6 ms·

Look, the "piracy community" is made up of people with different motivations for why they do what they do. For some of them it's an ego satisfying game. For oth

Look, the "piracy community" is made up of people with different motivations for why they do what they do. For some of them it's an ego satisfying game. For others, it's something else. So, I would rather look at them as decent human beings making a mistake. It just makes it so much easier to deal with anyone. Sometimes, being nice to people and holding them to a higher standard works. Irrespective of who they are, because genuine respect and decency combined with good humor is something so rare that it's a prized commodity.

kiba 16y ago
They did not make an ethical mistake. Instead, they merely show what is inevitable. There are holes in the maps of hollywood that people ignored to their own perils. They could have launch business model experiment that doesn't risk much of anything. They could have adapted. They could find the truth as to what allow them to thrive. Even as a libertarian, I saw no wrong-doing in what pirates did. They copied, but did not steal. Even if they deprived somebody of their income, it is not sufficient to be a ethical violation of some sort. If it was, than whole disruptive business would be unethical. Chinese workers would be condemned for taking somebody's job.
- jules 16y ago
  That's a ridiculous comparison. If the pirates were building the software instead of cracking it and selling it for cheaper that would be comparable. Pirates depend on a honest person doing the hard work for them. Chinese workers do not.
  - indrax 16y ago
    Just because work you do benefits another does not entitle you to that value. Yes pirates cannot pirate what does not exist. That just means the market needs to find a way to pay content creation, instead of content copying.
    - jules 16y ago
      If I create software I am entitled to sell it. People are not entitled to get it for free if I want them to pay me for it. Yes, it costs me nothing if they pirate it. But can I steal a car from a factory if I pay them the marginal cost of producing it? Of course not. Paying for content creation is a fantasy in software. Name any big consumer application that could have been developed that way with developers getting paid about the same as they would by selling it (i.e. about the same as the value they provide).
      - _delirium 16y ago
        > But can I steal a car from a factory if I pay them the marginal cost of producing it? If you can find a way to do so without entering the factory, or removing any of the factory's contents, then sure. The traditional law of theft is a purely negative right to not have your property removed from your possession, not any sort of positive right.
        jules 16y ago
        There are two issues here: 1. The law-technical issue. I suppose we agree that piracy is illegal. That there are different laws for the two things is not very interesting in my opinion. 2. The ethical issue. Do you agree that the end results for the factory and for the developer, namely reduced income, are the same?
        _delirium 16y ago
        On the 2nd one, reduced income isn't very interesting to me, since I don't believe there's any ethical right to make income from things in the first place. Traditional views on theft I think are justified by a negative right to not have the security of one's person and possessions violated, e.g. to be free from assault, burglary, etc. So with traditional theft, I don't see the wrong being that the thief got something for free, but that the thief removed from me something that I rightfully ought to still have. That doesn't necessarily mean copyright isn't justified: one can argue for a positive right to control distribution and reproductions of one's intellectual productions. But I think it has to be argued for on completely different ethical grounds from the traditional ones used to justify theft being banned, because someone copying a book in their own home, on their own photocopier, isn't a violation of security of one's person/property in the same sense that assault or theft are. The main reasonable grounds I can think of are a good-of-society kind of argument: that the government creating a new positive right, the "copy right", is good for society, because it encourages the production of things that society wishes to encourage the production of, by providing a mechanism to reward creators with income.

kiba 16y ago

They did not make an ethical mistake. Instead, they merely show what is inevitable. There are holes in the maps of hollywood that people ignored to their own perils. They could have launch business model experiment that doesn't risk much of anything. They could have adapted. They could find the truth as to what allow them to thrive. Even as a libertarian, I saw no wrong-doing in what pirates did. They copied, but did not steal. Even if they deprived somebody of their income, it is not sufficient to be a ethical violation of some sort. If it was, than whole disruptive business would be unethical. Chinese workers would be condemned for taking somebody's job.

jules 16y ago
That's a ridiculous comparison. If the pirates were building the software instead of cracking it and selling it for cheaper that would be comparable. Pirates depend on a honest person doing the hard work for them. Chinese workers do not.
- indrax 16y ago
  Just because work you do benefits another does not entitle you to that value. Yes pirates cannot pirate what does not exist. That just means the market needs to find a way to pay content creation, instead of content copying.
  - jules 16y ago
    If I create software I am entitled to sell it. People are not entitled to get it for free if I want them to pay me for it. Yes, it costs me nothing if they pirate it. But can I steal a car from a factory if I pay them the marginal cost of producing it? Of course not. Paying for content creation is a fantasy in software. Name any big consumer application that could have been developed that way with developers getting paid about the same as they would by selling it (i.e. about the same as the value they provide).
    - _delirium 16y ago
      > But can I steal a car from a factory if I pay them the marginal cost of producing it? If you can find a way to do so without entering the factory, or removing any of the factory's contents, then sure. The traditional law of theft is a purely negative right to not have your property removed from your possession, not any sort of positive right.
      - jules 16y ago
        There are two issues here: 1. The law-technical issue. I suppose we agree that piracy is illegal. That there are different laws for the two things is not very interesting in my opinion. 2. The ethical issue. Do you agree that the end results for the factory and for the developer, namely reduced income, are the same?
        _delirium 16y ago
        On the 2nd one, reduced income isn't very interesting to me, since I don't believe there's any ethical right to make income from things in the first place. Traditional views on theft I think are justified by a negative right to not have the security of one's person and possessions violated, e.g. to be free from assault, burglary, etc. So with traditional theft, I don't see the wrong being that the thief got something for free, but that the thief removed from me something that I rightfully ought to still have. That doesn't necessarily mean copyright isn't justified: one can argue for a positive right to control distribution and reproductions of one's intellectual productions. But I think it has to be argued for on completely different ethical grounds from the traditional ones used to justify theft being banned, because someone copying a book in their own home, on their own photocopier, isn't a violation of security of one's person/property in the same sense that assault or theft are. The main reasonable grounds I can think of are a good-of-society kind of argument: that the government creating a new positive right, the "copy right", is good for society, because it encourages the production of things that society wishes to encourage the production of, by providing a mechanism to reward creators with income.