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That's barbaric. That's why civil disobedience is the only adequate answer to the current overreach of copyright in the united states. It's up to us, technologi

That's barbaric. That's why civil disobedience is the only adequate answer to the current overreach of copyright in the united states. It's up to us, technologists, to create and disseminate tools to help out in the dismantlement of an absurd system that is obsolete in the digital age.

joesmo 11y ago
I agree. Civil disobedience is the only solution to such anti-intellectual crusades of greed. The only problem is that people that work on such tools will be persecuted (and prosecuted) even if those tools are completely legal (see the pirate bay, popcorn time, and anything related to bittorent). Still, better to risk trying than to bow down to greed.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  That's kind of the point of civil disobedience. You acknowledge that the penalty is worth standing up for your cause.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    No, I'm building legal software, not practicing civil disobedience. What others do with it shouldn't affect my freedom or life negatively. But it will.
- rangibaby 11y ago
  That is the cost of freedom.
- brooklyndude 11y ago
  Civil disobedience was a lot harder to do in 1776 then 2016. Marching in the street will probably have you bio-scanned, in a database, linked to your Metro Card. So Plan B?
coliveira 11y ago
Are you really upset about access to a book that you can find in any library? There are reasons to be upset about copyright, but this is just nonsense to me. If you really want to read this book so much, and for free, patronize your local library.
Nutmog 11y ago
Just to make sure, do you always vote for parties that are opposed to long copyright terms? If you were eligible to vote and didn't do this, then you have yourself to blame. Politicians are ultimately accountable to their voters and whatever laws you don't like are probably in place because most people either do like them or don't bother to check what they're voting for.
- vacri 11y ago
  In the US, the jurisdiction in the article, which party is that?
  - Nutmog 11y ago
    If you can't find one with a specific policy on that issue, then aren't there any parties aiming to reform the 2-party bias of the electoral system so that minority voices can be heard at all?
    - vacri 11y ago
      Well, in real terms, voting for a party that isn't democrat or republican in the US is a waste of time. The idea that eventually there'd be enough of a groundswell of support that another party would even become competitive? It just isn't going to happen with the way the US electoral system works. The Lib Dems in the UK have been fighting a similar fight for decades and still have little-to-no representation despite consistently getting 20%ish of the vote. And in any case of all the reasons to vote for a party that is going to govern everything, intellectual property law is not at the top of the list. It's certainly not going to be the issue to bring voters out in enough numbers to make the major parties sweat.
      - sago 11y ago
        > The Lib Dems in the UK have been fighting a similar fight for decades and still have little-to-no representation despite consistently getting 20%ish of the vote. FWIW: They were in the previous coalition government, so they got very good representation for their votes. Unfortunately their voters hated what they did, so their vote collapsed at the next election (and the party they were in government with grew in votes).
slg 11y ago
This logic is the reason why we have so many archaic laws surrounding the technology. Too often our community simply decides it is easier to ignore the law in question than trying to fight it and so we withdraw ourselves from the debate. It isn't our job as technologist to build tools to circumvent the law. It is our job as technologist to educate politicians and the greater population as a whole why these issues are important. Sure, civil disobedience can be a tool in that fight, but that alone isn't going to change anything.
- deciplex 11y ago
  If you think that education, or the lack thereof, of politicians anywhere is the reason for absurd copyright law across the entire globe, you really aren't paying attention. There is no argument clever enough or convincing enough to overpower the flood of money and bullshit that keeps copyright law the way it is. You may as well argue against the law of gravity. The only solution is to deprive the bad actors of the funds they need to keep the system corrupt, and since most people (rightly, in my opinion) can't accept simply abandoning large parts of their culture to that fight, the only option left is to make piracy widespread, easy, and safe.
  - tluyben2 11y ago
    The average person cannot comprehend the effects of what they do unless it is directly fed back and even then. Thinking macro is hard for the smartest 0.01%: the average Pam and Jim will not understand what happens when the game plays out. Some politicians are above that, most are not. Sounds elitist and maybe it is however I am not saying I am better than that I am saying politicians should be. If they are not and they are not, this battle is indeed lost and not only because of money but simply because someone didn't think long enough and their candy crush was not getting enough attention to keep them focused.
