Pirate Bay Founder: 'I Have Given Up' (vice.com)

The future of illegal torrent websites doesn't look good. As torrent websites continue to disappear, the founder of The Pirate Bay believes the trend is the just the beginning. From an article: While it might look like torrenters are are still fighting this battle, Sunde claims that the reality is more definitive: "We have already lost." [...] Take the net neutrality law in Europe. It's terrible, but people are happy and go like "it could be worse." That is absolutely not the right attitude. Facebook brings the internet to Africa and poor countries, but they're only giving limited access to their own services and make money off of poor people. [...] Well, I have given up the idea that we can win this fight for the internet. The situation is not going to be any different, because apparently that is something people are not interested in fixing. Or we can't get people to care enough. Maybe it's a mixture, but this is kind of the situation we are in, so its useless to do anything about it. We have become somehow the Black Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail. We have maybe half of our head left and we are still fighting, we still think we have a chance of winning this battle.

Comments

Stolen Goods

[Anonymous Coward]

Face it the movement was based on stolen goods. The end of the movie was already known before it started.

Re: Stolen Goods

[Anonymous Coward]

Technically, it was based on pointers to stolen goods, not the stolen goods itself.

Re: Stolen Goods

[Anonymous Coward]

Currently it is pointers to pointers to stolen goods, but stolen by a magical thief who leaves the original in place whilst taking a copy.

It was informative to find out just how much speech would be banned if it affected Disney's bottom line (answer: all of it, up to and including math). As a political art piece, it was a monumental success, the best in our time.

Re:Stolen Goods

[fluffernutter]

So was YouTube before it sold for 750 million.

Re:Stolen Goods

[toonces33]

This +1000.

The IP owners may be greedy assholes, but the way to get back at them is simply to not watch the movies or listen to the music. I can't say that I find it hard to resist either - nearly all movies seem pretty pointless to me.

Re:Stolen Goods

[91degrees]

No. It was based on copyright infringed goods. Different crime.

Piracy is not theft. Nor is murder, jaywalking, trespass, or driving while using a mobile phone. This does not automatically make it right, nor does that make it wrong. It is its own crime that needs to be judged on its own merits.

Re:Stolen Goods

[tepples]

the way to get back at them is simply to not watch the movies or listen to the music.

And flunk out of school because you got a 0 on homework assignments to view and analyze particular films.

Re:Stolen Goods

[tepples]

Piracy is not theft. Nor is murder, jaywalking, trespass, or driving while using a mobile phone.

However, copyright infringement resembles trespass more than it resembles theft.

Re:Stolen Goods

[Maritz]

Ah, a troll. Aiming to get some flames around the whole 'copying is/is not "theft"' debate. Despite being obvious, you'll do well.

Re:Stolen Goods

[sheramil]

the way to get back at them is simply to not watch the movies or listen to the music.

And flunk out of school because you got a 0 on homework assignments to view and analyze particular films.

Or undertake something a little more essential to helping solve the problems we face than "filmic" studies (never understood the distinction between "filmic" and "cinematic").

Re: Stolen Goods

[Anonymous Coward]

Counterpoint: no u r dumb

Re:Stolen Goods

[spire3661]

Thank you for this. Its clear, concise and exposes how we straight up give away huge swaths of ip land for a pittance in return.

Re:Stolen Goods

[Lord Kano]

A pedant, probably but most likely not a troll.

LK

Re:Stolen Goods

[Anonymous Coward]

If the homework requires watching a particular film, then the school should provide you with a copy of the film or show it in lesson time in the same way as set books for literature were provided by the school (or at least they were when I was at school).

Re: Stolen Goods

[JeffDeptola]

#millenialproblems

Re:Stolen Goods

[war4peace]

"My religion does not allow me to watch movies".
Next question please.

Re:Stolen Goods

[91degrees]

I can go along with that. Although I do think we need to be careful still not to stretch the metaphor too far.

Re: Stolen Goods

[91degrees]

Merriam Webster defines theft as

" the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it"

. Collins has

"the dishonest taking of property belonging to another person with the intention of depriving the owner permanently of its possession"

Not all of them specify the depriving the original owner of it, but it does seem that the loss by the victim, rather than the gain by the perpetrator is what makes this theft. If I take yourproperty and immediately destroy it, I've still stolen it even though I don't have it.

Re: Stolen Goods

[fluffernutter]

No back when it was sold it was very much matured and had a lot of pirated content.

Re:Stolen Goods

[Oligonicella]

So.... you can buy the fifty to hundred dollar text but $15 is gonna break you? Not buying it.

Re: Stolen Goods

[tepples]

If I take yourproperty and immediately destroy it, I've still stolen it even though I don't have it.

For what it's worth, the legal term for altering someone else's physical property is "conversion", and that too is distinct from theft.

Re:Stolen Goods

[SeaFox]

Piracy is not theft. Nor is murder, jaywalking, trespass, or driving while using a mobile phone.

Murder is not theft? Arguably you are taking someone's life, and denying them the right to use it themselves.

Re:Stolen Goods

[fluffernutter]

I find when I sit in a dark room and wait for the world to change, then nothing happens. That is basically what your recommendation amounts to.

Re:Stolen Goods

[mrchaotica]

we straight up give away huge swaths of ip land for a pittance in return.

This.

The real theft is not copying, but rather copyright itself!

Specifically, excessive copyright term lengths are theft of the Public Domain, and DRM is theft of device owners' property rights.

(By the way, "IP" is not a thing.)

Re:Stolen Goods

[thegarbz]

nearly all movies seem pretty pointless to me.

You must be the life of the party.

Re:Stolen Goods

[aevan]

Pshaw, you're giving them death, and they like it so much, they discard life in favour of it. Not your fault they can't handle both at the same time. They actually rather owe you for it.

Re:Stolen Goods

[desdinova 216]

it is possible to be both at the same time

Re:Stolen Goods

[Lord Flipper]

The real theft is not copying, but rather copyright itself!

Exactly right.

Copyright and patent protection (both of which have seen their "terms" deepened and lengthened to incredible depths and lengths) are forced on the developing world, right along with the rest of the so-called "first" world, to the detriment of normal, average people, globally. They're one of the chief methods that have been employed, relentlessly, in a successful effort to distribute more and more money toward the 1% from everyone else, again, globally.

This tactic is why cancer drugs, for example, cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per year, when their "cost" would be a small fraction of that in an actual free market.

In textbook trade theory, if a country has a larger trade surplus for royalties and patent licensing fees, it will have a larger trade deficit in manufactured goods and other areas. (That, courtesy of Dean Baker, in his book, *Rigged*, published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.)

He goes on: "Of course we have to pay for the research to develop new drugs or any innovation. We also have to compensate creative workers who produce music, movies, and books. But there are efficient alternatives to patents and copyrights, and the efforts by the elites in the United States and other wealthy countries to impose these relics on the developing world is just a mechanism for redistributing income from the world's poor to Pfizer, Microsoft, and Disney. Stronger and longer patent and copyright protection is not a necessary feature of a 21st century economy."

Re: Stolen Goods

[mujadaddy]

No back when it was sold it was very much matured and had a lot of pirated content.

Maybe it did, but until Google started paying the bandwidth bills, you couldn't get it OUT.

Re:Stolen Goods

[Rakarra]

(never understood the distinction between "filmic" and "cinematic").

I can say that in the film world, the word "filmic" is a bit like Engrish. Even if the term gets used, seriously, by some.
It's like calling multiple computers "boxen." It's hard to take that seriously.

The correct term that most in the industry would use is "film studies," not filmic.
Now, film and cinema have become somewhat interchangeable in actual use, though it wasn't always the case. In particular, "cinema" seems like it has more of a high-brow connotation, but again, there's no real definition, just a difference in how people tend to use the terms. The only things we really know is that "movie" is used more in the US than outside it, and that movies are often not shot on actual "film" anymore.

The game is too one-sided

[Baron_Yam]

I understand someone wanting to prevent people from benefiting without paying for their product.

I also understand the consumer fed up with being endlessly deceived and abused as the vendor tries to wring every last cent from them.

While piracy has given the appearance of the balance of power being with the latter group, it really never has been. Until our culture and laws change, it never will be.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[fluffernutter]

The problem is that cable providers have only gone from "I am the only service in town so I will charge through the nose for it" to "Torrents are illegal so I'm not responding to it". No company seems to be willing to be realistic about how changing times should be changing their business model and customers are very much being caught in between. Netflix was able to make some progress but really they are not the service they should be because the current broadcasters have been granted so many ways to create barriers.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[thewolfkin]

more like Oh you want to use that blu ray on any video device you want? But you can't because HDMI specs abitrarily block your device for not being upgraded into a newer more restrictive form? How dare you hurt the multimillion dollar film industry by getting around it.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's more than that.

If you take a step back and look away from just piracy, content-sharing illegal or not, what he's talking about is the acceptance of Corporate provided, and dominated, structured privacy-controlled platforms. Or the reverse, personal documenting platforms. Pick your narrative... Yes, you could say this started with Facebook, others, but it doesn't restrict it to just social media. Consider browser tracking, purchase tracking, etc.. and extending into the commoditization of every aspect of online life, that has come to fruition.

I think people conveniently forgot, that they have, or had the ability to shape what systems of communication were the winners and losers. And what we see is that convenience won, over personal privacy and their online future 'portfolio', from that.

I have to wonder. Every time I sign up on a new website, be it for work, product purchases, whatever.... just how many databases, across how many sectors of society, are being updated. And I'm not even talking about whether this extends to Government surveillance. That's a whole OTHER discussion.

The Corporate 'profiling' of everyone's online life is VERY disturbing once you go down that rabbit hole. The potential of where it might lead, is what the real concern is. There's a reason students of history are cautious and concerned with this. The question is, how do we get the majority of everyone else, to realize that. And more importantly, act on it.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[spire3661]

Its not the cost, its the control. Blu rays come with unskippable ads, they cant be easily backed up, and the physical disc is larger than the computer i store thousands of movies on. Its an anachronism at this point.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

Oh you want to use that blu ray on any video device you want? But you can't because HDMI specs abitrarily block your device for not being upgraded into a newer more restrictive form?

Well, then don't buy it. Simple as that.

It seems to me Sunde and you are saying: "We need to become more socialist so that everybody can freely enjoy the output from evil capitalist megacorps that produce commercial crap."

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

Well, then it's a lousy product and you have a simple choice: don't buy it.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[Kjella]

Its not the cost, its the control. Blu rays come with unskippable ads, they cant be easily backed up, and the physical disc is larger than the computer i store thousands of movies on.

I really doubt you got a computer smaller than a BluRay disc. Granted a 200-disc spindle would be bigger than a 10TB HDD or you could use a USB stick if you want to win in two dimensions, but pressed discs are quite compact and durable if treated nicely. WIthout the DRM, I don't really mind the form factor at all. YMMV.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Now now...how dare you bring sensible logic into this emotional, self-centered, naive argument! Everyone knows that the work product of thousands of people is the inalienable free property of The People because reasons. And if you don't agree then you must be a greedy scumbag billionaire movie producer who eats live puppies for breakfast off solid gold plates in their million-square-foot megamansion heated by burning $100 bills and staffed by slaves who are starved and beaten daily.

Now I'll freely admit I pirate movies. I do this for a few reasons. First, I can frequently get access to the movies before I can actually buy them. Second, I get to preview the movie to see if it's worth keeping. Third, it comes DRM free so I can easily put it on my Plex server and watch it on any device I want without cumbersome restrictions. I make no excuses for saying this isn't copyright infringement because it is what it is. I don't attempt to justify it by saying it's somehow not infringement.

However, what I do if I decide to keep the move is I purchase it. I don't have to do this. I do it because I want to support entertainment companies producing content that I like. I understand that if I don't somehow pay for this entertainment, movie studios have no incentive to produce it. This whole "it isn't theft" argument is ultimately self-defeating because you'll kill off the flow of content. Nobody indie studio or director with a bunch of no-name actors and no real budget is going to reliably produce something equivalent to what a skilled director and actor with a $150 million budget could do. Granted, Hollywood has no shortage of high-budget, veteran-staffed box office bombs but on the whole a top-notch crew with a big budget will deliver more frequently than they miss. Try that with Kickstarter. It'll never happen.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[war4peace]

Well it happens to think that Rogue One is worth 23 bucks, and I am going to buy it. However, it's pretty much the ONLY movie I'm considering buying since... I dunno, quite a few years ago.
Music? I stream online radio, the type of music I listen to is largely unavailable or very costly to obtain in physical form (P&P and some providers don't send to my country).
As for software and games, I stopped pirating them a decade ago (when my income finally reached levels where I stopped worrying about what am I going to eat the next day).

Re:The game is too one-sided

[KlomDark]

Not buying it until they release a 4K Ultra Bluray.

You'd think all the movie companies would jump on this train, as 4K video is so huge that it makes it quite hard to download even over torrent, and the massive storage required.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Well, then don't buy it. Simple as that.

Yes, that certainly worked. Sunde and GP stopped buying last year and now the world is all better!

Re:The game is too one-sided

[Phusion]

Out of all the craziness in this thread, you sir, make a lot of sense.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[WrongMonkey]

You've got the analogy backwards. It's the so-called "capitalist" corporations that are demanding that the government intervene to create a monopoly on intellectual "property". Copyright started as a temporary protection to promote science and the arts, not to ensure a permanent revenue stream for investors. If the corporations are upset about how consumers are using their product, they should quit making their product instead of making new laws.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

Copyright started as a temporary protection to promote science and the arts, not to ensure a permanent revenue stream for investors

I completely agree with that: copyright should be short term and limited if it should exist at all. But how does that view translate into a justification for net neutrality? How does it translate into a justification for violating contractual agreements?

If the corporations are upset about how consumers are using their product, they should quit making their product instead of making new laws.

I don't see corporations trying to "make new laws" when it comes to net neutrality. Net neutrality is activists like Sunde and lobbyists from companies like Google trying to impose new regulations on the Internet.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[interkin3tic]

On torrenting I disagree, I think you're just not recognizing the compromise that worked out.

Back in the day, the RIAA's demand was "Buy this album for $20"
Our response was "No, that's too much for like one song."
RIAA counter offer was "Go fuck yourself."
The napster/limewire/kazaa/torrent response was "No, we gets it for free."
The RIAA counter offer was "Go fuck yourself. And also you should feel bad about stealing."
Our response was "Go fuck yourself, we gets it free.

Clearly those two extremes were incompatible, so companies like apple (whom I'm positive wasn't the first but I'm forgetting who was) said "hey, here's a compromise: you pay a little for each song."

The RIAA's response to apple et al I assume was "Go fuck yourself. Oh wait, we're losing money and we can't bully you around, fine."
Our response to apple et al was "Go fuck yourself, we gets it free. Oh wait, this is much more convenient, fine."

Then of course al la carte spotify and others made even that obsolete.

Similar things worked for pretty much every other thing pirate bay is used for, it's become largely unnecessary. New video games and new movies aren't exactly where they should be from my perspective, but it seems like the price drops off much quicker than it used to.

Capitalism is vastly overrated IMHO, but I think it worked out. We didn't get every song for free, but we were never going to anyway, just as big content was never going to maintain their position.

Now, what Sunde is talking about in the snippet and article are much more important things, like net neutrality. Capitalism as it exists in the telecom industry now absolutely won't solve that in any reasonable time frame, and I'm not sure what else would either. If I get a genie lamp I'll wish that 1. lobbying would be effectively ended 2. voters would pay attention to consumer rights, privacy, and actually voting and 3. public broadband maintained fairly as a non-profit. That could solve it real good. I disagree with his pessimistic view of things, I think he's an extremist who sees compromise on torrenting to be a sign everything is awful and always will be. But he's right that there are bigger fights and they're not nearly as encouraging. You might be right on that that our culture needs to change, and obviously our laws need to change on those issues.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[sexconker]

4K video is so huge that it makes it quite hard to download even over torrent, and the massive storage required.

Nope. People said the same exact shit when BluRay came out. "1080p is too big to pirate!". EL OH EL.
Early HD movies on DVD, HD-DVD, and BR used MPEG 2, and people simply ripped and reencoded them with MPEG 4.
Even those using MPEG 4 to start with could be reencoded to much smaller sizes with no noticeable loss of quality. Discs have to play on old and weak set top players with limited processing power, and they're constrained by the transfer rate of the disc drive. This means low complexity settings for the encoder, minimal use of features, predicted frames aren't very deep, etc. Rips aren't limited to such shit.

