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Why I'm a Pirate

ploum.net

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Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#121

Post by rytis »

cturner wrote: post #102
mgkimsal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Copyright infringement is not stealing." Sure, let's have a very pedentic notion of stealing and keeping framing the debate around 'stealing'. OK... "taking something which isn't yours and/or you don't have permission to take". In most minds, that's the same as stealing, hence the standard use of the word 'stealing'. But substitute the phrase above for 'stealing' and, imo, it becomes harder to justify. Just because…

I recommend you think about this: where does property come from? Is something ours because the government says it's ours or does it have a deeper meaning that transcends government? I'd argue that property exists because things (apples, cars, gym equipment) have limitations on their use. If I eat an apple, you can't. If you grow a crop on this property, you can't. While he uses this gym equipment, they can't. Even in…

You raise a good point here about what property actually is.

I'd like to extend on this concept and add ownership into equation.

In the example with an apple. I own it, therefore only I can eat it. It is my property. Now what happens if I give the apple to somebody else? It's their property now, so you would naturally assume they own it? And therefore they can eat it.

Alas, it's not the case with music/etc. I bought a CD with music, but it appears that I don't own it. I cannot listen to it in public (Happy Birthday to You), nor I can give it to someone else (lend DVD to a friend for a pint).

So this doesn't work out very well, the CD is my property, but I don't own it? To me owning means having right to do whatever I please with it. Imagine if blending an iPhone would become a criminal offence...

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#122

Post by marknutter »

gavinballard wrote: post #16

This is a series of pretty poor arguments. The author seems to be looking for reasons to justify their own piracy and conflates anger at the approach of the "copyright industry" with infringement upon peoples' rights. One of the final lines of the article, in particular, is jarring: "If I'm a pirate, it's not to have some cheap music. It is because the time has come for you to fuck off." It's fine to be angry about t…

I admit it's stealing, but I don't care. I also break the speed limit - constantly. I also smoke pot from time to time. Music is so abundant and readily accessible it no longer makes sense to charge $20 per CD, let alone anything for songs that take two seconds to download. There is no way to stop pirating without either crippling or sensoring the Internet. Technology advances and industries die as a result. Instead of accepting the cold hard reality of the Internet and the ease of pirating and adjusting their business models, the major media companies are trying to reverse the wheel of time. They probably want us all using records again.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#123

Post by ZeroGravitas »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45
tintin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started making enough money to buy a car I put an end to my car stealing habit for some time. See how silly this sounds? The problem with digital media is that it's very easy to copy. You can't just copy a car. There are tons of website offering free music. So just support those artists instead of the ones charging too much for an inferior service.

"You can't just copy a car." Yup! And that's why comparing digital piracy with car theft is also equally silly. Note, I don't have a hard stance on this. Counterfeiting drugs, etc. is wrong for obvious reasons. Coming up with a similar argument for entertainment media is a bit less tenable. When the MPAA and RIAA cede the moral high ground by acting like idiots (suing 12-year olds, pushing for high criminal charges,…

Why is "counterfeiting drugs" obviously wrong? Plenty of developing nations counterfeit drugs to avoid paying ridiculous prices for drug IP.

http://donttradeourlivesaway.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/brazil...

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#124

Post by wladimir »

Silhouette wrote: post #105
wladimir wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us prefer quality to quantity. Sadly, producing good quality usually requires a significant amount of hard work, and that isn't going to change any time soon. You just validated my point. The people that prefer quality still pay for people to work (hard?) for them. Without needing any violent enforcement or censorship. Don't fetishize information, focus on what you (and other people) can do with it. Until bra…

> You just validated my point. Perhaps I don't really understand your point, then. It seems to me that most of the works being ripped off via TPB and the like are the products that many people have worked on to get to a high level of quality, which of course are also the ones that are expensive to make because of that, and yet clearly a lot of people aren't paying for them.

My point is that a work that is just information, no matter how high quality, will be copied. There is no scarcity.

Throughout history, work has always been either about making physical objects, food, or services rendered to either a person or a group interactively. Those are scarce. That's still the case.

Yes, the market for cookie-cutter experiences "make once, sell zillion times" will become smaller (or at least, stop growing). I'm not sure whether that's something laudable or something sad, but it is happening before our eyes.

