US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos • Hacker News Board

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#191

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 8:47 PM UTC

f154hfds wrote: post #164

matheusmoreira wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eh, artists have bills to pay. So? That doesn't change anything. The needs of creators cannot override our need for computing freedom. Enabling creators to pay their bills by charging money for data will have serious consequences for society in the long term. If they have bills to pay, they can find something else to do. Ideally, they should get paid for the act of creating rather than the final result. > it feels…

In your view, how do digital content creators such as artists make a living? I am honestly curious. Are you saying that the entire gaming industry should be open source and sustain itself purely on peoples' charity?

[deleted]

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#192

Post by creato » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #150

thinkloop wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not crowdfund those amounts instead? That way, all creators get paid before the work even starts and the result can be safely released into the public domain. Then shouldn't every business have to follow the same rules? Making a "copy" of an iPhone costs $20 or $30, should Apple have to crowdsource their factory and IP then sell iPhones by weight or value of raw material? Why do content creators get screwed bec…

> Then shouldn't every business have to follow the same rules? No. Physical goods are actually scarce. Making copies costs lots of money and finite resources. Making copies of data is as easy as copy paste. Copying data actually does cost money due to electricity, storage and bandwidth costs but this is so widely distributed over the general population it might as well be zero. > Making a "copy" of an iPhone costs $2…

> No. Physical goods are actually scarce. Making copies costs lots of money and finite resources. Making copies of data is as easy as copy paste.

Not nearly as scarce as the price of an iPhone would suggest.

Physical goods have counterfeiting problems as well, for basically the same reason: the marginal cost of a copy is significantly less than the actual cost of development.

> I thought electronics factories cost billions of dollars to set up and operate.

And? Setting up a movie studio probably costs hundreds of millions. Why is it different?

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#193

Post by a1369209993 » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 8:50 PM UTC

f00zz wrote: post #70

matheusmoreira wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…

Eh, artists have bills to pay. I try to buy e-books to support my favorite sci-fi authors, but it feels a bit silly that downloading the epub from libgen is literally less hassle than buying it on Google Play.

That's a fair point, but the problem is that buying it on Google Play (or rather, providing money to the actual person who created it) is too difficult, not that downloading the epub from libgen is too easy.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#194

Post by a1369209993 » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

johnchristopher wrote: post #107

rbanffy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is one of the key selling points of piracy - having the product you want easily available while the other options (physical disk, download) may not be available in your region.

Yeah, no. When I was a teen and wanted pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (downloading/getting the CD's) then hunt for working cracks and then later deal with the consequences of installing cracks. My time was free but as an adult now I could never justify spending evenings to make pirated games work. Today's piracy is way more easier than piracy 15 or 25 years ago. The key selling point of piracy is th…

When I wanted non-pirated games I had to put a lot of time into it (pysically transport the CD's) then hunt for bugfixes and workarounds to get it running on my operating system and then later deal with the consequences of embedded malware (DRM) and workarounds that interfered with other software.

Today's piracy is way more easier than any method of acquiring such games 15 or 25 years ago.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#195

Post by EGreg » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:01 PM UTC

f00zz wrote: post #70

matheusmoreira wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…

Eh, artists have bills to pay. I try to buy e-books to support my favorite sci-fi authors, but it feels a bit silly that downloading the epub from libgen is literally less hassle than buying it on Google Play.

We wouldnt have this conversation if UBI paid for all basic needs.

Hey everyone, I would like to have the government enforce my idea of ownership, and come after them for copying something. Because without owning everhthing why would scientists, open source developers and wikipedians and creative commons people and folk musicians ever produce anything?

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#196

Post by tpush » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:07 PM UTC

nfriedly wrote: post #115

throwaway77384 wrote: post #35

"Bridi, 50, was arrested on Sunday in Cyprus on an INTERPOL Red Notice. Correa, 36, was arrested yesterday in Olathe, Kansas, where he will appear in federal court. Ahmad, 39, was not arrested and is still at large." An INTERPOL Red Notice! You'd think these are terrorists, human traffickers or drug lords. Nope, they share films before the films are supposed to come out. I understand that one should not try to profit…

I was curious, so I went and looked up what a Red Notice is: > What is a Red Notice? [...] Information related to the crime they are wanted for, which can typically be murder, rape, child abuse or armed robbery. [1] Using it to go after people who share movies for free seems like a gross abuse of the system. [1]: https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Notices/Red-Notices

Nonsense. If you read your own link red notices are simply issued for wanted criminals likely to flee to another country; what crime was committed is largely irrelevant.

