World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden(torrentfreak.com) |
World’s First Pirate ISP Launches In Sweden(torrentfreak.com) |
If your in the US I wonder why are you still pirating copyrighted material? Im curious to hear...
Fuck DRM. When the video-distribution industry gets rid of DRM, then I'll buy video online. When my favorite TV shows are available for $10 a season in 1080p without DRM (and with episodes released before the official airtime, preferably), I will be the first to sign up. Until then, the pirates provide a significantly better product. For free.
The music industry figured it out. I have no trouble buying music I like in a lossless format these days, and there is never DRM. So why not the video industry? Their product is significantly more disposable than music, and yet it costs more and they use more "technology" to "protect" it. It doesn't make sense.
(I listen to songs over and over again. I watch a TV show once, and then delete it to free up hard drive space for more TV shows.)
How many people here on HN have used pirated software to help build a web app? Quite a few I'd bet. If your fledging web app is a success, whose software are you gonna buy when you are successful? The one you 'test-drove' as a pirate of course. Remember Jobs and Woz used a 'blue box' to get free long distance calls on AT&T's network. Their next idea was the Apple I. Fast forward to the 2000's and the iPhone is making At&T billions. If this scene played out today, they would've probably been sued into oblivion or arrested by the FBI., and Apple would never have been.
Why do you think the tech industry and the web grew out of America and not some other wealthy country? It's because America tolerates a certain amount of rebellious, anti-authoritarian behavior (among other things).
Pg talkes about this much better than I can in his essay about the nature of hackers:
http://www.paulgraham.com/gba.html
"Why are programmers so violently opposed to these laws? If I were a legislator, I'd be interested in this mystery—for the same reason that, if I were a farmer and suddenly heard a lot of squawking coming from my hen house one night, I'd want to go out and investigate. Hackers are not stupid, and unanimity is very rare in this world. So if they're all squawking, perhaps there is something amiss.
Could it be that such laws, though intended to protect America, will actually harm it? Think about it."
I'm not pro-piracy per se, but I believe a certain amount has to be tolerated as the alternative is a police state on the web.
Possibly. But there aren't really any real stats to back this up.
"Why do you think the tech industry and the web grew out of America and not some other wealthy country? It's because America tolerates a certain amount of rebellious, anti-authoritarian behavior (among other things)."
The GPL is becoming its own dictatorship and when people like Chris from thesis go against the ideals, he is treated like a criminal. The GPL is no different than proprietary software licenses. Companies and people involved in both want people to abide by their rules. However, only one seems to be supported here on HN and other communities. It's very hypocritical and it's one of the reasons why I can't take the community seriously.
"I'm not pro-piracy per se, but I believe a certain amount has to be tolerated as the alternative is a police state on the web."
This is a little extreme. The alternative is not a "police state". The alternative is respecting someone's rights, even if you don't agree with it (don't pirate something you don't want to pay for).
I would expect this number to be close to 0. What does this even mean?
The whole point of the GPL is to stop companies from profiting off of other's programs without also giving something back to the community. Noone in the "pirate movement" supports for-profit piracy or copyright infringement.
Really? so the touchy-feely reasons that most people in the free software movement is a lie? It's all to stop profits? This sure doesn't sound like "freedom" to me. Freedom means you can do whatever the hell you want with my code. This is why I don't support the GPL.
You also bring up another good point. The people of the community want others to respect their own license and ideals yet when they infringe on the rights of others (through copyright infringement), they thinks it's fine.
Copyright and Robin Hood ethics both breach the principle of live-and-let-live.
Robin Hood's takes away from some people. He justifies this with claims about the welfare another group.
Copyright applies the same principle. Defenders of copyright will say that in order to protect artists, engineers, etc, all of the rest of us should have less rights. We are not allowed to do certain things with magnetic signals on pieces of metal the we own, even in the privacy of our own homes.
It's not clear that it gives actual benefit to the recipient group. In practice, these people aren't defended well if at all, and the cost to the system is huge.
There'd also be a cost to the local economy if you had a brigand raiding merchants. I wouldn't operate in a region with those issues. Maybe if the people didn't have trading difficulties they'd have been able to lift themselves out of poverty, rather than being pushed into the arms of a revolutionary-come-nobleman.
It's strange that you say this, because no matter how many times someone creates a proprietary app based on the GPL license, nothing is lost. The original work is out there for all to enjoy (with credits to all the authors).
The only thing you don't get are the changes (which weren't yours in the first place). Forcing changes to be under the GPL isn't for freedom, but political ideology.
Robin Hood taxed the tax men ("Robin Hood," Disney, 1973). It was less a matter of rich vs. poor than of beneficiaries vs. victims of oppressive taxation (similar mechanics, opposite direction). The GPL attempts to use the weight of copyrights in general as leverage against abusive copyrights.
If you had civil-rights objections to copyright then you'd perceive the GPL as a neat hack around it but be looking for something to destroy it.
Thinking about the rule of law as an ultimate good is a valid position.
I've actually tried this, and you get into contrived situations like this one: the boss shows you a four line perl script in use at a client site that another company wrote ten years ago, and asks you to modify it in a trivial way to solve an important problem. You'll respond that you aren't allowed to do that for breach of copyright - unless the client company specifically relinquished the code then the rights vest with them. Further, you will explain that you can now no longer write code to replicate the functionality of it because you have been influenced by having read the code of the client company.
Advocates of the rule of law should oppose laws that are selectively enforced, and absurdly complicated.
[1] ... and the industry actively breaks it by creating artificial market regions and distribution restrictions. Hard to see why I'm not allowed to rent a movie from iTunes due to my physical location.
Surely Swedish pedophiles are having a field day? Am I missing something?
Governments that are saying "we need to monitor your every move to save you from the .5%" are playing on your fears to take your freedoms away.
