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It sounds like you're making a favorable comparison, since marijuana has historically been perhaps the number one most famous example of something that most cli

It sounds like you're making a favorable comparison, since marijuana has historically been perhaps the number one most famous example of something that most clients partake in harmlessly despite any illegality, and that has had the most senseless and damaging laws surrounding it. But then you go on to imply that your comparison is intended to demonstrate the opposite position.

ModernMech 4y ago
If a community or society decides on boundaries as to the consumption or distribution of something, it doesn’t matter that you personally decide those standards and laws don’t apply to you. You can try justify your behavior by saying “no one gets hurt” but really all you’re doing is rationalizing selfishness, which seems to be what everyone is doing here w.r.t. piracy. You want what you want, rules and laws be damned.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  If laws are made via societal consent, sure, that's a fine assertion. However, laws like marijuana possession are not based on societal consent. In fact, there's this famous quote by Nixon's Chief of Staff who literally admits the drug laws were created for targeting groups, not because the drugs themselves are bad: > You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. So too with copyright laws written by corporations.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    I know the quote. A lot of people voted for Nixon, and a lot of people agreed with him and his administration at the time. I don’t like it but that was the process, and we’ve spent a long time changing it, using the same process. For the most part that movement is working, and it’s working because the outcome of the process is respected. If you thumb your nose at the process when it doesn’t go your way, you can’t use it to get your way. Corporations have a right to participate in the process just like you and I. Don’t like the outcome? Then do the hard work to change it.
    - cercatrova 4y ago
      Some people are more rules-oriented than others. It seems like you are, but many are also not. Think of people in the 90s saying "fuck the system," or hippies in the 60s, or civil rights leaders in the 20th century. It's not always the case that the system can reform itself. Sometimes explicitly disobeying the system is what leads to its change. I'm sure you can fill in the gaps with examples, of which many abound.
      - ModernMech 4y ago
        And sometimes disobeying the system delegitimizes the movement and prevents critical-mass political coalitions from forming, which in turn prevents change from happening. Likewise many examples abound, of which copyright reform is one. From what I know about pirates (and I've been a part of many communities in which pirates engage, and am friends with many pirates), piracy is more about satisfying desires without paying money than it is a matter of principle about copyright reform. Lots of pirates spend seemingly infinite time cataloging, collecting, sorting, tagging, and distributing pirated media, not to mention figuring out how to get around DRM. But you won't find so many pirates expending the same energy to affect political change. To me, that's telling about their true motives. Until pirates can convince people like me (supporters of copyright reform but not piracy), that their lawless behavior would end after successful political reform, a coalition to enact such reform will be impossible. Based on the comments in this thread, it seems like the main concern pirates have are getting what they want, how they want, when they want, without paying, regardless of anyone else's wishes. Back in the day when the options were DVD or Cable, piracy had more legitimacy IMO. Pirates wanted better resolution, lower prices, to play media on their devices, to have on demand access. Today with the advent of ad-free, on-demand content at a low subscription price, continued piracy looks more like selfishness than activism or civil disobedience. The resolution of media is far beyond what it was in the 00's, but still isn't good enough. The prices are much lower but now low enough. They can stream to any device they want but it's still not enough for pirates. The dream of the 00s pirates is alive in the 20s, but the 20s pirates still act like their piracy is a form of freedom fighting. It's not. Instead it lays bare the true intention the entire time was that pirates just wanted media but didn't want to pay for it.

ModernMech 4y ago

If a community or society decides on boundaries as to the consumption or distribution of something, it doesn’t matter that you personally decide those standards and laws don’t apply to you. You can try justify your behavior by saying “no one gets hurt” but really all you’re doing is rationalizing selfishness, which seems to be what everyone is doing here w.r.t. piracy. You want what you want, rules and laws be damned.

cercatrova 4y ago
If laws are made via societal consent, sure, that's a fine assertion. However, laws like marijuana possession are not based on societal consent. In fact, there's this famous quote by Nixon's Chief of Staff who literally admits the drug laws were created for targeting groups, not because the drugs themselves are bad: > You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the anti-war left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. So too with copyright laws written by corporations.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  I know the quote. A lot of people voted for Nixon, and a lot of people agreed with him and his administration at the time. I don’t like it but that was the process, and we’ve spent a long time changing it, using the same process. For the most part that movement is working, and it’s working because the outcome of the process is respected. If you thumb your nose at the process when it doesn’t go your way, you can’t use it to get your way. Corporations have a right to participate in the process just like you and I. Don’t like the outcome? Then do the hard work to change it.
  - cercatrova 4y ago
    Some people are more rules-oriented than others. It seems like you are, but many are also not. Think of people in the 90s saying "fuck the system," or hippies in the 60s, or civil rights leaders in the 20th century. It's not always the case that the system can reform itself. Sometimes explicitly disobeying the system is what leads to its change. I'm sure you can fill in the gaps with examples, of which many abound.
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      And sometimes disobeying the system delegitimizes the movement and prevents critical-mass political coalitions from forming, which in turn prevents change from happening. Likewise many examples abound, of which copyright reform is one. From what I know about pirates (and I've been a part of many communities in which pirates engage, and am friends with many pirates), piracy is more about satisfying desires without paying money than it is a matter of principle about copyright reform. Lots of pirates spend seemingly infinite time cataloging, collecting, sorting, tagging, and distributing pirated media, not to mention figuring out how to get around DRM. But you won't find so many pirates expending the same energy to affect political change. To me, that's telling about their true motives. Until pirates can convince people like me (supporters of copyright reform but not piracy), that their lawless behavior would end after successful political reform, a coalition to enact such reform will be impossible. Based on the comments in this thread, it seems like the main concern pirates have are getting what they want, how they want, when they want, without paying, regardless of anyone else's wishes. Back in the day when the options were DVD or Cable, piracy had more legitimacy IMO. Pirates wanted better resolution, lower prices, to play media on their devices, to have on demand access. Today with the advent of ad-free, on-demand content at a low subscription price, continued piracy looks more like selfishness than activism or civil disobedience. The resolution of media is far beyond what it was in the 00's, but still isn't good enough. The prices are much lower but now low enough. They can stream to any device they want but it's still not enough for pirates. The dream of the 00s pirates is alive in the 20s, but the 20s pirates still act like their piracy is a form of freedom fighting. It's not. Instead it lays bare the true intention the entire time was that pirates just wanted media but didn't want to pay for it.