Why I'm a Pirate • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#481

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 8:47 AM UTC

ZenPsycho wrote: post #466

jiggy2011 wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rep…

And I have yet to be provided with any reasonable business model that would still enable the creation of something like the Great Pyramids of Giza, or the Great Wall of China. I just don't think this idea of abolishing slavery has legs.

Well I'm no historian but I think it's possible that in the time of the ancient Egyptians the idea to abolish slavery would not be feasible whilst retaining their society. If they didn't have slaves to do the heavy lifting then it's likely that another civilization which did use slavery would simply wipe them out due to better efficiency.

Slavery was abolished partly because there was enough technology to make it less necessary.

If we could automate human creativity then I suppose copyright would no longer be necessary.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#482

Post by ThomPete » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:00 AM UTC

jiggy2011 wrote: post #468

ThomPete wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What do you mean "isn't going to get exposed" , people complain all the time that certain songs re-use riffs from older songs. Your argument seems to boil down to what the minimum unit of valid IP is. This is a complex issue and is often fought in courts. Taking a riff from someone elses song and rebuilding a new song around it requires a lot more creativity time and money than simply copying and redistributing the s…

Please re-read what this is about.

Are musicians stealing from other musicians when they transcribe a song or a riff or a chord progression, or a signature sound?

If they are then all musicians are stealing all the time.

If it's not then copying music isn't stealing either.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#483

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:01 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #479

jiggy2011 wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure game streaming would be any better, it may require less copyright but then what happens when the company decides it is no longer economically feasible to stream the game that you like to play? I'm not sure how 3d models would make a difference in movies? Many movies are already basically 3d renders.

The same thing that happens when a game gets discontinued today.

That's not true at all, I have a large collection of games dating from around 1990 to present on my shelves. Assuming I can find the disks (most of them are in the wrong boxes) I can re-install any of them and play right now (ok I might have to install dosbox for some of them not to mention find a floppy drive).

That's only true currently for games that are only playable via a single central online service (e.g WoW etc) and that's sort of dictated by the game format itself.

What I mean is a world where all games are video streamed to you even if they are single player only.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#484

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:12 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #478

jiggy2011 wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all my software is only available via a cloud service then it would restrict my freedom compared to having a local copy to the extent that I have no control over any changes to the software. If they release an update that I don't like for example then it will not be possible for me to retain the older version. If they decide to discontinue the software or go bust etc then I will lose access to it, this would not h…

All your software don't have to be available via the cloud. The data could be or vice versa. There will still be plenty of free alternatives just as there are today. You very well know there are plenty of ways around this and it is being practiced today. Spotify is one example. You are creating pseudo problems that would not really exist.

I don't think I'm creating psuedo problems.

If you have software without the cloud then you return to the same copyright problem repeated ad nauseum in this thread.

Ok, perhaps you could have applications in the cloud with locally stored data but I can't see this as being popular for 2 reasons.

1) Vendors would like the lock-in power that storing your data gives.

2) If I have a lot of data it may not be practical to upload it every time I use the cloud software on a slow uplink.

There are not really "plenty of free alternatives" to many types of software, at least alternatives that are as good as commercial offerings. Examples would include image editors and games.

Using Spotify as an example, all of the music is streamed from the internet so if they remove a track from their library then I lose my ability to stream it. Also to sign up for Spotify now you need a facebook account, I don't have one or want one. Luckily I got my account before this was a requirement but if they decide to apply this policy retroactively then I'm shit out of luck.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#485

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:25 AM UTC

city41 wrote: post #178

alextgordon wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Dai…

Content creators have rights around their content. One of those rights is how it is distributed, and who gets to use it. Pirating a TV show because you feel it should be available in your country is no different from say violating the GPL. Often GPL'ed software is misguided and would serve everyone better under a different license, but it still remains the author's right to choose the GPL. Why do you seek out and wat…

I think part of the reason people pirate foreign TV shows is because all their friends are doing it. People are always telling me "OMG, You have to watch this new US TV show".

