this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2023
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The ability to change features, prices, and availability of things you've already paid for is a powerful temptation to corporations.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (5 children)

That's not a fair example, because 5 Euros has an intrinsic value. The theft here is of intellectual property. Here's an analogy:

  • When you take a book from a book store without paying for it, you are stealing.
  • When you take a book from a book store without paying for it, make an exact replication of it and return the original, you are stealing intellectual property.
[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

Stealing involves depriving the original owner of access or possession of the item. Duplication is not stealing because the item being duplicated is not taken away.

Even if you consider it stealing, then what defense do you have for the people who paid the price that would supposedly allow them to have it permanently and suddenly it still gets taken away? That's not stealing? Even if we accepted that piracy by people who didn't pay is theft, why should people who already paid for the media not be able to access it from somewhere else if their original access is denied?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

By duplicating, you're depriving the company to the exclusive right to copy that thing. But I don't think stealing some nebulous concept of a monopoly like that is wrong.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

The keywords: company and monopoly.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (8 children)

The action is still harmless. Information should be free.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine---too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away.

https://www.rogerclarke.com/II/IWtbF.html

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How is creating a popular a novel any different than creating a popular object? Hundreds of hours of labor go into both and the creators are entitled to the full value of said labor.

Say you have an amazing story about the vacation you took last year, and told all your friends about it. You would justifiably be pissed if you later found out one of your friends was telling that story as if they had done it. It's the same for someone who writes a book or any other form of media.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We aren't talking about plagiarism, the friend would be telling the story about you still.

Spoken word narratives are such an integral part of culture, imagine if your grandpa told you to never repeat any of the stories of his childhood because "he owns the copywrite". Insane. That's what you are suggesting.

Ideas are not objects. Having good ideas shared incurs no loss to anybody, except imagined "lost potential value".

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm saying that those who create are entitled to the value of what they create. If a company asks to look iver some of your work before hiring you, says that they aren't interested, and then you see them using that work afterwards i doubt you would be saying "well, information should be free".

If you want to write stories, draw pictures, make movies or webshows and distribute then for free ti everyone, then that's a noble initiative, but creatives depend on what they create for their livelyhood.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

saying that those who create are entitled to the value of what they create.

Here I was thinking we all deserved a giant meteor.

The publisher example is one of a difference in power and you're saying that IP is there to protect the author. Except this whole video is about how that doesn't happen anymore. The law is written and litigated by those with power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That happens already.

If the situation is reversed, the hammer comes down on the independent artist.

We need stronger worker and consumer protections. Copywrite is a shit solution.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

if information is free, the action would be harmless.

FTFY.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

That second dot should be when you make an identical copy of the book without taking it from the shelf. When I get an unlicensed copy of a book, the original is never out of place, not for a moment

Piracy was huge in Australia back when films were released at staggered times across the world. If it was a winter release in America, it would release six months later in the Australian winter. Try avoiding spoilers online for six months.

Piracy is less now because things are released everywhere at once and we aren't harmed by a late release

Now when companies pull shit like deleting content you think you bought, they encourage people to go around them. Play Station can't be trusted? Well there are piracy channels that cost only a VPN subscription (and only while you're collecting media, not after, while watching and storing it) and people will be pushed to those

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Nani?

If what you care about is the abstract idea that the idea of something can be owned, whether the book is in the library or in my pocket doesn't change the fact that the idea of the book is by the author. I can move the book wherever - across even national borders if I want to - and that "intrinsic value" doesn't change.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Only if you subsequently distribute it does that "theft" break the law.

Also money doesn't actually have intrinsic value. It's just fancy paper. Things like food and shelter and clothing, and the tools and materials with which to make them, that's what intrinsic value is.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Making a copy without the copyright is against the law, no matter which way you slice it. Egregious large-scale infringement is usually prosecuted, whereas it's otherwise settled civilly. Nevertheless, both constitute copyright infringement.

Indeed I had the terms confused: it's incorrect to say fiat currency has intrinsic value; it has instrumental value.