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1. It is not stealing. This is well established. Stop using hyperbolic language to hysterically whine and force your moralistic crap down our throats. 2. Your

1. It is not stealing. This is well established. Stop using hyperbolic language to hysterically whine and force your moralistic crap down our throats. 2. Your Amish analogy is a strawman. 3. Whether Kim is breaking a law or not is not the point of this dicussion (another strawman here): the discussion is does the (il)leagailty of it make sense? Laws are not permanent nor are they absolute. We theoretically live in a society that is based on the will of the people, so lets talk about what make sense to our society. 4. Amazing improbable thinking does not grant one rights to someone else's pocketbook. Much like people should pay for stuff, by the same token, saying they should then suing them for actions they didn't and may never have taken is absurd. I should get paid $1 per read of this comment, there HN readers owe me a few $K. 5. Wow, I really fed this troll didn't I?

DrJokepu 15y ago
From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Hacker News Guidelines): When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
jonhendry 15y ago
"Stop using hyperbolic language" The main perpetrators of hyperbolic language on this topic are the people who act as if there is some necessity and moral right behind downloading some crap CD or movie or TV show, as if that was the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Guess what, you won't perish if you don't watch that TV show everyone is talking about, or if you have to wait six months for that new movie to show up on Netflix. The "harm" of doing without entertainment is no harm at all.
- ssebro 15y ago
  Death and physical injury aren't the only ways someone can be harmed. Trust me - if you're the only kid in highscool without cable who isn't able to talk about that show from last night, you miss opportunities to bond. Those missed bonds are worth quite a lot, since they directly impact your future.
  - georgieporgie 15y ago
    I'm sorry, but that's the most entitled and ridiculous position I've ever heard presented on the issue. As if copyright violation is somehow necessary to prevent social maladjustment. Where I grew up, we got two channels. Later, when we erected a huge antennae, we got two more. I didn't know what "Nickelodeon" was. So what did I do? I asked kids about the show they described, and I went to a friends house who had cable to watch it.
    - chc 15y ago
      Was your situation much worse than everyone around you? Because studies have found that past a certain point, people's satisfaction with life tends to be highly relative. If you grew up without TV in a culture where most people didn't have TV, your experience is not comparable to someone who grows up without TV in a culture where a good deal of social interaction is based around TV.
      - georgieporgie 15y ago
        The answer to your question is contained within my previous statement.
        chc 15y ago
        Your previous comment seems to imply the situation that my answer assumed — that TV wasn't a big part of the culture where you grew up. (I got this from the statement, "Where I grew up, we got two channels.") But I didn't want to flat-out say you didn't know what you were talking about just based on an inference, so I phrased it in the form of a question. If indeed TV wasn't a big deal where you grew up, replace "TV" with whatever activity dominated the social scene among kids your age. For example, it might just be hanging out and shooting the breeze, or it might be sports, etc. As a former homeschooled kid, I definitely believe shared experiences and culture are important to socializing.
  - cglace 15y ago
    You could also argue that wasting all of your time watching TV shows directly impacts your future. Basically anything we do now directly impacts our future.
- njs12345 15y ago
  There's no necessity or moral right behind it, but I fail to see how an action which does not harm others but benefits yourself is immoral --- much piracy has this form; here's a study which says that only 20% of album sales displace sales: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10874.pdf?new_window=1 http://www.nber.org/papers/w10874.pdf?new_window=1
  - batista 15y ago
    If the study is true, 20% is huge (assuming you meant to write: "20% of an albums piracy displaces sales").
    - njs12345 15y ago
      There's probably still a net increase in welfare, although of course that's quite hard to measure.
      - sophacles 15y ago
        Not to mention the almost impossible to measure fact that once a work is in the zeitgeist, by wide spread sharing, it also will likely make more money than the same song that didn't get that level of exposure with no piracy. If this wasn't true, why would the music industry pay to get songs played on the radio?
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
- chc 15y ago
  It's not as silly as thinking you have the moral right to control how people use copies of something just because you made the original. To be clear, I'm not arguing against copyright. I think some form of copyright is still a good compromise that serves society well. But I don't see how you can construct a system of human interaction where copyright is more of an inherent moral right than the general right to share information (including "entertainment," which can carry great cultural value).
