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Annoying rules

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Ifat Glassman

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So even if I buy the music, I am still not allowed to copy it to my PC, mp3 player, lend it to a friend, or play it in a party.

We recently discussed extensively the matter of importing music into iTunes here. For now anyway, I have judged this to be acceptable, relying primarily on this FAQ on the Recording Industry Association of America's web site which states "if you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail." I would not extend that judgment further to making whatever copies I want for any purpose, however.

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The question is not whether there is a law against letting minors see the movie, which there is not, but whether the owner of the theater has a right to impose whatever restrictions on people entering his place of business. You're advocating trespassing. If I want to run a movie theater that only admits gay men and a straight man or some woman gets all huffy about my restrictions and decides "I have just as much right to see this movie as the next person, so I'm gonna break in to the theater, despite his stupid rules", you have implicitly accepted the mob credo, that no may has a right to his own property, that all property is held communally for the benefit of the tribe. It does not matter of the rule is stupid, it is his property and so he has the right to make those rules.

I agree with this.

My claim about seeing the movie despite contract restriction was that strictly following a rule or a contract in this case, should be done after consideration of it's meaning and underlying reason. My argument was that the intention of this restriction to please the parents. If my parents agree to let me see the movie, the theater owners would not mind (financially), there would be nothing to lose, only to earn.

So instead of just going by the contract like a robot, I obey the underlying meaning of it.

Of course, there is the problem of possible misinterpretation by me. Wouldn't want every contract I make with someone to be treated like a flexible thing. Maybe I wouldn't mind it if I knew the person personally and relied on their judgement.

I should just mention that my position seems to have holes in it, I am aware of this.

You do realize that you are in essence saying you do not respect the private property rights of other people, in this particular instance theater owners?

If this was the case, it's not very likely that I would be here, calling this thread "annoying rules", but more likely that I would call it "Do people live to serve me?".

My question is not about their right to dictate terms of a deal (when they are selling a product), but more about how should I treat it?

But this does not in reality reflect what you know NOW about CD's (you cited an Elton John CD limitation). How do you evade this reality in the future when you buy CD's knowing that many, if not all may have such restrictions and that they are in fact quite commonplace?

You dropped the context: it was a reply to softwareNerd's post.

CD's sold in the US do not say that exact verbiage. I did a quick search to see if there was some other legal basis for the phrase. The US WIPO implementation (US law that is for hte implementation of WIPO [uN treaty] copyright).

My guess is the "lending" phrase comes from the WIPO treaties, and so you might want to check that to make sure the context you have it in is appropriate. This would seem to imply that the lending phrase might originate under the "purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage".

Ok, Good to know. Thanks for this! (BTW, Cogito would like to know this as well).

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If this was the case, it's not very likely that I would be here, calling this thread "annoying rules", but more likely that I would call it "Do people live to serve me?".

So then you would in fact respect the rules a private property owner sets while on his/her property even if you didn't like them or thought they didn't make sense? You respect the right of a private property owner to make whatever rules (silly or not) for the use of their private property? Well, good then, no problem.

Because the appearance is that rather than go by the rules as said, you are ASSUMING the motivation behind them (as in the case of the theater owner's rules) as opposed to making it clear with by actually addressing it with them. If you were to actually clarify the intent of the rules with the theater owner as well as your parents, I wouldn't see any problem with you disregarding the rule.

As it stands, at least for the US, theater owners allow for parents letting their children see (most) restricted movies by allowing the parents to accompany their children into the movie.

My question is not about their right to dictate terms of a deal (when they are selling a product), but more about how should I treat it?

Yes, I understand that, but they are not mutually exclusive. And the answer is that you should treat it according to terms of the agreement, not according to your fancy after the deal's done. If you don't like the terms, then you don't deal with them. Otherwise it's not volutary trade, it's breach of contract. While there is two parts to the deal, ("their terms" (their rights) and "your acceptance" (your right to accept the terms or refuse the terms)) morally speaking it's a package deal that cannot be separated. If you think their terms are silly, you are within your rights to refuse to deal with them, but if you deal with them that means you accept their terms, even if you think they are silly, and you are morally wrong to go back on them later.

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* Suppose there is a stop light but the road is empty at the time you want to cross.

What is the best thing to do in these cases? Should I obey the law and keep my honesty, break the law, lie if needed, and ignore senseless rules, or openly attempt to fight every silly rule imposed on me?

I can't say much on the other rules but this one I have particular experience with. I am a motorcyclist, and the sensors in intersections rarely sense the motorcycle's presence. You can theoretically sit forever at a light (usually late at night, when they do not cycle frequently if at all) and it will remain red in your face. Your only option is to run it and take your chances explaining to the cops (or the judges) why you would never have gotten a green in the first place.

Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission!

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My claim about seeing the movie despite contract restriction was that strictly following a rule or a contract in this case, should be done after consideration of it's meaning and underlying reason.
I agree with this, but it turns out that you were completely wrong about the meaning and underlying reason for the restriction. In fact, you were so wrong that I still don't see any way to excuse your behavior. The meaning of the condition is quite plain -- "Must be 16" means that you are not allowed to go in if you are not 16. It does not mean "unless you think that this restrictions literally has no meaning, so you can make stuff up". About the intention:
My argument was that the intention of this restriction to please the parents.
But now you're aware, because you've been told, that this is false -- it's falsity lies in the fact that it's incomplete. Children have no legal or moral right to enter into contracts, which means specifically that people who try to make a contract with a child are at great risk, because contracts with children can't be enforced (and an unenforceable contract isn't a contract). It is mandatory for a rational person to engage in special precautions when dealing with children. One such condition is that you cannot legally sell porn to a minor, and if you do, you will get seriously trounced by the law. There are a lot of things that you can't do with a minor, and if you do them, you can get into big trouble.

Whether or not all of the restrictions regarding minors are fully sensible is a separate issue: the point is that they do exist, and they are restrictions on the business, not the child. That means that is a business tolerates children engaging in conduct prohibited by law, the business will get into trouble. They can be forcibly closed down. The age-restrictions in theaters are partially motivated by that consideration. They are a way of dealing with the threat of the Kefauver committee. In entering the theater, you totally misunderstand the intent of the restriction, and decide that your misunderstanding thus trumps the plain meaning of the words.

This appeal to "deeper meaning" as a way of ignoring actual meaning is one of the most appalling forms of intellectual dishonesty that exists in the moderns world, and seriously threatens civilization, because it destroys our ability to reason and act morally, on a conceptual level. The intellectually honest way to approach the problem is to go to the ticket counter and ask if it is okay for you, a 15 year old, to enter the theater when the signs says "Must be 16". If the ticket seller says no, ask to see the manager. You could tell the manager "My parents won't object"; then you can see if he lets you in. You can test your theory of the "deeper meaning" of the restriction, and you may get the permission that you seek, the enlightenment that you desparately need, or at least the clarity that is required for you to understand that when they say "Must be 16", they really do mean 'Must be 16".

The MPAA has contractual requirements, which translate into financial penalties for theater owners who don't enforce the rules, so you are threatening the existence of the theater owner by your unmotivated exegesis of this rule. What you should do is learn the real underlying meaning of the rule, not some cheap rationalization that you throw together to satisfy a whim.

Of course, there is the problem of possible misinterpretation by me. Wouldn't want every contract I make with someone to be treated like a flexible thing.
Well yeah. Now imagine a situation where you hire a guy to pain your house blue, and he paints it black. You complain, he says "But I thought that the underlying meaning of the contract was that you wanted it to be not-white, and I thought black would be better, and I'm not charging you any more for black". When you make an agreement, stick with the agreement; if you need to, you can try to renegotiate the contract.

You ought to have titled the thread "Adhering to the conditions of a contract: Any moral value?". That would have made the issues so much clearer.

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First about lending/copying CDs to another medium:

Check out the tiny lines at the bottom of the following CD: Elton John- Love songs CD, back cover.

It says: "Unauthorized copying reproduction, hiring, lending, public performance and broadcast prohibited."

So even if I buy the music, I am still not allowed to copy it to my PC, mp3 player, lend it to a friend, or play it in a party. So eggs for scrambled eggs only? not that far fetched.

Wouldn't playing the Cd at a party in my house be Private ie; private property? I would think public is more like a school dance or a group picnic ? And what if I was playing it with my windows open and the sounds drifted over the fence into my neighbors yard. Or if the UPS guy rings the bell when I'm playing my CD, do I have to shut it off first before answering the door? Could I really be fined or something?

I think the issue is more about profit and/or hindering profit by your usage.

Re the eggs issue...they might say scrambled only at Halloween.

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Copyright law looks to the facts to determine if a particular performance is "public," and therefore proscribed. If the party was only for your personal friends, there'd likely be no problem. Unless you had a lot of friends, or charged a cover, or hired a professional DJ, or opened the party to "all comers."

There's a lack of intent when the music is heard in your neighbor's yard. At least, a lack of intent to commit a public performance. There might be a nuisance, but that's a topic for another thread. Same with the UPS guy. These unintentional "public" performances are unlikely to raise the ire of the copyright holder, and so you are unlikely to be sued.

