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?'

#331

Post by wvenable » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:26 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…

I'm not talking about "documentation". I'm talking about the actual culture: the books, the movies, the songs, and so on from that period. Look at Disney's Frozen, a huge movie based on the out of copyright story, The Snow Queen. Here's some culture from 1800's reproduced in 2014. The same cannot be done for most culture in the early to mid 1900's. Some things you literally cannot read, watch, or hear from that era. You certainly cannot adapt it in a new way. Not unless you want to break the law. That is the situation we are in.

I, however, agree that copyright serves the public and largely achieves that goal. But I think it did so better in it's original incarnation. Big money interests have shifted copyright in absurd directions. And I honestly don't care if Disney retains the rights to Mickey Mouse forever but in lobbying for that right they've dragged along everything else. So now it's impossible to reproduce other completely unrelated works.

A big one personally for me is old video games. I grew up in arcades and I love going through MAME and playing obscure titles that I often don't even remember until I start it up. Sure, if you want to play Pac-Man there are lots of legal options but outside of that a huge part of 80's culture is illegal to own.

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

#332

Post by mbillie1 » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:28 PM UTC

mathetic wrote: post #329

mbillie1 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Your point only makes sense if there is a divine set of rules that makes some things right and others wrong.

There's a difference between absolutism (which I am arguing against, btw, and my argument against conviction is consistent with my position against absolutism) and abject relativism, where the value of a thing is equivalent to its acceptance. How about the empirical demonstration of the goodness/badness of a thing? (amount of overall harm caused, assuming harm is considered bad, etc).

> A cause is as strong as people who understand it

This is essentially my objection. This is relativism. If you were right here, then all the religious zealots in the world believing in creationism would render that position valid, and the strength of their conviction would be in some sense an asset to that position. My point is that all of that is nonsense. A thing is wrong/false/stupid independently of its believers' numbers, or their zeal or conviction. You don't need to appeal to some divinity to make that point, you can appeal to common empirical demonstrability (aka science). It is more complicated when dealing with "purely" ethical matters, but only more complicated - it is our choice whether we reduce issues to "pure" ethics or not, and I suggest that we should not.

> I don't believe there is such a thing.

Neither do I. I just reject the "feel-good" position that peoples' convictions are all meaningful and valid, and that we have to respect things that people believe strongly in. To me that is nonsense. Plenty of things are simply wrong, stupid and contemptible. You can be kind to people holding those positions without forcing yourself to believe that there is some worth in their ideas simply because they feel strongly about them.

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

#333

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:28 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #255

humanrebar wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't anyone should concede that copying data is theft. Since theft implies an unlawful transfer of ownership. Copying data and deleting the original is theft.

I don't know about that. When Target or Walmart or whatever credit card processor experiences a data breach and customer data is exposed it's considered data theft and treated as such as well. While we can't compare digital goods with physical goods in a 1:1 manner because they have different properties, so far, aspects as it concerns the law treat them similarly. Aspects of this may or may not change over time, howe…

The actual crime is the fraud committed when someone pretends to be someone else and runs up debts in their name with "stolen" credit card numbers.

There are ancillary crimes that revolve around trying to keep credit card numbers secure, but taking my credit card number doesn't mean I don't have it anymore.

That's not to say it isn't a scummy thing to do.

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

#334

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

pdabbadabba wrote: post #256

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…

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…

I am distinguishing between financial interests and financial prospects. Financial interests are a form of property: shares in companies, contractually entitled benefits, etc.

Financial prospects are things like next year's record sales. "Past performance does not necessarily predict future results" and all that.

Business models exist to help predict the future. That's why their called business models and not business facts. To imprison someone because she didn't fall in line with your plans for the future is a terrible thing to do.

Contrast this with actual theft of real money. It was yours, now you don't have it. That's harming your financial interests and violating your inalienable rights to property and the freedom to use it at your own discretion.

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

#335

Post by scrollaway » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #322

scrollaway wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm well aware and this is what I was talking about... but from a user's point of view, the end result is the same. So let's stop talking about whether or not jail time is right.

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

#336

Post by totony » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:42 PM UTC

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…

What's with people assuming TPB is only for porn and movies?

There are SO MANY THINGS that can be found on TPB: books, code, courses, videos. I don't understand why people on HN only focus on one thing.

Shouldn't information be freely accessible? Why should poor people or people that live in certain places not be able to access a book about, let's say, nanoparticular physics? Why can't these people watch Ironman and observe foreign values?

I personnally don't really care that TPB is down, too bad for plebs.

