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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

#191

Post by tikhonj »

grantheaslip wrote: post #187
DrHankPym wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like it's a problem. Look at it this way: Does Ubuntu or OS X suffer from being pirated? Not really. Windows needs to figure this out for themselves.

So you’re saying that because people are stealing their software, Microsoft should throw away their business model? If people were stealing iPads from Apple stores, would you suggest Apple should “figure [that] out for themselves”?

First of all, copying is completely different from stealing, but we've been over that before.

Secondly, stores actually do deal with shoplifting--they euphemistically call it "inventory shrinkage" and just chalk it up as an expense. "Unauthorized" copying isn't even an expense!

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

#192

Post by timwiseman »

comicjk wrote: post #170
VMG wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

Since it seems to be impossible, from a technical standpoint, to prevent piracy, then maybe we have to accept the free rider problem and produce intellectual property on a public basis. One option would be a grant system, as is used in scientific research (solving the free rider "problem" that anyone can read your paper and use your research).

There are numerous other ways to approach it. For one, you can compete with free, and many do precisely that ( Cory Doctorow gives away digital copies of most of his work, but still makes his living mostly by and from his writing.) Another is to sell the associated scarcities rather than necessarily the copyright system itself (as Red Hat does).

And trying to produce it on a public basis produces problems in deciding what to fund. You run into this in public funding of science to, but there often are at least some public goals which helps guide this decision. It would be much more difficult to do with other forms of intellectual property (though we do in fact already do it to a limited degree, look at the National Endowment for the Arts).

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

#193

Post by roguecoder »

mikeash wrote: post #25

I don't really understand these posts that simply declare that the correct choice is not to use their stuff, that piracy is wrong, and it's not your choice. I happen to agree with the overall conclusion that one should seek alternatives in these cases, but this is just an argument by shouting. It's foolish to simply declare, "it's not your choice". Clearly, people think it is their choice. If you want to convince the…

People don't understand how Ethics works.

On the anti-piracy side there are two groups: The first are artists who believe, without any evidence, that they can make more money when copyright is enforced. The second are people start out assuming that the right to control information is a moral right. They then derive the ethical implication that people shouldn't pirate.

On the pro-file sharing side there are two groups. The first are libertarian-inclined utilitarians, which require people to prove actual harm before something should be outlawed or have tried to start a tech company and been threatened with a patent lawsuit. Every piece of evidence not created by the middle-man industry I've ever seen has supported their position. The second are people who oppose the idea of "intellectual property", starting from moral principles such as freedom of expression, utility maximization or historic precedent.

There is no need to come up with anything new to say: the conclusion one comes to depends on what principles one uses to derive ethical implications. Intellectual property is morally wrong, declares one side. Intellectual property is a moral imperative, declares the other. It is impossible for either to convince the other, since neither is basing their arguments on a rational basis where facts or evidence might play a role.

Anyone who might be convinced doesn't care, probably because they are just ignoring stupid laws anyway.

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

#194

Post by tikhonj »

mikeash wrote: post #25

I don't really understand these posts that simply declare that the correct choice is not to use their stuff, that piracy is wrong, and it's not your choice. I happen to agree with the overall conclusion that one should seek alternatives in these cases, but this is just an argument by shouting. It's foolish to simply declare, "it's not your choice". Clearly, people think it is their choice. If you want to convince the…

I agree. This article is a perfect example of argumentum ad nauseam[1]: if you repeat something enough, it must be true! Since this is a logical fallacy, this argument is not wrong--it's invalid.

[1]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/argumentum_ad_nauseam

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

#195

Post by cracell »

Why is it ok for copyright holders to have a monopoly over the distribution of their content?

If we go to the core of copyright law the original intention as I understand it was to encourage creation of stuff and my assumption is that the point of having such created is to have it distributed in an easily accessible manner. Yet we have no issue under the law with companies only selling to one distributor or just crippling it with DRM. Why?

