Swedish Police Shoe Database May Tread On Copyright 156
An anonymous reader writes "The Swedish police, who have been instrumental in various raids against file-sharing sites, may have a bit of a piracy problem on their own hands. It seems they wanted to put together a database of shoe print information for matching crime scene shoe prints to particular shoe types. To do so, they used images found online, and some Swedish copyright experts have noted that this appears to violate Swedish copyright law. The police claim there's an exception for police investigations, but people (and some shoe companies) are pointing out that creating a database isn't about an investigation."
Sure it is! (Score:5, Funny)
The investigations are just hypothetical and in the future!
Also, the NSA needs to spy on my phone conversations in case I ever become a terrorist. Which, I have to admit, is pretty good foresight on their part.
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As much as I agree with your intent, this is a lot more like having phone tapping equipment available, in the case that it is required, rather than actively tapping you.
The whole database idea seems sort of goofy to me though, can't see it being terribly effective. (how many people wear adidas superstars?)
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Or now know to change shoes after committing a crime. Just switch in a crowded place and dump them in the trash at same crowded public place. Like stolen cars used for crime, remember to switch crime-shoes early and often.
Re:Sure it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
Amongst professional criminals I'm sure that this sort of thing is common but when dealing with crimes of passion or low value crimes it becomes much more useful. After all when you own only a pair or two of shoes of a style and become a suspect, having just replaced them with brand new shoes is very suspicious. As well for something like a convenience store robbery it starts to make it even more financially worthless when you steal $50 and have to replace a $30 pair of shoes.
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Go to the local goodwill. These places also prefer cash, which is a big advantage to those who are in that field of work.
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Slashdot: News For Nerds, Advice For Criminals. :-D
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Go to the local goodwill. These places also prefer cash, which is a big advantage to those who are in that field of work.
... or do like me and buy 3-5 pairs of shoes when they're on sale (like they always are somewhere) when you buy new ones.. then rotate through them so they wear more-or-less evenly
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Be on the lookout for person of interest in stolen Superstar tennis shoes.
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You could buy the new shows (cheap ones) before the crime, wear them while committing it, and then get rid of them. You get to keep your old comfy shoes and the police will be thrown off on a false trail!
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again this assumes you planned the crime beforehand
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Or now know to change shoes after committing a crime. Just switch in a crowded place and dump them in the trash at same crowded public place. Like stolen cars used for crime, remember to switch crime-shoes early and often.
And leave your DNA in shoes that match tracks at the crime scene? Might as well write a signed confession.
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Clearly you watch too much CSI and not enough real life. After you commit your crime and the police get to this location the garbage will be at the dump for days.
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Enhance, enhance [youtube.com]!
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Or know to change shoes after committing a crime. Just switch in a crowded place and dump them in the trash at same crowded public place.
Dumpster-diving is part of the job.
The need to ditch something quickly limits your options.
If someone sees you carrying an extra pair of shoes at seven o'clock - and your bag is empty at seven-thirty - you have something to explain.
The geek shouldn't turn his mind to crime. He over-complicates things.
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Buy a pair of shoes, glue the tread from a different pair of shoes onto the bottom. Police find a shoe print and start looking for the addidas shoe of the tread pattern while you are wearing Nike trainers. No need to dump the shoes, no need to carry a spare pair which would look suspicous.
The only way you would be caught would be if you are stopped and the tread patterns checked directly which would mean the police already have a reason to suspect you. I'm obviously a criminal master mind, next I will hold
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Or now know to change shoes after committing a crime. Just switch in a crowded place and dump them in the trash at same crowded public place. Like stolen cars used for crime, remember to switch crime-shoes early and often.
Even with such databases being used *ALL THE DAMN TIME* in shows like CSI... folks still do stupid things when committing crimes.
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As much as I agree with your intent, this is a lot more like having phone tapping equipment available, in the case that it is required, rather than actively tapping you.
Er, well, neither really applies. They are actually collecting data, but it's data regarding a type of forensics, not data related to any individuals. It's more like figuring out how one might go about tapping phones.
