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>Purchasing and downloading apps could not be easier. I wouldn't be so fast here. The app store limits availability by country. For example, you cannot legally

>Purchasing and downloading apps could not be easier. I wouldn't be so fast here. The app store limits availability by country. For example, you cannot legally buy games here in Brazil on the app store [1]. Which is a huge market. I pirate a lot of stuff, and almost all of it I couldn't possibly have legally acquired. If pirating didn't exist, I would have never listened to Weird Al Yankovic's songs (I spent months with money in my pocket going from store to store looking to buy his cds when I was young), nor watched movies banned in my country for political reasons. There is also the pay wall barrier. Which is also often derived from a location problem. You may have many easy payment options in the USA, but we might not have it as easy here. (There are many startups working on decreasing this barrier, but so far it's still big) Also, your argument is subjective. You cannot make an objective case for "how much potential damage" piracy is making. You cannot know how many pirates would have bought if piracy didn't exist, maybe some wouldn't have bought anyway because of the paywall or location bans. But what you do can prove objectively is that you can make money from digital content without trying to stop piracy. Which is the point that Peter Sunde is making here. Which was also the same point Steve Blank made a while ago [2]. So you cannot simply say "piracy is a huge problem" and just cite that link saying that some pirates exist. Your argument cannot be demonstrated objectively, while the Peter's argument can, and has. [1] http://itunes.apple.com/br/genre/ios-games/id6014?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/br/genre/ios-games/id6014?mt=8 [1] (in portuguese) http://macmagazine.com.br/2011/03/30/ausencia-de-jogos-na-app-store-brasil-e-explicada-por-diretor-do-ministerio-da-justica/ http://macmagazine.com.br/2011/03/30/ausencia-de-jogos-na-ap... [2] http://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant-innovate-and-the-result-is-sopa/ http://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant...

freehunter 15y ago
>I pirate a lot of stuff, and almost all of it I couldn't possibly have legally acquired. If pirating didn't exist, I would have never listened to weird al's songs, nor watched movies banned in my country for political reasons. This still isn't a good argument. Justifying the means by which you acquired content still doesn't make it morally right or legal. "But I can't get it without piracy!" still doesn't give you any right to consume the product. Buying vs pirating... there's a third option. Abstinence. If you can't get Weird Al's media legally, you can always just not get it at all.
- Trufa 15y ago
  I think you are missing the point. You are not seeing the global issue, rather the individual one. Pirating is already a reality, that you can not change (much like drugs) and the entertainment music is the only one that is missing out by not being able to adapt. In today's reality, if the only possibility you give people to not pirate is abstain, well then you are begging for more piracy.
- kbolino 15y ago
  If a man walked into a store, and the retailer refused to sell him a product because of his nationality, what would we call that? Why does it magically become acceptable--even defensible--on a larger scale?
  - eurleif 15y ago
    There's a difference between someone who's in your country but of a different nationality, and someone who's in a different country.
    - kbolino 15y ago
      That's vacuous reasoning. I know the situations are different; I'm asking why one is ethically intolerable and the other is ethically acceptable to the point of making civil disobedience unethical (in freehunter's opinion, anyway). To put it another way, what about that difference justifies the discrimination?
      - eurleif 15y ago
        IP rights to the same work in different countries are sold separately, and can end up being owned by different companies. Also, different countries have different economies, which means it makes sense to manage distribution in separate countries separately.
        kbolino 15y ago
        I concur, and that's a succinct description of how this discrimination has been made possible, but it's completely orthogonal to my question.

freehunter 15y ago

>I pirate a lot of stuff, and almost all of it I couldn't possibly have legally acquired. If pirating didn't exist, I would have never listened to weird al's songs, nor watched movies banned in my country for political reasons. This still isn't a good argument. Justifying the means by which you acquired content still doesn't make it morally right or legal. "But I can't get it without piracy!" still doesn't give you any right to consume the product. Buying vs pirating... there's a third option. Abstinence. If you can't get Weird Al's media legally, you can always just not get it at all.

Trufa 15y ago
I think you are missing the point. You are not seeing the global issue, rather the individual one. Pirating is already a reality, that you can not change (much like drugs) and the entertainment music is the only one that is missing out by not being able to adapt. In today's reality, if the only possibility you give people to not pirate is abstain, well then you are begging for more piracy.
kbolino 15y ago
If a man walked into a store, and the retailer refused to sell him a product because of his nationality, what would we call that? Why does it magically become acceptable--even defensible--on a larger scale?
- eurleif 15y ago
  There's a difference between someone who's in your country but of a different nationality, and someone who's in a different country.
  - kbolino 15y ago
    That's vacuous reasoning. I know the situations are different; I'm asking why one is ethically intolerable and the other is ethically acceptable to the point of making civil disobedience unethical (in freehunter's opinion, anyway). To put it another way, what about that difference justifies the discrimination?
    - eurleif 15y ago
      IP rights to the same work in different countries are sold separately, and can end up being owned by different companies. Also, different countries have different economies, which means it makes sense to manage distribution in separate countries separately.
      - kbolino 15y ago
        I concur, and that's a succinct description of how this discrimination has been made possible, but it's completely orthogonal to my question.