With BRs, it's even better. You don't need to download the full BR, you can download a rip that has only the main movie and the main (best quality, native language) audio track and the main subtitle track. A HUGE portion of a major release's data is taken up by alternate audio streams, ads, special features, etc. Just cutting that crap out can get your filesize down by half or more.

At 4K, you can also download an encode that cuts size down by a factor of 10 while maintaining visual quality. We've got h.265 now, and again we can run at higher complexity settings with a smaller bitrate. We've also got Opus and other codecs (though Opus is the best). A 7.1 HD-MA or TrueHD audio track often accounts for a third of the size of the main title. Opus can transparently get that down to a much, much lower level. The only downside is that your receiver may not light up the little icon for the DTS/Dolby formats. You're still getting the same sound, though (minus any specific DTS/Dolby transforms your receiver applies to those formats, but why would you want those?).

Re:The game is too one-sided

[WrongMonkey]

But how does that view translate into a justification for net neutrality?

Net neutrality is an almost orthogonal issue. It really only comes up because the groups opposed to net neutrality tend to be groups profiting from copyright.

How does it translate into a justification for violating contractual agreements?

There is substantial historical precedent for violating unjust laws as a means to reforming such laws.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[UnknownSoldier]

> "Star Wars Rogue One" is charging you $22.99 for the Blue Ray copy! What an abuse!

Red Herring fallacy much?

1. I don't have a problem paying for BluRays. What I do have a problem is that somehow it is magically illegal to decrypt and copy the bits so that my OTHER devices (Laptop, Phone, Tablet) can't play the bitstream due to some "Imaginary Property" DRM bullshit. Why is it illegal to download the bits when I _already_ own a physical copy???

2. Secondly, you're assuming I can even BUY the movie in the first place. Let me know where I can legally buy the BluRay of Hawaizaada ??? NOTE: The trailer is in 1080p but only the DVD is available for purchase.

Personally I don't pirate but I can understand the reason why someone might.

The issue is not Black and White like you assume.

--
"We can accept God becoming Man to save Man,
  but not Man becoming God to save himself."
  -- Vernon Linwood Howard

Re:The game is too one-sided

[SeaFox]

While piracy has given the appearance of the balance of power being with the latter group, it really never has been. Until our culture and laws change, it never will be.

The problem can be summarized as the government is failing to represent the people in this case. When piracy is so commonplace that most people do not really view it as a crime, then there is a disconnect happening. Laws for civilizations are supposed to reflect common values shared by people of the society, but in this case they are only reflecting the wishes of a few "people" (corporations).

Re:The game is too one-sided

[fluffernutter]

The same could be said for Uber as well. If governments would just get on top of it then it would turn out better for everyone. But everything seems to be stuck in the 80's somewhere.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[mrchaotica]

Netflix was able to make some progress but really they are not the service they should be because the current broadcasters have been granted so many ways to create barriers.

And then Netflix started creating original content, which means it will shortly turn to the protectionist and DRM-maximalist dark side too.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[mrchaotica]

This whole "it isn't theft" argument is ultimately self-defeating because you'll kill off the flow of content. Nobody indie studio or director with a bunch of no-name actors and no real budget is going to reliably produce something equivalent to what a skilled director and actor with a $150 million budget could do.

And nothing of value would be lost.

More generally, the existence of everything from folk music, to anonymous graffiti, to Free Software, to anything released under a sufficiently free CC license proves that plenty of works would continue to be created even if copyright were greatly reduced in scope or even abolished entirely.

Re: The game is too one-sided

[war4peace]

Computer says no!

Access Denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.redbox.com/" on this server.
Reference #18.d4b9c451.1492115789.dadeec7

Not everyone's from the mighty US of A.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[OzoneLad]

What really, really annoys me are the unskippable anti-piracy ads found on some DVDs. I paid for the product. Why the hell are you bothering me?

Re:The game is too one-sided

[AtariEric]

No company seems to be willing to be realistic about how changing times should be changing their business model and customers are very much being caught in between.

They don't have to be "realistic" - they have the power to force reality to change for them. If that means bashing in their customers' faces with rifle butts they won't think twice, as long as they can loot their pockets afterwards.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[desdinova 216]

maybe adding a "use it or lose it" provision like trademarks would work? For example if the content is not available for of time then it reverts to public domain?

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

What I do have a problem is that somehow it is magically illegal to decrypt and copy the bits so that my OTHER devices (Laptop, Phone, Tablet) can't play the bitstream due to some "Imaginary Property" DRM bullshit. Why is it illegal to download the bits when I _already_ own a physical copy???

Because that's the terms of your contract. Now, generally, I think copyrights are too long and should not be a criminal matter. However, I also believe that people should be required to stick to their contracts or face the consequences.

2. Secondly, you're assuming I can even BUY the movie in the first place.

So what? If the work is under copyright and the author has chosen not to distribute it to you in a form you like, what gives you the right to override his decision?

Re: The game is too one-sided

[cyber-vandal]

If you're in the U.K. you can use Amazon Lovefilm

Re:The game is too one-sided

[houghi]

On point 2.
You assume that you should be able to buy it, regardless if the other party is willing to sell it or not.

If I make a bookcase. If I am unwilling to sell it, just because it exists does not mean you should be able to buy it. If I sell it I am willing to sell only one, even if I have the ability to make more.

I could hire people and make a 100 and sell them. I am willing to make 100 and sell 100. That means that I have given plans on how to do this to others. You have no right to ask for number 101, not have any reason to be upset that I only sell them where I live.

I see this all the time as an excuse to pirating: It is not available to where I am or the pricing is not fair. Yet I fail to find any right you or I have that we must be able to buy everything and be made available everything, just because we want it.

Just because it would be easy to sell does not change anything. Is it stupid? Yes, absolutely, but stupid isn't illegal yet.

If I do not want to share the notes I made in class does not mean that you must be allowed to copy them. You can ask for them and I can sell them or give them or decline you access to them as they are mine.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[prisoner-of-enigma]

And nothing of value would be lost.

According to you and your set of values. It's rather arrogant of you to foist those on others.

Yes, plenty of "free" works can and do exist. None exist in any form at a scale equivalent to larger projects with correspondingly larger value (value also being subjective but I'm speaking in generic terms). Suffice to say, there are amazing creative works that contribute to society in ways that could not be practically accomplished in a "free" manner.

If "free" were the rule instead of the exception there would be no market for paid content in a capitalist open-market society. That there is demonstrates your conclusion is not correct.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[mrchaotica]

It's rather arrogant of you to foist those on others.

LOL, you've got that completely backwards.

Copyright is an artificial construct of government. It does not exist by default. That means you're the one arrogantly foisting your values on me!

Re:The game is too one-sided

[UnknownSoldier]

Artificial scarcity is never a good business tactic -- again, you're assuming everyone "buys" into this stupid idea. The fact that people ARE pirating product X means your philosophy is only costing you in the long run.

> You have no right to ask for number 101,

Hello McFly, it is called being a _customer_. Apparently you failed Business 101.

> Yet I fail to find any right you or I have that we must be able to buy everything and be made available everything, just because we want it.

You're assuming _your morals_ are the (only) ones that are valid -- that is your fallacy.

_Copyright_ is ARTIFICIAL MONOPOLY created by publishers. Not everyone believes in "imaginary (digital) property rights", go figure.

If people _can't_ buy it -- they WILL pirate it. Hell, some people will pirate it regardless. The fact remains that Piracy is a symptom of an untapped demand. Not everyone has the self discipline to _not_ pirate.

Like I said, the issue isn't as black-and-white as you try to make it to be.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[david_thornley]

In theory, copyright is a restriction on what people can do with their property, and particularly to use it to make more valuable stuff. In practice, we want some way to pay money to people who create things we like, both to encourage them and to make it more possible for them to exercise their creativity. (This varies by art form. A novelist can have a day job that pays the bills, but making movies requires a lot more money than people will put into the pot just so they can be creative.)

Ideally, we'd want the compensation mechanism to be based pretty much on how people like the creation. We'd like it to be possible for people to create things on spec, rather than waiting for someone's approval, and be potentially rewarded. This encourage more creativity. It's cheaper to allow creative people a shot at lots and lots of money than to compensate them reasonably, human nature being what it is. Giving the creator some money for each copy of his or her work does this well, provided we have some cost for making these copies (so I don't make a few zillion copies of one of my mediocre novels and clean up).

On the other hand, if we had a system that allowed people to copy freely, there'd be more people able to enjoy more art (of various forms), so copyright isn't a perfect system.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[david_thornley]

That was a response to your claim that nothing would be lost by not making professional-quality movies. A very large number of people would disagree with you, and would object to your values being set in law to the point that nobody would make another good movie. We have an imperfect system now. Changing it to destroy large swaths of art needs more justification than ideological purity.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[david_thornley]

Moreover, if I can't buy it, who am I harming by making an illicit copy? The complaint about piracy is that it results in reduced sales. If they're already zero, and projected to be zero forever, I can't possibly reduce its sales. Not by piracy, not by giving it a bad review, not by threatening to shoot anyone who buys a copy.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[lucien86]

Remember its still a socialist utopia until they can actually buy and sell slaves. Come to think of it they pretty much can.. At least wage slaves..

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

Ideally, we'd want the compensation mechanism to be based pretty much on how people like the creation. We'd like it to be possible for people to create things on spec

Ideally, "we" stop talking about "us" as if "we" were some kind of single entity, and "we" stop reasoning about what it is "cheaper" to "allow".

Copyright is just the law of the land. People are welcome to try to work politically to change it. But simply ignoring it because someone wants to download the latest Hollywood movies for free does not even give them socialist street cred. Sorry.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[lucien86]

Sounds exactly like drug vs alcohol policy. Its a system that's rotten to the core.. and run almost completely incompetently.. I believe in socialism but its something that only really works with a magical thing called 'competent government'.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[lucien86]

The pirates on one side, the media corps on the other, both are known thieves..

Re: The game is too one-sided

[war4peace]

No I am not.
I live in Romania.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[Areyoukiddingme]

Moreover, if I can't buy it, who am I harming by making an illicit copy? The complaint about piracy is that it results in reduced sales. If they're already zero, and projected to be zero forever, I can't possibly reduce its sales. Not by piracy, not by giving it a bad review, not by threatening to shoot anyone who buys a copy.

Yes, but if we're talking about Doom, you should still be doing all of those things, just to be on the safe side.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[BLKMGK]

Actually you can grab 4K content pretty easily.4K hasn't been an issue and massive storage is pretty easy to put together these days too!

Re:The game is too one-sided

[mrchaotica]

Let's get a few things straight here:

First of all, nothing gives "professional quality movies" the right to exist. People have the right not to be charged with a crime for trying to make them, but it's that person's own responsibility to figure out how to fund it.

Second: nothing about "[my] values being set in law" by reforming copyright would change that: people would still have the right not to be charged with a crime for making movies, and it would still be that person's responsibility to fund the process. Having less monopoly enforcement (or even no grant of monopoly at all) might make that harder, but that's not the same as prohibiting it by law. Even in an environment without copyright there are still plenty of ways to fund movies, such as by patronage (including crowdfunding), subsidizing them with other goods/services (e.g. merchandising or product placement), etc.

Third, it's not an issue of "ideological purity," it's an issue of human rights. "Free speech" means free exchange of ideas, and free exchange of ideas depends on the Public Domain. Requiring some third-party's permission before sharing an idea is the opposite of that. In other words, copyright is fundamentally censorship, and copyright enforced by DRM without regard for Fair Use is even more so. Moreover, copyright is increasingly an infringement upon actual property rights too. In fact, copyright maximalists are trying to create a world where "ownership" is only for corporations, but not for people: neo-feudalism, a.k.a. tyranny.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[Reziac]

Here's an idea: Prepend a couple minutes of ads to your movies, and release them on torrent yourself, in several popular DRM-free formats and qualities. Charge your advertisers according to how many downloads each gets, and do your best to spread them far and wide. Everything becomes available for "free" for a minimally-invasive give-back (the ads) and it becomes not worth the bother to chase down actually-pirated content (which remains an incentive to keep your ads non-annoying), yet the content owner still gets paid.

Not like I want more ads in the world, just trying to come up with a win-win that won't annoy consumers into finding an alternative and doesn't require any new infrastructure or delivery method.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

The pirates on one side, the media corps on the other, both are known thieves..

Movie studios, publishers, authors, musicians, and actors create new value for society, and people are willing to pay for their products.

What do pirates create?

Re:The game is too one-sided

[StikyPad]

Games have become increasingly immune from piracy because demand, whether organic or manufactured, has shifted largely toward multiplayer, and that's much easier to secure.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[StikyPad]

Violating unjust laws as a form of protest only works when people publicly suffer the consequences. It's only then that popular opinion turns and the laws are collectively viewed as unjust. Violating without getting caught is just about personal gain, not social change.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[StikyPad]

Booty.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[WrongMonkey]

That is the Rosa Parks civil disobedience strategy. But it is not the only civil disobedience strategy. An alternative is the Prohibition strategy, where breaking an unjust law because so widespread and socially accepted that the law is no longer enforceable. This strategy has been successful in in re-legalization of alcohol, the legalization of homosexuality and the ongoing legalization of marijuana.

Obviously, the Powers That Be want you to think that the only effective way to exercise civil disobedience is to get caught and face the punishment. So we celebrate Rosa Parks and ignore Jack Herer, But that agenda just gets pushed because it makes the government's job easier.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[david_thornley]

Let's get at least one thing straight. Lots of people value various forms of art, and are willing to pay for them. In order for this to work there has to be some way of sending money people are willing to part with to people who create the art. Some art will be produced anyway, but not necessarily in a particularly good form. Writing a novel can be fun. Editing and proofreading are less fun, and typically require payment. Some art won't be produced without a reliable way of collecting money if it's good, and movies are among those.

What we've got is copyright. It isn't a matter of ideology, but practice. We don't have a better way of taking money from those willing to give it and sending it to artists. Disrupting that, without providing an alternative means more or less as good, would mean that a lot of stuff just wouldn't be made, and a lot would be of worse quality. This would lower people's quality of life. We've got a system that works, and I'm not interested in dismantling it.

Then you argue that human rights and free speech require the ability to exchange ideas freely, and I agree with this, and US copyright law agrees with this. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, only the expressions of them. If something is expressed in a way the idea requires and doesn't provide alternative for, it isn't copyrightable. You can talk about any idea you want, provided you use your own words. Free speech doesn't demand that I should have the right to copy Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. It demands that I can talk about them as I like, and make my own original superhero movie if I like and can scare up the money.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[david_thornley]

Copyright law doesn't come down from the skies written in noodles. It's something we as a country created and can modify or abolish. There's reasons behind it, and anyone who wants to start a political movement to change it needs to consider those reasons.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

There's reasons behind it, and anyone who wants to start a political movement to change it needs to consider those reasons.

And I'm telling you that saying "I'm a socialist and I like to copy crappy Hollywood movies for free as the first step towards a socialist utopia" is not going to fly with most Americans, and is an utterly ridiculous plan.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[interkin3tic]

Hadn't thought about that, but very true.

And upsetting. I fucking hate multiplayer.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[david_thornley]

Did anyone actually say something that stupid, or are you manufacturing straw men? There are principled arguments for and against copyrights, and how they should be applied. Hence, there are principled reasons to try to create an environment where people can get copyrighted material without paying for it. There are also people who just want stuff for free, but I doubt that's motivation to do all the work to set up and maintain the Pirate Bay.

Re:The game is too one-sided

[ooloorie]

Did anyone actually say something that stupid,

Yes, that's pretty much what Sunde said. RTFA

Re:The game is too one-sided

[mrchaotica]

Lots of people value various forms of art, and are willing to pay for them. In order for this to work there has to be some way of sending money people are willing to part with to people who create the art.

Good -- they can do that whether copyright exists or not! All copyright does is force people to pay, and since you were talking about the people who would pay voluntarily, that categorically excludes them from your argument.

This would lower people's quality of life.

In other words, you're saying "some people's quality of life is more important than other people's human rights." I have more than a little problem with that sentiment!

It is kind of sad in a way...

[evolutionary]

while I don't use these sites in general (too much weirdness and people poisoning the pool with malware), we do have Internet issues we need to address. Net Neutrality certainly has it's flaws. It's a mistake to say it's the end of Internet piracy however. China pretty much dominates that market (2nd by countries in South America possibly). The IP laws certainly need to be changed from having a virtually unlimited timespan on government protection so people can sit on their laurels. But piracy is certainly far from dead. It's just moved around a bit as all successful forms of live and business tend to do to survive.