It's really not a civil liberties issue like warrant-less phone tapping is. I was just riffing on the idea of claiming you
Re:Sure it is! (Score:4, Insightful)
As much as I oppose anything that strengthens the police state (any police state really) I feel compelled to point something out. Shoeprints being part of a future police investigation is about as hypothetical as my claim that should I throw a rock in the air it will fall back down.
The volume of previous observations that can be found by searching through police files where shoe prints were in evidence is pretty substantial.
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Shoeprints being part of a future police investigation is about as hypothetical as my claim that should I throw a rock in the air it will fall back down.
I think you're misunderstanding the point. Jurisprudence does not, in general, recognize a future hypothetical case as being equal to a current actual case, regardless of the likelihood (the exception, it seems, being American 9th Circuit lawsuits against future John Doe copyright violators, but that's not jurisprudence so much as an unholy cross between corruption, politics, and insanity). To permit otherwise would be akin to allowing police to use investigative powers for any imaginary future purpose, and
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I don't know enough about Judicial precedent in Sweden to argue the point to be honest.
Here in the US courts have an odd habit of throwing out usual practice and technicalities if they don't pass the smell test. If investigations are exempt from copyright restrictions and the supposedly has a likelihood of being used entirely for investigations on par with likelihood of the existence of gravity a judge is likely to toss any argument saying that likelihood is hypothetical out as nonsense. Especially for the
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Jurisprudence does ... in general ... recognize a future hypothetical case ... as ... lawsuits against ... copyright violators ... [A]n unholy cross between corruption, politics, and insanity ... permit... police to use ... powers for any ... purpose.
The correct answer is ... just ... a ... person ... armed... can solve the problem.
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For me, the issue here is the use of copyright law to stop this. I don't see why the police would have to get a copyright exemption for the creation of a database, as they are not planning to make or sell shoes with similar patterns.
As far as I can see it, this is research of an academic nature. Now, if people want to go after the police here in a civil liberties and person's rights issue - and I don't think there's an issue with these in this case anyway, because I don't see how the shoes you wear now, or
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For me, the issue here is the use of copyright law to stop this. I don't see why the police would have to get a copyright exemption for the creation of a database, as they are not planning to make or sell shoes with similar patterns.
I guess this will all hedge on whether or not the Swedish court system considers a photo of the sole of a shoe a derivative work.
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It's not the copyright holder of the shoemaker which is being violated, it's the copyright holder of the photograph (admittedly, they are probably the same entity in reality).
Either, making a copy of a copyrighted image is illegal or it isn't. The police, having being caught doing exactly what everyone else does on the internet and who would be at risk of legal action by a whole host of Swedish specific *AA organisations are trying to argue that they are excempt because the database will be used to investig
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Would that mean people could enrol in a cinema course at their local college and then legitimately download and archive movies because they are "not planning to make or sell" infringing movies and can claim that it is "research of an academic nature"?
This just highlights (and I suspect that's the purpose behind the claims) the extent to which overly restrictive copyright can stymie legitimate fair use. Twenty, or perhaps even ten years ago, nobody would have even considered this might fall foul of copyright
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Obviously , you haven't been watching CSI.
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I can't see why they don't just build a Visual Basic GUI that downloads the images as they are needed.
Re:Sure it is! (Score:5, Insightful)
So you think the police can just steal phone tapping equipment? I do believe they have to buy it, like they would with these pictures. Either they are all for IP or not.
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However, they could certainly take the Google approach and find a way to collect the data from the public, taking pictures of shoes and asking what make/model they are.
The problem with building a database based on web images is not so much the fact that they're running afoul of copyright--I'm sure I could find an attorney who would argue fair use rules or something along those lines, since they're not selling t
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More to the point, consider the lengths police go to build databases of car parts and materials. What type of paint was used on what model of car? What type of glass. I would be surprised indeed if the police had to pay for this information. Most likely the manufacturers help them as a matter of mutual interest.
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"The whole database idea seems sort of goofy to me though, can't see it being terribly effective. (how many people wear adidas superstars?)"
How does the police know it's that brand if they don't have a database?
