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Comment by Toutouxc | Hacker News Reader

I don't find it difficult at all, because the way he sees it, what he says is strictly logically true. Possession of CP material does not hurt anyone. The fact that people who want to possess (and are willing to pay for) CP material are a huge reason for CP material to be created by whatever means available (that's the part that hurts people) seems to be lost on him.

His ideas on free software and freedom in general are certainly noble and inspiring, but it's like he went a hundred steps too far in simplifying everything.

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I would really like to understand his opinion on accessory-after-the-fact and other crimes like dealing in stolen property.

It would illuminate whether he’s actually a CP apologist or merely a poor legal philosopher who has bad judgment on the subject matter of his thought experiments.

What about neither? Have you accounted for that option?

Possession of CP is not an accessory-after-the-fact. CP is also not a physical good. This argument is similar to the argument comparing piracy to stealing a car.

No, the fact is simply that the law frequently criminalizes those activities which encourage or generate demand for criminal activity. Hence secondary or inchoate offenses exist (like various forms of accessory, solicitation, conspiracy, attempt) as well as specific crimes that relate to knowingly dealing in the profits of crime.

The law doesn't criminalize dealing in stolen goods because those goods are physical in nature and receiving them perpetuates the inability of their actual owner to enjoy them. That is a red herring of your own introduction.

It does so because allowing easy disposal of stolen property to third parties who stand to profit from it encourages theft.

Me having kicked you doesn't hurt anyone - the act of kicking you does hurt. So after I have kicked you, and you no longer feel pain, no harm done? I'm stealing your lunch and the next day you have a new lunch and are no longer hungry, no harm done?

I think the act can't be seperated from the result - this is were people go wrong.

You missed the ease of digital replication: one needs not participate in a sexual act involving children to replicate child pornography. It's not like it's a healthy thing to consume such material, but the distinction must be made to avoid the concept being abused by digital publishers who think one sharing an ebook with a friend would cause lost in their revenue.

If I steal an apple from you and grow more apples from it and give them away, there is no difference to the act of stealing your apple and eating it.

As a side note: RMS seams to be totally against "stealing" digital GPLed code.

>If I steal an apple from you and grow more apples from it and give them away, there is no difference to the act of stealing your apple and eating it.

Certainly, but we talk about digital good here, stealing the first apple harms me (unless if I was not going to use it regardless), copying it however does not.

>RMS seams to be totally against "stealing" digital GPLed code.

Please explain what you mean by stealing here. He is against taking GPLed code, modifying it, compiling it, and then distributing the binary without distributing your modifications. He has no problem with selling the application/code. He has no problem with keeping the modifications to yourself as long as you do not share the binary. He has no problem with distributing the unmodified binary and/or code.

"He is against taking GPLed code, modifying it, compiling it, and then distributing the binary without distributing your modifications."

Yes.

If I take your apple, scan it in my StarTrek replicator, then put it back, I've not stolen anything. At worst, I've borrowed it without your consent. The fact that I can use my replicator to make as many apples as I want, which are just like the one I borrowed from you, is not stealing.

Not saying it wouldn't be wrong. But it's decidedly different from stealing.

Likewise, getting a copy of a copyrighted movie with Bittorent through the Pirate Bay is not really stealing. It may still be wrong, but since it does not deprive the original owner from their own copy of the movie, it's different from stealing.

In general, non-rival goods should be treated with different rules and laws than rival goods. Turning them back into rival goods like copyright does strikes me as a very bad idea. Artificial scarcity is… non optimal to say the least.

Yes, it can be separated. Let's say some kid takes a you-know-what-kind of photo of himself. Then, he stores it in a pendrive. He forgets about it, loses the pendrive while on vacation in the other corner of the world. There, another person finds it and distributes it. The kid never finds out.

There, completely separated. Possession of that specific photo would not do any harm to the kid in any way. It's contrived, very, very improbable and not how all of it happens in reality, but there it is.

Also, by the way, just by participating in this conversation, we are going to be labeled of being pro you-know-what in about five years from now, giving the current trend.

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