Re:It is kind of sad in a way...

[Frobnicator]

... we do have Internet issues we need to address. Net Neutrality certainly has it's flaws ...

The difficulty is just how much of the system is walled off. The open internet is mostly dead. (* See below) Net Neutrality laws are a struggle to pass and corporations and governments inject their own loopholes into the laws so even when passed they are nearly useless.

There have been a few attempts to restore openness, and tools like RSS feeds attempted to put people back in control, but those attempts have largely failed. Paywalls, authorization servers, and other barriers must be crossed. Tolls must be paid.

In that regard I agree with Sunde. So much of the Internet has become a walled garden. It is no longer free and open, barbed wire and toll booths are everywhere. He is right that so much has changed to companies and governments building power centers, a land grab to see how much they can wall off.

Under the Open Internet, everybody had their own control. Everybody who entered the Internet did so as a full peer, anybody could talk to anybody, services could talk to other services. Anything could be automated, anything could be connected, everybody was equal, or at least as equal as their bandwidth and processors allowed. But the Open Internet is a vestige of the past. Today corporations and governments demand centralization of power, demand everything be inside their walls. When something isn't inside walls, the covetous groups do all they can to capture it. With the new rules the corporations and governments are the King. Sometimes you can arrange to be one of the King's vassals with your own little space, yet still operating within the terms and rules and whims the King sets. But for everybody else, if you want to work with a service, you become the lowest level of serf.

That is the battle that has been fought and lost.

------

* Stuff about the Open Internet

Back through the history of the Internet up through the late 1980s and early 1990s, the system was basically an open free-for-all. Of course tools were much harder to use, everything was driven by command line, but still much was free and open.

Back in the early days having Walled Gardens was rare. Unix was free, at least until the Unix Wars in the late 1980s, then several variants became walled gardens, which is why we have so many systems based on System V, when the schism started. The internet freely connected researchers and computer scientists, all they needed to know was the location of the resource. Several schools had CS departments that were central hubs, many government offices had central hubs, but they were all fully connected (internetworked) and effectively anybody who could connect to the network had public rights to everything across it. Anyone could go anywhere and do anything the network allowed.

The open internet is mostly gone. Being able to connect does not grant access. You need to sign up, give email addresses, create an account, and eventually gain access.

Today most services are wrapped. If you want to see something on Facebook you must register. Want that tweet? Register first. That's a great news article, just surrender your email address and it is yours. Needing to download the file linked to in a forum requires an account. Etc.

I have tried to explain to my kids many times what the Open Internet was like, how anybody could write a program and make it available for anyone else. Email addresses were broadcast far and wide so anyone online could talk to anyone else. How you didn't need to log in to every Internet service, you could sign in anonymously for access to anything anywhere. An online world that didn't maintain a minimum of 3 ads per screen. They struggle to understand that such a world could even exist, let alone what it would be like. In one online group I help with, young students were afraid that wget would get them in trouble or be illegal, and sadly, it is enough to get kicked off of some walled gardens, but would not have been an issue in the Open Internet.

People are more worried about jobs

[rsilvergun]

Than being able to download Game of Thrones. Net neutrality only really matters to techies, and we're fighting for our jobs too...

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[serviscope_minor]

Net neutrality only really matters to techies

No it really matters to everyone. Maybe only techies care, but everyone is affected. All the things on the internet that people take for granted, google, facebook, snapchat, instagram, netflix, youtube and a whole host of others only could get going and scale up because of an open internet. Once the big providers start to charge from both directions, only the big boys will be able to afford to play.

That means everyone is going to be stuck in a low competition environment where the incumbents have a huge advantage. That means the next youtube or whatever won't happen.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ninthbit]

I need some mod points.... This is exactly right. Net Neutrality getting undermined and killed will only serve the media industry. Cord cutting won't be possible once all the datacaps come down and streaming services get throttled.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Kjella]

Good shill. How much are they paying you? Whenever there's a product or service, there's those who make it, those who consume it and middlemen. Getting rid of most the middlemen has been the greatest boon of the Internet. Middlemen love to gauge, don't you think the post office would love to gauge how much they charge to deliver this particular package from this sender? The phone company to connect this particular call? That's what you want the ISP to do, sit in the middle and shake down any website you want to visit. You sound way too smart to be this dumb, so I guess the question is: Comcast, Charter, AT&T or Verizon?

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Rick Schumann]

Net Neutrality will matter to everyone, everywhere, when the Internet is nigh-unto unusable from being so badly distorted by ISPs having free reign over how people are allowed to use it. Sadly the rank-and-file end users won't really notice until it's too late.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Lord Kano]

These companies know that "net neutrality" is in their financial advantage and makes it harder for small companies to compete.

More than that, it makes it harder for access providers to leverage their position as access providers to make inroads as content providers.

If Net Neutrality truly dies, Verizon and Comcast will be able to prioritize the traffic from their own competing services to harm Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Google.

Without using traffic shaping, QOS or similar means to disadvantage the competition, any new upstart has to actually be better than an existing service.

Google beat Yahoo because Google was better at doing something. That wouldn't have happened if Yahoo had been able to make deals to slow Google's traffic to dial-up speeds.

LK

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[suutar]

Small startups probably wouldn't get charged at all, and if they did, the charges would be lost in the noise.

I am curious as to how you justify these assumptions.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ooloorie]

Getting rid of most the middlemen has been the greatest boon of the Internet.

So why are you arguing for a market structure that looks like "Google/Facebook regulated Comcast/Verizon consumer"? Seems to me that it is you who wants a permanent middle man to exist, a middleman whose job it is to redistribute costs among Internet users to meet your criteria of net neutrality.

What companies like Comcast/Verizon want is to be able cut out the middleman and deliver content directly. That is, for video, movies, etc., they want a network that looks like "Comcast/Verizon consumer", without being forced to act as a middleman for anybody else.

You sound way too smart to be this dumb, so I guess the question is: Comcast, Charter, AT&T or Verizon?

The people who argue for net neutrality are clearly the ones who benefit financially from it: geeks who use more bandwidth than average and upload a lot, and companies like YouTube, Google, Facebook, etc., whose business model depends on it. That sounds like you. It certainly isn't me.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[serviscope_minor]

To see who gets the advantage from net neutrality, look at who is sponsoring it:

Yes they get advantage from it, but they're not the only ones.

Google/YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix. Do you seriously want us to believe that on this one issue, these companies are putting aside their incumbent advantage and lobbying to make it easier and cheaper for small competitors to compete with them.

They also know the other big incumbents, i.e. Verizon, Comcast etc will use their incumbent advantage to try to milk them for money. For those big players, the risk of losing tons to the big ISPs is more pressing than the risk of a small startup they can just buy out.

But either way, you're arguing from incredulity. Thing is, net neutrality helps the small players, and some of the big ones, but it STILL helps some of the small player. You know not every issue is a black and white FOO is my friend BAR is my enemy. Microsoft's interests are aligned with mine on network neutrality, but they're still rent seeking fuckers.

These companies know that "net neutrality" is in their financial advantage and makes it harder for small companies to compete.

I'm going to call bullshit unless you can give a persuasive argument for the mechanism of how network neutrality hurts small companies.

It's "the big boys" that have the most to fear from having to pay for traffic, because they have big businesses that depend on thin profit margins. Small startups probably wouldn't get charged at all, and if they did, the charges would be lost in the noise. ...? No, the big ISPs will throttle everyone else's video, voip and other services except their own unless they pay. The small startups don't have to pay of course, but they'll be unable to offer a decent service unless they do.

Indeed, that's correct. Under net neutrality, people are effectively forced to subsidize big streaming services like YouTube,

Rubbish. I pay my ISP for internet access.

Without net neutrality, people would probably have to pay a small amount of money each month if they want to share and publish videos to cover the actual cost of distributing them.

Or ya know, they could pay their ISP for internet access. Which uhhh they do.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ooloorie]

More than that, it makes it harder for access providers to leverage their position as access providers to make inroads as content providers.

Quite right.

If Net Neutrality truly dies, Verizon and Comcast will be able to prioritize the traffic from their own competing services to harm Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and Google.

Quite right. It means that Netflix, Google Video, and Amazon Video would be in deep trouble. Companies like Verizon and Comcast would take over those markets. Why would that be a bad thing?

Google beat Yahoo because Google was better at doing something. That wouldn't have happened if Yahoo had been able to make deals to slow Google's traffic to dial-up speeds.

That makes no sense. How could Yahoo have "slowed down Google's traffic"? They were both just search engines. And based on what criteria was Google "better"? Google made their money with ads, and then leveraged that revenue to dominate spaces that don't make profit per se, like YouTube and search. You're basically saying that you think Google is great and that hence the government should interfere in order to structure the market to make it advantageous for companies like Google. I'm sorry, but I don't consider that a good argument.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ooloorie]

They also know the other big incumbents, i.e. Verizon, Comcast etc will use their incumbent advantage to try to milk them for money. For those big players, the risk of losing tons to the big ISPs is more pressing than the risk of a small startup they can just buy out.

Yes... and that amounts to a compelling argument for net neutrality... how?

I'm going to call bullshit unless you can give a persuasive argument for the mechanism of how network neutrality hurts small companies.

You just made that argument: companies like Verizon, Comcast, etc. would "try to milk" the big companies for money. As a result, those big companies would be forced charge for many of their currently free services or shut them down entirely. That creates business opportunities for small companies.

Rubbish. I pay my ISP for internet access.

Yes, but what you should be paying for is the actual cost of the resources that you consume when you access the Internet. Net neutrality tries to shift those costs around to favor some users at the expense of others.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Hodr]

But...The post office absolutely does charge you differently based on what you are sending, how fast, and to where. And the phone company does charge you based on where you are calling, and often whom.

I don't think ISPs should follow, buy your examples are the polar opposite of making your point.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[serviscope_minor]

Yes... and that amounts to a compelling argument for net neutrality... how?

Efficient markets rely on level playing fields. If you're not going to have an efficient market, why bother at all and not just nationalise it? At least that way there's not a profit incentive to screw everyone.

You just made that argument: companies like Verizon, Comcast, etc. would "try to milk" the big companies for money.

Without net neutrality, streaming will be throttled by default. Both small and large companies will be unable to provide a good service without paying. Large companies will be able to strike a deal. Small companies might not be able to and it's unlikely to be on as good terms since small companies never get as good terms as large ones.

Either way the ISPs want to milk the big companies because that's where the money is, but the small ones will be screwed too.

That creates business opportunities for small companies.

No it really doesn't. This is a plan to divert more money to the big ISPs.

Yes, but what you should be paying for is the actual cost of the resources that you consume when you access the Internet.

The ISPs are all turning healthy profits. Ergo, the amount we're paying for access is sufficient.

Net neutrality tries to shift those costs around to favor some users at the expense of others.

No it doesn't. Net neutrality is there to ensure the ISPs actually provide service to the internet when they're paid to do so.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Oligonicella]

To a business, saving money *is* making money.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[serviscope_minor]

So why are you trying to unlevel the playing field?

Network neutrality: you buy internet from Verizon. Verizon's VOIP, google's VOIP, Skype's VOIP and some random startup's VOIP and my homegrown VOIP all get identical prioritisation.

Your version: Verizon get to charge google and skype extra, prioritise theirs and fuck over the startup plus me and apparently that's a level playing field.

ooookkkaaaayyyy.

I mean, on what planet does it make sense to force ISPs to give the same priority to ad-laden grumpy cat YouTube videos that Google makes revenue on as to MIT lectures on nuclear physics or video content that I actually pay for?

Because people paid verizon to give them access to the internet, not be judgemental douchenozzles who think that their shit is more important. Sorry, that's you. Because they paid verizon for access to the internet, not merely access to Verizon's services and shitty access to everything else.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[phorm]

And rightfully they should be. Not being able to download an illegitimate copy of content shouldn't be a major issue for most folks.

What *is* an issue is that services we're paying for are being scraped for our personal information - which is often not securely stored - for their own profit, massively under-deliver from what is promised, are anti-competitive to the point where the established players sue to maintain their monopoly, and that we have demonised legitimate methods of transferring information because some people mis-use them.

Net neutrality often only *makes sense* to the techies, but I guarantee you that crappy performance, high bills, and unavailable content etc all affect the average person, the problem is that they don't correlate the evil behaviour of ISP's and gov't in this arena to the rising affordability of daily life. Until DRM meant you can't fix your John Deere, most people didn't care, and while concern over some of this is growing it's still often restricted to small segments where the effects are obvious.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[DMJC]

HAHA yeah because no telecommunications company has a monopoly over your last mile infrastructure.... oh wait. Comms is a single service monopoly for 99% of people.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[thegarbz]

The vast majority of people are not worried about jobs.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Kjella]

The people who argue for net neutrality are clearly the ones who benefit financially from it: geeks who use more bandwidth than average and upload a lot

Nobody has asked that any one bit be treated differently than any other bit, if you spend a lot you pay a lot. When you completely fail to grasp the nature of net neutrality you're either a troll or a shill.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ooloorie]

Because people paid verizon to give them access to the internet,

But without net neutrality, people might not have to pay at all; for example, Facebook could do what they tried to do, which is to give people free access to Facebook and reference sites.

Furthermore, why you apparently think of "the Internet" as just one big black box, but that isn't what it is. It makes a big difference whether your streaming video connection goes to a free ad-supported site like YouTube or to a for-pay subscription-based site. It makes a big difference whether your streaming video comes from a Verizon cache close to your home/tower, a Google site, or something overseas. It makes a difference in terms of the hardware and bandwidth a company like Verizon has to buy, maintain, and pay for. And those differences should be reflected in how much people pay for their network connections. And that is exactly what "net neutrality" is trying to prevent.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[desdinova 216]

That means everyone is going to be stuck in a low competition environment where the incumbents have a huge advantage.

To see who gets the advantage from net neutrality, look at who is sponsoring it: Google/YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Netflix. Do you seriously want us to believe that on this one issue, these companies are putting aside their incumbent advantage and lobbying to make it easier and cheaper for small competitors to compete with them. Get real. These companies know that "net neutrality" is in their financial advantage and makes it harder for small companies to compete.

or you look at who's opposing it. in this case AT&T, Verizon, Comcast.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Lord Kano]

Companies like Verizon and Comcast would take over those markets. Why would that be a bad thing?

Less choice is in any of itself a bad thing. It just so happens to be a bad thing that leads to worse things.

How could Yahoo have "slowed down Google's traffic"? They were both just search engines.

By partnering with (paying) MCI, UUNET and others to shape the traffic and provide lower QOS to Google.

Hence my use of the phrase "make deals" to do it.

And based on what criteria was Google "better"?

That varied from user to user but for me, it was more relevant search results and a cleaner interface.

You're basically saying that you think Google is great and that hence the government should interfere in order to structure the market to make it advantageous for companies like Google.

No. I'm saying that Google was better than Yahoo. Because Google was better than Yahoo, they toppled them from their position as the go-to search engine and the government should interfere to keep the marketplace available for the next upstart to come along and topple Google, if they can.

LK

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[prisoner-of-enigma]

And why is such a monopoly present? Two main reasons:

1. It is economically unfeasible for anyone to bring you service other than the existing provider who is piggybacking on prior infrastructure. In this case, you chose a poor place to live. It's not the fault of the company or the taxpayer that it would cost $10 million in fiber to service 100 rural customers and they won't do it because there's no reasonable return on investment. If you don't like it, nobody is putting a gun to your head saying you have to stay there. Some people move because they want more land, or less traffic, or better climate. Internet service is no different.

2. Local politicians protect the monopoly in return for campaign contributions. Vote the fuckers out, problem solves itself.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[MooseMiester]

"1. It is economically unfeasible for anyone to bring you service other than the existing provider who is piggybacking on prior infrastructure. In this case, you chose a poor place to live. It's not the fault of the company or the taxpayer that it would cost $10 million in fiber to service 100 rural customers and they won't do it because there's no reasonable return on investment. If you don't like it, nobody is putting a gun to your head saying you have to stay there. Some people move because they want more land, or less traffic, or better climate. Internet service is no different."

I hear this statement over and over but it's just not true. It's only true in places where the government has picked winners and losers, and created a monopoly because of the huge bribes, er contributions paid by the players. You are spot on there.

