English Language & Usage: Multi-Layered Discourse Room

A: Upfront reason for closing a question needed

4

This is now partially implemented. Questions closed as duplicates now get a " [duplicate]" appended to the title, rather than just " [closed]". So together with " [migrated]", that makes three different notices.

While you were sleeping.

KitFox

1:00 PM

I am in a hateful mood today.

I have 10oz of chocolate as a remedy.

TRiG

@KitFox I don't have enough chocolate in my life.

I have enough, but for one person only.

KitFox

1:16 PM

I hate the world today.

I can't close my eyes and make it go away.

1:36 PM

What happened?

user19161

@KitFox Be patient, what you need will come one day.

Or what didn't happen that should have?

I just answered the on-vs-in-the-road question. The other answers just didn't seem to cover it completely. Hope mine does, but I might not have had enough coffee yet. Damn, but it's cold today!

@Cerberus How would you know?

I would know if I were told.

And, yes, it's cold.

@Cerberus "I would know if I were told ..." Sounds like the start of a military cadence count.

1:47 PM

Told as in informed, not ordered.

I don't take orders from no moderatrix!

Ordered got nothin' to do with it.

Then what do you mean?

howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57413233-285/…

What do you think of bluetooth music receivers?

Military cadence

In the armed services, a military cadence or cadence call is a traditional call-and-response work song sung by military personnel while running or marching. In the United States, these cadences are sometimes called jody calls or jodies, after Jody, a recurring character who figures in some traditional cadences. Requiring no instruments to play, they are counterparts in oral military folklore of the military march. As a sort of work song, military cadences take their rhythms from the work being done (compare sea shanty). Many cadences have a call and response structure of which one soldi...

They can pass on music from your phone to your (old but good) amplifier/speakers.

@Cerberus They're fine if you're not picky about fidelity.

1:50 PM

It seems they work on Bluetooth 2.1.

Would that have a significant effect on an Internet radio stream?

Those are usually 128 kbps or so.

And Bluetooth 2.1 can handle a bigger stream, I think.

Oh, and do you want a mini lemon tart?

I have made a couple.

I do not understand why you would bother making a lemon tart.

Excuse me?

Mine are already tart enough as they are.

It's the best tart in the world, shame on you.

And they contain loads of unhealthy stuff, so they must be good.

Sugar, butter...

Adjective, not noun.

1:55 PM

Yes, yes. I noticed your little pun.

2:09 PM

Tell me they don't look good.

Mmmmmh... yellow paint...

!

That's lemon, silly.

Actually, I think the yellow mostly comes from the egg, but that doesn't matter. Think of it as lemon-yellow.

And this is what I saw walking back home. Pretty swans. Wicked, ice-breaking boats.

Yeah we have swans here. And herons. And ducks. And gulls. And moorhen. And Egyptian geese.

And cormorants.

so @Reg I couldn't watch the whole series. I skimmed it then skipped to the end.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no spoilers pls. I already know they are going to destroy them.

2:18 PM

@RegDwighт There isn't much to spoil, per se.

except that it's 21 episodes plus almost 3 hours of "finale"

Well there's the challenges. And perhaps other unexpected developments.

I mean, even that guy not being able to tear two parts apart was an unexpected development.

I saw ducks, geese, and swans huddled on the river ice this morning. I thought, "Sucks to be a duck."

A heron flew past my window just a couple hours ago.

Heroin flies past @Cerberus's window all the time.

The Egyptian geese actually decided they are not going to commute to Egypt this year.

2:21 PM

Same with the Egyptian cotton.

It was 60 °F on Christmas.

I guess now they wish they had. Cuz now it's snow everywhere and like 20 °F.

20° F, not 20 °F.

@Robusto Sure! And military drones fly past your window all the time, ha...oh.

@Robusto You should be thankful I'm handling the conversion for you.

Yeah, what is that about? Turncoat.

2:23 PM

@RegDwighт You can't convert me. I'm an atheist.

Also, it is 20 °F according to Wikipedia.

So put your whitespace in a hat and eat it.

