5 ms·

You'd rather sacrifice someone else's jobs for your ideals? What a fair, well considered trade. The freedom you see to seem to be looking for here is freedom fr

You'd rather sacrifice someone else's jobs for your ideals? What a fair, well considered trade. The freedom you see to seem to be looking for here is freedom from consequences, not actual freedom. As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That is actual freedom. Be careful making other's choices for them, it is closer to the governmental overreach you are against.

russler23 6y ago
We’ve sacrificed a lot of jobs for ideals across human history, and I’m totally okay with that.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
> As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. You can have as much as you want. Why would anyone buy copies when making new ones is as easy as copy and paste? Only the original copy must be paid for. So there is in fact a third choice to buying or not buying data: obtain a copy from someone who already has it. Copyright law is all about getting rid of that choice. It's all about making sure that creators monopolize the means to make copies. Copyright is about the right to make copies. Making copies of data is a fundamental computer operation. We can find this ability in functions such as memcpy, in programs such as cp and HTTP servers. Making copies is trivial. Anyone who owns a computer can do it. Without compromising our freedom to run these programs, copyright law is unenforceable. So it's not just ideals. In order to actually enforce copyright law, computers must be made to answer to the copyright industry instead of users. As a computer user and programmer, that's not the future I want.
- thinkloop 6y ago
  > Only the original copy must be paid for. We are only paying for the original copy, but distributing that payment over many people and over time so it doesn't hurt as much - which single person is going to pay $10K or $1M or $50M for a song or movie?
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > which single person is going to pay $1M or $50 million for a song or movie? Why not crowdfund those amounts instead? That way, all creators get paid before the work even starts and the result can be safely released into the public domain. We need to develop alternative business models like this in order to replace copyright. Cultural works must be treated like an investment.
    - abakker 6y ago
      that might be a great idea, except this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it, not invest at all. Maybe cultural investment can be coordinated, but until then, I think the solution should be for the distributed act of paying for what you want will be preferable. The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft.
      - sjy 6y ago
        If you agree that copyright is less-than-optimal, but you don’t think that civil disobedience of copyright laws is helpful or ethical, then what suggestion do you have for reforming the system? To my mind, “less-than-optimal” is an understatement of the problems with the copyright model, particularly as applied to libraries and academic research.
      - matheusmoreira 6y ago
        > this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it No, I said that the choice to "pirate" was always available and that the way the copyright industry was trying to remove that choice was problematic. > The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft. Copyright infringement is not theft. Prevention of copyright infringement doesn't justify abusive and invasive DRM technologies either. The copyright industry should not gain full control over what software is allowed to run on people's computers just because they're losing money.
        Silhouette 6y ago
- wittyreference 6y ago
  > That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work. Unless you propose a mechanism for replacing that compensation, declaring "copying isn't theft" is just a fancier version of "I want my movies for free."
  - extropy 6y ago
