Paul Graham has lost the plot • Hacker News Board

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#241

Post by earbitscom » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:05 PM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #228

icebraining wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I didn't think you were including moral consequences. Then the questions I have are; why is copyright infringement free from moral consequences while car stealing isn't?

Because... Mark my words closely... When you steal my car, you deprive me of my car. When you take a picture of my picture of a lamborghini, you deprive me of nothing except for the artificial right to charge you for the right to take a picture of my picture of a car. The moral consequences differ because the consequences differ.

If you are in the market of selling pictures of cars and you take a rare (in fact, entirely unique) photograph of a car, then someone else takes a picture of your picture and sets up shop next door to give them away for free, they have deprived you of your ability to earn money from distributing that which you invested in the creation of. Just like diluting your equity in a company, they have not taken your physical property (or shares) but they have taken value from you regardless.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#242

Post by davidw » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:06 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #238

davidw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every band I've ever gone to see sells CDs at their shows, and they're mostly the kinds of bands you describe. > keep a day job "Producing less of it" because they can't earn enough to do it full time. There would be more people in that boat if, in my thought experiment, they earned absolutely nothing from their content. I don't think we'd actually ever reach that point, but just think about it as a 'what if'.

Producing less of it, yeah, maybe. But people seem to be forgetting that producing content or enriching content creators is not the goal of copyright law. It's supposed to "further the progress of science and the useful arts", and there is clearly a tradeoff between allowing people to copy versus allowing creators to monetize their creations.

It's supposed to be a tradeoff, exactly. The reason why you want producers to get money is so that they can keep producing stuff you like.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#243

Post by wazoox » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:11 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #92

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

And you're misunderstanding economics too. Just because you can get it for free that does not mean there is no market for people paying for it. > Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value. What shows market value is the desire for that product. The only reason that music is pirated now (when it used to be purchased) is because it's easy and without consequence. Let's say…

> People pirate music because it's free, consequence free (the reason they don't steal cars is consequence) and everyone spends all day every day justifying it.

This is the utilitarian, simplistic, convenient and completely false view. People are definitely NOT perfectly rational beings working towards their maximal, personal profit. This is why, BTW, libertarianism is a silly, childish pipe dream.

Coming back to the subject, people are perfectly aware that taking someone else's physical good may harm this person directly, that's why it's always carefully regulated by many told and untold rules. Even the most small, primitive societies have mechanisms for goods exchange and appropriation.

Digital goods aren't goods, they're information; when they're shared, the originator keeps them. Nobody never sold "information", only convenient, easy or practical access to it. People never bought "music" in the form of CDs, they bought CDs as the way to listen to the music they wanted.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#244

Post by gaius » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:12 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

I'll just cherry pick this gem here: "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it." Spotted the massive, gaping flaw in the argument yet? It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it? Done. Edit: Wow, really? Why is this still a necessary ar…

It's 2012, if you make this argument then I am done with you. Linux is how old? How much of the internet runs on it?\

I guess you don't know much about either Linux or business. Let me give you an example. Red Hat pays people to work on Linux, because that increases the market for people who will buy Linux support. IBM pays people to work on Linux, because that increases the market for people who will buy servers. Linux even only has a GUI because a bunch of old Unix companies sat down and formed the X consortium and paid people to write it, which they did because a common GUI would mean more software got written for Unix in general.

So go and head and make your point but do it with a Linux made ONLY of hobbyist code. If you can even compile such a thing (don't forget Cygnus funded a lot of GCC development so they could sell embedded hardware!).

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#245

Post by vibrunazo » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:13 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #92

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

And you're misunderstanding economics too. Just because you can get it for free that does not mean there is no market for people paying for it. > Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value. What shows market value is the desire for that product. The only reason that music is pirated now (when it used to be purchased) is because it's easy and without consequence. Let's say…

> People pirate music because it's free

I do think that's incorrect, but there's a broader picture issue that makes this irrelevant: Why does it even matter?

You're misunderstanding the original argument. Of course it's possible to make some money for selling something that is free. Specially if you convince people that it's not free, and that you'll go to jail if you do otherwise. But what they mean with "there's no market value", is that it doesn't create any new value to the economy. It's just money changing hands. If you ask me for 5 bucks and I say "yes, of course, no need to pay me back", we didn't just magically create value in the economy because I payed you 5 bucks for nothing. The value in the economy is the same, that's just money changing hands.

