The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin • Hacker News Board

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#41

Post by fein » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 6:15 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #30

klrr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike illegal activities but I don't think many things around this is illegal. Note that TPB doesn't host any illegal copies, they doesn't distribute any either. The only illegal is the users themselfs.

The crime "conspiracy to commit murder" does not require you, personally, to actually kill someone, nor does it even require a death to occur.

A firearm shop will sell you the gun, but they won't pull the trigger for you.

What about the torrent applications like uTorrent, Transmission, rTorrent, etc? Are they equally as guilty in your eyes?

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#42

Post by klrr » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 6:28 PM UTC

fein wrote: post #41

saurik wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crime "conspiracy to commit murder" does not require you, personally, to actually kill someone, nor does it even require a death to occur.

A firearm shop will sell you the gun, but they won't pull the trigger for you. What about the torrent applications like uTorrent, Transmission, rTorrent, etc? Are they equally as guilty in your eyes?

This have nothing to do with bittorrent, the bittorrent protocol and torrents came long before people started sharing illegal copies of software. It's a great technology and it's actually meant to make downloads faster.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#43

Post by praptak » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 6:41 PM UTC

duairc wrote: post #17

klrr wrote: post #12

I don't support illegal activity, but I believe this is a quest of freedom, not for getting stuff free as in free beer.

Why don't you support illegal activity?

I believe that, in general, supporting the law is good. Even in case of laws one deems silly. Even in a country where the lawmaking is somewhat corrupt.

Getting picky about which laws I obey would contribute towards social climate of not respecting the law in general. There are countries like that and their societies suffer as a result.

On the other hand for some laws the benefits of breaking them outweigh the above downsides.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#44

Post by howcan » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:17 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #30

klrr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dislike illegal activities but I don't think many things around this is illegal. Note that TPB doesn't host any illegal copies, they doesn't distribute any either. The only illegal is the users themselfs.

The crime "conspiracy to commit murder" does not require you, personally, to actually kill someone, nor does it even require a death to occur.

How can you make the jump from

1. copyright infringment, mainly a civil offense, that addresses speculatve monetary losses to

2. conspiracy to commit murder, a criminal offense with a history hundreds of years older than the notion of "copyright", that is aimed at preserving a human life?

How do you do that? That is an enormous leap. Is it some sort of mental gymnastics?

Is a human life more important than your "copyrighted work"? Really bizarre thinking, or maybe it's just me.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#45

Post by jlgreco » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:19 PM UTC

hmottestad wrote: post #23

duairc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you support illegal activity?

I'm not the OP, but here is my opinion. As a rule of thumb I don't support illegal activities. Why would I? Most of the laws I agree with, like no murder/rape/robbery. However some laws I'm against. Like the public drinking ban in Norway, why can't I have a beer by the lake? And on the topic of media industries vs. file sharing. I haven't really made up my mind. Especially after the media industry brought tanks and f…

There are so many laws, I don't know how you could possibly say in an informed manner that you agree with most of them.

Making ethical decisions is easy for the majority of us, but our knowledge of the law is universally poor. I don't see why we should factor the law into discussions of ethics; it doesn't do anything to simplify the discussion.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#46

Post by propercoil » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:37 PM UTC

klrr wrote: post #12

I don't support illegal activity, but I believe this is a quest of freedom, not for getting stuff free as in free beer.

who says it's illegal? your "democratic" government? these "laws" are unconstitutional thus irrelevant like "laws" made by the Nazis in 1943. You would not give shelter to a jew now would you!? it's illegal! same stuff in a different coating and a different mask - you swallow it like a good boy

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#47

Post by johncoltrane » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

duairc wrote: post #17

klrr wrote: post #12

I don't support illegal activity, but I believe this is a quest of freedom, not for getting stuff free as in free beer.

Why don't you support illegal activity?

I support any activity that fits into my own set of moral rules.

Some activities are illegal but I support them because I don't see them as immoral. Other activities are perfectly legal but I don't support them because I see them as immoral.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#48

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:44 PM UTC

lumberjack wrote: post #25

klrr wrote: post #12

I don't support illegal activity, but I believe this is a quest of freedom, not for getting stuff free as in free beer.

I disagree. Free software projects like the GNU foundation or the OpenBSD foundation are striving towards freedom. ThePirateBay.se et al are simply filling in on market demand created by the utter absurdity of treating digital data as if it was a can of tomatoes or a bag of crisps.

Sounds great. The big bad record companies can't treat music like a bag of crisps. Neither can independent artists. Neither can Notch, because a game is no more like a bag of crisps than a CD track.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#49

Post by tptacek » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:46 PM UTC

praptak wrote: post #43

duairc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you support illegal activity?

I believe that, in general, supporting the law is good. Even in case of laws one deems silly. Even in a country where the lawmaking is somewhat corrupt. Getting picky about which laws I obey would contribute towards social climate of not respecting the law in general. There are countries like that and their societies suffer as a result. On the other hand for some laws the benefits of breaking them outweigh the above…

The people who say that copyright laws are evil are generally the same people who say the laws that make DDOS attacks a felony are criminalizing "the digital equivalent of a sit-in"... but only when the DDOS is being carried out by people they agree with.

Re: The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

#50

Post by smithzvk » Sat, Sep 15, 2012, 7:50 PM UTC

klrr wrote: post #29

lumberjack wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Free software projects like the GNU foundation or the OpenBSD foundation are striving towards freedom. ThePirateBay.se et al are simply filling in on market demand created by the utter absurdity of treating digital data as if it was a can of tomatoes or a bag of crisps.

There is no "FOSS", Free Software is software which respects the users freedom, Open-Source software is software which allow the ability to study the source code(not that some Open-Source licenses is kinda like Free Software licenses too, but some are even similar to non-free software). They are two completely different things. Yes, I support FSF and GNU more than TPB of course.

There is such a thing as FOSS. That stands for Free and Open Source Software. There is software that is "Free" and software that is Open Source and, as I'm sure you are aware, the software that belongs to both groups is the (vast?) majority of each respective group.

It is called Free _and_ Open Source Software, it is the intersection of the two groups, and it is a pretty useful group to think about when you want to be inclusive and avoid word definition collisions with the word "free".