- Written from my Samsung Galaxy S3, cause I'm American, and am worth more than plebs.

PS: Sometimes, people piss me off from all their selfishness.

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

#337

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:43 PM UTC

giarc wrote: post #291

humanrebar wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be paid for their work. They (their bosses at least) shouldn't have the power to cripple technology, limit the free flow of information, or throw people in jail to get paid. Again, we're talking about entertainment. The people working on these works are doing really cool things, but they don't have a right to get paid to do cool things. On the other hand, people should have the right to copy arbitrary bit…

I agree that torrent technology should be allowed. The Pirate Bay allowed for that and likely should be able to exist, however let's call a spade a spade. Many of the material on torrent sites is copyrighted material, the founder in his piece says people can't download their TV show tomorrow, acknowledging the fact that copyrighted material drives the site.

Yeah, it's copyright infringement, and there's a lot of wink, wink, nudge, nudge going on that adds up to dishonesty if not outright lying. I don't claim otherwise.

I just don't think copyright is an inalienable right like freedom of speech is. And being duplicitous should make you unreliable or scummy, not criminal. Barring actual fraud, of course, and I don't think all this winking adds up to fraud.

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

#338

Post by humanrebar » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:51 PM UTC

SamReidHughes wrote: post #261

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. 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.

I've explained it elsewhere, but a business model is a projection of future results, it's not actual property. I think the burden of proof is on the claimant when someone says that protecting business models is more important than protecting freedom of speech (sharing documents), freedom of privacy (no combing through my documents), or the freedom of movement (not being in prison).

As far as a critique on whether human right exist or what they are if they do, that's way out of scope for this topic. But I'll say that it's hard to have any morality without some concept of human rights, whether that term is used or not.

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

#339

Post by zanny » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:55 PM UTC

humanrebar wrote: post #210

egocodedinsol wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw, he might concede that illegal downloads are theft, but assert that digital property is also theft. In that case, I could see TPB defending those goals, or at least attacking their opposition. (not an endorsement just pointing it out, blah blah blah)

I don't anyone should concede that copying data is theft. Since theft implies an unlawful transfer of ownership. Copying data and deleting the original is theft.

Nothing about TPB is a breach of security on the parts of rights holders. The transactions taking place on torrent sites never even involve them. In reality, the only relation the law has to what TBP is doing is simply that depending on jurisdiction either:

The original uploader is violating the copyright of the copy he originally procured, but in some countries once he distributes that (and the recipient isn't liable, because it is a very Orwellian thing to claim that a user downloading some arbitrary file from anywhere is liable for the copyright violations involved, albeit if they are on TPB they have less of a defense there - but it is very thought police-y to try to assert that everyone is liable for all the data they download - because everyone is infringing copyright every day with every screenshot of Frozen or the cover art to music albums being pushed from websites to your music player.

All parties seeding are liable, albeit for the same reason I described earlier this seems like a gross dystopian model to use because it means you blame people for non-violent behavior they cannot know is wrong, just because the original provider of the data never disclosed its copyright status. It cannot be the fault of a recipient of information if they were never told it was being shared without a license to share on the part of the sharer, or that they do not then have rights to share.

Either way, that is nothing like hacking Sony's servers and copying movie data off of it. That is a violent intrusion on their digital property, literally, by entering their servers without their permission and with obvious intent to intrude and possibly duplicate or even destroy data.

Until the conversation about information sharing can be had outside of relating it to violence, which it is almost never, and I would never condone, then you can't have a legitimate conversation on this topic. First and foremost must be an acknowledgment that the copyright infringement most sites like TPB are advocating is the voluntary exchange of information one party has to one party that wants it, in violation of a state framework granting a third party to that transaction exclusive rights to control its distribution. That is just objective fact, before any subjective opinions or morality come into the discussion, but without that everyone is operating on false assumptions.

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

#340

Post by zanny » Thu, Dec 11, 2014, 6:58 PM UTC

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 still think creators should be credited/paid for their work.

This has nothing to do with:

> I don't think people should expect free TV shows

The information was created. The actual creators in most cases were paid, on a salary, by a company. They did get their money. The company funding them just expects perpetual returns using the copyright framework of the host countries legal system. It is an artificial investment industry, but that is how it works for probably 99% of sold copyright works by volume.

Just remember, while copyright imparts a false scarcity upon (through modern technology) non-scarce information, there is a scarce good involved, the time and effort of skilled creators, and that like in every other industry ever you can bill for that as much as any other skill, regardless of who is paying you to do it.