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Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

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Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#221

Post by linuxftw »

gameman144 wrote: post #192
linuxftw wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what safety do you have when the public hates you but you've broken no law? How is that different from today?

In terms of capabilities, not at all! Juries can totally do this even today. This is kinda what I was trying to point out: the precedent that juries should evaluate guilt before the law (instead of their own standards) is the main reason juries work as an institution. Just as we can see the huge issues with other institutions failing (e.g. election certification breakdowns, bias in news, fraud in peer review), there…

I'm not interested in maintaining societal institutions that are objectively failures.

But if you're worried about precedent, there's centuries of precedent that juries can not convict for any reason, or no reason whatsoever.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#222

Post by rektide »

rektide wrote: post #195
marcodiego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

> I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. None of it's fair. A servile government, with license to use force/incarceration, bent on defending putrid industrial system that hordes as much rights for itself as it can? That has extended copyright to 70 years, by crook & by hook? The whole thing is a sham, a disgrace to the human spirit, a scourge upon the earth. The damage numbers are all…

(late edit: Valenti was an MPAA lawyer, a different head of the cerberus)

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#223

Post by anakaine »

tyingq wrote: post #174
marcodiego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

At least for the US, the life ruining part is the very low barrier access to background checks. Unlike the 1980's, where only huge employers could look into your past, now everyone can see everything you've ever been arrested for, even if you hadn't been convicted. It's very difficult to find any employment at all now, and even harder to find something that isn't minimum wage. As I understand it, in other places, lik…

To add to the Australian landscape in this discussion: - only convictions are assessed against, not arrests.

- only relevant convictions are assessed against.

- most states expunge convictions after a certain number of years. Those convictions will not ever be considered in any job application ever, nor any court case. There are some small number of exceptions.

- your record is as tightly held as a state secret.

- there is no third party access to records beyond police and courts.

- there are no for-profit prisons with quotas. I don't believe there are many, if any, for profit prisons at all. They are looked down upon.

- the judiciary is well educated, career accomplished, is not voted in, and has an expectation of continued professional development.

- the judiciary tends to be more progressive than politicians, focusing on interventions and improvement rather than incarceration, where appropriate and possible.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#224

Post by angelbar »

wil421 wrote: post #160
marcodiego wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...adults got sent to jail and had their lives ruined." I'm sure it is a polemic terrain, but I really wonder if this is fair. Eager to hear opinions.

18 year olds are called young adults for a reason. I think it’s harsh to do it to 18-21ish year olds but over 25, maybe, but over 30 you know what you’re getting into. If you want to live that kind of life you have to except consequences. Ideology isn’t going to save you. The same applies to scams, drug dealing, and other nefarious activities.

Then, nefarious is the key to judge.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#225

Post by paulmd »

breck wrote: post #93
paulmd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on board the "patents need to be repealed or significantly toned down" train too, but, the legitimate counter-argument that I see is that it's going to lead to a rise in "corporate secrets" style stuff. If they can't legally stop people from republishing IP, then they'll make it hard. Denuvo, other DRM, or just go to fully streaming-only for the first year or two after launch. Want to play Battlefield 6, su…

> If they can't legally stop people from republishing IP, then they'll make it hard. Alternatively it changes the game on how things are built. Building in public becomes the default, lowering the cost for all. You'd expect a short term variance (downward) while the system adjusts, but in the long run it'd be much cheaper to produce great works, since your material costs will be lower (no royalties) and you wouldn't…

I think the "building in public" approach has been a failure though. Unreal Tournament didn't work. Crowdfunding can work, but I think people probably are leery of that for larger projects or studios without a track record of success.

And with a project like Unreal Tournament you're not going to get the flood of hat money and other MTX bullshit that currently feeds studios. Even if you want to pay for a game pass, I can just give myself the game pass on my own local copy, and get all the same stuff right?

I'm not entirely saying that (Jim Sterling voice) "triple-A gaming" dying is the worst thing in the world mind you, but, we'd be talking about some really tectonic shifts in how things get built and I think the pot of addressable money is really a lot smaller.

Hopefully it would lead to more passion projects and not just the death of the industry.

Like I said I think patents have been a scourge, but copyright in the sense of owning the thing you wrote, is less problematic. Derivative works are the problem case that I've previously talked about though since I think humans go through our world deriving and remixing everything we see and touch and that's not a bad thing. And AI is going to make all of this very problematic in not-very-many years either, 5-10 years and AIs will be writing great software and making great creative works without significant human intervention.

