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Comment by segmondy | Hacker News Reader

Listen, you have no right to someone's else own work. If you don't want to pay HBO NOW to watch a single TV show. No problem. If you do however pirate their show, then that's stealing and the owner has a right to call you a thief. If HBO decides to charge $1,000 per episode, that would be very outrageous, but that still doesn't give anyone the right to steal their show. BTW, I know the pain, I really want to watch Showtime's "Billions" but I'm not willing to pay $12.95 for one month to watch it. I pay for Netflix and all my shows is restricted to Netflix, youtube and what's on TV.

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No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule.

I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available easily like that.

As for the moral aspect of this, I personally consider that the advantages to society provided by the free, widespread availability of cultural material far outweighs the inconvenience to content distributors & creators; moreover, I consider downloading content 'illegaly' like that to be a form of social protest; to be practiced until their outdated, absurd model changes. Part of this is certainly me rationalizing my behaviour, but I genuinely believe that most of it is not.

And when content is available without any form of DRM and with a minimal amount of intermediaries, I always pay for it (a good example is games through gog.com). Personally, I'll stop downloading illegaly when all content is available like that. And no, netflix doesn't cut it; I want the same, convenient service I get through piracy: a mkv/mp4/whatever without any form of DRM that I can store, read on any of my devices, copy, backup, etc.

Sure, it's all virtual, you're not actually 'stealing' their money since you weren't actually going to pay for it anyways, but if we're pedantic about it you are depriving them their rights. As the owner, they can copyright it, they can specify the terms by which you're allowed to view it or not view it. They can decide to not let you view it. You are taking that right from them. You are saying your right to access the content is more important than their rights, it's pretty simple.

Sure, it's a big faceless corporation that already has billions of dollars, so it's as offensive. but it's basically the same thing as a GPL violation. Whenever a big corporation steals, err, I mean 'copies,' GPL code and refuses to give the output away, they aren't actually stealing, they were never going to contribute anything anyways...

"You are saying your right to access the content is more important than their rights, it's pretty simple."

Not exactly; I'm saying the benefits to society as a whole offered by the post-scarcity nature of data on the Internet (infinitely copiable with negligible cost) is so large that, in my opinion, their right to decide who should access the content is far less important and so should be ignored.

It certainly sucks for them; and it certainly means that we need to think about new models to finance content creation (since we are living in a definitely scarcity-based society in real life, for now at least); but there you go.

And you say they are the "owner" of the content; given the current laws, yes, "they" usually posess the content. But the "they" in question is very often great industry behemoths constructed on the old, physical model of distribution; regularly offering incredibly bad deals to content creators.

As I said, when a content creator distributes its content directly or with a non-DRM intermediary (such as GoG) - and I consider, for example, both netflix and steam as little more than new forms of DRM - then I always pay for it. I pay for it because we still don't have a new model allowing free distribution of data while providing incentives for content creators (a global licence mechanism or something similar - easier said than done), and so I see it as a compromise in the meantime. It also encourages those new means of distribution.

What about my case:

I run a software training company. We provide streaming access to recordings made of the live session for which a student purchased a seat. Pay for a four day class, and you can stream the recording of that four day class for, at the least, 18 months. Why 18 months? That's all we promise, ideas end up being available for longer - five years and counting now - and in 18 months the class tends to have changed enough that we'd rather you just attend again (for free, if it's online).

Do you have the right to pirate the videos that my students paid for? Do they have the right to share it with people who didn't attend the course, and are thus missing the context of the classroom experience (and the web site where updated materials/code samples are dispensed)?

Rationalizing your own behavior of downloading content you like and enjoying consuming it as being a "benefit to society" is quite a stretch.

Thinking that everything you do, even selfishly, is somehow ethically laudable is not a sign of maturity.

So if I have a different opinion than you on copyright and intellectual property, it means I'm immature, right ?

You don't really give arguments to counter beyond the ad hominem attack, but let me try to explain why I think this way.

We have the capability to copy and distribute at negligible cost most of the cultural & educational content (books, scientific articles, movies, music, etc.) ever produced by humanity to our entire species; and because we don't have the same capability for physical things, we impose an artificial scarcity on this. Think of the enormous amounts of money and man hours spent on intellectual property: lawyers, consulting firms, etc... entire industries dedicated to limit our capability as a species to distribute knowledge and cultural content.

