guilty" is another question: as someone whom these laws have occasionally threatened to smack down (and who has had friends actually get smacked), the position of Cydia is to simply not risk the result and reject the app (especially as you can always just host it yourself or with another party, and you can take payments for it yourself: it is a truly open ecosystem).
(Now, of course, I make this argument, and thanks to "howcan" and people like him, will have to add a giant hedge: nothing in this argument is trying to draw a parallel between the moral ramifications of taking a human life and copying a song; to the extent that you would like to have that argument you should not only have it somewhere else, but you should not have it with me, as the implication of taking that stance is that I am attempting to put myself in the "maybe I'm a murderer" category, which is both insulting and silly given what I do: it is the kind of argument that causes people who, in entirely well-meaning capacity, bring up an analogy from World War II, and then derail into "did you just call me a Nazi?!", when in fact nothing of the sort was implied by the relevant parts of the metaphor.)
Lawyers talk about malum in se (bad, in itself) and malum prohibitum (bad, because we have prohibited it). I think these are useful concepts, even if we choose not to use the terms.
Mala in se I (tautologically, perhaps?) don't support. For mala prohibita, it really depends on context.
Because they are the rules we've adopted to make society, the markets, contested access to scarce resources, drug safety, or what- have- you work. Sometimes there's more than one set of workable rules, but we have to pick one.
Ideally, because contextually it makes sense. It might not be inherently evil to drive 180 miles per hour, but we might guess it to be statistically unsafe in residential neighborhoods, so we prohibit it.
who says it's illegal? your "democratic" government? these "laws" are unconstitutional thus irrelevant like "laws" made by the Nazis in 1943. You would not give shelter to a jew now would you!? it's illegal! same stuff in a different coating and a different mask - you swallow it like a good boy
Lol, Enta. I bailed on them when they cut my connection after one of those silly letters from US lawyers, because my wife had downloaded "Nurse Betty" here in UK.
Now i'm on Virgin, on a much faster connection. piratebay is "blocked" but i just use one of the 99 mirrors around and life is good.
The things that's truly amazing is just how inept the attempts at getting them blocked are.
In the UK, the big ISPs initially at least blocked only a single IP, so TPB have changed IPs a few times. Each time to a new IP in the /24 network block registered to them. Why the entire /24 didn't get blocked in the first case is beyond me.
Not that it'd have helped given the massive number of proxies, but it doesn't look like they were even trying.
It's not the ISPs behaviour I find strangest, though, but that the rights organizations have not asked for even marginally more effective measures, such as even asking to have all IPs owned by The Pirate Bay blocked.
I speculate that it may be an attempt to stem movement to the significant number of private trackers that dependably provide higher quality torrents earlier than public sites. Allowing TPB to stay up means that people must sort through muck and viruses to locate the content they want. For many, that is enough and they don't bother looking a little deeper.
That's 6am PST.(where silicon valley is) Not a lot of people are up at that time here reading hacker news. Also, the new page tends to get overrun with new items quite quickly and sometimes an article does not get steam.
But frankly your tone is not one that many here care for so please refrain. Also, please refrain from meta commentary; it's just noise.
