7 ms·

This is cool, but how is it different from piracy?

by DevKoala 5y ago

dymk 5y ago
No, you see, it's "provided for educational purposes only" - it says right there in the readme
- DevKoala 5y ago
  Ahh got it, that’s a great argument. Brb, “downloading a car” for educational purposes.
theturtletalks 5y ago
I'm not sure it crosses the line. Most of these websites have the text in the HTML, but hidden to the user. This is so Google can index and send traffic based on search. If the HTML is sent to the client, accessing it is not piracy.
- picardythird 5y ago
  Just because there’s a technical workaround doesn’t make it not stealing. If I neglect to lock my car and my stuff gets stolen, it’s still stealing. I might have been able to prevent it had I locked the car, but it’s still stealing.
  - theturtletalks 5y ago
    By this definition, ad-blocking is stealing. Is using a technical workaround to hid HTML ok but using it reveal hidden HTML is not? Your car example is not a good analogy. Once you notice people stealing, you would make sure the door is locked. Just like these websites can restrict the content server-side.
    - matt321 5y ago
      yes...yes it is
    - picardythird 5y ago
      This is something broken with the internet. That website need a strong ranking on google search to stay afloat is a symptom of a much larger problem with how the internet operates in this day and age. At the end of the day you are stealing and looting not just from the company, but the everyday people who work for that company, who are just trying to make a living for themselves and their families, and no rationalization will change that. And to the car analogy: Let's say I was stolen from, but I'm so lazy I still can't be bothered to lock my car. Or I leave it open for some other reason. This has zero effect on the morality of the thief stealing from my car. It just means I'm an easy target for stealing. Two completely separate things.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    If a webserver sent me an exact copy of your car but encased in ice, and I used an ice pick to carve it out, you would still have your car, and i would have a copy of your car. That the web server wants to me buy a flame thrower to melt the ice is irrelivent. Stealing does not apply to digital goods. You cannot deprive anyone of something infinitely replicable. You can only prevent those that you do not deem worthy to access it. and that attitude makes a person a bad person.
    - picardythird 5y ago
      So if I break in to Microsoft, stick a USB in their computers, and steal the source code for Windows, it's not stealing because it's just digital information that's infinitely reproducible? Keep in mind: nothing physical was stolen. People lose their jobs because they are digital content creators and the attitude is that paying for intellectual property is uncool.
      - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
        Sounds like breaking and entering to me, but I am not a lawyer. Not legal advice.
        picardythird 5y ago
        I think you would be charged with more than that.
  - LocalH 5y ago
    Do you think that people should be required to view websites as delivered, without modifying them in any way? That would be the logical end of attempting to prevent this kind of "stealing". If there is another term you'd like to use for "looks like theft, but the original owner loses nothing" then feel free. But it is not theft or stealing, those require also depriving the rightful owner of the stolen property. If I could duplicate the exact contents of your car, would it still be "stealing" if I did so? Reminder that you would continue to be in possession of 100% of the contents of your car. Maybe with regards to any digital data on any duplicated devices, I could see a bit of the "stealing" logic, then again nothing was actually "stolen" from you if you still have 100% of your original property, but I now also have duplicates of that property.
    - picardythird 5y ago
      If I walk in to a record store and buy a CD, I'm not just paying for the paper and plastic that it's made of. I'm paying the record company, the record store, and the artist for their time and talent. With a digital goods, we can eliminate the paper and plastic. It's a great thing! But for some reason, we've also decided to write the artist out of the equation too. At least if you're a pirate. If you're a software engineer, you're being paid not to manufacture hard goods but to create something of intellectual value that could be technically be duplicated forever. What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license?
