10 ms·

Why this Silence About The Pirate Bay as a Distributor of Culture?

75 points by Pr0 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
xradionut 14y ago
TPB is a distributor of culture just like graffiti tagged freight trains are a distributor of art.
jokermatt999 14y ago
I notice a lot of hostility towards "entitlement of culture" on Hacker News. While it sucks that artists aren't always being fairly compensated, I think there are some other factors to consider, starting with one major question: Would the people pirating these works have bought them in the first place? This article focuses on the sheer "access" aspect, because that's the most noble. If you can't legally buy a work, you aren't going to pay for it. If ever the word "entitlement" should be used in these debates, I'd say it's here. For people who aren't able to legally access these culturally significant works, I'd say yes they are entitled to be able to access these in an illegal manner and experience our culture. Note culturally significant. I'm not talking about the artistic merit of Hollywood blockbusters and the top 40 here. Similar to the "access" argument, there's the "exposure" argument. How many works have been pirated simply because they were free, but not something you'd be willing to risk ~$10+ on? Piracy enables people to get a taste of genres and styles they never would otherwise experience. I grew up in the age of Napster, and I was in middle school going to high school when Limewire was getting big. I listened to a much wider range of music and watched movies I never would have otherwise because they took almost 0 effort to acquire. I am a rather different person than I would have been without piracy. I look at my music library and my taste in movies, and realize almost all of that is because I was able to pirate them. I think the fact that older people tend to be more hostile to piracy isn't only because of ingrained habits, but partly because they weren't shaped by its effects.
- gte910h 14y ago
  There is something similar to the "straight up or down vote" mentality many people take towards media I think while in lawmaking, it's crazy to think you can do that, I think it's crazy to expect people to accept a copyright regime that supports bundling and timeshifting.
- tzs 14y ago
  > Would the people pirating these works have bought them in the first place? A given person pirating a given work might not have bought that specific work if piracy was not available, but he probably would have bought something. E.g., imagine someone who pirates all the new movie releases. If piracy became unavailable, do you think he'd simply stop watching movies? I doubt it. He'd start going to the theater. He probably would no longer see all the new releases, but he'd surely go see some. Edit: This got a down vote? Seriously? Someone actually thinks the typical pirate would give up movies completely if he could not pirate them?
  - demetrius 14y ago
    >> Someone actually thinks the typical pirate >> would give up movies completely if he could >> not pirate them? Why not? If people couldn’t watch movies, they would just read books. Lots of these in public domain. I, for instance, don’t watch movies and I don’t think I miss much. (I’ve been watching some [pirated] Hong Kong movies this year to improve my Cantonese though.)
- npsimons 14y ago
  My biggest issue with "entitlement culture" is the phrase itself: it's loaded language, thinly veiled propaganda to make opponents look bad. The creationists and NeoCons use the same tactic all the time (and freely admit to it being a tactic they use on purpose; look up their policy documents sometime). "Death tax" instead of inheritance tax, "taxpayer money" instead of public funds, etc, etc. "Framing" is another good topic to look up along these lines. What I want to know is why creators of content feel "entitled" to get paid? Sure, it'd be nice to get paid every time you do work, but that's not how the world works. Getting paid every time someone makes a copy (where virtually no work is done, these days) was a fluke of history that people shouldn't rely on either. Note that I'm not justifying copyright infringement (not "piracy", another loaded term), but "intellectual property" has no basis in reality, and a very thin one in what we jokingly call law these days. If a creative work is so important, then it's important enough to preserve, and that just about requires unfettered access, especially since there is no requirement to submit a non-DRM'ed copy to the copyright office anymore.
CJefferson 14y ago
I always mistrust discussions of the legal content on the pirate bay as a defence. Doing something legal does not defend illegal activities in general, and the pirate bay is, by any measure, predominantly copyrighted material whose owners do not want their material on TPB. The other argument, that TPB helps distributes culture so is a public good, it's a much better argument. It is however hard to know if it is overall better for society.
- maxharris 14y ago
