Comment by sightbroke
9 months ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...
"Attached to the core rights of free speech and free press are several peripheral rights that make these core rights more secure. The peripheral rights encompass not only freedom of association, including privacy in one's associations, but also, in the words of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), "the freedom of the entire university community", i.e., the right to distribute, the right to receive, and the right to read, as well as freedom of inquiry, freedom of thought, and freedom to teach.[144]"
"The United States Constitution protects, according to the Supreme Court in Stanley v. Georgia (1969), the right to receive information and ideas, regardless of their social worth, and to be generally free from governmental intrusions into one's privacy and control of one's thoughts.[145]"
"As stated by the Court in Stanley: 'If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a State has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.'[146]"
[144] - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/381/479/
[145], [146] - https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/394/557/
The US Constitution grants congress the power to give authors and inventors time-limited exclusive rights to their works/discoveries (Art1.S8.C8). This moots the 1st amendment argument.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-8...
I don't think that authors having exclusive rights to their works necessarily implies that someone else _receiving_ them is legally culpable though. My admittedly naive thinking is that someone distributing something illegally doesn't necessarily imply that the receiver is also committing crime. If Robin Hood steals a fancy 4K TV from the mansion downtown and gives it to his neighbor as a birthday gift, would the neighbor be guilty of a crime as well? Does the answer change if Robin Hood were instead the owner of the mansion next door (who could plausibly be the owner of the TV) and gives it to his less wealthy childhood friend?
I'm not saying that either of these situations are directly analogous to the distribution of copyrighted works (since among other things, I don't think there's any way to buy a TV without being able to freely give it to someone else), but that it's not immediately obvious to me that the illegality in distribution has to be symmetric, and that there might be a coherent legal argument that people having the right to _receive_ information isn't inconsistent with the only people with the right to transmit it refusing to allow it. The part of the Constitution (edit: Supreme Court opinion; not actually the Constitution itself) quoted above doesn't seem to say anything about the right to share anything, just to receive it.
If Robin Hood sees a nice painting hanging in the castle, then commands a genie to create an exact brush-stroke-by-brush-stroke replica that is identical to the original in every way, then gives the replica to his neighbor as a birthday gift, has any crime even occurred?
In this situation, the noble does not own the painting, so much as they possess it and have only been granted a license to privately view it, not a license to show it to others, and further license only to reproduce it for their own personal archival purposes - Robin Hood did not have license to view the painting, and the genie did not have license to reproduce it
but now that the reproduction exists, does it carry the same license with it, and should the neighbor be held responsible for the original violation of the license, when all they’ve done is receive an illegally produced copy?
Should the owner if the original painting be held responsible for failing to prevent it from being illegally viewed and copied?
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your TV example is a bad example for discussions around copyright — how does one copy a TV?
a more pertinent example to the main topic at hand
i download a file onto my PC. in doing so i have made a copy of that file onto my PC.
if that file is a copyrighted work, e.g. a musical work, i have reproduced the work by downloading it. i have copied it. streaming music is covered by copyright for the same reason - a copy is transferred onto your device because you clicked on a button. the act of copying, or reproducing, the work is the bit that matters.
the distributor (spotify/apple) just gave me access to their original copy to make my own, new, copy. distribution is covered, but slightly different as it is facilitating others to infringe copyright (if i’m pirating music).
in your TV example, a closer idea would be if i 3D printed a new TV based on a patented design. probably not allowed to do it (i don’t know patent law) but who’s gonna enforce it? no one knows about it.
if i start selling my 3D printed TVs, well, i should probably get a lawyer sharpish.
—
also, isn’t knowingly receiving stolen goods a crime? so receiver of the TV in your example could be charged with a crime if it can be shown beyond reasonable doubt that they knew it was stolen?
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> If Robin Hood steals a fancy 4K TV from the mansion downtown and gives it to his neighbor as a birthday gift, would the neighbor be guilty of a crime as well?
In this specific example, probably yes.
> Does the answer change if Robin Hood were instead the owner of the mansion next door
Yes, it does. The main problem here is that Robin Hood is well known to obtain everything he has in the world by stealing it.
Once you tell someone a secret, you need to be prepared to beat them up if they share it. — dad, 1996
This gives you the right “to beat them up” but not the right to learn a secret. You can take a patent and build that thing in your house. The government can’t stop you, neither the inventor. It’s when you try to sell it that they can come after you.
>...You can take a patent and build that thing in your house. The government can’t stop you, neither the inventor. It’s when you try to sell it that they can come after you.
I don't think that is correct. The patent act states:
>...Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
https://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-35-patents/35-usc-sect-27...
Note where it says "makes, uses". In practice, it is highly unlikely that someone would know about the infringement if it was just done for personal use, but that doesn't mean it isn't infringement.
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I don't think it'd hold up, but one could argue that the first amendment was an amendment, and thus changed the constitution, and therefore removed that ability of congress.