      - webmaven 5y ago
        > What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license? If by "stealing code" you mean creating and distributing (probably selling) software derived from it that violates the license, it is quite different. If what you mean is simply downloading warez for your own use, it is more or less the same.
        picardythird 5y ago
        So are you against torrenting copyrighted digital goods then? Because people do exactly that. They steal intellectual property and distribute it for other people to use. Stealing for personal use may be a more minor thing, but it still boggles me that people want to consume the fruits of others' labor without compensating them in anyway, as if creators are slaves who exist only to please.
- misterbwong 5y ago
  I'm not quite understanding the logic here. Just because another customer (google) was given access, does that mean everyone should have it? Would you rather publishers give google private direct feeds to index?
  - ryan_j_naughton 5y ago
    > Just because another customer (google) was given access, does that mean everyone should have it? They didn't provide access to just another customer or Google -- they send the article text to EVERYONE in the HTML response. They are thus making that text publicly available. If they want to make content only available to certain individuals, that is literally what paywalls and authentication/authorization are for. Instead, they want Google to index the site AS IF the content is publicly available but then use javascript to restrict that content from users client-side on a case by case basis. The golden rule of authorization is never rely on client-side authorization as by then you've already willingly given the data/information to the client. And the client has no obligation to not look at that information/data. They didn't do anything nefarious to get it -- you literally gave it to them. > Would you rather publishers give google private direct feeds to index? Absolutely I would. If we could enhance the indexing and search engine system so that (a) I could tell google which services I subscribe to and (b) google knows which articles are behind paywalls, then we could have a world in which we could intentionally filter To or Away from paywall content. I know that I would often filter TO paywall content, especially if: - I could also tell google to avoid content farm content via a filter or content full of ads (not in their interests currently but it might become so as more of us get frustrated with shittier and shittier search results) - If google could surface the price to access each article on the search results (wherein articles on sites I already pay/subscribe to would be free and articles on sites with individual pay per access would be transparent and upfront).
    - picardythird 5y ago
      This is the “but she was wearing a low cut top” argument.
      - 5y ago
ohgodplsno 5y ago
More akin to breaking DRM. If you didn't want me to read your article, don't send it at all. It's in your response ? Tough luck.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
unicornporn 5y ago
Is this Hacker News?
- DeWilde 5y ago
  The hackers grew up and now they are what they once hated. Seems to happen to every generation.
  - picardythird 5y ago
    Or they matured. Should writers, musicians, and journalists be slaves?
- J5892 5y ago
  Judging from the current sentiment around piracy among younger generations, I've concluded that MPAA/RIAA propaganda against piracy has been a rousing success. My philosophy has always been: Pay for things if you are able, it's convenient, and pricing is fair. And if piracy is easier than paying, piracy always wins. It's the reason I buy all my video games now and rarely pirate music anymore, but half of my TV and movies come through my seedbox.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    This. They convinced the kids that piracy is bad and evil, and the Big IP lobby is laughing all the way to bank. Ensuring that you own nothing, and will rent your life from them in perpetuity.
