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>Do you understand why the government prints money during a recession? Yes I do! Do you? The term is called quantitative easing and it is a mechanism of last r

>Do you understand why the government prints money during a recession? Yes I do! Do you? The term is called quantitative easing and it is a mechanism of last resort! Amazing! And totally irrelevant to the debate! Speaking of irrelevancy, do you know what the government usually does during a recession before they resort to actually printing money? If you do you win! >So you're really just making the spurious claim that copying is stealing, using a detour through currency forgery to disguise the nature of your claim. No I'm not! No disguises. I am illustrating an isomorphism. Copying is stealing and the concept is EXACTLY the same as printing money.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago
> Yes I do! Do you? The term is called quantitative easing and it is a mechanism of last resort! Amazing! And totally irrelevant to the debate! So you understand how quantitative easing stimulates the economy but you don't see the analogy to creating more copies of information goods? > Speaking of irrelevancy, do you know what the government usually does during a recession before they resort to actually printing money? If you do you win! They... lower taxes and increase/maintain government spending. Which you can't do at the same time as each other without either borrowing or creating money, and government borrowing money increases interest rates, hence the printing. > No I'm not! No disguises. I am illustrating an isomorphism. Copying is stealing and the concept is EXACTLY the same as printing money. Then just claim copying is stealing directly so people can better understand why you're wrong. The analogy is unnecessary and it doesn't even hold in that context. If you use forged currency to "buy" a loaf of bread, the store is out one loaf of bread. If you copy some information the store's balance sheet is unchanged. The two are not equivalent and trying to ignore the difference is exactly what leads to the crazy conclusions the law makes about the calculation of damages for copyright infringement. Notice that this is not saying that copyright infringement causes no damages. It is merely saying that the damages are not equal to the cost of the product, unlike the situation of an actual theft. I'm not sure you would even like a direct analogy to theft. A store buys a loaf of bread for $1 and aims to sells it for $1.50 (or whatever). If you steal it, the loss they take on their books is their cost, not the retail price. Calculating damages that way wouldn't be very favorable to copyright holders.
- crimsonalucard 11y ago
  >So you understand how quantitative easing stimulates the economy but you don't see the analogy to creating more copies of information goods? Quantitative easing is a very dangerous last resort action and it's done in a very controlled way. It is also RARELY executed because printing money is really bad. Look up runaway inflation in argentina for more information. If executed successfully QE will come with an inflationary cost that affects anyone who owns money in the united states. I don't see the analogy between QE and piracy because no such analogy exists, you don't jump start a business by pirating it's software, never seen it happen. Although, I do see the analogy between piracy and counterfeiting money. >They... lower taxes and increase/maintain government spending. Which you can't do at the same time as each other without either borrowing or creating money, and government borrowing money increases interest rates, hence the printing. Sure, but that hardly helps. The main tool for easing recessions is decreasing the federal funds rate aka "interest rates." You lose! >Then just claim copying is stealing directly so people can better understand why you're wrong. The analogy is unnecessary and it doesn't even hold in that context. Ha! The analogy is there to HELP YOU understand why I'm right and why you're wrong about me being wrong. It holds in context of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand applies to all products from software to food to paper money. >If you use forged currency to "buy" a loaf of bread, the store is out one loaf of bread. If you copy some information the store's balance sheet is unchanged. The two are not equivalent and trying to ignore the difference is exactly what leads to the crazy conclusions the law makes about the calculation of damages for copyright infringement. What if I make a billion copies of music and sell it for cash? Then I use the cash to buy a loaf of bread from the store? Would the store be out one loaf of bread? Did the balance sheet change? I didn't do any work to earn that loaf of bread, so who got shafted in this transaction? the software vendor or the bread maker or someone else? Philosophical question. >It is merely saying that the damages are not equal to the retail price of the copy So? I never said anything about this topic. It's still theft regardless if the value of the theft is equivalent to the retail price.
