7 ms·

Whilst "digital civil disobedience" is all well and good, breaking their rules won't help us break their will. The last bastion of hope is a "union of the cons

by junto 11y ago

Whilst "digital civil disobedience" is all well and good, breaking their rules won't help us break their will. The last bastion of hope is a "union of the consumers", where we collectively punish and break companies that we collectively see as dangerous to the future of our world. We only need to tear down one company to be able to set off a chain reaction. Once consumers realise the power they hold as a well organised and effective collective, the people can pull back some of the power from the corporation (and our governments to which they now hold the power over). Corporations can't survive without income and customers. Every day we vote with our wallets without giving it a second thought. It's time we started to appreciate that fact. Edit: I know this isn't particularly realistic :-(

enraged_camel 11y ago
The problem is that the overwhelming majority of consumers don't know or care enough about copyright to form a union. And you can't have any leverage as a union if you are a small minority of the entire consumer-base.
- laumars 11y ago
  And many of those that do know and care simply don't care enough to stand by their principles (or simply would rather pirate stuff in private - which doesn't have the same impact as a union).
- junto 11y ago
  That is the traditional problem of a boycott and what makes it ineffectual. Moreover, the ineffectuality of boycotts makes people less likely to actually believe in them. Which is exactly what "they" want you to think.
  - Floegipoky 11y ago
    s/boycott/vote/g
mtgx 11y ago
Isn't supporting the EFF kind of like being in a union? Granted, the EFF probably doesn't excel at organizing people for protests in the streets. And ACLU is an actual union, but I don't think they are particularly interested in the copyright issue.
- kspaans 11y ago
  The EFF is a lobbying group, just like any that would work for oil&gas, tobacco, or a telephone company.
  - hardlianotion 11y ago
    And less well resourced.
Aissen 11y ago
Also, in some countries, calls for boycott are illegal.
- newjersey 11y ago
  I was going to say bullshit but you're right. Even Israel does this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_Prevention_of_Damage_to_State_of_Israel_through_Boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_Prevention_of_Damage_t... FTA: > Law for Prevention of Damage to State of Israel through Boycott (Hebrew: חוק למניעת פגיעה במדינת ישראל באמצעות חרם, התשע"א-2011), also commonly known as the Boycott law, is an Israeli Anti-boycott law that was approved in the Knesset on 11 July 2011. The law has been widely criticised. I strongly believe that Israel has a right to exist but laws like these do not give me hope for the Israeli people if they are complacent or (worse) supportive of these repressive laws.
  - anonbanker 11y ago
    > I strongly believe that Israel has a right to exist but I don't get how questioning fascism becomes a question over a state's legitimacy. Could you imagine if someone said that the USAPATRIOT Act brought into question the USA's right to exist?
    - newjersey 11y ago
      Wow, I didn't even think about it as I wrote it. I think I wrote it because I needed to remind myself. I guess somehow I have put it in my head that people who oppose anything that the government of Israel does is likely an enemy of Israel. You're right. Reality is not so black and white. I know I criticized George W Bush right here in the US about the "either you're with us or you're against us" dichotomy. Kind of makes me a hypocrite when I don't see my own bias on the same topic when it comes to Israel. It is absolutely possible to (and indeed we should encourage people to) speak up against the bad actions and policies of the government of Israel. Doing so does not make us enemies of Israel. This is so very simple and logical in any other context but I have to stop and think when it comes to this issue. I think I was trying to convince myself that I am not doing or saying anything that could hurt. Perhaps by reaffirming my support for the right to exist hurts rather than helps the situation. I didn't think of that. I feel pretty stupid.