The issue used to be about profit; that is, you couldn't violate copyright unless you made a profit. That rule is gone now, and never made any sense ethically. A copy is a copy, if you make money off it or not.

-Q

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That's plainly false. ... There is no assumption of "much more freedom" on the part of the sellers...

This is a misunderstanding. I was only talking about an instance of first buying a product which has modified terms of use (modified from the standard, well-known terms of use), which are not well emphasized. In this case, "small prints" do not pose a moral obligation on the one buying the product.

If two parties agree on a contract, both should make the terms clear. If one side does not bother to communicate changes in a clear way, I don't see why the other side should go through a special effort to find "the catch", which in this case would mean to read carefully every small print on the box of the CD.

So before one knows of this limitation of use, and until it is made clear by the seller, So one has knowledge of what one is buying before buying it, I think that there is no moral obligation to start obeying the limitation of a product which was already bought under the conditions I mentioned.

One of the lesser-known contributions of William of Ockham....

Your obligation is to learn the laws of your society, and obey them.

What sort of obligation are you talking about? legal or moral? and what kind of "laws of society"? I assume (from previous posts) that you only mean rules for using private property (terms of use, or a contract), and laws that are just. I assume that arbitrary "laws of society" are not included in the list of obligations, right?

Now, as for a different angle of this... :

Like I said above, a fair contract has to be readable to both sides. If one side presents their terms in a confusing manner (on purpose or by omission), the other side is not obligated by it. One example is the note inside the egg-box (that softwareNerd mentioned).

Another example: if my cell-phone company sells be a device, and there is a recorded conversation in which a representative of the company explains to me the terms of the deal on which I am signing, and forgets to mention something, and I am signing the contract, I think that I should not be obligated by what I signed on (40 pages of legal bla bla), but rather by what was explained to me. I also think that this is how the law sees such cases.

Generalization 2 is that you are not violating any person's rights by crossing the street.

But if it was a private road? Then you would stand and wait?

What if the traffic light was out of order, and the rule was to wait until somebody (with authority to direct traffic) arrives, you have no cell-phone, no one gets there even after an hour, and the road is just more empty than empty? I assume you would call this an "emergency situation" and say it is then logical to cross the road anyway. But then, what is so much of an emergency about it? The amount of resources you would have to invest if you stick to the rules? It's not like you would die if you would not cross... Only lose a lot of time. (Taking a bus or something, then coming back a day later to pick up your car etc'). So what is the difference between losing 8 hours and losing 7 minutes that makes the first an emergency? Why if the traffic light is out of order, would you use judgement and cross, while if it was 3AM and no one around, you would suggest that I stand there like a doofus in the red light for 7 minutes?

My suggestion is that you don't understand why violating the rights of another person is bad, if it gives you something that you want. ... Perhaps what you don't get is that you're not the only person with rights.

:worry: You've gone completely bananas with this. This can't possibly be a result of an honest attempt to integrate knowledge about me.

Edit: Spelling

Edited by ifatart
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I was only talking about an instance of first buying a product which has modified terms of use (modified from the standard, well-known terms of use), which are not well emphasized.
The point is that putting imperatives on a box creates no obligation. They could, for example, print on the box "You may make up to 3 copies for personal use", which creates permission in the context where the law already defines restrictions. They simply cannot create a tighter restriction than exists under the law, without creating a contract. And the only way that can impose a "don't lend to friends" condition is if they don't sell the CD to you, they lease it to you (so that it remains their property). There's no proof of agreement in this case misunderstood EJ case. This could be done by the sellers requiring the store to get your signature on a lease contract (and you must know what you are signing), in which case the "tiny print" on the box argument is irrelevant, since that's not part of the contract. If the print on the contract is too tiny and you are told to sign a contract in order to get a product, what do we do, boys and girls? That's right. Don't sign. You know the trouble Rapunzel got in by not reading the fine print.
If one side does not bother to communicate changes in a clear way, I don't see why the other side should go through a special effort to find "the catch", which in this case would mean to read carefully every small print on the box of the CD.
CD sales with or without messages on the box don't involve contracts. But if you were talking about contracts, the reason why you should read -- and, more importantly, understand the contract is that it obligates you to do something. There are circumstances where you'd be protected (if the other guy wrote the contract and there's an ambiguity, the ambiguity is resolved against the maker); when a contract is plain and clear, and you just didn't read the document, then you are in trouble.
So before one knows of this limitation of use, and until it is made clear by the seller, So one has knowledge of what one is buying before buying it, I think that there is no moral obligation to start obeying the limitation of a product which was already bought under the conditions I mentioned.
If the contract is actually clear, and if there is a contract, and there was no fraud, then you are obligated to abide by the terms of the contract. Your failure to inquire about points of uncertainty is no excuse, either.
What sort of obligation are you talking about? legal or moral?
I don't think these should be different, insofar as they are dealing with another person. It is morally wrong for you to steal, and there is a law against it. I won't ever speak a syllable in defense of arbitrary laws with no basis in morality which you cannot possibly know the existence of. You know, or should know, of copyright law. Obey the law.
Like I said above, a fair contract has to be readable to both sides.
Uh, no, to be a contract at all it has to be readable by both sides. There is no such a thing as a "secret contract". The note inside the box is less than a non-contract, it's a practical joke.
Another example: if my cell-phone company sells be a device, and there is a recorded conversation in which a representative of the company explains to me the terms of the deal on which I am signing, and forgets to mention something, and I am signing the contract, I think that I should not be obligated by what I signed on (40 pages of legal bla bla), but rather by what was explained to me. I also think that this is how the law sees such cases.
Maybe, kinda. That's a violation of the parole evidence rule, which doesn't mean it isn't standard.

