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Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

wired.co.uk

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Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#111

Post by CapitalistCartr »

josu wrote: post #71
karmacondon wrote: post #43

Many don't agree with the principles of TPB, but Sunde was willing to take risks for what he believed in. He deserves a lot of respect for that no matter what people think about the morality of what he helped to create. Most people go their whole lives without caring strongly about any issue at all, and almost all of those that do care are willing to sacrifice exactly nothing. I'd like to think that I would be willin…

The willingness to die for your ideas is the main subject of Camus's philosophical writeup "The Myth of Sisyphus".

There are several elements that make up ethical, effective support for a cause. Willing to put the cause ahead of your own well-being is sometimes one of them. Also important is to change strategy/tactics as a result of new information; to consider new ideas/arguments; accepting that the ends don't justify the means; and be willing to live for the cause, rather than die for it.

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#112

Post by lmm »

afro88 wrote: post #48
realusername wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's the alternative ? The world is not the United States, in most countries of the world, there is simply no legal way to get a movie/tv show on the Internet. I'm not even talking about 3rd world countries here, Netflix (the only service which is good enough to compare to Torrents) just barely arrived in Europe and their list of movies is so poor, it's not even worth talking about it. Torrents are not working…

That's a dangerous line of thinking. Just because people in the US have legal access to content doesn't mean you're allowed to steal it. You make the assumption that you're entitled to something if it's commercially available to people in other parts of the world. You're not. Movies and TV Shows aren't basic necessities that you're entitled to. They are luxuries that you can have if companies decide to sell them to y…

My friend in the US has bought and paid for a show, and wants to send me a copy. Why shouldn't they be able to? The one who wants to prevent that is the one who's entitled.

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#113

Post by waterlesscloud »

lmm wrote: post #105
happyscrappy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have some fucking inalienable right to my code. If I choose to open source it fine. Just because some cracker asshole gets a copy of it doesn't make it a right.

You have it backwards. You don't have some inalienable right to government-backed control over what I do with my copy of some code. The original will always be yours, but my copy is mine, and actually I do have a close-to-inalienable right to do whatever I want to with my own property.

So then does the same apply to the copy of your emails that travel across the internet? Once the NSA obtains a copy, do they then have a close-to-inalienable right to do whatever they want with what is then their property?

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#114

Post by scardine »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #84
tomp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft is a concept that originates from our definition of "property". I oppose the legal definition that copyright == property; I agree that a reasonably short copyright term can encourage the creation of art, but what we have now is outrageous and I don't think the trade-off makes sense for the public.

>> "I oppose the legal definition that copyright == property" How about a definition like - "If I create something, I own it and have the right to profit from it." Why should my right to profit from what I create have a limited term? Why should it be ok for someone to copy it just because they have the ability to?

The very idea of idea ownership is a dangerous one. Because most ideas are compositions of other ideas; should you pay if you write a poem because someone else invented the concept of poems?

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#115

Post by k-mcgrady »

tomp wrote: post #64
k-mcgrady wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> "I support TPB's cause. I believe that non-profit sharing of information should be free." And how should the people who take the time to create that 'information' be compensated?

How are the people who created Facebook compensated? I see no reason why ad-based free distribution couldn't be used for e.g. music and movies. People want convenience more than they want free - nobody uses Diaspora, everybody uses Facebook. Also, there is a lot of money to be earned by selling concerts, cinema performances, memorabilia... (I also wouldn't oppose some reasonably short copyright term, e.g. from a few…

My problem with that is that we have the internet - a system that lets us, the people who derive benefit from the content to compensate the people who created it directly. You want to add middle men that don't need to be there. When it comes to profiting from other things (performance etc.) you are forcing people to do something they may not want to do. What if I create a great album of music but don't fancy uprooting my life, travelling the world on a tiny budget, and leaving behind my family for 10 months of the year? With the internet I could have charged a fair amount direct to the consumer but you decided information should be free.

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#116

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #84
tomp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theft is a concept that originates from our definition of "property". I oppose the legal definition that copyright == property; I agree that a reasonably short copyright term can encourage the creation of art, but what we have now is outrageous and I don't think the trade-off makes sense for the public.

