5 ms·

I think that humans have an inherent problem with seeing piracy as theft unless they are the victims. Theft in a traditional sense is almost always zero-sum, an

by WillyF 16y ago

I think that humans have an inherent problem with seeing piracy as theft unless they are the victims. Theft in a traditional sense is almost always zero-sum, and piracy isn't. We weren't really built to deal with this. The closest thing that I can think of is having someone sleep with your spouse—it's kind of like stealing, but it's not zero-sum. And it's not illegal. It also doesn't help that our intellectual property laws have a lot of inconsistencies. If I steal your ideas for a startup, that's ok unless you have patented technology. But if I make a copy of something that I own and share it with a friend, that's illegal. Up until now there had never been a way to take a material possession and duplicate it at essentially no cost. I think that we have a long way to go before we develop strong cultural norms on how to deal with intellectual property.

sudont 16y ago
Ideas for a startup are just ideas. Music and books, regardless of form, are implementations and execution. I say that the actual execution of the idea is what's important. Code piracy's probably a better comparison. That said, as an artist I'm not too worried if somebody rips off my work to print for a personal hanging.
nkassis 16y ago
"The closest thing that I can think of is having someone sleep with your spouse" That's a pretty horrible analogy. It's not like you have a deal with the RIAA/MPAA equivalent to a marriage contract. The sole idea of that scares me. Also, if you ripoff your spouse and make her pay extra to get anything from you and only on terms that lets you control you forever, I think you deserve the cheating. You can go on exploiting your spouse like that and no expect issues. In retrospect, might not be such a bad analogy ;p
raquo 16y ago
I think most humans default to disregarding the other end of most relationships unless something urges them to.
wccrawford 16y ago
Duplicate it at no cost to anyone except yourself, I think you mean. It often does cost time and money to pirate things. And now that RepRap and similar 3D object printers are becoming more popular, they will continue to come down in price. It won't be long before printing physical items is a possibility, and then wholesale pirating of things that used to be protected by patents will start. And if you're having trouble imagining that happening, don't worry. It was just as hard to imagine music piracy before MP3s. It happened on a VERY small scale before that due to difficulty and media cost.
- arethuza 16y ago
  Can you actually think of any examples where "printing" 3D objects that are protected by patents is likely to be a problem in the foreseeable future?
  - tptacek 16y ago
    I don't know, but the underlying problem is very real: counterfeit goods.
    - jules 16y ago
      I don't see traditional counterfeit goods like watches and perfumes being printed any time soon.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        The economic harm caused by both actions is analogous; "printing" goods is basically a more sophisticated way of counterfeiting them.
        nitrogen 16y ago
        Counterfeiting implies the intent to deceive the customer. I'm not counterfeiting when I burn a copy of legal music to put in my car's CD changer. If I made many copies and sold them at a flea market, that would be counterfeiting.
duke_sam 16y ago
It reminds me of some welfare recipients claiming welfare should be cut for others. As long as it's someone else benefiting from an action it's ripe for cutting but if I'm benefiting then it's justified.
- metageek 16y ago
  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904 >"I'm anti-spending and anti-government," crows David, as scooter-bound Janice looks on. "The welfare state is out of control." >"OK," I say. "And what do you do for a living?" >"Me?" he says proudly. "Oh, I'm a property appraiser. Have been my whole life." >I frown. "Are either of you on Medicare?" >Silence: Then Janice, a nice enough woman, it seems, slowly raises her hand, offering a faint smile, as if to say, You got me!
Tycho 16y ago
I disagree, it's the same as any other situation where people act unethically just because there's low risk of getting caught. People steal items from hotel rooms, catch a train without buying a ticket, hack cable TV circuits, use others' unprotected wifi, keep a 20 when they were expecting a 10, insure items after they're damaged, etc etc. My last two flatmates have left without paying their share of the utility bills and ignored my messages. None of this is piracy but it's similar behaviour. A lot of people just have no spine and only the threat of prosecution keeps them in line. Which makes it hard to swallow any of these elaborate justifications of media/software piracy.
- hxa7241 16y ago
  There is a fundamental difference: copying, in itself, renders no such harm as normal property infractions. Consider the underlying necessary facts. If you take a material object from me, you have deprived me. If you copy that object, you have done no such harm. The 'harm' of copying/infringement depends solely on the laws. If we didn't have the laws there wouldn't be the harm. People know this unconsciously. A few million years of evolution have made us want to communicate. People copy because of the natural tendency to do something that is good for all of us.
  - Tycho 16y ago
    My point was that, in response to the GP, plenty of folk have 'inherent difficulty' respecting other peoples' property in many situations outwith the copying/piracy issue. Which is to say, the lowest common denominator is simply 'can I easily get away with this?' Piracy, regardless of anything else, is incredibly easy to get away with. But as far as the broader issue of copyright violation, to my mind it's really no different from any other type of property violation. Property is stuff we control and use to make a living, if we lose control chances are we can't make a living - which is why the law enforces your property rights. Whether it's stealing a possession, or renting something then straying from the terms of use, or copying a film, it's all the same. Property isn't the object itself, its your right of disposal (which sometimes might mean consuming, which physical deprivation would make impossible, or sometimes might mean distributing, which copying would make impossible, or sometimes mean privacy, which trespassing would make impossible, etc.)
hxa7241 16y ago
You seem to be suggesting we should learn to submit to IP and its restriction on copying. This would be a sad and very wrong direction. We should have cultural norms that encourage and support both production and copying -- they are both good, and mutually reinforcing. And we should build commercial systems around that, not warp our innate moral sense to fit some arbitrary market arrangement. If certain corporations don't like it they are the ones that need to reform themselves.