When I explain that I don't really like piracy I get some very strange looks.

I think people often overestimate how many people are willing to consider ethics at all in purchasing decisions. I know plenty of otherwise nice and decent people who would happily purchase a product that they knew was made by child slavery, hell people even joke about it.

It seems that considering the consequences of your actions isn't hip anymore once consumerism is involved.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#486

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:36 AM UTC

j-kidd wrote: post #302

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me this - the market is not meeting the demand - is the single best argument. If something is available legally and at a reasonable price (by which I mean not only available second hand for £100 as a collectable, rather than "99p for an MP3, that's outrageous" etc...) I either buy it or accept I won't have it. If it's not available I have no real issue with getting it illegally. Frankly if the media companies adop…

> If something is available legally and at a reasonable price (by which I mean not only available second hand for £100 as a collectable, rather than "99p for an MP3, that's outrageous" etc...) I either buy it or accept I won't have it. You are assuming the world is full of honorable people like yourself. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in. In the words of Scott Adams: "The least effective system ever inve…

I'm not necessarily suggesting that it's workable as a solution for the whole industry, more that for those who wish to "combat piracy", if you strip away the objections that honest people have, you have a better chance of making your case.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#487

Post by biot » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:49 AM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #237

dandrick wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There's a common flaw in this line of argument. In your (B) example, you need to do one more level of analysis:

   i) Would have paid if it were the only option, but would rather get 
      something for nothing
  ii) Would not have paid under any circumstances

Assign probabilities to each of those events and now you know the probability of harm to the creator. Option (i) could be low, but it is not a 0% probability which means that for a sufficiently large sample size the (B) scenario does cause the creator to suffer.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#488

Post by kittxkat » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 9:57 AM UTC

Zirro wrote: post #43

How about those of us who live where getting certain products legally is essentially impossible? In my case, these are anime-series and documentaries, neither which can be bought where I live. What should I do, if I really want to watch these, and have no way of getting them except for P2P? (Fun fact: Availability was what "drove" me into piracy in the first place. There was a TV-show which had aired about a year ear…

> (Fun fact: Availability was what "drove" me into piracy in the first place. There was a TV-show which had aired about a year earlier, which I had missed then but wanted to see. I tried every legal way to obtain it that I could think of, because I believed piracy was wrong at the time, but it was simply not for sale. In the end, I ended up with my first torrent downloading.)

This is also the very reason that that drove me (and thousands of others too, I'm sure) to piracy and the one reason why I still do it. Even if I really wanted to support that TV show, sometimes it's just not possible (Case in point: The comedy show "The Class", it's simply nowhere available on DVD or similar, yet all episodes are on The Bay. How am I supposed to not torrent that stuff if I wanted to watch it?).

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#489

Post by jiggy2011 » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 10:02 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #482

jiggy2011 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "isn't going to get exposed" , people complain all the time that certain songs re-use riffs from older songs. Your argument seems to boil down to what the minimum unit of valid IP is. This is a complex issue and is often fought in courts. Taking a riff from someone elses song and rebuilding a new song around it requires a lot more creativity time and money than simply copying and redistributing the s…

Please re-read what this is about. Are musicians stealing from other musicians when they transcribe a song or a riff or a chord progression, or a signature sound? If they are then all musicians are stealing all the time. If it's not then copying music isn't stealing either.

I'm sorry but are you trolling me on purpose?

I deliberately did not equate anything with stealing and you haven't responded to the overall point of my previous post.

Re: Why I'm a Pirate

#490

Post by stevecooperorg » Thu, Jan 19, 2012, 10:17 AM UTC

gabaix wrote: post #461

stevecooperorg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

You can sell rights to be the first viewer/reader/consumer. With a world where all digital content is almost free, first-time exclusivity can increase highly its value.

I agree that 'first consumer pays everything' is an option. Hardback books work like this a little -- if you want to read it earlier, you need to pay more.

I don't know that this continues to work for digital goods. Are there examples you're thinking of?