Well, they're always right, so ...

And they never make mistakes, so ...

And a lifetime of seeing the degree symbol next to the number counts for nothing compared to one idiot's entry in a wiki.

@Robusto you know that's a poor defense.

And by that logic, since I've seen it's used as the possessive pronoun in Wikipedia, it must be used that way.

I think I was taught -7 °C, not -7° C.

2:25 PM

@RegDwighт I don't need a good defense for a poor offense.

@Robusto oh come on, now you're just trolling.

Let me consult Fowler for you.

@Cerberus there's even a Unicode code point for °C and °F.

@Cerberus Fowler is for the birds.

No more.

@RegDwighт Ah!

2:26 PM

I am a conspiracy of one. Watch out.

Oh, and some people write -7°C.

Which is even worse than it's, because it's at least used to be correct.

> fag(g)ot. Spell with two *g*s.

That's what Fowler says.

So why is the second G in parentheses?

This is too complicated for me.

To indicate that there are two options.

2:29 PM

Of which only one may be used?

That's like US Elections or something.

if it were the US elections, after you wrote it, a conspiracy theorist would demand to see your chosen spelling's long-form etymology.

Haha.

Fowler only recommends, he never rigs.

Well he only just called me a fag(g)ot!

You weren't born yet.

Yes, very considerate of him to call me a faggot before I was even born.

2:39 PM

Considerate, prescient, you name it.

2:53 PM

Fageddaboudit.

fage habbard it

elron hubbard it

elrond/hobbit hit

Wow the US is weird: rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotatom/~3/ObqHnNb218E/…

> Unlocking New Mobile Phones Becomes Illegal In the US Tomorrow

Someone needs to explain to me how unlocking a cell phone has anything to do with copyright law

Q: When is it appropriate to end a sentence in a preposition?

@RegDwighт Those are compat codepoints for legacy roundtripping. You aren’t really sposta use ’em.

Please dupclose this. I’m too lazy even to go find what it’s a dupe of.

0

Q: Sentences that end in With

Please can you help me. If I can´t end a sentence with the preposition "with" does this mean the following sentences are grammatically wrong? If so why? At least we have some information to work with. She is finding the job very hard to cope with. Blasphemy is one thing i will not put up with. ...

grammar

55

Like many others, I commonly find myself ending a sentence with a preposition. Yes, it makes me cringe. I usually rewrite the sentence, but sometimes (in emails) I just live with it. To, with... you know who you are. Should I keep fighting myself on this one, or is it okay in some circumstanc...

grammaticality prepositions word-order sentence sentence-ends

3:05 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hilarious.

It could be easier theoretically to copy music or something if you unlock your phone.

The excesses of capitalism are really...excessive.

@Cerberus no. it has nothing to do with that. it has to do with using your phone on a different carrier.

it's not jailbreaking. it's carrier-unlocking.

I believe jailbreaking is now forbidden too?

Forbidding carrier-unlocking—I have no idea what they base that on.

@Cerberus jailbreaking was probably always illegal

No, it wasn't.

If my memory serves me well.

oh right

yes, there was a special exemption for that

3:12 PM

And now it is forbidden.

I'm so glad I live where I live.

@Cerberus I suppose on the contract that you make with the carrier.

You don't need a law for that.

The phones are heavily discounted when you buy them for use with a single carrier instead of many. So if you

Q: What do you call a person who always has a pleasant smile on his face?

Supercollider, here we come:

0

What do you call a person who always has a pleasant smile on his face. Is there anything better than calling him a "Pleasing personality"?

single-word-requests phrase-requests british-english

@MετάEd That's why they lock you into a contract for several years. They don't need to also block you from using the phone elsewhere afterwards.

3:15 PM

@MετάEd The contract locks you in. As long as you keep paying for the service, what grounds to they have to care what you do with the phone you bought? and there are termination fees. If you want to, eg, travel to a foreign country and get a sim card there while visiting, you're SOL because you're on a contract? That's insane. And unsupported by copyright as far as I know.

If the carriers want that kind of control over the phones, they should just lease the phones.

