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Comment by hesdeadjim | Hacker News Reader

Vast majority of comments here are hilarious. Piracy is a crime, deal with it. You don't have a right to content made for a profit without paying for it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved.

The argument that resources should be spent on "real crime" is equally silly. These organizations can and do put immense resources into all other forms of crime. They shouldn't choose to ignore one class of it because it's personally convenient to label it "harmless".

I'd suggest if you find yourself defending pirates that you actually go and create something worth pirating and see how you feel.

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A huge number of the people on this site, myself included, already voluntarily donate huge amounts of time and money to free and open source software and hardware- they are already choosing to give away for free what others might otherwise pirate.

No one is disputing that piracy is a crime. They are pointing out the difference between the fact of what is, and their opinion of what ought be.

> No one is disputing that piracy is a crime.

Then why can I scroll up the page and find multiple instances of people saying it isn't?

> Piracy is a crime, deal with it. If you don't agree with the price or the distribution method, don't consume the content, problem solved.

Sure, or I can just pirate content. That's another way to deal with it.

I'm not sure why I'm supposed to have a problem because you're trying to keep your bytes a secret. Pretty much everyone has accepted that you can't stop piracy, at least once the content is available on p2p.

This article is about topsites that were probably involved in hacking into content sources directly. That's a much bigger deal than everyday civil copyright infringement.

Some of us actually do want a future where you can download a car.

If you don't feel like paying for HBO, why should you have a right to watch Westworld?

I'm not claiming a right. I'm claiming an opportunity. Those bytes are just sitting there waiting for me to click download.

I think the better question is: what are you going to do to stop me from downloading whatever I want?

I imagine these people under indictment thought the same way as you.

No, that's the distinction I'm trying to draw here. Lots of people, like you and me, routinely consume pirated content. It's not always torrents either, tons of unlicensed stuff shows up all the time on youtube. Do you validate all copyrights on all services before you watch?

The people under indictment wanted to have reputation in the scene, so badly that they were willing to commit a lot of crimes that are way more severe than watching pirated content.

I think the takeaway is that if you're torrenting content, you're probably fine. But if you're running a pre with unreleased content, the law takes that pretty seriously.

I am paying for Westworld but you know what I am not willing to pay for? Scientific articles. That's because in a lot of cases, taxes have already paid for the grants or sponsors/donors decided to support the research.

Blood sucking journals in between science and the public are overdue for dying off.

> Piracy is a crime, deal with it.

It shouldn't be. Deal with it.

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