The amendments protect the rights as they existed at the time the amendment was passed. I.e. how would the plain text of the text be interpreted by a reasonable person in 1791. E.g., re 2nd, what did militia mean?
Thus, the 1A locks in speech rights as they existed in 1791. Because there was no right to slander, or threaten, or commit treason, or "share" in 1791, Congress retained the power to regulate.
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It doesn't moot the argument just makes it slightly more complicated. Not only is current copryight very far from what a normal human would understand as a limited time but that is not the only restriction there - this power is also given with a specific purpose that current copyright does not effectively serve.
How can a provision in the base text of the constitution take precedence over an amendment?
I am not convinced that applies to receiving information.
A bit off-topic, but I always thought it was "funny" how americans are so opposed to censorship but are perfectly OK with advertising and other forms of propaganda (from social media editorializing, bought newspapers...), that arguably do much more to "control men's minds" than censorship ever would.
It just fuels my personal theory that americans only reason in positive liberty (freedom to...) and never in negative liberty (freedom from...).
> I always thought it was "funny" how americans are so opposed to censorship
Not sure you can make this blanket statement about “Americans” any more. It seems like an increasing number are fine with censorship when they aren’t the ones being censored.
Yes, for many this "free speech absolutism" is just a rhetorical stance they adopt, which do not reflect their actions at all.
American here. We're an incredibly large and incredibly diverse country. This generaliization doesn't really work.
I know, I have friends and family in America. It was just a fun thought I had in my head for a while. I should have added a "Some americans..." in my comment. Sorry for the blanket statement.
It's very simple, Americans believe that the individual is responsible for themselves while most of the rest of the world wants to be "protected" by a restrictive government. One leads to innovation and one stifles it. We would rather be responsible for discovering the truth on our own, than trust a central authority to decide what is and isn't true(or propaganda). I find it funny how Europeans think their governments are protecting them from propaganda instead of drowning them in propaganda.
Heh. This is not the month to be making that argument.
I like having food hygiene standards - it means I don't have to worry about chalk in my bread, arsenic in my sweets, or antibiotics in my beef.
I honestly believe we'd be better off with informational hygiene standards, too. The last two decades have taught me this lesson - free speech absolutism is a giant "kick me" sign on the back of society, and when you find a security hole that big, you patch it.
I recognize there's a balance to be found, and reasonable people will disagree on where the tipping point is.
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This approach is great in theory, the problem is: it does not scale. We are bombarded with a lot of information in the news, ads, social media, and average individual does not have enough time (not to mention access to information, or intelligence to interpret it) to fact check everything on their own. "The last man who knew everything" lived in early 19th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Man_Who_Knew_Everythi...
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Not sure European governments do much to combat external propaganda anyway.
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Hi, American here. Just want to say I'm embarrassed to share a nation with this nutcase. Sorry, friends.
Those who turn discussions about degrees of something into fights about binary extremes are the true problem. Media and politicians included.
Not even most Americans believe that. I would say paradoxically we have a slice of folks who want liberty from the government and also have plenty of government protections.
Then there is the "liberty at all costs" types, the fringe of which idolizes the David Koresh lifestyle.
There are plenty of folks who also think it is OK to ruin someone's entire life if they post something sexist to Twitter.
Americans are not so easily generalized; they come in many flavors.
Seeing how almost everyone here in France despises our current government, I don't think this propaganda you mention is very effective, if it's as present as you claim.
Meanwhile money basically dictates who gets elected on your side of the pond, whith billionaires being crazy over-represented in your political offices, despite being a tiny minority in your population.
Also, the people advocating for smaller government are often on board with executive power consolidation and increased police and army funding, so I think it's little more than a stance.
You can't "discover the truth" on your own, no one can. Are you able to go everywhere something happens in the wordl to get a first hand account of the event and then build your own conclusions? Of course not, you rely on media (social or legacy) to digest the facts for you, and they might (and do) influence you and how you think about the world. It can't be another way, so fighting obvious lies isn't a bad thing in my book.
> It just fuels my personal theory that americans only reason in positive liberty (freedom to...) and never in negative liberty (freedom from...).
This seems to describe ‘Murican Freedom pretty well to this particular American, for what it’s worth.
I would expect it to be argued by defendants that since no man (or indeed woman) at Meta actually read the books that were torrented, the First Amendment does not apply here. The question is: does the First Amendment apply to an algorithm?
> The question is: does the First Amendment apply to an algorithm?
No. The first amendment explicitly applies to Congress; by extension it applies to the policy-making authority of the federal government generally, and via the 14th amendment, it applies to the states.
It prohibits the abridgment of freedom of speech by government institutions, without distinction as to the identity of the speaker or the content of the speech.
So I can setup a cable streaming service with ripped vids as long a no one in my company watches it?
You would be distributing the videos. Meta is not distributing the things they torrented. No, LLM weights don't count.
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