Why I'm a Pirate • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#231

Post by biot » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

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?

You have a right to eat food. You don't have a right to walk into a restaurant and eat without paying. I don't have the right to take your food.

You have a right to exercise. You don't have the right to walk into Gold's Gym and use their facilities without paying. I don't have the right to enter your home and use the equipment in the basement.

You have a right to have mutually consensual sex with someone else without paying. You don't have the right to rape a prostitute if they only offer sex for money because you didn't want to pay. I don't have the right to demand sex from your family.

You have the right to borrow a book from your friend if he's willing to lend it to you. You don't have the right to borrow your buddy's book without their permission just as you don't have the right to walk into a bookstore and borrow their books without permission. I don't have the right to take your books from you.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#232

Post by route66 » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:42 PM UTC

wwwtyro wrote: post #217

grellas wrote: post #212

Creative effort - or at at least any that is truly worthy of the name - takes tears, and sweat, and blood. We can marvel at the output of an artist, or a writer, or a composer, or a film maker and yet fail to focus on the years of toil that often preceded that work. And I am not here speaking of some isolated genius. I still remember the days when I was so dissatisfied with my lack of writing skills that I decided to…

> When people propose that copyright be abolished, they are saying, if effect, that anybody who produces a creative work immediately forfeits any right to control it and that any random person can come along and freely enjoy the benefits of that work and also freely reproduce and distribute that work. I could not disagree more. If someone creates a work of art, they only own the physical manifestation of that creatio…

So, I'm a musician. What "physical manifestation" are you talking about? Compressed air? Because as soon as I make a record I have to "guard that physical manifestation" ... how? with SOPA? preventing CD'd from being sold?

And in short you deny artists of ownership of anything else than the physical representation (unethical!) But in the next sentence you make the creation "other people's property". If I think of something you did not, this robs me of rights and automatically gives entitlement to you?

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#233

Post by dandrick » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:42 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #219

dandrick wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This a very shortsighted view - of course creators lose money due to pirating. I'm not even speaking about the concept of sells they may have had in place of theft - that is simple conjecture. There is no doubt that less money flowing in to the industry, as a direct result of piracy, means less money for creators. Is anyone honestly suggesting media sales haven't declined due to pirating? I'm not a proponent of the i…

Creators fail to gain money. It's not the same as losing money. By all means, let's talk about the effects of piracy on creators' profits. But let's not pretend that a pirated copy costs the creator anything. The action and consequences of stealing versus pirating are different. They deserve to be discussed differently. Linking them together is clumsy and doesn't further the discourse.

That sort of argument just comes off as a word game to me, I don't really know what to say to it. It is similar to saying no one dies when they jump out of a window, it is the impact that kills them.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#234

Post by hxa7241 » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:45 PM UTC

grellas wrote: post #212

Creative effort - or at at least any that is truly worthy of the name - takes tears, and sweat, and blood. We can marvel at the output of an artist, or a writer, or a composer, or a film maker and yet fail to focus on the years of toil that often preceded that work. And I am not here speaking of some isolated genius. I still remember the days when I was so dissatisfied with my lack of writing skills that I decided to…

> The point is that this is my decision.

Granting the creator such rights takes them away from everyone else. Why is that justified? Why should one person, the creator, be able to tell other people what they can and cannot do?

> In that case, anybody can use it, replicate it, seek to profit from it, claim it as his own, or whatever, all without my having any say whatever in that process.

This is a common approach, but it completely fails as a moral argument. You are saying it is right because it is good for creators. That is an argument of self-interest, and problem is it immediately justifies its opposite. A non-owner can simply say: disobeying the law serves my self-interest, therefore that is right for me.

But it is also short-sighted. You are not only a 'creator', you are a user too. One might well be the greatest writer of books, for example, and so benefit from increased copyright/IP rights. But one will probably not also be the greatest music composer, and the greatest film-maker, and software developer, and so on. We are net consumers, in a sense. To give producers more is to take more from ourselves.

Ultimately, we grant IP rights not because they are for producers, but because they are pragmatically supposed to be useful overall -- that is the only justification. There is no other, no sensible rational purely moral argument, for copyright/IP. That ought always to be remembered.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#235

Post by onemoreact » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

grellas wrote: post #212

Creative effort - or at at least any that is truly worthy of the name - takes tears, and sweat, and blood. We can marvel at the output of an artist, or a writer, or a composer, or a film maker and yet fail to focus on the years of toil that often preceded that work. And I am not here speaking of some isolated genius. I still remember the days when I was so dissatisfied with my lack of writing skills that I decided to…

We both agree the idea that 65 years after your death your estate will still own the copyright to that post is insane. However, you defend the basic concept that copyright protects artists which enables them to produce more content. Yet, Shakespeare had no copyright protection so he produced more not less content. He still profited from his work, just not as much.

But, let's look at it from another direction. Simplify the tax code enough and H&R block goes out of business. That does not mean society is worse off. Copyright enriches artists at the cost of society but the real question is society bettor off. There is a deluge of new content, but the overwhelming majority truly interesting works are not for profit. I honestly think we would be bettor off if Avatar had never been created an instead we what artists do when they are not pandering to the largest audience possible.

PS: I don't listen to music. I don't watch TV. I do occasionally see a movie, but it's been a while. I used to do a fair amount of reading but I literally only follow a single author who I would just as soon donate to to keep them writing as buy their books. I do play WoW, but that's a subscription game which would survive just fine without copyright.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#236

Post by jmilloy » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:52 PM UTC

grellas wrote: post #212

Creative effort - or at at least any that is truly worthy of the name - takes tears, and sweat, and blood. We can marvel at the output of an artist, or a writer, or a composer, or a film maker and yet fail to focus on the years of toil that often preceded that work. And I am not here speaking of some isolated genius. I still remember the days when I was so dissatisfied with my lack of writing skills that I decided to…

>Copyright, at its heart, is aimed at giving the person who creates something control over the creative work.

