Comment by mquander | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mquander | Hacker News Reader

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Yes, but the author is couching his rhetoric in claims to "fairness" and moral righteousness. I think his stories are most revealing of his position:

I am an author, I tend to believe that I should be able to get paid for doing that work (and it is work, Eleanor, it's really hard work)...You think you're entitled to deny all of those people their rightful share of the work they do. I don't understand why you think that.

That's the core of his argument. He thinks that since he has been making a living this way for a long time, and it has worked out all right for everyone, his way is the right way and anything else is of dubious morals, because why would you want to deprive a good man of good work?

The discussion seems to be about whether the girl has a "right" to download or share his sheet music. In my opinion, she can do it, and that's that; should he have a "right" to stop her? He has not convinced me that there's any reason he should have that right.

> He has not convinced me that there's any reason he should have that right.

OK, suppose your girlfriend agrees to have you take some rather private photos of her under the condition that you will never make these available to someone else. (Or the other way 'round if you're a girl) One day you break up and you're sharing these photos. Does she has the right to stop you distributing them?

According to your logic, she has not. After all, you're just sharing among friends. And it's not as if she's loosing income of something like that.

Following the authors logic, your girlfriend has the right to stop you distributing them. For you made a promise before she agreed -- you basically entered a contract.

His point is that he offered copies of his work under certain conditions (called copyright). In other words, he expected everybody who agreed to the contract not to copy and redistribute his work. He expects them to hold their promise, their site of the contract.

Nobody's is forced or required to enter the contract and make this promise. You're free to make your own music and share it. Or used someone's music who doesn't expect you to make a similar promise.

However, violating your promise (ie. changing the conditions of the contract) is clearly immoral.

Or would you want to be the victim of somebody who changes the contract conditions after the deal was made? Or would you want to be lied to, or have your friends break their promises?

If the answer is 'No', then copying stuff without a license is clearly immoral.

> In my opinion, she can do it, and that's that; should he have a "right" to stop her?

I certainly can brutally kill puppies. Do you have the right to stop me if I own them?

Stop trying to twist the argument. There's a helluva lot of things you can do, but whether somebody else has the right to intervene and stop you is irrelevant.

And most of those things that you can do, you should be able to do. The exceptions are what need to be justified.

I don't see a lot of justification for claiming that piracy is wrong or bad. It's directly helping someone and not directly hurting anyone, and I haven't even seen someone claim credibly that it's hurting artists' pocketbooks. Certainly this girl's actions were a totally victimless crime.

I certainly don't see evidence that piracy is resulting in a lower quality of art, and it's obviously great in the short-term for consumers (especially ones like teenagers who have a hard time buying music and movies and books.)

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