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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?'

#221

Post by Donzo »

the8472 wrote: post #192
sigzero wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it was a lot different from Reddit or HN. Please stop trying to support the "pirating is okay". It's not. It's theft. You do not need or have to see those shows. You want to watch them and you fulfill that want by pirating. That pirating may cause purchases later is a horrible argument for theft.

>It's theft. Stop repeating that. It isn't. Even the courts agree on this one. And TPB did not engage in it either way.

Just because no one was strong armed for a loaf of bread does not mean that a theft did not occur. No one may have been deprived of physical property, but we do not live an entirely physical world. Piracy deprives content creators of opportunity: the opportunity to distribute their products in the way that they see fit. Perhaps this means that they give all of their work away for free through the channels of their choosing. Perhaps they sell it. Perhaps they don't sell it to people who live in certain regions.

As a content creator, shouldn't I have the opportunity to give away my products (or sell them) in a way that I see fit?

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

#222

Post by kristiandupont »

icebraining wrote: post #109
waterlesscloud wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. Please link to online repository of everything you've ever produced, under any circumstances, for any purpose.

Why? Nobody is saying that copyright holders should be forced to distribute their work for free. Only that people, after having acquired copies, should be able to share it with others. If you want to distribute copies of all the work I've ever published, or work made by me and published by the company I work for, you're free to do so. It's all under Free licenses.

>people, after having acquired copies, should be able to share it with others

So basically, I should not be allowed to say "Look at this, but don't show anybody else"? As soon as something has been copied, I have lost any say?

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

#223

Post by patzerhacker »

scrollaway wrote: post #209
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #156

I'm sorry, but downloading entertainment is not a human right. He didn't exactly feed starving people by breaking the law. He put up a torrent aggregator to, mostly, Hollywood movies and shoved aggressive and high-revenue porn and malware ads into every nook and cranny of that site. HN and those passionate about internet freedoms deserve better heroes than guys like Sunde, Dotcom, and Ulbricht. These guys very much e…

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 arg…

> You are a fool if you're angry about piracy on your pet project.

I'll tell my employees that as our company folds from lack of revenue. I'll tell my wife that as we apply for food stamps. I'll tell the that to the next person interviewing me for a job because people didn't want to pay for the value I provided.

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

#224

Post by mike_hearn »

tomp wrote: post #159
gedrap wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> sharing of information But what TPB mainly distributed, was not information, it was products. And they are not essential products, you can live just fine without TV series or movies. People don't die because they can't play their favourite video game. It's like saying designer clothes should be free. Information should be shared without profit, yeah, that's what wikipedia is doing fine. But video games are not in…

Your argument is implicitly based on an assumption that piracy/sharing reduces income/profits. I'm not so sure this assumption is correct; at least it hasn't been demonstrated as true (AFAIK). A strong argument speaking against it is the fact that there are many examples that say the contrary; Avatar is one of the most pirated movies and also one of the most successful ones, and earned a huge amount of money just on…

Your argument is implicitly based on an assumption that piracy/sharing reduces income/profits. I'm not so sure this assumption is correct; at least it hasn't been demonstrated as true (AFAIK).

It's absolutely been demonstrated to be true, many many times. Do you think game studios, console makers, movie studios etc put money into DRM because none of them understand their own business?

There are lots of people who spoken either on or off the record who say the same things: the moment their copy protection fails, sales fall off a cliff and you can see it in the data. For video games it's even worse. The general figure I see for video game piracy on the PC platform is around 90-95% of players are not paying for it, yet, often they are still consuming resources on e.g. multiplayer servers.

Movie studio executives have graphs of sales and you can see the point at which high quality rips were uploaded to the internet.

Example:

http://www.develop-online.net/news/lgc-2013-sports-interacti...

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

#225

Post by newaccountfool »

giarc wrote: post #197
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #156

I'm sorry, but downloading entertainment is not a human right. He didn't exactly feed starving people by breaking the law. He put up a torrent aggregator to, mostly, Hollywood movies and shoved aggressive and high-revenue porn and malware ads into every nook and cranny of that site. HN and those passionate about internet freedoms deserve better heroes than guys like Sunde, Dotcom, and Ulbricht. These guys very much e…

>It tilted people's brains into knowing that tomorrow, their favorite TV show must be downloaded somewhere else. Not sure how I feel about this. Regardless of how things have played out, I don't think people should expect free TV shows especially in the day and age of PVR/DVR/TIVO etc. I still think creators should be credited/paid for their work. EDIT - To expand, I think you can disagree with the cable companies an…

I think your implying that every download is a lost sale, it doesn't work like that.

