Legal vs lawful vs moral; legally sanctioned yet immoral

[Zenaan Harkness]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2016 at 01:38:51PM -0700, Stephen D. Williams wrote:
> So, an appeal to "common law" that has any usefulness must cite some
> legal authority, ideally a mandatory controlling legal authority.

There you go again.

A citation may help in a legal proceeding.

But "common law" as in "the customs and practices of the community since
time immemorial" is more than useful for a conversation where we attempt
to reclaim authority to the individual, the ultimate sovereign in any
true democracy.


Binding humans into "need" and "must" and implying that "the only
usefulness comes from a legal proceeding", are not exactly political
anarchy, nor individual sovereignty and (human) right.



> You may or may not have noticed, but law has been likened to
> engineering, and software engineering in particular.  Or, like many
> things, a sort of algebra or calculus.  I think of security exactly
> like that, especially when designing a secure information system and
> related policies and procedures.  Given the rules of the system, you
> have to work out a mechanism to accomplish what you want or stop what
> you don't want.  Appealing to wishful thinking isn't going to make
> your software work, your system secure, or win your legal case.

And there you go again.

But running your torrents on Tor is neither wishful thinking, nor
something that does not work today now is it?


What you've just done, again, with your phrase "Appealing to wishful
thinking isn't going to win your legal case" has just couched the
debate, framed the discussion on terms / assumptions which are
fundamentally objectionable.


Now, over to you to unpack why I say this, what is the guts of this
statement, and how you yourself might choose to reword, enhance,
subtract from or add to, your statement quoted by me.


This is a test. Should be easy for you - you seem to be quite "the
intellectual type".



> > Also, consider use of the word "moral" if not a more politically correct
> > "watered down morality" term.
> 
> Calculating moral balance is tricky and perhaps usually fluid.
> I don't think we've clarified specifics enough to do that here yet.

By all means, and please, clarify away. That's why I threw that ball in
your court - it's another test see, to see if you're capable of bringing
something "of substance to the little people".


> > That which is illegal corporate actions today (pursuing "illegal"
> > filesharers), is made "legal" by lobbying.
> 
> I think the attitude of many who are involved would be that it was
> already illegal in some sense, just not specifically enough to
> enforce.

Framing / couching, and assumptions.

Are you sure you're not able to take a non-statist position in this (or
any) conversation?


> Copyright is an extension or interpretation of property rights.

That's the best definition you can come up with?

Are there no other parts to the copyright debate which you would choose
to add in to the conversation? bring to the table in a "punks" forum?

Seriously?

Or are you violently refusing to stop framing almost every sentence you
write in a pro-state way?

Seriously, you're too much work. If you want a conversation of
substance, rather than something you keep steering in favour of the
state, you "need" to start thinking seriously about how you are
perceived, and how easy it is to ridicule what you say.


> Property rights are a basic component of a legal system.

"preferred" legal system perhaps? Almost sounds like you are saying
"any" legal system - either way, you made a loose and not useful
statement.


> Some degree of property protections is fundamental, some degree is a
> legislative choice that balances rights and mechanisms and system
> tuning.

Hint: Start naming your assumptions rather than presuming them all the
time.


> > Consistently speaking of what is illegal vs legal by you, is misleading
> > to the truth of what the community at large accepts as moral behaviour,
> > whether by individuals or by individuals employed by a corporation.
> 
> A characteristic of the law is that by following principles that
> consistently lead to a fair, just, and functioning legal system,
> sometimes the majority will want something that the principles
> protect.  A functioning legal system is not majority rule in a number
> of key ways.  In other ways it is.  Walking that distinction properly
> is probably the key indicator of the health of a legal system.
> Knowing that dynamic exists sometimes, the fact that a majority may
> want something doesn't intrinsically make it right.
> 
>
> > s/moral/lawful/
> > s/moral/acceptable/
> > s/moral/ etc etc /
> >
> >
> > Your persistent framing of "legal" behaviour, hides the reality of the
> > endless encroachment, by corporations via their bribery / lobbying
> > efforts, against our rights.
> 
> There is usually a balance of rights.  Law is often a blunt instrument
> for various reasons.
> 
> You haven't stated what rights you think are being trampled.

Neither have you, but you keep presuming a pro-statist, pro-existing
regime conversation is the right conversation to have.

And I can provide a dozen examples.

You consistently deflect to your "opponent" in the conversation, putting
upon them to bring some pro-individual sovereignty, examples of where
the system fails, examples of abuses/encroachment of human rights, etc,
etc.