Now, if only a portion of these efforts had been spent towards spreading network infrastructure and creating, spreading and supporting educational material to the widest amount of people possible, where would we be right now as a species ? Given that, I can help but think that yes, copyright and intellectual property is more of an issue globally than a solution to the problem of incentivizing content production.

So no, it's not only rationalization of my "wrong" behavior (part of it probably is, sure); I genuinely believe this, and I genuinely believe that ignoring those laws and downloading content illegally is a form of non-violent (and massively followed) social protest; the mass reaction of the individuals in society to absurd laws.

As I said above, some sort of new economic model should have to be found for this to be viable; hence why compromise is necessary in the meantime (and hence why yes, I also pay for content when it is distributed in a way that in my view helps to go towards that direction).

You do make some convincing arguments. I think, though, that you may be overlooking that it's not just ancillary participants that spend man hours on intellectual property matters. In a broad sense, artists of all kinds (that is, the authors of the copyrighted works) do the same thing. It seems undeniable that if it isn't possible to make a living as an artist or author, we'll have a lot less art to consume as a society. So even accepting your arguments, the decision to pirate a given piece of content is not one that is unambiguously virtuous.

I apologize for being rude earlier. I remember once feeling very self-righteous about my own disregard for copyright, and as my feelings have now switched to the opposite side of the issue I think I may have projected my own hang-ups onto you. It's a complicated topic, and I certainly don't think that always complying with copyright law makes anyone a saint either.

You are assuming that everyone agrees copyright is a good thing...

I make no such assumption, I'm just pointing out that it's the current framework that we have and that with it content creators are given actual rights and among those rights is the right to significant control over distribution and consumption of their content.

You responded to a comment arguing that piracy could be considered a form of social protest. As such appealing to copyright seems a poor counter since copyright could be the very thing being protested.

It's anecdotal at this point but also worth noting that the earliest conception of copyright in the colonial era had nothing to do with protecting creators and everything to do with allowing distributors and regulators get a piece of the pie.

And the current framework hands out almost no punishments at all. Given the theory that social norms and laws are not what is written but what is enforced, then the current framework only supports limited cases of copyrights that apply generally between financially very well endowed entities.

If the current framework written was fully applied, it would not last two full election cycles.

Whenever a big corporation steals, err, I mean 'copies,' GPL code and refuses to give the output away, they aren't actually stealing, they were never going to contribute anything anyways...

Why would you think people would disagree with that?

"[...] if we're pedantic about it you are depriving them their rights"

Don't confuse the economic and moral rights in copyright. When you copy something you aren't necessarily depriving someone of their rights so much as disregarding their awarded monopoly. Just like you usually do if you make moonshine or take a unlicensed taxi.

Curious that this argument only ever applies to the intangible bit patterns that define creative works, but never to the equally intangible bit patterns that define money.

If I copy the numbers in a very rich person's bank account to my bank account, I haven't stolen anything from them. All I've done is made a copy of some information.

And yet one kind of copying generates rants about the cultural value of free distribution, while the other generates nothing but fear and horror.

It's all very strange. And not particularly thoughtful or consistent.

IMO either you have a free economy, in which case you make every damn thing free, or you accept that rules of ownership are necessary and that the output of labour has value independent of the ease with which it can be copied.

Claiming that rules of ownership are irrelevant for IP you personally want from others, but very important for IP you personally want to monopolise, is the very worst kind of special pleading.

I have no idea what you're talking about. The bit patterns in someone's bank account aren't money, they're just a record of money. If someone has 1000000 dollars, they will have a given bit pattern in their database row. But if two people have the same number of dollars, they aren't sharing money; they just happen to have the same amount at that moment.

Money is the agreement that a given person has a given amount of money. That's why blockchains, which allow distributed consensus, can be used to establish currencies.

If, by "intangible bit patterns", you mean the credentials for someone's bank account, this is also not the same as a copy of a creative work. By having a copy of credentials you have the ability to change how much money the person has. This is very illegal to do without consent. Analogously, nobody is suggesting we should be able to legally break into the author's computer and modify their copies of their book.

Ownership is about control over things. The author has control over their copy, and I have control over mine.

either you have a free economy, in which case you make every damn thing free, or you accept that rules of ownership are necessary and that the output of labour has value independent of the ease with which it can be copied.

Rules of ownership are necessary for rivalrous goods, and not for others. Citing Thomas Jefferson,

"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper [(candle)] at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."

