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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?'

#281

Post by mc32 »

humanrebar wrote: post #226
pdabbadabba wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>The thing being harmed here is a business model.

But everything is a "business model." If you get paid for work performed, that's a "business model". Should I be free to upset that business model? Can I talk to someone's employer and convince them to pay me 20% of someone's salary without their permission?

Rihanna shows up for an event, a promoter promised her 50,000 for showing up and singing 60 seconds of a song and signing a few autographs. Can this promoter turn around and say, sorry, I was kidding, I don't have money for you, it was just entertainment, here's your cab and airfare?

We can reduce things till they lose some of their properties and our arguments appear reasonable, but most people will disagree with that reduction, I think.

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

#282

Post by the8472 »

lotharbot wrote: post #269
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…

> "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 h…

>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.

I do not. And those restrictions are exactly the same, they are about information. It's not about the dead trees with some pigment sprinkled onto them. It's about the particular arrangement of ink.

And I also say that I am naturally free to do whatever with the book - and the information therein - once I have obtained it.

If my freedom to do anything with it what I want should be restricted - as above, there may be good reasons to do so - then one would have to explain to me why that is, because I see no natural right that the author have over things they passed on to others.

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

#283

Post by mcb3k »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #232
newaccountfool wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

TPB chose the types of ads they are willing to display. I consider spyware and malware the exact same thing. TPB isn't a victim of the ad networks. They hired them to put up those misleading spyware and malware ads.

Well, it's TPB. They might not have had much of a choice about what ad networks they were allowed to participate in. I mean, if you're running an ad network, you need to appear respectable to get respectable clients. In that case, running ads on a torrent site is the exact opposite of what you want to do.

Most companies are not going to want to be associated with TPB, so most ad networks are not going to want to assocaite with TPB. So, the bottom of the barrel, scummiest ad networks are going to be what it would have to use to keep the lights on.

Just my two cents though.

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

#284

Post by pdabbadabba »

the8472 wrote: post #271
pdabbadabba wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do business models not pay people's salaries? Is this not an interest worth protecting? I think you're view is in trouble (or at least, extremely radical) if it depends on the premise that no law that protects only financial interests can result in imprisonment. I think this is actually the one (perhaps only) point where copyright infringement is actually analogous to theft. Why do we prohibit shoplifting? Because sh…

grandparent said that he disagreed with people being imprisoned or fined for copyright infringement. Those are punishments. Asking the violator to cough up the retail price of the pirated product on the other hand wouldn't be a punishment for criminal acts, it would be solving a civil dispute. Of course making this work at scale is not something that can be done in courts. And making unilateral claims sufficient to r…

I think I could support such a thing. But I also think GGP needs to come up with something better than "no criminal punishment for interfering with another's profit" to support it. That cuts far too wide to be plausible, I think. Why not this more narrow and, I think, more obvious claim? Prison is disproportionate to the harm caused by copyright infringement.

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

#285

Post by vidarh »

the8472 wrote: post #117
gambiting wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I'd very much expect most authors that focus on literature rather than short-form paid-by-the-word non-fiction-work to fail or only receive a minority of their income from writing.

Becoming a writer to make money off literature is pretty much like playing the lottery - the odds are badly stacked against you; if you have "success" most of the time you'll make a pittance, and only a tiny proportion of the people who are successful make it big.

If anything, current incentive structures created by current copyright are bad for most people in the creative fields, as the "hit culture" means they're heavily geared towards disproportionally rewarding a very small subset of people. While the hope of striking it big may lure some people to create, I'm more concerned that the bad odds of being able to make ends meet puts a lot of very creative people off those career choices.

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

#286

Post by anon4 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #224
tomp wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 spo…

You can limit the official servers to people who have a license key.

Plus, DRM is its own detriment. Some days ago I saw Child of Light on sale on Steam and was going to buy it, but then noticed it has uPlay DRM. And as we all know uplay means nobuy.

Personally, I'd rather have no DRM and less games, than more games that need to strongarm people into paying.

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

#287

Post by rev_bird »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #206
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…

> TPB wasn't about rights or freedoms or standing up to government oppression. People used it primarily to obtain media and software without paying for it. // I think there is an issue of rights and freedoms. With a capitalist economy certain elements of culture are effectively reserved for the wealthy. In other state structures those making the cultural artefacts that we use to express our selves, to link, to coales…

> The actions of media corporations, the use of DRM, these things (amongst others I'm sure) act to prevent entry to the public domain. DRM in particular breaks the copyright deal, if we the people aren't going to get our side of the copyright bargain why should we uphold the side that suits those financial interested in media production?

This is the first time I've ever seen a pro-"piracy" argument that really made me stop and think about whether I was actually opposed to it. I think the copyright system is clearly broken (and more beholden than ever to corporate interests), but somehow never made the connection. Thank you.

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

#288

Post by medecau »

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?

Wouldn't it be online pirates to tax evaders?

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

#289

Post by giarc »

scrollaway wrote: post #279
giarc wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that some people wouldn't watch the show if they couldn't download it, but why do they have that right to get it for free? I understand that torrent technology is great, but TPB founder is using downloading TV shows as an example of how things will change.

As I said in a comment below, you too have it backwards. It's not about the "right of the people to download shit for free". It's about the right of the corporations to go to hell and beyond to justify a few bucks; putting people in jail and corrupting the judicial and political system in the process... for what is essentially a harmless offence.

I think the level of penalty related to torrents and downloading copyrighter material is a matter of opinion. I don't know enough to say jail time is too harsh/not enough.

"Harmless offence"? Really? Maybe harmless in the fact that no one died, but it's not harmless that people's work is being stolen. What if people stole your work? I don't think you can point to the rich people in Hollywood and say "They have enough money already, they can afford to lose some people to torrents" because for every rich actor/screenwriter/producer, there are 100 other entertainment workers that don't make $100,000 per episode.

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

#290

Post by Donzo »

the8472 wrote: post #275
Donzo wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pro…

You missed half of my point. It's not only "just financial". It's also "just financial harm only if we are pre-supposing the the rights whose natural existence you're trying to prove in the first place"

I do not argue that the rights are natural. They are a legal and economic construct.

There is nothing natural about them. But that does not mean that these rights do not exist.

The question I ask you is, to whom should these rights belong?

The entity that has labored to produce the content? Or the entity that has obtained a copy of that content?

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