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Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by lm28469 on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @05:56AM (#24130197)
Laws are very much subjective. They're results of their time and the people in charge of voting them. That's why the US still has people in jail for life for non violent weed related crimes while you can now legally buy and consume weed in half of the country.

Laws are constantly changing for a reason, "fairness" isn't set in stone nor objective.

Are you American by any chance ? I've seen a lot of American talking like that about "law" as if they were god given, immutable, objective and fair.

Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by shadowgovt on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @10:30AM (#24132373)
But, in that sense, fairness is also subjective. There are viewpoints that call what Google did unfair and viewpoints that call it fair. What overarching philosophy do we use to decide which is the right viewpoint?
Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by TAForObvReasons on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @11:58AM (#24133350)
Genius is a YC company and HN is a YC-owned forum, so this is probably not the best venue for an unbiased discussion on fairness
Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by dahfizz on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @11:10AM (#24132813)
> Laws are very much subjective.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but laws themselves are objective. At least, they are crafted to be an objective description of what is "right" and "wrong". Said another way, laws exist to objectify the morals of the law's author.

I think what you are trying to say is that laws are not self-justifying. Laws draw an objective view of the world, but we can subjectively agree that we don't like that view and then change it.

Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by eloff on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @11:51AM (#24133256)
In a common-law system the written (legislated) law is not actually the law, it's the court's interpretation of how it should be applied, taking into account similarities to other laws and the precedents set in applying them, that determines what it actually means. That makes it quite subjective and vulnerable to initial precedents in applying it.
Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by dnautics on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @11:41AM (#24133153)
why is this downvoted? Without getting into a debate about what true objectivity is and whether or not it exists, In the US, the majority of laws are objective; and it's the application of those laws that is subjective.

This could be an issue of articles: Laws are objective; the law is subjective.

Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by Supermancho on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @02:09PM (#24134945)
Laws consist of literal syntax, but that does not make a Law "objective". Wittgenstein made issue of the fallability of the English language. English is not a special case (just the applicable one).

To whit, a Law does not always describing discrete actions and consequences.

To say a Law is Objective is not saying anything, because the Law is necessarily interpreted in any frame of reference. A single Law is necessarily subjective and following this, The Law in aggregate is subjective.

Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by mav3rick on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @12:44PM (#24133859)
There is no end to this debate. The buck stops at the law. As of today this is fair and objective. Without this we have no framework to judge right or wrong. You can handwave around this but this is the best jurisprudence has come up with over the years. Do you have a better system than pitchforks on HN?
Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by groby_b on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @01:25PM (#24134420)
The law is not "fair and objective". It is a representation of the morals of the particular group holding power at the time of its writing.

It will never be "fair" because it only very rarely take all of the circumstances into account - as Anatole France put it: "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread."

Neither is it particularly objective - its application, especially in a common-law system, is extremely subjective. (You're bound by whatever the judge in previous cases thought the law was - E.g. in the US "stare decisis" is enshrined pretty much as an immutable rule)

It has never been a framework of "right or wrong", either. It is a framework on how disputes get settled. There is no interest in "right" beyond "the authors of the law at the time thought it was a good idea"

To take a trivial example: Slavery was recognized as morally wrong long before the law actually made it something that was not allowed. The law still allows carceral slavery, even though there is growing consensus that that's morally wrong.

As for "better" systems - there's certainly a large faction of countries making the case a civil law system is better than a common law system. But you don't need a "better system" - the law can only be meaningful if we accept that at all times, it will be flawed, it is not "fair and objective", it needs to be tempered with compassion, and it is our job to improve upon what we have.

Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by nitrogen on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @12:56PM (#24134026)
You can't just say "there is no end" and follow it with "my end is the right end".

At least talk about why you think deontology is better than other forms of norm setting, why the law must be right even though there are many different and contradictory laws in different places, and how you propose to make new rules if not based on a concept of "right" that is independent from the existing rules.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deontological_ethics

Re:Court dismisses Genius lawsuit over lyrics-scraping by Go... by jmalicki on Wednesday August 12, 2020 @01:14PM (#24134274)
Why do you think that law is necessarily deontological? There are many areas of the law in the US that tilt towards consequentialism, such as antitrust law (does it harm the consumer?)