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I hope that one day comments like mine aren't needed anymore because people on Hacker News have RESPECT for each other's comments and don't down vote reasonably

by nirvana 15y ago

I hope that one day comments like mine aren't needed anymore because people on Hacker News have RESPECT for each other's comments and don't down vote reasonably valid perspectives like yours until they are hard for me to see. Also, I don't know if its wise or not, but there's a middle ground between Pirace not being a crime at all ,and Piracy being a crime like murder or theft. Piracy shouldn't be a criminal offense, but it could still be a civil offense. Would things be really bad if the punishment for pirating a movie was 4 times the ticket price? "Ok, you got me, I'll pay my $28 to disney."

wtallis 15y ago
"Artists should be able to dictate whatever terms they want" is by no means a reasonably valid perspective. It's a selfish, naive perspective, the dismissal of which is literally the first step in creating a reasonable copyright system.
- citricsquid 15y ago
  How is it selfish and naive? The rights to the content should belong to the creator (unless they transfer them) and they should dictate the terms surrounding the use and consumption of the content they created. Would it not be more selfish of you to say "I'm going to download that persons video game without paying even though they want me to pay!" than it is to say "I made this game, so I want people to pay me $20 to play it. If they don't pay, they're not allowed to play." You shouldn't have any right to the work of others.
  - wtallis 15y ago
    Your rights are worthless unless our courts help you enforce them. Why should anyone ever bother to serve on a jury in a suit you bring against someone who did something you don't like with your idea? Why should our tax dollars fund that legal framework? What's in it for the rest of us? You aren't entitled to use the government as your personal regulatory agency - that's a privilege granted to you the artist in exchange for limitations and guarantees designed to ensure that society can also benefit from your work in ways that you may not approve of.
    - crusso 15y ago
      > Why should our tax dollars fund that legal framework? What's in it for the rest of us? Isn't it contradictory to want to copy what a content creator produces and then deny that the content itself has value? Which is it, does the thing have value that makes others want to copy it so it's worth respecting that content as property of the creator, or is it valueless and there's no need to copy it in the first place? You can't really have it both ways. If the content is worth copying then it obviously has value so it's worth it for society to protect that value. Not protecting that value means dis-incentivizing content creators. What is that value? Well, like with everything else, that's a negotiation between the buyer and the seller. For mass-market products, that means that the seller sets a price and the buyer makes a purchase or no-purchase decision based upon the price and the perceived value of the thing being purchased. Once again, we're talking mostly about entertainment content here. In weighing the societal benefit of the content creator vs the pirate who wants to have a system that would deprive that content creator of any means of earning money from his work -- guess to which party society will probably always attach more value. So as a person who funds creation of content that I enjoy, I have to ask you: Why should my tax dollars fund your legal framework?
      - wtallis 15y ago
        A good idea is worthless if nobody ever thinks it, and it's value to society increases as it is shared with more people. This is completely opposite from the economics of scarce goods: once a good idea has been discovered, the macroeconomic optimum strategy is to eliminate as much as possible barriers to spreading that idea, so that everyone can benefit. Hoarding information may let you increase the price, but it doesn't increase or protect the value. "price=value" isn't a definition; it is only true for scarce goods in a competitive market. Would the Pythagorean Theorem be more valuable if you had to pay a fee to use it? And no, we're not just talking about entertainment here. It's impossible to objectively separate entertainment content from more "important" ideas like Uncle Tom's Cabin or even geostationary orbits (popularized by a sci-fi author). It's also impossible to fully separate copyrights and patents, since they have the same legal foundation and purpose.
        15y ago
- jacquesm 15y ago
  The producer of a good sets the price, it's that simple. You don't have to buy it, especially not with a luxury good like media. If it were a monopoly on grain that's another matter.
  - wtallis 15y ago
    The producer can certainly set the price, but can they attach other strings? The first-sale doctrine says no, except where explicitly allowed.

by nirvana 15y ago

wtallis 15y ago

"Artists should be able to dictate whatever terms they want" is by no means a reasonably valid perspective. It's a selfish, naive perspective, the dismissal of which is literally the first step in creating a reasonable copyright system.

citricsquid 15y ago
How is it selfish and naive? The rights to the content should belong to the creator (unless they transfer them) and they should dictate the terms surrounding the use and consumption of the content they created. Would it not be more selfish of you to say "I'm going to download that persons video game without paying even though they want me to pay!" than it is to say "I made this game, so I want people to pay me $20 to play it. If they don't pay, they're not allowed to play." You shouldn't have any right to the work of others.
- wtallis 15y ago
  Your rights are worthless unless our courts help you enforce them. Why should anyone ever bother to serve on a jury in a suit you bring against someone who did something you don't like with your idea? Why should our tax dollars fund that legal framework? What's in it for the rest of us? You aren't entitled to use the government as your personal regulatory agency - that's a privilege granted to you the artist in exchange for limitations and guarantees designed to ensure that society can also benefit from your work in ways that you may not approve of.
  - crusso 15y ago
    > Why should our tax dollars fund that legal framework? What's in it for the rest of us? Isn't it contradictory to want to copy what a content creator produces and then deny that the content itself has value? Which is it, does the thing have value that makes others want to copy it so it's worth respecting that content as property of the creator, or is it valueless and there's no need to copy it in the first place? You can't really have it both ways. If the content is worth copying then it obviously has value so it's worth it for society to protect that value. Not protecting that value means dis-incentivizing content creators. What is that value? Well, like with everything else, that's a negotiation between the buyer and the seller. For mass-market products, that means that the seller sets a price and the buyer makes a purchase or no-purchase decision based upon the price and the perceived value of the thing being purchased. Once again, we're talking mostly about entertainment content here. In weighing the societal benefit of the content creator vs the pirate who wants to have a system that would deprive that content creator of any means of earning money from his work -- guess to which party society will probably always attach more value. So as a person who funds creation of content that I enjoy, I have to ask you: Why should my tax dollars fund your legal framework?
    - wtallis 15y ago
      A good idea is worthless if nobody ever thinks it, and it's value to society increases as it is shared with more people. This is completely opposite from the economics of scarce goods: once a good idea has been discovered, the macroeconomic optimum strategy is to eliminate as much as possible barriers to spreading that idea, so that everyone can benefit. Hoarding information may let you increase the price, but it doesn't increase or protect the value. "price=value" isn't a definition; it is only true for scarce goods in a competitive market. Would the Pythagorean Theorem be more valuable if you had to pay a fee to use it? And no, we're not just talking about entertainment here. It's impossible to objectively separate entertainment content from more "important" ideas like Uncle Tom's Cabin or even geostationary orbits (popularized by a sci-fi author). It's also impossible to fully separate copyrights and patents, since they have the same legal foundation and purpose.
      - 15y ago
jacquesm 15y ago
The producer of a good sets the price, it's that simple. You don't have to buy it, especially not with a luxury good like media. If it were a monopoly on grain that's another matter.
- wtallis 15y ago
  The producer can certainly set the price, but can they attach other strings? The first-sale doctrine says no, except where explicitly allowed.