Once we move past capitalism as a concept, then yes, by all means these things can go away too ;)

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#226

Post by Barrin92 »

0dayz wrote: post #217
Barrin92 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that true? Crime across the Islamic world is remarkably low despite many countries being much more unstable. East-Asia, another region with generally harsh punishments is very safe. Like, even large Chinese cities with over ten million citizens and incomes far below what you see in the West have very low crime rates. Not to speak of more comparable countries lke Singapore.

The Islamic world is also notorious for how corrupt and non transparent it is, so getting accurate crime statistics beyond murder is going to be hard.

I mean it's not Narnia, you can ask people who live there. I've spent a lot of time in the MENA region. The countries of the Arabian peninsula who are comparably wealthy to the US are practically crime free. When I lived in Amman, the capital of Jordan when the population was a quarter(!) refugees, other than some petty theft in touristy places violent crime isn't really a thing. It was a safer place than a significant amount of American cities.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#227

Post by orangepurple »

wolverine876 wrote: post #208
orangepurple wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every US person pays for taxes on capital gains and income tax at some point and those taxes ain't zero for executives of large corporations. Not even close. This extreme focus on taxation of corporations is bizarre. Eventually corporate profits need to be used by people. Companies cannot buy houses and living properties for executives either unless there is a legitimate business purpose rolled in somehow. You can tr…

> Every US person pays for taxes on capital gains Much of America never pays such taxes and has no such investments. About 40% (? IIRC) don't have $600 saved. > taxes ain't zero for executives of large corporations Taxes on wealthy are relatively low, in part because capital gains, the source of revenue for the wealthy, are taxed at a lower rate than income, the source of revenue for working class Americans. > This e…

Long term capital gains tax on the wealthy is 20%.

About the other point: IRS will come after you even after many years have passed so its a dangerous game of chicken to even attempt.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#228

Post by jurynulifcation »

rayiner wrote: post #91
linuxftw wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why it's always important the jury be educated on their rights to decide verdicts however they see fit.

Juries do not have the “right” to ignore the law. Juries are required to follow the law as set forth in the judge’s jury instructions. Their job is just to determine the facts and apply the law to the facts. As a legal matter, nobody gives a shit what twelve random people think about the law enacted by the democratically elected legislature. “Jury nullification” therefore isn’t a “right” it’s a loophole. It arises fr…

Jury Nullification, aka The Citizen's Veto, is a necessary consequence of the rights enjoyed by the citizens. It might not be a right, but it is a valid form of lawfare. It is a tool we should use to undermine bad laws.

That bad laws exist is, in my opinion, undeniable. I mostly have in mind, currently, the drug laws that have imprisoned tons of recreational users for the high crime of smoking a doob. The mere choice to partake is not unethical and should not be illegal. We should not expect juries to uphold these laws. We should make the jobs of prosecutors absolute hell if they want to ruin someone's life for doing something that is not unethical. Jury Nullification, aka The Citizen's Veto, is how we do that.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#229

Post by 0dayz »

Barrin92 wrote: post #226
0dayz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Islamic world is also notorious for how corrupt and non transparent it is, so getting accurate crime statistics beyond murder is going to be hard.

I mean it's not Narnia, you can ask people who live there. I've spent a lot of time in the MENA region. The countries of the Arabian peninsula who are comparably wealthy to the US are practically crime free. When I lived in Amman, the capital of Jordan when the population was a quarter(!) refugees, other than some petty theft in touristy places violent crime isn't really a thing. It was a safer place than a significa…

Of course you can, but that isn't necessarily a reliable source.

For instance in the former soviet and satellite states people felt like there was no crime, because of propaganda despite the fact that there was a huge amount of it.

Re: Shane Pitman, leader of the warez group Razor 1911: life after prison (2005)

#230

Post by nullc »

varispeed wrote: post #218
nullc wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US we've historically arranged thing so that the corporate tax rate + long term cap gains rate is approximately equal to the income tax rate. If the combined rates were much greater it would create an incentive against creating c-corps.

> If the combined rates were much greater it would create an incentive against creating c-corps. This argument isn't sound. If high tax doesn't create an incentive for creating corporations, then it also doesn't create an incentive for people to work and be productive. Now the taxes are pushed on the workers that have to pick up the corporations tab. It may have worked in the past where corporations had high head cou…

I am not following your reply. Consider that you face two options for organizing your business activity-- you can operate it as a pass through entity of some kind (s-corp, sole proprietorship, etc) or you can operate it as a c-corp. The c-corp path will result in double taxation, corp tax and LTCG. But the combination of the two is a similar rate to the tax on income (e.g. 21+20% vs 37% top marginal).

Cranking the CG or corp tax rate even higher will result in more businesses with less diverse ownership, even if only on the margin, which would result in increased wealth consolidation.

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