  - AnthonyMouse 11y ago
    > If executed successfully QE will come with an inflationary cost that affects anyone who owns money in the united states. Macroeconomic policy is chaos theory. You can make up all these models that say it's going to cause inflation, and then people use the extra money to pay down debts which cancels the inflation (because debt creates money and paying debt destroys money). If they then use some of the money they would otherwise have paid in interest on the debt to pay down even more principal then you've printed money and caused deflation. Butterfly = hurricane. > I don't see the analogy between QE and piracy because no such analogy exists, you don't jump start a business by pirating it's software, never seen it happen. You've never seen Adobe or Microsoft? Students pirate the software and then businesses have to buy it because it's what the graduates know how to use. Network effects. Mindshare. Economies of scale. Developers developers developers. Support contracts. The first hit is free. And that's not even counting the economy as a whole. It's pretty obvious how giving someone an expensive piece of software when they couldn't otherwise afford it will benefit them. And if they genuinely can't afford it then it isn't a lost sale. So if the net consequence is positive to the pirate and neutral to the vendor then, regardless of the ethical implications, the net economic effect is positive. > Sure, but that hardly helps. The main tool for easing recessions is decreasing the federal funds rate aka "interest rates." You lose! I see what you're misunderstanding. Lowering interest rates is the same thing as printing money. In order to cause interest rates to go down, The Fed has to put money into the economy. QE is what they call it when the federal funds rate is effectively zero but they still want to add more money to the economy, so they have to pour it in from a different spigot. It's fundamentally the same thing as lowering interest rates, people just notice it more because they don't do it as often. > Ha! The analogy is there to HELP YOU understand why I'm right and why you're wrong about me being wrong. It holds in context of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand applies to all products from software to food to paper money. The law of supply and demand is broken in monopoly markets. The price is whatever the monopoly says it is. The Fed sets the interest rate. But the real reason the analogy fails is that counterfeiting currency creates no value, so when you exchange counterfeit currency for something of value, the thing you take away from the seller has value and the thing you give does not. It has cost society something to give you that thing. The thing you're "stealing" when you counterfeit currency isn't the money, it's what the money buys. (This is perhaps easier to understand when you forge a gift certificate rather than currency.) But when you make a copy of information, "he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." You aren't taking anything away from society, you're only gaining something for yourself. It's the difference between stealing a loaf of bread and causing the baker to lose a potential sale because you bake your own bread using his recipe. > What if I make a billion copies of music and sell it for cash? Then I use the cash to buy a loaf of bread from the store? Would the store be out one loaf of bread? Did the balance sheet change? I didn't do any work to earn that loaf of bread, so who got shafted in this transaction? the software vendor or the bread maker or someone else? Philosophical question. The whole deal with the baker is clearly irrelevant in that case because that transaction is real currency for real goods. The people most clearly being shafted are the customers because they're paying money for pirated goods (which they presumably think are legitimate). And then the software vendor is being shafted to the extent that any of those customers would otherwise have paid for the real version. > It's still theft regardless if the value of the theft is equivalent to the retail price. Theft is something people viscerally understand. Copyright infringement can be meaningfully distinguished from that thing. Cloning a thing is not the same as taking it. It's easy to fall into some meaningless etymological argument where nobody is right because words only mean what people understand them to mean. But if you're trying to have a discussion about copyright, calling it theft clouds the issue when the discussion inevitably turns to the characteristics of copyright that distinguish it from physical goods.

AnthonyMouse 11y ago

> Yes I do! Do you? The term is called quantitative easing and it is a mechanism of last resort! Amazing! And totally irrelevant to the debate! So you understand how quantitative easing stimulates the economy but you don't see the analogy to creating more copies of information goods? > Speaking of irrelevancy, do you know what the government usually does during a recession before they resort to actually printing money? If you do you win! They... lower taxes and increase/maintain government spending. Which you can't do at the same time as each other without either borrowing or creating money, and government borrowing money increases interest rates, hence the printing. > No I'm not! No disguises. I am illustrating an isomorphism. Copying is stealing and the concept is EXACTLY the same as printing money. Then just claim copying is stealing directly so people can better understand why you're wrong. The analogy is unnecessary and it doesn't even hold in that context. If you use forged currency to "buy" a loaf of bread, the store is out one loaf of bread. If you copy some information the store's balance sheet is unchanged. The two are not equivalent and trying to ignore the difference is exactly what leads to the crazy conclusions the law makes about the calculation of damages for copyright infringement. Notice that this is not saying that copyright infringement causes no damages. It is merely saying that the damages are not equal to the cost of the product, unlike the situation of an actual theft. I'm not sure you would even like a direct analogy to theft. A store buys a loaf of bread for $1 and aims to sells it for $1.50 (or whatever). If you steal it, the loss they take on their books is their cost, not the retail price. Calculating damages that way wouldn't be very favorable to copyright holders.

