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Absolutely. Abolish all copyright. I can't believe hackers have lost their pirating roots and have become copyright zealots instead.

by Kiro 2y ago

xtracto 2y ago
This!. Thing is you are preaching to the wrong choir, Hackernews roots were not about the "original" hacking, but more about Silicon Valley for profit entrepreneurs creating stuff for profit to heavy quotes "make the world a better place" and "democratization X". The real hackers were in usenet, /. and similar forums. Now, I'm too old and haven't found a good place. Information wants to be free, copyright is a last century millennium construct to earn money from invention. (Before copyright, people got paid by patrons to invent their stuff). Copyright should be left at the XX century door, and whoever wants to "monetize" their intellect should use methods for the XXI century.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  At least in the United States, copyright has existed since the founding of the country, and the Constitution explicitly grants Congress the authority to regulate it. It’s not as recent as you make it out to be, and it’s not going away anytime soon. To the extent that there is a problem to be solved here, it must be solved within the context of copyright law.
angoragoats 2y ago
Just wanted to respond to this point as well, to say that while this is a logically consistent stance, painting all hackers as pirates is unfair. Even Aaron Swartz, the subject of this post, made a distinction (both in his writing/talks and his actions) between academic, scientific, and judicial articles, which he believed should be free for everyone, and other copyrighted content such as books and movies. He seemed to take a softer stance on the latter. I am not a copyright zealot by any means, but I’m trying to keep an open mind regarding the seemingly knee-jerk “abolish all copyright” takes from certain people in the AI sphere.

Absolutely. Abolish all copyright. I can't believe hackers have lost their pirating roots and have become copyright zealots instead.

by Kiro 2y ago

Absolutely. Abolish all copyright. I can't believe hackers have lost their pirating roots and have become copyright zealots instead.

xtracto 2y ago

This!. Thing is you are preaching to the wrong choir, Hackernews roots were not about the "original" hacking, but more about Silicon Valley for profit entrepreneurs creating stuff for profit to heavy quotes "make the world a better place" and "democratization X". The real hackers were in usenet, /. and similar forums. Now, I'm too old and haven't found a good place. Information wants to be free, copyright is a last century millennium construct to earn money from invention. (Before copyright, people got paid by patrons to invent their stuff). Copyright should be left at the XX century door, and whoever wants to "monetize" their intellect should use methods for the XXI century.

angoragoats 2y ago
At least in the United States, copyright has existed since the founding of the country, and the Constitution explicitly grants Congress the authority to regulate it. It’s not as recent as you make it out to be, and it’s not going away anytime soon. To the extent that there is a problem to be solved here, it must be solved within the context of copyright law.

angoragoats 2y ago

Just wanted to respond to this point as well, to say that while this is a logically consistent stance, painting all hackers as pirates is unfair. Even Aaron Swartz, the subject of this post, made a distinction (both in his writing/talks and his actions) between academic, scientific, and judicial articles, which he believed should be free for everyone, and other copyrighted content such as books and movies. He seemed to take a softer stance on the latter. I am not a copyright zealot by any means, but I’m trying to keep an open mind regarding the seemingly knee-jerk “abolish all copyright” takes from certain people in the AI sphere.