Jefferson's talking about memetics -- about the spread of ideas and ways of thinking. I don't see how IP law interferes with meme competition; and I don't see how meme competition justifies pirating entertainment (which requires large investments in visuals, audio, acting or voice-acting, computer programming, and so on, all of which the spread of ideas doesn't need).

The argument he used works for any non-rivalrous good, even if his specific concern at the time was with memetics.

You're comparing two very different types of values. The number in your bank account has no informational value to people outside of describing what you are allowed to spend it on. Nobody will gain much value by just looking at it unless they want to know how much they can sell or collect from you. If you're copying someone else's bank account, it's a matter of fraud, misrepresenting yourself. If you copied someone else's album and released it as your own, it would cause the same problem.

When we're talking about copying information, the issue isn't fraud, it's that you copied somebody else's recipe and made your own version. Now if you were selling this thing and representing it as your own, that would be one thing, but if you're just using it for personal reasons, people might look at it differently. It's as if you found the recipe for a Big Mac and made your own in your own kitchen for your family using your own materials. McDonalds might not like that because you aren't buying theirs, but I don't think they have any legal way to stop you from cooking a Big Mac copy. You could even sell it as long as you don't use their trademark.

Media companies, however, can stop you from "cooking your own Big Mac," even when you make that copy with your own equipment in your own home for personal use. You aren't allowed to use the recipe for a copyrighted media file, in some cases, even if you bought the original (because of having to circumvent DRM). Lawrence Lessig used an example of an ebook of a public domain work that contains the stipulation "this book may not be read aloud." The only justification for this distinction between rights to these recipes is that the law doesn't consider a recipe for food or flavors to be substantial original works but does consider a recipe for sounds or text to be original works of authorship. Some people would see this as an arbitrary distinction. We simply made computers too good at copying things to work within a traditional publishing framework.

None of this automatically makes any of these things ethical, but it's entirely possible and not hypocritical to have differing opinions about fraud and copying. Some people are concerned about the ethics of restricting copying in the way we do. It gives big advantages to those who have been first to file patents and copyrights, companies like Disney who have made their fortune by adapting public domain works and then copyrighting their versions and extending them perpetually. Some people see this as a movement toward a world where no creativity is allowed because somebody owns all of the foundational ideas, stories, and sounds on which we base our culture, which is always derivative of the past. It's already difficult to create anything without being assaulted by lawsuits, and this problem is only getting increasingly worse. To some people, avoiding this dystopia of a ban on creative works is much more important than protecting the profits of established companies with large legal departments. As the world is joining the global economy, they're increasingly being forced to adopt the intellectual property laws of the same countries that have been exploiting them and appropriating their best ideas for generations. Now they're finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the information economies of the already rich. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

If you create money in the banking system without creating corresponding value in the world, you have simply depressed the value of money a little bit, effectively "stealing" purchasing power from everyone else (though their balances remain untouched).

Do we have to do this song and dance every single time there's a discussion about copyright?

This is yet another example of a semantic argument as a proxy for values. What matters is not whether piracy "is theft", it's how bad we think it is. But by framing the argument as a semantic one, it ensures that people will focus on technicalities and constantly talk past each other, all the while ignoring what actually matters.

Agreeing to either definition of the word "theft" is not going to make either side suddenly change their opinion of piracy.

So can we all just agree that copying a file without consent and taking a physical object without consent are qualitatively different acts, and have a direct discussion of their relative morality instead?

> Do we have to do this song and dance every single time there's a discussion about copyright?

This rather shows how hardened the fronts between the positions already are.

Thomas Babington Macaulay gave some brilliant speeches on this, back in the first half of the 19th century: http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/OpposingCopyrightExte...

One takeaway from his words is brutally practical: if access to information (including entertainment) is not cheap and plentiful, people will pirate. All that attempts to prevent piracy (i.e. enforce rent-extracting monopolies)accomplish is encourage it, and create not just sympathy, but public acceptance and encouragement of it.

Historically speaking, the only reason anyone "owns" media is due to literally hundreds of years of lobbying. Books, stories, and songs were all once free to copy. This is the nature of religious books, fairy tales, and folk songs.

Ethically speaking, "ownership" has a tenuous position. I find it easier to argue that ownership is a construct of society than it is an innate part of anything. That means it's flexible to what society decides. Right now, on this issue, that's definitely in flux.

From a utilitarian perspective, it's really pretty weird too. Ignoring economics for a second (that's my next point), it is probably better for all society to have information free of barriers. A lot more people can enjoy it if more people have access, particularly when the cost of copy and distrubution is so cheap.

