Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model • Hacker News Board

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#51

Post by vibrunazo » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #40

vibrunazo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please separate illegal from immoral. And try to consider both sides of the argument, instead of assuming it's either good or bad because there is some good our some bad in it. There's both pros and cons to piracy, so w have to measure both instead of blindly ignoring one side. While it's really sad that many lost their jobs breeding horses when automobiles were invented, it was a total net positive to humanity. You…

"Please separate illegal from immoral." It does someone no harm to do without watching Transformers 3 for a year. There's no moral high ground in lacking discipline. Therefore, it's immoral and illegal. Get a new hobby, and some perspective.

How does purposely providing your user with a worse experience does no harm? That goes against any UX lesson or advice I've ever seen.

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#52

Post by georgieporgie » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:48 PM UTC

ssebro wrote: post #42

jonhendry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stop using hyperbolic language" The main perpetrators of hyperbolic language on this topic are the people who act as if there is some necessity and moral right behind downloading some crap CD or movie or TV show, as if that was the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Guess what, you won't perish if you don't watch that TV show everyone is talking about, or if you have to wait six months for that new movie to sh…

Death and physical injury aren't the only ways someone can be harmed. Trust me - if you're the only kid in highscool without cable who isn't able to talk about that show from last night, you miss opportunities to bond. Those missed bonds are worth quite a lot, since they directly impact your future.

I'm sorry, but that's the most entitled and ridiculous position I've ever heard presented on the issue. As if copyright violation is somehow necessary to prevent social maladjustment.

Where I grew up, we got two channels. Later, when we erected a huge antennae, we got two more. I didn't know what "Nickelodeon" was. So what did I do? I asked kids about the show they described, and I went to a friends house who had cable to watch it.

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#53

Post by cglace » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

ssebro wrote: post #42

jonhendry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Stop using hyperbolic language" The main perpetrators of hyperbolic language on this topic are the people who act as if there is some necessity and moral right behind downloading some crap CD or movie or TV show, as if that was the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Guess what, you won't perish if you don't watch that TV show everyone is talking about, or if you have to wait six months for that new movie to sh…

Death and physical injury aren't the only ways someone can be harmed. Trust me - if you're the only kid in highscool without cable who isn't able to talk about that show from last night, you miss opportunities to bond. Those missed bonds are worth quite a lot, since they directly impact your future.

You could also argue that wasting all of your time watching TV shows directly impacts your future. Basically anything we do now directly impacts our future.

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#54

Post by kiba » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:49 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #31

alan_cx wrote: post #29

What I perceive from over here in the UK is that when the US government protects failing business with money, its called "socialist" and evil. However, when it protects failing business with law, that's just fine. Despite the fact that these laws also cost a lot of money. I would like to see the cost of policing and enforcing these laws over time, compared to bailing out, say, General Motors. In fact, wont GM have to…

If even a small portion of the US' population had any idea what socialism actually was, maybe we wouldn't all be going bankrupt from our asinine health care system.... This country....

If even a small portion of the US' population had any idea what socialism actually was, maybe we wouldn't all be going bankrupt from our asinine health care system....

It's all about framing. "Safety net" versus "Wealth redistribution".

For the record, I prefer that the American adapt the McDonald business model to medical care for increased safety and economy of scale. Copy what the Indian did with eye surgery and heart surgery, not what the European did.

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#55

Post by njs12345 » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:50 PM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #39

jkn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can't just steal something from an Amish person's business because "their business model is out-dated."" For a correct analogy, make the Amish a billionaire who makes money by exercising a monopoly. The monopoly is legal, it was even expanded by congress thanks to his lobbying efforts, and the government actually spends taxpayer money to enforce it. And I'm not stealing from the Amish, I just found a more efficien…

"For a correct analogy, make the Amish a billionaire who makes money by exercising a monopoly." Nonsense. People sharing files don't take the status of the content provider into account. It's a pleasant story to tell yourself, that you're just sticking it to the man, but it doesn't reflect the reality of file sharing.

If I download a small artist's music illegally but then spend the money on going to see them live, how is this any different to buying their music except that I've got something for nothing? What about artists who have become big because of all the free marketing that the Internet offers them?

As with many things in the real world, it's a murky situation..

