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Comment by eggy | Hacker News Reader

Aside from the legal technicalities here, I mostly ponder the future of IP. I think Napster positively affected the music distribution world in the long run. I am not very black-and-white on this issue, however, since there are many contradictions by both sides.

I read the majority of comments here on HN about dated business models, big corporation dislike, the old executives don't understand the new market, etc..., but then a young indie artist in LA finds out Zara the clothing retailer has obviously copied her designs, and the lynch mobs are out to boycott Zara, send letters and other things to Zara and their attorneys. [1]

I have not inquired directly, but I am guessing a number of the indie artist's supporters have downloaded a torrent or two. How do they morally distinguish the two, or how does anybody who is against copyright or property rights of IP?

[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriasanusi/an-independent-artis...

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I think the moral difference may lie in the balance of power between the IP holder and IP infringer :

In Zara vs indie designer, Zara steal the design and uses its power to distribute and sell it to the whole world. The indie designer cannot compete, or fight. The fact that Zara used her designs will not advertise her own products or make her money (maybe it did after the public outcry, but I guess it will not be the case for every indie designer).

In torrent website vs content producers, the torrent website or its user are not more powerful than the producers. They do not put the producers' business at risk. Everyone knows who made the original product, and may buy some genuine products or derivatives : torrenting can act as advertisement.

One of the other justifications for torrenting is that the content is not available in your country. Similarly, the indie design was not available in all countries. But the source of the issue is different : a small business may not distribute to the whole wold because of logistics, whereas producers and distributors voluntarily block content from being available when it could be.

I think a power analysis is incorrect here. Zara can and most likely will be held accountable for any illegal acts their lawyers committed by trying to intimidate the indie artist.

I am holding up the simple concept of property rights whether you are a big, and not necessarily bad, company, or you are a struggling moral artist. If you download torrents for any reason, it is still against the IP laws that protect them, even if you are doing it to make a statement. You are in effect against the concept of IP. Now, if you turn around, and call the big company evil or bad, because one of its 20,000 designers lifted a design off of a web site, how do you justify the apparent contradiction or hypocrisy.

I don't say this judgmentally, since I have struggled with this for decades. I buy indie games, donate to worthwhile endeavors when I can, and hope for the same reciprocation. I see the point for change and looking for new ways of doing business that benefit both sides of a deal. After all, the definition of a good bargain or deal is when both parties shake hands after exchanging goods and services, and each feels they received good value in the transaction when walking away.

To be honest, rigorously honest, sometimes demands calling ourselves out on our own contradictions and addressing them. I see to much dancing around the truth to justify what is currently stealing.

Morally distinguishing between the two is easy.

Zara had the ability to pay the indie designer for their work and didn't.

It'd be like if Bill Gates made a subscription payment torrenting site specifically for indie games.

If it had instead been a housewife in the Philippines who used the design to make clothes for her kids (or even a little money on the side) then very few people would care.

Again, I see a lot of incorrect or illogical arguments here. You are arguing magnitudes here, not morality or ethics, so not so easy as you say.

If you agree and respect IP laws, stealing by a big company or by a poor person is indistinguishable morally. They are both wrong. You may emote or perceive them emotionally different, but that is a different argument. You can't selectively apply it to different entities. Abandoning a child at a roadside to die who was under 5 years old was not illegal in ancient Rome at one time. Morality or legality? All or none?

My cloudiness eluded above is one of thinking that a newer business model will evolve eventually on IP, but we cannot try to force or accelerate it by committing illegal acts if we agree and live under those laws. The alternative is anarchy and no government, which is a choice to some people.

I agree that in both case (downloading torrents / copying design), one infringes IP rights. However, that does not necessarily mean that you are against the concept of IP : you could be against the way it is applied, or its extent.

Regarding power balance, I think it cannot be considered alone. Another justification to IP infringement is the damage or loss you potentially cause to the IP holder.

Not being against the concept of IP, I would like to see it applied with more nuance. For example : big company stealing from indie is wrong to me, but big company stealing from big company seems less wrong in my mind. To continue on indie games : downloading torrents for AAA game seems less wrong to me than downloading indie game. The relative damage that I cause is more important if I don't buy the indie game.

I am still struggling with this reflection. I would like to be able to remunerate each IP holder in proportion to the value the content had to me. And also, to add objective value in the calculation on top of my perceived value.

I get where you're coming from, and I think you make a good point, so I'll attempt to answer it.

