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I know many will disagree but I feel that stealing something because you feel you should not have to pay for it is absolutley unethical. There is a completely

I know many will disagree but I feel that stealing something because you feel you should not have to pay for it is absolutley unethical. There is a completely different question around the ethics of charging for something like information but as I say that is a different question. Put a second way, would it be unethical to derive a work from a gpl source and simply use whatever licence you wanted because you did not agree with the gpl requirements?

Rastonbury 5y ago
If a company says I can only read 5 articles a month and I delete cookies or block JS some might say that's unethical. What if a use my phone then, which has another 5 articles. Obviously the most ethical thing to do would be not to do either and keep a mental count of 5 articles per month. For me, I'm not in a position to pay and likely never will, therefore I'm not 'lost revenue'
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
> I know many will disagree but I feel that stealing something because you feel you should not have to pay for it is absolutley unethical. I feel I shouldn't have to pay for this quote.
- uberman 5y ago
  I am not charging for it, so you may have it for free.
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    Sadly for you, that's immaterial. You do not have an ability to charge against my specific use. Also, you have my sypmpathy for any way that copyright culture may have warped your understanding.
    - uberman 5y ago
      I don't follow your train of thought here. I am not charging for nor protecting my comments here in any manner. I understand that explicitly as part of my participation here. As such, I understand you are free to quote me without compensating me and doing so is ethical. If however, this was my site and I decided to charge people for my wisdom then yes I would expect you to pay for it like everyone else If you found a way to get it for free I would probably be unwilling and unable to stop you from stealing it and it would be unethical for you to do so. Wanting something does not justify taking it from someone only willing to sell it. Just as ignoring GPL requirements is unethical just because one feels that they are inconvenient (legalities aside as we are talking about ethics)
      - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
        Not sure which line of yours applies to which line of mine.
gradschool 5y ago
Put a third and a fourth way, if my yard abuts a drive-in theater then am I ethically bound to draw the curtains when a movie is on so I don't see it without paying? If I drive through an area within range of a pirate radio station am I ethically bound to turn off the car radio to avoid accidentally stealing from the musicians whose music is being broadcast?
- uberman 5y ago
  My ethical code says yes. Perhaps you feel differently. If I live next to you and I discover that I can see a member of your family when they are getting undressed, are you suggesting it would be ethical to repeated watch or even record them in the nude? What if I shared those recording with others? Do you still feel that is ethical behavior?
  - gradschool 5y ago
    I would regard your conduct in your examples as unethical but not analogous to my examples. Your conduct would amount to exfiltrating someone's private information that isn't intended for distribution, whereas my examples concern information someone intends to distribute, albeit selectively. Let such a person implement and fund his own dedicated distribution channel or find a business model that doesn't depend on commandeering a public resource. Throwing information into the ether and expecting to shake down whoever catches it seems unethical to me.

Rastonbury 5y ago

If a company says I can only read 5 articles a month and I delete cookies or block JS some might say that's unethical. What if a use my phone then, which has another 5 articles. Obviously the most ethical thing to do would be not to do either and keep a mental count of 5 articles per month. For me, I'm not in a position to pay and likely never will, therefore I'm not 'lost revenue'

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

> I know many will disagree but I feel that stealing something because you feel you should not have to pay for it is absolutley unethical. I feel I shouldn't have to pay for this quote.

uberman 5y ago
I am not charging for it, so you may have it for free.
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  Sadly for you, that's immaterial. You do not have an ability to charge against my specific use. Also, you have my sypmpathy for any way that copyright culture may have warped your understanding.
  - uberman 5y ago
    I don't follow your train of thought here. I am not charging for nor protecting my comments here in any manner. I understand that explicitly as part of my participation here. As such, I understand you are free to quote me without compensating me and doing so is ethical. If however, this was my site and I decided to charge people for my wisdom then yes I would expect you to pay for it like everyone else If you found a way to get it for free I would probably be unwilling and unable to stop you from stealing it and it would be unethical for you to do so. Wanting something does not justify taking it from someone only willing to sell it. Just as ignoring GPL requirements is unethical just because one feels that they are inconvenient (legalities aside as we are talking about ethics)
    - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
      Not sure which line of yours applies to which line of mine.

gradschool 5y ago

Put a third and a fourth way, if my yard abuts a drive-in theater then am I ethically bound to draw the curtains when a movie is on so I don't see it without paying? If I drive through an area within range of a pirate radio station am I ethically bound to turn off the car radio to avoid accidentally stealing from the musicians whose music is being broadcast?

uberman 5y ago
My ethical code says yes. Perhaps you feel differently. If I live next to you and I discover that I can see a member of your family when they are getting undressed, are you suggesting it would be ethical to repeated watch or even record them in the nude? What if I shared those recording with others? Do you still feel that is ethical behavior?
- gradschool 5y ago
  I would regard your conduct in your examples as unethical but not analogous to my examples. Your conduct would amount to exfiltrating someone's private information that isn't intended for distribution, whereas my examples concern information someone intends to distribute, albeit selectively. Let such a person implement and fund his own dedicated distribution channel or find a business model that doesn't depend on commandeering a public resource. Throwing information into the ether and expecting to shake down whoever catches it seems unethical to me.