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The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

wired.co.uk

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Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#31

Post by teamonkey »

drcube wrote: post #23
efnx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also like to see some proof that piracy is a huge problem. Files being available and free for download on the 'black market' does not mean that people who would pirate said files would otherwise pay for those files. It would be nice if someone did a scientific study...

You're in luck: https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-piracy-doesnt-affect-us-... news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3577076

Torrentfreak is not a reliable news source by any means. It has a strong agenda and that article spun the findings of the paper.

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#32

Post by Prisen »

paulhauggis wrote: post #19
CodeMage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people always resort to the same argument ("stop buying") as if it were a solution? Isn't it obvious by now that it's not a solution and it's not going to happen? Voting with your wallet works when you can stop paying one company and go to its competitor. But if they all get together and decide that you have to do it their way or you're screwed, then guess what's going to happen? The majority will find the bes…

"Why do people always resort to the same argument ("stop buying") as if it were a solution? Isn't it obvious by now that it's not a solution and it's not going to happen?" Whenever we have discussions about companies violating the GNU and people say "just don't use GNU software", I say the same thing. But the funny thing is, the same people that are fine with pirating are against essentially the same thing with the G…

>> Music is so cheap. All of the original demands 10 years ago have been met. Guess what? piracy is worse than ever. It reminds me why you never negotiate with terrorists.

All the news I've read regarding streaming services (they have existed a lot less than 10 years, mind you) is that they are decreasing piracy. Do you have any other data points?

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#33

Post by cobrausn »

CodeMage wrote: post #30
paulhauggis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why do people always resort to the same argument ("stop buying") as if it were a solution? Isn't it obvious by now that it's not a solution and it's not going to happen?" Whenever we have discussions about companies violating the GNU and people say "just don't use GNU software", I say the same thing. But the funny thing is, the same people that are fine with pirating are against essentially the same thing with the G…

You don't need music or movies to live. If they all decide to do it, just stop buying all together. Correction: you don't need them to survive . They are, however, a part of everyone's lives nowadays. We all grew up listening to music and watching movies. It would require tremendous external pressure (such as war or plague) to change that. Maslow's Pyramid and all that jazz. Music is so cheap. All of the original dem…

So, because their product is not up to your arbitrary set of demands, you feel justified in pirating it? Couldn't they meet those and you could just come up with more demands?

I don't buy it. Hiding behind a list of demands that must be met in order for you to be okay with actually financially compensating the people who financially backed, created, and then distributed said content is just posturing. At least, that's how it looks from the perspective of someone who a) doesn't pirate and b) doesn't buy media when the terms are not to his liking.

I've met a few people who pirate songs and then buy band merchandise in order to get proceeds to the band (more than otherwise, if I am to understand it correctly). Those guys are cool guys, and they back their moral rhetoric with their actions. Something tells me the majority of pirates are not like these guys, though (admittedly) I have no facts to back that up - just the anecdotal evidence of knowing quite a few pirates, most of whom, to put it bluntly, really don't give a fuck - they just want the content.

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#34

Post by kbolino »

freehunter wrote: post #20
vibrunazo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Purchasing and downloading apps could not be easier. I wouldn't be so fast here. The app store limits availability by country. For example, you cannot legally buy games here in Brazil on the app store [1]. Which is a huge market. I pirate a lot of stuff, and almost all of it I couldn't possibly have legally acquired. If pirating didn't exist, I would have never listened to Weird Al Yankovic's songs (I spent months w…

>I pirate a lot of stuff, and almost all of it I couldn't possibly have legally acquired. If pirating didn't exist, I would have never listened to weird al's songs, nor watched movies banned in my country for political reasons. This still isn't a good argument. Justifying the means by which you acquired content still doesn't make it morally right or legal. "But I can't get it without piracy!" still doesn't give you a…

If a man walked into a store, and the retailer refused to sell him a product because of his nationality, what would we call that?

Why does it magically become acceptable--even defensible--on a larger scale?

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#35

Post by eurleif »

kbolino wrote: post #34
freehunter wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I pirate a lot of stuff, and almost all of it I couldn't possibly have legally acquired. If pirating didn't exist, I would have never listened to weird al's songs, nor watched movies banned in my country for political reasons. This still isn't a good argument. Justifying the means by which you acquired content still doesn't make it morally right or legal. "But I can't get it without piracy!" still doesn't give you a…

If a man walked into a store, and the retailer refused to sell him a product because of his nationality, what would we call that? Why does it magically become acceptable--even defensible--on a larger scale?

