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Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

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Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#71

Post by goblin89 »

epo wrote: post #23
Apreche wrote: post #5

The only problem I have with this article is this line: "since when does that suddenly mean that you can decide that you are no longer going to pay for products that both legally and morally you are obliged to pay for, yet still use them?" Legally obliged to pay for? Yes. Morally? No. I have no moral problem with piracy. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Those are the foundations of my morality. I wo…

You have no idea what you are talking about, I'm guessing this is because you have never created anything worthwhile on which your livelihood depended. I'm sure you'd be quick to whine if your employer (assuming you are old enough to work) could decide whether or not you should be paid for your work after you had done it. I hope you congratulate the next person to steal from you with a cheery "well done, that's my mo…

If you are creating something on which your livelihood depends, do so ‘under a promise of financial reward’. It would be foolish to do otherwise, isn't it?

But if you choose to publicly distribute your work—accept inevitable risks. Don't like that—go get a real job. You can do contract work writing music, or doing illustration / design.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#73

Post by Jugglernaut »

lachyg wrote: post #53
krig wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument makes no sense. If my boss doesn't pay me, I'm not working for him. Thus, he is no longer my boss. How is that relevant to the morality issue of piracy? Do you mean in the sense that if I pirate something, the creator of that something doesn't get paid and thus doesn't create the thing that I pirated? But that argument is backwards. If you mean that no more things will be produced in a world with piracy…

I think you summed it up perfectly. If your boss is no longer paying you, he has no right to your time. Just like with the pirated content, if you don't pay for it, you have no right to it.

What you and most others miss is that people don't really care about the right of things when they pirate. It's a non-issue.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#74

Post by joshontheweb »

Fact: People will pirate your software if you make it a pain to pay for it.

Fact: People will pay for your software if you make it easy to pay for.

Windows has proven this with their DRM.

Apple has proven this with their app stores and itunes.

In a slightly unrelated note:

This is why I wish there was an app store for web apps. The web needs easy way to sell access to web apps like in the app store. If all I had to do was click 'purchase' and enter my password to get access to web apps like turntable.fm for a reasonable price, I would gladly pay. This would open up a whole new revenue model for web apps. There is a whole class of web apps that are trying to rely on ads now but don't have the millions of visitors a month to make that feasible. A web app store could provide a place for these lower traffic but still very useful and relevant products. I envy mobile developers since they have this avenue as an option. Anyone else feel this way?

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#75

Post by joshmanders »

leoedin wrote: post #66
joshmanders wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you won't take 2 minutes to read the article for what it's worth, but will take 3+ minutes to write that you won't read it because he didn't capitalize his first word? haha. edit: removed all capitalization so you can reply to me about how you won't read my comment because i am too lazy to capitalize a word.

It's an 85 word comment. Unless the author is unusually slow at typing (which is quite unlikely given the largely programmer-based audience here), it probably took them about a minute to write the comment. Lack of capitalisation interrupts the way you read a block of text. People make poor design choices all the time, and this is one of them.

More more poking fun at the fact that he took more time to reply about why he wont read the article (which is ridiculous) than it would have taken to just read it and respond with valuable input instead of being snobby about it.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#76

Post by ap22213 »

I think that many people seem to believe that property is some intrinsic thing. But, in fact, property is a socially construed thing and a granted privilege. Furthermore, property means many things, and there are many different kinds. Each kind should be treated differently.

Most of the confusion of 'piracy' (such a strong word, btw) stems from people misusing concepts related to physical objects and translating them equally to ephemeral things like 'intellectual-property' and 'digital-property'. The later things should be treated differently (in this person's opinion).

'Stealing' is a bad word. It's an age-old word that causes physical reaction in many. We learn very early on not to 'steal'. But, downloading a digitally compressed song is not the same thing as taking a toy from another kid.

At some point, power has shifted from owning physical objects to these new sorts of things that aren't physical. We need new laws and new social norms. We need fair reasonable treatment, for these things.

Sadly, the power-holders are writing the laws that grant themselves the most privileges. Instead, the society should write the laws that beget the best society.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#77

Post by mikeocool »

kingkilr wrote: post #64

Not that I disagree with a word of this article, but he's accepting the premise of those two articles: that the distribution mechanisms are a worse UX than pirating. My response: Are you high? Once upon a time I pirated content, he's an approximate recap of what my expierience looked like: * Search pirate bay * Look at 2000 results, none of which look right. * Ok, found one. * Crap it's French with Arabic subtitles.…

Agreed that the UX of existing sites have much better UX than the pirating options. However a much more common experience on Netflix is:

* Search

* Whoops, this movie isn't available on streaming.

On Hulu:

* Search

* Only the last four episodes are available.

The content distributors are strangling themselves because they're trying to protect their existing means of distribution and refuse to adopt new ones that people actually want to use and pay for.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#78

Post by [deleted] »

ap22213 wrote: post #76

I think that many people seem to believe that property is some intrinsic thing. But, in fact, property is a socially construed thing and a granted privilege. Furthermore, property means many things, and there are many different kinds. Each kind should be treated differently. Most of the confusion of 'piracy' (such a strong word, btw) stems from people misusing concepts related to physical objects and translating them…

[deleted]

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#79

Post by coob »

Jugglernaut wrote: post #65
kingkilr wrote: post #64

Not that I disagree with a word of this article, but he's accepting the premise of those two articles: that the distribution mechanisms are a worse UX than pirating. My response: Are you high? Once upon a time I pirated content, he's an approximate recap of what my expierience looked like: * Search pirate bay * Look at 2000 results, none of which look right. * Ok, found one. * Crap it's French with Arabic subtitles.…

Then again Netflix isn't available in Europe and there are huge holes in the catalogue of any streaming service. With that said I think Netflix will be huge in Europe or at least in my native Sweden. As for your pirate bay experience here is how it goes today: 1. Search for content. 2. Sort by seeders. 3. Click magnet link. 4. Start streaming from uTorrent. Total time consumed maybe a minute.

Netflix is available in the UK

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#80

Post by etherael »

kingkilr wrote: post #69
etherael wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is even less ethical about financially supporting companies that tried to buy laws that would destroy the net as we know it.

So you're claiming that anyone who buys a DVD or a CD is acting unethical? Support that.

Not if the item was produced by a a party other than the parties pushing for SOPA and its ilk. I think piracy is generally bad, I just think financing groups that want to destroy the internet is worse. Think of it as a transmogrification of the MPAA mandated warnings at the beginning of movies telling you that if you buy from pirates you're supporting drugs / terrorism / human smuggling / pick your poison.

If you buy from SOPA supporters, you're supporting the death of the internet.

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