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That's not what positive/negative right means, but OK. I doubt that many people would agree that theft is bad because someone is on your land. Theft is bad beca

by jules 16y ago

That's not what positive/negative right means, but OK. I doubt that many people would agree that theft is bad because someone is on your land. Theft is bad because someone is taking something away from you, and you'd otherwise be able to use the thing, and now you have to buy or make a new one. If I dropped my bag on the street and somebody takes it that's still theft, and the reason why it's bad is because I want to have that bag, not because I don't like it when somebody touches my bag. If you put a crack of my software online I effectively don't own that software anymore, because I can't use it anymore in the way I was (selling it). So perhaps it's more similar to destruction of property. You could say that I shouldn't have expected to be able to sell the software in the first place, but that's not true because copyright law gives me that right. Whether you think that copyright law should be removed/changed or not, while the law is still in place making a crack is effectively the same as destroying my property.

_delirium 16y ago
I don't follow the last part of your post. Rights granted by the government are not automatically all property rights. This is infringing on copyright, an artificial monopoly granted by the government to encourage social progress. I agree that's illegal, but it's not removing any items from your possession; it's circumventing the government's attempt to give you a monopoly in duplication, which harms your business prospects, but does not damage any items in your possession. For example, you can still use any software you have. I mean, if reducing something's value by making it harder to sell is equivalent to destruction of property, then any competition is destruction of property. If I open a bakery next to yours, I'm damaging your bakery. But I think calling it theft or destruction of property would be absurd, even if I broke the law in opening my bakery. If my bakery failed to get the proper permits, or violated zoning laws, I'm competing with you illegally, and might be guilty of some sort of illegal business practices. But I'm not guilty of robbing your bakery in the same way I would be if I smashed in your front window and stole your oven. That's something rather different.
- jules 16y ago
  I did not say that it is the same as destruction of property. I said that it is an illegal activity that has the same effect on my life as destruction of property. I'm saying this because some people seem to think that it is ethical to pirate software, or at least nowhere near as bad as destroying property. There is also a difference in degree in opening a bakery without permits. This doesn't nearly give you as much of an "advantage" as a pirate giving it away for free. I can't think of anything that would give you a comparable advantage with physical goods.
kiba 16y ago
Your copies of said software aren't destroyed. Your "property right" is more akin to owning all copies of software. Instead, piracy protect your marketshare against people who offer their "property" for free. GIMP can't effectively win against photoshop + pirated photoshop. They will have an easier time to win if people actually respect copyright. To the extent that it is my interest to encourage other people to go after pirates, that is in my interest. However, it is not in my interest to develop methods to prevent people from copying my software, nor is it in my interest to use the court to go after these pirates. What I would do is annihilate the possibility of pirates existing by not making my goods artificially scarce and work on the problem space of making money in the assumption of infinitely copied software. I also win by making it easier for me to compete with similar products because their marketing capacity is reduced through the reduction and destruction of illegal distribution channel for their products. That is my theory of copyright competition.
- jules 16y ago
  No, my property right is not like owning all copies of the software. It's like owning the exclusive right to give a copy of it to someone else. Saying that piracy protects me against open source software is silly. Suppose that X people are buying my software, Y are pirating it and Z are using an open source alternative. Now magically all Y people decide they don't want to pirate anymore. That probably means that some of them are going to go with the open source software and some of them are going to pay. Yes, fewer people are using my software, but I'm getting more money so who cares? Pirating software is very similar to not respecting open source licenses, for example closing down a modification of GPL'ed code. Why? Because when you put a GPL license on software you are saying "you can have this software but you have to do something I want in return: if you make a modification you have to make that open source so I and others can use it (among other things)". When I charge for software I'm saying "you can have this software but you have to do something I want in return: pay me $x money". In the first case you are asking people to `pay you back` in work, in the second case you are asking people to `pay you back` with money. > work on the problem space of making money in the assumption of infinitely copied software Yeah, I'd like to work on solving nuclear fission too. This is just not feasible with certain kinds of software.

by jules 16y ago

_delirium 16y ago

I don't follow the last part of your post. Rights granted by the government are not automatically all property rights. This is infringing on copyright, an artificial monopoly granted by the government to encourage social progress. I agree that's illegal, but it's not removing any items from your possession; it's circumventing the government's attempt to give you a monopoly in duplication, which harms your business prospects, but does not damage any items in your possession. For example, you can still use any software you have. I mean, if reducing something's value by making it harder to sell is equivalent to destruction of property, then any competition is destruction of property. If I open a bakery next to yours, I'm damaging your bakery. But I think calling it theft or destruction of property would be absurd, even if I broke the law in opening my bakery. If my bakery failed to get the proper permits, or violated zoning laws, I'm competing with you illegally, and might be guilty of some sort of illegal business practices. But I'm not guilty of robbing your bakery in the same way I would be if I smashed in your front window and stole your oven. That's something rather different.

jules 16y ago
I did not say that it is the same as destruction of property. I said that it is an illegal activity that has the same effect on my life as destruction of property. I'm saying this because some people seem to think that it is ethical to pirate software, or at least nowhere near as bad as destroying property. There is also a difference in degree in opening a bakery without permits. This doesn't nearly give you as much of an "advantage" as a pirate giving it away for free. I can't think of anything that would give you a comparable advantage with physical goods.

kiba 16y ago

Your copies of said software aren't destroyed. Your "property right" is more akin to owning all copies of software. Instead, piracy protect your marketshare against people who offer their "property" for free. GIMP can't effectively win against photoshop + pirated photoshop. They will have an easier time to win if people actually respect copyright. To the extent that it is my interest to encourage other people to go after pirates, that is in my interest. However, it is not in my interest to develop methods to prevent people from copying my software, nor is it in my interest to use the court to go after these pirates. What I would do is annihilate the possibility of pirates existing by not making my goods artificially scarce and work on the problem space of making money in the assumption of infinitely copied software. I also win by making it easier for me to compete with similar products because their marketing capacity is reduced through the reduction and destruction of illegal distribution channel for their products. That is my theory of copyright competition.

jules 16y ago
No, my property right is not like owning all copies of the software. It's like owning the exclusive right to give a copy of it to someone else. Saying that piracy protects me against open source software is silly. Suppose that X people are buying my software, Y are pirating it and Z are using an open source alternative. Now magically all Y people decide they don't want to pirate anymore. That probably means that some of them are going to go with the open source software and some of them are going to pay. Yes, fewer people are using my software, but I'm getting more money so who cares? Pirating software is very similar to not respecting open source licenses, for example closing down a modification of GPL'ed code. Why? Because when you put a GPL license on software you are saying "you can have this software but you have to do something I want in return: if you make a modification you have to make that open source so I and others can use it (among other things)". When I charge for software I'm saying "you can have this software but you have to do something I want in return: pay me $x money". In the first case you are asking people to `pay you back` in work, in the second case you are asking people to `pay you back` with money. > work on the problem space of making money in the assumption of infinitely copied software Yeah, I'd like to work on solving nuclear fission too. This is just not feasible with certain kinds of software.