Economically it costs a LOT of money though. HBO would not produce game of thrones without being able to get said money back. And they're only going to put as much money into it as they expect to get back. Why don't we have more CGI dragons? because HBO, while rich, is not an endless supply of money. and CGI dragons are really expensive. Yes, to reiterate the point, if HBO had enough money we'd have more dragons.

And as for the cost? $15/month for one show is actually VERY reasonable. Remember it costs millions of dollars to produce - just that one show. Even if you don't watch any other show you are still getting more than your money's worth. If you do watch other shows (And I highly recommend it), it's still easily worth your money. BTW, Netflix, HuluPlus, etc are also all worth their relative costs relative to what you get out of them.

The only reason you own anything is thousands of years of lobbying. Copyright and property rights are both artificial constructs.

The scarcity that physical property deals with isn't artificial.

I'd argue that the lack of scaricity makes owning a work of art less problematic. Someone can always make a new one.

I was born into a world where every peace of land I could use to survive on is owned. But there are an unlimited number of songs or books that can be written. What's the harm in letting a person own the book they created. There are an unlimited number left.

That's not how it works. New ideas are scarce, in that they require effort (and ultimately energy) to create. There are not "an unlimited number left", someone has to actually create them.

However, ideas are not rivalrous. Once they are created, everyone in the world can benefit from them simultaneously at no additional cost. Therefore, the immediate opportunity cost of allowing people to own ideas is far greater than for physical property.

You make me think about that commercial you couldn't skip on DVD. "YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR" Bitch if I could copy a car on street for free I would do it.

Not to mention the only people seeing that fucking clip were the ones that bought the DVD. Way to ensure returning customers, well done.

watching/reading something without authorization is not theft; redefining the words to suit your cause feels no less wrong than 'pirating'

It's you who is trying to redefine the words to make theft acceptable.

The crux of the issue is whether intellectual creations are "property" or not.

For people that believe something written can be property, then theft is an appropriate word (theft : the act or crime of stealing).

If, OTOH, you believe intellectual creations should not be treated like physical property, then theft is not the correct word.

Definitely not clear-cut.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#The_term...

"Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman argues that, although the term intellectual property is in wide use, it should be rejected altogether, because it "systematically distorts and confuses these issues, and its use was and is promoted by those who gain from this confusion". He claims that the term "operates as a catch-all to lump together disparate laws [which] originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues" and that it creates a "bias" by confusing these monopolies with ownership of limited physical things, likening them to "property rights""

Economists Boldrin and Levine prefer to use the term "intellectual monopoly" as a more appropriate and clear definition of the concept, which they argue, is very dissimilar from property rights

Please stop posting unsubstantive comments. Discussions on HN are to be in the spirit of intellectual curiosity and not ideological warfare. Comments that predictably derail conversation ruin these threads for everyone.

Thanks. His or her post history is full of garbage. A shame banning can't do much on free platforms.

"We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.

We are creating a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter. There is no matter here."[1]

When I read comments like yours I can't help missing the early visionaries of the cyberspace.

[1] https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

No matter in cyberspace? I guess their servers live in the cloud. ;)

People just want to find some noble reason for their behaviour.

Pirating is wrong, but I do it because I don't have the money to spend.

Then why are you labelling it with the negative moral qualifier wrong? It may be illegal or considered reprehensible by the society you live in (i.e, someone else may call it wrong), but why would you do it if you consider it wrong?

Because it disagrees with the ethical principles someone might want to live their life by.

> someone's else own work

It's not like the person would have oome up with whatever without their environment. He is in a constant flow of input and draws his art from that. This goes for every kind of art so the product in the end is as well a product of the environment as by the guy who decided to fix it on the medium.

The owner has the right sure. It's given to him by another product of the environment a certain portion of people agreed upon some time ago.

It doesn't make it right or some kind of physics law. Especially not in the digital world where there is no "stealing". There is more of it after the act.

Not allowing to redistribute data is a form of censorship.

As is creating something and keeping it only to yourself isn't it?

That would be the term self-censorship, yes.

Everyone has the legal right to view something.

Downloading, streaming, or attending an unlicensed performance is not copyright infringement.

Without Copyright, and when it expires, the natural state of culture is to be copied, that is how it evolves - all works exist naturally in the public domain.

The word theft is entirely out of place in discussions of copyright.