Things are changing, let's try to make the transition less painful instead of more painful as we move into the post-information age.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#125

Post by catwell »

tomp wrote: post #50
patd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe ploum still lives in France and in France when you buy a usb sticks, blank CDs and hard drives, you have to pay a "private copy tax" that can be in the tens of euros. So even if he ignores it, he is still paying them money because media companies can't adjust or accept that they're doing it wrong.

So, does this tax then mean that I can pirate songs/movies? After all, I have already paid for them (through the tax). (Fiction, I know, but one can dream...)

It was actually proposed at the French parliament to (basically) make "piracy" legal and subsidize the cultural industry via taxes. The name of that system was "Licence Glogale" (global licensing).

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#126

Post by radu_floricica »

gavinballard wrote: post #16

This is a series of pretty poor arguments. The author seems to be looking for reasons to justify their own piracy and conflates anger at the approach of the "copyright industry" with infringement upon peoples' rights. One of the final lines of the article, in particular, is jarring: "If I'm a pirate, it's not to have some cheap music. It is because the time has come for you to fuck off." It's fine to be angry about t…

There's a subtle line this post is drawing: from the plain guilt of not paying the artists who created the art, to horror at realizing that if you pay them, you also give several times as much money to interest groups that go head on with your morals.

Once you realize this line exists, paying for music is no longer "the right thing to do" but an evil act, at least as evil as supporting sweat shops and Amazon deforestation.

Whether you continue to pirate music or simply stop listening to it is one's personal choice, but buying already ceased being the moral choice.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#127

Post by catwell »

patd wrote: post #23
citricsquid wrote: post #8

This is such bullshit, I really wish I could downvote this sort of post. If you don't agree with the methods used by companies to sell their products DON'T then take it anyway, you're showing people WANT the product but aren't willing to pay, so what's the best solution? Make it harder to pirate / try to block pirating. This guy and everyone else who refuses to just not consume media they can't get on terms they and…

I believe ploum still lives in France and in France when you buy a usb sticks, blank CDs and hard drives, you have to pay a "private copy tax" that can be in the tens of euros. So even if he ignores it, he is still paying them money because media companies can't adjust or accept that they're doing it wrong.

I think he is from Belgium, not France.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#128

Post by olavk »

tomp wrote: post #47
cturner wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might make you feel better about it, but it really > doesn't change the fact that you're stealing something > of value Copyright infringement is not stealing. Separately, the person who worked hard to produce whatever you're buying is reaping a fraction of a percentage point of whatever you're spending, and that's only if the distributor hasn't found a way to screw them out of that entirely (or else they've been…

> Copyright infringement is not stealing. I assume there will be counter-arguments/downvotes, so to elaborate on this point using my own arguments: If you steal something from me, I don't have it (as in "steal a car"), so you're putting me in a worse-off position. If you copy/pirate something that is mine (properly copy, with attribution, and not out of context), I am not worse-off (possibly even better-off, as I get…

Consider this: You commision a composer to write a personal song to celebrate you at your anniverseray. You use the song, but decline to pay because the composer can keep a copy of the song, and therefore you are not really taking anything from him. But clearly you have put him in a worse position by using his work without pay - after all he could have done something else with his time and talent.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#129

Post by al_james »

njs12345 wrote: post #114
city41 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are not willing to pay for it, then they have no right to enjoy it. In the end, it always boils down to pirates being spoiled. People never pirate to make ends meet. There is no digital content that is essential to anyone's life. People pirate because they want to be entertained but they don't want to pay for it.

What's the difference? In both cases the pirate is deriving an economic benefit without directly causing an economic cost.

There is an economic cost. If even one person pirates a digital work who WOULD have paid for it had pirating not been an option, it causes a cost to the producer of the media. So there is a real cost.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#130

Post by olavk »

njs12345 wrote: post #114
city41 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are not willing to pay for it, then they have no right to enjoy it. In the end, it always boils down to pirates being spoiled. People never pirate to make ends meet. There is no digital content that is essential to anyone's life. People pirate because they want to be entertained but they don't want to pay for it.

What's the difference? In both cases the pirate is deriving an economic benefit without directly causing an economic cost.

If the pirate is enjoying the music, then clearly the pirate would be willing to pay something more than nothing to hear the music, if piracy were not easily avaliable.
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