[dhimes]

If we need a law, let's put a law in place with clearly limited authority, not one where reasonable people can wholly disagree about what it says.

I've never understood why lawyers tolerate ambiguity in the law. But maybe I'm wrong: how can abuse be prevented if this is passed? If abuse starts, how can it be stopped without court action? I'm still reeling from the '90s when Microsoft considered court battles just another field of play for their business. Be illegal. Drive competition out of business. Fight in court. Lose sometimes and pay fine. Net win.

Let me ask you this; it may seem unrelated, but it's not: When I bought my iphone, I was required to enter a contractual agreement with ATT at the same time. Then Apple changed its TOS for the iphone. I could accept or lose its functionality. If I refused, would I be let out of the contract with ATT? Would I have to go to court to find out?

Unfortunately the business climate today is "do what you can until somebody stops you."

[hesitz]

It's impossible to completely avoid ambiguity and vagueness in law. Lawyers don't enact laws, legislators do. And lawyers don't "tolerate ambiguity"; lawyers exist in large part because it takes experts to know how enacted laws will be interpreted by courts (in part because of their inevitable vagueness and ambiguity). Legislators can and usually do try to lessen ambiguity and vagueness in laws they enact, with varying degrees of success. (Like I said, there will virtually _always_ arise factual situations where a law previously though unambiguous and clear turns out to be not to have been unambiguous and clear _enough_. It is the nature of language and rule-making. E.g., how does one supposedly clear and unambiguous law interact with another clear and unambiguous law when they conflict and require different things? Or another example, how should a court interpret a particular statutory provision that, as written, appears to conflict with the general intent of the Act the provision is in? Interpret the particular provision as it reads in isolation? or interpret the provision in a way that seems somewhat odd when it's read in isolation but which makes perfect sense within its Act as a whole?)

I don't know about your iPhone TOS. You could do some research and/or retain a lawyer to get a legal opinion on what the law requires, which is presumably what a court would do if confronted with your case. If the issue (or a nearly identical issue) has previously been litigated, then the previous court decision will have some (varying) degree of precedential value for your own case.

In case of you and your iPhone issue, this is nothing new. Many everyday situations arise where there simply is no practical way to dispute another party's interpretation of a contract or license. This sort of "do what you can until somebody stops you" has been going on forever. (Class actions exist as one way to avoid this problem in situations where numerous individuals with limited resources are wronged in same way by a more powerful defendant, but the solution they provide is limited at best.)

[dhimes]

While "bug-free" laws may be impossible to write, I do not excuse legislation that is this sloppy. Turar (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3482567) was able to write it as such.

And the idea that I have to retain a lawyer to check for precedent on the terms of service of a mass-consumer-product is simply absurd, and if that is the world in which we live I will take whatever humble measures I can to change it as the opportunities may arise.

[hesitz]

Please understand I wasn't necessarily defending SOPA as written; I was merely objecting to people who were naively saying, "This is what it says and there is no other way of interpreting it". (Mostly, perhaps, because I think it's dangerous to assume SOPA-advocates intend this SOPA provision to apply in a nefarious (or ridiculous) way. Ascribing ill-motives to your opponents is not helpful when trying to resolve things in way that's acceptable to both sides. . .) Also, it's not clear to me that Turar rewrote it, seems to me he's simply rephrasing what he sees as part of its meaning and asking how it makes sense. . . It is virtually always dangerous to look at a single provision of a statute in isolation. It is often important to know how it interacts with or how its own interpretation is affected by other provisions in its Act or other laws that already exist.

Regarding interpretation of your TOS: it's a complicated world. It would be nice if the general public was aware of and expert in the law of contracts and licensing, specifically as applied to software and in context of mass-consumer-products. Unfortunately, we live in a complicated world. Moreover, in many cases (perhaps "most" if they're ones that actually get to court and have lawyers on both sides) there simply is no absolute answer as to "what the law requires".

It's often hard for non-lawyers to understand just how incapable language is of defining a system of rules that can be definitively applied to always determine a single result in every situation. The truth of the matter is that in many cases even a lawyer who is expert in a field can't tell you "what the law requires". The lawyer can give an "opinion" regarding how the law applies to your specific factual situation. That opinion would presumably include an indication of different possible legal outcomes, along with the lawyer's confidence-level in each possible outcome. . .

But tell me, how would it have helped you if you yourself were absolutely certain (and correct) that Apple was misapplying its TOS and was in breach of contract? Even if you were right, contesting their decision is not an economically viable route for you. As I said in previous comment, this sort of disparity in "bargaining power" has been common for decades if not hundreds of years, it's a condition of the modern world. Yes, it's unfortunate and it would be nice if things worked differently. How exactly to change things is not so clear. Class actions arose as one method of addressing the problem, but as I said earlier they're not a very good solution. . .

On a slightly different note: As technical people here at HN, it's sometimes interesting to think of the big picture of computing as a whole, how amazing it is that a computer runs at all (much less that they run "well"), given the complexity of an OS, all the different types of software that run on it, and the prevalence of bugs in even simple systems. Increase this by orders of magnitude for all the computers running and cooperating on the internet and it becomes even more amazing. The legal world has an analogous wonder, I think. How can it be that a society runs at all when governed by a system of laws that is necessarily (and obviously) imperfect for its intended purpose (too complicated, incapable of unambiguously determining a single outcome in many cases, etc.)? I don't know, but things keep on working, more or less. Of course, improving the way things work is always a good goal. . . .

[dhimes]

(Mostly, perhaps, because I think it's dangerous to assume SOPA-advocates intend this SOPA provision to apply in a nefarious (or ridiculous) way. Ascribing ill-motives to your opponents is not helpful when trying to resolve things in way that's acceptable to both sides. . .)

I actually think the opposite is true. I think, "what is the worst they can do with this law?" That's what has to be acceptable to me. Because there are a lot of "theys," and somewhere somebody is going to get the idea that the law can be applied in a new way because of the way it is written. I vaguely recall a Supreme Court decision in the '90s (or was it the '80s?) that pissed a lot of people off. They interpreted the law as it was written, not as most people thought it was intended. Their answer was (Scalia or somebody) "we need to write a new law." I wish I could recall more.

The good lawyers I know are quite articulate and are capable of making themselves quite clear. As you indicate, the law on its best day is fraught with multiple interpretations simply because as a whole it's a complex system of many interacting parts. But each part we add should be as clear as possible. I see passing a law with terms ill-defined as, frankly, malpractice.

And Turar rephrased it as he interpreted it, yes. My point is the original should have been phrased like that if that is what they meant. It's not beyond the authors' capabilities. In short, I expect them to do the best they can. When I see something like this, I don't think they are doing their best and they should be made to do it again.

But tell me, how would it have helped you if you yourself were absolutely certain (and correct) that Apple was misapplying its TOS and was in breach of contract?

Corporations can be fined for misbehaving. If it was illegal for them to do so, then they could be stopped. I agree with you, and that's one of my issues: there's nothing reasonable to do on small issues that few people care about. Thus a few of us get screwed. Unfortunately, this eventually leads to regulations, about which everybody (including me) whines, because they will be slopilly-worded and we'll all wonder whether or not we're complying and ...[spend too much time on HN arguing about it :-) ] ....

And, yes, I did pick up that you don't defend SOPA as written, but rather we are off on a related (but different) subject. As they say, "meta."