Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I'm a Pirate

ploum.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 527 posts

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#181

Post by wladimir »

Silhouette wrote: post #166
wladimir wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

OK, I think I understand where you're coming from now. Unfortunately, if we take your idea to its natural conclusion, a lot of industries that create and distribute valuable works are going to change direction or possibly split several ways. Those projects that can be run without ever giving the underlying data to customers, such as interactive software that can be turned into SaaS where the code never leaves a serve…

None of these seems likely to be better at either producing high quality works or distributing them to wide audiences than an economic system such as copyright

I think that was a common sentiment at the end of each "age". How to go from here, all the alternatives suck from our point of view. I really like (2) myself, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

But no matter what, copyright is harder and harder to enforce as copying of information becomes cheaper, and it has the potential to get really messy.

At a certain point, the ends don't justify the means anymore. DMCA was ok-ish, but I think we reached that point with SOPA and similar laws. Especially as those means are the same as can be used to censor other things, and will very likely be abused for that, with the militarization happening all over the world.

So that solution falls under (3) fail as well. Which leaves the other options, including those we haven't thought of yet. People are creative and will find ways to get by...

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#182

Post by [deleted] »

ThomPete wrote: post #154
edw519 wrote: post #143

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…

Perhaps your "life is unfair" line could be extended to the artists who feel it's their natural right to take advantage of the diminishing costs of digital distribution.

[deleted]

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#183

Post by sbarre »

bmelton wrote: post #171
edw519 wrote: post #143

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…

"Pirating is not right. Most people would agree with that, too." The biggest problem I see today is that there are so many people who aren't even bothering to justify pirating, and instead insist that it is natural, good and just -- not just as a means to get access to content they otherwise wouldn't be able to, but for everything. To draw my line in the sand, I have no problems with people pirating works they simply…

> To draw my line in the sand, I have no problems with people pirating works they simply don't have any other access to. American shows that aren't broadcast overseas, for example; pirate away.

Really? The problem I have with this argument is that you remove control of the creation from the creator. What if they are in the process of trying to make a distribution deal while people cut off demand at the knees by stealing the product instead?

Much like the linked article, that position takes that control away. YES the industry sucks at distribution and their offerings are terrible and expensive, but I don't think that's an acceptable or legitimate reason to pirate things instead.

The legitimate option is GO WITHOUT IT. You have no RIGHT to anything here...

If the food is too expensive at your favourite restaurant, you don't pull a runner after the meal, you simply don't eat there, and you hope that in time the owners will realize and make adjustments. But if they choose not to, then that is their right.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#184

Post by Silhouette »

[deleted] wrote: post #164
Silhouette wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright infringement is not stealing. No, it's more akin to various kinds of fraud. So that's OK then, I guess. > 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 long since dead). That is simply nonsense. Ev…

[deleted]

If an author doesn't earn out their advance, they are almost certainly making a lot more than "a fraction of a percentage point" of the revenue.

A few new music artists do sign contracts so one-sided it's absurd, I agree, and they wind up never making any money at all or even paying some of the costs themselves. But that's usually because they let a big record label screw them, which would have happened regardless of the cut they thought they were going to get.

Those same big record labels are still paying several percent to any successful artists who have a half-decent agent/lawyer. More importantly, for the purposes of this discussion, small/indie record labels don't have the power to play those kinds of legal games even if they want to. Again, anyone signed to one is probably getting a lot more than that "fraction of a percentage point".

So, while I agree with you that the major distributors often offer little value today while taking far more of a cut than they deserve, I stand by my original point that it's silly to attack copyright because the original artists only get <1% as a cut. That just isn't true for anyone successful who doesn't let themselves get played.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#185

Post by bartl »

Silhouette wrote: post #74
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. No, it's more akin to various kinds of fraud. So that's OK then, I guess. > 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 long since dead). That is simply nonsense. Ev…

I agree that the separation of stealing vs. copyright infringement is an unimportant distinction.

