Use ChoralNet wrong, go to jail

Comments

1. Leon Thurman says

   November 20, 2011 at 7:41 pm

   Waaaaay agree, Allen, about many proposed laws being written by lobbyists for biiiig corporations and handed to their bought members of congress for submission, possible passage, and possible signing into law (including versions of SOPA).

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2. Allen H Simon says

   November 20, 2011 at 10:20 am

   I think there’s serious doubt whether a TOU page constitutes a “contractual agreement” enforceable on users. If I can make you party to a contract without your affirmative consent, I’m about to get very rich trading Phoenix real estate.

    

   Agree with you about SOPA, though. I don’t think it has much to do with the “current regime” (in Dan’s words), but rather the general tendency of laws to get written by lobbyists exclusively to benefit rich, powerful players, exactly the kind of thing the Occupy Wall Street movement is objecting to. No one’s going to benefit from this except big corporations with hundreds of lawyers.

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3. David Topping says

   November 20, 2011 at 9:51 am

   Upon first seeing the title of this post, I thought you were calling attention to the misguided SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation (WaPo article link), but instead, this issue appears to involve an amendment to the Privacy Act Modernization for the Information Age (PAMIA) Act of 2011. After reading the info at your “criminal offense” link, I don’t think it’s all that black-and-white, in that although TOS language can indeed be pretty defective or even ridiculous, it is still a form of contractual agreement between the user and the website provider (which is a civil issue), but for agregious and malicious violations, I’d like to see people whose actions are fraudulent or of a criminal nature apropriately punished, rather than let off due to technicalities. If this TOS-related issue is worrisome, then the SOPA legistation should be even more so, IMO, as it could make significant changes to the legal responsibilities of website operators, and not necessarily in a fair or logical manner.

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4. Dan Gawthrop says

   November 20, 2011 at 8:32 am

   This is altogether typical of the current regime’s propensity to overstep both constitutional authority and common sense, but it could be worse: just yesterday I read that the European Union has forbidden Britain to claim that water is effective against dehydration! As one official said, “This is what happens when the Nanny State gets senile dementia.”

    

   Go read those Terms of Use…and tremble!   😉

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5. gretchen harrison says

   November 20, 2011 at 7:28 am

   Or at all….

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