  "Better for society," as it is typically invoked, is an invalid standard for determining what's good. It's a vague concept, and it's easy to shred intellectually. For example, we're often told that eminent domain is in "the public interest," but what about the homeowner facing eviction and demolition so that a new stadium, highway or shopping mall can be built? Isn't he part of the public? What about his interests? In reality, society is nothing more than a group individuals. A society has no special attributes apart from those of its individual members. If the "good of society" has any meaning, it must refer to the good of each of its individual members, as individuals. So how do we know what's good for an individual and what isn't? The correct standard for determining the good is the life of the person being discussed. The good is that which furthers that particular individual's life (with this standard, it is obvious that the evil is that which destroys that person's life). Finally, regarding the counter-argument about conflicts of interest that some might raise: I don't believe that there are any, in reality. What is in the true, rational self-interest of one person is never in conflict with the interests (defined in the same way) of any other person. [I don't have time to sketch this argument further, and I have to stop somewhere, so I'll leave it at that. If you're interested in more on this point, Google for "conflicts of interest among rational men."]
- coliveira 14y ago
  > distributes culture so is a public good only if you consider Disney moves as well as other Hollywood productions to contribute to the public good. I, for myself, think that enabling the distribution of this kind of content is a disservice to humanity. I much prefer that people would have to pay for access.
rayiner 14y ago
It's entertainment, and who says entertainment has to be free? My local strip club doesn't let people watch for free (even though each additional person costs them nothing). Where is the big outcry over that? Some of the rationalizations around Pirate Bay are just awful. I don't watch movies, play games, or buy albums anymore, largely because I don't have that kind of time. I don't feel "disconnected from society" because I can't "share in that culture."
- clicks 14y ago
  Recently I've had the opportunity to hang out with kids of various big companies' CEO's, CFO's children. Multi-millionaire families by all accounts and all that. Something that jumped out at me while talking to them was that they'd watched a lot of cinema classics that I, or my little siblings, had not -- I'm talking about Scorsese movies, Orson Welles movies, classics, Sergi Leoni films, spaghetti westerns, etc. etc. It dawned on me that films, very much like books, really are very profound mediums of culture. Indeed you would be most remiss if you were to deny that film cinema, music, etc. is one of the defining things of the Western culture. And it's a rather effective medium -- you get to hear how words /sound/. Watch Jeeves & Wooster (of Fry and Laurie) with subtitles on and you're going to increase your vocabulary with SAT-level words by about 10 words with each episode. Knowing about these movies, it keeps you well-connected into the Western culture, and more in tune to what's going on out there. You'll be able to communicate with people better. Sure libraries exist. And they're free. But TPB is giving you a chance to talk about culture -- to discover content in a free manner, you're checking out stuff at the comfort of your own home -- when you're in a quiet library the chance to talk about things is forgone. It's an overly formal and stigmatized process, as it potentially very well could be in inner city areas (I grew up in one -- I vividly remember being mocked in 6th grade by my peers when they'd find out I was heading to the library). My philosophy is: while you're under 18, poor... go ahead, download it all (preferably in a 'safe' way) -- try to see the classics, broaden your musical interests by trying out Mahler, Beethoven, Beatles, Jethro Tull, Lata Mangeshkar, Vladimir Vysotsky, etc. Download some books, get some '100 must read books' list and go by that -- download pdf files, ePub files if you decide to invest in a Kindle or something, read 1984, Huckleberry Finn, Dubliners, Lolita. Download engineering, computer sciences ebooks for your college courses, that will otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars and financially burden you when you're already in a shaky position. TPB is one of the great equalizers in our society. Once you're old and you've got it made, and can comfortably afford to spend some money -- go out and spend the money to watch a movie, go watch a musical, go to the local theater, spend to your heart's content.
apaprocki 14y ago
The themes in this post relate to the Internet as a whole and are not specific to TPB. If TPB went offline for good, everyone using it would simply shift to preferring a different default site for their searches. You could rewrite this exchanging Napster for TPB and roll the date back 10 years and it would still seem valid. I'm sure I know what the answer would be if the MPAA/RIAA were asked if they are ok with distributing works for free only to those in countries where it would otherwise be unavailable commercially. The phrase "shut up and pay me" comes to mind.
mtgx 14y ago
In a way this seems like the discussion about whether to eliminate patents for cancer drugs or other drugs for lethal diseases (like it happened in India), and therefore decrease the price of such drugs by 10-1000x, and help maybe tens of millions of people, or allow companies (foreign companies even) to keep charging whatever they want, and also have a monopoly on that type of drug.
- jre 14y ago
  There is a huge difference though : there are no lives on the line. Nobody will die because they couldn't pirate the latest Harry Potter.
- npsimons 14y ago
  One of the interesting factoids I came across a while ago was the assertion that 85-90% of pharmaceutical companies' expenses were marketing. Perhaps if they didn't spend so much on marketing, they wouldn't need to have patents for so long or charge so much?
frooxie 14y ago
In related news, you always hear about drug-related violence but never about all the drug-related kisses and hugs.

