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Comment by justinjlynn | Hacker News Reader

It's not that young people grew up with stable rules. It's that young people grew up under the influence of industrial information warfare tactics and propaganda. As someone that was prevented from distributing Linux at high school because the administrators thought that any copying was piracy (thanks to the Software Publishers Association and the friendly local Microsoft rep), this conditioning to get kids (and less intelligent adults, sadly) to believe in the supremacy of illegitimate authority has been going on for a while now. Now those kids are starting to become adults. So, of course, you're starting to see bullshit like the CFAA1986 (and it's downright laughably broad definition of a 'protected computer') and the DMCA (likewise) starting to be abused like they are. The "don't copy that floppy" music video was the thin edge of a wedge that continues being driven into the heads of kids and adults alike, even today.

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It might be that...

I also like to think that young people just don't really understand the full picture of how all of this actually works...they just think they do and that google/SO/wikipedia contains the answers they they don't have to know.

Our abstraction layers are that good. You can write code in a framework, ship and make millions and suddenly you're a tech genius!

In fairness to them though, when I was starting out 20 years ago, if you could sling a few lines of HTML and make things appear in a browser, people certainly treated you like one.

It's always been this way (at least, since the start of the 70s, according to my mother). Those who are capable of reading the user manual (or documentation, or stackoverflow, or...) will be regarded with superstitious awe by those who are not.

It's not just propaganda it's also an effect of formal vocational training being focused on teaching people procedures for doing a task rather then forcing them to learn by having to recover from failures the way most self taught people were, and lets not forget that doing the boom years practically everyone was self taught in an environment that haven't yet developed teachable procedures yet.

I don't think that it's as much a generation thing that is it a consequence of IT having grown to the point where it is no longer it's own semi-anarchic subculture.

> As someone that was prevented from distributing Linux at high school because the administrators thought that any copying was piracy

I remember having this discussion with in HS and also at work with people who were convinced pirating a PSX game is same as stealing, while not realizing there is no evidence that suggests a pirated copy means a lost sale (people can't afford it in places like Brasil where they still play Sega Genesis).

The level of brainwashing of my generation is appalling, but I'm glad people like us realize the ridiculousness of claims like downloading an mp3 is stealing from an artist (they clearly have no idea how much the industry leeches off the artist in first place).

Also, now that I've monies I ended up buying most of the games I use to play as a kid on a mod chip, and warez sites on Steam and the dreaded Playstation Store.

2018 is off to a good start.

Equating “fair use” of a website to pirating software is a stretch. In the first case the method of access is at issue (not whether you can or not). In the second the company has not given you any _legal_ right to access.

I don’t see how affordability (or lack of it) is justification to the game.

Stealing would mean the loss of property, but there are infinite copies of the digital good. Users for the most part do not read EULA agreements or Terms of Service of a website, the expectation is on the software company's side, it's not a a crime unless there is proof of damage (selling it for profit) from either copying that floppy disk or scraping a public website so hard you interfere with their operations.

So basically if you are poor, you deserve not to gain from the same things rich people can, even when no loss of property or damage occurs by having someone who can't afford it in the first place be your loyal fan. This doesn't apply in cases where there is explicit loss of property and damage that occurs as a result.

Mozart also got his ass arrested because he transcribed music he liked onto a medium which he was not authorized to do so. But we all know how ridiculous that was.

> Mozart...

I am interested, and I googled Mozart arrested, Mozart arrested for Copyright, Mozart arrested for Music, but couldn't find anything, could you please post a link/story about Mozart getting arrested?

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2017/01/time-mozart-...

Interesting... In my high school (third world country), buying software at US prices simply wasn’t an option for local incomes, while we were hungry to learn and use the software (especially compilers).

Even the teachers copied software for us onto floppies that we’d “borrow” like library books.

Everyone pirated. Interestingly though most switched to Linux early on too.

And most of the members of our warez distribution BBS/IRC channels went on to great careers in technology, some becoming leading lights of the local and SV VC scene ;)

I think some of the early healthy disrespect for authority may have had a part in fostering our risk taking, questioning mindsets!

A pirated copy doesn’t need to equate to a lost sale in order for it to be stealing. You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else. Whether it’s a physical or nonphysical good is completely beside the point.

English is certainly imprecise, but I would claim that if I commit some act X, and you have no less property than if I had not committed act X, then whatever else we can say about act X, I fell confident that it is not stealing.

And yet people get all worked up about "stolen" passwords. I still have my password. What's the problem?

> "stolen" passwords

That's also wrong. What actually happened is that a database of password hashes was _copied_ not stolen. So yes your password wasn't stolen.

