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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?'

#301

Post by forrestthewoods »

Retra wrote: post #300
forrestthewoods wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree with much of anything you said. >With a capitalist economy certain elements of culture are effectively reserved for the wealthy. [...] The democratisation of media particularly through availability of music and film - which are so central to our cultural experience There is always going to be a culture. And there are always going to be things off-limits to the non-wealthy that would totally be pa…

>I don't think I have a fundamental right to access or own things created by other people. You do have such a right, because it is intimately related to the fact that you are human -- a social creature who essentially _requires_ things created by other people for your very survival. You may not agree that you should have immediate or non-negotiable access, but the mere fact that you are a producer of content and info…

Gimme all your shit

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

#302

Post by afro88 »

ars wrote: post #55
afro88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What steal? Copyright only exists so that people have motivation to make more content. If the content is anyway not available, that argument vanishes and you are left without copyright. Copyright is not some fundamental right that always exists, it only exists in certain limited circumstances. (And seriously? Dangerous thinking?)

> If the content is anyway not available, that argument vanishes and you are left without copyright.

Except that if people already has a copy of your work and then you finally manage to secure a deal with a publisher in country x, you now can't sell it. Most of the interested parties already have it.

> (And seriously? Dangerous thinking?)

It's a slippery slope. Content creators should have full control over how their content can be consumed. This goes both ways - if they want it to be free then it should be free. Also, no other company should be able to infringe their copyright and start charging money for it, or modify it, or use it in a context that they haven't approved.

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

#303

Post by mbillie1 »

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.

> 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

Again, I fail to see how conviction is by itself worthy of respect. Surely it is only respectable if the content of the conviction is also respectable.

In other words: if I risk my life for something stupid or wrong or immoral or criminal, but I felt strongly enough about it to risk my life over it, are you obliged to respect my conviction, even though the content of my conviction was not respectable? I think having respect for the notion of conviction itself is utterly stupid. I would rather respect having the calmness and clarity of thought to act without the need for moral zeal.

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

#304

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rayiner wrote: post #244
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Moreover, copyright was initially set up with a view to ensuring that eventually the wealth locked up in shared experience, cultural introspection, confrontation with new ideas and different aspects of the culture would be freed in to the public domain. That's not the only theory of copyright. In Europe, copyright has traditionally been viewed in terms of the moral rights of creators to control their work. In many…

The Statute of Anne which is widely held to be the first iteration of copyright gave authors/printers 14 years exclusive right, then works were to enter the public domain. On application before the end of the first period a further period of 14 years could be granted. The public domain was protected by the legal deposit scheme ensuring that a work could always (barring disaster) fully entertain the public domain.

The Statute of Anne was a compromise as publishers were being refused the reapplication of previous laws as those laws gave them too much power and control of publication preferencing them over the public and the authors.

Moral rights are an important part of copyright too; the right to be named as author being enshrined in the Berne Convention, for example. Nonetheless if the Statute of Anne represents the fore-runner of copyright under English Law traditions then I think my statement is objectively true (within jurisdictions based on English Law).

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

#305

Post by afro88 »

lmm wrote: post #112
afro88 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because it's a copy. They should be allowed to gift you their copy of the show, sure. Just like if I bought a DVD only available in Australia and gifted it to a friend in France for example.

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

#306

Post by forrestthewoods »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #299
forrestthewoods wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I agree with much of anything you said. >With a capitalist economy certain elements of culture are effectively reserved for the wealthy. [...] The democratisation of media particularly through availability of music and film - which are so central to our cultural experience There is always going to be a culture. And there are always going to be things off-limits to the non-wealthy that would totally be pa…

> society had a culture 5, 50, 500, and even 5000 years ago // Society like now used story and music as central elements of cultural expression. 500 and 5000 years ago that was freely shared. 500 years ago in my country (UK) there were poets and playwrights making a living without copyright (though minstrels had closed guilds at at least one point). If you heard a song then you were free to sing it to your friends, m…

>Do you have a right to be fed?

No. If I do not have food I do not have the right to demand you give me your food.

This has actually come up with a few times with respect to water. No, you do not have a right to water. If you live in the middle of nowhere you do not have a right to water. If you are not given water no one else is responsible or punished. If I can not afford to pay a local utility company for their water access services they are not required to give it to me for free. A city or town can not force a private individual or company to give them water.

