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

I dunno. At a low level, piracy is just copying bits. It just so happens that certain bits contain some people's "intellectual property". If we concede that this makes sense and want to fight a losing battle anyway, it becomes a philosophical line-drawing fiesta about the bits you're copying. I propose instead that it's futile for people to try and monetize a certain sequence of bits given a certain interpretation. Then the natural conclusion is to move toward services, like free-to-play games or streaming products where the actual "bits on sale" are free, but the "action of using those bits to bring in the bits you want" is what costs money, rather than whatever the actual bits are.

>>> I'm not so sure this assumption is correct; at least it hasn't been demonstrated as true (AFAIK).

Might be. But the cost to produce Candy Crush Saga and a AAA title is, well, different. But if you try to find a non-digital analogy, e.g. food, it doesn't make it right for me to steel expensive whisky just because I don't agree with pricing model :)

>>> I used to pirate stuff much more when I was younger (a poor student)

Agree with this, I perfectly know what you mean. When I was a poor student, I would buy a video game once a year on my b-day and keep playing it for a year or two :) completely objective, but it felt really better than downloading a batch on games. But that's not the point :)

This is a different problem (pricing, not intellectual property). HumbleBundle sometimes has games by big publishers for $1, Steam has good weekend sales sometimes (grabbed a few relatively new good games for under $15). I think solution to provide poorer markets can be found in this direction.

The world isn't theoretical. Context matters, intent matters. It's called the PIRATE bay for fucks sake. Sure, there is plenty of regular sharing on TPB. But the majority of it is pirated content that they are making a hell of a lot easier for people to access.

This thread is really exposing to me the variety of views on the topic. I get your argument, but it's like you're deliberately ignoring the reality of how TPB is used.

Which people are you talking about that we have no need for? The people who make the content? You don't feel we have a need for them? I love cutting out middle men as much as anyone, but eventually somebody has to make the product. I've seen people argue that authors shouldn't be paid for their work, they should do it as a side project of passion and be happy to see somebody reading a copy of their work. I'd much rather do my art all day than have to do it as a side project while I work at something else to pay the bills.

And as an aside, we may live in a post-scarcity world but it sure as hell isn't distributed.

> I'm sorry, but downloading entertain is not a human right.

Making money from producing entertainment isn't a human right. Maybe certain entertainment business models aren't sustainable in the internet age. It's not like we'll run out of entertainment. Most cat-based YouTube videos are better than the Real Housewives of Schenectady anyway.

And to extort and imprison people for the sake of a business model is terrible.

You sure talk a lot about how he was putting malware into people's computer through ads, when he himself said he's glad TPB is gone mostly because of how horrible its ads were[1].

You have a point (to the extent that it can be a point - it's just not really worth talking about anymore): downloading entertainment is not a human right. You make a very poor case of arguing that point.

But I don't think anyone really argues that "downloading movies" is a human right (and those that do are full of it). The problem is very much in reverse. The problem is the lengths that Hollywood and music studios will go to PREVENT people from doing those things. And the only defense is that those things are "morally dubious", and yet a lot of people do it. Hell, it's common knowledge that Spotify did it to get their business started.

So you're arguing the wrong problem. Now you tell me, is it a "right" for those companies to go above and beyond everything to prosecute and intimidate people who want entertainment they provide but are not willing to pay for it? Keeping in mind that: - Said people are not directly costing the companies anything - It's impossible to know whether said people would have paid for the content otherwise - It's impossible to know whether said people would have even known about the content were it not for illegally acquiring it

The following is my subjective opinion: You are a fool if you're angry about piracy on your pet project. You should be glad people go out and look for it. You have an audience.

That audience may not be entirely composed of people willing to pay for your work, but looking for such an audience is not a viable business plan. What you're getting is free advertising. What you're seeing on torrent sites is the very primitive equivalent of what happens on, for example, YouTube where you have channels and networks making more than they can ever dream off ads and sales just because they have the ability to reach so many people at such convenience.

Ears and eyeballs can directly translate to wallets, given the means. But instead of Hollywood/RIAA solving that problem, we have them prosecuting potential fans. We have them shutting down audiences by raiding sites that are full of actual fans. We have them corrupting judicial and political systems one after the other. We have them influencing international treaties and agreements, taking us all for brainless cashcows.

Fuck that.

[1]: http://blog.brokep.com/2014/12/09/the-pirate-bay-down-foreve...