Wow Grim, very prolific! I'd say this topic pushed a button. Eh?
Rock on! By the way, I got the HHGTTG ref. "In the basement, with no stairs, and the lights gone out... and there were alligators!" funny stuff.
Disclosure to me is being honest, open and forthcoming about what you do, with anyone who might be effected by what you do. I don't have a legal definition worked out for it, because lawyers live for grey areas, and it would take me pages of drivel to plug them.
Unless... we could agree on the definitions of four words.
Honest = Truth or as near to it as you can get. (you can't tell what you don't know, and some of what you do know may be wrong.) Not lawyer truth either, but the real stuff. Pure, with no cut on it.
Open = Tell all of it. Admit what you don't know. Admit when you find you were wrong. Do it in a language your audience can understand. Explain it to those who don't.
Forthcoming = Put the information out as soon as you know it. Put it where people are going to look for it. Update it when it changes. and let everyone know what was updated.
Effected = OK, that's a tough one. Make it too open, and garlic farmers will never get any sleep. In the case of Sony, it would be anyone who might put the disk in to a computer, right?
There. My definition.
The laws and regulations for digital content providers need a major overhaul, but the over-site body is already in place. It's the AG of your state, and the U.S. AG. That's why the Texas and California AG's stepped in, and I read that the French and British were reviewing the situation to see if there was cause for action in their countries.
I'll start this paragraph with the statement; I'm not a lawyer, I just play one on TV. Wait that's not right. I play with one while I watch TV, yea, that's it!
Sony can't change or enact laws by saying it in the EULA. Contracts are agreements (though Sony is stretching that definition too) between parties. A contract that goes against a law is not binding. Usually there is a clause in contracts that says if any part is trumped by law, and not enforceable, that doesn't mean the rest is out the window, or something like that. Here's the tricky part. What if THAT clause is against the law?
Basically a law trumps a contract. That's why some warranties say that if you live in XYZ states, the limits that the manufacturer puts on the warranty do not apply, and you may have other rights. Those states passed laws to protect the consumer from unfair warranties, the manufacturer can't get around it, and is required by law to say so.
Texas and California (and other states too I suppose) have passed laws to protect people from computer tampering or computer spyware, or something that Sony did. I don't have the details. The state AG is responsible for enforcing those laws. I don't think we have a federal law, or the US AG would be looking at it. In the case where there is a state law and a federal law that contradict each other, Federal law trumps state law. State law trumps county law. County law trumps city law, and a three of a kind still beats two pair.
I don't think you can require anyone to plainly state what a disk does to a computer. First, wouldn't that be open source? Second, imagine what the Tiger install disk would look like. You'd need a microscope to read it, or a forklift to get it out of the car.
The law needs to decide what our rights to the music we buy are, and put it in big letters. Then the law needs to decide who owns our computers.
As I see it, the law for what Sony did is there, on the books, and we need to kick our AG's and PA's in the but and make them enforce the law.
Think about it. Can the police use a shotgun method and just tap everyone's phone, because some people use phones to commit crimes? I'm ashamed of the answer. Not before the Patriot Act. If Sony convinces the Feds that terrorists fund their cells by bootlegging music, we are done for. Until then, It's against the law. It's against the Constitution. It's in direct violation of the Bill of Rights.
Sony might say that it's in the EULA, and we agreed to have our computers "tapped", but it's not, and when Sony was asked publicly if the rootkit phoned home, they denied it.
Someone go get the Marshal. We're gonna have us a first class trial, followed by a first class hangin!
One other point, then I gotta go.
Sony has rights to the music, but they are not police. The law protects Sony's rights, but it doesn't give them the right to enforce the law. They have no claim that I can see to take the law into their own hands, and appoint themselves Judge Jury and Executioner of DRM laws. I know better than that. That's why I said "Someone go get the Marshal!" Cause when we hang em after the trial, it's gonna be legal!!
Lampie