by WillyF 16y ago

sudont 16y ago

Ideas for a startup are just ideas. Music and books, regardless of form, are implementations and execution. I say that the actual execution of the idea is what's important. Code piracy's probably a better comparison. That said, as an artist I'm not too worried if somebody rips off my work to print for a personal hanging.

nkassis 16y ago

"The closest thing that I can think of is having someone sleep with your spouse" That's a pretty horrible analogy. It's not like you have a deal with the RIAA/MPAA equivalent to a marriage contract. The sole idea of that scares me. Also, if you ripoff your spouse and make her pay extra to get anything from you and only on terms that lets you control you forever, I think you deserve the cheating. You can go on exploiting your spouse like that and no expect issues. In retrospect, might not be such a bad analogy ;p

raquo 16y ago

I think most humans default to disregarding the other end of most relationships unless something urges them to.

wccrawford 16y ago

Duplicate it at no cost to anyone except yourself, I think you mean. It often does cost time and money to pirate things. And now that RepRap and similar 3D object printers are becoming more popular, they will continue to come down in price. It won't be long before printing physical items is a possibility, and then wholesale pirating of things that used to be protected by patents will start. And if you're having trouble imagining that happening, don't worry. It was just as hard to imagine music piracy before MP3s. It happened on a VERY small scale before that due to difficulty and media cost.

arethuza 16y ago
Can you actually think of any examples where "printing" 3D objects that are protected by patents is likely to be a problem in the foreseeable future?
- tptacek 16y ago
  I don't know, but the underlying problem is very real: counterfeit goods.
  - jules 16y ago
    I don't see traditional counterfeit goods like watches and perfumes being printed any time soon.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      The economic harm caused by both actions is analogous; "printing" goods is basically a more sophisticated way of counterfeiting them.
      - nitrogen 16y ago
        Counterfeiting implies the intent to deceive the customer. I'm not counterfeiting when I burn a copy of legal music to put in my car's CD changer. If I made many copies and sold them at a flea market, that would be counterfeiting.

duke_sam 16y ago

It reminds me of some welfare recipients claiming welfare should be cut for others. As long as it's someone else benefiting from an action it's ripe for cutting but if I'm benefiting then it's justified.

metageek 16y ago
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904 http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/210904 >"I'm anti-spending and anti-government," crows David, as scooter-bound Janice looks on. "The welfare state is out of control." >"OK," I say. "And what do you do for a living?" >"Me?" he says proudly. "Oh, I'm a property appraiser. Have been my whole life." >I frown. "Are either of you on Medicare?" >Silence: Then Janice, a nice enough woman, it seems, slowly raises her hand, offering a faint smile, as if to say, You got me!

Tycho 16y ago

I disagree, it's the same as any other situation where people act unethically just because there's low risk of getting caught. People steal items from hotel rooms, catch a train without buying a ticket, hack cable TV circuits, use others' unprotected wifi, keep a 20 when they were expecting a 10, insure items after they're damaged, etc etc. My last two flatmates have left without paying their share of the utility bills and ignored my messages. None of this is piracy but it's similar behaviour. A lot of people just have no spine and only the threat of prosecution keeps them in line. Which makes it hard to swallow any of these elaborate justifications of media/software piracy.

hxa7241 16y ago
There is a fundamental difference: copying, in itself, renders no such harm as normal property infractions. Consider the underlying necessary facts. If you take a material object from me, you have deprived me. If you copy that object, you have done no such harm. The 'harm' of copying/infringement depends solely on the laws. If we didn't have the laws there wouldn't be the harm. People know this unconsciously. A few million years of evolution have made us want to communicate. People copy because of the natural tendency to do something that is good for all of us.
- Tycho 16y ago
  My point was that, in response to the GP, plenty of folk have 'inherent difficulty' respecting other peoples' property in many situations outwith the copying/piracy issue. Which is to say, the lowest common denominator is simply 'can I easily get away with this?' Piracy, regardless of anything else, is incredibly easy to get away with. But as far as the broader issue of copyright violation, to my mind it's really no different from any other type of property violation. Property is stuff we control and use to make a living, if we lose control chances are we can't make a living - which is why the law enforces your property rights. Whether it's stealing a possession, or renting something then straying from the terms of use, or copying a film, it's all the same. Property isn't the object itself, its your right of disposal (which sometimes might mean consuming, which physical deprivation would make impossible, or sometimes might mean distributing, which copying would make impossible, or sometimes mean privacy, which trespassing would make impossible, etc.)

hxa7241 16y ago

You seem to be suggesting we should learn to submit to IP and its restriction on copying. This would be a sad and very wrong direction. We should have cultural norms that encourage and support both production and copying -- they are both good, and mutually reinforcing. And we should build commercial systems around that, not warp our innate moral sense to fit some arbitrary market arrangement. If certain corporations don't like it they are the ones that need to reform themselves.