The problem is a security/privacy problem. If someone made a copy of your house keys, that's a problem, because now they can enter your house. But they didn't steal your keys, they copied them. Same with the password. They didn't steal your password, but they have a copy, so they can use it to log into your accounts.

Identity "theft" is also one of those confusing terms. We already have a word for it: impersonation.

Though in fact sometimes things can be stolen via identity theft; in particular if someone abuses your credit it can deny you future credit, so they have stolen the good-will or trust of creditors in that case. This would be an example of an intangible good being stolen.

Are you asserting that the salient moral property of theft isn't a party removing a thing from another party, but rather a party gaining a thing made by someone else?

Unfortunately, this is what people who claim piracy is evil thinks.

You obviously can't afford Final Fantasy 7 or Megaman Legends so by deriving pleasure from an unauthorized copy, you are a thief and lacking in moral fiber Sir!

> You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else.

A person who creates or owns a piece of information still has it after you "steal" it. That's the difference between a physical and a nonphysical good.

(I'm not saying distributing copies of copyrighted works is automatically OK, just that your justification for it not being OK doesn't hold water).

> You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else.

Really? So they no longer have it, because I took theirs?

Or, do they still have their copy, and I have mine, and I didn't take anything that was owned by them?

If I make an exact copy of your car and drive off in it, are you gonna complain that I stole your car?

They may not even know that you have it. So it’s like giving money a natural right and enforcing it.

A very odd mindset, but one I encounter frequently.

They did this class in my kid’s 5th grade where someone came in and said making tapes was illegal. And asked about parents who copied stuff. I was so pissed but the school got a tv or DVD player or something stupid.

#this I can't believe people here don't think it's piracy or stealing, just because it doesn't deprive someone else of their object (as in the case of a physical good).

If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft.

If someone stole bread, how would you feel about It? Screw that person right? What if they were stealing the bread from someone who would never notice the loss, and it was for their hungry kids? Suddenly it seems more reasonable.

So both of these examples show (pretty goddamn clearly) that the whole "it isn't depriving the original owner of a physical item" thing is total, and absolute, hogwash. Clearly that point is totally irrelevant to ownership.

> If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft.

No, that's merely duplication and proliferation of media and information into the public domain; information wants to be free & media calls for an audience. The sole concern at that point would be how you gained access to the media - did you cause any provable harm? In other words, let's say you're my friend. You come in to my room, I leave my journal entries open and you surreptitiously copy them while I'm getting coffee for us. You leave the journal undamaged and make your duplicates public. The only harm you did was cause me to not trust you personally and no longer allow you in my home. If, on the other hand, you broke into my home, causing real physical damage in some way, as well as making me fear for my own personal wellbeing, then yes, you have provably harmed me in a legally actionable way.

In either case, nothing was stolen. Emotional and in the latter case physical damages were done because you have duplicated personal information without my consent. A piece of released or published software is decidedly not personal information. In fact, the number of abstraction layers between a user and the creator(s) of a game usually mean that pirated copies cause no emotional harm whatsoever to the author(s).

> If someone stole bread, how would you feel about It? Screw that person right? What if they were stealing the bread from someone who would never notice the loss, and it was for their hungry kids? Suddenly it seems more reasonable.

If you are depriving someone of a basic foodstuff, and their only means of procurement and providence is legally labelled as theft, then you are perpetrating an unjust society. That's my opinion on that.

> In other words, let's say you're my friend. You come in to my room, I leave my journal entries open and you surreptitiously copy them while I'm getting coffee for us. You leave the journal undamaged and make your duplicates public. The only harm you did was cause me to not trust you personally and no longer allow you in my home.

That's not even remotely true (incidentally this would be illegal in the UK and a court would grant an injunction on publication under breach of confidence, precisely because it's such a shitty thing to do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_confidence_in_Englis...).

> That's not even remotely true (incidentally this would be illegal in the UK and a court would grant an injunction on publication under breach of confidence, precisely because it's such a shitty thing to do https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_confidence_in_Englis...).

Yes but they would not charge you with theft. Which includes "the intention to permanently deprive"...

Copying someone's private data is not theft. That doesn't mean that it is morally or legally OK (it's not - it's another crime). It just means that theft is a specific crime based on taking fungible chattel with the intent to not give it back.

So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good.

IANAL - but I don't think this would fly in any jurisdiction anywhere. Is this definition specific to a country whose laws I'm not familiar with?

> So you narrowly redefine theft to not include intellectual property or any non-physical good.

Theft in law generally only applies to tangible personal property, not intangible personally property and not real property. That's not a redefinition, just the long-existigng definition.

