Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell • Hacker News Board

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#311

Post by dhimes » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 10:52 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #305

dhimes wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All laws are fiction by your account. Why is violence illegal? Why can't bigger/more skilled people just beat up the weak and take their stuff? That's how things were for tens of thousands of years. Prohibiting that is a legal fiction. Torrenting a movie does not fall into the category of "theft of ideas." It is falls into the category of stealing a work. As for the argument that things would be made/written etc. any…

Yeah, all laws are inventions of people intended to express shared morals in a way that prevents vigilantism. I did say copyright is often a useful fiction. But it goes way too far in its present form of 120 year terms and conflation with physical property. As just one hypothetical, we could easily have a system of patronage with a pseudomarket that determines where the patronage is applied, and creators would still…

Then maybe we're not that far apart. I believe that the term is too extendable-it should be shorter (maybe even non-renewable). But I'm standing on "stealing." Once everybody duplicated that first car, who builds the one that makes it better? She's only going to sell one. So, yeah- torrenting hurts.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#312

Post by Nullabillity » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 11:34 PM UTC

6clotr1ckg wrote: post #304

Nullabillity wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Federal Pell Grants are limited to students with financial need, who have not earned their first bachelor's degree, or who are enrolled in certain post-baccalaureate programs, through participating institutions.[1] CSN money is not conditional based on your family's income, has no relationship with the military, and is not earmarked for any particular purpose. The only requirements are that you can't get more than…

Pell is also not earmarked to a particular purpose and has no relationship with the military, as far as I know. It seems like both programs have a different set of restrictions (Pell does not care how old you are, for example), but CSN is probably more generous overall.

> Pell is also not earmarked to a particular purpose and has no relationship with the military, as far as I know.

Wikipedia disagrees: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell_Grant

> Applicants must also sign a statement certifying that they will use the aid only for education-related purposes,

And

> Males between the ages of 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service.

Not saying you're wrong, and I'd definitely love it if Wikipedia is wrong on this.

> Pell does not care how old you are, for example

CSN doesn't either AFAIK, only how many times you've been paid. According to WP Pell seems to have a similar policy.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#313

Post by drdeca » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 11:53 PM UTC

digler999 wrote: post #292

rpgmaker wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is also the argument that a large portion of those people would never have paid for your content in the first place So? If you make a product you usually pay a lot of attention to price it in a way that your target market can afford. The people that can't pay for it aren't supposed to get it for "free" (if you everyone accepted this logic capitalism as we know it would crumble). I say this as someone who pira…

capitalism wouldn't "crumble" if people who had no need for a product happened to have possession of it. If I had a free tugboat in my back yard, that does't alter the market for tugboat operators in any nearby port. I thought that it has been economically proven that digital goods such as mp3 downloads have zero value, since each additional copy costs the manufacturer 0.

How are you defining value?

I think standard economic thought defines value in terms of preferences.

Such that the value that something has to me is the supremum of how much I value any of the things I would give up in order to have it.

So, if I am willing to purchase an mp3 for $1, then I value it at at least $1. If I would also be willing to purchase it for $2, then I value it at at least $2.

If I value it at $2, and it is for sale at $1, then I would gain $1 of value in that transaction.

If the seller is willing to sell it at any price over $0.50 , then that is how much they value (not) selling it.

So then, in this transaction I would gain $1 in value, and they would gain $0.50 in value.

I think this is the standard way to think about it.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#314

Post by 6clotr1ckg » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 11:57 PM UTC

Nullabillity wrote: post #312

6clotr1ckg wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pell is also not earmarked to a particular purpose and has no relationship with the military, as far as I know. It seems like both programs have a different set of restrictions (Pell does not care how old you are, for example), but CSN is probably more generous overall.

> Pell is also not earmarked to a particular purpose and has no relationship with the military, as far as I know. Wikipedia disagrees: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pell_Grant > Applicants must also sign a statement certifying that they will use the aid only for education-related purposes, And > Males between the ages of 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service. Not saying you're wrong, and I'd definitely…

> Applicants must also sign a statement certifying that they will use the aid only for education-related purposes,

Personal expenses while you are in school (including rent) count as an education-related purpose. See: http://pell-grants.org/what-the-pell-grant-money-can-be-appl...

> Males between the ages of 18 and 25 must register with the Selective Service.

These people are required to register for selective service anyway, though federal financial aid is used as a stick to enforce this requirement. See: https://www.sss.gov/Registration-Info/Who-Registration

> CSN doesn't either AFAIK, only how many times you've been paid. According to WP Pell seems to have a similar policy.

I think I am unclear on the difference between the "student allowance" and "study aid".

