You can pirate all you want and justify it as disobeying unjust laws. Let's see if the government throws everyone in jail for copying data.
Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
121–130 of 334 posts
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
People looks for excuses, and I suppose conflating different things like speed limits, copyright and cryptography is some way to nullify their possible importance. These are not on the same level: * speeding and more generally, driving misbehaviour are directly responsible for deaths. * Pirating software and music never killed anyone, but is about maximizing profits for some corporations. * limiting cryptography is a…
In the United States speed limits are not enforced for safety. They are instead a revenue stream for local government. Relative speed kills, and if police were really concerned about safety they would prevent people from driving too slowly for traffic conditions as well as too fast. I'll give you a similar example from recent news. Over the last few years, many towns have installed red light cameras. However, many lo…
Sounds a bit too good (in the usual anti-government, libertarian style) to be true. Any reference?
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#123I don't really understand these posts that simply declare that the correct choice is not to use their stuff, that piracy is wrong, and it's not your choice. I happen to agree with the overall conclusion that one should seek alternatives in these cases, but this is just an argument by shouting. It's foolish to simply declare, "it's not your choice". Clearly, people think it is their choice. If you want to convince the…
"Clearly, people think it is their choice."
And that is where the author disagrees. People think it is their choice to either pay or not pay and get for free without consequences. That is wrong. If you choose to download without paying, you can't take the moral high ground because what you did is wrong.
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#124I solved this problem the "hard" way a long time ago. I don't use windows, at all, but GNU/Linux (Yeah, I'm this sort of guy, too). And you know what, as time goes by it's actually less and less of an actual problem; heck, I was even able to buy games for my box this year, thank you Humble Bundle! OK, this isn't free software, but at least you don't feel like you've been anally raped with barbed wire. And music? Well…
I can't wait for OnLive to have a Linux client. I'm going to seriously consider Linux for my primary OS at that point.
I'll still have to have Windows for things I can't do in Linux, but other than Games, that's a pretty small list.
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#125The author has a fundamental misunderstanding of what laws mean, and how they change.
In England, it is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day? Why? Because centuries ago England was governed by a despotic, fundamentalist Christian regime that did not approve of Christmas celebrations.
Should I then refrain from eating the mince pie? No. I and millions of my fellow countrymen eat mince pies, and most are completely unaware of the existence of Cromwell's mean spirited law.
Why is this crime tolerated by the authorities? Because they do not go about like Robocop, enforcing laws as though they are some kind of computer program. Instead they understand that laws are a crude human attempt to model current social norms. Those social norms change over time and often the written laws don't keep up with the pace of that change.
The Internet has made copyright law outdated. Social norms are in the process of adjusting to the new situation. It's perfectly rational and normal for activists to hasten that process by defying the law, and encouraging others to do likewise. Obviously, the copyright lobby will react by trying to strengthen the laws, and step up enforcement. That's fair enough too.
Which side will win? Well opinions vary, but to suggest that breaking the law is in itself an immoral and irredeemable act, is naive.
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Morals are not natural laws. People did not generally feel guilty or immoral for using slaves until the morals themselves changed. Similarly today with piracy: it doesn't feel morally wrong enough to warrant legal action to the minds of many. There needs to be a larger discussion about what is intellectual property (in fact, whether it exists) in the digital age. Legal experts should be discussing these issues but th…
If we are going to reduce morality to the way a majority feels about an issue, then in a democratic society, does it make any sense to differentiate between morality and legality? Shouldn't the democratic process eventually result in laws that reflect the morality of the majority? How can you say a law is immoral without taking a vote? For example, if the majority in California voted for Proposition 8, how can it be…
If we are going to reduce morality to the way a majority feels about an issue, then in a democratic society, does it make any sense to differentiate between morality and legality?
Of course it does, for two reasons: first, there is still a difference between the morality of an individual and of society as a group. Secondly, the fact that society fells something is wrong doesn't mean it has to feel OK with giving the State power to crush it. A good example is Free Speech.
