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These rich corporations are de facto stewards of our political system. (That may not be the ideal way the political system should work, but that's how it does w
by wissler 14y ago
These rich corporations are de facto stewards of our political system. (That may not be the ideal way the political system should work, but that's how it does work, and the well-connected, well-funded fully exploit it).
And the problem here isn't piracy. It's freedom of speech and property rights. Might someone misuse their property? Sure. But that's no grounds for stifling them.
Dropbox is behaving in an immoral fashion. (For contrast, look at what Twitter's very morally upstanding behavior on a number of issues over the past few years).
- rprasad 14y agoDropbox is behaving morally. They are choosing not to allow a product/service that they know will be overwhelmingly used for copyright violations. This is not theft, but it does cause meaningful and measurable economic harm to the owners and producers. Before you spout off about media company oppression, remember that the people most affected by piracy are the crews that work behind the scenes to make the movies and tv shows. The crews are the first people fired if movies and tv shows can't cover their budget. Furthermore, freedom of speech is protection from government censorship of speech. Private persons do not have to let you say anything on their property. Private persons do not have to let you use their property. Dropbox is a private company. It does not have to let other people use its API, website, service, facilities, or employees. If you want to use Boxopus some much, create your own Dropbox, from scratch. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
- wissler 14y agoWhile I agree with your free market principles, I do not agree with your application in this mixed economy context. Dropbox is not exactly a private company. The larger the company, the more it tends to be a branch of our government (via insidious corporatist mechanisms), so your standing up for their "private property" rights is dangerously misplaced. An even more extreme example would be the telecoms, which greatly benefit from government privilege and where individual competition is prohibited. Saying "build your own telecom from scratch, don't complain" is just very deranged given the context. Further, even if you were correct that it was a truly private company, your defense on the grounds of property rights is misplaced. A torrent is merely a technical way of copying efficiently, it is not a copyright-violating tool. Whether you believe it is often used for that purpose is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are users with legitimate needs for this service, and Dropbox is arbitrarily declaring it off limits because some other users might use it in a way they don't approve of. There is no moral principle that says punish Peter for what Paul might be doing; on the contrary, behaving that is viciously immoral behavior. So, Dropbox is indeed behaving immorally.
- J3L2404 14y agoOh the noble pirate, Dropbox must throw themselves on their sword to be moral. You are way out on a ledge but your tinfoil hat fits well.
- wissler 14y agoI'm not a pirate. I don't even use torrents myself. But your admission that you have no argument, implied by your fabrication in order to make an ad hominem attack, is noted.
- J3L2404 14y agoWell I don't think it is ad hominen if the reference was metaphorical, but I could be wrong. Sorry I labeled you as pirate (god I hate that word now), but I thought that was implied. Dropbox has certain rights. Whether they spend capital on a moral crusade should be up to them. It's a freedom thing.
- wissler 14y agoIt's not implied. No one has disputed their legal rights, nor is it a "moral crusade" to at least try to do the right thing. On the contrary, given that you have plenty of resources, then not doing the right thing is dishonorable. Dropbox's actions are dishonorable.
- wissler 14y agoIs it your view that Twitter has "thrown themselves on their sword" when they went out of their way to defend the rights of their users against government subpoena? Or when they took a stand on software patents?
- mc32 14y agoTwitter and Drop box can have independent "moral compasses". They don't have to have the same -just as you and I don't have to share the same. Not to imply that questioning subpoenas equates to questioning piracy. Piracy is not a right, while having protections against unreasonable searches is aright (depending on country, of course).
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jeremyarussell 14y agoDropbox is not the huge powerhouse of money that would be able to just act as if the law doesn't apply to them. They are scared that they will get in trouble, and the biggest reason for them to do this in my honest opinion is simple... Traffic, dropbox servers were acting up recently, right when boxopus got big, chances are they can't keep up the kind of traffic that torrents require. Is it a shame that I can't use a legit tool to download me some open stuff? Yeah a bit. But, guess what. I found 5 open source dropbox clones within minutes of a google search. It really wasn't that hard. If boxopus could have stayed, I promise I would have been getting a paid dropbox account. With dropbox not letting these guys continue, there's a good chance I'll invest my time in one of the open source projects. I really like debugging stuff anyways so it'll be fun. TL;DR - Dropbox is a private company, I can take my money elsewhere if I want, or pick one of the many open source alternatives.