At this moment I am sitting in BFE Central Texas. There is one electric line coming to the house, I have a choice of 7 different providers, because there is some small sanity in Texas outside of Austin and electric providers were deregulated. I have three choices for Internet: 3g from AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon. DSL from the phone company (6MB down 768k up), and satellite internet. I can't get cable TV, or gas. Do I have fiber to my house? No, the nearest fiber is many miles away. 6 MB down DSL is enough for me to watch movies on netflix/you tube, make Skype video calls, etc.

If you have a phone line, you can probably get DSL. If you're living somewhere without phone service, you don't want the Internet....

I think the whole "We have to get the Internet to rural areas" is all about political corruption, same as you. My bet is some Union that funnels money to the DNC, which is why the story line is that we have to force "evil corporations" to provide a product to people.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ooloorie]

By partnering with (paying) MCI, UUNET and others to shape the traffic and provide lower QOS to Google.

Saying they "paid for lower QOS for Google" is misleading; they would actually have paid for higher QOS for themselves, which is perfectly reasonable. They might also have "paid for" people to get free or low-cost Yahoo-branded Internet access, in return for ad placement, again something that benefits consumers.

No. I'm saying that Google was better than Yahoo. Because Google was better than Yahoo, they toppled them from their position as the go-to search engine

So, Google won because they were better, and they were better because they won? That's rather circular reasoning. In actual fact, Google's search engine business would never have been a viable business on its own; it simply didn't make enough revenue. Google's search engine only survived because it was cross-subsidized by Google's advertising revenue. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't support the argument that it was "better".

Net neutrality, in the end, is an arrangement where companies like Google can push ads on you and monetize free content and have you pay for the privilege through your ISP fees. We ended up with that situation because it's all you could do with 2000's technology. A few big companies have come to completely dominate the market because of that particular arrangement. Now, if you want Google and Facebook to keep owning the Internet for decades to come, with no possibility of small startups challenging them, then you support net neutrality. Otherwise, it's far better to let this play out in the market for a while and then revisit it.

Even if the completely unrealistic worst-case scenario of ISPs all replacing Google and Facebook with their own private offerings were to come true, that would mean a huge increase in the diversity of alternatives to Google and Facebook. So it's not clear that even that scenario would be worse than the winner-takes-all situation we have right now.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[Lord Kano]

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately contrarian or if you're legitimately dense.

Saying they "paid for lower QOS for Google" is misleading; they would actually have paid for higher QOS for themselves, which is perfectly reasonable.

It wouldn't have been of any benefit to Yahoo to increase their QOS with Google's remaining unchanged. I'm saying that they could have partnered with companies that owned large portions of the network to slow down Google's access. If Google couldn't crawl it, it couldn't index it. If they couldn't index it, their search results wouldn't have been as good.

Google won because they were better, and they were better because they won?

Pretty much, yeah.

That's rather circular reasoning.

Perhaps but it's not wrong.

In actual fact, Google's search engine business would never have been a viable business on its own; it simply didn't make enough revenue. Google's search engine only survived because it was cross-subsidized by Google's advertising revenue.

It's extraordinarily difficult to make a profit on a "Free" service without advertising.

Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't support the argument that it was "better".

No, more people choosing Google over Yahoo, Bing and AOL means that it is/was better.

Net neutrality, in the end, is an arrangement where companies like Google can push ads on you and monetize free content and have you pay for the privilege through your ISP fees.

Except that with Net Neutrality in place, you are free to choose one of their competitors without the network penalizing you.

A few big companies have come to completely dominate the market because of that particular arrangement.

In a market where all are given the same access, a few companies dominating it are just proof that the market chose them.

Even if the completely unrealistic worst-case scenario of ISPs all replacing Google and Facebook with their own private offerings

That's a strawman. I never argues that.

They wouldn't be able to directly replace them, they would be able to give preferential treatment to the traffic of their own competitor. They can't replace them but they can make them near unusable to their customers.

LK

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[david_thornley]

It's only true in places where the government has picked winners and losers,

Which would be everywhere on the planet. In order to serve me internet access, my provider has to have a data link from their center to my house. This will use limited resources and go over private property or limited public property.

LTE requires an allocation from the limited EM spectrum, which then can't be used for something else. Physical connections take up volume. If the connections are on poles, then the government has to limit the number of poles, and there's a limited amount of connections a pole can support. If the connections are underground, the government has to regulate who can dig up what when. If the connections don't go on public property, they need to go on private property, probably owned by lots of different people, and eminent domain is the only way to do that.

A system providing access to services for large numbers of people is not going to function in an anarchy.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[david_thornley]

If you and I come to the post office with packages of similar size and weight and category*, with similar destinations, we'll pay the same. All other considerations are irrelevant. If you've run a business for twenty years that requires mailing out packages in large quantities, and I'm just starting a business, we pay equal postage. If you're mailing clothes and I'm mailing tools, same postage. Now, if I want my package to get to its destination faster, I can pay for that, and you can pay the same amount for the same acceleration. If you want to mail out a large number of identical things, you can do some pre-sorting and get a discount, and if I want to do the same thing I can.

This is what people want for Net Neutrality: that the internet carry packets regardless of who they're from.

*It isn't necessarily the same postage for everything, because there's a few exceptions. If you are mailing books while I'm mailing tools, you can use Media Mail for a discount, IIRC.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[ooloorie]

No, more people choosing Google over Yahoo, Bing and AOL [seoconsultants.com] means that it is/was better.

You're equivocating between two senses of "better": one is whether something is more liked if people get it for free, the other is whether it is economically better overall. Yes, people liked Google Search "better", but that is ignoring the cost people pay for that, and often people who couldn't care less about the intricacies of Google vs Yahoo.

They wouldn't be able to directly replace them, they would be able to give preferential treatment to the traffic of their own competitor. They can't replace them but they can make them near unusable to their customers.

Companies that make products and services "near unusable to their customers" tend not to stay in business. That is, if Comcast or Verizon block access to things people want, they will pay for it and go out of business if they don't change their ways. So, your fear mongering has no basis in reality.

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately contrarian or if you're legitimately dense.

I'm afraid it's you who is dense, spouting the usual progressive nonsense about how we must implement massive crony capitalism in order to save free markets from themselves.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[MooseMiester]

I never suggested anarchy. What I am saying is that some states are vastly over-regulated and that is part of the the problem.

It varies greatly from state to state. In Texas I have a choice of 7 electricity companies. In Michigan, no choices. You can't tell me that's not the governments fault. Texas is a red state, Michigan is a blue state trying to become a purple state. Coincidence? Maybe. But the way the two states handle competition among utilities is completely different.

It's getting harder and harder to find places with no LTE coverage. I don't think it's a matter of poles, I think it's more a matter of the fiber connection at the base of the pole. Assuming that some of the DTV channel spectrum is allowed to be auctioned off we'll have a nice new segment for more WI-Fi and we'll see if "super wi-fi" comes to pass.

I remember when the fastest speed we could ever get using POTS was 1200 baud. And then 2400 baud. And then 9600 baud, that was it. And here I am at my Texas house in the middle of nowhere on 6MB dialup. So before anyone says "That isn't possible" look at history. 6MB over copper phone lines is PFM as far as I am concerned. (Pure Fucking Magic)

In the early days of the Internet there were maybe 2 fiber carriers, AT&T and WilTel. Now there are many of them. That's because it all happened to fast for the government to fuck it up. There's plenty of room on oil pipeline right of ways for lots more fiber to be run. But to hear people talk AT&T controls the whole internet in some evil monopolistic money grubbing theft ring and "there ought to be more regulation".

If one looks back at the history of regulation - it started with the RailRoads, who had a problem with safety, there was public outcry, the Railroads formed an association and policed themselves, and then the government decided it had to get involved. Now everyone believes "there ought to be a law" or nothing happens and look at the mess were in....

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[david_thornley]

LTE coverage is partly a matter of poles (for bandwidth, anyway) and partly a matter of the EM spectrum. If the FCC didn't regulate that, it would become pretty much useless, which would be annoying because I like getting the Internet on my phone. The frequency auction you mention is held by the government, as it has to be. Only the government can impose penalties on anyone using the EM spectrum in a way that interferes with its licensed use.

Separation of power production and power delivery was happening in 2004-2005 when I was working a testing gig at the local electric company. Suddenly we had to badge our way out of the elevator lobby, and we had instructions on who we could say what to, apparently a result of Federal deregulation and consequent antitrust regulation. (Basically, I couldn't say anything power-related and not available on the public internet to anyone on the fifth floor.) I don't know that the power production is legally different between Texas and Michigan. It may be that you have more competition in Texas for some reason.

Right now, I can get internet service with dialup, DSL, cell phone wireless (which was real handy when the DSL was flaky), fiber from the phone company, cable, city-provided wifi, and I suppose satellite. There's a company going out and fibering up neighborhoods, they aren't near me yet. DSL is deprecated, and got real flaky before we got fiber, so right now I can go with the phone company, the cable company, or the municipal wifi if I want halfway reasonable service. So, one company other than the phone or cable company is stringing fiber, so I suppose there's no problem with regulation. It's a natural duopoly that someone thinks they can make money butting in on, showing that there's no government regulation against starting something new.

Oil pipeline rights of way have nothing to do with last-mile Internet. There's plenty of routes to run backbone fiber through.

Regulations have come about when at least apparently needed. I'm not a railroad buff (although I have a friend who is), but if the railroads were policing themselves adequately there would have been no regulation.

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[MooseMiester]

Thanks having been a Ham since the eighties I understand spectrum. The only area where we disagree is on regulations - I believe that the whole notion that one group of humans organized in hierarchical groups is somehow superior to another group of humans in hierarchical groups is fundamentally flawed. For example, many people believe that government is benevolent whereas corporations are evil. Or that one religion is superior to another.

Societies with a free flow of information are, in my opinion, self policing. There's plenty of evidence to support this going back to the 1800's. Just look at what's happening to United Airlines right now.

It's when somebody decides they can make money by taking advantage of others that we get big problems, and I have found it's the politicians who are the worst of the worst, all the while telling us how smart they are and how stupid the rest of us country bumpkins are....

Re:People are more worried about jobs

[david_thornley]

It looks to me like we're better off with one entity with authority over the EM spectrum. Two entities claiming authority are going to disagree, and different people will assert the right to different parts of the spectrum.

Politicians are not in general the worst of the worst. Many are in politics largely to help people. The same is true of business people. Many politicians and business people are primarily out for their own gain, and come in various shades of callousness and ruthlessness.

Most of what government does is benevolent; similarly, most of what business does is benevolent. Neither can be counted on, and I like having them somewhat opposed, since it hinders either in steamrollering me.

Right now, people are angry at United. We'll see if there was any lasting effect later.

Opinions are not appendages

[Anonymous Coward]

In any political/social justice fight, just because you aren't winning doesn't mean you should give up. We all get burned out and disillusioned from time to time. The man did his part and had earned a well-deserved break.

Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[Aqualung812]

This is exactly the same thing that happened with Napster and others.
It wasn't JUST the enforcement that caused music piracy to switch from widespread to niche, it was the ability to buy songs on iTunes, and more and more streaming options.
Normal people will jump to piracy when they can see they're being screwed. The music industry wouldn't adapt until people started pirating at a widespread pace, and then they did.
Sure, many people still pirate music, but a majority of people stream it, either by an ad-supported service or by paying for a subscription.
The same thing has finally happened with video. HBO is a good one to use as an example. Game of Thrones was only available with HBO on a pay-TV subscription. They added the ability to buy seasons online, but that was too expensive for a single show.
Then, they did HBO Now (again, Apple helped make that happen), and many people decided that the price was fair for the benefits it gave them, and far fewer people were torrenting it.
The lesson is that when corporations get too greedy, people work around them. They can still be plenty greedy, though, and as long as people feel they're getting a reasonably fair deal, they'll go legit.
Enforcement alone didn't kill TPB, businesses adapting caused fewer people to fight against the enforcement.

Re:Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[walterbyrd]

> Really? You pay to watch HBO shows? Honestly?

Yes. During Game of Thrones season, I sign up for HBO GO. It's only $15 a month.

> I have better things to do with my money than hand it to fat-assed programming executives who can't come up with original ideas.

Why will anybody spend millions to create great content, if people like you are just going to steal it?

Re:Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[Anonymous Coward]

Why will anybody spend millions to create great content, if people like you are just going to steal it?

Absolutely true, which is why I enjoy watching movies in the theatre, and will buy endless songs at $1.29 a pop and routinely walk out of walmart with an armload of $5 DVDs. The price is right on those items. $20 for a movie is way too much for all but the absolute best movies. $10 for a CD with 9 out of 10 songs being duds is a rip off. The entertainment monopolies didn't get the clue until piracy forced their hands. The reason they didn't care before that: They had an artificial monopoly. Now the music industry has finally started dealing with it, and there are dozens of ways to legally get the music at prices that are appropriate for the product. I have not pirated any music at all in the last 10 years, and probably spent about $200 on mp3s. I do still occasionally download pirated movies, but it was mostly when I wanted to watch something from my netflix account, or in my DVD collection, but needed to watch on my computer when the kids had the TV tied up. I run Linux, and until very recently, I couldn't watch netflix or DVDs on my PC. The sooner the movie industry fully embraces a pricing structure that makes sense, the sooner they can stop alienating their customer base.

Re:Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[Maritz]

"Why would anyone not pay for decent programming Muffy? I say, Thad down at the club is throwing a lobster brunch at the cape. We should go if he doesn't serve domestic champagne." Fuck you, ass-hat. I have better things to do with my money than hand it to fat-assed programming executives who can't come up with original ideas.

Somewhere along the line that slipped into complete incoherence.

Re:Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[nnull]

"Enforcement alone didn't kill TPB, businesses adapting caused fewer people to fight against the enforcement."

TPB killed TPB, not streaming services. Pirating still continues just as it has all the time. Sure, streaming services have gotten cheaper and more convenient, but it's not really causing less piracy. Many people around the world still cannot afford these prices. Many people still prefer storing and having access to videos or audio at all times, instead of being regulated by some third party when and where they can access their content. There is still huge demand for non-DRM stuff and that will continue to be the case for a very long time.

But for TPB, the main page on TPB started serving malware ads for years (Even before the raids). TPB is losing the fight because they suck, literally, their website sucks. Torrents will continue to be around just like all other methods of pirating has been around, the situation just has changed away from TPB, where a lot of groups have their own websites, irc channel, whatever to serve their own content, most of them ad and malware free.

Re:Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[Howitzer86]

It's just $15 a month. There's a certain threshold when I stop caring how big an ass or how many private jets a person gets as a result. Hell, you provide all that for $15, you deserve all the fat, cocktails, and jets you can afford from that. Just... spread a little bit more of it to the people actually producing the show maybe. Yeah, that would be nice if the artists and TDs for our favorite shows could have a steady income and a corporate insurance policy for a change...

Re:Mass piracy has been solved by better business

[kangsterizer]

This sounds all true to me - but the point is that free-sharing systems like torrents keep them on their toes.

Without them, you will not get HBO Now. You will get "this is 500USD/month with ads and you can only watch at certain hours on certain devices".

you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Stop treating internet like it's a different thing and start focusing on what you actually want your society to look like.

We are. And we don't want it to look like an illegal file sharing website run by a privileged guy who spouts Marxist ideology.

The situation is not going to be any different, because apparently that is something people are not interested in fixing. Or we can't get people to care enough.

Not only are we "not interested", people actively reject Sunde's ideas about how the world should work. Many of us still remember how socialism actually works from first hand experience.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Oh, about the Subject:

You're free to have unlimited services if you are willing to pay for them.

You can get pretty much all the videos/movies/music you want online with no hassles if you're willing to pay about $100-200 in monthly subscription fees. You're free to have unlimited, unfiltered access to the Internet if you're willing to pay about $200-$400 in monthly fees for a "professional" or "business" Internet connection, more if you're running big servers.

The rest of us, however, are happy with our $10/month unlimited music, $10/month movies, and our $25/month Internet connections with some limitations. Telling us that we should be forced to pay more so that we effectively subsidize services that you want to use isn't going to convince us.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[tepples]

You can get pretty much all the videos/movies/music you want online with no hassles if you're willing to pay about $100-200 in monthly subscription fees.

Which of these subscriptions includes access to the film Song of the South, the film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, or the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea (with English audio)? Or did you intend your "pretty much" hedge to cover such cases?

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Which of these subscriptions includes access to ... Or did you intend your "pretty much" hedge to cover such cases?

First, if the copyright holder doesn't want to distribute the film, they have the right to make that decision. In Europe, that's actually considered a fundamental moral right of artists and authors, not just a commercial incentive.

Second, for the specific content you mention, you can buy DVDs online.

