6 ms·

If everyone just sat back and allowed the powers to do what they please, we'd have absolutely nothing in this world. Countless have spilled blood or have been k

If everyone just sat back and allowed the powers to do what they please, we'd have absolutely nothing in this world. Countless have spilled blood or have been killed over the fight for freedom in the past giving us the humanist open society we have now. The fight is never over.

FredPret 2y ago
This isn't a clear-cut case of humanism vs something else. Humanist values include right to property ownership, and the right to get the benefits of your work. Artists deserve that, and can sell their rights to big studios if they want. Just because it's easy to copy something, or just because studio execs were idiots who wouldn't get on board with streaming, or whatever else, doesn't mean it's morally right to copy someone's work for free.
- scarmig 2y ago
  Humanism arose during the Renaissance, when scholars and artists gleefully cribbed from each other's work without attribution and copyright didn't even exist. It's perfectly fine to copy someone else's work. The immorality comes in when you start using physical force to punish people thinking thoughts you feel entitled to.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    I'm 1000% in favor of free ideas and free speech. Copying scientific ideas (with attribution!) is completely OK and good. Having heterodox ideas is vital for society. Forcing people to think certain thoughts (or trying to) is the worst evil. But making a movie is a commercial enterprise that involves risking a bunch of capital. It rarely pans out to make a profit. Copying it without payment is a very minor form of theft, but it's still theft.
    - MacsHeadroom 2y ago
      Depriving someone of their liberty over interference with a revenue model based on copyright protections is not 1000% in favor of free ideas and free speech.
      - FredPret 2y ago
        Yes it is. If the content is a movie created in the last 100 years, it was almost certainly created to slot into that revenue model. The artists have a right to sell their property on their terms. And if they decide to do so by selling their rights to a studio, then that's how it is. And if you don't like corporations, contracts, or the revenue model, then that's completely irrelevant to the parties involved.
        colordrops 2y ago
        You could add restrictions to anything to create business models. Doesn't mean it's natural and helpful to society. The vast majority of movies are tripe and provide no real value to humanity. And the vast majority of revenue go to a few executives and middlemen rather than the artists. The fact that this regime exists now is not proof that it is a good thing - that's circular logic.
        kelseyfrog 2y ago
        Not all stipulations sellers place on items are legal. For example, I cannot sell you a scooter with the stipulation that if I need a kidney, you'll have to donate one to me. Furthermore, what is and isn't legal is a product of the legislature and the judiciary. Let's not forget that people write laws and interpret laws. They aren't some function of the cosmic order, though it's convenient to posture them as if they were. When someone "has the right," it's because a group of people gave it to them, and anything that can be given, can be taken away. The fact that we forget this reality is a massive collective hallucination. Once you know how the hallucination works, it's hard to buy into it ever again. TLDR; The arrow of implication doesn't go from reality -> laws. It goes from laws -> reality.
        FredPret 2y ago
    - scotty79 2y ago
      > Forcing people to think certain thoughts (or trying to) is the worst evil. Like forcing people think that copying is theft? Or that by clicking a button you agree to few hundred page agreement you couldn't possibly read or understand?
    - ruthmarx 2y ago
      It's not theft in any sense of the word. Please stop reporting this misinformation ASAP. If movie productions were so concerned about profit, maybe they should stop all the Hollywood accounting nonsense. The industry has just made several films surpassing a billion dollars. The industry is absolute fine. And someone downloading Deadpool isn't stealing or doing any harm to that industry.
      - amy-petrik-214 2y ago