This is opposed to yellow notices, which are for missing persons.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#197

Post by dane-pgp » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

scollet wrote: post #167

dane-pgp wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is being done in broad daylight everyday all over the country because it only has meaning to the person being targeted. I'm guessing you also believe that "gang stalking" is a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking#False_claims_of_stalk...

Didn't eBay execs gang stalk a journalist? I'm not saying your point is invalid and I'm not validating gp, but I'm sure evidential gang stalking can exist outside of delusion.

That's a fair point about the eBay employees[1]. I think that the "gang stalking" theory becomes delusional when the supposed target is someone who isn't a threat to a multi-billion dollar company (or government), and when the supposed target claims that their harassers are using mind control and other pseudo-scientific means.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/15/21291666/ebay-employees-a...

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#198

Post by austincheney » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #67

xhkkffbf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me say as an artist who has watched his hard work being openly pirated, I disagree. Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. If these cretins want to distribute art for free, they can get off their butts and make their own. No one is stopping them. The world needs more voices, but piracy encourages these loafers to do nothing.

> Piracy destroys jobs, opportunity and initiative. So what? Let them be destroyed. I'd rather sacrifice some jobs than watch gigantic media conglomerates take over the computing industry and destroy our computing freedom with their DRM. There is no other way for them to enforce copyright in the 21st century so that's exactly what they'll try to do. They won't rest until every computer available to the public is lock…

> So what? Let them be destroyed.

I say the same thing about software jobs, as a software developer myself. Developers should be licensed professionals like any other professional industry. Developers not competent enough to meet a minimal baseline required by licensing should have their jobs destroyed.

I would rather some jobs be destroyed than gigantic software companies writing incompetent privacy violating software. I detest DRM, but at least DRM is honest about what it is.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#199

Post by pessimizer » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:10 PM UTC

nybble41 wrote: post #136

tanzann wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that caused mainly by lobbying and so? Some context. Generally speaking money in practice means power just because it allows lobbying and hiring good lawyers. And power basically is ability to have someone else solving one's problems.

"Lobbying" just means presenting your position on an issue. Money can help with making a persuasive presentation, to a point, but lobbying per se is never the cause of the problem. You can blame that on the people with way too much power who listen to the lobbyists and do as they ask—instead of actually doing their jobs and representing the interests of all their constituents.

This is an extremely linear way of looking at public corruption.

It's all well and good to say that politicians should act morally, but if you don't do what you're told, you won't get the money, and you won't keep the job. You'll be replaced by somebody who does what they're told. We're filtering for trash.

It's weird that you're even combining this with a defense of cash payments to politicians from special interests. You characterize bad governance strictly as a moral failure, but defend bribes as an mostly irrelevant rhetorical addition to the persuasive presentation of one's position.

Re: US indictments of piracy group members throw top-tier piracy world into chaos

#200

Post by RHSeeger » Wed, Aug 26, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

matheusmoreira wrote: post #114

genericone wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted you, but let me try to understand your worldview a bit here, tell me if you are in disagreement with these ideas I'm attributing to you based on what I'm reading: 1.) If it can be pirated, it should be pirate-able. Taken to the extreme, does this extend to the realm of people's appearance? With deepfakes I can 'pirate' someone's face and voice to be used for things they would never agree to. 2.) All distr…

> 1.) If it can be pirated, it should be pirate-able. If it's data, it can be freely copied and processed. There's little anyone can do in order to stop it even if it's not supposed to be happening. > Taken to the extreme, does this extend to the realm of people's appearance? With deepfakes I can 'pirate' someone's face and voice to be used for things they would never agree to. I'm not sure about this. I feel that th…

> If it's data, it can be freely copied and processed. There's little anyone can do in order to stop it even if it's not supposed to be happening.

Property laws exist to stop the strong from just taking what they want from the weak. Effectively, someone can point to something and say "this is mine, you cannot have it", and either society backs them up on this or it does not. The only thing preventing someone from stealing your car, house, money, etc are laws.

The same is true of digital goods. Someone can point at them and say "this is mine" and the either society backs them up or it doesn't. You can argue that you're not depriving the creator of anything by taking a copy of a digital good, but you are; you're taking away from their ability to support themselves.