You seem to be implying that you ought to have a right to circumvent copyright if you can't get content commercially, but such a right doesn't exist. It perhaps ought to exist for orphan works, but even there, it doesn't exist. It certainly doesn't exist for works where the copyright holder is known and simply chooses not to commercialize or publish their work in a form that's convenient for you.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Maritz]

Many of us still remember how socialism actually works from first hand experience.

Socialism? Go ahead and be specific. What are you talking about? Where was your experience?

Re: you're free to have unlimited services

[mark-t]

Copying copyrighted content without permission does take something away from somebody else: the control.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright is about contributing to culture (even though the media companies and you, apparently, like to pretend it's not). How does allowing a copyright holder refuse to distribute a work do that? If he's not going to distribute it, why does he even need a copyright? Copyright is NOT property. It is supposed to be a TEMPORARY monopoly granted to the creator for him SHARING his work.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Anonymous Coward]

Sunde's socialist perspective is weird to me; I can't agree with him on that stuff. And yet, my vision is a lot closer to his than to yours.

When you give $n/month figures for music and movies, from my perspective that looks extremely dishonest, because you're presenting it as though the user only pays money. I pay slightly more money for piracy than you're paying for your 'legit' services. (Not going to say what it is, but people should be able to guess it, and the only reason I'm paying 3 times more than similar pirates, is that I have so much redundancy and overlap, in order to keep things perfectly reliable.) It's not about the money.

You're not in control of the software. You don't have competitive selection in the software, for a given service. If you want to watch HBO, you have to run HBO Now or else you don't get to watch the show. Same for Netflix, Amazon, etc. Want an integrated menu where Game of Thrones is right next to House of Cards, plays with the same player with the same controls, etc? You're fucked. Internet go down again, but your LAN is up so you wanna play from local storage? You're fucked. And if someone wants to show you an ad (I don't know if Netflix and HBO do that yet, but some services do) then you're going to see that ad.

You're running someone else's software. The software is their friend, not your friend. The software doesn't use standards. The software might show you ads. The software cannot be security-audited. The software wants information that it shouldn't need. The software doesn't play well with its competitors' software. The software leaks and has bugs that attackers can exploit to install their own malware, and that you're not allowed to fix.

That's absurd. It's almost luddism. I don't understand how technies, especially, don't see that as extremely infuriating and unacceptable. You are paying fewer dollars than me, but you are paying so much more than me, in convenience, security, reliability, and even aesthetics. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

(And you call it "no hassles." We have very different ideas of what a hassle is.)

Piracy fixes all that. As long as some people keep their standards high instead of slipping into the hell you're living, piracy will remain.

Thing is, this isn't even just about media. I'm seeing more and more people turn control of their computers (including the ones in their pockets and on their nightstands and in their cars) over to others. You're paying for so many things, and paying in so many ways that you don't even know, all because you think it's "normal" to be running someone else's software. You think it's normal for the software that you run, to serve its publisher's interests over yours.

It's not normal. It's fucking weird. And if we can push back in media, maybe we can push back everywhere.

Please. If we can make this all go back to paying-for-things with only money, holy shit, that'd be a victory for everyone. But it's not going to happen as long as you keep using those other currencies, or as long as you stay unconscious of the exchange rate.

Run your own software. (By that, I don't necessarily mean you have to write it; but it has to serve YOU.) Don't compromise. And if media won't play with it, pirate that media. Deny them the money, such that the only way they can get paid, is if they comply to standards so that you can use it with your software.

Money or nothing.

Live free or die.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Go ahead and be specific.

Socialism has left a bloody trail for more than 200 years and there are tens of thousands of books that are far more specific about the failures of socialism than I can be in a /. posting. Just pick up whichever books you find most relatable and read them.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Oligonicella]

You do not understand copyright. You do not understand sharing either. Just because you're not in the group the owner shares with doesn't mean it isn't shared.

Re: you're free to have unlimited services

[Oligonicella]

That is exactly their mission. "You made it? Nice. I want it but don't want to pay for it through the channels you desire. Fine, I'll just take it."

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[DMJC]

Care to explain how a bunch of randoms on the internet downloading free shit is somehow the state managing the means of production? Or are you just misusing big words again?

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[nnull]

"That's absurd. It's almost luddism. I don't understand how technies, especially, don't see that as extremely infuriating and unacceptable. You are paying fewer dollars than me, but you are paying so much more than me, in convenience, security, reliability, and even aesthetics. WHAT. THE. FUCK."

This isn't just a characteristic in media, it's a cancer all over the place. From industrial machines to the lone person downloading music on their iphone. A lot of people accept this situation, I contribute it to our declining education, wages and salaries. I'm seeing more and more people just accept the way things are, I don't see people saying "No way, I don't want it this way". You should see the freakout I get when I ask machine manufacturers to give me full access to their software and PLC or get the hell out of my building (All of them break after that). I can't afford having a machine go down and I have no clue why and I won't find out why until the service guy flies in from the east coast or Europe somewhere when I have perfectly qualified people on the spot, including me.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[kangsterizer]

Love how that troll comment went right to "you talk about piracy convenience and thus you're racist (against black people in particular) and you're stupid"
You forgot to call him a Nazi btw.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Burz]

Just remember: When you turn to the West, be specific enough so that 'capitalism' is not mentioned together with slavery and Manifest Destiny (for starters). That would be just too.... general. And anyway, you wouldn't want people to wrinkle their noses or roll their eyes at the term.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Care to explain how a bunch of randoms on the internet downloading free shit is somehow the state managing the means of production? Or are you just misusing big words again?

Why do you ask me? Did you RTFA? Sunde declares himself to be a socialist and portrays his pirate activity as part of a bigger push for socialism. That is, Sunde is making that connection, not me.

So, you're absolutely right: when Sunde illegally downloads Pocahontas to masturbate to it, it has nothing to do with socialism. In addition, any sane person simply wouldn't want socialism anyway, so even if his piracy had something to do with advancing the cause of socialism, it still wouldn't matter.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Just remember: When you turn to the West, be specific enough so that 'capitalism' is not mentioned together with slavery and Manifest Destiny (for starters).

I have no problem with the Western record on slavery: we abolished it on our own. Asian and African cultures still practice it. I also don't have any big problem with "manifest destiny": the US took away that land from a totalitarian state and made the people in those territories citizens of a comparatively free country.

And anyway, you wouldn't want people to wrinkle their noses or roll their eyes at the term.

For socialists and fascists, wrinkling their noses and feeling smugly superior is a nearly permanent state, so I have learned not to worry about it.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[K10W]

....A lot of people accept this situation, I contribute it to our declining education, wages and salaries. I'm seeing more and more people just accept the way things are, I don't see people saying "No way, I don't want it this way"......

I think it is because it is normalised to them. They understand very little of the complexity behind things and take stuff on a superficial level and basically have lazy minds and don't want to learn or think just follow, also a short term view with no real long term self view never mind historical before their time considerations. Basically the companies erode such rights slowly, ever creeping forward over our rights etc until there is grumbling then they back off, rinse repeate until paying to get shafted by them is so normal no-one thinks anything of it.

History has proven time and time again from global and mainstream to the local or niche scale that is how you exploit people. I used to think anyone could understand a given thing when provided with facts and a little motivation, I don't believe that now. Very few I know personally really seem able to look at something for the facts rather than simply trying to find an answer that they feel comfortable with for ego or ease whatever. Those that do have desire for facts have another obstacle in that they lack the deeper knowledge of the subject and good working knowledge of related subjects because of interactions things can often change from what they seem big picture. So they need the wish along with ability to understand in context of the topic with greater knowledge of related subjects and background and education to properly process it.

For the ones with the potential a few take it but most of those other I find all the benefits their education and industry experience opens up to them is undone by signs of conditioning and conforming out of laziness of not wanting to figure something out but be told the answer. I don't mean this as dramatic as it sounds but makes me sad truth be told as I think at this rate we have no chance against constant eroding of the little peoples rights over corp profit and control.

Re: you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Why should someone retain control? If I buy something, I can use it as I see fit, and the vendor does not retain control unless there's an explicit side agreement (my mortgage has language that I need to keep the house in decent condition, for example). I regard restrictions on what I can do with my property as inherently a bad thing, to be tolerated when necessary. I don't want someone else saying what I can and cannot do with what I've purchased.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Can you name an ideology that hasn't left a bloody trail for centuries? Capitalism has left a bloodier trail, overall.

Also, what was the blood Socialism was allegedly spilling in 1817? Until a century later, people who considered themselves socialists didn't run anything large enough to make much of a trail. There have been lots of peaceful Socialists. (The main political opposition to WWI was Socialism, FWIW. Many Socialists were bitterly disappointed that the workers of Europe lined up behind their governments rather than with their counterparts in other countries.)

There's all kinds of people who call themselves socialists, and most of them don't actually favor genocide.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Can you name an ideology that hasn't left a bloody trail for centuries? Capitalism has left a bloodier trail, overall.

Free market capitalism isn't an "ideology", it's an economic organization, and one that has lifted much of the world out of poverty. The primary ideology that advocates free market capitalism liberalism (and by that, I don't mean the progressive illiberal crap Democrats are peddling).

Also, what was the blood Socialism was allegedly spilling in 1817?

Are you kidding me? There is even an American socialist magazine called "Jacobin"; go look it up and trace it back to its origins... before 1817.

The main political opposition to WWI was Socialism, FWIW.

It's not worth much. Socialists view themselves as an international movement of the have-nots, so they have less motivation to advocate violence between nations; after all, it would usually be their supporters that would end up being cannon fodder. Instead, socialists tend to direct their violent and murderous tendencies towards the middle and upper classes, in the form of terrorism and mass violence before they get into power, and in the form of gulags, mass executions, and mass starvation after they get into power.

Both in terms of their beliefs and in terms of their historical record, socialists are as reprehensible as fascists and Nazis.

Re: you're free to have unlimited services

[mark-t]

Whether the tights holder "should" retain control or not is irrelevant. If you copy without permission then you are taking away some of the control the they were legally entitled to by virtue of having the copyright. Whether this legal entitlement equates to a morally justified entitlement is another matter, and does not change what is being taken

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Burz]

You are one very deluded puppy if you think that level of chauvanism can be supported in a coherent way.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

You are one very deluded puppy if you think that level of chauvanism can be supported in a coherent way.

I'm a gay "Caucasian" atheist. In most cultures and countries outside the West, I face massive prejudice, ostracism, imprisonment, or even death for my sexuality, my ethnicity, and my religion.

I have no problem at all "supporting my chauvinism".

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[Burz]

What a coincidence... me too! Only I don't go around lumping FDR in with Hitler (Godwin) and casual crapping on indigenous cultures. That just makes you a Randroid shit who shills for privilege -- noticed your habit for calling people names, BTW.

Lots of women are against a woman's right to choose; Their gender doesn't make them any less deluded... like those Hispanic Americans who supported Trump and are now shocked they live in "Papers Please!" hell. Similarly, your blinkered view of history and misplaced reverence may lead you to a very rude awakening.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Only I don't go around lumping FDR in with Hitler (Godwin)

Naturally you don't: FDR is a progressive hero, and you don't want to taint his legacy or image. Progressives instead love to lump Trump, Trump supporters, libertarians, conservatives, and anybody who didn't vote for Hillary with Hitler [1] [2] of fascism[3][4].

Pardon me for trying to set the record straight and point out what plenty of academics and historians agree on [5] [6].

Similarly, your blinkered view of history and misplaced reverence may lead you to a very rude awakening.

I actually had quite a pleasant awakening when I came to the US and saw that there was an alternative to the socialism and progressivism that I grew up with. And my view of history is shared by large numbers of historians, political scientists, and US voters. See above.

Lots of women are against a woman's right to choose; Their gender doesn't make them any less deluded...

So you are saying that any woman that doesn't defer to your superior progressive American male intelligence must be "deluded"?

like those Hispanic Americans who supported Trump and are now shocked they live in "Papers Please!" hell.

So you are saying that any immigrant that doesn't defer to your superior progressive American male intelligence must be stupid?

FWIW, I have zero problems with police asking to see my papers when they notice (as they do) that I wasn't born in the US.

That just makes you a Randroid shit who shills for privilege

I'm just "shilling" for myself because I don't want the US to turn into the kind of places my family and I escaped from. The only "privilege" I enjoyed was that I grew up in an intact family that stressed education and self-reliance; by US standards, I was pretty poor growing up.

noticed your habit for calling people names, BTW.

I'm sorry I upset your sensitive progressive feelings by factually calling fascist economics "fascist economics". Why don't you go to your safe space and cry a little? Feel free to continue to spew your vitriol, I have a tough skin; I had to develop that growing up in a rather more homophobic and oppressive environment than you apparently did.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Socialism is an economic ideology or system where the means of production are, directly or indirectly, owned and run by the workers. Capitalism is an economic ideology or system where the means of production are separate from the workers and may be used for rent (in the economic sense). If you see only one as an ideology, you're too deep in one of them.

Jacobins were not exactly socialists, and the excesses of the French Revolution were dwarfed by the death and destruction of the Napoleonic Wars that followed. There is a difference between the fight for political equality and the fight for economic inequality, although they're often related. Currently, in theory I have political equality with Bill Gates, although practically Bill can donate more money to a cause than I can. We've each got our votes, and pretty much the same legal rights. There is no hereditary aristocracy in the US, just a largely hereditary oligarchy.

Aside from the spread of Communism in the Twentieth Century, I don't know of widespread socialist attacks on the upper classes. Nineteenth-Century anarchists did not kill many people, but did aim at prominent targets. Killing a captain of industry or a princess had a much greater impact than a bunch of quietly starving lower classes (like the Irish Potato Famine, during which Ireland remained a net exporter of food). While the Soviet Union and Communist China killed a lot of people, it wasn't at the overall rate of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s, and Socialism doesn't have a long history of bloody wars.

Re: you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Copyright infringement leaves the copyright holder with the same legal control as before, so legally it isn't really a denial of control. At worst, it's similar to harmless trespass. If you're in my back yard for no good reason, without my permission, and damage nothing, you're violating my legal control over my property.

Re: you're free to have unlimited services

[mark-t]

But it does *not* leave them with the same amount of *actual* control they were legally entitled to. That is what is being taken.... whether you want to argue that they ever actually had this control or are actually entitled to have this type of control is moot. In this way, copyright is simply a kind of legal extension to the natural right of control over one's work that they would have if they never published at all. It only works if everyone agrees to participate in it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have value to the rights holder, and doesn't mean that infringing on it takes away some of the control that the rights holder was supposed to have had.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Socialism is an economic ideology or system where the means of production are, directly or indirectly, owned and run by the workers. Capitalism is an economic ideology or system where the means of production are separate from the workers and may be used for rent (in the economic sense). If you see only one as an ideology, you're too deep in one of them.

An ideology is a set of norms and values. Socialism defines such a set of values and then defines an (eponymous) economic system to deliver on those values; and, in fact, in reality, stripped of all its mumbo-jumbo, socialism simply advocates a form of totalitarianism, that is, an ability of the state to intervene in people's lives in any way deemed necessary to achieve the goals of socialism. The primary ideology that opposes socialism is, in fact, (classical) liberalism, namely the belief that the state only has the right to enforce negative rights, not positive rights.

Classical liberalism implies free market capitalism as the economic system. But you can certainly have free market capitalism exist under many other forms of political organization.

The strawman of capitalism as the supposed opposing ideology to socialism is a nice fiction created by socialists; it's because if you contrast socialism with its actual opposing ideology of liberalism, most people naturally reject socialism.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Jacobins were not exactly socialists

Jacobins believed in positive rights, equality of outcome, rejection of religion, redistribution of property, and scientism. In what way did they differ from socialists?

were dwarfed by the death and destruction of the Napoleonic Wars that followed

Yes, that's the usual sequence of events: socialists stage a revolution, socialism runs the country into the ground and kills a whole bunch of people, then dictators move in and kill a whole bunch more people.

While the Soviet Union and Communist China killed a lot of people, it wasn't at the overall rate of Nazi Germany and militaristic Japan in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s

Not even close. The Soviet Union and Communist China killed many tens of millions of people between them. The Great Leap Forward alone killed about 20-40 million people. Furthermore, the Nazi death toll should be counted there as well, because fascism, communism, and socialism are ideologically quite close (that's why they hate each other so much: they are competing for the same followers).

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Jacobins primarily believed in political equality, with economic equality being secondary. They wanted a radical reconstruction of society to decentralize power.

