Piracy - You can't have your cake and eat it

The author has a fundamental misunderstanding of what laws mean, and how they change.<p>In England, it is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day? Why? Because centuries ago England was governed by a despotic, fundamentalist Christian regime that did not approve of Christmas celebrations.<p>Should I then refrain from eating the mince pie? No. I and millions of my fellow countrymen eat mince pies, and most are completely unaware of the existence of Cromwell's mean spirited law.<p>Why is this crime tolerated by the authorities? Because they do not go about like Robocop, enforcing laws as though they are some kind of computer program. Instead they understand that laws are a crude human attempt to model <i>current</i> social norms. Those social norms change over time and often the written laws don't keep up with the pace of that change.<p>The Internet has made copyright law outdated. Social norms are in the process of adjusting to the new situation. It's perfectly rational and <i>normal</i> for activists to hasten that process by defying the law, and encouraging others to do likewise. Obviously, the copyright lobby will react by trying to strengthen the laws, and step up enforcement. That's fair enough too.<p>Which side will win? Well opinions vary, but to suggest that breaking the law is in itself an immoral and irredeemable act, is naive.

I don't really understand these posts that simply declare that the correct choice is not to use their stuff, that piracy is wrong, and it's not your choice.<p>I happen to <i>agree</i> with the overall conclusion that one should seek alternatives in these cases, but this is just an argument by shouting. It's foolish to simply declare, "it's not your choice". Clearly, people think it <i>is</i> their choice. If you want to convince them, you had better back it up with reasoning. The right to control is simply not an obvious, mostly-universally-held right like the right not to be murdered or the right to physical property.<p>The copyright debate is getting awfully stale. I wish the participants would come up with something new to say instead of just constantly declaring that piracy is not allowed on one side and that piracy doesn't hurt anybody on the other side.

This article is interesting to read and think about from a theoretical perspective. Practically, though, it is completely and utterly useless.<p>Fact 1: Pirating is possible and fairly easy across the board.<p>Fact 2: Some content creators try to limit access to maintain "exclusivity" or to keep margins high. These guys get destroyed by piracy.<p>Fact 3: Other services strive to make it as easy as possible to get their products legally - Steam, iTunes, the Louis CK experiment. Their stuff is pirated a lot less and they generate a bunch of goodwill on the side.<p>These are facts, and no appeal to morality is going to change that. You can't just tell someone to suck it up and say it's not their "decision". Of course it's their decision - everyone decides whether or not to pirate! It is ABSOLUTELY their decision. The way to curb piracy is not to appeal to people's morality and tell people they SHOULD or SHOULDN'T do something. It's never going to work.<p>Curb piracy by making it easier, safer, and more reliable to purchase legally rather than pirate. Articles like this do nothing but reinforce the author's sense of moral superiority.

I solved this problem the "hard" way a long time ago. I don't use windows, at all, but GNU/Linux (Yeah, I'm <i>this</i> sort of guy, too).<p>And you know what, as time goes by it's actually less and less of an actual problem; heck, I was even able to buy games for my box this year, thank you Humble Bundle! OK, this isn't free software, but at least you don't feel like you've been anally raped with barbed wire.<p>And music? Well, I still buy CDs, mostly; the time when CDs came with DRM apparently faded away, so I don't even need to screen for this anymore (yes, I've actively boycotted some artists because of this for a while). From time to time, for music I don't actually care about, I buy mp3s from Amazon.<p>I don't write this to emphasize my moral superiority but to emphasize that it isn't that hard. You don't agree with their policy? <i>don't buy the frigging stuff</i>.

The only problem I have with this article is this line:<p>"since when does that suddenly mean that you can decide that you are no longer going to pay for products that both legally and morally you are obliged to pay for, yet still use them?"<p>Legally obliged to pay for? Yes.<p>Morally? No. I have no moral problem with piracy. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Those are the foundations of my morality. I would love it if people pirated things I made. That's my morality.