  - J3L2404 15y ago
    The software you wrote is good copyright, but the movie you want to watch is bad copyright. I don't see how this is a viable position for someone trying to make a living writing software (assuming you are).
    - chc 15y ago
      I don't believe I said anything like that. I said that invoking "inherent moral rights" to defend a very artificial compromise like copyright is a losing game. I outright said, "I'm not arguing against copyright." I definitely think copyright is a kludge, no two ways about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't serve a purpose. I think copyright is a good and necessary compromise, where we temporarily give up some of our natural rights in order to improve society in the long run. But I think some people place it on far too high a pedestal. Violating copyright — even my copyright — does not necessarily make you a bad, selfish person any more than my insistence that I am entitled to this weird privilege called "copyright" makes me a bad, selfish person.
- sophacles 15y ago
  It is not the same as stealing bread to feed a family. That too is hyperbolic. You know what is just plain disingenous though? Framing discussions about how copyright could be different (better for many), as pointless or silly since copyright infringement isn't the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Possibly even in the same hyperbolic way, since "everything is perfect because it is not an extreme" is itself hyperbolic.
batista 15y ago
It is not stealing. This is well established. Stop using hyperbolic language to hysterically whine and force your moralistic crap down our throats 1) Hyperbolic 2) hysterically 3) whine 4)force 5) crap 6) down our throats. All because he used a common word, that laymen use all the time with respect to copyright infringement, and that even lawyers and judges are known to use occasionally. Who is hysterical, again? Not only is the term used extensibly, including by the FBI ( http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/ipr http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/ipr ), but also in the US legal code, "Criminal infringement of a copyright" is a subcategory of "Chapter 113: Stolen property" ( http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/113 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/113 ). So, your pedantic distinction only matters inside a court room, and under very rigid circumstances (for example, lawyers argue all the time using the word "theft" for the issue). Outside of the court room, anyone can use any word he damn pleases, and lots of people choose to use stealing to describe C.I. Moreover, this is not an American issue only, and other languages and legislations make no such distinction against "copyright infringement" and "stealing". 3. Whether Kim is breaking a law or not is not the point of this dicussion (another strawman here): the discussion is does the (il)leagailty of it make sense? And who exactly are you to define what the exact "point of this discussion" is? The point of the discussion is whatever is relevant to the issue, and both questions are relevant, as are many more. 4. Amazing improbable thinking does not grant one rights to someone else's pocketbook. Much like people should pay for stuff, by the same token, saying they should then suing them for actions they didn't and may never have taken is absurd. I should get paid $1 per read of this comment, there HN readers owe me a few $K. If you made your comment available only on a per pay basis, on your own platform, you absolutely should. But since you don't control HN and neither it's a pay site, so you don't have the option to do so. 5. Wow, I really fed this troll didn't I? No, you trolled on your own.
- sophacles 15y ago
  All because he used a common word, that laymen use all the time with respect to copyright infringement, and that even lawyers and judges are known to use occasionally. Common usage does not make an argument or term not hyperbolic. Right after 9/11 we were subject to "do this or the terrorists win" language all the time, for many many silly things, yet that was still a hyperbolic argument. Moreover, this is not an American issue only, and other languages and legislations make no such distinction against "copyright infringement" and "stealing". Actually they do. Theft is a different class of felony with different laws than copyright. Further, something being illegal does not make it immoral, which the poster I was replying to claimed. And who exactly are you to define what the exact "point of this discussion" is? The point of the discussion is whatever is relevant to the issue, and both questions are relevant, as are many more. I'm not making a claim to be the definer of the point of the discussion, just paraphrasing what the author of the post wrote, when he claimed not to be against copyright nor for kim, but instead asking if the way the situation was handled was government propping up a monopoly, and whether the laws made sense. To go off on a side rant about how bs it is to defend kim, and how this is obviously not a problem because of existing laws is in fact blatant point missing. To defend such actions because you don't like me vigorously defending a point is disingenuous. 5. Wow, I really fed this troll didn't I? No, you trolled on your own. Not trolling. Pointing out why an argument is bad and irrelevant is a pretty ok response to a bad and irrelevant argument. It isn't trolling, it is making clear that the emperor is naked.