This room is always so obsessed with phone sex, you’d think people didn’t get out enough.

if they sell the phones, the customer owns it. they should be allowed to modify it, sell it, whatever.

@tchrist Well, we don't. But this is also about copyright law, not just phone(sex).

Governments around the world should forcefully break the oligopolies and apply anti-trust principles.

@Cerberus hahahahahahaha

As they do with electricity and landlines.

3:18 PM

@Cerberus not here

Well, they should, then.

Although we pay more for electricity. But most of that is taxes, I think.

in this case the government is CREATING the oligopolies, by implementing draconian copyright restrictions at their behest.

I meant phone-company oligopolies.

PS I think jailbreaking phones is still legal in the US

@Cerberus me too

PS I thought it had just become illegal?

3:20 PM

in 2012 they renewed the "okay to jailbreak" exemption

for phones only

Oh.

no, it's UNLOCKING that just became illegal

I thought jailbreaking too.

which is so asinine. I can understand why jailbreaking might be illegal under the DMCA, even if I disagree with it. But I cannot understand in any way how carrier-locks fall under the purview of copyright.

Why do you think it should be related to c.?

3:31 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Oligopolies are olive cops.

What do you don't understand about the sentence? — Mohit 18 mins ago

Ugh, was the site down?

it was for me

@Cerberus So anyway: Jailbreaking breaks a "digital lock" and thus can facilitate copyright violations, especially with regards to pirated apps. Thus it makes sense as a copyright restriction to prevent jailbreaking. ("makes sense" being used loosely here - I don't think it's a good law; I'm saying the conclusion to prevent jailbreaking makes sense under the law)

Yeah.

But why did you think breaking carrier locks was related to c.?

cornbread ninja

Copyright: the right to copy

The monopoly to copy.

The exclusive right.

I hates it.

cornbread ninja

3:47 PM

Only for life + 50.

IIRC.

Only that short?

Then it will stimulate creativity for life + 50 years!

The longer, the better!

It should be 5–10 years depending on genre, if anything.

@Cerberus I don't think it's related to copyright, except that it's being called illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Huh?

@cornbreadninja in the US, life + 70

What does the DMCA have to do with carrier locks?

3:51 PM

@Cerberus Thank you for restating my earlier question.

Does it explicitly forbid unlocking?

52 mins ago, by Mr. Shiny and New 安宇

Someone needs to explain to me how unlocking a cell phone has anything to do with copyright law

@Cerberus No. They are interpreting it under the "digital locks" section of that law.

Ah, is that part of the DMCA? How wicked.

The exemption, which just expired and was not renewed, was a DMCA excemption.

granted by the librarian of congress.

If corporate America sank into the ground and all died, I would not weep.

Too bad for Google.

And let Hollywood be the first to fall into the lake of fire.

3:55 PM

As if your country's economy and social welfare isn't fully integrated with America's.

We'd get over it...

And, even if we didn't, I would not weep for a bloated Leviathan.

I have several friends and relatives who are corporate lawyers, bankers, lobbyists...

cornbread ninja

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yes. my connection broke.

And, when we talk about this stuff, I'm moderate and polite enough.

@Cerberus heheh

they probably think of you as that radical socialist friend/relative.

Nah.

I'm not a socialist. I have no opinion on changing the distribution of money by the government as it is now.

And most people in our circles dislike banks. As to lobbyists and large corporations, opinions vary.

user19161

4:04 PM

Hey @kit do you feel better now?

user19161

Behold, I am now the Brown Square!

Looks more like dark red to me...

Or possibly burgundy.

user19161

Well, officially it is "brown".

Hrmpf.

user19161

The official colours are not what we are used to seeing.

4:07 PM

I prefer clandestine colours...

user19161

This is what you get if you type "brown" in GIMP.

it looks reddish to me

user19161

So basically, open up gimp, choose a new image 100 by 100 pixels, and then colorify with brown, then save as a png file.

I don't have Gimp installed...

user19161

Don't you have Photoshop?

4:10 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hey, what do you think of Flattr, as a way for websites to make a profit without those annoying ads?