Why don't we expect companies to make their content accessible to everyone and not just a in the ways they choose. I completely understand this when it comes to small resource limited companies. But I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the huge companies that feel they should be able to pick and choose who gets their content. Don't get me wrong I am not arguing that I should get their content for free. But I should be able to get it from various sources at a comparable price.

In what way do exclusivity agreements help us? They give large businesses huge advantage over small businesses. How can someone compete with Hulu when the content owners won't license their content to anyone else at a comparable rate? (Yes I know Hulu is owned by the content creators but isn't that a conflict of interest when you only let your own properties distribute it over the web?)

I'm not sure what the answer is. But I don't see how allowing companies to have a monopoly over the distribution of their content helps individuals or businesses in the long term.

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

#196

Post by grantheaslip »

tikhonj wrote: post #191
grantheaslip wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re saying that because people are stealing their software, Microsoft should throw away their business model? If people were stealing iPads from Apple stores, would you suggest Apple should “figure [that] out for themselves”?

First of all, copying is completely different from stealing, but we've been over that before. Secondly, stores actually do deal with shoplifting--they euphemistically call it "inventory shrinkage" and just chalk it up as an expense . "Unauthorized" copying isn't even an expense!

Fair point — I was being a bit facetious — but the fact remains that if a critical enough mass of people steal/copy Windows, it’s no longer economically viable. Every user who hasn’t paid for it is being subsidized by those who have.

Windows may not be the best example since it’s so massively profitable, and sells a lot to enterprise customers and OEMs who won’t pirate it. That said, I suspect the business case for producing high-budget, non-mass-market consumer content (say, HBO shows) is starting to tip. How many people pirate Game of Thrones for every one that pays for it?

In the end, we live in a capitalist society — the people making software, movies, music, books, etc. have to get paid for the stuff be made.

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

#197

Post by tikhonj »

diiq wrote: post #150

Civil disobedience, the most puissant form of protest, is breaking a law you believe to be unjust, and suffering the consequences if necessary. If you break a law you believe to be unjust and expect to suffer no consequences, that's silly, but not immoral. If you break a law you believe is just, then you're kinda evil.

Expecting to suffer no consequences is only silly if the probability of enforcement is high. If repercussions are unlikely then it isn't even silly.

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

#198

Post by zathen »

lachyg wrote: post #38
JulianMorrison wrote: post #33

The law is just a thing I follow to avoid inconvenience, when necessary. It's completely distinct from my morality. And, my morality simply does not see copying as stealing, pirating, thermonuclear mass-murder, or whatever blood curdling words you use to label it. It remains copying, and is fine.

Why don't you see it as immoral or stealing? These companies spend millions on these movies, countless people work on them and depend on them for their wages (not just the actors, but the support crew, the caterers, the make up artists, the lighting crew, editing, post production, script writers, casting agents, location scouts, etc etc). They then charge people a small price for the right to view their work (either…

This is (and I don't mean to offend anyone) more of a deep-rooted psychological problem more than anything else. As people get used to an act, such as piracy, for example, and develop a natural comfort and tendency with it, they have already convinced themselves that what they are doing is not at all immoral or wrong, and would use all available tactics in their arsenal to justify what they are doing.

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

#199

Post by tikhonj »

The problem with this article is that he does not provide a compelling argument. Or, more accurately, he does not provide an argument at all: he just repeats that unauthorized copying is wrong.

As far as I can tell, he took "piracy is wrong" as an axiom. Which would be fine, except the article is arguing that "piracy" is wrong. Arguing that an axiom--or something you're basically treating as an axiom--is true is trivial and tautological.

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

#200

Post by dredmorbius »

DrHankPym wrote: post #161
VMG wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

You say that like it's a problem. Look at it this way: Does Ubuntu or OS X suffer from being pirated? Not really. Windows needs to figure this out for themselves.

Microsoft does benefit, greatly, from piracy of Windows.

Gates has said so himself: http://www.itwire.com/it-industry-news/market/23137-how-pira...

Gates has also, in the past, confirmed how important piracy is to Microsoft: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software... Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

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