At the US border

[Jamon Camisso]

JoeHill wrote:
> On Sat, 30 Sep 2006 17:26:02 -0400
> James Knott got an infinite number of monkeys to type out:
> 
>> Well, he's the sort who thinks it OK to pirate software.
> 
> Just playin' Devil's Advocate here, but a lot of people might think that even
> loading the necessary code to play and decrypt DVD's on Linux is as 'unethical'
> as pirating software, since you do not have the DVD's permission to do so.
> 
> I don't think the line can be drawn as clearly as people might think when it
> comes to F/OSS. AFAICT, it seems to be very much a clash between two completely
> different philosophies regarding the definition of 'ownership'. I also don't
> think we've quite worked out the new meaning of 'property' in a world where such
> concepts are not quite as cut and dried as they used to be.
> 

IANAL... but ethical/moral and legal are in this case mutually
exclusive. It is illegal in *some* places to use libdvdcss2 or whatever
package you use, but it is not unethical. Not to imply that it is
ethical to circumvent copy protection, only that ethics don't really
enter into it here.

As Devil's Advocates, unless we consider breaking unjust laws unethical
(a stretch?) the argument fails. If however, our hypothetical user is a
straight arrow who acts on ethical principals derived from law--in that
case as Devil's Advocate, the point is made, but only then.

Without skepticism and the ability to allow one's personal ethics to
supersede law, I wonder how much journalism from the last century (for
example), would have gone unwritten or unpublished?

Jamon
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