crimsonalucard 11y ago
>So you understand how quantitative easing stimulates the economy but you don't see the analogy to creating more copies of information goods? Quantitative easing is a very dangerous last resort action and it's done in a very controlled way. It is also RARELY executed because printing money is really bad. Look up runaway inflation in argentina for more information. If executed successfully QE will come with an inflationary cost that affects anyone who owns money in the united states. I don't see the analogy between QE and piracy because no such analogy exists, you don't jump start a business by pirating it's software, never seen it happen. Although, I do see the analogy between piracy and counterfeiting money. >They... lower taxes and increase/maintain government spending. Which you can't do at the same time as each other without either borrowing or creating money, and government borrowing money increases interest rates, hence the printing. Sure, but that hardly helps. The main tool for easing recessions is decreasing the federal funds rate aka "interest rates." You lose! >Then just claim copying is stealing directly so people can better understand why you're wrong. The analogy is unnecessary and it doesn't even hold in that context. Ha! The analogy is there to HELP YOU understand why I'm right and why you're wrong about me being wrong. It holds in context of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand applies to all products from software to food to paper money. >If you use forged currency to "buy" a loaf of bread, the store is out one loaf of bread. If you copy some information the store's balance sheet is unchanged. The two are not equivalent and trying to ignore the difference is exactly what leads to the crazy conclusions the law makes about the calculation of damages for copyright infringement. What if I make a billion copies of music and sell it for cash? Then I use the cash to buy a loaf of bread from the store? Would the store be out one loaf of bread? Did the balance sheet change? I didn't do any work to earn that loaf of bread, so who got shafted in this transaction? the software vendor or the bread maker or someone else? Philosophical question. >It is merely saying that the damages are not equal to the retail price of the copy So? I never said anything about this topic. It's still theft regardless if the value of the theft is equivalent to the retail price.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  > If executed successfully QE will come with an inflationary cost that affects anyone who owns money in the united states. Macroeconomic policy is chaos theory. You can make up all these models that say it's going to cause inflation, and then people use the extra money to pay down debts which cancels the inflation (because debt creates money and paying debt destroys money). If they then use some of the money they would otherwise have paid in interest on the debt to pay down even more principal then you've printed money and caused deflation. Butterfly = hurricane. > I don't see the analogy between QE and piracy because no such analogy exists, you don't jump start a business by pirating it's software, never seen it happen. You've never seen Adobe or Microsoft? Students pirate the software and then businesses have to buy it because it's what the graduates know how to use. Network effects. Mindshare. Economies of scale. Developers developers developers. Support contracts. The first hit is free. And that's not even counting the economy as a whole. It's pretty obvious how giving someone an expensive piece of software when they couldn't otherwise afford it will benefit them. And if they genuinely can't afford it then it isn't a lost sale. So if the net consequence is positive to the pirate and neutral to the vendor then, regardless of the ethical implications, the net economic effect is positive. > Sure, but that hardly helps. The main tool for easing recessions is decreasing the federal funds rate aka "interest rates." You lose! I see what you're misunderstanding. Lowering interest rates is the same thing as printing money. In order to cause interest rates to go down, The Fed has to put money into the economy. QE is what they call it when the federal funds rate is effectively zero but they still want to add more money to the economy, so they have to pour it in from a different spigot. It's fundamentally the same thing as lowering interest rates, people just notice it more because they don't do it as often. > Ha! The analogy is there to HELP YOU understand why I'm right and why you're wrong about me being wrong. It holds in context of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand applies to all products from software to food to paper money. The law of supply and demand is broken in monopoly markets. The price is whatever the monopoly says it is. The Fed sets the interest rate. But the real reason the analogy fails is that counterfeiting currency creates no value, so when you exchange counterfeit currency for something of value, the thing you take away from the seller has value and the thing you give does not. It has cost society something to give you that thing. The thing you're "stealing" when you counterfeit currency isn't the money, it's what the money buys. (This is perhaps easier to understand when you forge a gift certificate rather than currency.) But when you make a copy of information, "he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." You aren't taking anything away from society, you're only gaining something for yourself. It's the difference between stealing a loaf of bread and causing the baker to lose a potential sale because you bake your own bread using his recipe. > What if I make a billion copies of music and sell it for cash? Then I use the cash to buy a loaf of bread from the store? Would the store be out one loaf of bread? Did the balance sheet change? I didn't do any work to earn that loaf of bread, so who got shafted in this transaction? the software vendor or the bread maker or someone else? Philosophical question. The whole deal with the baker is clearly irrelevant in that case because that transaction is real currency for real goods. The people most clearly being shafted are the customers because they're paying money for pirated goods (which they presumably think are legitimate). And then the software vendor is being shafted to the extent that any of those customers would otherwise have paid for the real version. > It's still theft regardless if the value of the theft is equivalent to the retail price. Theft is something people viscerally understand. Copyright infringement can be meaningfully distinguished from that thing. Cloning a thing is not the same as taking it. It's easy to fall into some meaningless etymological argument where nobody is right because words only mean what people understand them to mean. But if you're trying to have a discussion about copyright, calling it theft clouds the issue when the discussion inevitably turns to the characteristics of copyright that distinguish it from physical goods.