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haven't you seen CSI... there really are detectives that "geeky" that they collect tire treads, foot prints, bugs, etc. just to have them handy.
This is how they look like big shots... just like hackers sit out there and collect atari 2600 roms all day. Somebody has to build these on the off chance they might have only muddy prints to follow. In reality, most violent crimes have only a few suspects... most of the time for murders and such the perp is somebody that knows the vic... making the pool of "shoes"
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So, you are going to become a terrorist then? Because, if it's good foresight, they're right.
Stay put, agents are on their way.
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With the ever increasing definition of the term, any one of us could one day wake up and be a terrorist without changing a single habit.
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The investigations are just hypothetical and in the future!
But, really, what's wrong with a database of Swedish police shoes?
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We foresaw that you might possibly say that, so the system to do so is already in place and in use!
Slender, not broad (Score:2)
When making laws about restricting the use of information, make them as narrow as possible, and broaden as necessary.
Re:Slender, not broad (Score:5, Funny)
SCTV sketch "Klaag" (Score:2)
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Compilation of facts are protected (Score:2, Insightful)
While I couldn't comment about how Swedish law treats such things in the United States or Canada this would be protected if the shoe prints were gathered directly rather than using online photos. A compilation of facts and details regarding the pattern and arrangement of shoe treads is definitely safe territory protected by the fact it does not inhibit the market for the original goods (unless some shoe company really wants to argue that their major clients purchase them to avoid being identified by the po
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It is probably the same. Taking pictures of shoes you bought or their impressions is very different from "pirating" images online for your personal gain.
Hmm, perhaps I need to start selling treadless crime-shoes.
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Hmm, perhaps I need to start selling treadless crime-shoes.
Maybe you could get police departments to invest in them, since they'd be able to catch the perps as the slip-slide around corners during foot chases.
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Check out climbing shoes, with very soft tread you can get good grip out of what looks like a very smooth surface.
I was thinking something like that.
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you missed the point. The tread isn't the issue; the pictures are copyrighted by someone. You can't go on-line, scarf a whole bunch of pictures off the web, and then use them to conduct your business.
I can't do that with images, music, or anything else, and neither can any other agency. Otherwise, I could just download all the music in the world, and claim that I am building a database for future use in identifying stolen music.
Doesn't work that way.
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:4, Interesting)
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You've gotten used to the laissez faire form of copyright we all live with in the modern world where digital duplication is effortless and has no direct cost. A strict reading of copyright law indicates that any unauthorized copying outside the protections of fair use (excerpts, parody, etc.) is a violation even if you don't engage in distribution.
This is why the AHRA was put in place in the US for the narrow scope of personal music copying. Essentially, enough Congresspeople got upset about the implication
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet, if I download songs for my personal, decidedly private and not business use, I'm subject to damages of hundreds of dollars for each instance.
The point isn't that this is _bad_, but if they're going to go around busting down doors because people are sharing copyrighted works for personal use, they shouldn't be violating copyright for their institutional use and pretending it's OK.
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While the market for pictures of shoes is smaller than that for music, it obviously exists. Otherwise these pictures wouldn't have been taken in the first place, and the police would not have wanted copies of them (that's the definition of a market, after all).
Is there some magic clause somewhere which says that copyright infringement only becomes a crime if your estimated target audience exceeds a certain number?
And for the record, I'm a Swedish resident. I think our police have done the morally right thin
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Well, if it is posted on the Internet then yes, I expect they now work for free. If it is on the Internet then it is available for anyone to use in any manner they see fit.
Lots of professional photographers have figured this out, sometimes from posting samples of their work.
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When was the last time someone tried to sell you a picture of a shoe?
About two hours ago when I was at a stop light.
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I think that copyright law needs some serious work
There, fixed that for you.
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They're not claiming copyright or publicly using it to make money on their website
Oh, I get it! If I don't claim copyright, or publicly use it to make money on my website, I can have a personal for-use copy of anything I like.
If only the courts thought the same way.
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It's still a copyright violation when an individual (thus not a business) downloads music or software for the purpose of evaluation (thus not for profit and with the intent of paying for it later) without the copyright holder's authorization.
