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

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

#321

Post by pbhjpbhj » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 5:45 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #306

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wa…

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

You do have that right, if I have plenty you have a right to a share of it. When the Earth was created no man had ownership of any of it. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote quite persuasively on this point. Sure if I take my food and waste it then that right is diminished accordingly.

>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. //

So why should you give them the right to take it in the first place. They don't have the right to the water any more than you. Less probably.

How would you consider this as a question of moral obligation, would you say that if you have lots of food and someone else has none that you're morally obligated to give from your plenty?

As an addendum, do you have plenty?

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

#322

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 5:51 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #316

giarc wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

When I go on Pirate Bay and type "Metallica", I get a bunch of songs and downloading and playing them is illegal (in some countries). When I go on YouTube and type "Metallica", I get the same thing on completely unofficial channels and it's so legal that I can relink it to you here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqtaKkvCFaQ The end result is the exact same thing: A non-paying user listened to an unofficial source f…

> The end result is the exact same thing: A non-paying user listened to an unofficial source for a song.

YouTube has functionality for content owners to identify their content being distributed unofficially on YouTube and either choose to permit and monetize it (via advertising) or choose to forbid it and have the content removed.

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

#323

Post by forrestthewoods » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 5:56 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #321

forrestthewoods wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 wa…

> No. If I do not have food I do not have the right to demand you give me your food. // You do have that right, if I have plenty you have a right to a share of it. When the Earth was created no man had ownership of any of it. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote quite persuasively on this point. Sure if I take my food and waste it then that right is diminished accordingly. > If I can not afford to pay a local ut…

We've been speaking of rights in the legal context. And laws != morals.

I think there are certain rights to access natural resources. For example the beaches of California are strictly public property. I think there are rights to fair access to natural resources such as water. However I do not think that if I spend considerable resources to build a distribution network for that water that other people have a right to access that network.

I do have plenty. More than I need. Food, water, and shelter. There are people who do not have enough of them. There are many people who have no shelter. We call them homeless. I have more rooms in my house than required to thrive. Does someone who is homeless have a right to enter my home and make use of the excess shelter that I have?

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

#324

Post by smokeyj » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 5:58 PM UTC

forrestthewoods wrote: post #311

wvenable wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the best of my understanding society had a culture 5, 50, 500, and even 5000 years ago. The current availability of books published last century is actually smaller than the current availability of books published before that. So there is actually a bit of a cultural hole from the 1900's because of materials are still in copyright and not published by their owners. Often it isn't even known who is the current ow…

Not having documentation on what culture was X years ago is different from there being no culture X years. I don't think your first example is relevant. Copyright exists to serve the public. I think it largely achieves that goal. There are fair arguments to be made as to when copyright/patents stop serving the public interests. I don't think DRM as an enforcement of the copyright laws nullifies the protection already…

> Copyright exists to serve the public. I think it largely achieves that goal.

Even if it didn't, how would you measure it? There is no measurement to determine that this arbitrary definition of property in fact serves the public more than not having it -- which makes me curious. Without this evidence, why did central planners believe copyrights would serve the public? I'm more inclined to think legislators had a financial interest in upholding these protectionist laws than any good will towards "the public".

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

#325

Post by mathetic » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:03 PM UTC

rev_bird wrote: post #296

mathetic wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. I will never advocate violence but if you look at the reasons that lead to that horrific moment in the suicide bomber's life, then you might see something even more terrifying than the act itself. Sure, you can blame it on bigotry or ignorance, but it turns out suicide bombers on average are more intelligent and well-educated than those in their society [0]. Camus attempts to explain this in his essay T…

> He didn't hurt anyone except himself. I'm not sure which side of this I'm on, to be honest, but I haven't seen any evidence that there isn't _any_ economic damage done by illegal downloading. > Sunde went to prison on his own for what he believed was right This may be true, but it's not like this wasn't a winning venture for him. At a certain point, it could have just been a question of whether he was willing to ga…

> I haven't seen any evidence that there isn't _any_ economic damage done by illegal downloading.

Burden of proof is on the accuser and no I don't think X number of people pirated it, it costs $Y, therefore, it caused $X * Y is a proof.

> it could have just been

Exactly. But don't you think it seems quite unlikely given that he is demonstrably a pretty smart individual and large corporations with deep pockets are coming after him. He should have completely failed to anticipate the consequences.

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

#326

Post by sp332 » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

angersock wrote: post #308

sp332 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not exactly the same. But there's a difference between distributing stuff that's obtained legally or illegally. First-sale doctrine doesn't apply to stolen goods, and I think there's a similar distinction that should be made with illicit data.

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

#327

Post by lotharbot » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #282

lotharbot wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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…

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

In US law, you are free to resell the book, but you are not free to produce a copy to resell (or to keep the copy and resell the original). You bought a copy of the book, not the rights to redistribute the content as you see fit; those still reside with the author. Others have made the argument about incentivizing content producers by granting those rights, so I will not rehash them.

(I reject your treatment of "natural law" as the only relevant system; I recognize the additional value of "common law" and "positive law".)