Read up on how Nazi Germany worked. Businesses were in the hands of businessmen. The Nazis courted them for their support in their rise to power. They remained private businesses providing wealth to their owners and controllers throughout Nazi rule, and operated somewhat independently of the government. Government intrusion was less than the US with the War Production Board, which did things like mandate license-building of planes and such. There was no accountability to the people, because according to the Fuehrer Principle Hitler had no accountability to anyone. The Third Reich did establish an official labor union, but the main purpose was to eliminate labor unions that were actually favorable to the workers and keep the workers helpless in the face of big business.

The National Socialist German Workers' Party started as at least partly socialist, but that wing was eliminated in the 1930s. The party name and the word "Socialist" were useful in propaganda, but the NSDAP didn't act on it.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Socialism is an economic system based on a philosophy. It does not lead to totalitarianism. All the totalitarian Socialist governments I'm aware of either had Communism imposed on them or were already pretty much totalitarian, and had little or no experience with democracy. Democratic governments have incorporated Socialist and even Communist elements for a long time.

The problem with classical liberalism as you describe it is that it's really hard on the have-nots. The usual philosophy of Socialism is to help the downtrodden, and the usual philosophy behind Capitalism is to ignore them or exploit them further. Socialist philosophy would indicate that we should help the less fortunate to be productive and prosperous citizens when we can, and especially to make sure their children have a chance. I don't believe societies should be run on rigid ideology, and I can't agree that society should not help the less fortunate. Socialism does imply a bigger government than classical liberalism, but I don't see that as a problem. It's a difference in degree, not kind.

Classic liberalism, as you put it, doesn't imply a free market. It implies a market with limited or no government intervention, and markets like that generally become less free in modern economies. The right to buy from whom you want is a positive right, as is the right to enter a field of business. Capitalism is not the same as a free market, and you can have capitalism with captive markets and socialism with free markets (think of a society of small farmers who work their own land).

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

All governments are coercive. It's a matter of degree and emphasis. There is no tipping point at which increased concern for the disadvantaged automatically slides into totalitarianism.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" is a strictly Marxist and Communist concept. There are plenty of varieties of socialism that don't involve that. (Also, Hitler wasn't a socialist. He was a capitalist.)

The "philosophy" of free market capitalism is based on the realization that the world is full of power-hungry, greedy sociopaths no matter what you do, and that, at a minimum, people should have the freedom not to associate with them and not to be forced to work for them.

This can work if there's enough ways out of society. Nowadays, you generally don't have good options to make a living outside the system. Therefore, it's a good thing if there's two distinct sides of sociopaths with different goals and some reason to appeal to the people. Governments and businesses can be oppressive, and without opposition there's no reason to care about the masses.

Furthermore, even imperfect capitalism eliminates absolute poverty, so that's simply not a problem.

Learn some history. We don't have much absolute poverty today because we have some socialist elements in the economy. Study earlier and purer forms of capitalism, and what happened to people. It's pretty bad. Perfect capitalism doesn't give a crap about anyone who's not useful to the capitalists. Imperfect capitalism has some facilities for making sure very few people are really destitute.

What you're probably referring to is the idea that markets become monopolized unless regulated. That just is Marxist and fascist humbug.

Any ideologically-driven statement on economics (or harder sciences) is probably wrong. There are such things as barriers to entry. In the absence of restrictions on anti-competitive behavior, established businesses can often wipe out upstarts. (Fascism is fine with this, by the way, since it's a very friendly philosophy to capitalists, and historically doesn't seem to care about the masses.)

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

In the main fascist states I know of, pre-takeover businessmen who didn't get political against the fascists remained in place and profited. Unless they positioned themselves as enemies of the Party (whichever one), they did just fine. Fascists were usually anti-labor, and the Nazis were happy to provide cooperative businesses with slave labor. The restrictions on the free market are primarily in favor of the industrialists. While Nazi Germany was theoretically and legally a totalitarian state, to a large extent it didn't function as one (partly because of Nazi inefficiency, of course). Churchill, during WWII, could be thrown out of office by one vote in the House of Commons, but he seems to have acted more freely, and with less concern for popular opinion, than Hitler did.

In a Communist state, a factory manager is one primarily because of politics. It isn't enough to not be an enemy of the Party; one must participate. One's position is much more dependent on politics than an industrialist under a fascist regime.

So, if you're opposed to the Party, or not a capitalist, life is going to suck under a Fascist or Communist regime. If you're a capitalist willing to go along, you're going to like a Fascist regime a lot better.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

In the main fascist states I know of, pre-takeover businessmen who didn't get political against the fascists remained in place and profited. [...] In a Communist state, a factory manager is one primarily because of politics. It isn't enough to not be an enemy of the Party; one must participate.

I see, so that's your great distinction between communism and fascism, and that's why communism is A-OK?

If you're a capitalist willing to go along, you're going to like a Fascist regime a lot better.

Of course, why wouldn't they? "You need to stop being a capitalist, but we will let you keep your property and use you as a manager if you go along with fascism" is certainly a lot more persuasive than "We'll kill you no matter what."

Fascists were usually anti-labor,

They were nominally pro-labor, and factually anti-labor. Just like communists.

and the Nazis were happy to provide cooperative businesses with slave labor.

Just like communists.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

(Also, Hitler wasn't a socialist. He was a capitalist.)

Stop spreading this ignorant bullshit. Hitler was explicitly, expressly, unequivocally anti-capitalist. So was Mussolini. That wasn't just what these people ran on, it is what they believed, through and through.

"Dictatorship of the proletariat" is a strictly Marxist and Communist concept. There are plenty of varieties of socialism that don't involve that.

Correct: national socialism doesn't involve that; dropping the class aspects of socialism/communism and replacing it with the notion of "society as a whole" is the primary distinction between fascism/national socialism and communism/socialism.

Learn some history. We don't have much absolute poverty today because we have some socialist elements in the economy. Study earlier and purer forms of capitalism, and what happened to people.

Yes, you need to learn some history: what happened under "earlier and purer forms of capitalism" was rapid growth and rapid reductions in absolute poverty.

There are such things as barriers to entry.

Indeed there are: they are created by government, in particular, by progressive and fascist governments.

(Fascism is fine with this, by the way, since it's a very friendly philosophy to capitalists, and historically doesn't seem to care about the masses.)

You are absolutely right that fascism is fine with barriers to entry: it creates them. Where you are wrong is calling that system "capitalism"; that system is, in fact, a regulated market economy, because the primary effect of regulations is to prohibit economic activity. And of course that is exactly what you are advocating.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

What happens to capitalists is one distinguishing factor between socialism and capitalism. There are other differences between Communism and fascism, but I'm strongly against any collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government.

The three greatest powers of WWII were the US, the Soviet Union, and Germany. From the US point of view, we were allying out of expediency with one totalitarian regime to fight another. From the Soviet point of view, they were allying with the imperialist capitalists against the fascist capitalists (and they worked hard to make WWII a fight between imperialists and fascists). From the German (and more explicitly Japanese) point of view, they were fighting two powers with materialist philosophies, while the Germans and Japanese were using superior national character and willpower and fighting spirit. We tend to just assume the US viewpoint, but if you want to understand what was going on at the highest levels you need to understand the other viewpoints.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

If Hitler was so anti-Capitalist, why was he at such pains to court capitalists, and reward the cooperative once when he came to power? If he'd been a Socialist, these industrialists would have been his natural enemies. I'm looking at what he actually did, rather than what he said (which is completely unreliable). Hitler ran on being a Socialist to some extent even after he'd gotten rid of the Socialist wing of the NSDAP. Hitler was obviously fine with Capitalism. His concentration was on nationalism and the People.

I have absolutely no idea where you get your ideas of history, but you need to find less biased sources.

A barrier to entry, economically, is something that makes it difficult to enter a field of business. There are barriers to entry set up by governments, and there are barriers to entry set up by businesses.

Some are network effects. People write software for MS Windows because that's where the users are, and the users buy Windows because of the software available. If you want to buy or sell something, eBay and Craigslist are where the buyers are if you're a seller, and where people are selling things if you're a buyer.

Some are market control. Amazon went full-on to get into their position, and rivaling it would take an immense amount of money in the face of uncertain success. Soap and detergent companies maintain lots of slightly different products with different brands to increase the competition a newcomer would face.

Some are a matter of existing contractual arrangements. Cereal manufacturers pay grocery stores for favorable placement of their products.

Some are a matter of high infrastructure costs. It's really expensive to wire a whole town for cable or internet, so it's rare to see someone else coming into a town and starting it. (There used to be legal monopolies, but they've been abolished. The diversity of available products doesn't seem to have improved much since then.)

None of these are a case of any government doing anything to favor the established players.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

There are other differences between Communism and fascism, but I'm strongly against any collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government.

Socialism, communism, and fascism are all "collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government", both in terms of their ideology and in reality. So you are just not being honest.

From the Soviet point of view, they were allying with the imperialist capitalists against the fascist capitalists

Yes, linking capitalism with imperialism and fascism was a deliberate propaganda strategy by the Soviet Union, which makes it all the more unacceptable that you keep repeating this propagandistic lie.

We tend to just assume the US viewpoint, but if you want to understand what was going on at the highest levels you need to understand the other viewpoints.

Well, you certainly do. My family suffered under both fascism and socialism, and I experienced some of it firsthand before I emigrated to the US, so I perfectly well understand "what was going on" and what kind of propaganda the socialist regimes spun. That is why I find your views so contemptible and offensive.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

If Hitler was so anti-Capitalist, why was he at such pains to court capitalists, and reward the cooperative once when he came to power?

He didn't "court capitalists", he courted wealthy and powerful industrialists. Wealthy and powerful industrialists love creating monopolies and love screwing people over, and fascism and progressivism give them the power and tools to do it. The only thing that keeps wealthy and powerful industrialists in check is competition in a free market.

Hitler was obviously fine with Capitalism.

It is irrelevant what Hitler deep down believed or what you think he did after he came to power (confused as you are on those points); what is relevant is how he came to power, and that is through promises of striking down the capitalist system and forcing businesses to pay people what they are worth and operate in the interest of society and the nation (as determined by the government). When supporting Hitler and Mussolini, people were looking for a third way, supposedly avoiding the problems of both socialism and capitalism. The fact that Hitler afterwards turned out to be a genocidal maniac, well, that's not what his supporters intended, it never is. In fact, fascism was popular in the West and not generally a dirty word until it was tainted by Hitler's genocide on the one hand, and attacked propagandistically by communist regimes on the other.

And let's be clear here: when you say that you are a "socialist" but are "strongly against any collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government", the third position is pretty much your position.

I have absolutely no idea where you get your ideas of history, but you need to find less biased sources.

My parents lived through WWII, were scattered all over Europe, and lost everything. I experienced real world socialism first hand growing up. I have heard the crap you are spouting before: it's the same propaganda that I heard every day in the propaganda of totalitarian regimes. That's on top of having read a couple of bookshelves full of books on history and economics. I suggest you take your own advice and find yourself some "less biased sources"

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

what is relevant is how he came to power, and that is through promises of striking down the capitalist system and forcing businesses to pay people what they are worth and operate in the interest of society and the nation (as determined by the government).

Assuming, for the sake of argument, that your idea of how he came to power was correct, that still doesn't mean Hitler was any sort of socialist. You need to look at what he actually did, which was to get chummy with big industrialists (the socialist model would be to get rid of them) and institute an intentionally ineffectual labor union and abolish all others (again against the socialist model).

You seem to assume that Communism is the only possible outcome of socialism. I have seen no reason to think that.

Fascism is a collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government, and, hence, I'm against it. I'm not actually a socialist either. I am against Social Darwinism, which was the guiding philosophy of a lot of capitalists.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

Fascism is a collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government, and Communism has turned into that whenever practiced, whatever its theoretical roots. Socialism is sufficiently varied a concept to be so classified. We know that capitalist and socialist nations both can turn into totalitarian dictatorships.

The routes from capitalism to imperialism and fascism are fairly straight and obvious. Imperialism was largely an attempt to expand a capitalist economy by conquering people and forcing them into the roles that a capitalist economy wanted them in. Fascism comes from the fact that rich capitalists tend to be authoritarian and want the masses to do what they're told.

A socialist country could turn imperialist, but it would be difficult for it to turn fascist, as socialists see history as a class struggle and have a natural affinity to their counterparts across national borders. "Socialism in one country" was controversial, but Stalin was pretty good at getting his way, and it didn't result in anything near the nationalism that came naturally to fascists.

Lots of people in Europe suffered horribly during and after WWII. It's better to know what really happened than to pick out one bogeyman and blame everything on it.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

Lots of people in Europe suffered horribly during and after WWII. It's better to know what really happened than to pick out one bogeyman and blame everything on it.

I don't pick "a bogeyman" at all. I blame socialism, communism, fascism, and monarchism in equal measure: they are all shitty, totalitarian ideologies.

We know that capitalist and socialist nations both can turn into totalitarian dictatorships.

A social welfare state and a liberal democracy can turn into a totalitarian dictatorship. And they usually do so via either socialism or fascism. That's because socialism and fascism are both totalitarian ideologies that promise to improve people's lives by taking away their liberties.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

that still doesn't mean Hitler was any sort of socialist.

You need to look at two things, first what Hitler promised in order to get into power, and then what he did afterwards.

What Hitler and is party promised is quite simple:

But we National Socialists wish precisely to attract all socialists, even the Communists; we wish to win them over from their international camp to the national one.

The National Socialist State recognizes no ‘classes’. But, under the political aspect, it recognizes only citizens with absolutely equal rights and equal obligations corresponding thereto.

We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.

The latter could be a direct quote from Sanders or Warren.

Whether Hitler and the NSDAP leadership actually believed that or merely said it to gain votes and popular support is just as irrelevant as whether any socialist leader believes what they are saying or are just saying it to gain power; as a voter and a supporter, you won't know until these people are in power anyway.

You need to look at what he actually did, which was to get chummy with big industrialists

So what? That doesn't make his system a free market ("capitalist") system. Hitler happened to pick experienced crooks to run his state-run economy, while socialists/communists tend to pick inexperienced crooks. Ultimately, both systems end up creating a state-run economy run by people who do not believe in free markets. Whether these people started out as "industrialists" or revolutionaries, whether they identify as fascists or communists is irrelevant; they end up with massive amounts of power, they are protected from market forces, and they live in luxury.

Fascism is a collectivist authoritarian philosophy of government, and, hence, I'm against it. I'm not actually a socialist either. I am against Social Darwinism, which was the guiding philosophy of a lot of capitalists.

I don't know what that is even supposed to mean. Is "biological Darwinism" a "guiding philosophy of nature"? Of course not. It's a description of some natural processes, with no particular value attached to them. And those natural processes have brought about human cooperation, tolerance, compassion, and charity, among others, so I don't see why you would object to them.

And if you're thinking about a simplistic "survival of the fittest" view of society, in what way is socialism better than free markets? How do you think you acquire political power and influence under socialism other than by ruthlessly eliminating your opponents?

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[david_thornley]

I have no idea why you think socialism is a totalitarian ideology. Marxism-Leninism certainly is, but there's lots more to socialism than that.

Re:you're free to have unlimited services

[ooloorie]

I have no idea why you think socialism is a totalitarian ideology. Marxism-Leninism certainly is, but there's lots more to socialism than that.

I think I was pretty clear about why. Let me repeat again:

(1) All the forms of socialism I experienced were, in fact, totalitarian.

(2) All the major philosophical and political works advocating socialism (e.g., Marx, Engels, Zinn, etc.) describe a totalitarian ideology, as do the political programs of socialist parties in Democracies.

(3) There are numerous books actually explaining why socialism ends up being (effectively or explicitly) totalitarian (e.g., Hayek, von Mises, Schumpeter).

So far, you haven't been specific about explaining how your ideal form of socialism actually is supposed to operate or what it means. You don't even need to explain this yourself, there are probably thousands of books and hundreds of thousands of papers and essays describing variants of socialism, just pick the one that reflects your views.

Then explain how it deals with the economic calculation problem, how it deals with people who refuse to comply with the economic directives you need to impose in a socialist regime, and what new mechanisms it employs so that people like Stalin, Honecker, Castro, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Ceausescu, or Tito cannot get into power as they have in other socialist regimes.

Re:Will the Next Decentralized Innovator...

[pr0fessor]

I think it would just be easier and more timely to create a random Hollywood movie generator... just use the same old tired plots and twists they do, you could have Hollywood's next movie before it's even filmed.