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#56

Post by njs12345 » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:59 PM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #34

sophacles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It is not stealing. This is well established. Stop using hyperbolic language to hysterically whine and force your moralistic crap down our throats. 2. Your Amish analogy is a strawman. 3. Whether Kim is breaking a law or not is not the point of this dicussion (another strawman here): the discussion is does the (il)leagailty of it make sense? Laws are not permanent nor are they absolute. We theoretically live in a…

"Stop using hyperbolic language" The main perpetrators of hyperbolic language on this topic are the people who act as if there is some necessity and moral right behind downloading some crap CD or movie or TV show, as if that was the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Guess what, you won't perish if you don't watch that TV show everyone is talking about, or if you have to wait six months for that new movie to sh…

There's no necessity or moral right behind it, but I fail to see how an action which does not harm others but benefits yourself is immoral --- much piracy has this form; here's a study which says that only 20% of album sales displace sales: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10874.pdf?new_window=1

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#57

Post by chc » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 6:06 PM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #34

sophacles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. It is not stealing. This is well established. Stop using hyperbolic language to hysterically whine and force your moralistic crap down our throats. 2. Your Amish analogy is a strawman. 3. Whether Kim is breaking a law or not is not the point of this dicussion (another strawman here): the discussion is does the (il)leagailty of it make sense? Laws are not permanent nor are they absolute. We theoretically live in a…

"Stop using hyperbolic language" The main perpetrators of hyperbolic language on this topic are the people who act as if there is some necessity and moral right behind downloading some crap CD or movie or TV show, as if that was the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Guess what, you won't perish if you don't watch that TV show everyone is talking about, or if you have to wait six months for that new movie to sh…

It's not as silly as thinking you have the moral right to control how people use copies of something just because you made the original.

To be clear, I'm not arguing against copyright. I think some form of copyright is still a good compromise that serves society well. But I don't see how you can construct a system of human interaction where copyright is more of an inherent moral right than the general right to share information (including "entertainment," which can carry great cultural value).

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#58

Post by jkn » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 6:09 PM UTC

jonhendry wrote: post #39

jkn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I can't just steal something from an Amish person's business because "their business model is out-dated."" For a correct analogy, make the Amish a billionaire who makes money by exercising a monopoly. The monopoly is legal, it was even expanded by congress thanks to his lobbying efforts, and the government actually spends taxpayer money to enforce it. And I'm not stealing from the Amish, I just found a more efficien…

"For a correct analogy, make the Amish a billionaire who makes money by exercising a monopoly." Nonsense. People sharing files don't take the status of the content provider into account. It's a pleasant story to tell yourself, that you're just sticking it to the man, but it doesn't reflect the reality of file sharing.

Sure, most people don't think about the immorality of copyright laws when sharing files, but that doesn't make the laws moral.

As for sticking it to the man, I was precisely trying to move the analogy from man-centered (the Amish) to the bigger picture: immoral laws preserving a bad business model that impacts the whole society. Quite the opposite of the Amish actually.

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#59

Post by chc » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 6:12 PM UTC

georgieporgie wrote: post #52

ssebro wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death and physical injury aren't the only ways someone can be harmed. Trust me - if you're the only kid in highscool without cable who isn't able to talk about that show from last night, you miss opportunities to bond. Those missed bonds are worth quite a lot, since they directly impact your future.

I'm sorry, but that's the most entitled and ridiculous position I've ever heard presented on the issue. As if copyright violation is somehow necessary to prevent social maladjustment. Where I grew up, we got two channels. Later, when we erected a huge antennae, we got two more. I didn't know what "Nickelodeon" was. So what did I do? I asked kids about the show they described, and I went to a friends house who had cab…

Was your situation much worse than everyone around you? Because studies have found that past a certain point, people's satisfaction with life tends to be highly relative. If you grew up without TV in a culture where most people didn't have TV, your experience is not comparable to someone who grows up without TV in a culture where a good deal of social interaction is based around TV.

Re: Kim Dotcom: US Government Is Protecting An Outdated Monopolistic Business Model

#60

Post by awj » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

njs12345 wrote: post #50

huggyface wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short: Give the people what they want and they will pay you. If only it were so simple. Today you can buy virtually any media electronically. Services like Netflix, Rdio, Spotify, iTunes and others allow for enormous content enjoyment at a very reasonable price, with a couple of mouse clicks. Steam and Origin, App Stores and Android Markets exist with countless software options for incredibly low prices. Yet pirac…

Let's assume you keep spending the thousands you do spend per year on buying the same games, movies and music, but that you also pirate things where you feel the value does not justify the price. Who's lost out? You've got something for nothing. There is a significant body of academic work demonstrating that much piracy has this form: it does not displace a sale. Piracy may therefore be providing a net benefit to soc…

> Who's lost out?

Well, the market, for one. All of your non-revenue market effects (discussion with friends, perceived usage, etc) show up as apparent success for a product that you feel is not worth buying. This can help promote purchases of that product and in turn diminish market incentive for the providers to improve on it.

Piracy does not send a clear message to content providers about your opinions of the quality of their content. If you are truly interested in having purchase-worthy content available, finding some financially appealing way of acquiring non-purchase-worthy content only hinders that goal.