Did you plug "intellectual property theft" into Google before you came to this conclusion?

Try it and look at laws vs non-laws.

No I apply the actual definition of theft....

I never said that copyright infringement or copying and publishing personal data is OK morally or legally. I just said that they are different crimes.

>information wants to be free & media calls for an audience

That's a nice bumper sticker, but also a bunch of shit.

So the nudes you take with your wife, demand to be free and an audience? The photos of your children in the tub demand to be free, and an...audience? Reality doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

"If you are depriving someone of a basic foodstuff, and their only means of procurement and providence is legally labelled as theft, then you are perpetrating an unjust society."

Oh right, so every society that's ever existed. Gotcha. Glad that doesn't happen on whatever planet you live on.

> So the nudes you take with your wife, demand to be free and an audience? The photos of your children in the tub demand to be free, and an...audience? Reality doesn't fit on a bumper sticker.

If I have them stored via digital media and don't provide it with significant forms of security, then yes - and it's my own shame if something "goes wrong". Besides, why would I take pictures or video of that if I wasn't going to look at them later? That's part of why I never got up in arms about the Apple photo breach; people stored images on a remote server whose security they were unable to monitor.

> Oh right, so every society that's ever existed. Gotcha. Glad that doesn't happen on whatever planet you live on.

Never said there's been a just society so far.

"If I took your journal entries from your room, and copied them all, and put them on the internet - that's not stealing, because I returned the journal? No, that's still theft."

Yes, the original taking of the journal is literally depriving someone else of their object. A future return of the object clearly does not mean the original deprivation never happened. The point you're making about unauthorized distribution of private thoughts is about violation of privacy. Violating a person's privacy certainly is a bad thing. Theft is a different bad thing. (The analogy you're looking for is copying someone's paywalled blog)

"If someone stole bread, how would you feel about It? Screw that person right? What if they were stealing the bread from someone who would never notice the loss, and it was for their hungry kids? Suddenly it seems more reasonable."

You're trying to move the goalposts by conflating the literal deprivation of objects with copying information that all parties are trying to proliferate. The emotional appeal, besides not being as agreeable as you think, has nothing to do with the issue. A plentiful, though limited resource is just that. (Yes, one of the many reasons theft is bad is because it invariably angers the thieved and violates their sense of justice - the difference in argument is postulating the emotional impact of an action vs instructing the reader to feel a certain emotion).

My arguments are based on ownership - you didn't create the (game, book, journal entries, code, artistic item, music, whatever), but somehow because you've decided to take advantage of content creators by belittling their ownership to declare theft a victimless crime.

Also, people are convinced by arguments they have an emotional connection to - not postulates. You're always instructing the reader how to feel - if the reader can't see what you're doing, and still consider your argument, they're uneducated. That's no sleight against them - as it is massively effective, and it is not permanent. Look at the last US election.

If you're going to reply to a comment, reply to the words written. My comment doesn't describe anything as victimless crimes.

I have a rough understanding of human persuasion and decision making. Persuasion is not my goal. I am trying to engage with other people, read their knowledge and opinions, compare those to what I understand about reality, express my understanding, and when there are inconsistencies, attempt resolving them with some combination of verification of facts and revealing of core principles. Often times, this leads to me realize I had an incorrect thought about something, so I update my understanding of the world accordingly.

Look it's not stealing - stealing is a concept related to physical goods.

That doesn't mean that it is right. Piracy is still wrong even though it is not stealing.

And the GP seems morally confused. Sharing FLOSS software is very very different morally to pirating games.

If i look at the effects of piracy - which is a humanity happy and busy without environmental damage, and the damage which is one guy not getting to buy his third yacht- yes, thats a good trade. Its also one of the reasons why most governments of this world are in so lackluster pursuit of piracy.

Why would one want to take away the opium from the masses?

How dare him aquiring the same opportunitys and destroying the economic protectinon ring you errected around your kids.

Theft -- in UK law -- is the intentional taking of someone's property with the intent to deprive the owner of it permanently.

That's why there's a specific offence of "Taking Without Owner's Consent" when you steal a car to joyride in (and crash and burn, rather than sell on): otherwise it's too easy to claim you only "borrowed" the car and intended to give it back, at which point it's not a crime any more.

>You took something of value that was created or owned by someone else.

By this definition every website you visit on the internet that you did not create yourself is stealing.

This is an interesting philosophical point that I think needs to be debated and established in law. Stealing is based on natural law of depriving someone of a thing.

If I make a copy you may value that, but the copy doesn’t deprive you of anything. What if you whistle a tune and I think about it? I’ve deprived you of value you by paying nothing but thinking of your whistled tune over and over.