--------

    Note that the following is an analogy. 
    I have no idea about the facts of the case, 
    but I'm trying to compare it to downloading
    illegal torrents.

--------

Imagine there's one designer for most of the world's t-shirts but she won't sell them to the UK so you can't buy one. Zara attempts to do a licensing deal which is profitable for the designer, but she's greedy and thinks she can get more money without the licensing deal. So Zara simply copies the t-shirts, UK customers get their t-shirts and the designer gets nothing.

This is essentially the problem. Disney has an almost complete monopoly over the distribution of kids films, and like all monopolies, they end up over-priced with poor service. The government doesn't seem to care. But torrents allow us to break that monopoly.

It's not just about the cost. It's about how the digital distribution industry fails to service customer needs because its monopoly means the status quo is so profitable.

Lots of cognitive dissonance on HN regarding IP rights. Also, see any previous post where a Chinese company is accused of stealing IP or cloning apps.

Is it cognitive dissonance, or simply different people commenting? HN is not a hive mind.

Can't say for sure, just the feeling I get. HN comments usually seem pre-dominantly pro or anti copyright depending on context (e.g. "big company fails to comply with GPL" would result in mainly pro copyright comments while "bittorrent site gets shut down" would mainly result in anti copyright ones).

> HN comments usually seem pre-dominantly pro or anti copyright depending on context (e.g. "big company fails to comply with GPL" would result in mainly pro copyright comments while "bittorrent site gets shut down" would mainly result in anti copyright ones).

I wouldn't use the GPL as a copyrights poster-boy since it subverts the 'normal' use of copyrights (restriction of distribution by 3rd parties) - the FSF calls it 'copyleft' for that very reason. My feeling is that being pro-GPL and being pro-bittorrent is consistent with the "information wants to be free" mindset - no cognitive dissonance necessary. The day HN becomes pro-Mickey-Mouse laws then you would have an argument.

I disagree that the GPL subverts the 'normal' use of copyright (though I'm aware it is presented as such by the FSF). Tons of copyrighted works are licensed for distribution by 3rd parties. Software licenses which allowed unrestricted distribution existed before the GPL. What the GPL innovated on was to put light restrictions on distribution to ensure modified source code would be made available along with binary distributions. In a world without copyright, there would still be tons of software without publicly available source code (perhaps more than now, due to the inability to enforce GPL violations).

Also, "information wants to be free" is more of a vague idea than anything else. I want information to be free. I'm a big user and proponent of open source software (heck, I wrote a non-trivial feature of Webtorrent). That doesn't necessarily mean I'm against copyright.

> Software licenses which allowed unrestricted distribution existed before the GPL

There is a world of a difference between 'allowing' distribution of source code and mandating it (like the GPL does).

Isn't that exactly his point though? That the main innovation with GPL would be unenforceable without copyright.

In the case of stealing: You deny somebody else the possibility of buying the product.

In the case of cloning: You deny the progenitor the claim to its creation.

In the case of downloads: You make a copy of something. Whether it equates to a lost sale or not is a the point of contention. In many cases it may simply be the case that the product is unavailable, at all, or through conventional distribution channels.

In fairness that goes to a certain extent for cloning as well, but the big issue there is an unwitting consumer can buy a clone thinking it's the real thing, with possible consequences for the consumer, and perhaps even damaging the image of the creator of the original product.

And that's what I meant... You are doing all sorts of mental gymnastics to draw an arbitrary line between two things which are essentially the same. What if the Chinese cloned app was distributed through Bittorrent, would it then become legitimate? What if it the original app wasn't available in China or only available in English? etc. I think the elephant in the room is that most of the "anti copyright" crowd aren't really anti copyright at all but simply use Bittorrent for pragmatic reasons (which is OK, but please spare us the ad hoc moral philosophies).

</rant>

and you're talking poorly thought out hypotheticals a "Chinese cloned app distributed through Bittorrent"?

Do you mean a "competing app", in which case it's fair game. Do you mean a straight copy? You might have a discussion there, but why involve Chinese people?

Do you mean something like [legit] "ReactOS" which is a reimplementation of Windows XP? That satisfies the needs of a wider unserved market that still needs it?

Or some hypothetical "vigilante localised" app for people who need it in their own language. Sounds fair enough if the developer isn't serving that market.

The comments hear regarding IP rights and copyright seem remarkably consistent to me.

