Quote:
Originally Posted by CaleVinson  But thus far in this thread, the only argument that I can recall Gigs putting up as to why having the flag is a *bad* thing is that of misleading people on IP issues. |
OK fine. Lets assume the flags actually did work, that they were an effective measure. The creator doesn't get to decide what rights the consumer has under copyright, not with absolute authority.
Copyright is not an absolute right.
The consumer potentially has fair use rights, compulsory license rights, the work may have fallen into the public domain, or the user might even live in a country where it's not illegal to copy things that are all-rights-reserved for personal non-profit use (a lot of europe).
There is no way that a mechanized enforcement method can express the nuanced and sometimes variable and unclear rights that a consumer has under copyright law. The only thing that can decide that are humans.
So we have flags that are bad when they are ineffective, and if it even were possible to make them effective, they are bad in a different way.