Think about Aaron Swartz, and now realize the balls and execution it took for Larry and Sergey to do Google Books. They got big enough that Google's "only" risk was a civil lawsuit. Had they been smaller, they would have been risking some ambitious federal prosecutor charging Google with wire fraud. Indeed, it's kind of lucky that someone like Ortiz wasn't around to throw the book at Alta Vista and early search engines for scraping sites too aggressively or without permission (before robots.txt became mainstream as a distributed solution without as much need for a centralized regulator).<p>As it was, DOJ did get involved in the Google Books case, pushing for a harsher civil settlement against Google:<p><a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10357097-265.html" rel="nofollow">http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10357097-265.html</a>
I have this discussion with friends frequently.<p>For instance, it is illegal to throw a frisbee on a beach in Los Angeles county(1). If you are ticketed, the fine is $1,000.<p>Now....how many tourists going to the beach are going to know that? How many would ever bother to check? Sure, signs could help, but does everyone stop and read the 12-15 rules on any beach/pool signs?<p>Even more broadly, were we, as citizens with the right to free travel on public property, notified of the various laws we are subject to while passing in and out of various jurisdictions? Are we notified of the daily changes made to them? Are we given an opportunity to leave said jurisdictions when informed of laws to which we don't want to be subjected?<p>How are we, as citizens, supposed to understand the laws we are required to follow when we aren't directly provided with them or notified of any changes?<p>In the private world, there are very strict rules about this. You have to explicitly agree to terms of service before utilizing products, companies must record your agreement, and they must notify you (or provide you with a new copy) if those terms change. (The South Park episode regarding the iTunes EULA made an excellent parody of this fact).<p>The whole system is getting completely ridiculous and it deserves much closer attention and more publicity.<p>Sources:<p>(1): <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/02/09/los-angeles-oks-1000-fine-for-throwing-frisbees-footballs-at-the-beach/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/02/09/los-angeles-oks-1...</a>
When you have too many laws, you have no laws.<p>I hate to post something so pithy on HN -- we usually do longer comments here.<p>The fact is, compexity in the legal system only creates a system where those in power can do whatever they want while those out of power (the middle class and poor, mostly), are at the mercy of chance. That's not meant as an indictment of the American political system, that's meant as an indictment of the idea that a complex society requires complex rules to operate. If we could kill that idea, a lot of this other stuff would clear itself up. But I'm not taking any bets.
A video introduction to the excellent book: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwsLAqjqnxo" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwsLAqjqnxo</a><p>Excerpts: <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/20864115/Champion-TFDexcerpt-Sept-Oct-2009" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/20864115/Champion-TFDexcerpt-Sept-...</a> <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/34289636/ThreeFelonies-ZeheExcerpt-byHarveySilverglate" rel="nofollow">http://www.scribd.com/doc/34289636/ThreeFelonies-ZeheExcerpt...</a>
I think I'd like to get as far from US federal law as soon as reasonably possible. Unfortunately doing a tech startup in the US is still vastly better than doing a tech startup anywhere else in the world, and a sufficiently successful company is going to be exposed to US jurisdiction regardless, although principals may not be (and definitely not for personal stuff), e.g. Mega.<p>Not sure where is really that much better, except that common law jurisdictions other than the US probably don't have the more recent utter rejections of the common law tradition (RICO, Patriot, etc.).
I have a theory about how we got this way in America. I think that it is an odd side effect of our ethos as risk takers and individualists. In many other countries, it appears that there are some things that people won't do simply because they would be ashamed to, or ostracized. There's no need to pass a law with outrageous fines or sentences in an attempt to prevent things from happening.<p>In the US, we tend to side with the rebel. Or, at least we did back in the 60s and 70s. What we are seeing today is a legal clamping down in order to compensate fused with post 9/11 paranoia.<p>Related: I believe that the reason why we Americans don't engage in irony in conversation as much as, say, the British is that there is nothing that you can say or do that someone somewhere in the US won't believe or do earnestly. It's an aspect of our culture, and sort of a generalized case of Poe's Law.
The human element that is included in the justice system is there to make it <i>stop</i> when it runs awry, not to make it go through selective enforcement.<p>When we get this backwards really bad stuff happens.
Thousands of new of laws are passed each year (how did we manage the year before without them?) so eventually everyone will be guilty of something. Many laws are also broad so it's just a matter of them wanting to "get you." How many people have a few million $ under their mattresses to prove their innocence?
I've seen the following phrased differently but here's a libertarian's take on the system (not that it reflects every single libertarian's oppinion):<p>"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."<p>I've seen it written too: "It's too late to start legally fixing the system, it's too early to start shooting people".<p>Sometimes I do wonder if the endgame ain't going to be civil war trying to fight oppression.