vijayr 11y ago
How will this work practically? Let's say we want to try this just for a month. Make a list of such companies and try not to spend our money with them. First of all, making this list itself isn't that simple, because of confusing and ever changing murky corporate structures (apps like buycott [1] can help here). In many industries, a handful of players control the entire market - just 3 or 4 companies control meat supply in the US, Monsanto controls a huge portion of seeds and so on. In the end we'll probably end up with a list of couple of dozen companies in our "bad list" and our options to shop (even the basic necessities) will be severely limited. Not saying it can't be done, it is just difficult to do it without some serious collective effort. It is definitely a good exercise to brainstorm ideas though, we gotta start somewhere. http://buycott.com/ http://buycott.com/
- noja 11y ago
  You buy from the least bad one. Then the others become less bad, and you switch to them. And so on.
  - anonbanker 11y ago
    isn't that what we already do? I mean, I switched from Godaddy to Namecheap, Dropbox to Spideroak, etc. How is this not how things are done today?
    - Veratyr 11y ago
      SpiderOak isn't "better" than DropBox. It supports privacy but the service and support is utterly appalling. I was getting upload speeds on the order of kilobytes per second on a gigabit fiber connection while my CPU was idling. Filed a support request and they bumbled around a bit and then ceased responding to me entirely until I opened another ticket and demanded a refund. It took 5 __months__ to get to this point, with them not responding for weeks at a time. I'd recommend something like https://www.syncany.org/ https://www.syncany.org/ over SpiderOak any day.
      - lfam 11y ago
JustSomeNobody 11y ago
Well, if we could break Disney while letting lawmakers know it's not because we want Porno Mickey, but because that little freak of nature is anal raping our constitution, maybe that would do it.
- anonbanker 11y ago
  You're being downvoted for extreme comparisons, but I can bet none of the downvoters has even heard of, let alone read, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[0]. I've read it, and used similar wording as parent in my reaction. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
  - JustSomeNobody 11y ago
    Well, I could have been a little more subtle in my choice of words. But it's really frustrating to know that one simple cartoon character is doing so much damage. Edit: Actually, I think it's not so much my choice of words, but that this is HN and there's plenty of people here who are interested in copyright lasting infinity less one day.
    - anonbanker 11y ago
      I can't prove you wrong, much as I'd like to.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>The last bastion of hope is a "union of the consumers", where we collectively punish and break companies that we collectively see as dangerous to the future of our world. You aren't likely to ever get the majority on board just for the sake of a boycott. But if you make it so the products are completely free, safe to use, easy to obtain, and publicly supported as moral even if technically illegal, you can get the public to engage in a boycott of at least electronic media or media easily made electronic.
intopieces 11y ago
>breaking their rules won't help us break their will. It seems to have worked for movies and music. We broke the rules and shared the product, they entered the online market and started offering a product people wanted, people bought it. I'm not interested at all in playing by their rules. I'm interested in preserving access to our cultural artifacts. Keeping work from the people after the death of the author is pure greed and we shouldn't stand for it.

