151–160 of 527 posts
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And the artists don't have a god given right to produce it once and sell it many times.
Yes they do because they created it. As much as they have ownership over their music, you have the god given right not to buy it.
Piracy is dishonourable... That's all the reason anyone should need for not doing it.
Sure, attacking ships is bad. Sharing, on the other hand, is honorable.
I supposes breaching the terms of the GPL would be 'honourable' too.
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> 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…
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.
So then, what if I am willing to pay for it?
I would very much like to watch US TV shows. Preferably on a computer, since I don't have a TV (but on TV would be a good effort too!) Unfortunately, somebody has decided that I am not allowed to.
If try to buy Hulu Plus, I am greeted with a nice message telling me to fuck off back to where I came from. Same with Netflix. Hell, I can't even watch a 2 minute clip of the Daily Show without resorting to browser gymnastics.
So I pirate US TV shows. Mercilessly. I can't see a downside. If the piracy has no effect on their profit margins, then we continue to get great TV content. If they go bankrupt, then some people who I violently despise lose their jobs. It's win/win!
OP, if this is just a whine about how unfair the world is and how special you are, then fine. But if it's an attempt to make something happen (stop SOPA), then it's not working and is in fact counterproductive, so please just STFU. You are offsetting the good hard work of so many others trying to make the right things happen. Make no mistake about it, we have reached the point where the best course of action is proba…
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The point that the major industries are trying to get across is that copyright infringement is just like stealing. They're saying so quite explicitly whenever I go to the movie theater or rent a DVD. But copyright infringement is not stealing. You could make an argument about it if the period was still 14 years (i.e. the author has only 14 years to collect revenue from it, so if you want it either pay up or wait 14 y…
How does the length of which the copyright is applicable affect whether copyright infringement is stealing?
Also, discussing the morality of copyright infringement is also important, as copyright infringement does not rob the owner of the item itself. It only duplicates it.
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When I started making enough money to buy everything I was consuming, I put an end to my piracy habit for some time. I had Netflix, used Rhapsody (then Spotify), bought season passes on iTunes (I used iPlayer a couple times but being in the US I had to use Tor to get around the region filter to watch a Louis Theroux documentaries, I guess that's "piracy"). I stopped when I realized that while I could afford it, all o…
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.
Not yet, but the technology is rapidly improving. With the right equipment (3d scanner, 3d printer), you can copy basic items at home today. It is only a matter of time.
With the right technology, why wouldn't you copy a car? A car only has value because of its inherit scarcity. If you could copy a car, it wouldn't be worth anything (aside from the cost of materials required to perform the copy).
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> 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.
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> you're stealing something of value that someone worked hard to produce. What exactly is stolen? Certainly not the piece of music, film, or knowledge: unlike spaghetti, those are abundant, non-conflicting goods. Nor the exclusivity, for it is only destroyed. Nor secrecy or privacy, for the piece of knowledge or art is public already. This is not theft. This is infringing a state granted monopoly. It doesn't make it…
See my comment above re: pedantic arguments about the definition of "stealing". grellas made an excellent post the other day about the nature of physical property rights vs intangible property rights [1]. The general gist is that declaring one "fundamental" and the other "not-fundametal" is sophistry; both are considered important to society and both are and will continue to be protected by law. In my opinion, the ex…
Grellas is right to point out that current laws turn a range of intellectual goods into property. We shouldn't forget however how they do this: by enforcing scarcity when the default was abundance. By the way, you can get abundance back by breaking the law.
I reject the terms "property" and "theft" when talking about ideas and recordings because they are abundant by default. By using those words, they make you think in terms of scarcity. They skew your perception of the issues, then exploit that bias. This is why I insist that others do not use the word, "it's GNU/Linux" style. Even if you know what you meant, many people don't, and it has consequences. (In the same vein, I remind people not to say "internet" when talking about the world wide web alone. If you believe you "have the internet" as long as you can run a web browser, you won't notice nor protest when your ISP starts blocking TCP ports.)
I also reject copyright and patents altogether. Not because they are not property by default, and therefore illegitimate (I find this argument very weak). I reject them because I believe they do more evil than good. Most probably, they are more a hindrance than a help for our economy and our technological development. Not to mention the inevitable loss of individual liberties, which humans tend to value by themselves.
Overall, I believe scarcity should be abolished whenever possible. If we get to the point where there is so much abundance that life is not fun any more, then we'd have a good reason for scarcity. (Video games provide an example: god mode, unlimited ammo, and free experience points tend to spoil the game. I'm still tempted by the cheat codes, but I think twice before I type them.) But right now scarcity is a problem to be solved. Copyright and patents are part of that problem (or at least a symptom).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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.
Do you also apply this principle to sex?
What about borrowed books, good views, jokes, ideas, intelligent conversation, exercise?