Re:firsst psot

[Z00L00K]

Torrent trackers will be replaced by something else.

We have seen usenet, fsp (File Service Protocol) sites, ftp sites, BBSes, torrent trackers and probably a few more variants more or less successful. There will always be a new solution to the problem of sharing information. The point is that the stakes will be raised and new methods to ensure anonymity will be created.

Windows Media automatic rights acquisition

[tepples]

Maybe you should stop executing your movies?

First, a lot of people are "executing [their] movies" without even being aware of the possibility of executing a movie. By default, Windows Media Player and possibly other video players supporting WMV digital restrictions management will attempt to automatically acquire a license when playing videos restricted by DRM. This process has been shown to lead to malware installation.

Second, videos can be deliberately mis-encoded, with the purported solution being to download a "codec pack" that turns out to be a trojan.

Third, videos can be deliberately mis-encoded to exploit vulnerabilities in parsing of video streams, audio streams, subtitle streams, or the container that multiplexes them. Not all users are up-to-date on patches, particularly when the patch is buried in a service pack in the hundreds of megabytes to gigabytes.

Re:Windows Media automatic rights acquisition

[thewolfkin]

Maybe you should stop executing your movies?

First, a lot of people are "executing [their] movies" without even being aware of the possibility of executing a movie. By default, Windows Media Player and possibly other video players supporting WMV digital restrictions management will attempt to automatically acquire a license when playing videos restricted by DRM. This process has been shown to lead to malware installation.

Second, videos can be deliberately mis-encoded, with the purported solution being to download a "codec pack" that turns out to be a trojan.

Third, videos can be deliberately mis-encoded to exploit vulnerabilities in parsing of video streams, audio streams, subtitle streams, or the container that multiplexes them. Not all users are up-to-date on patches, particularly when the patch is buried in a service pack in the hundreds of megabytes to gigabytes.

the first line of your betanews article

It’s been a common Windows malware trick for years

It's also been a common problem for years that Protip: emails saying you've won money don't actually mean you've won money. It's a ridiculous fear because every media player I use asks if I want to download codecs anyway which I always refuse.

This Is About MORE Than Torrents

[ohnocitizen]

Read the quote - this is about the future of the open internet. And that pessimism is warranted. Just look at net neutrality in the US, and the power the big companies wield. Something big needs to change or we're looking at a very different, locked down internet.

Re:This Is About MORE Than Torrents

[SCVonSteroids]

I know, pessimism and all, but did you ever really expect a different outcome in the world we live in?

Re:This Is About MORE Than Torrents

[mtmiller100]

Fighting to legalize stealing has nothing to do with an open internet. I am very pro open internet, but am also against stealing. This guy has been abetting theft for years, and trying to spin things so he looks like the good guy. Trying to hitch his wagon to the fight for net neutrality doesn't make him right, or a saint. He's still a thief, and the fact that he's trying to represent the open internet movement diminishes the cause.

Re:This Is About MORE Than Torrents

[CustomSolvers2]

we get what we deserve: corporate masters.

Perhaps you have corporate masters, but I only have corporate slaves.

They do all what I want when I want it. When I feel generous, I throw a coin or two in their direction. When they don't behave exactly as I want, I stop throwing coins. Sometimes, I even stop throwing coins for no reason, just to show them who the master is. Although they always seem happy and do all what I say, they are greedy and dishonest beings (logically, much below any living being, that's why slavery is acceptable for them) always ready to get an unfair advantage; that's why I am never understanding with their mistakes.

They are also extremely stupid and keep dreaming about becoming my masters! They keep collecting all what I throw at them (mostly useless crap) without even knowing what to do with any of this (the reality? There is nothing of value there, but they get distracted and don't bother me too much). Their "lives" are just a bunch of obsessive repetitions exclusively fuelled by their greedy and sick obsessions. Really sad beings, although they also have some funny moment (usually, pathetically funny).

Re:This Is About MORE Than Torrents

[thegarbz]

Fighting to legalize stealing has nothing to do with an open internet.

Fighting that some random corporation on the other side of the world outside your legal jurisdiction has the right to request a country you don't live in to pull your connection offline because they disagree with what you are doing however does.

Regardless of what you think about pirating, the response to it has been as blatantly anti-open internet as it can be.

Re:oh no

[sims 2]

I remember seeing the option in firefox a while back but I don't remember ever using it.

Anything interesting there?

Re: oh no

[Lord Kano]

Some of us are over 40.

Some context

[Guspaz]

Sunde may have founded The Pirate Bay, but he hasn't had anything to do with the site in roughly a decade.

Sorry about the guy and his business...

[CustomSolvers2]

... but he shouldn't deliver such wrong statements. Piracy (or whatever you prefer to call it) is far from dead and, IMHO, is actually winning the war. Fee-based business dealing with the most demanded and easily-copyable goods (e.g., videos or music) have went through a tremendous evolution in the right direction (the one which is beneficial for the the highest number of people), mainly thanks to the tremendous impact of piracy and sites like The Pirate Bay.

I have seen a signature around of a Japanese proverb about a nail which describes pretty well what happened to this guy: he was the most important one and, consequently, the easiest target. But this doesn't mean that everyone else has to go through the same problems. Exactly the same than the fee-based businesses had to adapt their offer to compensate the loses from piracy, perhaps he should have modified his activity to survive.

This comment isn't meant to be pro-piracy (how could I know anything about that if I don't even own a boat! :)), but just pro-reality, pro-honesty, pro-the interest-of-the-many and against egoist and unfair impositions from monopolistic alternatives. Saying that big corporations have won this war is clearly wrong and precisely this guy shouldn't support such a misleading idea. If he seriously believes in something other than getting money for himself, he should better think twice before coming to certain conclusions and/or stop thinking that the whole world (of piracy) starts and ends with him.

Re:Sorry about the guy and his business...

[Burz]

If you think piracy is winning the war, so-to-speak, then you need to learn about SGX...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Sorry about the guy and his business...

[CustomSolvers2]

Thanks for sharing the link. First time I hear about that, but know about quite a few other things on these lines (some of them from Intel too). I see all this precisely as a proof that they are losing. They are spending lots of money (all what matters to them) to stop the threats which they are claiming that don't exist anymore.

The online industry is extremely scared of piracy and, as what usually happens with anyone being too scared, isn't making the best decisions. Forcing or prohibiting or lying or similar will always fail, unlikely fair prices and expectations. For example, if every 10 users, there are 5 potential pirates, focus on the 5 paying ones, assume that you have lost the other 5 and just try to gain some of them back. More aggressive actions are very unlikely to provoke these people to not pirate and might even convince some of the paying ones to stop doing so. They might even see the 5 pirates as a secondary revenue source (e.g., giving good feedback about the product and how nice and practical was the company's behaviour). Basically, accepting the reality and adapting their behaviour accordingly.

Let me put it in other way. We all know that many governmental/private companies are systematically collecting information about everyone, that virtually any electronic device can be tracked, that there is almost no way to keep something completely secret. But, honestly, despite all that do you have any problem to do what you want when you want to do it? Is your internet experience much worse now than what it was years ago? Mine is certainly not. I can even put it in a different way: you know about all this tracking issues now, but what does make you think that all this is new. Perhaps this has always been the case, but you have now more information about it than before. Perhaps all this over-information isn't always delivered by freedom fighters wanting to share information about invasive behaviours; perhaps some times, people sharing that information want to make you more afraid, to think twice before doing anything "wrong". Who knows for sure, right?

Why do I think that piracy is winning? Because I see that it is still possible to get pirated anything (despite all these people saying how bad is everything becoming). Because I see how the business models of certain types of companies have evolved. Because I see how the prices of certain goods have dropped down or, at least, can be acquired in much more convenient ways. Whom should I trust? People saying me that what is beneficial to them has actually happened or the reality which I see around me?

Re:firsst psot

[GameboyRMH]

I don't think the torrenting system as we know it today will be replaced, it will just be moved onto a darknet. It's already possible, there's just a ton of inertia keeping people running their torrents in the clear and little incentive to move onto a darknet.

Torrents are technically superior to all of those other technologies you listed.

Re: oh no

[Samantha Wright]

All. Almost all. Slashdot is the unpleasant-smelling uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner table who was laid off during the dot-com bubble, decided to retire early, and spends the rest of his days complaining about how new-fangled touch-screen smartphones don't support vi keybindings the way God and Ken Thompson intended, how systemd would never have happened under a Libertarian president, and that global warming is a feminist conspiracy.

The rest of us come here because it's mildly more entertaining than going to an actual zoo.

Some of us are over 40

[p51d007]

Some of us are even over 50....and CLOSE to 60 :) I go back far enough to remember tubes in televisions and radios (valves to those of you in England). Worked on and burned my fingers on many of them also. ;)

Re:Some of us are over 40

[mtmiller100]

You remind me of this really cool older guy from my grad-school days, back in the early 2000's. I used to truly enjoy his stories, about actually hearing the relays click-and-clack on the early computers on board navy subs he was stationed on. That guy knew his stuff like nobody else, because he lived through the evolution of computing, and knew how it all worked, and why.

Re:Some of us are over 40

[Gr8Apes]

Some of us have even built such devices...

Re:Some of us are over 40

[invid]

Having programmed computers since the 1980s, I can't imagine what it's like to just come into the field now. There are so many layers from brain to bit, I would be quite intimidated if I was just starting out. Learning the new technologies as they came out over the years made it manageable. Of course, learning is different these days. Back then if I wanted to understand an operating system or a programming language I would get a manual and read it cover to cover. Now I just look things up when I need to know them. I wonder how much of the underlying architecture kids understand these days, as opposed to just following recipes from stackoverflow?

Re:Some of us are over 40

[mtmiller100]

There are too many layers between the gate-level and very high-level programming, for one comp sci student to need to master all of them. The industry has grown to the point, where students have to specialize: business applications, chip design, scientific research, or whatever else. While I was leaving college, these different "paths" to ones IT degree were just being discussed, as an alternative to the traditional CS degree that I got, where I learned TTL, chip design, lots of math (same as the other engineering students), and high-level programming was just something you were expected to figure out by using C or C++ to complete assignments.

Re:Some of us are over 40

[mrchaotica]

As a programmer who is still relatively young (early 30s), I would say that you still do need to -- well, maybe not "master," but at least understand -- all the layers between the hardware and high-level programming. Even if you're writing in some high-level language you still need to understand things like the time and space complexity of different data structure types and which ones your code is using (even if the declaration is buried in libraries three layers deep), how the choice of "array of structs" vs. "struct of arrays" affects cache performance, how different multiprocessing architectures are best served by different parallelization and concurrency techniques, etc.

Re:Some of us are over 40

[mtmiller100]

I would argue that it is *handy* to know that stuff, but not necessary as an applications developer these days. Little things like that separate the good developers from the average developers. But nobody working at the data structure level needs to know why certain types of transistors are better suited for different parts of different gates. Or even a few levels above that, and knowing Big Endian vs Little Endian, or knowing why floating point values might not be exact. Knowing that stuff might occasionally come in handy for a high-level developer, depending on what you're doing, but it definitely isn't necessary.

Re:Some of us are over 40

[RevDisk]

Still under 40 and concur. The more of the stack you know, the better you will be at programming. It's not essential to master all or any in particular, but every area of knowledge significantly helps.

Re:Some of us are over 40

[david_thornley]

Some of the layers have disappeared into the hardware. An i7 doesn't directly execute x86 and amd64 instructions. It decodes them and runs them on a RISC processor using all sorts of intelligent scheduling. When I was younger, and I had to chase stegosauri off so I could use my TRS-80, the CPU corresponded to a pretty small part of an i7.

Re:Some of us are over 40

[david_thornley]

Not knowing that floating-point values are inexact is likely to bite you sometime, and you won't know why. Things will just be wrong. So, if you're OK with being stumped by problems that seem to have no solution, you need exposure to floating-point processing, and knowing endianness is useful.

download, then buy

[p51d007]

I use to download torrents, for movies I didn't want to pay 20 bucks for, then I'd find them in the 1-5 dollar bins and buy them, delete the torrent, rip it to ISO. Got a pretty good LEGIT library of videos now.

Re:download, then buy

[BronsCon]

Quick question, and please answer honestly as you're not being judged or "rated" on your answer. It's "for science", shall we say.

How many of those would you have bought if you had not torrented them first?

Re:download, then buy

[BronsCon]

I've only gotten a few responses thus far, one of which really had nothing to do with the question being asked. The other two, however, are precisely what I was expecting and align with what myself and my friends and family do, as well. If there are any RIAA or MPAA execs (or execs of their member companies) here, take note.

Piracy can either equal sales or no sales, entirely on the quality of the content. Piracy does not, de-facto, equal lost sales (in fact, it never truly equals lost sales, though it may mean no sales); for quality content, however, it does equal more sales, form people who would otherwise not have purchased.

For shit-tier content, though... Yes, piracy = no sales, and rightly fucking so! The whole reason I started pre-pirating my purchases is because the quality of content dropped dramatically over a very short period, right around the time the industry stopped allowing returns and I got burned one too many times.

Stop making shit content and it will sell!

Read The Article

[sdinfoserv]

Sunde is not specifically talking about sites that sell illegal goods/services, he's talking about the Internet as a whole. He's saying freedom has taken and nobody seems to care. Everything is tracked by both corporations and Governments.Digesting, monetizing, profiteering and assessing your threat level from your online behavior without your consent or even knowledge, you can no longer have an opinion that differs from the masses without ramifications (job loss, social outing, potentially incarceration), you can't go to certain sites, you can't even have certain information - it's the illegalization of information that's the scariest, the outlawing of ideas... and we're there.

Re:Read The Article

[Oligonicella]

Never trust the motives of a crook complaining about fairness.

Re:Read The Article

[sdinfoserv]

Yet always trust a Government trying to create "fairness"?

Re:Remember First Post?

[DontBeAMoran]

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Re:What an asshat

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pirate Bay facilitates theft, which costs people jobs.

How? The Pirate Bay is a web site that indexes files available for download. I fail to see how one could ever use that as a tool for theft.

Then they try to spin it like they're the good guys

The good guys tend to do that.

The Pirate Bay and its founders are not social justice warriors. They're just thieves.

Would you care to show your evidence of a single object they have stolen?

Re: oh no

[Gr8Apes]

The rest of us come here because it's mildly more entertaining than going to an actual zoo.

This comment was enough reason to come here today. It was certainly more entertaining than the zoo, and only took 3 min

Re:firsst psot

[jellomizer]

However the threats is more people do not want to bother with pirating software. FOSS is often more than acceptable solution if you don't have the money. Software as a service model means any client is no big deal without the server connection. Cloud services are relatively cheap so they can fit on average joe budget. The ris vs reward for pirating software balance is far different then it was a decade ago.

Re:...and sales will go down

[BronsCon]

This.

As someone who does the same thing, I truly feel bad for the smaller labels who promote via torrent sites, every time such a site gets shut down. Major label stuff can be discovered through almost any music streaming service, but most indie stuff either doesn't exist on a given service or is never played in "radio" mode, so you'll never hear it if you don't already know about it.

Here's the hard truth about the music industry's "war on piracy". It's not about piracy, it's about killing the indie scene so the incumbent labels are the only source for music. It's purely anti-competitive, full-stop.

Re: oh no

[KlomDark]

I accidentally invented dinosaurs while trying to invent beer in my cave.

None of those things matter much

[rsilvergun]

Food. Shelter. Education. Transportation. Health Care. Those matter. Facebook, Snapchat and even Netflix less so. And we're not talking about Facebook or even Netflix going away, we're talking about them cost a bit more to use. And the next Youtube will bleed a little more money up front. That's it. Compared with coal jobs going away without any real replacement or the various American healthcare crises that's not even small potatoes.

If you want NN stop abandoning the lower classes. If you want them to spare time for your issues spare time for theirs.

Re:None of those things matter much

[serviscope_minor]

Food. Shelter. Education. Transportation. Health Care. Those matter. Facebook, Snapchat and even Netflix less so.

Entertainment has been a part of human culture far longer than Transportation. Education. and Healthcare as you are thinking of it. It is literally older than recorded history. You are basically claiming that one of the innate and possibly most distinctive human qualities is unimportant.

Compared with coal jobs going away without any real replacement or the various American healthcare crises that's not even small potatoes.

If you want NN stop abandoning the lower classes. If you want them to spare time for your issues spare time for theirs.

Well that's pretty special. Are you blaming the left wing for not caring about healthcare? Are you really *that* stupid? Please tell me I have misunderstood.