DrJokepu 15y ago

From http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Hacker News Guidelines): When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

jonhendry 15y ago

"Stop using hyperbolic language" The main perpetrators of hyperbolic language on this topic are the people who act as if there is some necessity and moral right behind downloading some crap CD or movie or TV show, as if that was the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Guess what, you won't perish if you don't watch that TV show everyone is talking about, or if you have to wait six months for that new movie to show up on Netflix. The "harm" of doing without entertainment is no harm at all.

ssebro 15y ago
Death and physical injury aren't the only ways someone can be harmed. Trust me - if you're the only kid in highscool without cable who isn't able to talk about that show from last night, you miss opportunities to bond. Those missed bonds are worth quite a lot, since they directly impact your future.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  I'm sorry, but that's the most entitled and ridiculous position I've ever heard presented on the issue. As if copyright violation is somehow necessary to prevent social maladjustment. Where I grew up, we got two channels. Later, when we erected a huge antennae, we got two more. I didn't know what "Nickelodeon" was. So what did I do? I asked kids about the show they described, and I went to a friends house who had cable to watch it.
  - chc 15y ago
    Was your situation much worse than everyone around you? Because studies have found that past a certain point, people's satisfaction with life tends to be highly relative. If you grew up without TV in a culture where most people didn't have TV, your experience is not comparable to someone who grows up without TV in a culture where a good deal of social interaction is based around TV.
    - georgieporgie 15y ago
      The answer to your question is contained within my previous statement.
      - chc 15y ago
        Your previous comment seems to imply the situation that my answer assumed — that TV wasn't a big part of the culture where you grew up. (I got this from the statement, "Where I grew up, we got two channels.") But I didn't want to flat-out say you didn't know what you were talking about just based on an inference, so I phrased it in the form of a question. If indeed TV wasn't a big deal where you grew up, replace "TV" with whatever activity dominated the social scene among kids your age. For example, it might just be hanging out and shooting the breeze, or it might be sports, etc. As a former homeschooled kid, I definitely believe shared experiences and culture are important to socializing.
- cglace 15y ago
  You could also argue that wasting all of your time watching TV shows directly impacts your future. Basically anything we do now directly impacts our future.
njs12345 15y ago
There's no necessity or moral right behind it, but I fail to see how an action which does not harm others but benefits yourself is immoral --- much piracy has this form; here's a study which says that only 20% of album sales displace sales: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10874.pdf?new_window=1 http://www.nber.org/papers/w10874.pdf?new_window=1
- batista 15y ago
  If the study is true, 20% is huge (assuming you meant to write: "20% of an albums piracy displaces sales").
  - njs12345 15y ago
    There's probably still a net increase in welfare, although of course that's quite hard to measure.
    - sophacles 15y ago
      Not to mention the almost impossible to measure fact that once a work is in the zeitgeist, by wide spread sharing, it also will likely make more money than the same song that didn't get that level of exposure with no piracy. If this wasn't true, why would the music industry pay to get songs played on the radio?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
chc 15y ago
It's not as silly as thinking you have the moral right to control how people use copies of something just because you made the original. To be clear, I'm not arguing against copyright. I think some form of copyright is still a good compromise that serves society well. But I don't see how you can construct a system of human interaction where copyright is more of an inherent moral right than the general right to share information (including "entertainment," which can carry great cultural value).
- J3L2404 15y ago
  The software you wrote is good copyright, but the movie you want to watch is bad copyright. I don't see how this is a viable position for someone trying to make a living writing software (assuming you are).
  - chc 15y ago
    I don't believe I said anything like that. I said that invoking "inherent moral rights" to defend a very artificial compromise like copyright is a losing game. I outright said, "I'm not arguing against copyright." I definitely think copyright is a kludge, no two ways about it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't serve a purpose. I think copyright is a good and necessary compromise, where we temporarily give up some of our natural rights in order to improve society in the long run. But I think some people place it on far too high a pedestal. Violating copyright — even my copyright — does not necessarily make you a bad, selfish person any more than my insistence that I am entitled to this weird privilege called "copyright" makes me a bad, selfish person.
sophacles 15y ago
It is not the same as stealing bread to feed a family. That too is hyperbolic. You know what is just plain disingenous though? Framing discussions about how copyright could be different (better for many), as pointless or silly since copyright infringement isn't the same as stealing bread to feed a family. Possibly even in the same hyperbolic way, since "everything is perfect because it is not an extreme" is itself hyperbolic.

