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Comment by thrownaway954 | Hacker News Reader

"If I steal your car, I have a car and you don't have a car. If I "steal" your book, we both have the book. I'm better off, and you're no worse off. In an "ideal" society, the free sharing of knowledge would be not just allowed, but encouraged."

you are so wrong in this mentality. the bottom line is, that someone took the time and energy to write and publish that book to make money, so that person should be paid. with your mentality, it can be argued the same as downloading a movie or a song or an application. now... aren't all those things illegal and a form of stealing??? so why is downloading a book any different?

i really think that alot of people just don't think things though before they open their mouth and this is one time where you should have thought through your answer instead of jumping on the "knowledge should be free" bandwagon.

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> i really think that alot of people just don't think things though before they open their mouth and this is one time where you should have thought through your answer instead of jumping on the "knowledge should be free" bandwagon.

Respectfully, if the original poster didn't think things through, you should be able to come up with a counter argument that goes beyond just asserting s/he is wrong. Something that appeals to some sort of underlying principle.

For non-intellectual property most justifications rest on, there is only 1 car, we can't both have it. Seems like it is most fair it belongs to the entity who made it (or for things in nature first to find), who can then trade it to other people. This argument rests on the notion "we can't both exclusively use something" which doesn't apply to ideas. The foundation for why intellectual property makes sense (in a philosophical sense) is much less clear, is a much more modern invention, and most of the time seems much more akin to the gov giving a tax benefit than to a natural right.

>"it can be argued the same as downloading a movie or a song or an application."

I don't think anyone is disputing this. I certainly think movies, songs and programs should be treated the same as books.

> the bottom line is, that someone took the time and energy to write and publish that book to make money, so that person should be paid

I agree with you! As I said lower down in my comment:

> Of course, we can't just abolish copyright with no replacement; it's certainly necessary to reward the creation of this work somehow.

I absolutely believe that we need to pay the creators of [what we would currently call] copyrighted works somehow. I'm just not convinced that the best way to do that is with a "per-consumer" cost. I go on to discuss some alternatives that still reward creators, but reduce some of the harmful impacts of copyright. I'll readily admit that I haven't thought those ideas through that much, but that's a far cry from completely failing to consider that creators need to be paid, as you seem to be implying I did.

> someone took the time and energy to write and publish that book to make money, so that person should be paid

How much of what you pay for a book actually goes to the person who wrote it? How much of what you pay for music goes to the person who wrote it? How much of what you pay for a movie goes to the people who actually made the movie?

The answer in all of those cases is "not very much". And the reason that's the answer has nothing at all to do with people's unwillingness to pay creators for creating, and everything to do with a huge amount of money being skimmed off the top by companies who do not want to update their business models to the 21st century, and who are using copyright and patent law as an excuse to protect their outdated business structures.

>you are so wrong in this mentality. the bottom line is, that someone took the time and energy to write and publish that book to make money, so that person should be paid.

I took time and energy to write and "publish" this HN comment, and possibly provided utility for someone reading it. Where's my money?

> so that person should be paid

Almost all people agree that creators and publishers should be paid, though perhaps in different amounts than they are now. However, some people think that criminalizing sharing is not necessarily the best way for society to accomplish this.

Illegal does not equal immoral; copying does not equal stealing.

Piracy of songs, movies, and applications actually improves sales, according to a study that the European Union funded and then tried to keep from getting published:

https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-...

The law shouldn't guarantee you a successful business model. If you believe in capitalism, this should be self-evident. If you believe in socialism, this should also be self-evident. "We're going to enforce with a military your right to a successful business model" is absolutely silly and bizarrely harmful.

"Piracy of songs, movies, and applications actually improves sales, according to a study that the European Union funded and then tried to keep from getting published"

doesn't mean anything. it's still illegal.

If something is beneficial for everyone involved, why should it be illegal?

People are arguing for what should be, not what is. In that context it doesn't matter what happens to be illegal right now. Laws do change over time - and intellectual property is a relatively recent invention compared to normal property.

> Piracy of songs, movies, and applications actually improves sales, according to a study that the European Union funded and then tried to keep from getting published:

I never understand this argument at all.

Piracy of X improves sales of X is only relevant if you're keeping the business model of selling X.

It's an argument for small amounts of piracy not substituting for market demand in a meaningful amount, and possibly spurring increased market demand.

It's not an argument for it not being stealing, or against having an IP legal framework at all. If you remove the ability to sell things, there will be no sales for it to spur.

Also, only the most extreme liberterian capitalists believe in capitalism without any commercial regulations whatsoever. Literally the bare minimum is property rights.

If you remove the ability to sell things, there will be no sales for it to spur.

Books were sold long before intellectual property laws existed. Your argument is fallacious.

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