@JasonBourne did you use the proper colour profile?

@JasonBourne I do.

@Cerberus dunno what that is

Let me explain it.

user19161

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, I didn't change anything, it's the defaults, so it must be right.

4:10 PM

I spend € 5 or so monthly on Flattr.

@JasonBourne No.

Every time I am on a website that has Flattr enabled, I can click on the Flattr button, and the page gets 1 point.

At the end of the month, my money is divided between the sites that I gave points to, proportionally.

I love it.

I can reward sites that I like.

Sure, but what if you don't click on the +1 for the sites?

I'm sure I earn websites more this way than I ever did through ads, since I never ever buy anything through an ad.

say, you're lazy or you forget

4:12 PM

If I don't click, then...what?

@Cerberus ads are worth money even if they don't directly lead to sales. for one thing they build brand recognition.

If I only click on one site, it gets all the money.

@Cerberus I mean there's no way to assure that you're distributing your money proportionately to the benefit you derive from the sites. Or even to the costs you incur for them.

If I haven't clicked on any pages as the end of the month looms near, Flatter warns me. If I still don't click anything, I pay nothing.

So let's say I run a site that only allows flattr users.

I am still counting on them to click voluntarily.

whereas if I run a site with ads, the ad people pay me per impression and per-click.

4:15 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, but I research everything that matters. And, when it doesn't matter, I don't look at brands, just price. To simplify things a little bit. I really don't think companies benefit from advertising themselves to me much.

Matt Эллен

I'm not sure how many not-incredibly-high traffic sites get per impression ads.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Indeed not. But it can become a routine, just like voting on questions on SE, and then I think it could work really well.

So a site with more page views will tend to have higher costs than a site with fewer. But unless people allocate their flattr dollars on a per-page basis, the money could disproportionately go to parties that perform less work for the client.

@MattЭллен well, it depends.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Umm wait, what? Why would you want that?

@Cerberus instead of ad-supported, it's flattr-supported.

4:17 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You will get many more Flattr clicks than ad clicks if everyone uses Flattr.

7 mins ago, by Cerberus

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hey, what do you think of Flattr, as a way for websites to make a profit without those annoying ads?

@MattЭллен Nearly nothing.

@Cerberus how do you know

Example: I visit TONS of sites that I never return to and wouldn't bother clicking a plus-one on.

but those sites showed me ads and maybe got paid for it.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Of course it won't be entirely proportional. But in general sites with more visitors will get Flattered more, ceteris paribus.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 How often do you click ads?

I have already clicked Flattr buttons many, many more times than I have clicked on ads in my life.

@Cerberus very very rarely.

4:20 PM

I click Flatter buttons all the time—well, they are still rare, but I always click on them on interesting articles on Techdirt, which has them everywhere.

I also get most of my web content from an RSS reader. So half the crap that people have on web pages now: facebook buttons, pinterest stuff, etc, I never ever see. So I am not the target audience for most things like online ads.

A Flattr button is like a one-click donation button, but in a way that clicking it doesn't cost you any additional money. It just changed the distribution of your fixed "Websites" monthly expense.

And neither is a capitalism-hating latin-speaking auto-hotkeying ad-blocking phone-rooting multi-cranial dog.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Neither am I. But I really don't think other people click many ads, whence the extremely low click-through rates.

@Cerberus Sure, I like the idea. But I don't see it becoming dominant. People are just too lazy. And advertising is too important. pay-per-impression is still big.

4:23 PM

One day, nearly everybody will use Adblock.

@Cerberus yes. But nobody clicks on TV ads or weekly flyers or radio ads or newspaper ads.

@Cerberus if that were true, it would already be true.

And those are equally ineffective except for brand awareness.

@Cerberus brand awareness is super important.

also product awareness.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why? Numbers are growing, and have always been growing.

@Cerberus as a percentage of internet users?

4:24 PM

No, in absolute numbers.

The former has a limit.

Which will soon be reached.

Or asymptotically approached.

I want the entire Internet advertising business to die. I want everybody to use Flatter.

