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While 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. Th
by wissler 14y ago
While 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).
- wissler 14y agoWell sure, they can have independent moral compasses, but they shouldn't. They both depend on a civilized society. Dropbox needs to uphold and defend the values of civilization (which don't include a paternalistic authoritarian monitoring system), not thwart them.
- mc32 14y agoI disagree. Just because I could open a grocery store which found it morally repugnant to sell animal-derived products does not mean everyone should share the same values. People and firms should be able to do the same within the framework of law
- wissler 14y agoAnimal-derived products are not morally repugnant, and the framework of law is no substitute for having a good moral sense. "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." --Martin Luther King, Jr.
- mc32 14y ago>and the framework of law is no substitute for having a good moral sense. Well, then, they're covered doubly. They are following moral sense and are also following the law. I.e. I do not see how taking this path breaks laws and I don't see their choice as being immoral. W/re animal-derived products. You and I might feel that eating animal flesh is a-ok, morally speaking. Conversely I and others might feel otherwise -that's it's morally indefensible. (see animal rights activists, or "the sexual politics of meat", for example). Dr. King used that phrase to make a point, he didn't say that to prove the legality of what Hitler did.