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Comment by benologist | Hacker News Reader

By that argument there is basically nothing that qualifies as "commercial" file sharing because ultimately those bytes are moving for free whether it's P2P or a bootleg DVD transferring them to a DVD player.

Everyone benefits from patent reform, copyright reform, the cost of drugs being reduced, DRM being abolished etc. Why derail those arguments with "and legalize piracy!" when TPB etc's perhaps illicit business models are of no lasting consequence to anyone but the few whose pockets they line?

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I think the argument is not so much "legalize piracy" as it is "decriminalize 30% of the society". In this case, it's obvious that the law sucks.

Also, it's pretty easy to judge when file-sharing is commercial - whenever it is done by a commercial entity, e.g. a for-profit radio station that would otherwise have to pay public-performance fees.

Falkvinge explicitly said above that it doesn't matter whether or not the entity is commercial.

No, I said that it doesn't matter whether an entity aiding noncommercial filesharing is itself commercial (like The Pirate Bay might be; just having ads does not make an entity commercial).

The analogy with the postal service made earlier was actually quite apt.

Cheers, Rick

I'm increasingly curious what you consider commercial - there's an awful lot of businesses out there with the exact same monetization methods as TPB that are indisputably "commercial".

The line between "aiding file sharing" and "file sharing is their business model" is also very, very questionable. We all saw what happened to Mininova when they stopped "aiding".

Could you name a few so this discussion can make more sense?

TPB could easily run without ads. In my mind adding ads to something should generally not affect legality.

A guy who prints DVDs with movies on them and sells them on the street is a commercial pirate. A guy that takes DVDs someone else made and brings them to people is a courier. It's not a very complicated distinction.

What about a guy who sets up a service where you submit a link to a torrent, and his service downloads the file and burns it to a DVD and mails it to you, for a fee?

If it is legal for you to download a file and burn it, it should be legal for you to hire someone else to do that for you.

Yes, I thought about mentioning something like that as more borderline.

On one hand, it might be legal, deciding the agency is in the person submitting the link and the other person is only automatically shoving some bits around.

On the other hand, you might decide that that's not a service that can legitimately be paid for. Some things can't be outsourced. I think right now that it's legal to 3d print a rifle but it's not legal to have someone else print it for you (but I'm having trouble finding references).

Either way, the intent of the law matters, and it's possible to outlaw commercial enterprises based around piracy but not individuals' actions. One method might be to limit the number of 'uploads' to a number like 10.

You need examples of ad supported websites? Really?

The commercial nature of the site affects whether it falls under non-commercial file sharing the OP would like to see legalized of course, in which case it changes the argument from "legalize non-commercial file sharing" to "legalize commercial piracy".

Sorry, I guess I misunderstood that point. I thought you were saying something about the commercial nature extending to site uses, not just pointing out that there are commercial sites funded by ads. You're definitely right on that point.

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