  - cercatrova 5y ago
    Exactly. If the only way I can get 4k movies and shows without a stream degrading and being able to use mpv or other such video players is through piracy, then so be it.
  - shitlord 5y ago
    I'm in a similar position. I use Spotify for music, but for movies/TV, I pirate everything despite paying for multiple streaming services. It's about being able to consume media on my own terms. Thanks to piracy, I can get the same quality content from another source and enjoy it however I want, on any device, online or offline.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
The sites offer the articles for free to search engines and the like, otherwise this wouldn't work. It's not that different from using archive.is etc Imo. Hacker news isn't usable without this anymore.
- muttled 5y ago
  You bring up an interesting point that they offer it for free to search engines. Didn't it used to be against the rules of most search engines to "cloak" your content by serving one thing to the spiders and another to the general public? Edit: Found it. It's still against their rules. <https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/cloaking#:~:text=Cloaking%20refers%20to%20the%20practice,different%20results%20than%20they%20expected. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline...>
  - stall 5y ago
    Well, google published https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/paywalled-content https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structure... which describes how it should be done
echelon 5y ago
So, piracy turned out to be a great thing for games (Steam), movies (Netflix), and music (Spotify). It just hasn't happened at scale to the news world yet. I will not pay $50/yr for 20 different news sites. It's absurd. Who do these people think they are? I'm glad projects like this are being created. It addresses.a boneheaded, outmoded industry that won't meet consumers where they actually are. These sorts of "news piracy" apps will force change for the good of all parties. But they need one more piece to really take off: social P2P sharing. Strip articles of ads, share them in a p2p protocol (which could also develop interest graph capabilities), add voting, maybe comments, and definitely include the article's pictures. 1 - it would be fantastic as a reader 2 - the entire news industry that is stuck in 1995 would be forced to adopt to a Spotify model or adopt the microtransactions that have been promised since the 90's. I would love to subscribe to a single source for all news. I'd pay a hefty fee. I'd also be happy to pay $0.10 an article. (I'd learn to avoid sites that shill clickbait, too.) This whole industry sucks for readers. I support anything that gets them to adapt to change and become more consumer friendly.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  Both Netflix and Spotify start at $10/month which is $120 per year. $50/yr is ~$4/month for 20 news sites, which seems to be a better deal. What am I missing, is the price still too high or is the number of news sites too low?
  - cromd 5y ago
    I read the comment as "I wont pay $50 20 times, totaling $1k, to get onto the 20 sites that have articles that interest me"
    - echelon 5y ago
      This was my intended meaning. And in reality, there are far more than 20 websites that have interesting paywalled content.
- cromd 5y ago
  I definitely read news from at least 20 different sources each year, without going around paywalls, and I pay for the one I enjoy the most - NYT. (I personally read ~150 articles a year, so that's 33 cents per article, which many readers of HN would earn in 10-30 seconds of work. But maybe I read excessive news). If I really just want to read 1 article per month, I'm often accommodated by some "N free articles per month" policies. I agree they may be pursuing a suboptimal strategy somehow. Not sure I would call it "absurd". Having 100k individuals producing music on Spotify might be great, but I'm not sure what the implications would be for getting my news that way. But if someone wants to start "Spotify for News", I'm interested. Not sure that NYT needs their paywalls worked around in order for that to happen though.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mattdennewitz 5y ago
it isn't
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

