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The Pirate Bay - 9 years and still bloody runnin

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

#111

Post by CamperBob2 »

vacri wrote: post #92
CamperBob2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, posting an Ayn Rand quote on the Internet is a good way to start a flame war. But there's one quote in particular that few intelligent people will disagree with, and that even fewer will be able to dispute. “There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be…

What a load of absolute tosh. Governments provide a lot more than 'cracking down on criminals'. Or are you one of these supposedly 'intelligent' people who see public schools as a sequestering station for criminals? When an industry receives a government subsidy, how is that 'cracking down on criminals'? Perhaps we should ask the street-sweepers how effective they are at 'cracking down on criminals'? What about firef…

Or are you one of these supposedly 'intelligent' people who see public schools as a sequestering station for criminals?

Try keeping your kid home from public school without obtaining permission to withdraw them, and see what happens.

When an industry receives a government subsidy, how is that 'cracking down on criminals'?

Try not paying your share of the tax money that the government is turning over to the industry, and see what happens.

Perhaps we should ask the street-sweepers how effective they are at 'cracking down on criminals'?

Street maintenance is not an exercise of "power."

What about firefighters and paramedics, how are they turning the common citizen into a criminal?

Fire/paramedic services are not exercises of "power."

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

#112

Post by esonderegger »

r0s wrote: post #106
esonderegger wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRM argument for piracy is a bit of a straw man. Music hasn't been sold with DRM for over three years, but it still makes up a sizable portion of The Pirate Bay's offerings. You could say that musicians are being tyrannical by choosing to distribute their recordings in the way that maximizes their profit instead of choosing to give it away. I would reply that some people do choose to give away their work. I'm hap…

DRM for music is deeply entrenched in the ecosystem. The most overt of DRM layers can't exist on old media CDs, but it's still everywhere. None of the major online music services allow unlimited sharing (of files), and even getting this far was a long legal mess, representing part of the extensive history where DRM has attempted to parasitize the legal system. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/are-google-mus…

I think you're stretching the definition of DRM a bit. In my comment, I was referring to the set of technologies used to make it harder to copy a legally purchased file.

Wikipedia's definition is quite good, but is a little too long to repost here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

In any event, we're talking about technical solutions to licensing problems.

I haven't read any reports of Google or Amazon's cloud music players adding DRM to files after they've been uploaded. Has anyone heard differently? I thought the whole reason they were legally in the clear is because they're basically file lockers with playback functionality.

The "Digital Audio Recording Devices and Media" amendment to the AHRA may be an example of the Recording Industry's lobbying efforts being rewarded more than we'd like, but DRM it is not.

As for your warning letter from the RIAA: did they have reason to believe you wouldn't be paying your publishing royalties? I imagine your record label probably works with the Harry Fox Agency all the time. Was there something that was unusual about your case?

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

#113

Post by carbocation »

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.

Lawyers talk about malum in se (bad, in itself) and malum prohibitum (bad, because we have prohibited it). I think these are useful concepts, even if we choose not to use the terms.

Mala in se I (tautologically, perhaps?) don't support. For mala prohibita, it really depends on context.

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

#114

Post by jsilence »

carbocation wrote: post #113
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.

Lawyers talk about malum in se (bad, in itself) and malum prohibitum (bad, because we have prohibited it). I think these are useful concepts, even if we choose not to use the terms. Mala in se I (tautologically, perhaps?) don't support. For mala prohibita , it really depends on context.

Interresting distinction. Raises the question why we are prohibiting things that are not malum in se.

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

#115

Post by carbocation »

jsilence wrote: post #114
carbocation wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers talk about malum in se (bad, in itself) and malum prohibitum (bad, because we have prohibited it). I think these are useful concepts, even if we choose not to use the terms. Mala in se I (tautologically, perhaps?) don't support. For mala prohibita , it really depends on context.

Interresting distinction. Raises the question why we are prohibiting things that are not malum in se.

Ideally, because contextually it makes sense. It might not be inherently evil to drive 180 miles per hour, but we might guess it to be statistically unsafe in residential neighborhoods, so we prohibit it.

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

#116

Post by esonderegger »

belorn wrote: post #99
esonderegger wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DRM argument for piracy is a bit of a straw man. Music hasn't been sold with DRM for over three years, but it still makes up a sizable portion of The Pirate Bay's offerings. You could say that musicians are being tyrannical by choosing to distribute their recordings in the way that maximizes their profit instead of choosing to give it away. I would reply that some people do choose to give away their work. I'm hap…

Expecting people to know and care about DRM, is like expecting people to read and understand the Table of contents in food. The Hambuger seller: 1. A picture of an Hamburger $4 2.Sale, with just a tiny bit of arsnic in it, $8. Sale, Arsnic free, for maybe $12. With this hypothetical Humburger product, most people will still pick option 2, not thinking about reading the table of content or understanding the effect ars…

I actually really like your idea of comparing the choice of DRM-encumbered vs DRM-free files to choices we make with respect to how our food is produced.

