The value is what the copyright owner loses because people get their content without paying them for it.
And the courts tend to believe the copyright owner - at least provisionally, subject to rebuttal ... which is difficult if not impossible for the average citizen.
It is not desirable because it is a clear example of the Law of (i hope) Unintended Consequences.
It is "not absurd" because, since the law does not specify precisely what constitutes "circumvention", anything which would tend to obfuscate the ownership of the copyright must be considered "circumvention" under the law.
Good laws are written so as to precisely define what they are to cover. Poor laws are not.
(And that may derive from simple neglect/stupidity on the drafters' part or actual malicious intent to sneak a law that benefits special interests through.
(The determination as to which applies in this case is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Let's start with someone who uses using domain names that aren't administered by a U.S-based registry.
Did you perhaps not note that one of the domains seized by ICE was a ".cc" TLD?
Maybe it's a .se domain, only containing content in Swedish hosted on servers in Sweden, administered wholly by people in Sweden, and the copyrights for the content are owned wholly by Swedish individuals, and there is no evidence that a single U.S.-based person ever visited the website.
Maybe there's not a scrap of evidence that the guy on the street corner with his pockets full of crack cocaine ever sold a single rock. He's still going to be prosecuted as a dealer.
Your basic thrust, that just because they did it this one time doesn't mean that they're claiming that US law always applies to people outside the US who have not committed any crime in their home country, is either disingenuous or naive.
Based on the general trend of your comments, i'm betting against naive.
It's like people who claim that laws and court decisions allowing abridgment of due process without warrant or court order to arrest and prosecute criminals don't worry them, because they would never commit a crime.
Sooner or later, any doctrine that can be used to justify governments doing what they want no matter what the letter of the law is ... will be.
Sooner or later, the people in power you agree with, who would never consider you a Bad Guy ... won't be.
Basic principle: Laws in general should be designed to limit governmental power, not increase it.
As far back as the 70s, if you didn't have an album deal with a major label, you stood a good chance of not getting a US performing artist visa.
I don't know about recently, but back then the INS basically rubber-stamped the USAian musician unions' decisions, which often looked (at least from the outside, to poor unsophisticated music fans like me) as being not-infrequently influenced by a desire to avoid competition for US bands...
The Kinks - one of the important English Invasion bands, were banned for some years from the US because an AFM rep disapproved of their "unprofessional conduct" backstage at a NYC gig. (Rumour hath it that the said "unprofessional behaviour" included a debagging-and-tossing-pants-out-the-window epsisode in response to s demand for perfromance dues...)
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Anything that can...
Rule MW1 says "If a law can be abused, it will be."
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Anything that They say is
Everything, if you consider how the law is written.
"If you build it, they will come..."
Offhand, i can't think of a single law with the potential that has not been abused somewhere, by someone.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Um, no.
The value is what the copyright owner loses because people get their content without paying them for it.
And the courts tend to believe the copyright owner - at least provisionally, subject to rebuttal ... which is difficult if not impossible for the average citizen.
'not desireable, but not absurd'
It is "not absurd" because, since the law does not specify precisely what constitutes "circumvention", anything which would tend to obfuscate the ownership of the copyright must be considered "circumvention" under the law.
Good laws are written so as to precisely define what they are to cover. Poor laws are not.
(And that may derive from simple neglect/stupidity on the drafters' part or actual malicious intent to sneak a law that benefits special interests through.
(The determination as to which applies in this case is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Re: Re: Re:
Maybe there's not a scrap of evidence that the guy on the street corner with his pockets full of crack cocaine ever sold a single rock. He's still going to be prosecuted as a dealer.
Your basic thrust, that just because they did it this one time doesn't mean that they're claiming that US law always applies to people outside the US who have not committed any crime in their home country, is either disingenuous or naive.
Based on the general trend of your comments, i'm betting against naive.
It's like people who claim that laws and court decisions allowing abridgment of due process without warrant or court order to arrest and prosecute criminals don't worry them, because they would never commit a crime.
Sooner or later, any doctrine that can be used to justify governments doing what they want no matter what the letter of the law is ... will be.
Sooner or later, the people in power you agree with, who would never consider you a Bad Guy ... won't be.
Basic principle: Laws in general should be designed to limit governmental power, not increase it.
(untitled comment) (as mike weber)
I don't know about recently, but back then the INS basically rubber-stamped the USAian musician unions' decisions, which often looked (at least from the outside, to poor unsophisticated music fans like me) as being not-infrequently influenced by a desire to avoid competition for US bands...
The Kinks - one of the important English Invasion bands, were banned for some years from the US because an AFM rep disapproved of their "unprofessional conduct" backstage at a NYC gig. (Rumour hath it that the said "unprofessional behaviour" included a debagging-and-tossing-pants-out-the-window epsisode in response to s demand for perfromance dues...)
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Fairportfan.
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