Similarly, if a charity downloads images from the net and uses them in a campaign to call people's attention to problem X, it's still a copyright violation.
Copyright legislation still it illegal to copy something without authorization from the copyright holder even if o
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But isn't what everything the US government produces public domain? (Yes, this is Sweden and top secret is another issue but let's just assume for your argument.) So, are you saying that the government ignore copyright and essentially make a photographer's work (who isn't working for contracted by the government) public domain at will? Are you saying that Government material become a mishmash of IP licenses? What?
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If the police want to use cars, they have to buy them.
Funny this should come up. I worked for the state government in Victoria, Australia (I know, not Sweden, not the Police) and we had an exemption from sales tax. Because of this we made a good profit selling our cars on the second hand market.
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As for software, that's strictly a commercial product. How is it "stealing" when you grab a freely available image from a website? When was the last time you had to pay for an image, excluding porn?
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And when was the last time someone tried to sell a picture of a goddamned shoe tread?
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Because Sweden is a signator of the Berne Convention, where every new use is subject to the agreement of the original author. So even if the shoe company has paid the photographer for the picture, they paid him only to use it for the agreed upon purposes, and if the agreement doesn't contain "inclusion into a forensic database", then the shoe company is not allowed to sign a letter of agreement with the police for the inclusion of the picture into the police's database.
It's that simple.
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None of that matters. The law is the law, and it doesn't contain exceptions for the police or shoe photography. There are statuory damages that can be collected even if not a single photo gets sold.
Personally, I'm against the current obsessive enforcement of copyright. This is why I think that if it's going to be interpreted in a strict and unflexible way, it should be done that way for everybody. The police mustn't get an exception to it. If the law is too overbearing, then the law should be changed for ev
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What the hell are you smoking? The artist was already paid by the record label, you dope, at least in cases where the recording was made at a record company's site. The record label gets their return by having a short audio clip/radio play/online download/other advertisement of the song or album for people who want one and consider a purchase. How in the HELL does an internal database of these in ANY way impact that business?
The problem with this argument is that it makes the assumption that private, non-commercial use of a professional work (in this case the artwork or song clip...both of which ARE works made by professionals) is "okay," which it is not. If for some bizarre reason I made a database of all the clips on Amazon.com I'd *still* be sued because I didn't pay to use them. This is further c
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I understand that perfectly. However TFA and TFS both imply that it is the 'Shoe Database' itself that is violating copyright rather than the fact that they went out and used copyrighted photos to generate that database. The difference between the two is enormous and the articles and people discussing the two should stop conflating them.
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I mean, it'd be one thing if they were building this database for sale, or as a SAAS solution that other police departments were going to pay them for. But I'm sure there are lots of applications which do indeed scarf images randomly for the web and repurpose them for their own use, without threat of copyright lawsuits.
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I can't do that with images, music, or anything else, and neither can any other agency. Otherwise, I could just download all the music in the world, and claim that I am building a database for future use in identifying stolen music.
Doesn't work that way.
And yet, bizarrely, it DOES work that way. Just not for the plebian masses like you and me. But for the elites, and our lords and masters, you betcha.
The police, for example, collect paedophiliac imagery and add it to the already massive database they have o
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can tell from the article no shoe company has complained. It appears that some professor has merely speculated that the database may infringe copyrights.
I agree with the suggestion that they would get better quality data by working with the manufacturers, though.
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The shoe companies are (in Sweden) not the entities to complain or file suits. It's the original photographers, whose Author's Right might be infringend upon.
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Not true. The original article in Svenska Dagbladet says (my translation): [www.svd.se]
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Is it strange that I for some reason really want to get my hands on such a database? Why yes Watson!, I do recognize that shoe print, its obviously a recent edition of the Florsheim Imperial, our killer is obviously wealthy and well dressed!
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... our killer is obviously wealthy and well dressed.
Or the killer is me :) My Imperials were so devoid of anything resembling a tread that for the first couple of weeks just walking down the street was dangerous. The best you would get would be a line of stitch marks and, in really deep mud, a shallow Florsheim logo. They have a tread now, but you won't find it in Florsheim's catalogue.
