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> What about "the good of the many"? That's like saying that robbing Bill Gates and distributing the money to millions of poor people is morally good because i
by FooBarWidget 10y ago
> What about "the good of the many"?
That's like saying that robbing Bill Gates and distributing the money to millions of poor people is morally good because it's good for many people.
- Dylan16807 10y agoThat degrades property rights, so it's bad for the many. Unless you systematically take most of the money away from billionaires, which could be totally justified if society wanted to enact such a tax. In the case of 20 year old source code, there's not really an important norm to uphold.
- braveo 10y agoWait, so let me get this straight. Your reasoning for that is "it degrades property rights", but you're for publicly releasing Blizzards property for "the good of the many"? You want the source to be available and you're trying to back into it with some sort of moralistic argument instead of just admitting that you want the work to be available but have no real basis for it outside of personal preference. Because that's what happens when you try and make a rational argument for why you just want something. You get ridiculous arguments like "it's not ok in this case because property rights, but it's ok in this other case despite property rights".
- Dylan16807 10y agoIf you look at the other posts I made, it should be more clear. There are different kinds of property rights. The property rights for the money you have in your bank account are important. (But if we wanted to add a rule-based tax across everyone that would be okay.) The intellectual property rights for recently-made things are important. The intellectual property rights for 20 year old code are not at all important. It's okay if we file off that specific corner of the law.
- braveo 10y agoand the property rights to my house are unimportant because the house is 20+ years old. oh wait.... something is wrong with that thought process, but I'll let you split another hair in your attempt at a meaningful dichotomy.
- jhasse 10y agoIf I steal your house, that means that you lost it. The same isn't true for the code, as Blizzard would still also have it (along with the right to distribute binary copies of it, which is a million times more valuable).
- braveo 10y agothis distinction does not matter, if you steal my code and release it I can sue for damages exactly the way I would if you were to somehow steal my house.
- jhasse 10y agoWhat would be the damages for Blizzard if he had released the code?
- jhasse 10y agoWhat would be the damages for Blizzard if he had released the code?
- tripzilch 10y agoare you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human?? because I can make up constructs all day that suffered more damages either way.
- jhasse 10y ago> are you conflating ethics and law again, or do you honestly believe that a corporation, a legal construct, has moral rights like a human?? No.
- tripzilch 10y ago> Your reasoning for that is "it degrades property rights", but you're for publicly releasing Blizzards property for "the good of the many"? just the information on the cd, obviously. degradation of property rights has nothing to do with copyrights. and suddenly it's very clear, if the round bit of plastic was very valuable (maybe it's gold, maybe it's the only copy), then yeah obviously you're doing right if you give it back. after you made a copy.
- casiotone 10y agoI'm sure you'll be surprised to find that many people do think that would be morally good.
- jhasse 10y agoWell taxes and social welfare are distributing the money of the rich to millions of poor people.