But artists do get just a tiny part of the money people pay. Take TLC as a well known example: they were a huge seller, yet they got bankrupt, largely because of how their record company treated them:

>CrazySexyCool eventually sold over 11 million copies in the US, and became one of the first albums to ever receive a diamond certification from the RIAA, and won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best R&B Album and a 1996 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group for "Creep". However, in the midst of their apparent success, the members of TLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on July 3, 1995. (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TLC_%28band%29)

Take Courtney Love's rant about where the money goes as another (well known) example: http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

I agree with the OP: I'm sure that if they could get away with it, the record companies would most definitely prefer to pay the artist nothing at all.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#186

Post by city41 »

cturner wrote: post #160
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.

Is it correct that your premise is that if you don't pay for something then you don't have the right to enjoy it? Do you also apply this principle to sex? What about borrowed books, good views, jokes, ideas, intelligent conversation, exercise?

Do you work for free? It's pretty essential to all of society that work and/or value is generally paid for. You demanding that content be available for free simply because you want it is no different from your boss deciding to not pay you because he doesn't want to.

Yes people can choose to make their work available for free, and that's great. But that choice again lies in the person who created the work, not the person who consumes it.

And to be perfectly clear, I have no delusion that piracy will ever go away. It's a fact of the digital world. My point is pirates should not delude themselves into thinking what they do is justified. It's not.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#187

Post by ul5255 »

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…

Good point. It is strange to read how people try to justify copying music/movies/... if they never had the intention to buy it in the first place. I do have sympathy for to circumvent DRM, ... e.g. to watch a DVD of region x (which I bought) on a player of region y. I don't have any sympathy for people who steal while I pay for the same thing.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#188

Post by HeyImAlex »

rdtsc wrote: post #168
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…

> you're stealing something of value that someone worked hard to produce. How is it stealing if they can still have that something? You compose a song. I copy that song. You still have that song. If I'd taken away a recorder with your only master copy of it, then I would have stolen it.

>How is it stealing if they can still have that something?

Because that's not a decision you should get to make. The cost associated with creating most things isn't in raw materials alone but man hours that went in to produce it, and the author is entitled to ask for whatever they think their hard work and their end product are worth. Is the benefit of getting that product not worth the price they're asking? Here's a novel idea; you don't buy the product and don't get the benefit. It is worth the price? Then vote with your wallet and buy away. Saying that they can 'still have that thing' does little to justify why you feel entitled to that thing in the first place.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#189

Post by Silhouette »

wladimir wrote: post #181
Silhouette wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, I think I understand where you're coming from now. Unfortunately, if we take your idea to its natural conclusion, a lot of industries that create and distribute valuable works are going to change direction or possibly split several ways. Those projects that can be run without ever giving the underlying data to customers, such as interactive software that can be turned into SaaS where the code never leaves a serve…

None of these seems likely to be better at either producing high quality works or distributing them to wide audiences than an economic system such as copyright I think that was a common sentiment at the end of each "age". How to go from here, all the alternatives suck from our point of view. I really like (2) myself, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea. But no matter what, copyright is harder and harder to enfo…

> I really like (2) myself, but it might not be everyone's cup of tea.

I think there's potential there, but there would need to be a dramatic cultural shift so it didn't just become a case of anything "good enough" was done, with no meaningful incentive to put the final polish to turn good works into great ones. Take a look at the Open Source software community today: it's full of "good enough" products, which do the basic jobs perfectly well for a lot of people, but which often lack the power, flexibility or usability of commercial software because no-one wanted to write the edge cases or spend the time doing tedious polishing-up work.

> But no matter what, copyright is harder and harder to enforce as copying of information becomes cheaper, and it has the potential to get really messy.

Unfortunately, that isn't really true. It would be relatively easy to enforce copyright on the Internet with modern technology. It's just that I (and, I suspect, most other people here) would prefer not to accept the unfortunate side-effects that come with compulsory mass surveillance and automated charges.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#190

Post by zmanji »

pingswept wrote: post #176
loup-vaillant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"infringing a state granted monopoly" is the best description I've heard yet. Thanks for that.

That is the textbook definition of anything related to Intellectual Property. The State is supposed to grant a time limited monopoly and in exchange the protected item will return to the public once it is finished.
Post reply on HN