    Other means of rewarding artists exist like Youtube memberships, Patreon, good old tours. Copyright is very expensive scheme of redistributing funds for creative arts. And also has quite specific cultural consequences. Some part of me keeps wondering if we could build a better society without copyright.
  - salawat 6y ago
    >Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work. Well, at least you're honest. It isn't about the work. It's about creating an artificial scarcity to profit from is it? Are you a Sackler by chance? Creating artificial scarcity has been a favorite tactic of theirs in the pharmaceutical realm. The fact is, IP was meant to act as a temporary halt or brake to the universalization of the fruits of one's labor. It is no longer that. It is now the means by which people looking to use something that is rightfully theirs by right of First sale is thwarted, or otherwise impeded through the loss of one's right to vote in the case of a felony charge. Something easy enough to make a case for just with legal fees. People will pay and reward the producers of quality content generously. They should not be forced to toil beneath multi-generational periods of recurrent revenue extraction or encroachment into their everyday lives by an industry with every political incentive to disinclude anyone that would dare question their business model from political consideration. At this point, and I say this as a creator and bread winner on the basis of furthering other entities IP portfolio, "Creatives" have overshot any semblance of charity and goodwill with the lengths they demand the rest of society bend over and resign to never having the whole of humanity or their countrymen uplifted by the advancements we hew from the rock-hard slab of the collective ignorance of our our species. So take your deliberate straw man of "I want my movies for free" and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. I want equipment everyone can freely understand. I want no more capacity to hide aggregious ethical violations under the guise of trade secrets. I demand that the artificial ignorance and disadvantage of every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who haven't been able to get a straight answer about how to arrange and utilize their resources in a socially productive way because any privilege of getting a glimpse into how the macro-organism of society works gets shrouded behind legal vehicles intended solely to getter and entrench an edifice against any upset by those that compose it be cast off. If anyone should be accused of trading other's rights for ideals, it's the copyright holders. They encroached first, and it wasn't good enough. So they've pushed, and pushed, and pushed some more. Well. No more in my estimation. Work like the rest of us, or get what's coming to you, which sure as heck isn't the rest of society turning over and giving up.
a1369209993 6y ago
So, by that logic I assume you're in favor of legalizing things like crack cocaine and methamphetamine? After all, if someone is a against such products, they have the choice to not buy them. (Not entirely rhetorical - I can imagine a internally consistent position with those principles, I just don't think you actually hold it.)
- abakker 6y ago
  I think it is pretty easy to allow consistent viewpoints which hold that crack and copyrights are different things. But, yeah, I think we might find some common ground on legalizing drugs and treating addictions as medical conditions. banning them hasn’t really had fantastic outcomes.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    > But, yeah, I think we might find some common ground on legalizing drugs and treating addictions as medical conditions. banning them hasn't really had fantastic outcomes. Fair point, yes. As a better example, I am quite happy to sacrifice slave traders's jobs for my ideals. (As a added bonus, this one is actually ontologically related via the notion that it's possible to have legitimate property interests in (parts of) a person or persons.)

