Products Liability and Innovation. Was: Re: Traceable Infrastructure is as vulnerable as traceable messages.

[Black Unicorn]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Leitl" <Eugene.Leitl at lrz.uni-muenchen.de>
To: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei at rsasecurity.com>
Cc: <cypherpunks at lne.com>; "Faustine" <a3495 at cotse.com>; <jamesd at echeque.com>
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 7:49 AM
Subject: RE: Traceable Infrastructure is as vulnerable as traceable messages.


> On Mon, 13 Aug 2001, Trei, Peter wrote:
>
> > I hate to say this, but until software developers are held (at least
> > at the corporate level) in some way liable for their failures, there
> > will be little or no improvement in the situation.
>
> I think this is the wrong approach to the situation. Making people liable
> stifles innovation.

I think 30+ years of active products liability jurisprudence might disagree
with you.  Just in the automotive world and off the top of my head:  Automatic
Breaking Systems, designed failure points (crumple zones), 6mph bumpers,
"safety glass," shoulder belts, passive belts, air bags and a host of other
technologies or innovations that may or may not have been developed "but for"
litigation are most probably the result of strict liability in products
liability cases.  The effect is to make safety profitable- or more accurately,
to make unsafety unprofitable.  See generally Posner, Hallman and the "Chicago
School of Law and Economics," an entire movement in legal thought centered on
the idea that you are very wrong about the effect of liability on innovation.

Now less I be misinterpreted, misworded, misquoted and misunderstood by the
various misanthropic types here:

Do I think that software should have products liability attached to it?  No.
Do I think strict liability stifles innovation?  No.