@Cerberus But the internet is growing in absolute numbers too. So it's meaningless to say that "more and more people use adblock"... it needs to be more and more percent of your revenue stream.

@Cerberus but you hate all marketing and advertising.

I'm not so opposed. I like how youtube has skippable ads most of the time. Because sometimes I do watch the ad, if they get my attention in the first 5s. The rest of the time I skip it.

1 min ago, by Cerberus

The former has a limit.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why on earth would you want to watch a Youtube ad?

@Cerberus what former? the percentage of internet users?

And don't you dislike the clutter, the extra clicking required?

@Cerberus because not all ads are annoying? some are actually fun to watch. or informative.

@Cerberus I like not paying for stuff.

4:28 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The percentage of people having access to the Internet.

@Cerberus No, I was talking about the percentage of internet users who use adblock. If ad blocking reaches a high percentage of internet users, then sites which rely on ads will fail. If it never reaches a high percentage of internet users, sites which rely on ads will succeed and the ad-blockers will be freeloaders

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I can't believe you're saying that. I find them all extremely uninteresting. Besides, an advertisement is not what I want when I click a Youtube video. I want to watch the video. How would you feel if I gave you a Latin parable every ten chat lines?

user19161

Hey @MετάEd now we look more similar.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes. Although, freeloaders? Flatterers.

@Cerberus What part of "not all ads are annoying" didn't you understand? I didn't say "all ads are annoying but I like watching them anyway".

4:30 PM

What part of "all ads are annoying" didn't you understand?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I looked into it. Unlocking a cellphone is not intrinsically a violation of copyright law. It is a violation of copyright law when you buy a phone but you license the phone software, and then you modify the phone software without permission. Bottom line: don't buy such phones.

Just the fact that they appear when I am not looking for them makes them annoying.

@Cerberus For sites that have alternate ways of paying, people who pay through alternate ways are not freeloading, by definition.

Well, then why did you say "ad-blockers are freeloaders"?

@MετάEd that's a bullshit interpretation of the laws. Modifying software isn't illegal. copying software is illegal.

@Cerberus I was talking about ad-supported sites. Not sites with lots of ways to pay.

4:31 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's a novel interpretation of copyright law.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, in this future scenario, they will/should have Flatter buttons.

@MετάEd No, it's true, you're allowed to modify things. why not.

I actually think the "free to play" model is the future, for websites too, and it will work with micropayments, just like Android applications, but even smaller. And they could be distributed through Flattr.

Except digital locks which restrict copying. But the carrier lock doesn't restrict copying. It restricts running the device. It's just bullshit all around.

I'd like to see what specific text in the US laws they're using to justify this claim.

@Cerberus Free-to-play models are different from flattr because they're usage-based. You want to use more, you pay more. With flattr, it's purely voluntary.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The problem is when you are licensed to use that software only for use on the carrier's network. When you unlock the phone and use it elsewhere, you are violating the terms of the license agreement that you agreed to.

4:35 PM

@MετάEd I dispute that that's what people are doing, or that that's how the sales are being made to users. A 30 page contract that says "and the software on this phone is only licensed for blah blah blah" in paragraph 437 in 4 pt font doesn't count in my book.

The thing is, the phone contract is clear: get a cheap phone, and in return we expect you to stay with us for 3 years (or whatever).

Those are the terms that the guy in the store will explain to you

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's what I'm saying. The voluntary system may or may not become big, but the partial-paywall will certainly become big. However, an infrastructure like that of Flattr could be used for people to pay the paywall with one click, if Flattr or a similar system shall so evolve.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Really? You get a huge discount on the phone in return for which you agree to use it only on the provider's network, and then you feel it is okay to break the agreement? That's theft, pure and simple. The right thing to do is not to buy a locked phone in the first place.

Anyway, if they were trying to use CONTRACT law to say "the contract is: get a cheap phone, but you can only use it with us, and stay for 3 years", and the carrier could SUE you if you unlocked it, that would make more sense to me.

@MετάEd If that is so, just flash a new ROM on it, and you're within the "law"?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 A license is a contract.

