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Huh. For one that goes down, ten will go up. Say what you want about copyright infringement, but too many people think that either it's OK to download or that t
by ROFISH 19y ago
Huh. For one that goes down, ten will go up. Say what you want about copyright infringement, but too many people think that either it's OK to download or that they won't get caught. There's too big of a 'market' for illegal downloads.
- xlnt 19y agoThe majority of downloads are things people would not have otherwise bought, for whatever reason. In those cases, no one is being hurt, and someone is being helped. The reason torrent sites keep popping up is the vast amount of good they do.
- tptacek 19y agoI think the exact same thing about GPL software. When I secretly embed it in my products, I'm using code that nobody was going to make money on anyways. But by putting a shiny UI on top of it, I can! Nobody loses, and I win.
- xlnt 19y agoi see this is a comparison of some kind, but it's not very clear. in the movie downloading case, who is being hurt when they wouldn't have bought it anyway? or if no one, why is it bad?
- tptacek 19y agoIn the GPL case, who is being hurt, when the (a) the GPL violator wouldn't have contributed to the project anyways, and (b) the GPL provider wouldn't have collected any money? It's not a vague comparison; it's a cliche, about copyvio apologists tending to want it both ways.
- xlnt 19y agomaybe the competition who followed the law. maybe no one. i'm not sure. regardless of my opinion of who is hurt in the GPL case, i do have one in the movie downloading case. you seem to too, but you still won't say who is being hurt.
- tptacek 19y agoI don't accept your premise that the content downloaded on Torrent networks would otherwise not be paid for. So I'm going to go with, "the producers of content are hurt".
- xlnt 19y agoi said when it wouldn't be paid for anyway, then it doesn't hurt anyone. this is obviously common because people download more stuff than they could afford.
- tptacek 19y agoSo your argument is, even though a significant fraction of the market acquires a movie for free (the "vast good" the torrent networks do, in your view), the downloads don't depress the market value of the movie. In other words, when supply goes to "infinite", demand is unaffected. Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
- xlnt 19y agoYour ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. you still haven't answered the question and now you're sarcastically insulting me. that's called trolling.
- tptacek 19y agoYou haven't asked a question since I answered your last specious one [1], but if you do, you can expect a response in the same tone. [1] Specious point: because we cannot pinpoint the parties harmed by our unauthorized use of other people's content, we should assume, until proven otherwise, that any such use is harmless. So, because you can't reason through who is harmed by GPL copyvio (hint: the developer and the community), by your logic, we should stop enforcing the GPL.
- tptacek 19y agoThe entire point of copyright is to prevent freeloading; see Posner. Without protection, a rational market bids the price of content down to its marginal cost, which is zero. In a market that prices content at zero, no content is created. Freeloaders hurt everyone. The GPL case and the movie case are identical. The same argument can be made for both that a single marginal case of infringement imposes negligable costs.