        I hope that one day metal 3D printing becomes cheap, advanced, reliable and widespread. I hope you design an amazing epic car, the best ever, which everyone suddenly begins downloading, 3D printing, and driving around here or there. Only then would you know the pain of having your car downloaded, I put that pain on you.
        ruthmarx 2y ago
        I do create and publish content, I just haven't drunk the kool-aid that makes me think I'm entitled to a set amount of money for every copy consumed. If people want to pay for it they will, and if they don't they won't. If I don't have enough talent to make a lot of money from my work, then that's the only reason - not piracy.
  - MacsHeadroom 2y ago
    >The immorality comes in when you start using physical force to punish people for sharing or facilitating the thinking of thoughts you feel entitled to.*
  - __loam 2y ago
    Creative work costs money to make. People who make it should have the right to make a living off it. It's not hard. Most of the people on this site make their money creating intellectual property. How many piracy activists here would be willing to leak the source code their company relies on?
    - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
      And how many expect that there would be no repercussions if they did, even if they believed it would be a moral thing to do?
  - cdchn 2y ago
    >when scholars and artists gleefully cribbed from each other's work without attribution and copyright didn't even exist This was also a time before mass copying and distribution on a massive scale.
    - Fomite 2y ago
      This was also a time of wealthy patrons
- kylebenzle 2y ago
  That is 100% the antithesis of the hacker spirit and I shudder at your callousness. 1. All information wants to be free. 2. The second something is digitized it becomes "free". 3. Artificially depriving someone of something that is free for personal profit is immoral.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    I have to be a communist to have "hacker spirit"? Hardly. 1. All information wants to be free. Information on the order of complexity of a movie cannot want anything. 2. The second something is digitized it becomes "free". Nearly free to copy, doesn't mean you're free to take it. 3. Artificially depriving someone of something that is free for personal profit is immoral. I get the sentiment here but I don't think it follows in the context of an artist creating something specifically to make money from it when it gets distributed.
    - colordrops 2y ago
      it's very simple. trying to apply the concept of property to information is unnatural and has hindered human progress more than it has helped. Information is not like physical property, which is limited in supply. In fact it doesn't even really exist. To tell me that having the atoms on MY hard drive or MY ink molecules on MY paper arranged in a certain pattern is absurd. I'm not depriving anyone of anything by doing this. I am the one being deprived by not being allowed to arrange them how I wish. To try to own information is like trying to own a flame. I lit your candle with my candle, so I own the flame on your candle. Making a copy is the same. To claim you own the copy is just plain stupid.
      - FredPret 2y ago
        This is a weird argument. Information can be any collection of bits. You can copy these easily and almost for free. But almost nobody cares about information in the abstract. I'm talking about specific, artful arrangements of bits. Lots of effort goes into making sequences of bits. (we can give our sequence of bits names like "The Lion King" or "Windows 98"). You only want a copy of these bits because of the effort that went into it. Of course nobody can control how you flip the bits on your hard drive in practice, but that's missing the point. It's a particular arrangement of bits that you find entertaining or informative or useful, somebody put a lot of work into making it that way, and it's this creative effort that you end up enjoying and paying for, not the actual bits. And of course you are depriving the artists of something - a royalty payment. The art was likely created with a view to that royalty payment. Which is why you want to pirate it in the first place. You want to enjoy the creative work without having to shell out for it. You can come up with elaborate arguments about information theory, but in the end this is what it comes down to - pirates want other people to create value for them, for free, and will howl about "corporations" and "information wants to be free" to try and justify it.