Every time you do this, a casual reader could assume that "unless such
example is otherwise provided, SDW's opponent must not have an
argument".


What do you bring to the conversation, besides your pro-statist
position? Well, you bring a lot of framing, assumptions and deflection
in support of your pro-regime position.

You also bring a persistent belligerence in your position, an unspoken,
subtle, but highly visible belligerence, that unwillingness to shift on
anything you say.

Now if your positions would benefit "the little guy", I would applaud
your belligerence.

But, you completely fail (afaict) to bring even an iota of empathy, fail
to bring even the smallest hint of support for individual sovereignty.


The conspiracy theorist would naturally presume you are unable to bring
such to the conversation due to a systemic personal employment
compromise.


> A useful
> statement of a right requires that you indicate how it is grounded and
> supported and how it interacts with conflicting rights and some logic
> of why a particular boundary should be in a certain spot.
>
> It appears that you are primarily concerned with the rights of
> copyright holders and their agents (First Amendment) vs. your rights
> to access to public and proprietary information (What right is that?),
> and your rights (Fourth and Eighth Amendments) for reasonable
> consequences.  I think there are two ways to interpret the typical
> situation:
>
> For someone downloading something to read / listen / watch, they might
> be depriving someone of a little income.

Except if they would never have watched it anyway.

And modulo benefit to copyright holder from increase in exposure
and therefore increase in access to the market of those who do make
corresponding purchases. I'm pretty sure the stats are largely
conclusive that this is the actual outcome, overall - i.e. a net benefit
to the minority interest of copyright holders, not that I am holding
that to be important at all mind you.


> Any fine or remuneration
> should be roughly proportional.

Let's use your technique for a moment and reword this:

"Any fine or remuneration should never arise except that:
- factual proof of the economic loss is made by the minority rights
  claimer

- fair use is disproved by the minority rights claimer

- the (unasked for) promotional efforts (conversations with friends,
  viewing and reviewing with random review comments on Facebook,
  enthusiastic questions like "have you seen...") are likewise
  compensated by the minority rights claimer to the "culture partakerer"

- all psychological, emotional, social and other damage arising from the
  viewer watching a movie containing any violence, bad language, horror,
  shock and any other potentially damaging content, is carefully and
  professionally determined, and compensation duly made by the horrific
  hollywood studio claiming their (minority) copyright rights

- arising from the action of the minority rights claimer making a claim,
  the damage to social cohesion, increase in fear, damage of entrainment
  towards compliance, and other such damages are duly professionally
  assessed and compensated by the minority rights claimer

- any and all damage due to violation of privacy rights of individual
  humans in their homes, is duly recognised and compensated

- any other such damages?
"


But anyway, you've already couched the pro-state, pro-regime position
where copy"rights" are presumed, the balance of interests of all members
of society has not been raised, you've used propaganda term "property"
when it comes to "virtual bits" (albeit you did qualify that slightly
with "extension of").

But anyway, hard work Stephen - you're bloody hard work to communicate
with "sanely".


> For someone who shares many things in an untrackable, possibly
> effectively infinite way, the owner would argue that the damages are
> uncalculable and that it must be prevented.

"owner" of "copyright" are propaganda terms

sharing digital stuff is not possibly infinite, it is infinite, modulo
interest by future humans to maintain digital copies



> Probably legislatures
> have frequently been convinced of this, leading to 'stop this or else'
> sentencing guidelines.

And who's fighting for "the little guy"?

Who's framing the conversation about the balance of interests of every
human "in society", rather than just the minority rights claimers backed
statute laws creating artificial monopolies which oppress majority
rights holders ("right to participate in the cultural norms and
activities of society")?!!

Not -you- Stephen!


> They expect that they can just keep upping the
> level until it stops.  This seems something like the treatment of
> crimes that are totally unacceptable.  Except that maybe half the
> population does think it is acceptable.

Half?

Population of the world? - try 98%.


> Yes, there is a big disconnect there.  But, it is inevitable unless a
> way is found out of it.

It is inevitable as long as those in power, and those with influence,
persist in their conversations, assumptions, framings and delusions
which ultimately result in institution of (by statute law) oppressive
regimes which offend the majority rights.

Even the Pirate Party guys never nailed the debate. Bloody hopeless.


> The music industry seems to have given in a while ago since streaming
> and other forms of music are very inexpensive now.  Big artists make
> most of their money on concerts and merchandise while smaller artists
> probably don't make much.  In effect, the commercial and social
> contract has changed, relieving some of the early extreme pressure.

