No, of course it's not bloody trespass. The article even says so, right at the beginning. All the focused/ambient/intentionality/information-content discussion is interesting, but irrelevant. Why must we insist on squeezing radically different new situations into existing categories that were clearly designed for something else? Can we not think for ourselves, and evaluate these things on their own merits?
Mostly, because it's easier to abuse old and poorly written laws to our own ends than it is to try and legislate for new problems and technology.
It seems the core of this issue is the definition of "tangible". Why does the law profession choose to use such obtuse wording? There doesn't appear to be any way for normal people or even lawyers to identify if something is tangible in the way the law describes it.
Have you ever tried to have a clear written agreement with another person?
> pc86 will build a WP brochure site for linker3000 for $1,500.
But you need it by a certain date?
> add date clause
But I'm not taking a risk that you might not have the money
> add non-refundable deposit clause
But what if my house gets flooded or I lose electricity for a month?
> add Force Majeure class
But what if you give me a bunch of stolen images to use?
> add indemnity clause
> add IP clause
But what if I violate half a dozen labor laws while completing your work?
> add another indemnity clause
Repeat over and over again until you have a 15+ page single-spaced contract for a piddly $1,500 website.
Words mean things. In law, words typically mean very specific things. That's why "trespass" doesn't fit here, even though I think we can all agree you shouldn't be able to project messages onto someone else's property no matter what the message is or where you happen to be standing.
I think your argument is inconsistent. First you talk about whole "clauses", then you get back to words and you don't seem to connect these in any way.
Anyway, having a bunch of many very specific terms is hardly specific to lawyers, that's not the problem. The problem with legalese, as I see it, is that it lacks higher-order types and lambdas... Erm... efficient means of generalization or specialization inline, without a need for two sentences to add one minor detail and the need for a full, multi-paragraph clause when adding a somewhat "standard" - without any modifications - piece of an arrangement.
Heck, even a simple inheritance would help (you get a GeneraIPClause and while writing an agreement you just write `OurIPClause is GeneralIPClause with { ...modifications... }`.
My point was that when you actually look at the entire agreement and all the possible edge cases it is meant to cover, legalese makes perfect sense in context.
English isn't code. You don't get "higher-order types and lambdas" in English, come on now.
Exactly. This is exactly why we have elected representatives. Nothing is destroyed, it can be 'cleaned up' instantly, nobody climbed any fences or can be asked to leave, yet most people would probably say that it is not ok to project messages onto a building that the owner didn't approve of.
Legislators should draft a law that defines what 'it' is (e.g. not ambient light), what is excluded (art? abandoned buildings?), and how bad is it (jail, fine, etc).
>Why must we insist on squeezing radically different new situations into existing categories that were clearly designed for something else?
This is a problem which Marshall McLuhan wrote about frequently, he described our situation as if we were navigating the present like someone driving down the road using only the rear view mirror.
>Hypnotized by their rear-view mirrors, philosophers and scientists alike tried to focus the figure of man in the old ground of nineteenth-century industrial mechanism and congestion. They failed to bridge from the old figure to the new. It is man who has become both figure and ground via the electrotechnical extension of his awareness. With the extension of his nervous system as a total information environment, man bridges art and nature.
