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Comment by notpushkin | Hacker News Reader

In this case, probably? I'm not a fan of excessive regulation, for this particular problem, I don't see how it could be solved without some kind of "right to repair" law, or at least a "right to be thoroughly informed about repairability before buying" law. Even if copyright was scaled back to 20 years and explicit registration, that still would be long enough to screw customers. In fact, even if copyright didn't exist, the problem would still exist for devices that are hard to reverse-engineer.

If businesses are unable to regulate themselves, it must be done by law.

If copyright is the root of the problem, it may be time to remove that protection; or at least revert it so it is more in-line with patent law expiration.

No more author's life + 75. Lets try 15-20 once again, and no derivative protection, unless significantly different, receive protection.

Also, different terms for different works. Having the same rules for software, drugs, books, paintings etc. is ridiculous.

Software should require disclosure of details of what is protected (e.g. the source) so it can be public used post expiry - just as patents give you a monopoly only what is disclosed in the patent.

Agreed.

I'd add that functionally dependent software that is used for the items primary purpose, or its features, should also receive little to no protection, and be disclosed up-front.

You own the things that you buy.

They already have different rules (music and sculpture have very different rules from that of books). What kind of difference do you mean?

AFAIK where I live (in the UK) recorded music has (or had?) a shorter term than books, but sheet music and lyrics did not.

Most things have the same (too long for anything) life + 70.

There is a bad edit in my comment. One item was supposed to go in a second para about the same regarding patents...

You say this as if regulation for companies is a bad thing. Your entire existence is governed by regulations. Why should theirs not be?

It's not wholly a good or bad thing. It's a complex thing, with large secondary effects that people habitually overlook.

One typical effect of increasing any kind of regulation is that large incumbents tend to benefit disproportionately compared to small operators and newcomers, for several reasons: (1) larger operations can amortise compliance costs more easily; (2) larger operations legitimately contain people with useful expertise in helping government decide the shape of the regulations (and will propose kinds of regulation that correspond as far as possible to their own existing practices, and to practices that competitors would find costly to implement); (3) larger operations have the wherewithal to lobby for regulations that are to their benefit and to competitors' detriment, irrespective of how good those regulations are for other stakeholders. (2) and (3) together lead towards regulatory capture, at which point the regulations are almost purely a drain on all other participants with no upside.

Are you sure you replied to the correct comment?

Yes. You implied that regulation for companies is inherently a good thing, and I disagree.

Yes? Unless we want to let manufacturers sell us a vehicle but license the code that makes it run.

intellectual property law is regulation. regulators always get bought out because regulators career advance to the companies they worked with. remove intellectual property and the market fixes the problem.

Talking about licensing is going their way, what we need is ownership, not licensing.

The device/train could be bricked with or without copyright.

But cannot be legally unbricked with Copyright

It can be. There’s no copyright infringement here.

I have no problem with some wide ranging law about right to repair.

If that's regulation, yes please.

> If that's regulation, yes please

It is, and as much as we all want to pretend this is always about rent seeking.

There can be other reasons.

Some systems are bought in manners that include service contracts and outs liability on manufacturers. In such scenarios one man's kill switch could be a safety feature.

You don't want unauthorized personel messing about a medical x-ray device. Because (a) you want it to work, (b) there might be 10k+ volts sitting in giant capacitors.

I'm guessing it's similar with airplanes.

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In complex enterprise systems, right to repair might not always be simple.

But if it comes to your home appliances, a tractor, car, etc. I'd be a lot less worried.

This is simply solved through liability. If someone can provide the service and liability guarantees for less than the manufacturer then you hire them.

John Deere is proof that the manufacturer alone can't be trusted because they can't provide timely service in a time-critical industry.

Such liability issues are usually solved with a warning label. "Warning: 10000 volts. No user-serviceable parts inside." If the customer chooses to unscrew the cover and carelessly electrocute themselves, that's on them. It's much cheaper, too, than making the train brick itself if it's detected in specific geographical areas.

> but is it really what we want?

What we want is results. Whatever mechanism is most efficient at producing those results should be used.

> Copyright is the root of the problem.

If you sell me a device that relies on copyrighted software for operation then you must also grant me a limited non-transferable license tied to that specific device to modify that software however I please. Perhaps DMCAs anti tampering provisions are really the issue here.

> Perhaps DMCAs anti tampering provisions are really the issue here.

I think so, yeah. But IMO even copyright as a whole brings more problems than it solves nowadays.

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