This is cool, but how is it different from piracy?

dymk 5y ago

No, you see, it's "provided for educational purposes only" - it says right there in the readme

DevKoala 5y ago
Ahh got it, that’s a great argument. Brb, “downloading a car” for educational purposes.

theturtletalks 5y ago

I'm not sure it crosses the line. Most of these websites have the text in the HTML, but hidden to the user. This is so Google can index and send traffic based on search. If the HTML is sent to the client, accessing it is not piracy.

picardythird 5y ago
Just because there’s a technical workaround doesn’t make it not stealing. If I neglect to lock my car and my stuff gets stolen, it’s still stealing. I might have been able to prevent it had I locked the car, but it’s still stealing.
- theturtletalks 5y ago
  By this definition, ad-blocking is stealing. Is using a technical workaround to hid HTML ok but using it reveal hidden HTML is not? Your car example is not a good analogy. Once you notice people stealing, you would make sure the door is locked. Just like these websites can restrict the content server-side.
  - matt321 5y ago
    yes...yes it is
  - picardythird 5y ago
    This is something broken with the internet. That website need a strong ranking on google search to stay afloat is a symptom of a much larger problem with how the internet operates in this day and age. At the end of the day you are stealing and looting not just from the company, but the everyday people who work for that company, who are just trying to make a living for themselves and their families, and no rationalization will change that. And to the car analogy: Let's say I was stolen from, but I'm so lazy I still can't be bothered to lock my car. Or I leave it open for some other reason. This has zero effect on the morality of the thief stealing from my car. It just means I'm an easy target for stealing. Two completely separate things.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  If a webserver sent me an exact copy of your car but encased in ice, and I used an ice pick to carve it out, you would still have your car, and i would have a copy of your car. That the web server wants to me buy a flame thrower to melt the ice is irrelivent. Stealing does not apply to digital goods. You cannot deprive anyone of something infinitely replicable. You can only prevent those that you do not deem worthy to access it. and that attitude makes a person a bad person.
  - picardythird 5y ago
    So if I break in to Microsoft, stick a USB in their computers, and steal the source code for Windows, it's not stealing because it's just digital information that's infinitely reproducible? Keep in mind: nothing physical was stolen. People lose their jobs because they are digital content creators and the attitude is that paying for intellectual property is uncool.
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      Sounds like breaking and entering to me, but I am not a lawyer. Not legal advice.
      - picardythird 5y ago
        I think you would be charged with more than that.
- LocalH 5y ago
  Do you think that people should be required to view websites as delivered, without modifying them in any way? That would be the logical end of attempting to prevent this kind of "stealing". If there is another term you'd like to use for "looks like theft, but the original owner loses nothing" then feel free. But it is not theft or stealing, those require also depriving the rightful owner of the stolen property. If I could duplicate the exact contents of your car, would it still be "stealing" if I did so? Reminder that you would continue to be in possession of 100% of the contents of your car. Maybe with regards to any digital data on any duplicated devices, I could see a bit of the "stealing" logic, then again nothing was actually "stolen" from you if you still have 100% of your original property, but I now also have duplicates of that property.
  - picardythird 5y ago
    If I walk in to a record store and buy a CD, I'm not just paying for the paper and plastic that it's made of. I'm paying the record company, the record store, and the artist for their time and talent. With a digital goods, we can eliminate the paper and plastic. It's a great thing! But for some reason, we've also decided to write the artist out of the equation too. At least if you're a pirate. If you're a software engineer, you're being paid not to manufacture hard goods but to create something of intellectual value that could be technically be duplicated forever. What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license?
    - webmaven 5y ago
      > What's the difference between pirating music and stealing code that is under a software license? If by "stealing code" you mean creating and distributing (probably selling) software derived from it that violates the license, it is quite different. If what you mean is simply downloading warez for your own use, it is more or less the same.
      - picardythird 5y ago
        So are you against torrenting copyrighted digital goods then? Because people do exactly that. They steal intellectual property and distribute it for other people to use. Stealing for personal use may be a more minor thing, but it still boggles me that people want to consume the fruits of others' labor without compensating them in anyway, as if creators are slaves who exist only to please.
misterbwong 5y ago
I'm not quite understanding the logic here. Just because another customer (google) was given access, does that mean everyone should have it? Would you rather publishers give google private direct feeds to index?
- ryan_j_naughton 5y ago
  > Just because another customer (google) was given access, does that mean everyone should have it? They didn't provide access to just another customer or Google -- they send the article text to EVERYONE in the HTML response. They are thus making that text publicly available. If they want to make content only available to certain individuals, that is literally what paywalls and authentication/authorization are for. Instead, they want Google to index the site AS IF the content is publicly available but then use javascript to restrict that content from users client-side on a case by case basis. The golden rule of authorization is never rely on client-side authorization as by then you've already willingly given the data/information to the client. And the client has no obligation to not look at that information/data. They didn't do anything nefarious to get it -- you literally gave it to them. > Would you rather publishers give google private direct feeds to index? Absolutely I would. If we could enhance the indexing and search engine system so that (a) I could tell google which services I subscribe to and (b) google knows which articles are behind paywalls, then we could have a world in which we could intentionally filter To or Away from paywall content. I know that I would often filter TO paywall content, especially if: - I could also tell google to avoid content farm content via a filter or content full of ads (not in their interests currently but it might become so as more of us get frustrated with shittier and shittier search results) - If google could surface the price to access each article on the search results (wherein articles on sites I already pay/subscribe to would be free and articles on sites with individual pay per access would be transparent and upfront).
  - picardythird 5y ago
    This is the “but she was wearing a low cut top” argument.
    - 5y ago

ohgodplsno 5y ago

More akin to breaking DRM. If you didn't want me to read your article, don't send it at all. It's in your response ? Tough luck.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

unicornporn 5y ago

Is this Hacker News?

