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Comment by fancyfredbot | Hacker News Reader

You lost me at "EULAs, enforced via the state's monopoly on violence". Firstly I don't think any EULA has ever been enforced by violence, and secondly if people wanted to give you nice software they definitely wouldn't have to use an EULA. People want get paid for work, that's why you can't have all everyone's work for free. It's not complicated.

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> Firstly I don't think any EULA has ever been enforced by violence

Well, a number of people have gone to prison for software piracy, which would seem to contradict your claim

I don't think breaking the EULA is the charge though.

What do you think is the charge? Can I assume copying media without a valid license?

Are you saying that imprisonment following conviction by a jury is violence?

"state's monopoly on violence" means that a state's power to enforce its rules is rooted in its ability to use violence on those that refuse. Putting someone in jail is not physical violence, but what keeps them there (and why they even showed up to court) is the near guarantee of violence if they refuse.

I see, so the author resents that EULAs are enforced by the same theoretical possibility of violence which ensures the rule of law? Still seems a weird point but I'll grudgingly reduce my general level of disapproval. Thanks for the explanation.

Yes, that's a well-known fact of reality.

But they politely arraigned me and put me in an underfunded prison with the violent failures of a hardscrabble frontier society for downloading that software!

Lookup what monopoly on violence means.

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