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Comment by tene80i | Hacker News Reader

It’s very funny when people declare “piracy isn’t stealing”, as if the metaphor of piracy is all about singing and drinking.

Copying and distributing works isn’t identical to theft (deliberately depriving someone of their property), but you’re enjoying someone’s work without compensating them, so it isn’t totally unlike depriving them of something.

I guess it depends how you feel about refusing to pay a window washer. Or indeed you not being paid by your employer. It isn’t theft, but someone is clearly stiffing someone else.

As for only big companies benefitting from the copyright regime… seems like an ideological assumption. I know plenty of authors and they are quite happy having legal protections around their work which means they can earn from their labour.

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> you’re enjoying someone’s work without compensating them

Which is foreseen in societal decision: libraries (again and again).

> refusing to pay a window washer

The window washer is providing a service for a price, that service is not equivalent to knowledge production, and nobody has decided that that service (cleaning windows) should be done for free.

Libraries are great and authors get paid when you borrow the book. But we’re talking about piracy.

As for window washing vs knowledge production, not sure what you mean. Books have a price. Nobody’s decided they should be free either.

> authors get paid

In the standard system for libraries, the book is paid once.

That is "libraries" as in "we have societally decided to make published knowledge freely available".

> window washing vs knowledge production

Societies have not decided that window washing should be freely available - on the other side, they have decided that published knowledge be freely available (that is the meaning of the establishment of libraries).

It must differ by geography. In my country, authors are paid library revenue according to the number of times their books are borrowed. Perhaps as well as an upfront purchase.

Re: what “society has decided”, are you arguing that because libraries exist, no one may sell books for a price?

Seems extreme, not widely agreed by the population or the relevant parties, and likely to cause immense problems with the economics of knowledge production, but it’s certainly one point of view!

Similarly I argue that because open source code exists, software engineers must all work for free, and that because public parks exist, everyone’s home gardens are open to all.

> are you arguing that because libraries exist

No, no, no. In general, contextually to the topic of which the submission in part, I am showing that libraries were established through a societal decision that published knowledge shall be freely available. That means, if you want to consult a text, you are enabled to just go to a library and do it - the cost will be societal and contained.

Contextually to your post, and the expression «enjoying someone’s work without compensating them», I showed that the Principle establishing libraries implies you are not required to directly compensate authors to access their work.

And I told you that there is no similar principle regulating access to all other goods or services, such as "mowing your lawn" - society has not decided to bear the cost of the operation. It has, for the realm of accessing knowledge.

Do not misread.

Edit: maybe this will further help you to understand:

some societies have decided that health care services shall be easy to access, with collectively borne costs. Most societies have decided that published knowledge shall be easy to access, with collectively borne costs. Few societies have decided that having private lawns mowed shall be easy to access, with collectively borne costs.

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