If you want NN stop abandoning the lower classes. If you want them to spare time for your issues spare time for theirs.

Well, apart from your rather patronising use of "the lower classes", do you really think the "lower classes" don't use those services? Of course they do. Destroying NN will divert more money to ISPs, making the day to day costs for actual people higher.

Re: oh no

[Frederic54]

Yup, I am, and remember gopher, ircII, usenet, etc before all this shity 2.0 and surveillance from every TLA and government in the world and fast lane and everything.

We old farts should build our own internet, or it's time to bring back the BBS.

Stop calling it piracy

[jediborg]

The music and movie industries won once we let them call it 'piracy' and we adopted names like 'the pirate party' and 'the pirate bay' its filesharing. You are sharing information, not stealing. Poll a country and ask if they are against internet piracy, you will get a large population that says they are against it. Ask if they are against filesharing, and almost no one will say they are against it.

Re:firsst psot

[Frederic54]

I was amazed to see that edonkey2000/kadmelia is still working, I launched amule the other day and a quick searches show that every popular show or movies are there.

Re: oh no

[Anonymous Coward]

Awwww.....how quaint!

I remember when I felt the same way, and swore I wouldn't become that guy either.

Enjoy becoming him.

This is old news

[Frederic54]

In TFA the guy hope Trump will win the future election, hello?

Re:This is old news

[Areyoukiddingme]

In TFA the guy hope Trump will win the future election, hello?

And then Trump did win and promptly appointed an FCC chair who is trying to gut the net neutrality rules he so highly values in the rest of the article. Trump's campaign and subsequent election, in a nutshell.

It's hard to win when governments break laws...

[Marful]

Following the original TPB cases, it's evident that this is doomed, not just because the citizenry of the world aren't behind it, but because nations will flat out break their own laws to stop it.

Uhhh

[SuperDre]

The Net neutrality law is a good thing, not bad. It makes sure all data is handled the same and not certain types of protocols being limited in speed.

Re: oh no

[dada21]

A few years ago I came across my old BBS number during a Google search and decided to call it and see who answered.

It rings once and then...a modem sound.

Freaked me out until I discovered it was just a fax machine that actually blasted that noise on answering.

How is this news?

[borfast]

The linked article is from Dec 11 2015, I remember reading it when it came out. I don't get it. Is Slashdot participating in a disinformation campaign to weaken the morale of those who still want to try to do something about these issues?

How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[tepples]

First, if the copyright holder doesn't want to distribute the film, they have the right to make that decision.

How does giving them "the right to make that decision" "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as the preamble to the copyright clause of the United States Constitution puts it? What benefit does the public derive from a dog in the manger?

Second, for the specific content you mention, you can buy DVDs online.

The DVDs I found of Song of the South and Spartakus and... don't appear to be licensed by the copyright owners. The DVD of Emperor of the Night is authentic, but it's region coded to be unplayable in Slashdot's home country.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[ooloorie]

How does giving them "the right to make that decision" "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", as the preamble to the copyright clause of the United States Constitution puts it? What benefit does the public derive from a dog in the manger?

The whole point of copyright is to create artificial scarcity so that authors are financially motivated. There may be many other mechanisms to encourage creativity in society, or maybe we should have none. All of that is fine. Let's have a debate about it.

What I object to is Sunde's hypocrisy in pretending that his actions are driven by principle. Personally, I object to sending large amounts of money to the US government every year in order to finance the war mongering and crony capitalism they engage in, but if I hid my money and didn't pay taxes, people would correctly read it as a selfish act, not as a principled act of resistance.

I don't see why dumb, uncreative socialist punks like Sunde should get a pass and have people assume that his greed and selfishness somehow represents principled political action.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[david_thornley]

What I object to is Sunde's hypocrisy in pretending that his actions are driven by principle.

They likely are driven by principle.

Copyright prevents me from using my personal property in ways I might want. If I have a recording of a movie, I don't have a legal right to make copies using my own personal device and my own blanks. I don't have a legal right to transfer it to another device. I bought it, I paid for it, and there's arbitrary restrictions on it. That's one principle, and someone who doesn't like government interference should be familiar with it.

Economically, pieces of art are valuable, and are enjoyed by people. If there's more pieces of art to be enjoyed by even more people, that increases total wealth, which in itself is a good thing to do. I know people who very much enjoy reading Jim Butcher's Dresden File books, but don't have the money to buy them. If I make copies and hand them out, I'm making these people happier. This is, other things being equal (which, in this case, they aren't), a good thing. Restrictions on art that make it less accessible to people means we're all poorer. That's another principle.

Against that, we have the practical matter that requiring people to buy copies of something and giving some of that money to the creator is an efficient way to encourage people to create. I'm much more interested in getting society working than in being ideologically pure, so I favor reasonable copyright laws.

As far as ownership of "intellectual property" goes, that seems, AFAICT, to not exist naturally, but rather is a result of legal constructs. Long ago, musicians would hear other people's melodies and either copy them or build on them. Storytellers would listen to other people's stories and repeat them. A storyteller who insisted that nobody could repeat his stories without paying him would be considered a weirdo.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[ooloorie]

Copyright prevents me from using my personal property in ways I might want.

So does tax law. Yet Sunde seems to favor laws that take away people's property and transfer it to him and people he likes. So, that can't be the fundamental principle that his opposition to copyright is based on.

As far as ownership of "intellectual property" goes, that seems, AFAICT, to not exist naturally, but rather is a result of legal constructs.

Actually, "intellectual property" used to be very carefully guarded, through guilds, associations, and personal relations. The printing press and modern teaching institutions changed those arrangements, and as a consequence, people then started looking for better legal mechanisms.

Storytellers would listen to other people's stories and repeat them. A storyteller who insisted that nobody could repeat his stories without paying him would be considered a weirdo.

In pre-literate society, storytelling is a profession that requires a lengthy period of apprenticeship and study, so the problem simply didn't arise.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[david_thornley]

Tax law is a general thing. I'm required to send some of my wealth to various governments in various ways, much as I have to send some of mine off to get food and shelter. No tax collector is going to take anything in particular, except as an extreme collection measure when all others have failed. No tax collector will tell me what I can and can't do with particular pieces of property.

Copyright law tells me that I can't do certain specific things with certain specific items I own. There's a difference there.

For quite a few centuries, we had trade secrets, and we have them today. These have nothing to do with copyright, although this was one of the main reasons behind patents: to allow someone to profit widely from something that otherwise would be a trade secret at the cost of revealing it and losing control of it after some years. Copyright was originally to allow a given publishing house the sole right to publish a book. Copyright and patent law are quite different, and the term "Intellectual Property" is really a fusion of (IIRC) four different bodies of law.

Technology has affected this. When I was young, I had neither the ability to produce a decent quality book nor to press a record. Cassette tapes started an age of musical copyright violation. While vanity publishers did exist when I was young, there are print-on-demand services that are much more flexible today, not to mention my ability to copy an ebook easily. The law becomes more important, as well as more in conflict with what people normally think of as property rights.

Also, you're looking at storytellers in pre-literate societies in the wrong way. It wasn't like a guild, and you didn't have to be a professional to tell a story. If you knew a story, and could spin a good yarn, you could tell it. Not only was there no way to protect stories, the idea would have been foreign and weird.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[ooloorie]

Also, you're looking at storytellers in pre-literate societies in the wrong way. It wasn't like a guild, and you didn't have to be a professional to tell a story. If you knew a story, and could spin a good yarn, you could tell it.

And copyright is preventing you from "telling stories"... how?

Copyright law tells me that I can't do certain specific things with certain specific items I own. There's a difference there.

There are lots of differences; they are also spelled differently, for example. But how is that relevant?

The law arbitrarily deprives me of my property (taxation) and it arbitrarily limits my ability to use my property in certain ways (copyright law). If you believe the former is justified, I don't see what principled objections you can have to the latter.

I think I'm pretty consistent: I think both tax law as it currently stands and copyright law violate personal property rights. As such, I oppose both. However, as long as they are the law of the land, I obey both, and I certainly want the government to enforce both of them strictly and equitably.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[david_thornley]

Copyright doesn't prevent me from telling stories. I'm trying to make the point that copyright is an artificial construct without traditional roots.

Are you an anarchist? I don't think we can have anything like a modern civilization with anarchy, so I disagree with you there.

If not, government does need money to operate, and we are required to pay more or less our share. Otherwise, we get a very serious free rider problem. Taxes are as non-intrusive as they can be: the government takes a certain value of property, your choice, no demands on what you do with any other property. I'm not even required to pay taxes, as long as I don't have income or significant assets. Copyright puts specific restrictions on what I can do with what, and is therefore more intrusive.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[david_thornley]

because there people can't vote with their feet

As the world becomes more and more populous and intertwined, voting with one's feet is getting less and less practical.

Taxation should be primarily local, and secondarily at the state level. That way, people can move away from dysfunctional government.

Lots of problems are national, and aren't well suited to being handled at lower levels. The world has changed since the heyday of classical liberalism, and not everyone like the changes.

American progressives are particularly bad that way because, unlike Europeans, they even effectively take away the option of leaving the country.

Why can't you leave the country? You can try to emigrate to any other country you like. They don't have to take you, but lots of people do move. The difference between Europe and the US here is that Europe is formed out of lots of smaller countries. Other than that, there's no difference.

Re:How does unavailability "promote the Progress"?

[ooloorie]

As the world becomes more and more populous and intertwined, voting with one's feet is getting less and less practical.

How does a "more populous and intertwined world" make it harder to move from California to Oregon? How does a "more populous and intertwined world" necessitate that laws be passed at the national level rather than at the state or local level? If anything, a more populous world would mean that political units should become geographically smaller and more diverse, instead of the other way around.

Lots of problems are national, and aren't well suited to being handled at lower levels.

And lots of problems are not national and are well suited to being handled at lower levels, yet progressives push for them being handled at the national level in order to take away any ability of people voting with their feet.

Why can't you leave the country? You can try to emigrate to any other country you like.

I didn't say that "you can't leave", I said that American progressives are particularly draconian on people who try to vote with their feet, compared to Europeans: expatriates have to pay US tax on their worldwide income, and people who give up US citizenship entirely have to pay a massive exit tax.

Other than that, there's no difference.

You don't know what you're talking about.

He's right, and it's a willpower problem

[computational super]

The problem with uncensored internet (or uncensored anything, really) is that uncensored means it allows "insert thing that I don't think should exist here". If "thing that I don't like" can be prohibited so can "other thing that I don't care about". As long as the majority of people think that prohibiting "thing that I don't think should exist", we'll have arbitrary censorship.

Re: oh no

[Psion]

I rested on the seventh day.

HBO Now is cheaper than almost anything.

[SuperKendall]

So, you like, just have extra money to throw away on the off-chance that HBO will produce something -- ANYTHING -- worth watching this time?

No.

I activate a month of HBO now when they have something I know is worth watching.

That means for $15 I can watch all Game of Thrones up until now, all Westworld up until now, all of Silicon Valley up until now... or a much of movies or what have you.

I can watch as much of that as a like in a month, and turn off the subscription, having spent only $15...

When Game of Thrones starts up I'll pay them $15 over the course of a few months to watch the season. But what I could do, if I were super cheap, is wait until the end of the season, pay them just $15, and be done with it.

I am spending less money than a movie ticket on a month of entertainment I know I'll enjoy...

Re: oh no

[mrchaotica]

We... should build our own internet

https://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan/comments/1vq87d/project_meshnet_for_everyone_a_complete/

Re:Crocodile tears on bittorents

[K. S. Kyosuke]

This. It makes no sense to have distributed data but centralized metadata.

I come to /. as it has stories that affect me

[Trax3001BBS]

This one hits home. While I haven't downloaded from thepiratebay.org in awhile, it's access was important to me, it showed an open Internet. I guess it's 4chan.org now, this only because it's hosted by cloudflare.com as well. https://www.robtex.com/?dns=4c...

Re: firsst psot

[Anonymous Coward]

Some things are migrating to a Service that shouldn't have.

Autodesk bought Eagle and now you just can't buy a permanent license.

Microchip's C compiler for PIC is pay-by-month now.

Re:...and sales will go down

[thegarbz]

As someone who does the same thing, I truly feel bad for the smaller labels who promote via torrent sites, every time such a site gets shut down.

Why would you? The vast majority of torrent sites are direct searching with little to no "promotion". There's nothing stopping smaller labels hosting torrents even without the likes of TPB. What ever happened to simply providing a damn download?

Re:...and sales will go down

[farble1670]

Here's the hard truth about the music industry's "war on piracy". It's not about piracy, it's about killing the indie scene so the incumbent labels are the only source for music. It's purely anti-competitive, full-stop.

So really, by downloading big label movies, you are sort of like a freedom fighter. Fighting for the poor helpless indie labels.

If big-label media wasn't listed on torrent sites, big label media wouldn't care. That, and there are many, MANY outlets for indie musicians to distribute their music that are much better than a crappy malware-ridden torrent site.

Re:...and sales will go down

[BronsCon]

There is a LOT of indie music out there that ends up in compilations of music from several bands, across several indie labels. These torrent compilations quite often exist with the blessing of the labels and artists involved, but are not created by them. You may search for one song from one artist you know of and find it in a compilation that introduces you to a dozen you haven't.

That's why.

Re:...and sales will go down

[BronsCon]

So really, by downloading big label movies, you are sort of like a freedom fighter. Fighting for the poor helpless indie labels.

The stench of sarcasm is heavy, here. But no, I don't typically torrent big label movies; I simply don't watch them. There are a few exceptions to the "do not watch" rule, but they are VERY few and far between -- if I can't get a friend to see it with me in a theater, I skip it; if I can, I see it; if it doesn't suck, I buy the Blu-Ray.

Re:oh no

[sims 2]

I'll look into it more later.

Re:...and sales will go down

[thegarbz]

If these indie promotions are a thing they will continue to be a thing. The closure of TPB (a search engine which by default doesn't do file searches anyway) won't make a difference to the amount of promotion these guys get.

Re:...and sales will go down

[BronsCon]

(a search engine which by default doesn't do file searches anyway)

It does, however, search the torrent description which, quite often (e.g. every torrent I have ever downloaded), lists the contents. That's, sort of, how that works.

Re: oh no

[wbr1]

Personally, I ran a gopher server, ircd, and later CERN https on a next cube, you insensitive clod.

Re: oh no

[lgw]

... says the Ape.

Re: oh no

[Gr8Apes]

It could be a grape... ;)

Compulsory licensing would work as well

[tepples]

The whole point of copyright is to create artificial scarcity so that authors are financially motivated.

What "financial[] motivat[ion]" arises from enriching scalpers or from not making a work available at all? The economic goal of "artificial scarcity" could be served just as well by a regime of compulsory licensing with a reasonable royalty payable to the copyright owner, such as mechanical licensing of musical compositions used in sound recordings.

Re:Compulsory licensing would work as well

[ooloorie]

The economic goal of "artificial scarcity" could be served just as well by a regime of compulsory licensing with a reasonable royalty payable to the copyright owner, such as mechanical licensing of musical compositions used in sound recordings.

Ah, yes, brilliant idea! Create an organization that is subject to political lobbying, has a monopoly, can fix prices at whatever level it wants, and can redistribute the money to a well-connected subset of copyright owners! That is so much better than the occasional copyright owner choosing not to publish their work or limiting its distribution.

No, thanks.

What we need is orphan works reform and a shortening of copyright terms. Neither of them are likely to happen, however.

Re: firsst psot

[GameboyRMH]

A torrent site hosted on Freenet, maybe one that regularly publishes magnet archives as a torrent?

Re: oh no

[Lord Kano]

If you're lucky, you'll get here one day.

You'll be just as perplexed when someone takes offense at your use of the word "Uncle" because it's not only patriarchal but assumes the gender of the sibling of one of your equal co-parents.

LK

Re: oh no

[maestroX]

The rest of us come here because it's mildly more entertaining than going to an actual zoo.

Sorry Tinder was a bummer, no need to leave your resentment here.
Just curious, were you attracted to this site by the lack of boobs?

I wish we would stop calling it that...

[cshark]

When you use words like net neutrality, you get a picture in head. Something very specific, and one that means something. We all think we know what the term means, but we don't. Almost never, do we, slashdot, as a collective group, understand what's actually being talked about when governments and telecoms use the term. And it's never implemented the same way, or to the same ends, twice. We need to call it something else. It's time.

Alternative to fielsharing?

[mariourk]

Maybe this idea is a viable idea to create an alternative for torrents?