DeWilde 5y ago
The hackers grew up and now they are what they once hated. Seems to happen to every generation.
- picardythird 5y ago
  Or they matured. Should writers, musicians, and journalists be slaves?
J5892 5y ago
Judging from the current sentiment around piracy among younger generations, I've concluded that MPAA/RIAA propaganda against piracy has been a rousing success. My philosophy has always been: Pay for things if you are able, it's convenient, and pricing is fair. And if piracy is easier than paying, piracy always wins. It's the reason I buy all my video games now and rarely pirate music anymore, but half of my TV and movies come through my seedbox.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  This. They convinced the kids that piracy is bad and evil, and the Big IP lobby is laughing all the way to bank. Ensuring that you own nothing, and will rent your life from them in perpetuity.
- cercatrova 5y ago
  Exactly. If the only way I can get 4k movies and shows without a stream degrading and being able to use mpv or other such video players is through piracy, then so be it.
- shitlord 5y ago
  I'm in a similar position. I use Spotify for music, but for movies/TV, I pirate everything despite paying for multiple streaming services. It's about being able to consume media on my own terms. Thanks to piracy, I can get the same quality content from another source and enjoy it however I want, on any device, online or offline.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

The sites offer the articles for free to search engines and the like, otherwise this wouldn't work. It's not that different from using archive.is etc Imo. Hacker news isn't usable without this anymore.

muttled 5y ago
You bring up an interesting point that they offer it for free to search engines. Didn't it used to be against the rules of most search engines to "cloak" your content by serving one thing to the spiders and another to the general public? Edit: Found it. It's still against their rules. <https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/cloaking#:~:text=Cloaking%20refers%20to%20the%20practice,different%20results%20than%20they%20expected. https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline...>
- stall 5y ago
  Well, google published https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/paywalled-content https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structure... which describes how it should be done

echelon 5y ago

So, piracy turned out to be a great thing for games (Steam), movies (Netflix), and music (Spotify). It just hasn't happened at scale to the news world yet. I will not pay $50/yr for 20 different news sites. It's absurd. Who do these people think they are? I'm glad projects like this are being created. It addresses.a boneheaded, outmoded industry that won't meet consumers where they actually are. These sorts of "news piracy" apps will force change for the good of all parties. But they need one more piece to really take off: social P2P sharing. Strip articles of ads, share them in a p2p protocol (which could also develop interest graph capabilities), add voting, maybe comments, and definitely include the article's pictures. 1 - it would be fantastic as a reader 2 - the entire news industry that is stuck in 1995 would be forced to adopt to a Spotify model or adopt the microtransactions that have been promised since the 90's. I would love to subscribe to a single source for all news. I'd pay a hefty fee. I'd also be happy to pay $0.10 an article. (I'd learn to avoid sites that shill clickbait, too.) This whole industry sucks for readers. I support anything that gets them to adapt to change and become more consumer friendly.

uncomputation 5y ago
Both Netflix and Spotify start at $10/month which is $120 per year. $50/yr is ~$4/month for 20 news sites, which seems to be a better deal. What am I missing, is the price still too high or is the number of news sites too low?
- cromd 5y ago
  I read the comment as "I wont pay $50 20 times, totaling $1k, to get onto the 20 sites that have articles that interest me"
  - echelon 5y ago
    This was my intended meaning. And in reality, there are far more than 20 websites that have interesting paywalled content.
cromd 5y ago
I definitely read news from at least 20 different sources each year, without going around paywalls, and I pay for the one I enjoy the most - NYT. (I personally read ~150 articles a year, so that's 33 cents per article, which many readers of HN would earn in 10-30 seconds of work. But maybe I read excessive news). If I really just want to read 1 article per month, I'm often accommodated by some "N free articles per month" policies. I agree they may be pursuing a suboptimal strategy somehow. Not sure I would call it "absurd". Having 100k individuals producing music on Spotify might be great, but I'm not sure what the implications would be for getting my news that way. But if someone wants to start "Spotify for News", I'm interested. Not sure that NYT needs their paywalls worked around in order for that to happen though.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mattdennewitz 5y ago

it isn't

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]