Joey Hess wrote:
Marty wrote:
I have long questioned whether copyright can be clearly enough defined to be generally enforceable.The same can be said about anything from murder to jaywalking. This is why we have judges who generate case law.
IANAL but I see two qualitative differences: first, copyright involves expressive rights, which in the US requires the courts to apply "strict scrutiny" in some instances. If it applies, then strict scrutiny requires the government to prove that the law meets stringent tests that don't apply to other laws. If the law involves prior restraint, then it requires "super strict scrutiny." (Source: wikipedia) I think the legal issues faced by the government in the PGP case illustrate this.
Secondly, while their are clear definitions of murder and jaywalking, their may be no clear definition of a copyrighted digital "copy." Once again, I would use the broadcast flag is a good example of this.