Shouldn't the democratic process eventually result in laws that reflect the morality of the majority?
That would depend on a more pure and direct democracy. But generally they do; when the difference between them becomes too great, people tend to revolt.
But you should remember what I said above: people might feel its wrong to legally punish wrong actions. There's no contradictions in this.
How can you say a law is immoral without taking a vote? For example, if the majority in California voted for Proposition 8, how can it be immoral?
Assuming morality is relative, there's no such thing as an immoral law, because morality is not a property of a thing, but a relationship between a person (or a group of them) and that thing.
So I can say Proposition 8 is immoral, if I find it immoral. Which doesn't mean it's immoral for another person or society in general.
Note: I believe morals are natural laws.
I always found that interesting, because I never found any evidence for that. In what do you base your belief? Or is it pure faith?
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#127I don't really understand these posts that simply declare that the correct choice is not to use their stuff, that piracy is wrong, and it's not your choice. I happen to agree with the overall conclusion that one should seek alternatives in these cases, but this is just an argument by shouting. It's foolish to simply declare, "it's not your choice". Clearly, people think it is their choice. If you want to convince the…
"Clearly, people think it is their choice." And that is where the author disagrees. People think it is their choice to either pay or not pay and get for free without consequences. That is wrong. If you choose to download without paying, you can't take the moral high ground because what you did is wrong.
You can take the moral high ground. Because laws can be wrong, an breaking wrong laws can be right.
Imho the economics of scarcity that is behind copyright is morally problematic. Thus breaking copyright laws could be right under some circumstances.
Also see the following for some more reasons, and some alternatives: http://wybowiersma.net/pub/papers/Wiersma,Wybo,Enclosures_of...
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#128I don't understand pirates that think downloading the content is a form of protest. If you want to make a change and win then you have to think like your opponent. This is how the greedy suits think: "Our product has sold X copies, but Y people downloaded it. That means there are X+Y people interested in my product! We must make it so X+Y people buy it and 0 download it!" NO! Stop! Bad pirates! By downloading the pro…
But at the same time, if I give my money to these corporations, then that is X more dollars going to lobby Congress for things like SOPA that take away my freedom. It is a vicious cycle.
Then don't give it AND don't pirate it. Problem solved.
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#129I don't really understand these posts that simply declare that the correct choice is not to use their stuff, that piracy is wrong, and it's not your choice. I happen to agree with the overall conclusion that one should seek alternatives in these cases, but this is just an argument by shouting. It's foolish to simply declare, "it's not your choice". Clearly, people think it is their choice. If you want to convince the…
"Clearly, people think it is their choice." And that is where the author disagrees. People think it is their choice to either pay or not pay and get for free without consequences. That is wrong. If you choose to download without paying, you can't take the moral high ground because what you did is wrong.
This is just the kind of junk I'm talking about. I get that the author disagrees. The problem is that neither he nor you back it up with any reasoning. You're just declaring that you're right and that anyone who disagrees is wrong. What's the point of that?
The simple fact is that copyright infringement is not a universally-agreed wrong the way e.g. murder is. If you want to convince people that it should be, that's fine, but if you argue from the assumption that it already is, that's circular reasoning and won't convince anyone.
Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it
#130This article is interesting to read and think about from a theoretical perspective. Practically, though, it is completely and utterly useless. Fact 1: Pirating is possible and fairly easy across the board. Fact 2: Some content creators try to limit access to maintain "exclusivity" or to keep margins high. These guys get destroyed by piracy. Fact 3: Other services strive to make it as easy as possible to get their pro…
As creators, we can curb piracy by making it easier, safer and more reliable to purchase legally. As users, shouldn't we curb piracy by not pirating things?
From a long-term perspective, it's probably more effective, as a user, to pirate everything that's not easily available for legal purchase, with the intent of making outdated, overpriced distribution channels unprofitable.
I'm not trying to make the argument that this is ethical or anything, but purely from the perspective of solving the "piracy problem", I believe it would be the most effective.