Many people are likely to disagree with me here. That's fine. If you think "water is a right" or "food is a right" then quite honestly your sentiment is hollow and void of meaning. You can call something a right all you want but if there is no accountability then it's not much of a right.

The US Bill of Rights is a fantastic document because it largely protects rights, as opposed to giving them. Free speech isn't a right given by the government. It's a natural right that is explicitly protected from being taken away by the government. It's a key difference that is related to food/water rights.

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

#307

Post by joesmo »

I think what most people here are missing is that TPB didn't actually host any illegal content and yet it still got shut down and its members sent to jail. Sunde went to jail for free speech and distributing completely legal files. I think that's implicit and am rather surprised that it's a point missed by so many people. In that sense, it's a lot more egregious than Manning or Snowden because, AFAIK, he did not commit any crimes. Perhaps he wants it to be a warning to people like many of the commenters here who are deriding or belittling his actions yet still claim to support free speech.

If the files he distributed contained freely available chemistry information, would he have been sent to jail for assisting others in making bombs or poison? That seems rather ridiculous, but that's essentially what equating his actions with piracy is actually doing.

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

#308

Post by angersock »

sp332 wrote: post #191
lmm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're not allowed to sell stolen property, and I don't think you have a right to distribute code that was obtained illegally. Now if someone got a copy from the author with his/her permission, say by buying it, and then gave you a copy, you might have a defensible point.

You're assuming a copy of code can be treated like stolen property--there are several practical differences.

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

#309

Post by patzerhacker »

scrollaway wrote: post #277
patzerhacker wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Let's forget for a moment that, as you tell all those people your sorrows, you will in fact figure out that your product failed not because of piracy but because the product was not giving adequate value for its price... This is about movies and music at large. Software piracy is a solved problem. In games, the majority of people now use Steam and nobody really cares about the few that look for it on random torrent w…

>Let's forget for a moment that, as you tell all those people your sorrows, you will in fact figure out that your product failed not because of piracy but because the product was not giving adequate value for its price.

That may be, but that doesn't mean that people have the right to unilaterally decide that the price should be zero against the wishes of the seller. They may have the technical ability to do so, but that does not make it moral or ethical to do so in the most general case. I'd like to have a lower electrical bill. Electricity is a non-tangible good, like bits. Does that mean that I should be able to tell the electric company to shove off just because I think they charge too much for electricity? Why is that any different?

If my software fails because nobody wants it at the price it's at then that's a signal that I should lower prices. If my software fails because a large group decides to void the social contract and get my software for free because they disagree with their pricing then I have every right to get angry about it. The software I produce took time and money to produce. It's okay if you don't want to pay for it. Then don't use it. You don't get to have all of the benefit for none of the cost. That's the part that's the most infuriating.

>Software piracy is a solved problem.

How do you make that logical jump?

>You have eyeballs/ears which you can easily turn into wallets.

Not if people are used to and can continue to get the software for free. That relies upon the generosity of some other person down the line to actually pay for the software. Some companies may choose to make that decision. Good for them! But the assumption that all companies will or must or otherwise be ethically or morally bankrupt is a bad one. I'd love to spend all of my time building software for others and let them pay what they want for it, but I have to eat and have a family to support.

Software piracy doesn't hurt big shops or new developers as much as it hurts the smaller guys. Big shops price it into their software costs, and as you said, industry standard software (Office, Photoshop) rely upon it to bring in new users because their target market is saturated. New developers are just happy to get their name out there in many cases - it's a cost of doing business that they can afford.

The small shops in the middle get it the worst. Not enough name recognition to be an industry leader yet enough people that feel entitled to their software for free. The vast majority of them can't win and fold. Is that what meritocracy is? Subject to the whims of an entitled core of freeloaders?

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

#310

Post by boracay »

mseebach wrote: post #242
boracay wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You act like one of those guys he talks about in the article. Judging people from the sidelines and telling them what they should have done without remotely knowing the story.

But on the other hand "I went to jail for my cause. What did you do?" judges me from the sidelines without remotely knowing my story because I didn't go to jail.

Not really since he is a participant in the subject at hand i.e. he is not on the sidelines.
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