Extreme pressure brought by minority interests abusing the demoncratic
system to oppress the majority. Seriously fucked up system you keep
supporting there Stephen.


> So far, this may be mostly off topic.  But:

... It's getting as close to on topic as you ever have ...


> One key legal path should be the First Sale Doctrine.  While this
> would still require that valid purchases were involved, it would allow
> you to loan your copy to someone else.

Reasonable improvement to the current abuses by minority rights claimers
against the majority.


> To do this convincingly
> probably requires a distributed secure system with certain assurances.

"convincingly"

Remind us all Stephen, just who exactly you work for?

I'll be generous and assume you mean "in order to convince the minority
rights claimers who normally abuse the majority rights, that they should
not oppose a first sale doctrine being added to statute law in the
current western demoncratic regime";

was that what you were trying to say?


> The legal landscape keeps evolving.

"Minority rights claimers have had a massive run of abusing the rights
of the majority, and a little change for good has been seen in recent
years."


> There should be a way to somewhat
> fix the situation with regard to video, books, and software by a
> technological and legal construction, but it is currently blocked in
> the US, while being possible for software at least in the EU.

Richard Stallman seemed a somewhat naieve, idealistic hippy type with
his ridiculous "all software should be free" campaign.

And ultimately, libre software prevailed.

Now even employers see the benefits, not only employees. And in fact
most younger programmers would probably have to be mightily convinced
(with a decent salary e.g.) to work on proprietary software these days
because "what about when I move on from your startup, or your company
fails, etc?"


> This
> seems to have significantly turned on a Library of Congress report,
> which could change: They review copyright situations every year,
> creating updates to policy that affect what is illegal.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
> https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1854-copyright-infringement-first-sale-doctrine
> http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/digest/copyright/supreme-court-holds-the-first-sale-doctrine-applicable-to-parallel-importation
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_LLC_v._ReDigi_Inc.
> http://www.scotusblog.com/2016/06/opinion-analysis-court-clarifies-availability-of-fee-awards-in-copyright-cases/
> https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2011/10/10/digital-death-copyrights-first-sale-doctrine/
> 
> So, one avenue to partially solve the issue by direct legal means
> would be to construct rationale for why the LoC should change their
> opinion, perhaps relative to some system that records and perhaps
> enforces one-holder status for each license.  Perhaps a blockchain
> system, some creative form of DRM, etc.
> 
> There could be other paths that explore whether sales couldn't have
> existed, because people are too poor, eminent domain in some cases
> because of importance or abuse, etc.  Commercial and social models
> could exist, like a club that offers to group license content based on
> actual usage.

The debate is framed, in legislation, the terminology/propaganda used,
the public discourse, and the endless and very wealthy corporate
lobbying, much too heavily in favour of the minority rights claimers.


> > What's good for the goosey Stephen, is good for responding to Stephen.
> 
> But you haven't yet established why your nebulous form of 'illegal'
> should be respected, so I didn't see it.

Who qualified their use of the term "conspiracy" with "illegal" now
Stephen?

Come on, it's an easy question now...


> > How is "making lawful activities illegal by bribery lobbying", a weak
> > part of that conversation, and not a direct response?
> 
> If it is the way the system operates, then it isn't illegal whether we
> like it or not.

We seem to agree - "just because companies make something legal by
lobbying a new immoral/unethical/unlawful law into existence, does not
make their activities (enforcements, pursuit, crimes) "arising under
that law", "lawful" by the moral standard of the common man.


> If we don't like it, we should make it illegal.

Mostly, the only ones who get to "make something 'we' don't like
illegal" or "make something 'we' do like legal", are minorities -
sometimes minorities with great economic power (hollywood), other times
minorities with low economic power but who are used as a group for
clandestine conspiracy purposes by those who do have great economic
power or influence.


> In many ways, that kind of thing is illegal in the US.  You can't
> expect to bribe non-politician officials.

Hmm..


