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Comment by wavesounds | Hacker News Reader

I dont see how this is stealing - PBS is funded by our tax dollars and owned by the public

The portion of funds of funds that come from the federal government is smaller than you think, and conservatives are constantly posturing to take even that away. (Recall the Big Bird meme that came out of the presidential debates?). The lions share of federal funds go to keeping stations broadcasting, not towards content creation.

It's unlikely that any given piece of content was wholly funded by the public.

http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/us-government-works.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadcas...

PBS is not owned by the public, and only 15% of its funding comes from government programs.

Which is why, as thefreeman points out above, its legitimately available online for free.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/silicon/

It looks to me like it costs $19.99 http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=18789896

Yeah only the first 15 minutes are on their website. No idea why people who own a tv who can watch the whole thing and people who only own a computer only get 15 minutes.

If it's like most other PBS shows, tomorrow it will be available in its entirety. They want you to watch it on your television if possible, then give you the opportunity to see it online after it's aired. It may only be available online for a limited time though, so don't procrastinate too long.

Not trying to troll I just don't understand why this is 'legitimate' and the pirate bay is not? If this was produced with my tax dollars and broadcast free on tv with no commercials why isn't it perfectly acceptable for me to download this via a torrent?

download/steal/copy/whatever you want to call it. I was just suggesting a place to get it from.

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