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

#226

Post by humanrebar »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #218
humanrebar wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 terribl…

>Making money from producing entertainment isn't a human right. No, but at least in the U.S., and most of the rest of the world, it is a legal right. Does that count for nothing just because we're on the internet?

Human rights exist regardless of whether a particular legal framework honors them. Everyone has the right to speech, including the right to the private transmission of data, the right to assemble to pursue common interests, etc. Those rights have limitations when it comes to harming people, but people aren't being harmed by any particular copy of Duck Dynasty S06E03.

The thing being harmed here is a business model. I vehemently disagree that someone should be fined or imprisoned in the name of a business model, especially an entertainment one. If the law says that's what happens, the law is unjust.

That being said, copying things that aren't yours without permission is a jerk thing to do. That shouldn't make you a criminal, however.

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

#227

Post by newaccountfool »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #156

I'm sorry, but downloading entertainment is not a human right. He didn't exactly feed starving people by breaking the law. He put up a torrent aggregator to, mostly, Hollywood movies and shoved aggressive and high-revenue porn and malware ads into every nook and cranny of that site. HN and those passionate about internet freedoms deserve better heroes than guys like Sunde, Dotcom, and Ulbricht. These guys very much e…

You do understand that the Malware has nothing to do with the website? and by that I mean that it's an adnetwork that controls what adverts that are displayed, and that many many adnetworks have been used to malvertise.

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

#228

Post by icebraining »

kristiandupont wrote: post #222
icebraining wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Nobody is saying that copyright holders should be forced to distribute their work for free. Only that people, after having acquired copies, should be able to share it with others. If you want to distribute copies of all the work I've ever published, or work made by me and published by the company I work for, you're free to do so. It's all under Free licenses.

>people, after having acquired copies, should be able to share it with others So basically, I should not be allowed to say "Look at this, but don't show anybody else"? As soon as something has been copied, I have lost any say?

Well, personally, I don't object to NDAs; as long as the person has consented beforehand. But that's just me, don't assume that's what everyone else agrees.

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

#229

Post by the8472 »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #218
humanrebar wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 terribl…

>Making money from producing entertainment isn't a human right. No, but at least in the U.S., and most of the rest of the world, it is a legal right. Does that count for nothing just because we're on the internet?

Making money from media is NOT a legal right. You don't have a right to profit.

You have the right to attempt to profit from it and exclude others from doing the same with your work.

That's all copyright provides. A limited right to an opportunity to make money, granted to you by society so you can make more of that work if society (by proxy of "The Market") deems your works as successful.

This right is granted to you because it's considered beneficial to society as a whole, because it incentivizes you to create more and ultimately have all the things you produced released into the public domain once your limited right expires.

So you're not getting the right to copyright because it's a natural right, you're getting it as part of a contract with society. The question is whether that contract is worth it to restrict speech, to have all the side-effects of the DMCA, to put people in prison, to slap families who pirated a few songs with 200k$ fines etc.

Let's say some people are questioning the tradeoff being made, at least in its current state.

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

#230

Post by forgottenpass »

company wrote: post #186
FlyingSnake wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandhi went to jail for picking up salt from a beach, which was also illegal. Legality of some act is not a fundamental law of science and shouldn't be treated as such.

So, now we are comparing online piraters to Gandhi?

Yes! Comparisons exist for pointing out the similarities between two things and inviting some "compare and contrast" critical thinking.

Comparisons don't have to assert equality, which is why people that say things like "Godwin's Law" are the worst. Either you can articulate the difference between an aspect of the Nazi regime and whatever you're arguing for, to move the conversation onto those differences, or you can't. Godwin is only useful when the conversation has run it's course and devolved into a flamewar.

You're already implicitly comparing the two when speak dismissively of the idea of "comparing" them. There are better ways of nipping a tangent in the bud.

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