> > The corporations only get away with their offensive behaviour because
> > they hide behind "laws" - either by outspending their opponents (legal
> > fees, bribery lobbying money), or by bribery lobbying their pet monopoly
> > "legal" activity protection rackets!
> 
> True to some extent.  But you have to play
> the system to combat it, or go create your own system.  But nobody
> will follow you for long for the latter.

framing

cold water bucket

assumptions unspoken


> > Seriously, what we (you, me, the whole dang world) needs, is a little
> > empathy from those with capacity to influence others. Empathy so that we
> > can not only see and hear, but name and restate what "the little people"
> > think and feel about those things that are so wrong in the world today -
> > we have to give voice to those being murdered every day by the USA's CIA
> > and Military programs, pogroms, and all other activities even though,
> > --especially-- because the USA declares all its actions "legal" !!!
> 
> For some, general consumers, I get to do that occasionally.  For other
> countries which are a mess, much more difficult.  The right move at
> one level isn't the right move at another.  Not doing anything is also
> a bad move some of the time.

Clean up your own back yard (USA). Stop killing people in other
countries because "they're a mess, much more difficult". That is just so
many shades of wrong!


> I can't generalize about foreign affairs in some blanket statement, and I'm not that studied nor do I have time to do it well
> anyway, but generally it is easy to complain at the strongest, or the most active, or whatever.  It is much more difficult to guess
> what better decisions would have been if you knew the same things.

You are misguided in your morals:

Stopping from killing humans, day in day out, in many countries around
the world, is not a difficult decision.

(Only difficult economically, there are huge financial interests.)



> Everyone is failing, and the US may be failing less than many players.
> At the base, often it is the populations of these countries that are
> failing the most: Believing in crazy things, not having much modern
> knowledge or understanding, allowing and creating brutal social
> systems, etc.

Just as well the CIA (with the USA MIC) goes around killing them all
then eh?


> Nothing anyone does will make anything better until
> that is fixed.  It is an epidemic of bad and missing good memes.


Meme 1: Stop your own killing!


Also, in case it's not obvious, stop justifying the killing, e.g. with
"they believe in crazy things" "they're backwards" "they created
brutal social systems".


The USA is evil in its endless, daily, killing of humans, all around the
world.


This is not complicated. Please explain this to your boss, and your
workmates, since y'all seem to miss the damn point, over and over again!


> > Please, bring on effective pathways to improving the USA system.
> 
> First, make sure it is the USA system that you really need to fix.

That's a fair point, to reword it "don't throw out the baby with the
bathwater".

You might have noticed that I have tried to comprehend my own heart's
"nationalism" and cowardice, Razer has expressed his dislike for chaos
as have others - a "likely descent of society into utter chaos" is not
what most folks want.


But, the USA's killing, daily, of brown folks and other folks, all
around the world, must stop.


> > But when all you do is apologise for the existing system and scream
> > "don't tear it down", you will continue to get a not very positive
> > response.
> 
> I don't need to convince anyone not to "tear it down".

Actually some folks you do. Some are so disillusioned and
disenfranchised, they reach the point of not caring any more; and of
those who have given up on the CIA and the USA, some have enough nouse
to lay low, to not expose themselves to obvious public identification so
they can be picked off, just like you picked off Jim Bell for example.

Some folks -do- learn the lessons you teach.

What I'm personally hoping for is that the world can have something of a
soft landing when the USA debt/credit regime hits the wall.


> I'm saying that anyone saying that is wasting their time.

Actually they're not.

And, that's another one of your favourite framings:
just why should ever let that slip under our radar?


> >> Alternatives
> >> to everything should be considered, but alternatives aren't better
> >> simply because they are alternative; there has to be some reasoning
> >> and proof of some kind.
> > Troll tool.
> >
> > Get over it. We shall continue to name it.
> >
> > "Nothing can be tried except that it is pre-proven."
> >
> > You really think that continued repition of that troll tool is gonna fly
> > around here?
> >
> >
> > Really really?
> 
> I'm just stating the obvious.  Let us know when you have a colony of a
> million people somewhere just humming along with a better system.

So that's why it's good, wholesome, proper and right for you to use
Troll Tools?

Classy..


Let's hope the freestateproject continues to build their momentum and
create something beautiful we can learn from.


> You want me to design your proposed solution for you?

"Protect the existing USA regime" is not a suitable answer. There are
many identifiable areas for improvement, but few to none of any hope for
actual effectiveness.

That leaves us with tear dowhn the USA regime. Or wait for the financial
reset the oligarchs are planning for sometime in the next few years, and
make do with their choices.


Or, for Americans, may be visit New Hampshire.


> You are perfectly free to go buy some land somewhere and start your
> own system, with your own entertainment, etc.  If you want to interact
> with the existing systems, at least some of the rules need to be
> followed.

Bittorrent over Tor might be a good start for UK citizens :)