batista 15y ago

It is not stealing. This is well established. Stop using hyperbolic language to hysterically whine and force your moralistic crap down our throats 1) Hyperbolic 2) hysterically 3) whine 4)force 5) crap 6) down our throats. All because he used a common word, that laymen use all the time with respect to copyright infringement, and that even lawyers and judges are known to use occasionally. Who is hysterical, again? Not only is the term used extensibly, including by the FBI ( http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/ipr http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/cyber/ipr/ipr ), but also in the US legal code, "Criminal infringement of a copyright" is a subcategory of "Chapter 113: Stolen property" ( http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/113 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/18/I/113 ). So, your pedantic distinction only matters inside a court room, and under very rigid circumstances (for example, lawyers argue all the time using the word "theft" for the issue). Outside of the court room, anyone can use any word he damn pleases, and lots of people choose to use stealing to describe C.I. Moreover, this is not an American issue only, and other languages and legislations make no such distinction against "copyright infringement" and "stealing". 3. Whether Kim is breaking a law or not is not the point of this dicussion (another strawman here): the discussion is does the (il)leagailty of it make sense? And who exactly are you to define what the exact "point of this discussion" is? The point of the discussion is whatever is relevant to the issue, and both questions are relevant, as are many more. 4. Amazing improbable thinking does not grant one rights to someone else's pocketbook. Much like people should pay for stuff, by the same token, saying they should then suing them for actions they didn't and may never have taken is absurd. I should get paid $1 per read of this comment, there HN readers owe me a few $K. If you made your comment available only on a per pay basis, on your own platform, you absolutely should. But since you don't control HN and neither it's a pay site, so you don't have the option to do so. 5. Wow, I really fed this troll didn't I? No, you trolled on your own.

sophacles 15y ago
All because he used a common word, that laymen use all the time with respect to copyright infringement, and that even lawyers and judges are known to use occasionally. Common usage does not make an argument or term not hyperbolic. Right after 9/11 we were subject to "do this or the terrorists win" language all the time, for many many silly things, yet that was still a hyperbolic argument. Moreover, this is not an American issue only, and other languages and legislations make no such distinction against "copyright infringement" and "stealing". Actually they do. Theft is a different class of felony with different laws than copyright. Further, something being illegal does not make it immoral, which the poster I was replying to claimed. And who exactly are you to define what the exact "point of this discussion" is? The point of the discussion is whatever is relevant to the issue, and both questions are relevant, as are many more. I'm not making a claim to be the definer of the point of the discussion, just paraphrasing what the author of the post wrote, when he claimed not to be against copyright nor for kim, but instead asking if the way the situation was handled was government propping up a monopoly, and whether the laws made sense. To go off on a side rant about how bs it is to defend kim, and how this is obviously not a problem because of existing laws is in fact blatant point missing. To defend such actions because you don't like me vigorously defending a point is disingenuous. 5. Wow, I really fed this troll didn't I? No, you trolled on your own. Not trolling. Pointing out why an argument is bad and irrelevant is a pretty ok response to a bad and irrelevant argument. It isn't trolling, it is making clear that the emperor is naked.