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Comment by SV_BubbleTime | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I can agree with either of you.

I definitely don't agree with "thing I don't like should be illegal".

And I can't really agree with "People who sold something I don't like should be liable for it's use".

I think the "blame" for objects should lie in the people that misuse them. Now, obviously, it's a little hard to come up with legitimate reasons to have a towel hook camera. However... All you're asking for is smaller cameras.

To which we restart this whole thing with "These super small cameras should be illegal".

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In the copyright-adjacent space, there's the concept of something having no substantial non-infringement-supporting use. It's a judgment call, of course, and certainly it's abused... but that seems like what people are angling for: making it illegal to sell things which have no legal use.

I can come up with a few legal uses for this, though. Not many, and I doubt the primary use of this thing is legal. But it means any law would have to involve some kind of balancing test.

I remember people trying to make various open source software illegal under this kind of argument. Debuggers, tool suites, and so on. Because obviously only evil hackers used them, and open source development was a negligible fringe activity.

>I think the "blame" for objects should lie in the people that misuse them

the case here specifically isn't about misusing things though, it's about using things for exactly the purpose it was advertised for.

"these super small cameras should be illegal" is, again, vague and has probably unintended consequences. for example, an ESPCam has all sorts of legitimate uses, but could easily be turned into a spy cam. should that be illegal?

There is a world of difference between a tiny camera and a tiny camera mounted in a towel hook.

No there isn’t.

Because with a small camera, what are you going to do? Ban mounts that can hold a camera? You going to ban a towel holder with a pin hole?

Someone is always going to unhappy.

The simple rule for anyone who says “there aught to be law against” is “no there shouldn’t”. There is nothing truly new under the sun. We have broader laws that restrict bad behavior. We do not need to narrowly control life to ever tightening degrees of control.

Selling something on Amazon that's purpose-designed and purpose-advertised for creepy videos in the bathroom is different than selling something on Amazon that's small and requires creativity and skill to hide in a mount.

The bar is lower for a product that some creeper can order something on Amazon and install it with a screwdriver, vs something that requires woodworking (or 3d-printing or injection molding or papier-mâché or whatever) skill in order to disguise.

Edit: the thread here is about selling on Amazon, but I see your response a few levels up mentions legality period. IMO the law should treat marketplaces like Amazon differently than individual possession. And of course, there’s a muddy line in between the two. Which is why I think law should be judged by humans rather than code.

I see you got downvoted. I might get downvoted as well by saying I mostly agree with your point... To me it doesn't make sense to have a law against producing, selling or buying towelhanger/cushion/bathroom cams. Any (not even mini) cam can be used for illegal spying.

Also, a lot of sold products can be used lawfully as well as unlawfully.

In the end, Amazon's reputation is at stake. It seems like they are cannabalising their reputation that took years to build, by selling questionable items. Hopefully getting bad attention by lawsuits will incentivise them to scrutinize the products they sell or let sell on their platform.

So yes, unfortunately there is no way out of the mechanics of free market/capitalism for this problem.

I understand where you're coming from, but the effect of rules like that is to essentially create a system where spying on people with towelhook cameras is totally legal and easily doable unless you happen to get caught.

Most laws could be reduced in the same way, but a lot of dangerous illegal activities have proactive protections, like regulations on purchasing and selling guns, etc.

Small cameras as a class are probably too broad not to sell as a rule, but cameras sold with a specifically designed case to pass them off as other objects might be a step too much. Of course one could always drill a small hole into anything and add a camera, but we shouldn't just be giving the offenders the tools so easily right off the shelf.

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