You only have the right to view something if someone who created that wants you to view it. If they say that you can view it after you pay, that's their right. If you pay and are allowed to view it you can describe it in any way you want to other people, but you are not allowed to spend that time you had for viewing it to make a copy of it and show it to some other people that did not pay the original author. If you at the same time use your copy to make money, taking that potential income from the original owner how is that not a theft?

It is legal to view something, regardless of whether the source is licensed.

Copyright only prevents producing and distributing unlicensed copies, i.e. uploading or sharing - it does not cover viewing or downloading.

You may not agree with the law but nonetheless there is no prohibition against viewing an unauthorised copy.

-- can't reply below ? So replying here.

> as legal as buying a stolen tv.

Buying stolen goods is an offense in law. Buying an unauthorised copy is not.

> How is downloading not creating a copy? There was one file before you downloaded it, now there are two.

Yes, but it is not copyright infringement. Making a local copy for the purposes of viewing a web page, a picture or other digital media is not copyright infringement, this is well established by precedent.

How is downloading not creating a copy? There was one file before you downloaded it, now there are two.

It's about as legal as buying a stolen TV.

I think a knockoff TV would be a better analogy.

I don't think this is a good analogy either: Since at a knockoff TV the seller deceives the buyer that the TV is an original. So it's a clear case of fraud.

> but you are not allowed to spend that time you had for viewing it to make a copy of it and show it to some other people that did not pay the original author

I clearly said that making an unlicensed copy and distributing it infringes copyright so we agree.

> You only have the right to view something if someone who created that wants you to view it.

Here we disagree, copyright does not prevent many things like borrowing a friends book or downloading a movie.

Do you have any sources where someone was prosecuted for unlicensed viewing or downloading - this would substantiate your argument.

Uploading and sharing is what copyright prevents, not downloading.

> how is that not a theft?

It is not theft, theft means depriving someone of something actual - copyright infringement is against the law but no-one is charged with theft for it.

Damages are awarded against uploaders but potential income and stolen money are not equivalent.

Copyright is a time limited monopoly, possesion is not - trying to conflate copying with theft does not further the discussion, it only muddies the discourse.

> You only have the right to view something if someone who created that wants you to view it.

There are a number of ways I can view something against the wishes of the copyright holder, thus reducing their monetary income. Are all of these wrong?

You already mentioned the case of me describing something to other people. The NFL has a (probably unenforceable) disclaimer for the Super Bowl that says, "any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited."

Buying used is often quite cheap. The creator doesn't see a dime. There's no guarantee that the seller of the used item won't use that money to buy something else used instead of new. Is that wrong? Is the creator entitled to a large market of new buyers?

Format shifting is convenient for the customer but not the creator. For example, I bought Advance Wars on the Game Boy around 15 years ago. I've since backed up my copy (trivial to make your own backup with a flashcart). Now, Nintendo sells it on the Virtual Console for 8 bucks. If I play my backed up copy on a hacked Wii U, they're out 8 bucks. Is that wrong? Is the creator entitled to have every customer re-buy media for every new platform they want to consume on? The RIAA says that backing up a CD to an iPod is wrong: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2006/02/riaa-says-ripping-cds-...

Buying in other countries is often cheaper. Look at textbooks for a prime example. When I was in college, I paid $20 for a legit copy of my physics textbook from India printed on poor-quality paper with a cheap binding; the content was exactly the same as the American textbook. Was that wrong? Some people even buy books in bulk in cheap countries and sell them in America for profit. Wiley sued a Thai guy for doing this, made it to the Supreme Court, and LOST. Are creators entitled to segment markets in this way? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/11/how-an-ebay-books...

Renting something instead of buying it reduces profit. Did you know that video game rental is illegal in Japan? Should it be illegal in the US too? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3xuy5YALl0

Lots of people watch stuff with a friend. I had a friend with HBO Go, and we had Game of Thrones night where three or four of us would watch it together. Should we have bought individual accounts?

Some media is paid for by ads. I use an adblocker in my browser. My grandma mutes the TV and goes to the fridge during commercials. Is that wrong?

Some works don't get published in foreign markets. Lots of old video games, TV shows, movies, and books are only officially released in one language, and are never translated by the creator for any number of reasons: lack of interest in the market, lack of money for translation, attachment to the "integrity" of the original work, etc. Unofficial translation violates copyright law, at least in the US. Say a work is only available in Japan, and in Japanese. Is it wrong for someone to translate it to English? Is it wrong for someone from the US to pirate the translated work, when that person would never have bought the work in its original translation and is region-locked from buying it anyway?

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