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Comment by tylersmith | Hacker News Reader

> This democracy-thing is a big lie

Do you think a majority of the US opposes copyright and would not want the State to enforce it? I'm in that group, but it seems to me the overwhelming majority of people here support copyright laws and prosecutions.

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The overwhelming majority don't have any epistemic basis for what they believe and are just saying what they think is socially-acceptable to say.

Sounds like democracy probably isn’t a good choice then.

Cannot have a solid democracy without heavily educating. It's has be said before, and I will say it again. Examples: Scandinavian countries, Germany.

Sadly, the type of people who rise to the top of corporations and democratic governments are the same who rise to the top of autocratic governments. At least, in a democracy, it seems like they're under some existential threat (as slim as that may be). In better democracies, the threat is less slim. And I think things are getting and will get better.

It seems like a default to the status quo for most, and in a broad sense I think aligns with people’s notions that they should be compensated for their work. I don’t think that the majority position on the issue is particularly informed and perhaps if it were things would change.

Enforcing it and bringing someone to suicide is miles apart.

But on topic: copyright that works for decades has been lobbied into existence, it's not something average people "want". So, no, I dont think most Americans want to pay for several decades of copyright enforcement. Same for software patents, or extended-length patents in general. Something like 10 years is more than enough "head start". Yay for a rich commons!!

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