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Piracy is not stealing. I don't know why everyone on HN suddenly turned into a copyright hawk, only big companies benefit from our current copyright regime, lik

Piracy is not stealing. I don't know why everyone on HN suddenly turned into a copyright hawk, only big companies benefit from our current copyright regime, like Disney and their lobbying for increasing its length.

Aurornis 1y ago
> only big companies benefit from our current copyright regime You’ve never authored, created, or published something? Never worked for a company that sells something protected by copyright?
- petralithic 1y ago
  All my works are open source or in the public domain. I don't like copyright for a reason.
  - kiitos 1y ago
    "open source" and "in the public domain" aren't like separate things from "copyright", they describe specific sub-sets of stuff underneath "copyright", which is a top-level category that establishes a meaningful definition of stuff like "your work(s)" in the first place i.e. "copyright" describes a legal concept, "copyleft" describes a licensing concept
    - petralithic 1y ago
      The point is the legal concept is a fiction, useful perhaps in the past, but increasingly not today, and like all fictions, it can be dispelled if people agree to do so.
      - kiitos 1y ago
        i mean sure if you're gonna take some epistemological position then every legal concept is a fiction, but that's not a particularly interesting nor useful angle on the discussion or, to put it more succinctly, and quoting one of the great contemporary aphorisms: sure, and if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bicycle
- okanat 1y ago
  > Never worked for a company that sells something protected by copyright? I.e. never created software in exchange of money.
alchemist1e9 1y ago
It’s shifts like that, going from a copyleft to a copyright crowd, that make me increasingly suspicious the HN is authentic as it was years ago. Another weird one is the socialism lean instead of more libertarian ideals by many commentators. I think it might be generational issues and being 50+ years old makes me an old timer!
- petralithic 1y ago
  I'm guessing it's because every year, younger people join HN. I've been on this site for at least a decade and a half with various accounts and it's interesting to see the shift.
heavyset_go 1y ago
It isn't black and white, you can be against some aspects of copyright and be for some others.
tene80i 1y ago
It’s very funny when people declare “piracy isn’t stealing”, as if the metaphor of piracy is all about singing and drinking. Copying and distributing works isn’t identical to theft (deliberately depriving someone of their property), but you’re enjoying someone’s work without compensating them, so it isn’t totally unlike depriving them of something. I guess it depends how you feel about refusing to pay a window washer. Or indeed you not being paid by your employer. It isn’t theft, but someone is clearly stiffing someone else. As for only big companies benefitting from the copyright regime… seems like an ideological assumption. I know plenty of authors and they are quite happy having legal protections around their work which means they can earn from their labour.
- mdp2021 1y ago
  > you’re enjoying someone’s work without compensating them Which is foreseen in societal decision: libraries (again and again). > refusing to pay a window washer The window washer is providing a service for a price, that service is not equivalent to knowledge production, and nobody has decided that that service (cleaning windows) should be done for free.
  - tene80i 1y ago
    Libraries are great and authors get paid when you borrow the book. But we’re talking about piracy. As for window washing vs knowledge production, not sure what you mean. Books have a price. Nobody’s decided they should be free either.
    - mdp2021 1y ago
      > authors get paid In the standard system for libraries, the book is paid once. That is "libraries" as in "we have societally decided to make published knowledge freely available". > window washing vs knowledge production Societies have not decided that window washing should be freely available - on the other side, they have decided that published knowledge be freely available (that is the meaning of the establishment of libraries).

Aurornis 1y ago

> only big companies benefit from our current copyright regime You’ve never authored, created, or published something? Never worked for a company that sells something protected by copyright?

petralithic 1y ago
All my works are open source or in the public domain. I don't like copyright for a reason.
- kiitos 1y ago
  "open source" and "in the public domain" aren't like separate things from "copyright", they describe specific sub-sets of stuff underneath "copyright", which is a top-level category that establishes a meaningful definition of stuff like "your work(s)" in the first place i.e. "copyright" describes a legal concept, "copyleft" describes a licensing concept
  - petralithic 1y ago
    The point is the legal concept is a fiction, useful perhaps in the past, but increasingly not today, and like all fictions, it can be dispelled if people agree to do so.
    - kiitos 1y ago
      i mean sure if you're gonna take some epistemological position then every legal concept is a fiction, but that's not a particularly interesting nor useful angle on the discussion or, to put it more succinctly, and quoting one of the great contemporary aphorisms: sure, and if my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bicycle
okanat 1y ago
> Never worked for a company that sells something protected by copyright? I.e. never created software in exchange of money.

alchemist1e9 1y ago

It’s shifts like that, going from a copyleft to a copyright crowd, that make me increasingly suspicious the HN is authentic as it was years ago. Another weird one is the socialism lean instead of more libertarian ideals by many commentators. I think it might be generational issues and being 50+ years old makes me an old timer!

petralithic 1y ago
I'm guessing it's because every year, younger people join HN. I've been on this site for at least a decade and a half with various accounts and it's interesting to see the shift.

heavyset_go 1y ago

It isn't black and white, you can be against some aspects of copyright and be for some others.

tene80i 1y ago

It’s very funny when people declare “piracy isn’t stealing”, as if the metaphor of piracy is all about singing and drinking. Copying and distributing works isn’t identical to theft (deliberately depriving someone of their property), but you’re enjoying someone’s work without compensating them, so it isn’t totally unlike depriving them of something. I guess it depends how you feel about refusing to pay a window washer. Or indeed you not being paid by your employer. It isn’t theft, but someone is clearly stiffing someone else. As for only big companies benefitting from the copyright regime… seems like an ideological assumption. I know plenty of authors and they are quite happy having legal protections around their work which means they can earn from their labour.

mdp2021 1y ago
> you’re enjoying someone’s work without compensating them Which is foreseen in societal decision: libraries (again and again). > refusing to pay a window washer The window washer is providing a service for a price, that service is not equivalent to knowledge production, and nobody has decided that that service (cleaning windows) should be done for free.
- tene80i 1y ago
  Libraries are great and authors get paid when you borrow the book. But we’re talking about piracy. As for window washing vs knowledge production, not sure what you mean. Books have a price. Nobody’s decided they should be free either.
  - mdp2021 1y ago
    > authors get paid In the standard system for libraries, the book is paid once. That is "libraries" as in "we have societally decided to make published knowledge freely available". > window washing vs knowledge production Societies have not decided that window washing should be freely available - on the other side, they have decided that published knowledge be freely available (that is the meaning of the establishment of libraries).