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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?'

#261

Post by SamReidHughes »

humanrebar wrote: post #207
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…

> 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.

I don't know why you claim this is some sort of absolute fact. Whether "human rights" are made up or inherent, it seems plausible to me that being able to take ownership of creative works could be a natural right the same as having ownership of physical property would be.

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

#262

Post by the8472 »

Donzo wrote: post #208
the8472 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Their work" presumes ownership. Information does not have inherent ownership, unlike physical objects which can only be controlled one / a few people at a time.

Yes, it does presume ownership. As owners of creative products, the content producers can do as they feel with them. They can choose which characters die, how the story is told, and how the content is presented. That is because it is "their" work, it is not just information. Freedom of information is a great concept, and one which I support. Tax payers should be able to find out how much organization x donated to pol…

>That is because it is "their" work, it is not just information.

How do they own it if they make a copy and hand over that copy in its entirety to someone else? How do they not relinquish control of that copy?

>what I view as, theft But nobody is deprived of something when it gets copied. You can still modify your original and I can do as I please with mine.

This is how folk tales and our legends and everything propagates through society. Information, including creative work, flows freely.

>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?

Sure, that's at your discretion. But once you have given them away I don't see any natural reason why you should have any influence over what others do with a thing you have given away.

If you are a wood-carver and make an ornamental table for me, should I not be free to chop it up for firewood if I don't like it anymore just because you think it would be a violation of your work?

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

#264

Post by arkem »

mrSugar wrote: post #253
mbillie1 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I find this argument completely fallacious. Does it change the value of a thing if someone takes a risk for it? Ought we respect the causes of suicide bombers, since they gave their lives for them?

Try re-reading the post you replied to. The author does not want you to respect the cause for which he has taken the risk, but the fact that he felt strongly enough about it to put his life on the line for it. And yes, even suicide bombers deserve a bit of respect if they do their thing out of conviction, and not because they have been brainwashed about 72 virgins in next life.

How does one tell the difference between conviction and brainwashing? Or are religious convictions not real convictions?

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

#265

Post by giarc »

pothibo wrote: post #213
giarc wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that people that download the latest version of X TV show all have a cable subscription that includes that show? That, I would say, is completely incorrect.

Way to put words into my mouth. I said makes it accessible .

I didn't put words in your mouth, I asked you if what you meant was that 100% of people that downloaded the latest episode of Homeland pay for it through their cable subscription. The cable companies also provide ways for you to record the TV you pay for, I don't agree that torrents should serve that purpose.

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

#266

Post by the8472 »

Donzo wrote: post #252
the8472 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure, you can sell it or give it away for free, that's up to you. But once you give it to someone you give someone a blob of information. Which is identical to the one you still have. That chunk of information is not intrinsically tied to you anymore. So you can easily control initial distribution. But to restrict further distribution you have to restrict actions of others. You have to limit their freedoms to d…

Hmm... You place me in a tricky position, as I am generally against the limitation of freedom. Yet, it seems that some basic limitation on freedom is an essential part of society. In general, the most agreeable limitations involve restricting a person's freedom to harm others. Have content producers been harmed by piracy? I would argue that they have. Since piracy harms content producers, the rights of others to infr…

But that harm is only financial. It's a harm relative to potential profits they could have made if other people's rights to make copies were restricted in the first place.

If you do not assume such a right then no harm is done.

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

#267

Post by jimktrains2 »

sigzero wrote: post #154
jimktrains2 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But what TPB mainly distributed, was not information, it was products. It did no such thing. It provided a searchable list of user-generated content. It was no different than hacker news or reddit. It was used in a fashion that facilitated "crimes", but so are computers, Internet, and cash in general.

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.

First, I never said "pirating is okay". Please stop putting words in my mouth. I support the idea that content creators paid for their work. Sometimes, in the context of F/OSS for instance, the creators choose to forgo that directly and often indirectly (e.g. donations).

Secondly, downloading a work under a non-permissive copyright is not theft, and may not even be illegal. Content shifting is a legal thing to do. If I own a DVD one could argue that I could download an already ripped version of the DVD (CSS issues aside).

Third, not everything linked to on TPB was covered under a non-permissive copyright.

Please stop assuming everyone is an idiot and immoral.

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

#268

Post by gglitch »

I see many people in this thread debating (1) whether Sunde is some sort of freedom fighter, and (2) the ethics of intellectual property law. In my interpretation Sunde is mainly arguing that people who are criticizing him for not defending TPB should instead get their hands dirty and make something that sidesteps the established internet control structures, for better or worse. I don't think that's such a controversial idea.

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

#269

Post by lotharbot »

the8472 wrote: post #241
Donzo wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ch…

Well, sure, you can sell it or give it away for free, that's up to you. But once you give it to someone you give someone a blob of information. Which is identical to the one you still have. That chunk of information is not intrinsically tied to you anymore. So you can easily control initial distribution. But to restrict further distribution you have to restrict actions of others. You have to limit their freedoms to d…

> "to restrict further distribution you have to restrict actions of others."

... in a way that's not particularly different from the restrictions we place on physical books. JK Rowling doesn't give up her right to control sales/distribution of Harry Potter just because someone bought a hardback edition and owns a scanner or photocopier. Making a pdf or a photocopy of Harry Potter doesn't result in "stealing" any of her physical inventory, but if you resell it or even give it away (private personal use as a backup copy is OK) you can get in serious legal trouble (it would probably be termed "copyright infringement" rather than "theft", but IANAL TINLA.)

If you want to argue that purely digital goods should be handled differently than a digital scan someone made of a physical book, the burden of proof is back on you. Why should Rowling be entitled to sell Harry Potter in dead tree format and be able to treat scans as infringement, but not entitled to sell Harry Potter in digital format while treating unauthorized copies as infringement?

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

#270

Post by Donzo »

the8472 wrote: post #266
Donzo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... You place me in a tricky position, as I am generally against the limitation of freedom. Yet, it seems that some basic limitation on freedom is an essential part of society. In general, the most agreeable limitations involve restricting a person's freedom to harm others. Have content producers been harmed by piracy? I would argue that they have. Since piracy harms content producers, the rights of others to infr…

But that harm is only financial. It's a harm relative to potential profits they could have made if other people's rights to make copies were restricted in the first place. If you do not assume such a right then no harm is done.

You trivialize our economic system when you describe it as "only financial." People die over money.

I don't want to defend the actions of the copy-write robber-barons. I do not know what the appropriate response for infringement should be. I ignore violations of my own content. Yet I believe that I have a right to the content that I produce. And I respect the rights of others' content. Do you believe that content producers should not have these rights?

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