I do not pirate. I hardly watch any tv or movies anymore. I do so because I disagree with your stance but still do not pirate.
Pirates are not the issue. Abuse of the legal system in order to maximize profits through creation of artificial scarcities is the issue.
You provide services that are not obviously grossly overpriced, and I would be all over them. I love music and movies, like everyone else. I just refuse to be extorted by lying traitors to the cause of decency, fairness, justice and even self government.
I still remember Aaron. I don't think this pro-copyright nonsense is cute. I am frankly sick of it.
I was outraged by your post until I tried to formulate a response. I do have a response, but it is not nearly as straight forward as I might have liked.
We have laws in this country meant to address monopolies. They are not being used on the Telcos, specifically not on ISP's at the moment. By limiting our access to a handful of providers, and then threatening the providers, IP Maximalists are putting me in a position where I can lose money I paid for a service without demonstrating I did anything wrong.
That is basically a convoluted violation of civil rights.
I think it is the correct way of looking at the issue, but admittedly the idea that six strikes is the same as guilty until proven innocent is a little bit of a stretch.
Are you on sites that are pro IP attacking their extremism as well, I wonder? ARE there any pro IP sites that have comments? I should probably be over there studying my enemy.
The idea of it, as a way for society to reward an industrious individual in order to promote more such industry, is not in and of itself evil in my view. How could it be properly used? I'm not sure... My opinion is that it is an interesting idea that has no practical application, but evil to me is always about intent. This is difficult to me, even though I believe it thoroughly, because I do not believe it is appropriate to attempt to divine intent in order to enforce laws. Laws need to be about things that are bad enough that lack of intent is an insufficient excuse. If something is to be illegal, it is something society is saying you need to actively intend NOT to do.
This all gets very esoteric very quickly....
Anyhow, it would appear we are on the same general side of this issue, so unless you just WANT to get into the metaphysics of morality, I'm going to let it go. =)
While the concept of intellectual property is not, in and of itself, raw and unadulterated evil, I have yet to see an example of it anywhere in history where it achieves anything positive. One of the best arguments for IP is that it encourages people to publicize inventions. That may have meant something in 1000 BC when there were all sorts of ways to spread an ingenious invention only to your friends, but these days the very instant anyone catches a glimpse of your wonderful invention, it spreads like wildfire, and some other group of folks somewhere can have a functional version of it in no time if it's worth having at all.
Copyright and patent law actually serve one real purpose, and that is to give elite groups a legal foundation for "owning" ideas and thoughts. It is more or less the foundation for slavery. U.S. bankers' message to you -
"You cannot do anything unless I say so. You must accept pay in these fake little credits I give. Coincidentally, I only give fake little credits to people who do my bidding.
And nothing - NOTHING - that you ever do or say cannot be owned. Not even your very thoughts and ideas. And I run the money supply. Eventually, everything returns to me.
Our power lies in our marketplace, not in our industrial strength. This is derived in no small part from the relative strength of the dollar, especially given how many dollars there are.
People do not understand that the dollar remains the current default international currency. It has a value independent of its value here in America that is based on an amalgam of our percieved strength in business, technology, energy, and most importantly, our ability to defend our interests abroad.
The value of modern money is entirely - quite literally entirely - a matter of perception. Being able to physically prevent people from doing things that mess with the perception of America as powerful and worthy of being obeyed is key to the current economic success of this nation.
Which is pathetic in my view, but it DOES work, no matter what I may think of the moral or ethical underpinnings.
Well, what with the international ban on nuclear weapons (Except those of us who already have them) and the "Rule of Law" extending such that anyone's right to bear arms for their own protection is slowly ebbing away, and all the leading industrial nations just ceding the point that the USA more or less is the international peace keeping force, the chances of anyone "bitch slapping" the most powerful armed force the world has ever known are proverbially between slim and none.
I wish it made sense for Antigua to do this, but it appears that the deck is stacked in our (USA's) favor. I want it to go forward if for no other reason than that I see the idiotic canard about "theft" of intellectual property in our official response.
If nothing else at all were to come out of the copyleft movement, I would say placing IP back, squarely, in the domain of being a government granted privilege and not anything remotely related to "theft" would be enough.
I appreciate where you're coming from, and really your points are all correct. But I don't think that is actually what Masnick was talking about. I think he is more interested here in the cultural resistance to change, and is offering the generality concerning older folks and their understanding of technology as one fairly good sized brick in that wall of resistance.
Ha! I was just mumbling about this earlier today on the comments for some article here or the other. I believe not just that "patents are little more than weapons to be used against innovators," but that that is their original purpose.
I would say that could be cured by doing away with the concept of private ownership of land. Land, as a resource no one ever created and one that is necessary for life itself, is not something we should be in the business of doling out to specific people. Land use needs to be largely communally governed.
I do deeply sympathize though with the situation you describe. My only caveat is that you were the victim of a long tradition of attempting to assign ownership to something that simply cannot be fairly owned.
Your own work, the fruits of your labor, and things you traded for are examples of things that are easily "personal property". But when you go to make something big enough that it obstructs other people's use of land, that begins to be something we all need to consult together about.
Imminent domain is necessary in some cases to provide basic services. I do like it better though when they use easements rather than taking entire chunks of land though.
