• Hot Saucerman@lemmy.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Both parties come before a judge, accusing the other party of misusing your software. Border patrol says the immigrants are endangering american people with crime etc. ,and the immigrants accuse the border patrol of violent beatings.

    I agree with this except the refugees categorically aren’t using software if they’re at our borders with empty hands. The only argument that would matter in the court was whether or not the CBP was breaking the software license. The refugees aren’t in a position to use the technology, and as such, arguments about whether or not they’re violent are immaterial to the legal question of whether the Border Patrol broke the license and illegally used the software.

    While I agree that in the end, it’s a decision by the courts, you’re still detailing the answers to how it would be handled based on how copyright currently functions and I’d wager with a re-organized and re-written copyright law, you’d have a lot fewer instances of being able to argue that.

    I mean, we have court cases that never make it anywhere all the time based simply on the idea “standing.” Hell, our legal system doesn’t even respect the idea of it even though they reject it half the time. Conservatives wholesale made up someone refusing to make web pages for a “gay couple” who turned out to be a straight guy who never wrote such an email and the Supreme Court swallowed it and said “fuck standing, we’re giving him standing because we’re corrupt fucking assholes.”

    So what I’m talking about includes legal system reform as well, which would preclude a lot of ability to waste developers time by illicitly using their work and then taking them to court over it.