Zefram <zefram(_at_)fysh(_dot_)org> wrote:
I'm surprised that Habeas has caught on even to the extent it has, as
I see a fatal flaw in this use of copyright to get legal control. It
is reminiscent of a legal case I recall where a games console refused
to execute any game unless a certain copyright notice (ascribing
copyright to the console manufacturer) appeared in a known location
in the game ROM. Third-party game manufacturers put the notice in
their games, and were hauled into court. The court held that the
copyright notice in question was a functional part of the interface
between the game and the console, and that this overrode its normal
semantic of signifying copyright ownership.
Where this analogy breaks down, is that Habeas is not interfering with
the functionality of non-Habeas email. First, what to do with marked or
unmarked email is entirely up to the recipient (or his ISP, or whoever
else is doing spam filtering). Second, it is not saying "everything
else is spam" (and therefore delaying it getting through, except by
comparison), just "this is not spam".
A better analogy would be, say, any sort of optional certification.
You're perfectly welcome to buy electrical devices not approved by
Underwriters Laboratories, but if you (or your electrician, or
purchasing department) DO insist on UL-approved devices, you'll have a
lower risk of shorts, shock, fire, etc. I don't know for sure, but I
ass-u-me UL would take a Very Dim View of manufacturers putting a
UL-Approved label on devices that really weren't, and may have legal
recourse through lawsuits asking for damages (especially punitive) that
outweigh the faker's likely profit.
FWIW, my spam filter picks up Habeas headers as a strong ham
indicator, appearing in 0.4% of ham in my corpus
Their web site explains the name, but I just gotta wonder if they were
punning on that as well....
--
David J. Aronson, Unemployed Software Engineer near Washington DC
See http://destined.to/program/ for online resume, and other info