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> tptacek, you and I have exchanged comments before when it comes to copyright. What's the real issue here? From reading many of tptacek's comments over the ye

> tptacek, you and I have exchanged comments before when it comes to copyright. What's the real issue here? From reading many of tptacek's comments over the years on HN, I think he sometimes plays devil's advocate to encourage discussion.

tptacek 13y ago
No, like (I think) most people who don't spend a lot of time on nerd message boards, I think pirating content (of all stripes) is deeply unethical and harmful.
- sounds 13y ago
  Ok. I can respect that.
- belorn 13y ago
  Like (I think) most people who don't live in copyright bubble, I think most people would vote against government restricting 12 year old kids from learning physics based on their economic standing in society. Most people if given a chance would to think about the ethical problems of current copyright law, and consider the harmful effect of using government force against children. They would (I think) reason that since we don't allow child labour, children are by definition not allowed to earn the money needed to pay for the learning they yearn for. Given a chance to vote on it, my guess is that the vote would thus not be in favor of prosecution against children for crimes of learning, nor a duration of +100 years after the authors death. A popularity vote would much more likely (in my opinion) go to something like 10 years and limited copyright enforceability against children. The result would (likely expected) to be decrease piracy levels, create a massive culture explosion of new works, and make the average creator more richer than ever before. A true win, win situation for everyone except Disney.
- bediger4000 13y ago
  Right, but what, exactly, is "pirating content"? And how far are we going to go to preven it? Because strictly speaking, the entire world wide web is based on copying content. Strictly, that's a whole lot of copyright infringement, a.k.a. "pirating". Sure, copyright isn't enforced a lot, but still, where's the line? Very strictly enforcing current laws on copyright would (I think) prohibit a useful world wide web. Are you willing to go that far? If so, how do you propose we implement the enforcement without intruding massively on other, God Given Rights? If not, where and why are you going to draw the line? Because where you draw the line is going to be different than where the MPAA draws the line, and different from where I draw it (I think).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]

tptacek 13y ago

No, like (I think) most people who don't spend a lot of time on nerd message boards, I think pirating content (of all stripes) is deeply unethical and harmful.

sounds 13y ago
Ok. I can respect that.
belorn 13y ago
Like (I think) most people who don't live in copyright bubble, I think most people would vote against government restricting 12 year old kids from learning physics based on their economic standing in society. Most people if given a chance would to think about the ethical problems of current copyright law, and consider the harmful effect of using government force against children. They would (I think) reason that since we don't allow child labour, children are by definition not allowed to earn the money needed to pay for the learning they yearn for. Given a chance to vote on it, my guess is that the vote would thus not be in favor of prosecution against children for crimes of learning, nor a duration of +100 years after the authors death. A popularity vote would much more likely (in my opinion) go to something like 10 years and limited copyright enforceability against children. The result would (likely expected) to be decrease piracy levels, create a massive culture explosion of new works, and make the average creator more richer than ever before. A true win, win situation for everyone except Disney.
bediger4000 13y ago
Right, but what, exactly, is "pirating content"? And how far are we going to go to preven it? Because strictly speaking, the entire world wide web is based on copying content. Strictly, that's a whole lot of copyright infringement, a.k.a. "pirating". Sure, copyright isn't enforced a lot, but still, where's the line? Very strictly enforcing current laws on copyright would (I think) prohibit a useful world wide web. Are you willing to go that far? If so, how do you propose we implement the enforcement without intruding massively on other, God Given Rights? If not, where and why are you going to draw the line? Because where you draw the line is going to be different than where the MPAA draws the line, and different from where I draw it (I think).
deleted 13y ago
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