4:36 PM

@MετάEd No. Not at all. I am still paying my carrier for the service.

@Cerberus Yes, certainly.

@MετάEd Bullshit. That is not theft at all.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What matters is what you agreed to.

@Cerberus What, breaking a license agreement, so that you gain financially, is not theft?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Agreed. Should still be destroyed by anti-trust law, but would make more sense.

@MετάEd What matters is that they're trying to use copyright law, which is concerned with copying, to prevent an action that involves no copying of any kind.

4:38 PM

@MετάEd Indeed, it is not.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 They are using software licensing, which involves assertion of copyright otherwise you cannot enforce a license. But it really is software licensing agreements that are the issue.

@MετάEd Theft is not "every illegal act in some way related to an object owned by someone".

see, it makes no sense to me that jailbreaking a phone would be legal under the DMCA, after which you could make any kinds of modifications to the software you want, but USING AN UNMODIFIED PHONE on a different network would somehow be a copyright violation.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Agreed.

@MετάEd If they are strictly using a contract term then it shouldn't fall under the DMCA and the penalty should not be criminal but civil, and should require the carriers to sue the customer.

4:39 PM

@Cerberus I am not going to engage in a semantic argument. I should be able to say it is wrong, legally and morally, to take money from someone, without being redirected into an argument about the word "theft".

@MετάEd I believe you, but it is a preposterous system.

It simply makes no sense to me to prohibit something under copyright law that has nothing at all to do with copying.

@MετάEd Also I am claiming that the carrier is not losing any money. The person who bought the phone is still subject to their service contract.

@MετάEd Fine, well, you aren't taking any money when you unlock a phone; you are still a huge net profit to the company because of your 2-year contract. That is worth many times the phone.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I understand that: the DMCA criminalizes things that arguably should not be criminalized in the first place. My point is just that the law does work this way, and nobody should be surprised.

Buy a phone without a lock.

Let's say I have a 3 year contract with Sprint. But I am going away for 3 weeks to Europe. what harm does Sprint face if I buy a T-Mobile Austria sim for use in my phone while I am there? No harm at all.

4:41 PM

@MετάEd I agree.

@Cerberus That is not your calculation to make. Part of the money over that two years pays the subsidy on your phone.

@MετάEd My point is that the DMCA criminalizes copyright-related acts that should not be criminalized, but I fail to see how unlocking a phone even falls under that at all.

If the software is licensed and not sold (a concept that courts do not always agree to despite EULAs, etc), then modifying the software would be a CONTRACT violation, not a copyright violation.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Fine. I see how it does, you don't see. That's okay. It's still smarter to buy a phone that is not encumbered by a software license.

you're not violating copyright unless you're making copies.

@MετάEd Why is it not my calculation to make? I strongly disagree with any suggestion that unlocking a subsidised phone while still locked into an expensive contract is in any way "immoral", or stealing, or bad in any way. It's good, even.

4:44 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's simply not true in the law. You can't boil it down to that because that is not what the law says.

I think Mr S. means it is what the law should say.

@MετάEd Which part of the copyright law says that it's illegal to unlock a phone?

@Cerberus Where we agree, I suppose, is that it is unlawful. Because there is a difference between a good law and a bad law, of course.

@MετάEd Absolutely. I just objected to your moral judgement.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I've already spelled it out. I'm done.

4:45 PM

@Cerberus No, actually. almost everything under copyright law always revolves around copies. there are a few notable exceptions, like the bits that revolve around enabling infringement or digital-lock-circumvention.

@Cerberus Which moral judgment?

10 mins ago, by MετάEd

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Really? You get a huge discount on the phone in return for which you agree to use it only on the provider's network, and then you feel it is okay to break the agreement? That's theft, pure and simple. The right thing to do is not to buy a locked phone in the first place.

Et passim.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Can't modifying things be also about copyright, sometimes?

I am pretty sure that it is the "digital lock" language in the DMCA which makes carrier unlocking "illegal".

@Cerberus The first-sale doctrine allows you to modify stuff you own.