    - deciplex 11y ago
      In fact, if piracy really had the deleterious effects on culture and artistic expression that copyright advocates always claim it does, I suspect you'd see much more of a social taboo against piracy than exists now. I'm not one to usually rush to the defense of people reasoning with "their gut" but, in this case, I think most people know that the copyright regime is bullshit, and they act accordingly, even if they haven't given it as much thought as the average HN reader.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- themartorana 11y ago
  I respectfully disagree. Civil disobedience has been paramount in almost every civil rights matter since the US became a country. It's prohibition. It's Suffrage. It's Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. It's Snowden and Binney. It's every time the establishment overreach has extended to the breaking point, it's every time even the Supreme Court has needed checking. Not every justice is won by playing by the rules.
- prawn 11y ago
  Didn't Swartz himself protest copyright by breaking the law?
hansen 11y ago
It's on library genesis :)
mirimir 11y ago
I agree. Copyright is irreversibly wedged. The only workable course is to ignore it. As most people do, in practice, when they can get away with it. So the job for technologists is to make that easier.
- cookiecaper 11y ago
  There's a lot of danger in leaving a generally-ignored law on the books. If you make enemies in law enforcement, it makes it easy for them to imprison you. The fact that copyright law is so widely ignored today is proof that it's not socially tenable in the face of new technologies. Ideally, our law would be updated to match new technical innovations, but instead the scope is only getting extended so that it's easier to prosecute people who are using digital capabilities to do natural things. We need to seriously analyze the role of intellectual property in our culture. Why are so many of the world's most massive companies people who are exploiting IP/copyright? The margins are pretty high when all you have to do is order new prints of a DVD, for example. Is this really a fair trade, or might we be giving too much away?
quadrangle 11y ago
The clearest call for copyright civil disobedience: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/12/07/make-art-not-law-2/ http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/12/07/make-art-not-law-2/
sklogic 11y ago
Sometimes a demonstrative, grotesque civil obedience is even better.
- tajen 11y ago
  Let's get together with Wikipedia to mount a DMCA story to take down Wikipedia until the law is removed ;) ?
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
How about a server in a satellite, with a Tor feed of anything anybody wants to put up there? Out of reach of oversight etc.
njharman 11y ago
I'm very much against modern IP/Copyright. But calling that barbaric is absurd hyperbole. It casts people wanting copyright reform as fringe extremists. When when I explain how much copyrights actually cover, for how long, and the extreme penalties for violations most people can't believe it (many don't, it's too absurd and conflicts with their property and profits world view. similar to how you can't convince a climate denier with facts). But, if they do, they realize that MPAA, RIAA, et al are the fringe extremists.
- phlakaton 11y ago
  They're fringe extremists who are nevertheless the appointed representatives of vast numbers of artists, producers, and heavily-monied interests. We're a bunch of angry people. I have no problem with people expressing the outrage of the situation in strong language. (That being said, I too am an artist and sympathize with their plight. I wouldn't like some of you do away with copyright outright. But these laws as written are shackles and chains on our artists and culture as well.)
bitwize 11y ago
Hope you like federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. And the loathing and contempt of virtually all creative people everywhere. See the thing about life+70 is that it has made a few people very rich, so cultural creatives are going to oppose not only attempts to roll back life+70, but also any attempt to roll back anticircumvention laws. They're hoping that they'll be the next to win the superstar lottery, and on the off chance that they do, they don't want their jackpot cut down from what previous superstars have netted. Never mind that vanishingly few people ever win this lottery, or that life+70 benefits publishers far more than it does performers. In order for civil disobedience to actually work, there has to be popular support for the disobedience, so the cops and prosecutors don't feel like asshats for enforcing what looks to be an unjust and detested law. There just won't be that level of support for opposing copyright laws, not for at least your life + 70 years. So yeah, being sued or imprisoned is about the best you can hope for.