On morality: given how widespread the piracy is, we probably shouldn't assert that the moral side of the things is obvious here.<p>Regarding the law, that's one way to look at that. Another way is that the role of copyright is about to change, and disobeying the law en masse might be one way to help that change.<p>(Disclaimer: I'm not much of a pirate myself, I have a US iTunes Store account despite living in Russia just to be able to buy music legally. Also I'm earning money by writing software. But being able to copyright music and software is not a given, it's just how things work today, and as the world changes, this concept will also evolve.)

I don't understand pirates that think downloading the content is a form of protest.<p>If you want to make a change and win then you have to think like your opponent. This is how the greedy suits think:<p>"Our product has sold X copies, but Y people downloaded it. That means there are X+Y people interested in my product! We must make it so X+Y people buy it and 0 download it!"<p>NO! Stop! Bad pirates! By downloading the product you're telling the company you want their offerings but are too lazy or greedy or whatever. Vote with your wallet and avoid the product! That way when the suit looks at his charts he can figure out why no one wanted the product in the first place. If his inbox is chock full of "drop the DRM" then maybe he'll consider it.<p>You are not making a stance by stealing it. You're reaffirming their decision to put on DRM and pass anti-piracy laws. You're giving them the excuse to invade your rights/privacy. Stop it.

Ok. I hope I'm not going against the rules of HN discourse here but I'd like to go out on a limb and say any article in which the author doesn't bother capitalizing the first word in his sentences is not an article I'm going to bother to read. One of the few things I miss about the world before the internet is a proper adherence to grammar. If he were ESL, I would be more forgiving, but this post just smacks of lazy writing.

I think that many people seem to believe that property is some intrinsic thing. But, in fact, property is a socially construed thing and a granted privilege. Furthermore, property means many things, and there are many different kinds. Each kind should be treated differently.<p>Most of the confusion of 'piracy' (such a strong word, btw) stems from people misusing concepts related to physical objects and translating them equally to ephemeral things like 'intellectual-property' and 'digital-property'. The later things should be treated differently (in this person's opinion).<p>'Stealing' is a bad word. It's an age-old word that causes physical reaction in many. We learn very early on not to 'steal'. But, downloading a digitally compressed song is not the same thing as taking a toy from another kid.<p>At some point, power has shifted from owning physical objects to these new sorts of things that aren't physical. We need new laws and new social norms. We need fair reasonable treatment, for these things.<p>Sadly, the power-holders are writing the laws that grant themselves the most privileges. Instead, the society should write the laws that beget the best society.

Not that I disagree with a word of this article, but he's accepting the premise of those two articles: that the distribution mechanisms are a worse UX than pirating. My response:<p>Are you high? Once upon a time I pirated content, he's an approximate recap of what my expierience looked like:<p>* Search pirate bay<p>* Look at 2000 results, none of which look right.<p>* Ok, found one.<p>* Crap it's French with Arabic subtitles.<p>* Ok this one looks good.<p>* Shit, no seeders.<p>* Ok, this one has seeders and is english.<p>* Go get a bagel because it's going to take an hour to download.<p>Here's the UX of Netflix, rdio, or hulu:<p>* Search.<p>* Press play.<p>In my time using Netflix, rdio, hulu, and last.fm for my media needs there has been <i>one title</i> I couldn't find.<p>EDIT: I'll be clear, my comments on these services apply exclusively to the US, I know nothing about the status of these services elsewhere.

Civil disobedience, the most puissant form of protest, is breaking a law you believe to be unjust, and suffering the consequences if necessary.<p>If you break a law you believe to be unjust <i>and</i> expect to suffer no consequences, that's silly, but not immoral.<p>If you break a law you believe is just, <i>then</i> you're kinda evil.

My thoughts exactly. You can't force a privately-owned company to sell you the product the way you want it to be sold. It's their right to make money the way they see fit, and if they decide it's okay for them to lose some of the clientele over DRM, it's their choice.<p>Piracy in the name of protesting against DRM is borderline hypocrisy. As others already said, morality is subjective, but here are two other ways I'd personally support :<p>- don't use the product,<p>- pay for the license, pirate the product, get it touch with the company to explain your problem to them.

I agree on software : alternative exists and the real way to say "fuck off" is to use the corresponding free software alternative or to develop it. This is true to the extent where Microsoft plays the rules of competition and IT correctly. If a government or a provider gives me a document in a format that Microsoft does not publish, they are effectively trying to make competition impossible and I feel entitled to pirate their software.<p>On music, I could not disagree more : there is a lack of a solution to pay artists directly. 90% of the artists I know today, I know from friends or web radio. I would like to repay them directly. I have no way of doing that. The alternative is just not there. Some artists accept direct donations but majors try to prevent that. This anti-competitive behavior makes it totally OK in my opinion to pirate music.<p>Oh, and don't tell me I am rationalising. I stopped being part of this game several years ago. I don't buy music, I don't download tunes (unless it is authorised by the band like Partition 36). I decided this whole show was stupid when I got my first DRMed CD and that I didn't want to fight on it or break any law. Nowadays the situation is such that this conflict can't be ignored anymore. "Piracy" is used as a pretext to put forward net filtering, restrictive laws, and tools of censorship.<p>I don't give a fuck about music and musicians. I can do without. I respect them and they deserve a pay, but the current system is completely FUBAR and its insanity is creeping in other domains. It should be stopped before it is too late.

If copyright were just to protect the investment of a company in development of an artist or product I'd broadly agree with this argument.<p>Where copyright seems objectionable to me, is where the initial cost of development was non-existent or large profits have been made for years. For example:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You#Royalty_amounts_sought" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You#Royalty_a...</a><p>For some copyright to last 95 years seems more like profiteering than protection of the creative industries considering creation is often based on the work of others.<p>I don't condone piracy, but I think piracy would be far less socially acceptable if: - the creator can be seen to benefit from their work - copyright better resembled its original intent of protecting investment in the creation of something new and not staking ownership over the work of others.

The law is nothing but a piece of paper. I'm glad it exists, as it provides a framework that protects me from harm and allows me to life my live, but I feel no moral obligation at all to follow it.<p>This style of argumentation is starting to tire me. Obviously, this author thinks piracy is morally wrong. Other people have no such moral qualms about piracy. Both points of view are fine!<p>But implicitly or explicitly using morality as an argument for or against piracy is a bad style of argumentation and is almost an ad hominem. If I were to say that I am for piracy and someone told me that this was morally wrong, I would pay no attention to this person. But if he were to say that he personally feels piracy is morally wrong AND if he were to give me an argument as to why he feels that way, I would listen to this argument and at least think about it.

Fact: People will pirate your software if you make it a pain to pay for it.<p>Fact: People will pay for your software if you make it easy to pay for.<p>Windows has proven this with their DRM.<p>Apple has proven this with their app stores and itunes.<p>In a slightly unrelated note:<p>This is why I wish there was an app store for web apps. The web needs easy way to sell access to web apps like in the app store. If all I had to do was click 'purchase' and enter my password to get access to web apps like turntable.fm for a reasonable price, I would gladly pay. This would open up a whole new revenue model for web apps. There is a whole class of web apps that are trying to rely on ads now but don't have the millions of visitors a month to make that feasible. A web app store could provide a place for these lower traffic but still very useful and relevant products. I envy mobile developers since they have this avenue as an option. Anyone else feel this way?

Someone mentioned 3D printers in another post and got downvoted for it. But think about it.<p>You invested a lot of time into creating an object everybody likes. People can get it in a online shop and it will be send to there address.<p>Now a clever guy scans the object with a 3D scanner and is putting the model online. Everybody can now downloading the model on The Pirate Bay and print it at home. And they all say: "fuck that online store, it is way too much hassle and costs too much".<p>It's a difficult discussion. Therefore I think it's way to easy to just call making a copy not stealing.<p>Edit: the post by randomdata: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3479581" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3479581</a>

One can say that record labels brought the piracy problem on themselves by looking to create barriers to content while pirates worked to create access to content.<p>However, it's erroneous for an individual to argue that he has a <i>right</i> to pirate because the industry created barriers to their own content. It's counterproductive to the anti-censorship movement.<p>Instead, we should focus on the fact that the music industry has been anti-effective and is now using censorship to compensate for their reluctance to change.

<i>"if you want to protest the crappy way these companies treat their customers, don't buy their stuff. but you can't have your cake and eat it. protest by not using or having it at all. they have something you want; even if you don't agree with their methods, it is still theirs to decide what to do with. all you are doing is supporting the industry in their drive to stamp out pirates; instead, support legal ways of obtaining this content through spotify and others. "</i><p>The one fault I see with this argument (mainly related to music) is this: There is no way to simply boycott the the recording companies' products without boycotting the artists as well. Recording companies have a monopoly on the artists they cover. While US contract law supports this arrangement, the model is broken in today's world of digital distribution.

Author Paolo Coelho operated a blog called Pirate Coelho where he published torrents to all his books. He still does this because it makes him rich. For example, in Russia nobody bought his books, sales were up to 15 000 books in two years. So he leaked the russian translations via BitTorrent. Soon, he saw that people started talking about them. Some time later, he saw the sales increasing. A lot. In one year sales of his physical books crossed 1 million in Russia. Source is himself.<p>Now, his publishers have finally realized the connection, so he doesn't need the anonymous pirate blog anymore. Instead, he links to the torrents from his own offical blog. He is also an avid SOPA protester: <a href="http://paulocoelhoblog.com/" rel="nofollow">http://paulocoelhoblog.com/</a>

Why is it ok for copyright holders to have a monopoly over the distribution of their content?<p>If we go to the core of copyright law the original intention as I understand it was to encourage creation of stuff and my assumption is that the point of having such created is to have it distributed in an easily accessible manner. Yet we have no issue under the law with companies only selling to one distributor or just crippling it with DRM. Why?<p>Why don't we expect companies to make their content accessible to everyone and not just a in the ways they choose. I completely understand this when it comes to small resource limited companies. But I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the huge companies that feel they should be able to pick and choose who gets their content. Don't get me wrong I am not arguing that I should get their content for free. But I should be able to get it from various sources at a comparable price.<p>In what way do exclusivity agreements help us? They give large businesses huge advantage over small businesses. How can someone compete with Hulu when the content owners won't license their content to anyone else at a comparable rate? (Yes I know Hulu is owned by the content creators but isn't that a conflict of interest when you only let your own properties distribute it over the web?)<p>I'm not sure what the answer is. But I don't see how allowing companies to have a monopoly over the distribution of their content helps individuals or businesses in the long term.

"it is not your decision"<p>I disagree. It is. Free will is something you still cannot remove. Sorry.<p>Even doing the most horrible things are still <i>your</i> decision. There might be consequences, but that's another story.

There is nothing immoral about copying data. It is a bummer that you worked so hard and didn't make the money that you thought you were going to but no one owes you that money and It's selfish to think distribution is going to work the way you want it to.<p>From henceforth and until the sun explodes, there will be massive amounts of piracy.<p>Thats it. Seriously. Factor it into your business plan. Think about it before you write your next song. If you still don't have a creative urge, then good, do something else. If that software isn't economically viable then good, do something else. But I guarantee you people will continue to make wheel barrows full of money regardless. And there will be music, and movies, and poetry and software. And there will be more of it than ever before.<p>This is actually a huge blessing in disguise. You no longer need to pay someone to distribute your creations, you no longer need marketing to reach your fans, you no longer need middle men. And best of all, you no longer have to worry about piracy. Because it is now fact.<p>So stop pretending like copyright law isn't fucked up. Stop pretending like you can have the same business model you did 5 years ago. Stop pretending like music, or movies, or software are going to cease to exist and make some fucking money.<p>Welcome to 2012.

My only issue here is "but don't decide to take the law into your own hands...it's not your decision."<p>It's unfortunate that people feel that laws are simply things that are imposed on us by above and are outside our power. You don't simply bend over for the law to screw you over. Laws are there to be changed, they are there to be improved and prevented so that we can all benefit from them in the right way.<p>But hey, if you want to bend over, be my guest.

McArdle at the Atlantic explores this more in depth:<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/how-much-does-file-sharing-resemble-stealing-and-does-it-matter/251277/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/how-much...</a><p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/is-trademark-infringement-fraud/251358/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/is-trade...</a>

It's an interesting debate.<p>But may I eat your cake and still have mine? For example, I go to cinema to see local movies and watch local tv series on legal services, but torrent american/english films and tv series (the main reason is that there's no way I can get them legally and in time - american services refuse me as a customer). Same with books.<p>This way I have my cake and I ate yours, and it's not obvious to me how it's not a win for me.

About as poor a post on piracy as the rest of them - not dealing with half the issues. You could have just posted this in one of the previous threads.

I don't know about the morals of this but I do know that if we hadn't pirated as gratuitously for the last 10 years we wouldn't have DRM or Walled Gardens to the extent we do today.<p>I think the content industries will decide we can't be trusted with our toys anymore and move them all to the cloud where we can peek at them for a monthly fee.

We granted a limited legal monopoly to certain parties in order to encourage the growth of certain industries.<p>Over time, that bargain has been severely corrupted by those industries.<p>Piracy is the consequence.<p>I'm sure that with time, and a more balanced approach to the granting of such monopolies, piracy will become less and less of a problem.

I think it's worth bringing up a factor mentioned here a while ago - Piracy serves as a useful market signal. The fact that people are pirating content means there's demand - if they're pirating it, but nobody's paying for it, that means the rights holders are creating a product people want, but the price &#38; delivery mechanism aren't right yet. That's an awful lot better information than just that people aren't buying something - and I'd argue it's one of the signals that got the record industry to actually start taking DRM-free music sales seriously.<p>Obviously it's not a great signal on price - piracy's always going to have the lowest price - but knowing there's demand means you can start to adjust your strategy to try to capture some genuinely lost sales.

I don't watch Boardwalk Empire because HBO won't sell it to me online. I'm sure as hell not buying cable, and I'm also not going to bother spending the time finding and watching some crappy rip online when there are other things to do.<p>Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

The answer to the author is two fold:<p>1) laws are made to be challeneged, especially if society does not approve. See alextingle's response.<p>2) If I make a widget in a widget factory. You can get widgets from me or from Frank down the block. Getting it from Frank is illegal. However to use the widget (that you love) you must stick a pipe in your ass. Frank gives it to you at a bargain price and no pipe in ass requirements. The only way to tell me "its not ok to overcharge me and force me to stick pipes in my ass, even if I love the product" is to buy it from Frank. Otherwise you buy it from me, live with the ass-pipe and pray for change.

Just this is enough justification: <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_EbhbPbkypPY/S4lILqwD3GI/AAAAAAAABsw/XXPtZ28lEu0/s400/dvd-piracy.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_EbhbPbkypPY/S4lILqwD3GI/AAAAAAAABs...</a>

Will has a good point, but I disagree on a fundamental level.<p>There's three <i>massive</i> core problems with the current media model:<p>1) Modern media has failed to adapt. When I reinstalled windows I used a pirated version. The key on the side of my case was awkward to read. Games industry nailed it: look at Steam. 2) Entertainment is a waste of time and people know that - if someone can't download a movie they're not going to run out and buy it. They're going to watch cats fall down on youtube. 3) When companies no longer prioritize their own products people lose respect for them.<p>This SOPA/PIPA drama is simply making #3 worse

I disagree with this. Pirating makes the problem apparent to the MPAA; people want their products, but the existing distribution channels are not working. If people didn't pirate the MPAA's products, then the MPAA would conclude that nobody wanted their products anymore. That wouldn't result in positive change for people that like movies but want to play them under Linux, for example.<p>Piracy proves that DRM only hurts the people willing to pay money for the product. It has no effect on piracy whatsoever. In fact, DRM may be <i>causing</i> piracy.

Is Trademark Infringement Fraud?:<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/is-trademark-infringement-fraud/251358/" rel="nofollow">http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/01/is-trade...</a>

I think the big drivers of music consumption must still depend on traditional media and corporations in a big way. Otherwise we'd have tech specialists hooking up directly with musicians and together they would have delivered the death blow to the traditional music distributors already.<p>I think what's missing is the combination of talent-search + promotion. Most users just won't be proactive about searching through a bunch of no-name bands to find some music worth listening to.

Someone needs to be paid to be able to continue producing the things you enjoy. Otherwise they stop getting made. So before I get any further, I think artists, developers, etc. need to be compensated for their work. It should be illegal to copy someone else's digital goods and sell them for a profit (ie. copying a cd whether you paid for the original or not and reselling it). That doesn't mean I think copyright holders need to be compensated in the same way they have in the past. We're in the midst of trying to figure out how exactly to do that. Louis CK's movie, Radiohead's In Rainbows, Kickstarter... they're all examples of people trying to figure out how this all works moving forward. Some of it works, some of it doesn't. Eventually, we'll figure out a system that does.<p>We're going through a cultural shift in the way we obtain information. We forget that buying and individually owning books, movies, music, etc. is a relatively new thing and wasn't always the norm. But because there are entire industries built around these things, organizations like the RIAA and the MPAA have an obvious interest in keeping things they way they are.<p>People should be allowed to share as they want without repercussion. Some people will pay for things, others won't and some can't even if they wanted to. That's never going to change no matter how many laws are passed trying to stop it. People shouldn't be denied access to materials just because they didn't or can't pay for them.<p>Libraries are essentially what the internet has become except on a much smaller scale. One person / institution / organization buys all the books, cds, movies, etc. and lends them to others for free. Some will argue the differences is there are a limited number of copies that can be lent out at any one time. And while that's true, it's irrelevant. Just because that's the way things have been doesn't mean that's the way they need to be. As more libraries expand their digital content, the lines between our views on libraries, piracy and the sharing of information will become increasingly blurred.<p>We're living in a time when people have access to information like never before. People are being exposed to music, books and films they never would have before. We're learning things we never would have been able to 10 years ago. Walls and barriers to learning and education are being torn down. Those are all good things that we should be celebrating, not trying to destroy.

It is easier to steal a Twinkie than it is to wait in line and have to pay for it, and then wait for your change. Then you have all those damn coins in your pocket...

The problem with this article is that he does not provide a compelling argument. Or, more accurately, he does not provide an argument <i>at all</i>: he just repeats that unauthorized copying is wrong.<p>As far as I can tell, he took "piracy is wrong" as an axiom. Which would be fine, except the article is <i>arguing</i> that "piracy" is wrong. Arguing that an axiom--or something you're basically treating as an axiom--is true is trivial and tautological.

I completely agree (and its hypocritical of me, because I pirate too much for my own good, but due to financial reasons rather than 'moral' ones.) Pirating Windows still helps Microsoft, because its another computer not using a competing OS.<p>That being said, I think it is a salient point that a pristine distribution system will curb the effects of privacy; Valve's Steam distribution venue is a great example of this.

Yes, you actually can decide that you're not going to pay content distributors. If you regard IP as an illegitimate idea, then you can act on that.

&#62; don't decide to take the law into your own hands...it's not your decision.<p>If it's not my decision that means I should not be held responsible for what I do.

&#62; if there is no legal way for you to enjoy it, unfortunate though it is, tough. write to them. email them. call them to protest. but don't decide to take the law into your own hands...it's not your decision.<p>To that point, I would like to add another option: create an alternative. Things that are seemingly broken are opportunities for creating something better.

SUSPECT AUTHENTICITY This site consists of only this article and almost nothing personally remarkable about who the author is. It is also the users very first post to HN on an account created the day after the blackout. Anyone else find this suspicious?<p>willdamas do you have any affiliations you might like to declare?

I'm still not sure why so many people care if its "right" or "wrong" to pirate stuff like this. It gets pirated. Making the product easier to buy would mean it gets pirated less, not more. Companies don't seem to get it. This fact is interesting.<p>The pirate is a datapoint, not a moral lesson.

Property has the contingency of being owned. If it is not owned by anyone then it can be declared public property or non-usable estate.<p>I will never understand why people seem to view digital content as different from physical content. The only difference is it lacks a sense of tangibility. You can only consume it with your eyes and "touch it" with your input devices. I believe as humans we tend to err on the selfish side far too often. If you found a $100 bill on the street you would quickly pick it up and walk away. If you found a $100 bill on the bank floor would you follow the same discourse? Of course you wouldn't. You might rationalize it is the right thing do to or you fear reprisal for taking it. The barrier to entry on any endeavor is the most substantial factor on whether you will commit. Meaning, people would steal and kill at a tremendous frequency if we didn't put consequences in place for such actions.<p>Pirates (us, me, you) are simply children getting away with theft, in the infancy of the internet.

You are never going to convince anyone of something that they can't allow themselves to think. If you're stealing you will use all kinds of convoluted logic to pretend that you aren't.<p>The real value of the post is that it lets some of know that not everyone was raised by wolves.

Piracy isn't as desirable as a straight boycott of the parties that are currently trying to break the Internet, but at least pirates aren't feeding the beast. Those companies deserve complete destruction for what they have done

I do not feel that I am morally obliged to pay and I believe that the laws should be changed. We have IP rules when it comes to a musical composition and architecture. Why not in other areas such as hairstyles or recipes?

Hm.. this article is mental slavery.<p>Also it misses the point that some laws are passed being backed up by well-paid lies. So breaking the law can no longer be any moral issue.<p>Example: * speed limits * never-ending copyright * exporting cryptography

And here I thought civil disobedience was a proud American tradition.

Shameless plug on the same topic:<p><a href="http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3485295" rel="nofollow">http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3485295</a><p>You can have your opinion on laws, but not the right to defy them

You can pirate all you want and justify it as disobeying unjust laws. Let's see if the government throws everyone in jail for copying data.

We, the human race, made up <i>property</i>. And we made up <i>intellectual property</i>. So if you want to argue to me about morality and legality, save it. Those aren't arguments, those are superstitions and/or conventions.<p>Tell me why a convention should be observed. If content creators don't get paid, perhaps less content will get generated. Perhaps there will be legal consequences like getting sued by the MPAA or RIAA.<p>But, again, give me actual reasons, not superstition and/or convention.

Quite right. That earlier rant about the moral superiority of piracy was just embarrassing. Nobody who produces anything of value needs to be told that they should be giving it away for free. They can choose to give it away, but being required to do so is another matter entirely.<p>If everybody who believes that copyright is completely unnecessary were to die today, the total amount of useful, worthwhile art produced by the world would not decrease.

Stealing a cake is definitely theft, then.

The author makes a good point, everyone wants to blame someone else and not take responsibility.

You can't keep a movie on your hard drive and watch it too? Are you sure?

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - Jesus

You can't have dots and no capital letters.