But Ed says it is the "software licence".

@Cerberus I think I've covered that already. You made a deal with the devil, of course. You got the price you got for the phone because you licensed the phone software for one network only. But that was the deal you made. It's morally wrong to go back on the deal just because you can save some money.

4:48 PM

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Are there no exceptions?

@Cerberus I don't think so. And I don't see how a provision like "don't use our software for purpose X" has anything to do with copyright. It's contract law, pure and simple.

@Cerberus The digital lock prohibition is one. It's the only one I can think of for copyright.

@Cerberus It's not just one or the other.

@MετάEd Why is it morally wrong to back on a deal? Isn't that a bit...absolute?

@MετάEd I'm sure that's not how most people see the deal. They don't see the deal as "this phone only works on this network", because the carriers and salespeople don't ever state that. They see the deal as "$50/month for 36 months in return for $300 off my phone"

not "$50/month for 36 months for $300 off the carrier's phone which I get to borrow"

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Here's where copying comes in. You are allowed to have and use a copy of the software on your phone only within the limits of a license agreement you make with the copyright holder.

4:51 PM

And who determines what the "deal" is? Does clicking "OK" on a licence agreement count as a "deal" for you? Because it doesn't count to me, and neither would it count to many judges.

@MετάEd So, if I removed all the software on the phone that's copyright Sprint, I would be okay to carrier-unlock it? I doubt it.

Anyway that's still contract law and not DMCA

whereas the exemption that just expired was specifically a DMCA exemption. So the US government, at least, feels that carrier-locking falls under the DMCA.

@Cerberus I don't get what you are saying. Keeping your commitments is very basic morality.

@MετάEd Yeah, why is it not the licence here, rather than copyright, that you violate/infringe on?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You would absolutely be okay to use the phone on another carrier. If you removed the Sprint software you would not need unlocking software: there would be nothing to unlock.

@MετάEd wrong

That isn't how it works

4:54 PM

@MετάEd And how does one determine what counts as a commitment? And is violating any commitment always immoral?

The phone has a feature that rejects SIM cards from other networks

Yeah.

That is not a piece of software owned by Sprint

Why are you separating software licensing from copyright? They are bound together. You can only license a copyrighted software. Who ever heard of licensing public domain software???

@Cerberus That's what we have case law for.

@MετάEd Law ≠ morality.

4:55 PM

@MετάEd there is a difference between buying software and licensing software. You can definitely modify software you buy. And courts have often ruled that software is SOLD instead of licensed despite EULAs and other things like that. Unless a person signs a contract regarding software, the software is usually considered sold.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The ultimate owner isn't at issue. It is of course true that the phone software may be licensed to you through Sprint but owned by somebody else. But the point is that you are the one agreeing to the license terms.

@MετάEd I do not dispute your legal analysis. I dispute your moral judgement.

Commute.

@Cerberus You asked how one determines what counts as a commitment. See contract law. It's not perfect, but that's how we do it, isn't it?

@MετάEd My point is that if I bought a phone from Sprint, and erased ALL the software on it and put new software on it that belonged to someone else, the phone would still be locked to Sprint and I'd still be liable under the DMCA for carrier-unlocking it.

4:56 PM

I actually think that contract law mostly gets it right. We've had a lot of practice figuring out how to do that.

@MετάEd Is it? Not in my book. Is that truly what you believe, that any legal commitment is a moral commitment?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What do you think phone unlocking entails?

@MετάEd it entails making the phone accept sim cards from other networks.

it has nothing to do with the OS that's installed

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Making the software on the phone accept sim cards from other networks.

it's a feature of the GSM hardware stack

4:57 PM

No software, no problem.

@MετάEd If you mean American contract law, I have to disagree, if only based on this example.

@Cerberus One example invalidates American contract law?

Let's say you buy a carrier-locked Galaxy Nexus from Sprint. Then you install Cyanogenmod on it. It will still be locked to Sprint despite having had all its software replaced.

No, contract law isn't the problem here. The problem is the DMCA criminalizing the breaking of copy protection.