Shiny Doom Forum

[Mogri]

Here's a good flash point:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4627679.stm

In short, the supreme court ruled that creators of software can be held responsible for what users do with it; in short, creators of P2P software can be held responsible because users distribute illegal media on it.

While the comment is that the court did not define "...under what circumstances the distributor of a product capable of both lawful and unlawful use is liable for acts of copyright infringement by third parties using the product...", chances are very high that this will be interpreted very loosely, and we'll see a large barage of court cases come out soon.

Other hidden implications involve things like iPod's... users can place MP3's on an iPod, and another user can copy said MP3 off of it illegally, meaning Apple can be brought to court for not preventing it.

While it is true the question above will determine just how evil this is, it feels like a sad day for software development; because illegal music isn't the only aspect: imagine Microsoft being prosecuted because students publish plagerized content written in Word...

[Jastermereel]

Is this only for piracy related issues or will they now hold microsoft accountable for any word documents used by al qaida?

[Katrina]

Ooo, and while we're at it, let's outlaw breathing since the people copying the music are *obviously* using oxygen as they do it.
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Check it out! I finally remembered my login for this account. I can do crazy things like put text in my signature and change my avatar so it doesn't say NaNoWriMo 2005.

[Jastermereel]