If I pay money for a copy of a song, that's just money changing hands. It didn't add any new value to the economy. If I didn't pay money for that copy of the song. The song would still be there. No change in value.

Unless, of course, if you make the argument that music would cease to exist if we start sharing it for free. Which I would honestly rather not get into.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#246

Post by jamesaguilar » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:18 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #233

jamesaguilar wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you own it forever and without limits. The only reason this is true is that the laws say it is. Same as with those patterns of yours -- the laws could easily be changed so that you own the pattern always and forever. It's quite pointless to argue about the shoulds of the situation based on current law. When we're talking about incentives for production and utility, it actually makes quite a bit of sense to conflate…

The only reason this is true is that the laws say it is. I disagree. I think it's part of the current social code/contract, not just the law. In fact, the RIAA/MPAA ads say exactly that - "you wouldn't steal a car" - because they know people find property (particularly personal property) to be something we have a right to. Copyright, on the other hand, is only unquestionable by the law.

> I think it's part of the current social code/contract

Eh. For the purposes of what I said, these are about the same. Laws are indirectly derived from the social code, so just move my statement up a level. You still can't answer the question of how the social code ought to view bits from how it currently views them.

Sometimes the social code is wrong, and those who believe that copyright piracy is bad for society are making the case that this is one of those times. Simply observing the current state of the social code in no way counters those arguments -- although some of them can be countered other ways.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#247

Post by acroyear » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

re : "What would happen if creators couldn’t charge for their creations? The same as if you couldn’t charge for lines of computer code: there’d be less of it. Some people would keep on producing for the public good, just for the joy of it – in the same way that people contribute to open source software. But plenty of people wouldn’t be able to do it anymore."

so what if there's less of it?? .. necessity is the primal driver - if society as a whole really needs your shitty music (or whatever widget you want), it will get made by some avenue of support. PERIOD. we don't _need_ most of this bullshit anyhow .. so boo f'ing hoo.

if you distribute something outside of your garden, it has gone wild and you have no right to restrict how anyone can then play with it. .. imho

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#248

Post by gnaritas » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #134

gnaritas wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they do, whenever they perform those skills for an audience. The market doesn't pay for effort, it pays for things people want.

"And they do, whenever they perform those skills for an audience. " The overwhelming majority of musical work -writing, recording, practicing etc - is done in private with no audience present. Many musicians perform very little in public.

That doesn't mean the market values such effort. They have no right to demand to be paid just because something takes skill. Lots of skilled activities are of no value to the market. And I say this as a musician who's very aware of the effort involved.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#249

Post by redthrowaway » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:20 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #144

joelhaus wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So off base. Where to begin... > And you're misunderstanding economics too. Just because you can get it for free that does not mean there is no market for people paying for it. He says the opposite of this. Redthrowaway on free vs. paid content: The formatting was wrong, it was inconvenient, and the metadata was filled with crap from the rippers that meant it would never sort properly. So I bought an ebook from Amazo…

> He says the opposite of this. Redthrowaway on free vs. paid content: That's a tired and no longer relevant point. His point is that people will pay for the convenience of acquiring media, and then presents an example of when it was convenient to him (purchasing an ebook when the pirated version was sub par quality). However, as I showed in my video example, iTunes (and many other companies) have already addressed t…

You have to divorce the existence of piracy from the viability of the industry. What should matter to those running the companies in question is not how many people are getting something for nothing, but rather how much they're making off those who are paying, and how they can convince more people to pay. For some people, cost will be the overriding factor and they will always pirate, even if it's a worse experience. Others are willing to pay for an improved service. Focus on the latter, not the former. You will never squeeze money from the people who aren't willing to pay; they simply won't consume instead. Focus on making your money from those who are wiling to pay, and everyone will be better off.

Re: Paul Graham has lost the plot

#250

Post by snowwrestler » Wed, Mar 21, 2012, 9:22 PM UTC

redthrowaway wrote: post #81

The author, and the content industry in general, are misunderstanding basic economics: Just because there is a cost to produce something does not mean that it has market value . pg was right in pointing out that the content industry is built on the economics of scarcity, and that this scarcity no longer exists. You could charge someone to see a movie in a theatre when doing so was the only way to see the movie. You c…

Water is free but it is still illegal to shoplift bottled water from the 7/11. Just like it is illegal to infringe copyright by redistributing songs without permission. And for the same reason.