I think many Americans have a general idea that the food they eat is the product of a corporate farming system that can be pretty sketchy. We expect the government to get involved when the practices of food producers create a food safety issue, but otherwise we leave it up to consumers to choose. And some consumers do choose to buy grass-fed beef, free-range chickens, and organic produce, and pay extra for it.

There are probably some parallels to be drawn with respect to product labeling. (Should Amazon and iTunes be forced to warn consumers that the movie they're about to buy includes some type of DRM?)

More importantly, though, both of these situations require consumers to be educated in order to make informed decisions about which product to buy. If we as a culture want our farming system to be more humane to animals and better stewards of the earth, we need to teach our peers how to read food labels and understand what they mean. If we as a technical community want DRM to not be forced into the files we buy, we need to educate our peers on the drawbacks of DRM and persuade them to make it an issue.

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

#117

Post by klrr »

smithzvk wrote: post #50
klrr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

No, the Free Software movement and Open asource movement is completely seperated from eachother.

Different names results in different ideas.

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

#118

Post by klrr »

TheAmazingIdiot wrote: post #57
klrr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Umm, no. The very first bittorrent torrent was a 100 MB pirated porn video. I still have it. The client was a .py script. And it was hardcoded with said video.

Of course "warez" and such appeared earlier, but it ws far from being so mainstream. And I'm still correct about the first purpose of the protocol.

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

#119

Post by vacri »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #111
vacri wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a load of absolute tosh. Governments provide a lot more than 'cracking down on criminals'. Or are you one of these supposedly 'intelligent' people who see public schools as a sequestering station for criminals? When an industry receives a government subsidy, how is that 'cracking down on criminals'? Perhaps we should ask the street-sweepers how effective they are at 'cracking down on criminals'? What about firef…

Or are you one of these supposedly 'intelligent' people who see public schools as a sequestering station for criminals? Try keeping your kid home from public school without obtaining permission to withdraw them, and see what happens. When an industry receives a government subsidy, how is that 'cracking down on criminals'? Try not paying your share of the tax money that the government is turning over to the industry,…

Try keeping your kid home from public school without obtaining permission to withdraw them, and see what happens.

Permission is actually not that hard to get. Try talking to someone who home-schools their kids. As for 'see what happens', are you suggesting that the parents get jailed? Could you please cite some references? Because otherwise you're just using weasel words, leaving it 'out there' for the imagination, rather than actually specifying what happens.

I have to say also that it's a neat trick of yours to turn the entire educational system into a 'system to create criminals' simply because you think it's hard to homeschool.

Try not paying your share of the tax money that the government is turning over to the industry, and see what happens.

Uh... taxation is separate to subsidies. I know that libertarians try and turn everything into an argument about tax, but saying 'subsidies are an exercise of power making people criminals because... tax!' is just being childish. Rand's comment is saying that the government can only act through punishment, and clearly it does other things as well.

Hey, embassy staff helping out a citizen who has run into trouble in a foreign country... well, that's the evil of the government coming to the fore... because... tax!

Hey, government interpreters translating materials for new immigrants so they know their rights and responsibilities... well... that's the evil of the government coming to the fore... because... tax!

Hey, government-provided lawyers to represent you if you can't afford one... well... evil tax!

Street maintenance is not an exercise of "power."

It is a power the government has - which proves Rand's comment incorrect. Rand didn't say "Governments exercising power can only make criminals", she said "the only power a government has is to crack down on criminals".

Fire/paramedic services are not exercises of "power."

Ditto.

Libertarian arguments rely on the government being turned into a fantasy boogyman. All governments have problems, but how do you expect a pragmatic solution to them if you don't actually care about using truthful definitions?

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

#120

Post by regularfry »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #79
regularfry wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you hit something or someone with your car, you were doing something wrong besides just speeding. Only if you assume the driver has perfect knowledge of the nearby pedestrians, the road surface, what other road users are going to do before they do it, arbitrarily fast reaction speeds and flawless judgement. Oh, and brand new brakes. Shit happens. Speeding makes it much worse when it does.

Shit happens. Speeding makes it much worse when it does. Statistics repeatedly fail to bear out your assertion. Promised increases in death rates that accompany increased highway speed limits essentially never materialize. Modeling drivers as ideal gas particles whose collision rate is proportional to speed is simply wrong.

When in a hole, stop digging.

> Statistics repeatedly fail to bear out your assertion.

Except they don't: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1108.p...

More interestingly: http://www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/157220.aspx

I'll leave off the usual pedestrian fatality statistics here, because you seem not to be interested in that, and it's shooting fish in a barrel.

> Promised increases in death rates that accompany increased highway speed limits essentially never materialize.

From the second link's abstract:

    ...a speed limit increase from 55 to 65 mi/h on the average section would
    be associated with a 24% increase in the probability of an occupant being 
    fatally injured, once a crash has occurred.
That study looked at actual collision data. Where people had raised the speed limits, and actually seen actual increases in actual death rates.

> Modeling drivers as ideal gas particles whose collision rate is proportional to speed is simply wrong.

Don't do that, then. It's not directly proportional to speed, but there is a positive correlation. If you're going to convince me that speed limits are pointless and irrelevant, you're going to need to explain away some pretty basic physics.

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