joesmo 11y ago

I agree. Civil disobedience is the only solution to such anti-intellectual crusades of greed. The only problem is that people that work on such tools will be persecuted (and prosecuted) even if those tools are completely legal (see the pirate bay, popcorn time, and anything related to bittorent). Still, better to risk trying than to bow down to greed.

moron4hire 11y ago
That's kind of the point of civil disobedience. You acknowledge that the penalty is worth standing up for your cause.
- joesmo 11y ago
  No, I'm building legal software, not practicing civil disobedience. What others do with it shouldn't affect my freedom or life negatively. But it will.
rangibaby 11y ago
That is the cost of freedom.
brooklyndude 11y ago
Civil disobedience was a lot harder to do in 1776 then 2016. Marching in the street will probably have you bio-scanned, in a database, linked to your Metro Card. So Plan B?

coliveira 11y ago

Are you really upset about access to a book that you can find in any library? There are reasons to be upset about copyright, but this is just nonsense to me. If you really want to read this book so much, and for free, patronize your local library.

Nutmog 11y ago

Just to make sure, do you always vote for parties that are opposed to long copyright terms? If you were eligible to vote and didn't do this, then you have yourself to blame. Politicians are ultimately accountable to their voters and whatever laws you don't like are probably in place because most people either do like them or don't bother to check what they're voting for.

vacri 11y ago
In the US, the jurisdiction in the article, which party is that?
- Nutmog 11y ago
  If you can't find one with a specific policy on that issue, then aren't there any parties aiming to reform the 2-party bias of the electoral system so that minority voices can be heard at all?
  - vacri 11y ago
    Well, in real terms, voting for a party that isn't democrat or republican in the US is a waste of time. The idea that eventually there'd be enough of a groundswell of support that another party would even become competitive? It just isn't going to happen with the way the US electoral system works. The Lib Dems in the UK have been fighting a similar fight for decades and still have little-to-no representation despite consistently getting 20%ish of the vote. And in any case of all the reasons to vote for a party that is going to govern everything, intellectual property law is not at the top of the list. It's certainly not going to be the issue to bring voters out in enough numbers to make the major parties sweat.
    - sago 11y ago
      > The Lib Dems in the UK have been fighting a similar fight for decades and still have little-to-no representation despite consistently getting 20%ish of the vote. FWIW: They were in the previous coalition government, so they got very good representation for their votes. Unfortunately their voters hated what they did, so their vote collapsed at the next election (and the party they were in government with grew in votes).

slg 11y ago

This logic is the reason why we have so many archaic laws surrounding the technology. Too often our community simply decides it is easier to ignore the law in question than trying to fight it and so we withdraw ourselves from the debate. It isn't our job as technologist to build tools to circumvent the law. It is our job as technologist to educate politicians and the greater population as a whole why these issues are important. Sure, civil disobedience can be a tool in that fight, but that alone isn't going to change anything.

deciplex 11y ago
If you think that education, or the lack thereof, of politicians anywhere is the reason for absurd copyright law across the entire globe, you really aren't paying attention. There is no argument clever enough or convincing enough to overpower the flood of money and bullshit that keeps copyright law the way it is. You may as well argue against the law of gravity. The only solution is to deprive the bad actors of the funds they need to keep the system corrupt, and since most people (rightly, in my opinion) can't accept simply abandoning large parts of their culture to that fight, the only option left is to make piracy widespread, easy, and safe.
- tluyben2 11y ago
  The average person cannot comprehend the effects of what they do unless it is directly fed back and even then. Thinking macro is hard for the smartest 0.01%: the average Pam and Jim will not understand what happens when the game plays out. Some politicians are above that, most are not. Sounds elitist and maybe it is however I am not saying I am better than that I am saying politicians should be. If they are not and they are not, this battle is indeed lost and not only because of money but simply because someone didn't think long enough and their candy crush was not getting enough attention to keep them focused.
  - deciplex 11y ago
    In fact, if piracy really had the deleterious effects on culture and artistic expression that copyright advocates always claim it does, I suspect you'd see much more of a social taboo against piracy than exists now. I'm not one to usually rush to the defense of people reasoning with "their gut" but, in this case, I think most people know that the copyright regime is bullshit, and they act accordingly, even if they haven't given it as much thought as the average HN reader.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