75 points by Pr0 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

xradionut 14y ago

TPB is a distributor of culture just like graffiti tagged freight trains are a distributor of art.

jokermatt999 14y ago

I notice a lot of hostility towards "entitlement of culture" on Hacker News. While it sucks that artists aren't always being fairly compensated, I think there are some other factors to consider, starting with one major question: Would the people pirating these works have bought them in the first place? This article focuses on the sheer "access" aspect, because that's the most noble. If you can't legally buy a work, you aren't going to pay for it. If ever the word "entitlement" should be used in these debates, I'd say it's here. For people who aren't able to legally access these culturally significant works, I'd say yes they are entitled to be able to access these in an illegal manner and experience our culture. Note culturally significant. I'm not talking about the artistic merit of Hollywood blockbusters and the top 40 here. Similar to the "access" argument, there's the "exposure" argument. How many works have been pirated simply because they were free, but not something you'd be willing to risk ~$10+ on? Piracy enables people to get a taste of genres and styles they never would otherwise experience. I grew up in the age of Napster, and I was in middle school going to high school when Limewire was getting big. I listened to a much wider range of music and watched movies I never would have otherwise because they took almost 0 effort to acquire. I am a rather different person than I would have been without piracy. I look at my music library and my taste in movies, and realize almost all of that is because I was able to pirate them. I think the fact that older people tend to be more hostile to piracy isn't only because of ingrained habits, but partly because they weren't shaped by its effects.

gte910h 14y ago
There is something similar to the "straight up or down vote" mentality many people take towards media I think while in lawmaking, it's crazy to think you can do that, I think it's crazy to expect people to accept a copyright regime that supports bundling and timeshifting.
tzs 14y ago
> Would the people pirating these works have bought them in the first place? A given person pirating a given work might not have bought that specific work if piracy was not available, but he probably would have bought something. E.g., imagine someone who pirates all the new movie releases. If piracy became unavailable, do you think he'd simply stop watching movies? I doubt it. He'd start going to the theater. He probably would no longer see all the new releases, but he'd surely go see some. Edit: This got a down vote? Seriously? Someone actually thinks the typical pirate would give up movies completely if he could not pirate them?
- demetrius 14y ago
  >> Someone actually thinks the typical pirate >> would give up movies completely if he could >> not pirate them? Why not? If people couldn’t watch movies, they would just read books. Lots of these in public domain. I, for instance, don’t watch movies and I don’t think I miss much. (I’ve been watching some [pirated] Hong Kong movies this year to improve my Cantonese though.)
npsimons 14y ago
My biggest issue with "entitlement culture" is the phrase itself: it's loaded language, thinly veiled propaganda to make opponents look bad. The creationists and NeoCons use the same tactic all the time (and freely admit to it being a tactic they use on purpose; look up their policy documents sometime). "Death tax" instead of inheritance tax, "taxpayer money" instead of public funds, etc, etc. "Framing" is another good topic to look up along these lines. What I want to know is why creators of content feel "entitled" to get paid? Sure, it'd be nice to get paid every time you do work, but that's not how the world works. Getting paid every time someone makes a copy (where virtually no work is done, these days) was a fluke of history that people shouldn't rely on either. Note that I'm not justifying copyright infringement (not "piracy", another loaded term), but "intellectual property" has no basis in reality, and a very thin one in what we jokingly call law these days. If a creative work is so important, then it's important enough to preserve, and that just about requires unfettered access, especially since there is no requirement to submit a non-DRM'ed copy to the copyright office anymore.

CJefferson 14y ago

I always mistrust discussions of the legal content on the pirate bay as a defence. Doing something legal does not defend illegal activities in general, and the pirate bay is, by any measure, predominantly copyrighted material whose owners do not want their material on TPB. The other argument, that TPB helps distributes culture so is a public good, it's a much better argument. It is however hard to know if it is overall better for society.