I don’t think it’s an accepted truth that just because someone creates something that they must be compensated. Especially if it costs money for society to enforce.

There’s tons of these mental exercises. If I add a TOS to this comment saying it’s worth $1k and by reading, you must pay; do you owe? Did you steal my value without my consent?

That’s why stealing is based on clear harm through depriving of property. And fair use was established to allow reasonable noncommercial use.

My biggest complaint is that IP maximalism is not something society as a whole agreed to. It seems that IP holders just decided for society.

Piracy isn't stealing... and besides, no one can afford the games anyway... besides, you should see what the industry does to the artists in the first place...

The gentleman doth protest too much?

Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it, because you put quite some time into it. Time you could have used to make money by other means.

How would you go about it?

I'd put my Twitter handle in the game to build a following so even more people download my next free game. Make it up in volume.

∞ × 0 = 0

I think that's the joke, but yes.

No that's just ill-defined.

∞ × 0 is one of the most bog-standard indeterminate forms, not 0.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminate_form

> Let's try to flip the perspectives. Let's say you created a game. Let's pretend you want to make money off of it

I wouldn't have gone that far because I'm smart enough to tell that making money with a game is pretty damn hard (and it has nothing to do with piracy).

But if I had done stupid anyway, I would blame myself.

I could "want to make money" off of my turd too, and put hard effort into it, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to success.

I know why people pirate, having pirated a lot of software and games in my time, so I won't really feel bad about it. Most people will buy the game if they can, but the world economics are such that for 90% of your potential user base, 60$ represent an insurmountable financial investment. Which is partly why Steam with its frequent discounts and region-specific pricing is so effective at combating piracy.

So yeah, if I wanted to make money with games, I wouldn't. But if I really really wanted to, I would try to get popular, then start a kickstarter and open a patreon. Make sure people can support my art with as little as they can.

As just one example - consider game rentals. Consoles have incredibly low piracy rates, but a healthy (or at least used to be) game rental scene. If someone can only give me 5$ for my game, why should I snub that money? There's probably a million such people across South America alone. I don't see why I would spend time and energy trying to get money out of people who don't value my product instead of finding ways to let everyone who likes my product to support me.

> Most people will buy the game if they can, but the world economics are such that for 90% of your potential user base, 60$ represent an insurmountable financial investment.

Bulllllllshiiiiiiiiit.

> As just one example - consider game rentals. Consoles have incredibly low piracy rates, but a healthy (or at least used to be) game rental scene. If someone can only give me 5$ for my game, why should I snub that money?

There's no game rental scene. Like zero. And consoles have incredibly low piracy rates because they have very effective DRM and closed platforms, which a certain contingent of Hacker News likes to pretend is the cause of piracy.

Back when I was a teen 60$ was about 25% of my household income.

Since then and present day I still don't know a single console owning person that has not hardware modded it to work with pirated games.

>Most people will buy the game if they can, but the world economics are such that for 90% of your potential user base, 60$ represent an insurmountable financial investment. >Bulllllllshiiiiiiiiit. The third world is numerically bigger than the first world. 60$ is a lot for places without a strong currency. Have you ever lived in a third world country with a wage that wasn't above the richest 5%?

Yeah, I'm a long time lurker and created an account just for that.

$60 in my local currency Indian Rupees is about ₹3800, my one person, single's monthly food groceries bill.

I don't think that it warrants a name so grand-sounding as 'industrial information warfare tactics and propaganda'. I don't even believe it was done entirely intentionally. When I was going to school in the 90s, schools were locking down more and more each year. Eventually, that produced Columbine and several other school shootings, intensifying their efforts (they were blind to the fact that they were the cause). Eventually they reached a fairly steady state of today, where learned helplessness is inflicted either before or early in adolescence, resulting in things like a 40% drop in the number of 16 year olds who have a drivers license between 2005 and 2015, many fewer adolescents having jobs during school, etc.

Why try, if you are going to be surveilled and get your hand slapped at the slightest violation, and have every rough spot or sharp corner sanded down off of your personality. If you don't want to get classified as a threat and separated and sent to remediation therapy and special schooling and things like that, that is. In the name of security, the teachers derision for the weird kids was given sharp teeth, eventually perfected. The tunnel vision that develops during schooling, the one that leads kids to kill themselves or each other over simple school problems because they can't even see themselves as human beings with a life outside of the school environment, extends further now, well into college, and perhaps soon far beyond.

wow, so if you believe there is systemic 'infliction of learned helplessness' on pre-adolescent children, then it does warrant a 'grand-sounding name'.

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