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It's just such a mind-meltingly bad argument, man. "A whole bunch of folks ignore copyright terms, so all complaints that 'Inhaling most-to-all of the code tha
by simoncion 1y ago
It's just such a mind-meltingly bad argument, man.
"A whole bunch of folks ignore copyright terms, so all complaints that 'Inhaling most-to-all of the code that can be read on the Internet with the intent to make a proprietary machine that makes a ton of revenue for the owner of that machine and noone else is probably bad, and if not a violation of the letter of the law, surely a violation of its spirit.' are invalid."
When I hear someone sincerely say stuff that works out to "Software licenses don't matter, actually.", I strongly reduce my estimation of their ability to reason well and behave ethically. Does this matter? Probably not. There are many folks in the field who hold that sort of opinion, so it's relatively easy to surround yourself with likeminded folks. Do you hold these sorts of opinions? Fuck if I know. All I know about is what you wrote today.
Anyway. As I mentioned, you're late-career in what seems to be a significantly successful career, so your reputation absolutely doesn't matter, and all this chatter is irrelevant to you.
- tptacek 1y agoI don't know who you're quoting, but it's not me.
- simoncion 1y agoI'm not quoting anyone. Perhaps wrapping the second paragraph in what I understand to be Russian-style quotes (« ») would have been clearer? Or maybe prepending the words "Your argument ends up being something like " to the second paragraph would have been far clearer? shrug
- tptacek 1y agoOn HN, the convention is that quotations indicate literal quotation. It's not a reasonable paraphrase of my argument either, but you know that.
- simoncion 1y ago> It's not a reasonable paraphrase of my argument either, but you know that. To quote from your essay: "But if you’re a software developer playing this card? Cut me a little slack as I ask you to shove this concern up your ass. No profession has demonstrated more contempt for intellectual property. The median dev thinks Star Wars and Daft Punk are a public commons. The great cultural project of developers has been opposing any protection that might inconvenience a monetizable media-sharing site. When they fail at policy, they route around it with coercion. They stand up global-scale piracy networks and sneer at anybody who so much as tries to preserve a new-release window for a TV show." Man, you might not see the resemblance now, but if you return to it in three to six months, I bet you will. Also, I was a professional musician in a former life. Given the content of your essay, you might be surprised to know how very, very fast and loose musicians as a class play with copyright laws. In my personal experience, the typical musician paid for approximately zero of the audio recordings in their possession. I'd be surprised if things weren't similar for the typical practitioner of the visual arts.
- tptacek 1y agoI come from a family musicians (I'm the only non-musician in it).
- lolinder 1y agoAnd I'm the only one in mine who isn't either a musician or an author. I'm not sure why you believe that being in a creative family gives you some sort of divine authority to condemn the rest of us for our collective sins.
- simoncion 1y agoAh good. If one of your family were to bring a plagiarism suit against another musician (or company (regardless of whether that company's music was produced by humans or robots)) that'd clearly ripped off their work, would you decry them as a hypocrite? If not, why not? If so, (seriously, earnestly) kudos for being consistent in your thoughts on the matter.
- player1234 1y ago
- lolinder 1y agoThe second paragraph in OP's comment is absolutely a reasonable paraphrase of your argument. I read your version many times over to try to find the substance and... that is the substance. If you didn't mean it to be then that section needed to be heavily edited.