FredPret 2y ago

This isn't a clear-cut case of humanism vs something else. Humanist values include right to property ownership, and the right to get the benefits of your work. Artists deserve that, and can sell their rights to big studios if they want. Just because it's easy to copy something, or just because studio execs were idiots who wouldn't get on board with streaming, or whatever else, doesn't mean it's morally right to copy someone's work for free.

scarmig 2y ago
Humanism arose during the Renaissance, when scholars and artists gleefully cribbed from each other's work without attribution and copyright didn't even exist. It's perfectly fine to copy someone else's work. The immorality comes in when you start using physical force to punish people thinking thoughts you feel entitled to.
- FredPret 2y ago
  I'm 1000% in favor of free ideas and free speech. Copying scientific ideas (with attribution!) is completely OK and good. Having heterodox ideas is vital for society. Forcing people to think certain thoughts (or trying to) is the worst evil. But making a movie is a commercial enterprise that involves risking a bunch of capital. It rarely pans out to make a profit. Copying it without payment is a very minor form of theft, but it's still theft.
  - MacsHeadroom 2y ago
    Depriving someone of their liberty over interference with a revenue model based on copyright protections is not 1000% in favor of free ideas and free speech.
    - FredPret 2y ago
      Yes it is. If the content is a movie created in the last 100 years, it was almost certainly created to slot into that revenue model. The artists have a right to sell their property on their terms. And if they decide to do so by selling their rights to a studio, then that's how it is. And if you don't like corporations, contracts, or the revenue model, then that's completely irrelevant to the parties involved.
      - colordrops 2y ago
        You could add restrictions to anything to create business models. Doesn't mean it's natural and helpful to society. The vast majority of movies are tripe and provide no real value to humanity. And the vast majority of revenue go to a few executives and middlemen rather than the artists. The fact that this regime exists now is not proof that it is a good thing - that's circular logic.
      - kelseyfrog 2y ago
        Not all stipulations sellers place on items are legal. For example, I cannot sell you a scooter with the stipulation that if I need a kidney, you'll have to donate one to me. Furthermore, what is and isn't legal is a product of the legislature and the judiciary. Let's not forget that people write laws and interpret laws. They aren't some function of the cosmic order, though it's convenient to posture them as if they were. When someone "has the right," it's because a group of people gave it to them, and anything that can be given, can be taken away. The fact that we forget this reality is a massive collective hallucination. Once you know how the hallucination works, it's hard to buy into it ever again. TLDR; The arrow of implication doesn't go from reality -> laws. It goes from laws -> reality.
        FredPret 2y ago
  - scotty79 2y ago
    > Forcing people to think certain thoughts (or trying to) is the worst evil. Like forcing people think that copying is theft? Or that by clicking a button you agree to few hundred page agreement you couldn't possibly read or understand?
  - ruthmarx 2y ago
    It's not theft in any sense of the word. Please stop reporting this misinformation ASAP. If movie productions were so concerned about profit, maybe they should stop all the Hollywood accounting nonsense. The industry has just made several films surpassing a billion dollars. The industry is absolute fine. And someone downloading Deadpool isn't stealing or doing any harm to that industry.
    - amy-petrik-214 2y ago
      I hope that one day metal 3D printing becomes cheap, advanced, reliable and widespread. I hope you design an amazing epic car, the best ever, which everyone suddenly begins downloading, 3D printing, and driving around here or there. Only then would you know the pain of having your car downloaded, I put that pain on you.
      - ruthmarx 2y ago
        I do create and publish content, I just haven't drunk the kool-aid that makes me think I'm entitled to a set amount of money for every copy consumed. If people want to pay for it they will, and if they don't they won't. If I don't have enough talent to make a lot of money from my work, then that's the only reason - not piracy.
- MacsHeadroom 2y ago
  >The immorality comes in when you start using physical force to punish people for sharing or facilitating the thinking of thoughts you feel entitled to.*
- __loam 2y ago
  Creative work costs money to make. People who make it should have the right to make a living off it. It's not hard. Most of the people on this site make their money creating intellectual property. How many piracy activists here would be willing to leak the source code their company relies on?
  - AnimalMuppet 2y ago
    And how many expect that there would be no repercussions if they did, even if they believed it would be a moral thing to do?
- cdchn 2y ago
  >when scholars and artists gleefully cribbed from each other's work without attribution and copyright didn't even exist This was also a time before mass copying and distribution on a massive scale.
  - Fomite 2y ago
    This was also a time of wealthy patrons
kylebenzle 2y ago
That is 100% the antithesis of the hacker spirit and I shudder at your callousness. 1. All information wants to be free. 2. The second something is digitized it becomes "free". 3. Artificially depriving someone of something that is free for personal profit is immoral.
- FredPret 2y ago
  I have to be a communist to have "hacker spirit"? Hardly. 1. All information wants to be free. Information on the order of complexity of a movie cannot want anything. 2. The second something is digitized it becomes "free". Nearly free to copy, doesn't mean you're free to take it. 3. Artificially depriving someone of something that is free for personal profit is immoral. I get the sentiment here but I don't think it follows in the context of an artist creating something specifically to make money from it when it gets distributed.
  - colordrops 2y ago
    it's very simple. trying to apply the concept of property to information is unnatural and has hindered human progress more than it has helped. Information is not like physical property, which is limited in supply. In fact it doesn't even really exist. To tell me that having the atoms on MY hard drive or MY ink molecules on MY paper arranged in a certain pattern is absurd. I'm not depriving anyone of anything by doing this. I am the one being deprived by not being allowed to arrange them how I wish. To try to own information is like trying to own a flame. I lit your candle with my candle, so I own the flame on your candle. Making a copy is the same. To claim you own the copy is just plain stupid.
    - FredPret 2y ago
      This is a weird argument. Information can be any collection of bits. You can copy these easily and almost for free. But almost nobody cares about information in the abstract. I'm talking about specific, artful arrangements of bits. Lots of effort goes into making sequences of bits. (we can give our sequence of bits names like "The Lion King" or "Windows 98"). You only want a copy of these bits because of the effort that went into it. Of course nobody can control how you flip the bits on your hard drive in practice, but that's missing the point. It's a particular arrangement of bits that you find entertaining or informative or useful, somebody put a lot of work into making it that way, and it's this creative effort that you end up enjoying and paying for, not the actual bits. And of course you are depriving the artists of something - a royalty payment. The art was likely created with a view to that royalty payment. Which is why you want to pirate it in the first place. You want to enjoy the creative work without having to shell out for it. You can come up with elaborate arguments about information theory, but in the end this is what it comes down to - pirates want other people to create value for them, for free, and will howl about "corporations" and "information wants to be free" to try and justify it.