Whether one agrees or not, Google is within their rights to remove Kodi from their autocomplete product.
Whether one agrees or not, Dick's Sporting Goods is within their rights to remove partial/all (can't remember what they did exactly, honestly) gun sales.
So they're not really all that different. Kodi isn't considered culpable for people using it in a bad way here, just Google is removing it from autocomplete in a precautionary manner. Likewise, guns and Dick's.
I think that they clearly aren't conflating the two. "Whether one agrees or not" is "Regardless of whether you consider Google's/Dick's actions moral".
The question was why gun manufacturers aren't legally accountable for crimes committed with their products while software developers are.
The (paraphrased) answer provided is "They aren't; Google removing Kodi from autocomplete is similar to sporting goods stores removing guns from sale".
The Kodi project is not legally accountable for civil infringement committed with their devices for the same reason that gun manufacturers aren’t. Because both have legal purposes. The fact that people do illegal things with them is not the manufacturer’s fault in this case.
In the US, tort law defines manufacturer liability and there is no negligence or design defect.
There are manufacturers who solely make piracy boxes running Kodi who are frequently charged (https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/25/kodi-box-guilty-reversal...). And if gun manufacturers marketed a device with a primary purpose of murder they would likely be charged.
In business law class, we had a case about a switchblade manufacturer adding features only useful for stabbing people. But I can’t find a real reference on Google.
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Whether one agrees or not, Google is within their rights to remove Kodi from their autocomplete product.
Whether one agrees or not, Dick's Sporting Goods is within their rights to remove partial/all (can't remember what they did exactly, honestly) gun sales.
So they're not really all that different. Kodi isn't considered culpable for people using it in a bad way here, just Google is removing it from autocomplete in a precautionary manner. Likewise, guns and Dick's.
Nobody is talking about weither google is legally allowed to do this, stop conflating legality with morality.
I think that they clearly aren't conflating the two. "Whether one agrees or not" is "Regardless of whether you consider Google's/Dick's actions moral".
The question was why gun manufacturers aren't legally accountable for crimes committed with their products while software developers are.
The (paraphrased) answer provided is "They aren't; Google removing Kodi from autocomplete is similar to sporting goods stores removing guns from sale".
The Kodi project is not legally accountable for civil infringement committed with their devices for the same reason that gun manufacturers aren’t. Because both have legal purposes. The fact that people do illegal things with them is not the manufacturer’s fault in this case.
In the US, tort law defines manufacturer liability and there is no negligence or design defect.
There are manufacturers who solely make piracy boxes running Kodi who are frequently charged (https://www.engadget.com/2017/09/25/kodi-box-guilty-reversal...). And if gun manufacturers marketed a device with a primary purpose of murder they would likely be charged.
In business law class, we had a case about a switchblade manufacturer adding features only useful for stabbing people. But I can’t find a real reference on Google.
Link- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_liability
I agree with everything you wrote. The switchblade case sounds interesting; I hadn't heard about it before, but that certainly makes sense.