[FoRK] Re: Kindle first impressions

[Jeff Bone]

On May 5, 2008, at 3:57 PM, Jeff Bone wrote:

>>> The thing with the DMCA is that it doesn't rely on anything you sign
>> or don't sign.
>
> Don't care;  doesn't bother me.  AFAIC, it doesn't exist. ;-)  This  
> idea that lawyers have that somehow words on paper (particularly  
> when they're prima facie ridiculous) can by themselves coercively,  
> preemptively modify people's behavior is, frankly, baffling. ;-)

To expand on this a little...  one of these days I'm going to  
CafePress a t-shirt that simply says:

   Freedom.  It's what you got. (tm)

I haven't pushed this line for a while here, but I fundamentally  
reject the idea that I (or anyone) can be forced into obligation  
without their explicit consent.  Laws, all laws, do exactly that.  But  
every person is a law-breaker to some degree;  whether it's going 40  
in a 35 or the (very common around here, though not so much lately)  
practice of posting whole articles on mailing lists, everybody breaks  
the law.  The question is how much everybody else, or particularly  
those with a significant stake in the law in question, really care.

Social norms are far more concerning.  They can be good things or bad  
things;  when social norms are more permissive than the law,  
eventually the law withers.  OTOH, social norms can be at best  
convenient fictions and at worst pernicious badness.  When social  
norms shift to depriving others of freedom --- when busybodies care  
more than they should about things that don't effect them, or effect  
them much --- then you get real tyranny.  (Cf. smoking bans.)

$0.02,

jb