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#315

Post by jsprogrammer » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 12:46 AM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #308

jsprogrammer wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning what you don't possess sets you up for legal takeover. No one stops you from handing a book or disc to another person, in fact, entire governmental organizations exist to handle the logistics of freely sharing such artifacts. Sharing is the first moral many of us are taught.

You're again talking about unimplemented morals, which vary person to person, while Im talking about ways to describe actual law. A copywritten work cant be legally shared, displayed, or so on without permission of the owner. The laws have exceptions like fair use, first sale doctrine on individual copies, or libraries loaning them out. Past that, your claims of morals have no practical meaning in a country that enfo…

You brought up the topic of ethics. I am just explaining why the argument, "sharing is illegal", sounds absurd to many people.

As you noted, copyright laws respect many legally protected activities, like sharing media and holding local displays. The law is pretty clear and I think that is why we don't see many cases about the topic.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#316

Post by nickpsecurity » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 1:29 AM UTC

jsprogrammer wrote: post #315

nickpsecurity wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're again talking about unimplemented morals, which vary person to person, while Im talking about ways to describe actual law. A copywritten work cant be legally shared, displayed, or so on without permission of the owner. The laws have exceptions like fair use, first sale doctrine on individual copies, or libraries loaning them out. Past that, your claims of morals have no practical meaning in a country that enfo…

You brought up the topic of ethics. I am just explaining why the argument, "sharing is illegal", sounds absurd to many people. As you noted, copyright laws respect many legally protected activities, like sharing media and holding local displays. The law is pretty clear and I think that is why we don't see many cases about the topic.

" I am just explaining why the argument, "sharing is illegal", sounds absurd to many people."

Oh yeah, I can see that. Might help get the laws changed if more people realize how absurd they are. :)

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#317

Post by slang800 » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 3:56 AM UTC

digler999 wrote: post #292

rpgmaker wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is also the argument that a large portion of those people would never have paid for your content in the first place So? If you make a product you usually pay a lot of attention to price it in a way that your target market can afford. The people that can't pay for it aren't supposed to get it for "free" (if you everyone accepted this logic capitalism as we know it would crumble). I say this as someone who pira…

capitalism wouldn't "crumble" if people who had no need for a product happened to have possession of it. If I had a free tugboat in my back yard, that does't alter the market for tugboat operators in any nearby port. I thought that it has been economically proven that digital goods such as mp3 downloads have zero value, since each additional copy costs the manufacturer 0.

Digital goods don't have zero value. We know this because people are willing to pay for them. They just have very little cost to reproduce/transport which results in easy sharing. They're not even unique in this regard - you'll find the same easy reproducibility in books, architectural plans, art, simple circuits, manufacturing techniques, algorithms... any idea that can be expressed and transmitted easily. The problem isn't that those things are worthless (they're not), it's that knowledge can't be "owned" like physical items.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#318

Post by digler999 » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 4:57 AM UTC

slang800 wrote: post #317

digler999 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

capitalism wouldn't "crumble" if people who had no need for a product happened to have possession of it. If I had a free tugboat in my back yard, that does't alter the market for tugboat operators in any nearby port. I thought that it has been economically proven that digital goods such as mp3 downloads have zero value, since each additional copy costs the manufacturer 0.

Digital goods don't have zero value. We know this because people are willing to pay for them. They just have very little cost to reproduce/transport which results in easy sharing. They're not even unique in this regard - you'll find the same easy reproducibility in books, architectural plans, art, simple circuits, manufacturing techniques, algorithms... any idea that can be expressed and transmitted easily. The probl…

>The problem isn't that those things are worthless

It's just that they're worth a lot more when corporations lobby governments to make copying them illegal.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#319

Post by drdeca » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 7:32 AM UTC

digler999 wrote: post #318

slang800 wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Digital goods don't have zero value. We know this because people are willing to pay for them. They just have very little cost to reproduce/transport which results in easy sharing. They're not even unique in this regard - you'll find the same easy reproducibility in books, architectural plans, art, simple circuits, manufacturing techniques, algorithms... any idea that can be expressed and transmitted easily. The probl…

>The problem isn't that those things are worthless It's just that they're worth a lot more when corporations lobby governments to make copying them illegal.

That doesn't make the "economically proven to have 0 value" claim true I don't think.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#320

Post by draw_down » Sat, Aug 06, 2016, 10:52 AM UTC

Freak_NL wrote: post #127

Fiahil wrote: post #89

With the recent shut down of KAT, we're kind of in a "low phase". It always has been a game of cat and mouse, but now, we've sadly lost two big mouses. I hope someone will quickly take up the torch.

> mouses Mice. :)

Meeses.