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A comment on 20,000 UC Berkeley Lectures Made Illegal, So We Irrevocably Mirrored Them. Parent comment

Re:20,000 UC Berkeley Lectures Made Illegal, So We Irrevocab... by ThrustVectoring on Thursday March 16, 2017 @03:43PM (#13888457)
This isn't a clear "everyone is worse off" situation. The tradeoff gets you closer to a society where everyone can participate with reasonable accommodation. Whether this level of fairness is worth the cost is a legitimate point to discuss, but it's not really fair to elide the fact that people value a fair society.
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Re:20,000 UC Berkeley Lectures Made Illegal, So We Irrevocab... by galacticpony on Thursday March 16, 2017 @04:42PM (#13888981)
How so? This is a rather a case where a law is being followed to the letter to an objectively worse individual outcome.

It's highly questionable that having 20,000 free videos removed from public access is the intention behind the law. More likely, it's an unwelcome side-effect.

Why should the law not allow an exception for free content? Why should the law put the burden squarely on the provider? The tradeoff isn't in having "everyone" participate or not, it's in who pays the bill.

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Re:20,000 UC Berkeley Lectures Made Illegal, So We Irrevocab... by ThrustVectoring on Thursday March 16, 2017 @07:52PM (#13890212)
I'm judging it on rule utilitarianism more than act utilitarianism. Yes, removing videos from public access is a bad thing. There's compensating effects from following a rule that makes Berkeley take down a bunch of videos.
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