russler23 6y ago

We’ve sacrificed a lot of jobs for ideals across human history, and I’m totally okay with that.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

> As always with the products other people are making, you have the choice to not buy them. That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. You can have as much as you want. Why would anyone buy copies when making new ones is as easy as copy and paste? Only the original copy must be paid for. So there is in fact a third choice to buying or not buying data: obtain a copy from someone who already has it. Copyright law is all about getting rid of that choice. It's all about making sure that creators monopolize the means to make copies. Copyright is about the right to make copies. Making copies of data is a fundamental computer operation. We can find this ability in functions such as memcpy, in programs such as cp and HTTP servers. Making copies is trivial. Anyone who owns a computer can do it. Without compromising our freedom to run these programs, copyright law is unenforceable. So it's not just ideals. In order to actually enforce copyright law, computers must be made to answer to the copyright industry instead of users. As a computer user and programmer, that's not the future I want.

thinkloop 6y ago
> Only the original copy must be paid for. We are only paying for the original copy, but distributing that payment over many people and over time so it doesn't hurt as much - which single person is going to pay $10K or $1M or $50M for a song or movie?
- matheusmoreira 6y ago
  > which single person is going to pay $1M or $50 million for a song or movie? Why not crowdfund those amounts instead? That way, all creators get paid before the work even starts and the result can be safely released into the public domain. We need to develop alternative business models like this in order to replace copyright. Cultural works must be treated like an investment.
  - abakker 6y ago
    that might be a great idea, except this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it, not invest at all. Maybe cultural investment can be coordinated, but until then, I think the solution should be for the distributed act of paying for what you want will be preferable. The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft.
    - sjy 6y ago
      If you agree that copyright is less-than-optimal, but you don’t think that civil disobedience of copyright laws is helpful or ethical, then what suggestion do you have for reforming the system? To my mind, “less-than-optimal” is an understatement of the problems with the copyright model, particularly as applied to libraries and academic research.
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      > this thread started with the blanket statement that we should all just steal it No, I said that the choice to "pirate" was always available and that the way the copyright industry was trying to remove that choice was problematic. > The less-than-optimal implementation of copyright doesn't justify theft. Copyright infringement is not theft. Prevention of copyright infringement doesn't justify abusive and invasive DRM technologies either. The copyright industry should not gain full control over what software is allowed to run on people's computers just because they're losing money.
      - Silhouette 6y ago
wittyreference 6y ago
> That's how it works in the material world. Data works differently. Data is infinite. Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work. Unless you propose a mechanism for replacing that compensation, declaring "copying isn't theft" is just a fancier version of "I want my movies for free."
- extropy 6y ago
  Other means of rewarding artists exist like Youtube memberships, Patreon, good old tours. Copyright is very expensive scheme of redistributing funds for creative arts. And also has quite specific cultural consequences. Some part of me keeps wondering if we could build a better society without copyright.
- salawat 6y ago
  >Except you're not copying an RNG. You're copying someone's carefully crafted work, whose artificial scarcity is the mechanism by which they are compensated for that work. Well, at least you're honest. It isn't about the work. It's about creating an artificial scarcity to profit from is it? Are you a Sackler by chance? Creating artificial scarcity has been a favorite tactic of theirs in the pharmaceutical realm. The fact is, IP was meant to act as a temporary halt or brake to the universalization of the fruits of one's labor. It is no longer that. It is now the means by which people looking to use something that is rightfully theirs by right of First sale is thwarted, or otherwise impeded through the loss of one's right to vote in the case of a felony charge. Something easy enough to make a case for just with legal fees. People will pay and reward the producers of quality content generously. They should not be forced to toil beneath multi-generational periods of recurrent revenue extraction or encroachment into their everyday lives by an industry with every political incentive to disinclude anyone that would dare question their business model from political consideration. At this point, and I say this as a creator and bread winner on the basis of furthering other entities IP portfolio, "Creatives" have overshot any semblance of charity and goodwill with the lengths they demand the rest of society bend over and resign to never having the whole of humanity or their countrymen uplifted by the advancements we hew from the rock-hard slab of the collective ignorance of our our species. So take your deliberate straw man of "I want my movies for free" and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. I want equipment everyone can freely understand. I want no more capacity to hide aggregious ethical violations under the guise of trade secrets. I demand that the artificial ignorance and disadvantage of every Tom, Dick, and Harriet who haven't been able to get a straight answer about how to arrange and utilize their resources in a socially productive way because any privilege of getting a glimpse into how the macro-organism of society works gets shrouded behind legal vehicles intended solely to getter and entrench an edifice against any upset by those that compose it be cast off. If anyone should be accused of trading other's rights for ideals, it's the copyright holders. They encroached first, and it wasn't good enough. So they've pushed, and pushed, and pushed some more. Well. No more in my estimation. Work like the rest of us, or get what's coming to you, which sure as heck isn't the rest of society turning over and giving up.

a1369209993 6y ago

So, by that logic I assume you're in favor of legalizing things like crack cocaine and methamphetamine? After all, if someone is a against such products, they have the choice to not buy them. (Not entirely rhetorical - I can imagine a internally consistent position with those principles, I just don't think you actually hold it.)

abakker 6y ago
I think it is pretty easy to allow consistent viewpoints which hold that crack and copyrights are different things. But, yeah, I think we might find some common ground on legalizing drugs and treating addictions as medical conditions. banning them hasn’t really had fantastic outcomes.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > But, yeah, I think we might find some common ground on legalizing drugs and treating addictions as medical conditions. banning them hasn't really had fantastic outcomes. Fair point, yes. As a better example, I am quite happy to sacrifice slave traders's jobs for my ideals. (As a added bonus, this one is actually ontologically related via the notion that it's possible to have legitimate property interests in (parts of) a person or persons.)