I just noticed the most extraordinary statement on a DVD (which movie is not relevant).
“No copying, Subject to applicable laws.”
Aside from being an incomplete sentence, and mispunctuated to boot — does that invalidate it as a binding legal statement? — aside from all that, it’s a silly statement.
Isn’t everything subject to applicable laws? Yes…
Do you really need to say that? Absolutely not…
“Oh, it’s to discourage those who would copy it, maybe without thinking.” Sure. Let me see here… I am diabolically intent on copying a movie for what ever purposes but I’m going to peruse it first to see if there’s a legal statement about whether I can or not.
Sure I am. And Happy Dayz really is what the 50’s were like. Sure(1).
Everything is subject to applicable laws. That’s what a “lawful society” is. Duh(2).
Every time you needlessly invoke some law, legal statement or such, every time you flash “don’t pirate” messages (with incredibly annoying music and flash-flash visuals [which are can actually induce seizures in a small percentage of the population, by the way]) before a movie, every time you even post a no littering sign you weaken all laws and weaken the very nature of a “lawful society.”
Littering is not only illegal, whether you say so or not, it’s also stupid, thoughtless, immature and wasteful of God’s Given Beauty that is the World.
By the way, it’s logically impossible for anything to ever not be subject to applicable laws. If a law is applicable, it applies. One does not need to say it. If you get people used to being told all the time when something is allowed and when it isn’t (and we have) then you remove any chance for them to figure out for themselves what’s good and what isn’t, and you then make a “lawful society” virtually impossible(3). When a law can not be enforced then it becomes pointless as a law and becomes, in fact, optional, in practical terms and thereby violates the contract of a Lawful Society.
It also weakens all laws.
Besides, by posting it in some places and not everywhere (which would be physically impossible) you imply that some things are subject to applicable laws, and some things are not. So if the next movie DVD I examine does not say that (and I just did, and it doesn’t) then it’s not subject to applicable laws? (Groovy! Look out world!! Here I go…)
When did “A equals A” get to be a legal notice, and a required one, at that?
Bull… if you can’t trust your citizens to obey their own conscience and rational minds, then maybe you forgot how to raise them to be rational and conscientious people. Or … just possibly … forgot that that’s even possible, because you yourself were raised that way, too.
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(1) By the way, there really are people who think the old TV Show Happy Dayz is what the 50’s were actually like. Sorry, no. The odd thing is that some of those who think this were actually there and still think so! That’s just plain weird… perhaps they grew up in an ultra-sheltered environment, or perhaps (more likely?) it’s Wish Fulfillment / Convenient Memory.
(2) Of course, when there are so many laws that it’s impossible at any moment, no matter what you are doing or are not doing, to not be in violation of some law or other, then the concept of “Lawful Society” gets a little … difficult to wrap one’s mind around. And that is the situation right now, in many parts of the world, not just in over-legislated America.
(3) For example, notice that the concurrent rise in crime rates over the last 100 years is in nearly direct proportion to the rise in number of published laws. It is, by the way, nearly (if not in fact truly) impossible at any moment to not be in violation of some law or other. Even just sitting in front of your computer, there is almost certainly something you are “guilty” of right now. For further example, several police officers (both active and retired) have confirmed for me personally over the years that any driver can be pulled over at any moment for something (even before the Patriot Act gave law enforcement the right to pull anyone over without cause). It is impossible to not find a reason to pull some one over. Is that still a “lawful society?” Chew it over for yourself. I can be wrong.