Slashdot Mirror
Swedish File-Sharers File For Religious Status
nloop writes "A group of file-sharers in Sweden have requested that their religion, Kopimism, be officially recognized in Sweden. Although this status has been denied once in the past the struggle for religious freedom from persecution continues. Aside from deeming CTRL+C CTRL+V as sacred symbols other beliefs include the flow of information being ethically right and closed source software being 'akin to slavery.'"
Look I get that companies providing content (or more accurately, managing content distribution) are acting like thugs. I even agree that individual copyright violations for personal use aren't that big a deal. But are we going to go so far as to support something this ridiculous? To read summaries like this you get the sense there isn't any value to intellectual property at all. If content producers know that anything they produce is "up for grabs", what incentive do they have to keep producing? Why is the idea of purchasing intellectual property of any sort, from software to movies, "akin to slavery"? Its economic privilege to assume they can just do it "as a hobby" or "contribute to open source". Open source has a place, but so does closed source. Fighting back against individual prosecutions is worthwhile and laudable. Framing those who wish to produce intellectual property and then charge for it as "slavers" is dishonest and counterproductive.
This is not the way to get the ethos behind file-sharing taken seriously. It's counter-productive and childish.
Wait, how is desiring to collect more entertainment than could ever be consumed in a human lifetime without compensating the creators not a form of personal greed?
So what you're trying to tell us is that it already has a lot in common with a vast array of existing religions?
You refer to this question:
I guarantee it has been answered in the past ten years. You have just not been paying attention. But I will answer it again.
Having free access to more oxygen than can be consumed in a human lifetime is not considered personal greed. Why not? Because the good is abundant. Same for data. Once it exists, it is even more abundant than oxygen. It can be duplicated endlessly without costing anyone anything. Therefore, performing such replication is not greedy.
If my copy of it prevented you from having a copy of it, then grabbing up more than I need would be greed. Since that isn't the case, the word greed does not apply.
There you go, answered. You might disagree (and you would be wrong) but you can no longer claim that it hasn't been answered.
Oh please, 90% of the people who copy things haven't built anything, much less something that could be described as magnificent.
That's not saying much. Pastafarianism, the worship of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, makes more sense than Scientology.
Having free access to more oxygen than can be consumed in a human lifetime is not considered personal greed. Why not? Because the good is abundant. Same for data. Once it exists, it is even more abundant than oxygen. It can be duplicated endlessly without costing anyone anything. Therefore, performing such replication is not greedy.
Movies aren't like oxygen. If people don't pay to watch them the businesses that make movies will do something else instead. Talking about the costs of making a copy (zero) and neglecting the cost of making the original movie (hundreds of millions of dollars) completely misses the point that the reason people are willing to invest money in making movies is because they expect to get that money back and more from selling the right to see it. If everyone pirated it rather than paying to see it there would be no reason to invest money in making future movies. Thus movies would not get made.
So the people that pirate are reducing the chance of future movies from being made by reducing the profits on the ones that exist. They are a bit like customers that go to a restaurant and eat their fill but don't pay - in the long run they will force the restaurant out of business. That could easily be described as greedy by other non free loading patrons. Not to mention by the owner.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
All who follow the mighty Jobs know that the only proper religious symbols are cmd-c, cmd-v
All who are true practitioners remember the arcane incantations ctrl+ins and ctrl+shift+ins...
Beware younglings, for ctrl+c or cmd+c may invoke the dark ones, who will promptly unleash their wrath and cancel your program depending on the gracious terminal that surrounds and gives meaning to your actions... At all times we must be mindful of the terminal, for it is the source of all, it permeates and binds our actions into reality.
When in full presence of the holy terminal you must tread lightly and always remember to show your respect by donning the venerable shift key's cloak of distinction when you utter either form of the standard incantations, lest you interrupt the dark one's slumber.
Only a false prophet claims there is but one true way. Only a fool believes such lies -- There are many paths to a single place depending on your origin.
Also note that the good enjoy a hearty embrace -- Be wary of those that when greeted with a friendly grasp of hand, later claim you have held them wrongly.
or giving alcohol to minors...
Oh wait, I guess if you believe in transubstantiation it's not wine, but blood, so that's ok.
Carry on.
100% of people who build things, copy things.
There really is no scenario in which piracy does not deprive somebody of something.
Oh please, not this one again.
If you want n dollars for a movie, I have n * 0.1 dollars and I instead copy the movie, have I deprived you of n dollars? Had I offered you 0.1 * n dollars you would've spit in my face...
What if I copy your movie as an alternative to not watching it at all?
These are both perfectly reasonable and likely situations.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
What if I copy your movie as an alternative to not watching it at all?
Then don't watch it. The movie studios don't make money from you watching their movie, they make money from you BUYING their movie.
If you want n dollars for a movie, I have n * 0.1 dollars and I instead copy the movie, have I deprived you of n dollars?
Yes you have. You (as an average person) might have bought the movie at a later point in time when you did have n dollars.
Statistically, some people will actually save up money in order to buy the movie so, statistically, you ARE depriving them of money. Not n dollars but rather n * chance_of_somebody_saving_up_money_and_buying_it_later dollars.
Now it could be that you as an individual simply don't want to save up money in order to buy something. But if that is the case, then we're discussing moral values, not economics.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
The main failure of the Western world is believing that you're not engaged in abuse of your fellow man just because you outsource poor treatment of workers which you would find unacceptable (and illegal) in your own country.
If WTO wanted to live up to its ostensible aims, it would equalise the playing field across countries by requiring broadly equal worker treatment across countries engaged in free trade. In fact, all it has produced is a careful concoction of newspeak and slave management.
There really is no scenario in which piracy does not deprive somebody of something.
Oh please, not this one again.
If you want n dollars for a movie, I have n * 0.1 dollars and I instead copy the movie, have I deprived you of n dollars? Had I offered you 0.1 * n dollars you would've spit in my face...
What if I copy your movie as an alternative to not watching it at all?
These are both perfectly reasonable and likely situations.
Not THIS argument again. People downloading movies aren't too poor to pay to watch them. They're just too cheap to pay to watch them. If something costs n dollars, and you have n*0.1 dollars, either wait until it costs less or you've saved more. It's easy to say "I wouldn't have bought it anyway," when you plan from the start to download it rather than buying it.
You are free to believe in copying and preach about it all you want, but if you break the law, you will still get cuffed and jailed.
A cult may believe in human sacrifice or slavery or under-aged marriage or the execution of homosexuals. Thank god (or gov to be more accurate) it has never given them the right to do it.
Then why can churches discriminate in ways that would get any other business or organization in huge trouble? Let's see, how many female priests does your church have? Have they fired priests for coming out as homosexuals? Think that is legal?