3 ms·

Great comment. Fascinating thoughts, and well said. Can't upvote it enough. > "Steal this book" is punk, but "steal all the books" is tyranny Just wow. I'd li

Great comment. Fascinating thoughts, and well said. Can't upvote it enough. > "Steal this book" is punk, but "steal all the books" is tyranny Just wow. I'd like to add some thoughts so that my comment isn't just a well deserved kudos that adds nothing to the conversation: Hackers and hacker culture aren't actually as all powerful as you make them out to be. Most of the people on hn don't have four houses and a private jet or the power to crash corporate systems single handedly. We do have disproportionately more power than we did 30 years ago and the imbalance is growing. But we still don't have the most important thing that any would be revolutionary can have: Public support. I was watching a documentary on Che Guevara the other day and I noticed how well things went for him in Cuba contrasted with how poorly they went in Bolivia. The difference was that the people were behind him in the former and hunting him in the latter. If hackers make the MPAA out to be the enemy, geezers that we need to hack circles around, then they will never win. Most people aren't upset with the MPAA or the RIAA, they don't see them as villains to be defeated. Everyone likes to get free stuff, but not enough to stand up and fight. Most of the people I know happily pay whatever price itunes asks for music or movies or any digital content. Granted most of the people I know are professionals with enough disposable income to pay for an album or kindle book without a second thought. And until they get pissed off with something that the various entertainment industries do, there will be no support for the freedom of information cause. The revolution will not be televised, or downloaded, because it won't exist. This is the general problem with the freedom of information movement, you can't rally people to fight against someone who isn't actually oppressing them. No one I know has a problem with even DRM, it generally never occurs to them to copy media and send it to someone else. Heck, most of them aren't even aware of TPB at all. It's always good to see people fighting for what they believe in, but unless the majority of people can be convinced to join the fight the battles will be long, hard and potentially pointless.

api 12y ago
I was just arguing that hackers, hacker culture, and programmers/hackers as a socioeconomic class are far more powerful than artists as a socioeconomic class. They're also arguably more powerful than the RIAA, MPAA, and even governments-- in this particular domain. Sure they can be arrested one by one and sites can be taken down one by one, but overall the hackers are winning and the old stalwarts are losing. Look up the difference in average income between a musician and a programmer. Who's "punk" now? I'd also like to point out that Apple is far more valuable than any record company, and Google is practically the gloved hand of the U.S. State Department. The technology industry -- which opposes strong copyrights for a number of reasons -- has far more political "juice" these days than ailing record companies.

api 12y ago

I was just arguing that hackers, hacker culture, and programmers/hackers as a socioeconomic class are far more powerful than artists as a socioeconomic class. They're also arguably more powerful than the RIAA, MPAA, and even governments-- in this particular domain. Sure they can be arrested one by one and sites can be taken down one by one, but overall the hackers are winning and the old stalwarts are losing. Look up the difference in average income between a musician and a programmer. Who's "punk" now? I'd also like to point out that Apple is far more valuable than any record company, and Google is practically the gloved hand of the U.S. State Department. The technology industry -- which opposes strong copyrights for a number of reasons -- has far more political "juice" these days than ailing record companies.