Comment by ominous | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ominous | Hacker News Reader

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Because the world happens in scenarios. And failure to adapt to real world scenarios that regular humans might end up desiring is a problem.

What you are saying is we should adapt, mold, conform, comply the law, all the time, without thinking. Laws come from the past and these scenarios come from the future. Who would you rather please?

Your future you, who might end up away from home but still wants to watch the fight? So he sets up a stream he can access while on the train, for example. And he shares it with a friend on the next seat. And his brother, from outside the country, so they can discuss it together. Yes, this is broadcasting. Just because you can't set it up, you don't know how to do it without googling, or simply don't conceive it to be possible, don't limit the guy that finds out how.

Or would you rather please that guy that calls you and informs you that you should stop, because something as vague and as distant as "copyright law"? Sir, please stop. Your intent cannot be monetized further. Please wait a few years until we develop an app/device/system that allows you to view the stream remotely so we can charge you.

Fuck that guy.

If none of the scenarios resonate, then that's fine. But understand that people will want to do new things. Some will be deemed illegal, some will be acepted. Some can't be stopped.

Refusal to think about new scenarios dooms us to whatever was decided before we were born.

Enjoy your retro life.

Was that an attempt to burn me? Retro! What a tool.

There's an existing law and just because you're rebroadcasting using Facebook Live instead of a video camera doesn't suddenly make it any less illegal.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.

Rebroadcasting copyrighted event = illegal.

Rebroadcasting copyrighted event + Facebook live = ?

Figure it out.

We can come up with another scenario about waving your hands while hopping on one leg and pressing the stream button on Facebook Live of a copyrighted show while facing west and singing omm-pah loom-pah and sharing that stream with every 3rd member of the New York Symphony Orchestra.

Is that illegal?

Yes. The only relevant bit of that ridiculous thought experiment is "copyrighted show...sharing with".

Sorry, didn't meant to make it personal. Retro wasn't an insult, "time delayed", or "vintage" would also be ok. I like retro. I was born when retro as modern.

But can't help but notice that:

1) you also can't (until now) put lipstick on a man and call it a woman, but look at what new "scenarios" people have come up with recently.

2) You had something about being happy with half a brain, but deleted it. Glad to see you have more than half.

Now you are equating bootleg DVD with facebook live. I understand that, while you don't make money with streaming on facebook (do you?), you still end up with notoriety, some kind of social credit. However, still a longshot from "selling pirated copies".

Was there a business model in my scenarios? Did this guy, clueless as he is to what is deemed illegal in 2017, monetize it?

As for your "copyrighted show[content]...shared with", do you talk with people? Tell me, be honest: have you ever shared something, in the privacy of a phone call, intimate moment, or at dinner, about a book you read? When you exit the movie theather, do you comment "out loud" what you saw?

In this new scenario, I am specifically asking if someone, ever, has wanted to rebroadcast to the world what he just acquired from a book or movie, to start a conversation.

Because now we get into the "how detailed can the sharing be", and I'll ask you if 240p is "low detail" enough, or if I omit the weather and words longer than 6 letters, and you'll say "but only if in black and white and without sound", and I'll ask if I can share the sound in another stream, and if is illegal for a third party in Iceland to assemble the two streams, and you'll get angry and either punch me, or call me stupid again.

Yeah, sorry I was still in grouchy morning mode. I sometimes post, re-read and realise I'm an ass and quickly edit.

I also deleted the bootlegger comment at the same time as well as I realised he'd not personally profiting from it so it's materially a different scenario, so I agree there.

But, I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The quality doesn't matter. Even if it were at 4 px density and colossally compressed audio. Sharing exemptions tend to be limited in scope, lending the physical copy so you can't use it at the same time, less than X number of people at a shared screening, etc. Some of the scenarios you can come up with are technically illegal, just no-one's going to enforce them. You might not remember but back in the day coaches weren't supposed to screen films from video tapes and it was explicitly stated in the copyright notices, but they did any way. They probably still do. But if a free cinema had set up and just started screening bootlegged films, they would have got raided and convicted because of the difference in scale.

Say I share a TV show or two with friends electronically. At worst if the law found out they'll tell me to cut it out. If I start hosting the TV show on a website and 100,000 people download it, you can be damn sure someone's going to ensure I'm going to feel the full scope of the law down my neck.

It's the same with this. If it hadn't got shared outside his friend group, even if they found out, no-one would have probably bothered doing anything apart from maybe send a warning not to do it again. But he knew 100,000+ people were using his stream, he was identified, contacted and he declined to stop. That he was ignorant of the law, or he was sharing in a newish way is not a defence.

From my pov, this isn't even new, my old housemate used to stream football games from illegal streams every weekend, I don't really see how this is any different just because it's using Facebook.

> Rebroadcasting copyrighted event + Facebook live = ?

I'll add that this is breaking the law twice, once with the origin and second with Facebook as violation of their service.

Otherwise, the parent doesn't make any sense in his ramblings.

Breaking Facebook's TOS isn't a breach of the law. God help us if it ever becomes illegal, what a creepy dystopia that would be.

I expressed myself badly, your term was correct, breaking TOS, not breaking the law (for now, hope never lol).

In the worst case he would get banned from using Facebook, which nowadays can have can be negative based on the capacity user is engaged with it (using it as an online identity manager for logins, social consequences etc.).

You can postulate whatever scenarios you like, but they bear no relevance whatsoever to what actually happened here, which is about as clear cut a case of copyright infringement as you'll ever see.

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