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

451–460 of 527 posts

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#451

Post by jiggy2011 »

tikhonj wrote: post #441
troll24601 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to clarify: if you do work with the intent of selling it to one buyer it should be protected, but if you do work with the intent of selling it to two or more buyers it should not?

No. Rather, the point is that you are paid for your work rather than a copy of the result of your work. This is just like a software developer working for a salary rather than somebody eking out an existence in an app store.

But who will pay me for my work if it is not some bespoke contract thing?

Will you ask for donations? What happens if you announce you will work on something and take a bunch of donations in the first couple of months (enough to live off).

What happens if the donations then dry up and you run out of money so you can't continue to work on the program full time but it is not finished? Do you have to go into debt to repay the people who donated or do they have to take a gamble that your program will get finished and be good enough?

Or do you only start work when you have sufficient donations to finish development? What happens if you misjudge this?

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#452

Post by Czarnian »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #433
Czarnian wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't be taking their balls and going home out of pique, they'll be doing it because they have to go to work. Every hour an artist has to spend at a day job is an hour they can't spend creating. It's an hour they can't spend practicing. It's an hour they can't spend raising awareness of their work.

This is true but as a sort of counterpoint I think that sometimes once an artist gets well established they lose some of their connection to the normal world. For example a lot of rock music comes from anger and frustration of having to work a shitty job, behave in a prescribed way and having little money. As soon as you have released a few albums and have free reign to fill your nose with coke , cover yourself in ta…

Your premise doesn't seem terribly strong for a few reasons.

1) Artists have memories. When I was much younger, I worked as a telemarketer. It was probably the worst job I ever held in my life. It was soul-crushing. Even though I am now a reasonably successful software engineer, I still remember how difficult it was to go to work knowing that unless I was lucky, I was going to be rejected all day long. Even though I've been with my partner for more than a decade, I remember how chaotic, foolish, and frustrating the dating scene was. Anyone with a few years under their belt knows that a bad memory can jump out at you and make you feel exactly the way you did when it happened.

2) An artists music evolves over time. Look at the Beatles. "With the Beatles" is an astonishingly different album from "Abbey Road." Just because you start out as one thing doesn't mean you have to be that thing for the rest of your career.

3) Look at artists like Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, and even Billy Joel to some extent. No matter what your opinion of their music is, it's hard to argue that they are not iconic representations of the "everyman" in music. Most of their output was produced while they were some of the highest paid performers in the world. Even a guy like Jay-Z hasn't been poor or street for a very long time, but if he puts out another record, you can be damned sure that there will be millions of people who buy it because he knows how to write songs that relate to the kind of person he used to be.

Don't put too much stock in the idea that you have to be street level to write good music.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#453

Post by underdown »

reedlaw wrote: post #371
hxa7241 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Exactly right about failing as a moral argument. Copyright also fails on moral grounds by violating property rights. If I am not permitted to store certain sequences of bits on a hard drive, or paint a certain arrangement of colors, or hum a certain tune, then my right to use my property is effectively limited.

you're right to fire a gun within city limits is (most likely) effectively limited by gun control laws. your right to use your gun (property) is also limited by laws against murder. I could keep going.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#454

Post by Czarnian »

burgerbrain wrote: post #243
route66 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 som…

Shows. Performances.

When exactly are you supposed to do these shows and performances if you have a day job?

Copyright is one of the things that allows artists to get in a position to go on the road and do these shows.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#455

Post by Czarnian »

waxjar wrote: post #147
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…

This is something everyone that talks about this topic needs to understand. Basic economics teach us that an infinite supply comes at the price of (near) zero. The amount of music, movies, software (products) that can be distributed is only limited by technical issues, such as the amount of bandwidth and hard drive space. So naturally distributors should expect their product to have a lower price than it once had, es…

You probably shouldn't have skipped the day when they talked about market saturation. Infinite supply does not imply infinite demand.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#456

Post by sudonim »

stevecooperorg wrote: post #439
hxa7241 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the hen made the fucking bread, and the cow didn't Yes, we could say that work justifies payment (very simply and roughly). But that is not in dispute. It is that it does not justify payment by a particular means -- one that restricts the freedom (to copy etc.) of others. And -- you will forgive me if I am mistaken -- I am afraid inclusion of the word 'fucking' does not quite cover that. Does payment depend…

> Does payment depend, necessarily, on restriction of copying? No, it does not. The only other way I can think of is patronage; I produce a work for a patron according to their wishes, and hand it over for a fee, at which point I relinquish any further control. Are there other models?

Isn't this largely what the recording industry and movie studio model is? They front the money to an artist to pay to produce a work and the artist relinquishes further control. In this case the patron is buying the work in order to resell it.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#457

Post by ThomPete »

chrisbennet wrote: post #425
ThomPete wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep confusing the two. If I take an microphone from you, you don't have an microphone. If I copy a song from you, you still have the song yourself. It might be that you don't see the difference but I do and therein is our disagreement.

By that logic, if you work a day for me and then I decide not to pay you, you aren't any poorer than you were before so no harm right?

And once again someone confuses things. There is a difference between selling a performance and reselling a copy of that performance.

Let's turn it around.

Would you pay for someone who sent you a video of some work they did for someone else?

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#458

Post by ThomPete »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #429
ThomPete wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the argument is that it takes something away from the artiste. That it's not only like stealing but that it is actually stealing. So what is it? Is it taking something away from the original creator (and the creator before him/her) or is it not.

I think the legal system deals with that. If you believe that you are losing money due to somebody else stealing your intellectual property then you can sue. I would not equate copying necessarily with stealing but each copy that is made of your software/music whatever will dilute it's value to an extent unless there is some compensation. Commercial software hopes you will compensate by paying money, OSS hopes you wi…

But it's not the actual copy but the ip.

So it's not really any different, besides of course that transcribing someone's licks and incorporating it into your own style isn't going to get exposed.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#459

Post by ThomPete »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #427
nkassis wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever walked into a department store like Macy's? It's all ripoff from designers. There is no copyright on clothe design yet that hasn't killed the designer clothing market. Counterfeit goods to my knowledge fall under trademark laws.

I think this is why people have such high regard for labels in fashion. Fashion is also a very visible way to display wealth whilst software is not, "aaah but was your copy of Office 2010 compiled by Steve Ballmer himself ".. just doesn't happen. If we got rid of software copyright what would actually happen would be that all commercial software would be moved into a SaaS model and companies would keep their servers…

Why would it give you less freedom?

Software will turn into SaaS anyway or to onLive types of constructions.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#460

Post by [deleted] »

mikeash wrote: post #202
sbarre wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 steal…

> 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. Stuff like this really hurts your argument, IMO. When you eat at a restaurant and then don't pay, that restaurant loses a substantial amount of money. When you pirate…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN