I'd hate to see HN develop a bad reputation because of stuff like this.
Sometimes it's never available, especially english shows that is only broadcasted on english tv channels.
When copyright is used as an excuse to steal tax money, its hard to use morality as an argument against non-commercial copyright infringement.
This is the organisation he/she is talking about: http://www.copyswede.se/in-english/
- Using without paying is immoral, you should just do without.
- Even if it's OK for you to do so, we know that many people will illegally download films they could buy, hence offering these tools is unethical.
- As programmers, we rely on copyright for our income, hence it's unethical to infringe on the copyright of others.
Did I miss any? The feelings of deja vu in these threads are way too strong.
2. Yes, are there any data on that these people would ever pay?
3. Yes and like all digital content we have the ability to spread our work across the globe very fast at little to no extra cost. If we limit our work to a certain country we only have ourselves to blame when people are illegally copying it.
First, threads always start as a blank slate, so by the time we get through the obvious arguments on both sides, it has already dropped off the front page and the discussion has died down. The next time, someone will again invariably argue that they can't watch stuff in their country, and someone will reply with one of the arguments I listed.
Secondly, since many people consider this topic poses important moral questions, downvotes will invariably be used to suppress valid but disagreeable opinions, and then we'll have more posts of people justly complaining that they've been unfairly downvoted, plus a few assholes playing victim.
HN is great for most discussions around technical and business matters, particularly regarding new developments; it's pretty shitty for serious discussion around social and political topics.
Also, we are not all "well educated people with high earning potential". Maybe a large majority of us are, but I've seen very interesting posts on HN from people from all walks of life.
Piracy will be rampant even if everyone is able to legally download all media.
PS - I am one of those who are not "well educated with high earning potential". Even as a "poor" person, I am unable to morally justify my selfish actions (piracy)...
That's fine, we have enough seeders.
:)
After all, is morality not a popular convention?
This is not a simple question. Access to media is access to culture. And we can't expect people without access to a common culture to participate in our society as equals. That's why we have libraries, museums, arts in public areas; we know that we need to share at least part of our common heritage, or it will stop being our common heritage.
Remember, intelectual property is meant to make creating art profitable enough that we don't stop doing it. It is supposed to protect the consumers, not the creators. Ideas that are not consumed are not a societal good, and we don't make laws to protect them. Of course there should be balance between protections for creators and consumers. If someone thinks the current legislation favours content creators more than it should on this alance, then for that person piracy is probably not morally wrong.
Yes, Paul Graham has advised not doing music start ups because of the stupidity of the entrenched monopolies.
But making money by forward thinking social change and distruption is at the heart of hnews.
Everyone goes to the movies. All fans spend money on art.
It is well documented that those who spend the most on music also listen to a lot more than strict copyright & DRM allows.
Arguably the problem is not enjoying culture but poorly thought out legislation written by lobbies for monopolies.
Radio play and Libraries both faced the same problem and monopoly lobbying but stronger government then legislated enforced licenses and re-distribution agencies.
To the direct benefit of those monopolies and society.
In fact every new technology is lobbied against. Portrayed as destroying the Music/ Movie industry, yet turns out to be a huge new market when they are dragged kicking and screaming into the present.
The sheet music industry lobbied against records. The record industry lobbied against radio. The film industry lobbied against the VHS market. TV lobbied against cable. Against mp3, against online itself, &c.
Every single time they were wrong about the future of their own industry.
Monopolies are bad for their own markets & society.
These laws are protectionism, the first thing Adam Smith objects to in 'The Wealth of Nations'.
Not everyone who reads hnews is wealthy, many are self-educated precisely because they could hustle access to information.
These monopolies screw over artists more than anyone.
The down side is that even though I pay for cable TV, I have to use their shitty tuner/DVR and they've all but blocked the use of alternatives. So what I do is run Popcorn Time while connected through a VPN, bookmark all of my favorite shows, and when I want to watch TV, I just go to my favorites and click the latest episode that aired the previous night.
It's seamless, I don't need to worry about their DVR failing to record for some reason I can't troubleshoot (unless you count driving to the cable company during work hours to swap the DVR for another equally shitty DVR), and the interface is much nicer.
And while I'm aware that it's still in violation of copyright law, I don't feel I'm doing anything immoral because I pay for cable TV and could watch the same shows if I happened to be around or awake when they aired.
The really screwy thing here is that I'd gladly pay even more for cable TV if they offered a legit version of this. Nice Netflix-like interface where I can browse titles or go to my favorites and see which episode I left off on. Click any one of them and within a minute it starts streaming in decent 1080p quality and there's no unresponsive 1990's interface to wrestle with.
They could even set it up so you need to log in with your cable service account and all viewers would be "seeds" on the cable company's swarm. Instead I pay $30/yr for a VPN service that provides enough anonymity to avoid lawsuits and threats (even if I wouldn't necessarily count on it for anything truly sensitive) and go the "back channel" route.
While I accept that I'm not owed a better experience and it may come off as entitled, in my case, it's not so much about wanting everything for free as it is about wanting something better and using the available tools to get it.
I agree we shouldn't be encouraging piracy, but that statement is a huge generalization.
That's exactly what I would tell Apple when movies that I want to watch are not available in the German iTunes or just as a dubbed version.
(We pay for Netflix, Spotify, and have used Google Play to buy episodes of certain shows)
Piracy is an alternative... not a solution.
Try being in not-the-USA and paying for content. Add "Linux" in there and you can forget about it.
We need a Richard Stallman for media.
(edit: added 'legal')