Process (Score:5, Interesting)
Had they just requested sample prints, many (most?) shoe companies would probably have been happy to provide them with a full list - not because they had to, but because its a simple enough request to comply with. By doing the work themselves they ended up with less useful data that's, quite possibly, illegal to use.
Sigh...
Re:Process (Score:4, Insightful)
Had they just requested sample prints, many (most?) shoe companies would probably have been happy to provide them with a full list - not because they had to, but because its a simple enough request to comply with. By doing the work themselves they ended up with less useful data that's, quite possibly, illegal to use.
Sigh...
Well, I'm not a lawyer (certainly not a Swedish lawyer) but it seems likely that if the cops used a database that was illegally garnered, they might find any cases using that information compromised in some way. Not very smart on their part, any way you look at this.
Cousin to the Swedish Chef (Score:3, Funny)
Hur, de hur de hur, dee dee boom -- Tort! Tort! Tort!
If only.
Cheers,
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Witty title (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Witty title (Score:5, Funny)
If you enjoyed Swedish Police Shoe Database May Tread on Copyright you may also enjoy:
Swedish Police Shoe Database Steps Over the Line
Cops Heels, Won't Toe the Line
Swedish Police Trample Copyright Law
Police Shoe Database Doesn't Foot With Swedish Copyright Law
Cops Caught, Read Footed
Dr Strangelove (Score:2)
The idea "Can you possibly imagine what is going to happen to you, your frame, outlook, way of life, and everything, when they learn that you have obstructed a
so... (Score:2)
Let's see: downloading publicly accessible images from the Internet in order to build a searchable database is now illegal in Sweden? How do Google and Bing do it then?
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Oh, that's easy. They don't download the images and store them on their servers along side the nifty database!
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They certainly download thumbnails.
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Which is a lot harder to claim copyright violation against.
Just pay it (Score:2)
fetish (Score:2)
I'm sure there's already a fetish for shoe soles. They could just go online and torrent somebody's archive of photos.... upps...
Of course it is a copyright violation (Score:2)
They copied this idea from _Law and Order_.
Shoe Companies??? (Score:2)
The Swedish police, who have been instrumental in various raids against file-sharing sites, may have a bit of a piracy problem [...] people (and some shoe companies) are pointing out that creating a database isn't about an investigation.
I'd like to see a list of the shoe companies that are objecting to this. I suspect there are none, and that this is simply the futile ranting of an intellectual property professor (RTFA) who is sore over his favorite torrent site getting raided. Nothing to see here...move along. This should not have made it to the front page on /.
But ... (Score:2)
So what does the Pirate Party have to say? (Score:2)
CSI Enhance! (Score:2)
Who needs a database of shoe types?
Instead, zoom in on an image of the footprint and extract the fingerprint of the worker that made the sole. Feed this into the international shoe-maker database to get a positive ID on who did the shoe. Find out he/she works and get the batch numbers of the soles made and consult the FBI shoe distribution database to see where they ended up. Get CCTV footage from the store showing the correct shoe type being sold. If the customer faces are obscured get extra CSI brownie p
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There are up sides and down sides to what I describe here, but it's silly t
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Crime isn't like of CSI, they don't just find one piece of evidence and say "OMG, Doug did it!"
The fact that you happen to own a pair of shoes in the size that match footprint at the scene of the crime, combined with other evidence might make life a little difficult for you.
Of course the next step could be a national shoe database, where you have to present ID to buy shoes, and borrowing someone else's shoes becomes an offense. That would be crossing the line.
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Here are a couple fun facts for you:
1. slashdot is not just one person
2. This is news because the very group arresting people for breaking the law related to copyright is breaking the same laws.
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It's very simple. When somebody pushes an overbearing amount of rules on you, it can be a very effective tactic to simply follow each and every one to the letter.
It doesn't matter it's silly. It doesn't matter nobody loses any money because of it. Make sure it's applied strictly in all cases, until even the people who push for it start screaming from the frustration, and then they might finally get the hint.
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Yes, because it's the cops (especially Swedish) who pushes for and implements stronger copyright legislation. sigh.