In my opinion, copyright isn't a problem in regard to television, films, music, etc. Everyone is in agreement that the people who develop this content deserve to be rewarded for their efforts and that copyright is a reasonable way to enforce this. For sure, some disagree, but I think this is the attitude on the whole and I believe that it's consistent with the way many feel about the GPL, and the outrage when the GPL is violated.

Again, in my opinion, the issue is how this content is distributed (or in many cases, the ways in which it is _not_ distributed). Isolating customers geographically and then (somewhat arbitrarily) deciding not to sell to those customers is a bitter pill for said customers to swallow. Selling media, like BluRay DVDs and then telling customers they've bought a license and can't back up that content or move it to a more convenient device, is another move that seems almost designed to upset customers.

If the content holders wanted to eliminate the effectiveness of torrenting sites, they could do so pretty quickly. They could license their products in ways similar to how music is licensed. They choose not to, in my opinion, out of greed and certain amount of disinterest in what their customers want.

The main difference is that Zara uses piracy to earn money, whereas most other pirates don't.

That's the general model of copyright that I support - it's legal to copy anything for non-commercial use.

Per the arrest of the torrent site runner in today's news, it seems he may have made millions in ad revenue on the torrent site.

The copying for non-commercial use is sometimes a moving boundary: For instance, you download a PDF of a technical book that is extremely expensive, or plain not available in your country, but you use it to just study on your own.

All the way to you download some video, sound, music, code, or book and incorporate it into your YouTube channel or your site that generates revenue for you. Now it is blurred IMO.

If you are parodying something, you may get away with it, but if you are leveraging it to avoid doing the work to generate the content yourself, you are stealing. It is commercial usage in this case, but many disagree it seems, but then point the finger at Zara mainly just because their a company. The actions of their lawyers are definitely illegal and low tactics, but just remember, it was most likely a very low wage designer that lifted the artwork from the indie artist's site. He/She will most likely or was already fired. Zara will be fine.

Don't most torrent sites run advertising? Yes some of that likely goes to maintain the server, but I doubt it all does in most cases.

A lot of sites distributing content like this are set up as for profit ventures.

I think that's a false dichotomy. If these sites were unambiguously legal, people (like myself) would donate money for the costs of running them. But the problem right now is, that even if a site wasn't making any money (no ads, no nothing), the operators could still be thrown into jail.

What's the problem with making a profit from the legal provision of information? They're not infringing copyright themselves anymore than Google are - put "torrent $mediaName" (eg https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=torrent+mad+max+hash&oq=to...) in to Google and you can get all you need to torrent that film.

> I have not inquired directly, but I am guessing a number of the indie artist's supporters have downloaded a torrent or two. How do they morally distinguish the two, or how does anybody who is against copyright or property rights of IP?

I leach and seed a lot, I send a lot of donations and bug-fixes to opensource projects, indie developers and small music bands, buy indie games on gog and steam. This year I spend on voluntary donation ~£400 (in BTC). Does it count?

It's the difference between copyright infringement for commercial gain, and for non-commercial, personal use.

I doubt many torrent site operators make much money from their operations, and if they do make a profit now, the level of risk (and prospect of bankrupting legal actions in the future) probably don't make it worth it.

Morality often has many sides and exceptions. Take someone who eats meat. I am perfectly fine buying chicken, but would vocally dislike if I saw meat from endangered animals being sold. My objection to have animal extinct does not impact my opinion about buying meat in the general sense.

A person who want to support young indie artist will do so through many avenues, some which supporting that artists IP. That doesn't mean that they must be in favor of IP, or must support every form of IP, but simply that their intention is to support the young indie artist. They morally distinguish the two, not on their opinion about IP, but the opinion of the author.

I would also suggest, that in the case of the clothing, the artist is probably not credited. Zara are claiming it as their own original work so she can't even claim copyright.

I think the downvoter should review this if they think I am unfairly representing Zara

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/07/21/terribly-zara/

Something like: "When I pirate a movie they only lose that single sale, and they wouldn't have had it anyway because I would never have paid to see that movie. But when a commercial company like Zara makes a profit from stealing designs, well, they're scumbags"

I'm not a commercial company, who said I should be held at same level of scrutiny?

Not me. And not international copyright treaties either. When I download a movie it's unlawful, but they can only sue for damages. (US - a tort?) If I make a business out of downloading and selling the copyright material that tips it into criminal law.

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