Gah. Wish I could downvote articles for being useless.<p>Can we stop submitting these things? This article, without even touching on annoying design and style choices, is bad. It contributes nothing to the discussion of copyright. It is four paragraphs long, and devoid of useful thought.<p>~<p>It's short enough, let's tear through it:<p><i>"over on hacker news, there are two articles in which the authors are justifying their decisions to pirate music and windows because their respective industries don't make it as easy to get hold of their content as the pirate bay does. as the first author argues "because you are not offering a good service" he is going to pirate his music and films from now on and "the time has come for you to fuck off", the second writes "i am not buying any more software" until microsoft "address the service problem that is causing piracy". "</i><p>Okay, so, first paragraph is sloppy quoting of the articles mentioned this week at HN. The hackjob of quoting misses the flavor of the original articles, and skips some nuances. That would be fine--but it took the author an entire paragraph to sum up what could've been said in one line: "Here and here are two articles causing discussion about piracy on Hacker News." Done. Finished. Had they done that, I could've gotten through their miserable little post that much faster.<p><i>" sorry what? yes, drm is broken. yes, copyright doesn't work very well. yes, pirating is easier. since when does that suddenly mean that you can decide that you are no longer going to pay for products that both legally and morally you are obliged to pay for, yet still use them? i am steering clear of the word 'steal' because many will argue that it is not 'stealing' under the strict definition of the word; the content creator still has the song, software etc. "</i><p>The author says, in effect, "suck it up, stop pirating."<p>The author does so with some hilarious painful-to-read phrasing. I'm not asking for art, mind you, in all posts--I just prefer that the written word (especially when submitted to HN!) have something behind it more than mallspeak.<p>In addition to being worded like a petulant teenager angry about missing the last ship to the Pirate Bay, the author claims that there is a moral obligation to pay for material, but doesn't explain what that obligation is or from what it derives.<p>The author doesn't so much assail the idea of piracy as show a sort of slow-witted wonder that you can get copies of things without buying them. Drooling into the keyboard and blinking, it slowly dawns on the imbecile that people can do this. The author comes <i>dangerously</i> close to diverging onto a useful thought about the nature of stealing and how it applies to copyright infringement, but then manages at the last minute to pull ignorance from the jaws of victory and flits off to the next paragraph.<p><i>" if you want to protest the crappy way these companies treat their customers, don't buy their stuff. but you can't have your cake and eat it. protest by not using or having it at all. they have something you want; even if you don't agree with their methods, it is still theirs to decide what to do with. all you are doing is supporting the industry in their drive to stamp out pirates; instead, support legal ways of obtaining this content through spotify and others. "</i><p>The author makes several assertions again here: companies treat their customers badly, piracy isn't effective, piracy somehow supports the industry, companies can decide what they can do with their IP unconditionally, etc.<p>This is talking-point vomit, a pile of mealy-mouthed and poorly-articulated sayings lacking backing or explanation. This contributes nothing to the conversation, and serves only to underscore the intellectual laziness of the author.<p>These claims are all very interesting and exciting to debate, mind you, but that requires an attention span and maturity that the author seems to simply not have.<p><i>" if there is no legal way for you to enjoy it, unfortunate though it is, tough. write to them. email them. call them to protest. but don't decide to take the law into your own hands...it's not your decision. "</i><p>At last, sweet release!<p>The author has finished the article with a stunted attempt at encouraging protest, and yet again manages to miss a wonderful opportunity to consider the role of piracy as peaceful protest. The author also makes some baseless assertions without provided reasoning in regards to "taking the law into your own hands" and its desirability--again, an interesting philosophical starting point lost on the moron penning the paragraph.<p>~<p>Look, I'm not going to launch into crazy copyright and anti-copyright discussion here, but for fuck's sake can we start posting articles on this topic that try to display critical thought?<p>This is insulting.

Are we paying for a Premium or are we paying for the thing we actually want?<p>They're taking things into their own hands by installed junk- and malware on my product.<p>They're assuming I'm a thief before I've even walked through the door. Why should I pay for the time they wasted to deal with people who do purportedly "break the law."<p>Moreover, it's not like with the music or software industries, these people lock themselves inside ivory towers and come out with a genius idea. Granted, there are genius ideas worth protecting, but those ideas protect themselves by their own internal integrity and passion of the thinker/creator/etc. Copyright law gives creators an artificial sense of entitlement, and the idea that their content is privileged somehow. That's the _default_ for a majority of the products we buy. And it simply isn't obviously true. There's too much clutter in the market as it stands for people to argument from absolutism like with in this article.<p>A majority of this copyright discussion has an unrealistic assumption about _the state of things as they are now_. There's no transparency in these products. No sincerity.

kill the patenting system and everything comes back to normal...

The law is just a thing I follow to avoid inconvenience, when necessary. It's completely distinct from my morality. And, my morality simply does not see copying as stealing, pirating, thermonuclear mass-murder, or whatever blood curdling words you use to label it. It remains copying, and is fine.