I'm not sure about this. Copyright is aimed at enabling and encouraging creative works. It achieves this by giving the creator control. Here, the word giving is important; we only give the creator control because we think that will result in more high quality creative works (in theory).

>When people propose that copyright be abolished, they are saying, if effect, that anybody who produces a creative work immediately forfeits any right to control it.

Instead, they are saying that they no longer want to give away control to the creator, because copyright is not achieving the desired results.

>To defeat SOPA, though, one must affirm copyright.

Agreed. However, I think it's easier to discuss the goals, benefits, and extent of copyright law from the vantage point I've expressed above.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#237

Post by mikeash » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:54 PM UTC

dandrick wrote: post #233

mikeash wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Creators fail to gain money. It's not the same as losing money. By all means, let's talk about the effects of piracy on creators' profits. But let's not pretend that a pirated copy costs the creator anything. The action and consequences of stealing versus pirating are different. They deserve to be discussed differently. Linking them together is clumsy and doesn't further the discourse.

That sort of argument just comes off as a word game to me, I don't really know what to say to it. It is similar to saying no one dies when they jump out of a window, it is the impact that kills them.

Well, let's look at the various outcomes. There are, I think, three possible actions to consider: A) taking and paying B) taking and not paying C) not taking.

For a restaurant, we get: A) restaurant benefits B) restaurant loses C) restaurant suffers no effect either way.

For piracy, we get: A) creator benefits B) creator suffers no effect either way C) creator suffers no effect either way.

Consider what happens if I organize a thousand people to carry out (B) on something. If it's a restaurant, this could easily drive them out of business. If it's a creator of copyrighted content, they continue with their business as usual.

Note: I'm not saying that (B) is good, or acceptable, or justified, or should be legal, or anything like that, when it comes to copyright infringement. I'm just saying that the two scenarios entail significantly different consequences, and should not be treated as the same thing. Treating them as the same doesn't help the discussion at all: it simply causes people who agree with you to nod their heads, and people who disagree to think you're being disingenuous.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#238

Post by geon » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:54 PM UTC

hxa7241 wrote: post #234

grellas wrote: post #212

Creative effort - or at at least any that is truly worthy of the name - takes tears, and sweat, and blood. We can marvel at the output of an artist, or a writer, or a composer, or a film maker and yet fail to focus on the years of toil that often preceded that work. And I am not here speaking of some isolated genius. I still remember the days when I was so dissatisfied with my lack of writing skills that I decided to…

> The point is that this is my decision. Granting the creator such rights takes them away from everyone else. Why is that justified? Why should one person, the creator, be able to tell other people what they can and cannot do? > In that case, anybody can use it, replicate it, seek to profit from it, claim it as his own, or whatever, all without my having any say whatever in that process. This is a common approach, bu…

This is hands down the best summary of my thoughts on copyright.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#239

Post by rangibaby » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 3:58 PM UTC

Tycho wrote: post #152

dchest wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, attacking ships is bad. Sharing, on the other hand, is honorable.

Sharing an original work against the express wishes of the creator? Nope, you are dishonouring their hard work in creating the content and their intentions in making it available to the public. I supposes breaching the terms of the GPL would be 'honourable' too.

How can sharing something be wrong? Especially when it is essentially a bunch of 0s and 1s that you could write down by hand if you had the patience to? Sharing a number is wrong?

I don't understand what that has to do with GPL at all.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#240

Post by Spoom » Wed, Jan 18, 2012, 4:01 PM UTC

wwwtyro wrote: post #217

grellas wrote: post #212

Creative effort - or at at least any that is truly worthy of the name - takes tears, and sweat, and blood. We can marvel at the output of an artist, or a writer, or a composer, or a film maker and yet fail to focus on the years of toil that often preceded that work. And I am not here speaking of some isolated genius. I still remember the days when I was so dissatisfied with my lack of writing skills that I decided to…

> When people propose that copyright be abolished, they are saying, if effect, that anybody who produces a creative work immediately forfeits any right to control it and that any random person can come along and freely enjoy the benefits of that work and also freely reproduce and distribute that work. I could not disagree more. If someone creates a work of art, they only own the physical manifestation of that creatio…

While I realize that it can't happen any time soon due to the current businesses that rely on copyright protection, there have been alternatives proposed that work without it, like The Digital Art Auction ( http://tdaa.digitalproductions.co.uk/history/essay.htm ) and Street Performer Protocol ( http://www.schneier.com/paper-street-performer.html , blacked out due to SOPA as of writing). Vastly simplified, they describe a system in which an artist describes a work they would create, and the money they would like to raise to release such a work. People bid on how much they would pay to see the work released. This bid is either collected into an escrow account up front or otherwise "pledged" in some binding way (perhaps a credit card auth). Once the threshold of pledges is reached, the money is released to the artist and the art is released to the public.

These threshold pledge systems all have the weakness that the work must be paid for up front, after which (since one assumes a lack of copyright) the work is public domain. In some ways this may not actually be a weakness, though; it transforms users into investors, making them say, "I would like something that does / has X and Y, and I would be willing to pay $Z to get it." Of course, this system does not entail any per-copy price... however, nowadays the cost to create a copy of something is approaching zero anyway. Does it really make sense to continue to charge a per-copy fee? Charging a subscription fee, however, would still be possible in many circumstances, if a service was actually being offered.

What are your thoughts on such systems?