I'd agree that it did not become popular until later, but its at least by 1993 that the technology was available, if not earlier, and I don't buy that the ISP's were totally unaware and did not design with limiting that in mind. Killing P2P applications on the web also seems to me to be part of a larger, business model oriented scheme that goes hand in hand with the widening scope of IP law.
If it ever came to be that people's upload speed was limited more by their own hardware than by the cap, they could just start buying better and better hardware.
This is just another reason to look for ways to force those who lay the pipelines to share them with competition. It does no good to have a road if someone gets to decide who does and who does not use it.
Incidentally, this is exactly the same issue I have with toll roads. Without the massive public expenditures on public roads, there would be no market for toll roads, yet we are continually told they save us money.
The hell they do. They drive funds to private organizations while the public roads continue to deteriorate.
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re:
Pirates are not the issue. Abuse of the legal system in order to maximize profits through creation of artificial scarcities is the issue.
You provide services that are not obviously grossly overpriced, and I would be all over them. I love music and movies, like everyone else. I just refuse to be extorted by lying traitors to the cause of decency, fairness, justice and even self government.
I still remember Aaron. I don't think this pro-copyright nonsense is cute. I am frankly sick of it.
On the post: 10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions
Re: The Corleone Effect
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re: Re: Guilty
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re: 6 strike
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re:
We have laws in this country meant to address monopolies. They are not being used on the Telcos, specifically not on ISP's at the moment. By limiting our access to a handful of providers, and then threatening the providers, IP Maximalists are putting me in a position where I can lose money I paid for a service without demonstrating I did anything wrong.
That is basically a convoluted violation of civil rights.
I think it is the correct way of looking at the issue, but admittedly the idea that six strikes is the same as guilty until proven innocent is a little bit of a stretch.
Are you on sites that are pro IP attacking their extremism as well, I wonder? ARE there any pro IP sites that have comments? I should probably be over there studying my enemy.
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re: Re: Association? Try Guilty by Guilt
This all gets very esoteric very quickly....
Anyhow, it would appear we are on the same general side of this issue, so unless you just WANT to get into the metaphysics of morality, I'm going to let it go. =)
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re: Re: Every other crime is treated the same way
Sadly, I have not the power...
On the post: Steve Jobs Used Patents Like A Mob Boss: Threatened To Sue Palm Over Patents If It Poached Any Apple Employees
Exactly
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Re: Association? Try Guilty by Guilt
Accusation... not Association. NEVERMIND!
Still, I feel better after my little rant.
On the post: Copyright Is Becoming Guilt By Accusation
Association? Try Guilty by Guilt
Copyright and patent law actually serve one real purpose, and that is to give elite groups a legal foundation for "owning" ideas and thoughts. It is more or less the foundation for slavery. U.S. bankers' message to you -
"You cannot do anything unless I say so. You must accept pay in these fake little credits I give. Coincidentally, I only give fake little credits to people who do my bidding.
And nothing - NOTHING - that you ever do or say cannot be owned. Not even your very thoughts and ideas. And I run the money supply. Eventually, everything returns to me.
Everything."
On the post: 10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions
No one's going to work their way to freedom
People do not understand that the dollar remains the current default international currency. It has a value independent of its value here in America that is based on an amalgam of our percieved strength in business, technology, energy, and most importantly, our ability to defend our interests abroad.
The value of modern money is entirely - quite literally entirely - a matter of perception. Being able to physically prevent people from doing things that mess with the perception of America as powerful and worthy of being obeyed is key to the current economic success of this nation.
Which is pathetic in my view, but it DOES work, no matter what I may think of the moral or ethical underpinnings.
On the post: 10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions
Hehe
But thanks for sharing your sentiments.
On the post: 10 Years Later: Antigua May Finally (Really) Set Up Official 'Pirate' Site To Get Back What US Owes In Sanctions
I Wish
If nothing else at all were to come out of the copyleft movement, I would say placing IP back, squarely, in the domain of being a government granted privilege and not anything remotely related to "theft" would be enough.
Talk about bad faith....
On the post: Steve Jobs Used Patents Like A Mob Boss: Threatened To Sue Palm Over Patents If It Poached Any Apple Employees
LOL
On the post: The War On Computing: What Happens When Authorities Don't Understand Technology
Re: Steve Jobs and Vint Cerf
On the post: Steve Jobs Used Patents Like A Mob Boss: Threatened To Sue Palm Over Patents If It Poached Any Apple Employees
The Historic Use
Copyright in War
Brain Drain Patent
On the post: Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion
Re: Re: You can't stockpile bandwidth
I do deeply sympathize though with the situation you describe. My only caveat is that you were the victim of a long tradition of attempting to assign ownership to something that simply cannot be fairly owned.
Your own work, the fruits of your labor, and things you traded for are examples of things that are easily "personal property". But when you go to make something big enough that it obstructs other people's use of land, that begins to be something we all need to consult together about.
Imminent domain is necessary in some cases to provide basic services. I do like it better though when they use easements rather than taking entire chunks of land though.
On the post: Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Cable Industry Finally Admits That Data Caps Have Nothing To Do With Congestion
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This point strikes me as a red herring.
On the post: France, Cradle Of 'Three Strikes' Punishment, Explores Another Bad Idea: Killing Net Neutrality
One More Reason
Incidentally, this is exactly the same issue I have with toll roads. Without the massive public expenditures on public roads, there would be no market for toll roads, yet we are continually told they save us money.
The hell they do. They drive funds to private organizations while the public roads continue to deteriorate.
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