by junto 11y ago

enraged_camel 11y ago

The problem is that the overwhelming majority of consumers don't know or care enough about copyright to form a union. And you can't have any leverage as a union if you are a small minority of the entire consumer-base.

laumars 11y ago
And many of those that do know and care simply don't care enough to stand by their principles (or simply would rather pirate stuff in private - which doesn't have the same impact as a union).
junto 11y ago
That is the traditional problem of a boycott and what makes it ineffectual. Moreover, the ineffectuality of boycotts makes people less likely to actually believe in them. Which is exactly what "they" want you to think.
- Floegipoky 11y ago
  s/boycott/vote/g

mtgx 11y ago

Isn't supporting the EFF kind of like being in a union? Granted, the EFF probably doesn't excel at organizing people for protests in the streets. And ACLU is an actual union, but I don't think they are particularly interested in the copyright issue.

kspaans 11y ago
The EFF is a lobbying group, just like any that would work for oil&gas, tobacco, or a telephone company.
- hardlianotion 11y ago
  And less well resourced.

Aissen 11y ago

Also, in some countries, calls for boycott are illegal.

newjersey 11y ago
I was going to say bullshit but you're right. Even Israel does this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_Prevention_of_Damage_to_State_of_Israel_through_Boycott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_Prevention_of_Damage_t... FTA: > Law for Prevention of Damage to State of Israel through Boycott (Hebrew: חוק למניעת פגיעה במדינת ישראל באמצעות חרם, התשע"א-2011), also commonly known as the Boycott law, is an Israeli Anti-boycott law that was approved in the Knesset on 11 July 2011. The law has been widely criticised. I strongly believe that Israel has a right to exist but laws like these do not give me hope for the Israeli people if they are complacent or (worse) supportive of these repressive laws.
- anonbanker 11y ago
  > I strongly believe that Israel has a right to exist but I don't get how questioning fascism becomes a question over a state's legitimacy. Could you imagine if someone said that the USAPATRIOT Act brought into question the USA's right to exist?
  - newjersey 11y ago
    Wow, I didn't even think about it as I wrote it. I think I wrote it because I needed to remind myself. I guess somehow I have put it in my head that people who oppose anything that the government of Israel does is likely an enemy of Israel. You're right. Reality is not so black and white. I know I criticized George W Bush right here in the US about the "either you're with us or you're against us" dichotomy. Kind of makes me a hypocrite when I don't see my own bias on the same topic when it comes to Israel. It is absolutely possible to (and indeed we should encourage people to) speak up against the bad actions and policies of the government of Israel. Doing so does not make us enemies of Israel. This is so very simple and logical in any other context but I have to stop and think when it comes to this issue. I think I was trying to convince myself that I am not doing or saying anything that could hurt. Perhaps by reaffirming my support for the right to exist hurts rather than helps the situation. I didn't think of that. I feel pretty stupid.

vijayr 11y ago

How will this work practically? Let's say we want to try this just for a month. Make a list of such companies and try not to spend our money with them. First of all, making this list itself isn't that simple, because of confusing and ever changing murky corporate structures (apps like buycott [1] can help here). In many industries, a handful of players control the entire market - just 3 or 4 companies control meat supply in the US, Monsanto controls a huge portion of seeds and so on. In the end we'll probably end up with a list of couple of dozen companies in our "bad list" and our options to shop (even the basic necessities) will be severely limited. Not saying it can't be done, it is just difficult to do it without some serious collective effort. It is definitely a good exercise to brainstorm ideas though, we gotta start somewhere. http://buycott.com/ http://buycott.com/

noja 11y ago
You buy from the least bad one. Then the others become less bad, and you switch to them. And so on.
- anonbanker 11y ago
  isn't that what we already do? I mean, I switched from Godaddy to Namecheap, Dropbox to Spideroak, etc. How is this not how things are done today?
  - Veratyr 11y ago
    SpiderOak isn't "better" than DropBox. It supports privacy but the service and support is utterly appalling. I was getting upload speeds on the order of kilobytes per second on a gigabit fiber connection while my CPU was idling. Filed a support request and they bumbled around a bit and then ceased responding to me entirely until I opened another ticket and demanded a refund. It took 5 __months__ to get to this point, with them not responding for weeks at a time. I'd recommend something like https://www.syncany.org/ https://www.syncany.org/ over SpiderOak any day.
    - lfam 11y ago

JustSomeNobody 11y ago

Well, if we could break Disney while letting lawmakers know it's not because we want Porno Mickey, but because that little freak of nature is anal raping our constitution, maybe that would do it.

anonbanker 11y ago
You're being downvoted for extreme comparisons, but I can bet none of the downvoters has even heard of, let alone read, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[0]. I've read it, and used similar wording as parent in my reaction. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act
- JustSomeNobody 11y ago
  Well, I could have been a little more subtle in my choice of words. But it's really frustrating to know that one simple cartoon character is doing so much damage. Edit: Actually, I think it's not so much my choice of words, but that this is HN and there's plenty of people here who are interested in copyright lasting infinity less one day.
  - anonbanker 11y ago
    I can't prove you wrong, much as I'd like to.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>The last bastion of hope is a "union of the consumers", where we collectively punish and break companies that we collectively see as dangerous to the future of our world. You aren't likely to ever get the majority on board just for the sake of a boycott. But if you make it so the products are completely free, safe to use, easy to obtain, and publicly supported as moral even if technically illegal, you can get the public to engage in a boycott of at least electronic media or media easily made electronic.

intopieces 11y ago

>breaking their rules won't help us break their will. It seems to have worked for movies and music. We broke the rules and shared the product, they entered the online market and started offering a product people wanted, people bought it. I'm not interested at all in playing by their rules. I'm interested in preserving access to our cultural artifacts. Keeping work from the people after the death of the author is pure greed and we shouldn't stand for it.