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

#328

Post by zxcdw » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:08 PM UTC

kristiandupont wrote: post #196

zxcdw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And how should the people who take the time to create that 'information' be compensated? Why should they be compensated? Putting in effort does not equate "getting compensated" and it should not. If they can't find a way to be compensated, they should find other work to do. Just as if I can disrupt an industry with some new cool gimmick, and thus put potentially thousands, if not millions of people out of work, why…

>Why should they be compensated? I watch plenty of stuff without paying for it so I don't want to pretend that I am on some high moral horse here, but i don't get this mindset. Of course just putting in effort doesn't give me the right to compensation. If so, I could just start digging holes and ask the world for payment. However, if I made something and you want to see it, I think I am in my good right to set a pric…

> And if I decided to show one of them to a someone who gave me money in return, that still doesn't give anybody who didn't pay me or anyone else for that matter, any right to access that file, no matter how little "intrinsic value" it represents.

Sure, this is unconditionally right if we go by the book and agree with the law. No argument here. Though, by going by the said law... The full albums, songs, movies, movie clips, whatever unauthorized there is in YouTube for example for billions of people to see every day creates a huge problem.

For example here in Finland, any person listening to an unauthorized upload of an album on YouTube breaks the law. Practically a huge majority of the youth are criminals as they do this on a daily basis, and take it for granted. Obviously it is utterly senseless to go after these people for what they are doing.

> If someone invented a teleport that allowed people to beam to whereever and back, that would cause a rise in theft of tangible goods all over the world. But this would not mean that because the old systems of doors and locks were now inefficient, people should not be allowed to claim ownership of property anymore.

But this, of course, is a flawed analogy. A better one would be with an ability to clone material for free. Say, if we were able to build a car, and then clone it for free for everyone. Why wouldn't we? For many goods we could just come up with better and better ones again and again, and people would immediately clone them for themselves and be happy. Sounds good, no?

In the end the main reason I oppose the copyright mafia bullshit is the tendency to limit my ability to use computers as computers. They want to tell me which bit patterns are illegal on my mass storage device or RAM. They want to tell me what CPU instructions I am not allowed to inspect or run. They want to tell me what network data I am allowed to capture and inspect. In essence, they want to own my general purpose computer and make it some form of "special purpose machine" with certain set of bits or instructions, or pixels on the screen. Cory Doctorow gave a great talk about this subject in 28C3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

And boy, if someone breaks these rules. Your 9-year-old daughter downloads an album on her laptop, and the police storms in after you refuse to sign NDA and pay a fine from an anti-piracy group which is 30 times higher than the value of the album in question. And I am not bullshitting you -- this really happened two years ago in Finland. See: https://torrentfreak.com/police-raid-9-year-old-pirate-bay-g...

HN submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4818159

For me personally, whether you, or someone get your living from whatever you do which people may pirate is completely irrelevant in grand scheme of things. The much larger picture is these completely messed up laws with these mafia-like anti-piarcy groups such as MPAA or RIAA, and many domestic ones in almost every country. The issue is way, way much more than just whether something is right or wrong. I see this whole issue very central on a societal level as well as from the point of view of something I'd call "computer/computing culture". I see it as something we as hackers should be very aware and vocal about. See SOPA and PIPA as examples as to why.

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

#329

Post by mathetic » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:11 PM UTC

mbillie1 wrote: post #313

mathetic wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does. I will never advocate violence but if you look at the reasons that lead to that horrific moment in the suicide bomber's life, then you might see something even more terrifying than the act itself. Sure, you can blame it on bigotry or ignorance, but it turns out suicide bombers on average are more intelligent and well-educated than those in their society [0]. Camus attempts to explain this in his essay T…

> So maybe you should consider respecting someone who thinks taking his life and innocent lives to make a point, or at least respect the point he is trying to make. "Even today it takes only the crudity of a persecution to give an otherwise completely indifferent sectarianism an honorable name. How? Does it change the value of a thing if someone gives his life for it? An error that has become honorable is an error wh…

I guess we just differ massively in our perception of people.

To me when an individual person sacrifices himself for a reason, any reason, then it is either that person is crazy or he has a point to make. I often attempt to understand his point and his reasons better. A cause is as strong as people who understand it. If he gets my attention and make realise something that I haven't previously, then the cause becomes stronger.

There is no absolute righteousness. Your point only makes sense if there is a divine set of rules that makes some things right and others wrong. I don't believe there is such a thing.

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

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Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:26 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #281

humanrebar wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 a…

I'm not arguing against business models as a concept. I'm arguing that any particular business model does not overrule the natural rights to speech, privacy, and property (arguably, legal DRM cartels violate my right to own and modify my own property).

All your examples involve fraud, so they don't really apply here. If I promised to pay someone for work and didn't pay them, I deserve to lose a lawsuit and be forced to make restitution. In certain circumstances, the fraud is criminal and I deserve jail time for preying on the vulnerable or uninformed.

There may be counterexamples worth addressing, though. Can someone can come up with one? They probably involve at least the threat of tangible harm in some form. And arguably, there are already laws against those things, such as your fraud examples.