Actually, to be clear about this, I think that if a salesman misrepresents the terms of the contract, the matter should be decided against the maker, and possibly there should be prosecution for fraud, depending on the nature of the misrepresentation. I have dealt with many salestypes who were clueless and spoke grave untruths -- I once had to have an attorney inform a salesperson that they were confused about the nature of a contract and that things don't "just happen, by magic" -- and I am quite certain that I am not the only person who has had that experience. This is plainly fraud. The attempt to secure a sale by providing false information is fraud, and criminal.

However, forgetting to mention something isn't necessarily fraud. If, for example, you ask "What happens if I want to cancel the contract early" and he says "Well, there is a $40 processing fee, and you have to return the gadget to us", and that is it, but the contract adds "And there is a $2,000 early-termination fee", then that exclusion would be fraudulent. Whereas, if you don't mention consequences of termination (there usually are some) then it's reasonable to assume that your acceptance of the contract didn't depend on his saying "Oh BTW there's a big cancellation fee".

But if it was a private road?
Why are you trespassing? What does the contract say? Why are you changing the hypothetical?
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Parol Evidence just happens to be our current topic in Contracts class.

If the writing is intended by the parties to be a final and complete embodiment of their agreement, prior oral and written statements, as well as contemporaneous oral statements are not part of the agreement. Because they aren't part of the agreement (the PE rule is one of substantive law, not of evidence), they aren't admissible. They may become admissible if the writing is incomplete or non-integrated. There are different ways of applying the rule at common law: in one, the judge reviews all the extrinsic evidence and makes a determination of what (if anything) will be admitted to help interpret the incomplete agreement. In another, extrinsic evidence can be admitted only if it doesn't contradict any complete and integrated part of the writing.

In determining whether the parties intended the writing to be a final and complete embodiment of their agreement, phrases like "this writing is intended by the parties to be a final and complete embodiment of the agreement" are quite helpful. Otherwise you can look to usage of trade and course of dealings.

So in your case of the salesman omitting some term in his oral review of the contract, you will still be bound by that term. You can't even make a mistake-of-fact argument, because the term is written right there in the writing. It doesn't matter that the conversation was recorded. The writing is the final and complete embodiment of the agreement. As David points out, if he had told you something contrary to the written term, and if you could show some inability to read the printed term, or undue pressure from the salesman, you might could get the whole contract thrown out as fraudulent, but that's pretty hard to do. You have to show an intent to mislead. And in that case, the whole thing is thrown out, not just the one term you were mislead about.

I think it is morally repugnant for the salesman to tell you (using David's example) about the $40 restocking fee, but forget to tell you about the $2,000 early termination fee. However, you will still have a great deal of difficulty proving that this was fraud in court. Fraud is hard to prove. You have to have a false representation of material fact, made with the intent to deceive, and which is reasonably relied upon by another to his detriment. If the salesperson had said "and no other consequences" after telling you about the restocking fee, and he knew about the early termination fee, but didn't tell you, then you might have a case for fraud. Might, because your reliance on the salesman's statement could be considered unreasonable when the contract clearly states otherwise. If the early termination fee is in the writing, and the salesman doesn't affirmatively represent that there is no such fee, you're not going to get the contract thrown out. The salesman may have intended to deceive you, but you wouldn't have a false representation of a material fact, because the material fact is right there in the contract for you to read.

Read before you sign, no matter what the salesman tells you.

-Q

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