>> "I oppose the legal definition that copyright == property" How about a definition like - "If I create something, I own it and have the right to profit from it." Why should my right to profit from what I create have a limited term? Why should it be ok for someone to copy it just because they have the ability to?

>Why should my right to profit from what I create have a limited term?

This is a much broader question about the rationale behind copyright law and the concept of intellectual property. It is really beyond the scope of the question posed (is copyright violation theft?).

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#117

Post by the8472 »

gambiting wrote: post #94
sangnoir wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your opinion of the people who shared the DeCSS key? If "46DCEAD317FE45D80923EB97E4956410D4CDB2C2" is free speech, so is a magnet URI

Let's say you wrote a book and writing books is your only means of putting food on the table - and then one day you sit next to someone on the train who is reading a scanned copy of your book on their tablet. You ask them about it, and they say "yeah I don't buy books really, I downloaded this off torrents". Sure, the book they have is not "stolen" per se, but would you personally not feel like someone "stole" at lea…

> writing books is your only means of putting food on the table

That's a strange assumption. Many authors fail, or only produce works in their spare time and work other jobs. I mean there's no fundamental right to be a successful author who can live off selling books.

Of course as a society we find it desirable to create an environment where artists can make a living from their works and create more art. That's why copyright exists. It's a tradeoff, all citizens are required to respect the creations of others in exchange for the opportunity for everyone to dedicate their lives to it and make an income with it. (Note: It's just an opportunity to make profit, not a right to profit)

But that societal contract gets perverted by commercial interests to the point where people stop seeing copyright as something positive and instead will refuse to adhere to it.

The internet making copying so much easier than ever before also skews that tradeoff by making it much more difficult for everyone to respect copyright. Breaking copyright is even easier than jaywalking and I don't think private citizens will stop anytime soon.

So ultimately that scheme to incentivize people to be creative used to be "fair", but now that view has somewhat shifted. And the system needs an overhaul.

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#118

Post by lmm »

lorddoig wrote: post #22

When did stealing other peoples' life work segue from a guilty necessity to a noble cause? I missed that.

When a generation grew up doing it, and found that civilization did not collapse, found that in fact content was getting better and better?

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#119

Post by danielalmeida »

reubenmorais wrote: post #90
danielalmeida wrote: post #77

> "What people reveal, what people fight for, are major causes. Freedom of information. Liberty. Democracy. Governmental transparency and due process." I have a really hard time trying to link this with my experience on TPB. It's all about downloading stuff without paying for it. Honestly, that's it. I'm not proud of that, I'm not saying it's a noble thing to do. I really don't get what trying to "determine" what sho…

Torrenting is an answer to bad service. I want to look up a movie I want to watch, choose between different quality/file size options depending on my bandwidth/hard drive space needs, download an MP4 with decent speeds, watch it, then store it to watch again if I feel like it. I can do this legally for games via GOG or Steam, I can do this legally for (most) software I use, I can do this legally for music (limited ar…

I fully understand what you mean. I saw you're from Brazil too, so you know how awful Netflix is around here and how much we pay for games, for example. I download mostly due to the reasons you mentioned. As much as possible I avoid downloading books and I try to pay for music when I can (some stuff is just too expensive to import and many times really hard to find). I also rely on Steam and digital copies to avoid stealing (I have no problem calling it that) games.

But by the end of the day, despite being hard to find or expensive or unavailable, it's not mine to take. I understand I have no right to just rip The Flash S01E09 and make it available for free, IMO. Even though I downloaded and watched it yesterday.

Re: Peter Sunde: 'I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?'

#120

Post by icebraining »

3984239849823 wrote: post #91
realusername wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's the alternative ? The world is not the United States, in most countries of the world, there is simply no legal way to get a movie/tv show on the Internet. I'm not even talking about 3rd world countries here, Netflix (the only service which is good enough to compare to Torrents) just barely arrived in Europe and their list of movies is so poor, it's not even worth talking about it. Torrents are not working…

Technically watching movies form internet is perfectly legal in most countries. Some distributor made movie accessible under some sort of license. It is not user obligation (or duty) to investigate wherever all legalities are sorted between producer and distributor. Plus some countries made it legal to make copy for personal use... and so on.

I'm not sure if your first sentence is very accurate. Where did you get that information?
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