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Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

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Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#171

Post by onemoreact »

kiba wrote: post #167
alextingle wrote: post #125

The 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 complete…

The Internet has made copyright law outdated. Sir, what make you think our situation is historically unique? If you read the history of copyright, you would realize that our is not so special. Rather, the current situation is a continuation of debates that started centuries ago.

The ability for 1/2 the people on the planet to distribute content without meaningful cost barriers is vary new. It's caused people to create and publish far more interesting content in a single day than you can consume in a single day. We are transiting through a tipping point where locating and filtering content is becoming more valuable than creating it.

Consider, on average do you enjoy reading HN posts? In what ways are people compensated for creating them how is copyright relevant for that compensation?

PS: Imagine a clearing house where authors pay random people to read their works in the hope that they might simply up vote it and even paying those who down vote their content.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#172

Post by ap22213 »

VMG wrote: post #159
alextingle wrote: post #125

The 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 complete…

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

Was there ever a software company, or music artist, or movie studio that decided not to put out a product because of this so-called free rider problem? Just curious.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#173

Post by alextingle »

VMG wrote: post #159
alextingle wrote: post #125

The 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 complete…

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

You are merely restating the problem, not putting forward a solution. That's not really adding to the debate.

Copyright exists to solve a genuine problem. When it was conceived in the 18th Century, is was explicitly to encourage and reward the creation of new works (such as Windows 9) that would enrich the public domain.

Few people would argue that the problem has gone away. The current debate is whether the copyright mechanism is still a viable solution.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#174

Post by alextingle »

davidw wrote: post #155
alextingle wrote: post #125

The 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 complete…

Now people downloading tons of content are "activists"? I don't buy it. If they're doing so publicly as a challenge... maybe, but that doesn't seem like the case for many people who are doing it.

Some are activists. Most are simply conforming to new social norms.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#175

Post by comicjk »

DrHankPym wrote: post #161
VMG wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

You say that like it's a problem. Look at it this way: Does Ubuntu or OS X suffer from being pirated? Not really. Windows needs to figure this out for themselves.

We certainly don't want all OSs confined to closed hardware like OS X.

Ubuntu (and open source in general) works because of inverse-free-riders, "free helpers" we might call them. That seems to be a sustainable model, but it likely won't work for annoying grunt programming - note the poor driver support in many Linux distros. For some tasks, someone needs to be paid.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#176

Post by guard-of-terra »

It's an interesting debate.

But may I eat your cake and still have mine? For example, I go to cinema to see local movies and watch local tv series on legal services, but torrent american/english films and tv series (the main reason is that there's no way I can get them legally and in time - american services refuse me as a customer). Same with books.

This way I have my cake and I ate yours, and it's not obvious to me how it's not a win for me.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#177

Post by rbanffy »

what wrote: post #166
rbanffy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are not making a stance by stealing it. Stop using theft as synonym for copyright violation. When someone copies a movie, they create a new copy. They don't take someone else's copy away.

Pretty sure stealing means to take without permission or right. Just because you don't take another person's copy away doesn't mean you had a right or permission to take a copy at all.

You didn't "take" a copy. You made one. Without permission, that's copyright violation, not theft.

Stop spreading confusion.

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#178

Post by [deleted] »

alextingle wrote: post #125

The 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 complete…

[deleted]

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#179

Post by marknutter »

VMG wrote: post #159
alextingle wrote: post #125

The 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 complete…

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

> What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9.

LOL. Is that a threat?

Re: Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

#180

Post by sjwright »

marknutter wrote: post #179
VMG wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual. What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem

> What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won't be a Windows 9. LOL. Is that a threat?

I think you meant to say is that a promise? :-)
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