5 ms·

You've gone through significant effort to PAY for content because you enjoy it and respect its creators, yet you are nevertheless rebuffed. They don't want your

by m_fayer 11y ago

You've gone through significant effort to PAY for content because you enjoy it and respect its creators, yet you are nevertheless rebuffed. They don't want your money, simply because of where you live (nothing personal). You can now either steal that show or abstain - oh and that pang of bewildered insult that you feel, you're not entitled to it, the law is the law. Somehow I'm having a bit of difficulty empathizing with the law here.

fapjacks 11y ago
I don't know if you perhaps have an extremely diplomatic outlook, or if it's HN's new negativity rules, or maybe you're just British, but I'm chuckling at your "having a bit of difficulty empathizing" quote here. I think you can go ahead and say that the law is broken and stupid.
bmelton 11y ago
FWIW, I freely agree that the laws are largely stupid in relation to the issue at hand. My argument is not "because it's illegal". My argument is that the something in question doesn't belong to me, and hence, I have no entitlement to it. Pardon the repetition, as I already stated this elsewhere, but if you had a really juicy secret that you wouldn't give to me, I wouldn't take that either, even knowing full well that if I take your secret, you still have the secret. I respect the rights of others to do whatever they wish with their things, whether those things are property, digital goods, or secrets. If they want me to have it, they'll make it available to me. Until they do, then I have no entitlement.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I don't quite follow. The law is, as you say, stupid and makes no sense. You are saying that you are breaking the law in regards to property though, so don't do it. So your argument is "because it's illegal". Incidentally, in many countries of the world - it's not illegal to bypass geoblocking.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
    Is it illegal anywhere? Wouldn't buying DVDs and the appropriate DVD player from a different region and importing them also qualify as evading geoblocking? Is that illegal in some countries?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Personally I disagree with your view on the state of digital content. First of all, I think that this level of control over released information is something a person should not be entitled to. Not in principle, on the fundamental-rights level. If you created something and gave it away, you should lose control over it, period. This is the only way society can develop itself - it's how new art is created ("every artist copies"), it's how science is being made ("standing on the shoulders of giants"). Secondly, let me explore your example of telling a secret. If you tell a secret to someone, and then someone goes behind your back and tells the secret to me, then your gripe is not with me - it's with the person you told the secret to. Similarly with piracy, I'm not downloading the content from your servers. Someone else is offering it to me. It's not my duty to ask where did he get that information from. Please, if you must, go after that someone else. Now I understand the need to control some of this behavior in order to make it easier for people to pay for their food by creating information. But let's be clear about it - as a society, we're doing it as a favor to the creator. He's not entitled to copy rights, it's a gift that's meant to encourage people to spend their time creating instead of earning money in another way. It's a side effect of scarcity economy. In a world where one doesn't have to pay for basic living expenses, there's little to no reason to have such control on information copying. If you created it and gave it away, it's no longer yours. Now so that we've established (just assume it even if you disagree) that the whole IP thing is just a side effect of our economy, it follows that: - one should not be trying to make a moral issue out of it, beyond making sure the content creator isn't completely screwed - but that's because of basic human decency - like with all other negative side effects of economy, we need to fix it Which means, it's the IP, not piracy, needs to go away.

by m_fayer 11y ago

fapjacks 11y ago

I don't know if you perhaps have an extremely diplomatic outlook, or if it's HN's new negativity rules, or maybe you're just British, but I'm chuckling at your "having a bit of difficulty empathizing" quote here. I think you can go ahead and say that the law is broken and stupid.

bmelton 11y ago

FWIW, I freely agree that the laws are largely stupid in relation to the issue at hand. My argument is not "because it's illegal". My argument is that the something in question doesn't belong to me, and hence, I have no entitlement to it. Pardon the repetition, as I already stated this elsewhere, but if you had a really juicy secret that you wouldn't give to me, I wouldn't take that either, even knowing full well that if I take your secret, you still have the secret. I respect the rights of others to do whatever they wish with their things, whether those things are property, digital goods, or secrets. If they want me to have it, they'll make it available to me. Until they do, then I have no entitlement.

chris_wot 11y ago
I don't quite follow. The law is, as you say, stupid and makes no sense. You are saying that you are breaking the law in regards to property though, so don't do it. So your argument is "because it's illegal". Incidentally, in many countries of the world - it's not illegal to bypass geoblocking.
- 2muchcoffeeman 11y ago
  Is it illegal anywhere? Wouldn't buying DVDs and the appropriate DVD player from a different region and importing them also qualify as evading geoblocking? Is that illegal in some countries?
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Personally I disagree with your view on the state of digital content. First of all, I think that this level of control over released information is something a person should not be entitled to. Not in principle, on the fundamental-rights level. If you created something and gave it away, you should lose control over it, period. This is the only way society can develop itself - it's how new art is created ("every artist copies"), it's how science is being made ("standing on the shoulders of giants"). Secondly, let me explore your example of telling a secret. If you tell a secret to someone, and then someone goes behind your back and tells the secret to me, then your gripe is not with me - it's with the person you told the secret to. Similarly with piracy, I'm not downloading the content from your servers. Someone else is offering it to me. It's not my duty to ask where did he get that information from. Please, if you must, go after that someone else. Now I understand the need to control some of this behavior in order to make it easier for people to pay for their food by creating information. But let's be clear about it - as a society, we're doing it as a favor to the creator. He's not entitled to copy rights, it's a gift that's meant to encourage people to spend their time creating instead of earning money in another way. It's a side effect of scarcity economy. In a world where one doesn't have to pay for basic living expenses, there's little to no reason to have such control on information copying. If you created it and gave it away, it's no longer yours. Now so that we've established (just assume it even if you disagree) that the whole IP thing is just a side effect of our economy, it follows that: - one should not be trying to make a moral issue out of it, beyond making sure the content creator isn't completely screwed - but that's because of basic human decency - like with all other negative side effects of economy, we need to fix it Which means, it's the IP, not piracy, needs to go away.