There's a difference between someone who's in your country but of a different nationality, and someone who's in a different country.

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#36

Post by figglesonrails »

paulhauggis wrote: post #19
CodeMage wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people always resort to the same argument ("stop buying") as if it were a solution? Isn't it obvious by now that it's not a solution and it's not going to happen? Voting with your wallet works when you can stop paying one company and go to its competitor. But if they all get together and decide that you have to do it their way or you're screwed, then guess what's going to happen? The majority will find the bes…

"Why do people always resort to the same argument ("stop buying") as if it were a solution? Isn't it obvious by now that it's not a solution and it's not going to happen?" Whenever we have discussions about companies violating the GNU and people say "just don't use GNU software", I say the same thing. But the funny thing is, the same people that are fine with pirating are against essentially the same thing with the G…

GNU License? What? Your comparison breaks down heavily when you actually consider it. GNU software tends to be competition for proprietary/non-open software. They are substitute products.

Comparing them to music isn't really a good thing to do since you can't find a comparable substitute for Incubus's style and Brandon Boyd's voice, where as I can change out GCC compiler for Solaris Studio, Visual Studio, or ICC any day I want with minimal effort and precisely the same results.

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#37

Post by jiggy2011 »

OK , the argument is more or less that the technology to mass distribute content online for free has made the content industries as they stand today obsolete despite the piracy being illegal.

As a thought experiment let's assume that technology appeared to develop a perfect cloaking device and a teleporter and these things could be made cheap enough to be affordable to 99% of the population.

This would allow anyone to effectively teleport into any house/shop or workplace, take what they wanted and leave with an extremely low chance of being caught (yes, I know piracy isn't theft etc etc, that's not my point here).

Would this then make the entire concept of owning anything that could be easily carried by a person obsolete?

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#38

Post by kbolino »

eurleif wrote: post #35
kbolino wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a man walked into a store, and the retailer refused to sell him a product because of his nationality, what would we call that? Why does it magically become acceptable--even defensible--on a larger scale?

There's a difference between someone who's in your country but of a different nationality, and someone who's in a different country.

That's vacuous reasoning.

I know the situations are different; I'm asking why one is ethically intolerable and the other is ethically acceptable to the point of making civil disobedience unethical (in freehunter's opinion, anyway).

To put it another way, what about that difference justifies the discrimination?

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#39

Post by jiggy2011 »

cobrausn wrote: post #33
CodeMage wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need music or movies to live. If they all decide to do it, just stop buying all together. Correction: you don't need them to survive . They are, however, a part of everyone's lives nowadays. We all grew up listening to music and watching movies. It would require tremendous external pressure (such as war or plague) to change that. Maslow's Pyramid and all that jazz. Music is so cheap. All of the original dem…

So, because their product is not up to your arbitrary set of demands, you feel justified in pirating it? Couldn't they meet those and you could just come up with more demands? I don't buy it. Hiding behind a list of demands that must be met in order for you to be okay with actually financially compensating the people who financially backed, created, and then distributed said content is just posturing. At least, that'…

I think these demands are reasonable, especially the geographical one since you can't buy something if it's not available for you to buy.

The issue is that sometimes when you pay for something you end up with an inferior product, for example being required to install additional software that you either don't like or may not even be available for your platform.

I think you can mitigate piracy a lot by simply providing a slightly better service. For example I know plenty of people who used to pirate most of their games but now they buy them on steam as soon as the price is reasonable to them.

Re: The Pirate Bay's Peter Sunde: It's evolution, stupid

#40

Post by figglesonrails »

Natsu wrote: post #27
paulhauggis wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why do people always resort to the same argument ("stop buying") as if it were a solution? Isn't it obvious by now that it's not a solution and it's not going to happen?" Whenever we have discussions about companies violating the GNU and people say "just don't use GNU software", I say the same thing. But the funny thing is, the same people that are fine with pirating are against essentially the same thing with the G…

> But the funny thing is, the same people that are fine with pirating are against essentially the same thing with the GNU license. They could be against it because it hinders sharing, not because it violates copyright.

Haha, them be fightin' words. Better hope the EFF doesn't get wind of that! ;)
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