Boing Boing: Shoot someone? Not Smith & Wesson’s fault. Copy a movie? Grokster’s fault
Boing Boing: Shoot someone? Not Smith & Wesson’s fault. Copy a movie? Grokster’s fault
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Does anyone else see a slight problem here?
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Lots of people seem to misunderstand what this whole Grokster thing is about. They have not ruled that every maker of p2p programs that is mainly used for copyright infringement is responsible for that infringement. What they HAVE ruled is that the makers are responsible for it if they “[distribute] a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright.” Grokster actually encouraged using the software for illegal downloading. I don’t think anyone (not even the president) would be too happy about firearm manufacturers promoting people murdering each other.
A casual browsing of hunting/security/survival magazines will show that there are many ads that include the possibilty of killing humans in their promotion. A blanket immunity from civil suits is in contrast to the Grokster ruling. But then again, the NRA donates a LOT of $ to the GOP so I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising.
Per,
I still don’t see that these items are at all in the same ball park.
Guns are designed to do one thing – KILL – People, animals, whatever, they are made to kill things. You can advertise them as table decorations or flower holders but they are designed to deal out death.
P2P programs are designed for file sharing. But by having one and using it to download someones “IP” protected program/file you can get the originator of the program and yourself put in jail.
Whine, bitch and talk like a lawyer all you want, we have a problem with far too much big government interference and involvement in peoples day to day lives. The laws are being written and rewritten to suit big business and screw the common person. The US government and lawmakers are living in a land of make believe where there seems to be no grounding in reality.
The whole problem is that the recording companies (music, movies, whatever) have been making extremely large amounts of money with a pardigm that is now going the way of using whale oil for lighting at the beginning of the electric light days. Or actually the kerosene days. They see their cash cow threatened, and are doing everything they can to protect it. However, the cow looks to be dead already, just still moving on huge momentum, life support, and the fact that no one (including me) can come up with a logical, universally acceptable replacement for what has gone before. But the massive technological changes of the last twenty or so years (would YOU have believed in 1969 that you would be able to not only store, but playback ALL of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, CCR, and any additional other 20 groups’ COMPLETE discography on a device that would fit in your pants pocket? Maybe when you had some REALLY good smoke that day…) have completely wreaked havoc on our entire lives, much less our listening/buying habits. I believe we are all victims of that ancient Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times!” Interesting, indeed…..now, if I could just figure out how to make a buck out of them without having to clean spyware off of Windoze machines….oh, my aching head…..