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Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

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Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#31

Post by JesseAldridge »

bediger wrote: post #24
JesseAldridge wrote: post #20

I don't think the attitude is so much pro-piracy as anti-regulation and pro-getting-stuff-done. Hackers tend to be naturally averse to the two traditional means of combating piracy: government regulation and DRM. Government regulation requires bureaucracy, which hackers hate. DRM creates obstacles to getting stuff done, which hackers also hate. I agree that piracy is probably a big enough problem to make the aforemen…

piracy is probably a big enough problem to make the aforementioned potential solutions a lesser evil. Got any particular citations for that? I happen to think exactly the opposite, that we've already gone way to far to mititage an almost non-existent problem. I'm dreading the day when I can't use "bittorrent" to download the latest Slackware distribution, because using "bittorrent" automatically makes you a theif.

> Got any particular citations for that?

http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/02/news/companies/napster_music...

Making the pie smaller ultimately leads to lower quality.

I am virtually certain people will argue that this argument is invalid for whatever reason, but I'm pretty sure that'll be more indicative of the bias seen among hackers than anything else.

Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#32

Post by prodigal_erik »

> our rights to control and to profit from our labors

I'm all for profiting from socially useful work for hire, when nobody was going to volunteer to provide it. But you can't control your IP. You can only control other people while they're using it. And that I find odious, an evil which isn't necessary. A system that successfully prevents copying is too intentionally crippled to be a tool worthy of human beings.

As it happens, I'm going to a mashup show at jwz's club in a couple of hours. They're using art as the ingredients for new art, which of course imposes a tenuous existence in a legal grey area, when it's the kind of innovation we should never have granted authors the power to prohibit (rather than merely profit from).

Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#33

Post by epynonymous »

the answer is simple, developers are typically analytical so it's easy to calculate the opportunity cost of getting something for free versus buying it.

i think people kind of block it out of their heads that it's illegal because everyone does it, it's plenty available, and nobody you really know gets sued for it. there's some high philosophical reasoning perhaps behind it as well, i'm just consuming the content, i'm not making money off it. so there are various things at play here. i don't think any developer, when it comes down to it, agrees with piracy for profit or not giving authors credit for their work, i think most people would agree it's wrong when put under the fire.

i think in terms of defending our rights, the code we write is often times not completely our rights, i.e. if you work at another company, or any said group of open source software that you may bundle e.g. GPL, LPGL, etc. so there's a lack of ownership and therefore a lack of being able to identify with IP like someone writing a song or book.

i think to say that piracy is immoral and corrupt, that's another topic since morals aren't universal. who's to say that some aggressive marketer isn't brainwashing you or using some tactic to pluck your hard earned money and putting lots of red tape between you and your artist? who's to say your favorite artist isn't turned on by greed and fame, two things that i would consider immoral and corrupt. the point is that i don't think morals apply to this argument.

Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#36

Post by carussell »

celoyd wrote: post #28
jacobn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original question seemed to pertain more to copyright than to patents - the patentability of software is very much debatable, but the copyrightability of the works of science/art/cobbled together messes that we make seems pretty clear?

I’m not an IP scholar, but my impression is that patents and copyright have basically the same intent; the only big difference is that patents are for methods and copyrights are for expressions. Where you draw the line between methods and expressions, or discovered and invented things, depends on how much you like Plato’s style of thinking. We can imagine people on either extreme of realism/idealism arguing (A) that…

it took real work to research, design, and produce, and this deserves a reward.

That's not necessarily the US's position on copyright, either. See Bridgeman v. Corel.

Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#37

Post by carussell »

earl wrote: post #10

Speaking only for myself: I strongly support people sharing as much music and whatever else as they want because the RIAA / MPAA are thieves. Those organizations have strongly supported making people pay per device they own which is just fucking ridiculous. If I buy a CD, I should be able to listen to it in my car, on my ipod while walking, on my computer at work, and on my stereo at home. Until the RIAA/MPAA/artists…

Those organizations have strongly supported making people pay per device they own which is just fucking ridiculous. If I buy a CD, I should be able to listen to it in my car, on my ipod while walking, on my computer at work, and on my stereo at home. Until the RIAA/MPAA/artists start advocating for reasonable laws, I just can't be bothered to care.

There's the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992. Your argument does nothing to justify use of p2p for what you haven't already purchased; I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the occurrences of "I bought that album last decade, and I'm not paying for it again." account for a stupidly small portion of p2p.

Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#38

Post by carussell »

makecheck wrote: post #8

There are many things in the world that can be used for good and bad, and supporting the existence of those things does not mean that you're in favor of the bad parts. Some companies that sell content have decided to use a heavy-handed approach (DRM), demonstrably punishing their paying customers. They are not looking for new ways to make perhaps even more money in the Internet age; they are only trying to preserve w…

which is NOT "free movies"

I call bullshit. That's exactly the case, as I've heard it plenty of times. Freedom from the joke that is DVD + "Digital Copy" is what I want freedom from. Not so much the case with the bulk of other people. Plenty like to pull out these types of oh-so-plausible ideological rationalizations when pressed, but p2p is largely accounted for by "I want it and I don't give a fuck."

Re: Why do many programmers defend/support intellectual property theft?

#40

Post by chc »

Tycho wrote: post #30
marssaxman wrote: post #9

Violating the terms of a copyright license by making an unauthorized copy is not the same thing as theft. If I steal your car, I have one car and you have none; if I copy your data, I have a copy of your data and so do you. You have not been deprived of property, so there is no theft. If you offer to sell me a copy of your data for $X, but I decline, then choose to get a copy of the same data from someone else for fr…

If you look up what property really means, it is not a physical object/possession, it's an abstract right of disposal over something. If you steal my car, I cannot dispose of it how I choose, and if you take my data without permission, again I can no longer dispose of it how I choose. So you have, in fact, deprived me of property in both cases.

It doesn't matter if you reframe it that way. You can never dispose of mental things how you choose. The mind doesn't work the same way as physical things, which is why pretending that "intellectual property" is the same thing as physical property is a non-starter.
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