themartorana 11y ago
I respectfully disagree. Civil disobedience has been paramount in almost every civil rights matter since the US became a country. It's prohibition. It's Suffrage. It's Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. It's Snowden and Binney. It's every time the establishment overreach has extended to the breaking point, it's every time even the Supreme Court has needed checking. Not every justice is won by playing by the rules.
prawn 11y ago
Didn't Swartz himself protest copyright by breaking the law?

hansen 11y ago

It's on library genesis :)

mirimir 11y ago

I agree. Copyright is irreversibly wedged. The only workable course is to ignore it. As most people do, in practice, when they can get away with it. So the job for technologists is to make that easier.

cookiecaper 11y ago
There's a lot of danger in leaving a generally-ignored law on the books. If you make enemies in law enforcement, it makes it easy for them to imprison you. The fact that copyright law is so widely ignored today is proof that it's not socially tenable in the face of new technologies. Ideally, our law would be updated to match new technical innovations, but instead the scope is only getting extended so that it's easier to prosecute people who are using digital capabilities to do natural things. We need to seriously analyze the role of intellectual property in our culture. Why are so many of the world's most massive companies people who are exploiting IP/copyright? The margins are pretty high when all you have to do is order new prints of a DVD, for example. Is this really a fair trade, or might we be giving too much away?

quadrangle 11y ago

The clearest call for copyright civil disobedience: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/12/07/make-art-not-law-2/ http://blog.ninapaley.com/2013/12/07/make-art-not-law-2/

sklogic 11y ago

Sometimes a demonstrative, grotesque civil obedience is even better.

tajen 11y ago
Let's get together with Wikipedia to mount a DMCA story to take down Wikipedia until the law is removed ;) ?

JoeAltmaier 11y ago

How about a server in a satellite, with a Tor feed of anything anybody wants to put up there? Out of reach of oversight etc.

njharman 11y ago

I'm very much against modern IP/Copyright. But calling that barbaric is absurd hyperbole. It casts people wanting copyright reform as fringe extremists. When when I explain how much copyrights actually cover, for how long, and the extreme penalties for violations most people can't believe it (many don't, it's too absurd and conflicts with their property and profits world view. similar to how you can't convince a climate denier with facts). But, if they do, they realize that MPAA, RIAA, et al are the fringe extremists.

phlakaton 11y ago
They're fringe extremists who are nevertheless the appointed representatives of vast numbers of artists, producers, and heavily-monied interests. We're a bunch of angry people. I have no problem with people expressing the outrage of the situation in strong language. (That being said, I too am an artist and sympathize with their plight. I wouldn't like some of you do away with copyright outright. But these laws as written are shackles and chains on our artists and culture as well.)

bitwize 11y ago

Hope you like federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison. And the loathing and contempt of virtually all creative people everywhere. See the thing about life+70 is that it has made a few people very rich, so cultural creatives are going to oppose not only attempts to roll back life+70, but also any attempt to roll back anticircumvention laws. They're hoping that they'll be the next to win the superstar lottery, and on the off chance that they do, they don't want their jackpot cut down from what previous superstars have netted. Never mind that vanishingly few people ever win this lottery, or that life+70 benefits publishers far more than it does performers. In order for civil disobedience to actually work, there has to be popular support for the disobedience, so the cops and prosecutors don't feel like asshats for enforcing what looks to be an unjust and detested law. There just won't be that level of support for opposing copyright laws, not for at least your life + 70 years. So yeah, being sued or imprisoned is about the best you can hope for.