Is monitoring filesharing sites the most effective way of fighting pedophilia?
All valid points and I humbly stand corrected.
I wasn't suggesting that this will directly increase that form of activity but I was more curious as to the possible negative applications an annonymous IP service would subsequently provide to those looking to take advantage of the system. I still am curious to be honest.
You might say that some people would get off on creating it and putting it up on the internet for free, but what's stopping them from doing everything but that last step now?
I don't think torrenting has an effect on it either way, but if you do please provide your argument.
Plus, I want to decide how many times I watch something, I don't need some shitty computer program to do it for me.
Personally I only watch 2 tv programs and just buy them at iTunes because it's easier than dealing with all the bittorrent crap.
I used to do the pirate stuff but then I got old and stopped caring about music, entertainment, etc.
But if you want blanket surveillance, or if it involves some teenager downloading music, they'll (rightly) tell you to go away.
And sadly, they would currently be breaking the law in doing so in Sweden.
Granted, neither end of the continuum is ideal, but I know which side I'd rather be on. The web has been a magnificent haven for innvovation in the twenty or so years it's been with us, let's not do anything to f%%k it up (Butterfly Effect and all that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect)
Why should the GNU get any more attention or rights than anything else? If people can't respect my copyrighted work, I sure as hell won't respect GNU licensed software.
I think you forgot a verb there?
It's all to stop profits? This sure doesn't sound like "freedom" to me.
I'm not really sure what you're ranting against, but the whole point of the GPL is to force "give some, get some", and to stop people from profiting off of other people's work.
Freedom means you can do whatever the hell you want with my code. This is why I don't support the GPL.
Good for you?
The people of the community want others to respect their own license and ideals yet when they infringe on the rights of others (through copyright infringement), they thinks it's fine.
Which community are you talking about now? The "pirate" community or the "free software" community?
Also, the FSF is of the position that copyrights suck, but that doesn't stop them from making the GPL using existing copyright law. The GPL is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Copyright law is as it is, and therefore we have the GPL as it is. If copyright law was different, for example if software couldn't be copyrighted, we wouldn't have the GPL at all.
My point was that Richard Stallman for years claimed that this wasn't the reason. I also don't really think there was a problem with people "profiting off of other people's work" before the GPL became popular.
When you release something for free, it shouldn't matter if someone makes a profit from it. If you do care, then don't call it "free".
"Which community are you talking about now? The "pirate" community or the "free software" community?"
This community, for starters. Check out the lasted post about the guy from Thesis VS Wordpress. The majority of the people here on HN support Wordpress.
"Also, the FSF is of the position that copyrights suck, but that doesn't stop them from making the GPL using existing copyright law. The GPL is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Copyright law is as it is, and therefore we have the GPL as it is. If copyright law was different, for example if software couldn't be copyrighted, we wouldn't have the GPL at all."
The whole point of the GPL is so people have the freedom to tinker with the source code (this has been said by Stallman many times). If we had no copyright laws, there would be nothing stopping people from releasing binaries only. The difference would be that you could share the copyrighted works with anybody.
Would this really benefit the community?
Would this really benefit the community?
The flipside is also that everyone would be free to reverse-engineer everything, which is a pretty powerful good, but I see your point and I agree with it, it's probably better to have copyright than to not have it.
Then again, you could of course have a completely different society where all software must be available in source form by law, but I have a hard time seeing that happen anywhere. :-)
That's far beyond being neutral. That's condoning and encouraging privacy violations, and they are doing it to draw hits for advertising.
The Swedish Pirate Party is indeed trying to reform copyright. Of course, you might argue that they are doing other things as well, so they are not "dedicated" to anti-copyright. But you can't deny that this is one of the party's policies.
I recall seeing a TechStars video a few moths back where one of the guys in the program all but admitted he was a software pirate.
My modus operati when I need an expensive piece of software is to pirate half a dozen different packages that claim to do what I want, evaluate them, then purchase the one that best does the job.
Wrong? Maybe. But there is a whole lot of hype when it comes to that sort of thing and I can't afford to weed it out at full price right now. Better (less crippled) evaluations (or evals at all) would help.
Sometimes I even find that what I thought I was trying to do was not what I wanted to do after all, but I usually end up buying something.
What do you even need to pirate to make a web app?
Rails, php, apache, mysql are all free
And YES I could just use Linux, before you ask, but I'm getting quite used to TextMate.
That's not to justify anything....but since you asked...
EDIT (can't reply to comment below directly): Yes, that's true. However you would still be in violation of Apple's EULA which states that you cannot run their OS on anything other than Apple hardware. So you are still being naughty by doing this ;-)
So because you can't be bothered with using something that's free, you are going to disrespect apple's license. There are plenty of free text editors for Windows and Linux that supports most of not all of textmate's features.
Many companies decide to use GNU code in their apps. They don't get the same luxury as you. Many are sued in court and others are forced to release their own code.
You are making presumptions again here. I've tried Linux, I prefer OS X is all. As I've said already, OS X seems to be the best environment for Rails development. If I sell my startup for millions, Apple wins big through additional sales.
I'm going to bow gracefully out of this thread now, as I've said my piece. I'll leave you with a few words of wisdom from a guy a little bit richer and more successful than either of us:
"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." - Bill Gates
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropir...
How will they get additional sales if you "sell your startup for millions"?
"I'm going to bow gracefully out of this thread now, as I've said my piece. I'll leave you with a few words of wisdom from a guy a little bit richer and more successful than either of us:"
Are you from China? If not, you don't really have a point beyond that you like to use commercial software, not pay for it, and make excuses that one day when you make it big (which statistically speaking won't happen), you will decide to pay for them.
I wish I could use the same excuses about my credit card bills and business loans.