maxharris 14y ago
"Better for society," as it is typically invoked, is an invalid standard for determining what's good. It's a vague concept, and it's easy to shred intellectually. For example, we're often told that eminent domain is in "the public interest," but what about the homeowner facing eviction and demolition so that a new stadium, highway or shopping mall can be built? Isn't he part of the public? What about his interests? In reality, society is nothing more than a group individuals. A society has no special attributes apart from those of its individual members. If the "good of society" has any meaning, it must refer to the good of each of its individual members, as individuals. So how do we know what's good for an individual and what isn't? The correct standard for determining the good is the life of the person being discussed. The good is that which furthers that particular individual's life (with this standard, it is obvious that the evil is that which destroys that person's life). Finally, regarding the counter-argument about conflicts of interest that some might raise: I don't believe that there are any, in reality. What is in the true, rational self-interest of one person is never in conflict with the interests (defined in the same way) of any other person. [I don't have time to sketch this argument further, and I have to stop somewhere, so I'll leave it at that. If you're interested in more on this point, Google for "conflicts of interest among rational men."]
coliveira 14y ago
> distributes culture so is a public good only if you consider Disney moves as well as other Hollywood productions to contribute to the public good. I, for myself, think that enabling the distribution of this kind of content is a disservice to humanity. I much prefer that people would have to pay for access.

rayiner 14y ago

It's entertainment, and who says entertainment has to be free? My local strip club doesn't let people watch for free (even though each additional person costs them nothing). Where is the big outcry over that? Some of the rationalizations around Pirate Bay are just awful. I don't watch movies, play games, or buy albums anymore, largely because I don't have that kind of time. I don't feel "disconnected from society" because I can't "share in that culture."

clicks 14y ago
Recently I've had the opportunity to hang out with kids of various big companies' CEO's, CFO's children. Multi-millionaire families by all accounts and all that. Something that jumped out at me while talking to them was that they'd watched a lot of cinema classics that I, or my little siblings, had not -- I'm talking about Scorsese movies, Orson Welles movies, classics, Sergi Leoni films, spaghetti westerns, etc. etc. It dawned on me that films, very much like books, really are very profound mediums of culture. Indeed you would be most remiss if you were to deny that film cinema, music, etc. is one of the defining things of the Western culture. And it's a rather effective medium -- you get to hear how words /sound/. Watch Jeeves & Wooster (of Fry and Laurie) with subtitles on and you're going to increase your vocabulary with SAT-level words by about 10 words with each episode. Knowing about these movies, it keeps you well-connected into the Western culture, and more in tune to what's going on out there. You'll be able to communicate with people better. Sure libraries exist. And they're free. But TPB is giving you a chance to talk about culture -- to discover content in a free manner, you're checking out stuff at the comfort of your own home -- when you're in a quiet library the chance to talk about things is forgone. It's an overly formal and stigmatized process, as it potentially very well could be in inner city areas (I grew up in one -- I vividly remember being mocked in 6th grade by my peers when they'd find out I was heading to the library). My philosophy is: while you're under 18, poor... go ahead, download it all (preferably in a 'safe' way) -- try to see the classics, broaden your musical interests by trying out Mahler, Beethoven, Beatles, Jethro Tull, Lata Mangeshkar, Vladimir Vysotsky, etc. Download some books, get some '100 must read books' list and go by that -- download pdf files, ePub files if you decide to invest in a Kindle or something, read 1984, Huckleberry Finn, Dubliners, Lolita. Download engineering, computer sciences ebooks for your college courses, that will otherwise cost you hundreds of dollars and financially burden you when you're already in a shaky position. TPB is one of the great equalizers in our society. Once you're old and you've got it made, and can comfortably afford to spend some money -- go out and spend the money to watch a movie, go watch a musical, go to the local theater, spend to your heart's content.

apaprocki 14y ago

The themes in this post relate to the Internet as a whole and are not specific to TPB. If TPB went offline for good, everyone using it would simply shift to preferring a different default site for their searches. You could rewrite this exchanging Napster for TPB and roll the date back 10 years and it would still seem valid. I'm sure I know what the answer would be if the MPAA/RIAA were asked if they are ok with distributing works for free only to those in countries where it would otherwise be unavailable commercially. The phrase "shut up and pay me" comes to mind.

mtgx 14y ago

In a way this seems like the discussion about whether to eliminate patents for cancer drugs or other drugs for lethal diseases (like it happened in India), and therefore decrease the price of such drugs by 10-1000x, and help maybe tens of millions of people, or allow companies (foreign companies even) to keep charging whatever they want, and also have a monopoly on that type of drug.

jre 14y ago
There is a huge difference though : there are no lives on the line. Nobody will die because they couldn't pirate the latest Harry Potter.
npsimons 14y ago
One of the interesting factoids I came across a while ago was the assertion that 85-90% of pharmaceutical companies' expenses were marketing. Perhaps if they didn't spend so much on marketing, they wouldn't need to have patents for so long or charge so much?

frooxie 14y ago

In related news, you always hear about drug-related violence but never about all the drug-related kisses and hugs.