Steal != Copy

23 points by aoe 14 years ago | 12 comments

Joakal 14 years ago |

I wait for a program that generates all the copyright content in existence. It will automatically not generate copyrighted and pubic domained content already.

The business model is automatically sending notices claiming copyright infringement. Youtube automatically sends you money. Collection societies give you a cut from their racket. Most of the money will initially go towards lawsuits where I can demand up to $100,000 (highest fine in the world in USA, even if it's non-commercial). All part of the good ol' effort against the piracy economic bogeyman.

Bonus: USA is known to steal works from public domain 'as part of being treaty obligations' and thus, since Mickey Mouse. Copyright will never expire.

I'm a pirate because intellectual property is flawed and the next piracy will be 3D printers. http://reprap.org/wiki/EndOfIntellectualProperty

Look to China for how businesses is done in a country with no regard for IP. Microsoft sells cheaper software and better services. Copyright companies isolate China from rest of world under region restrictions, etc.

kennu 14 years ago | |

I wrote program for that, will this do?

    for x in chain.from_iterable((product(*repeat(string.ascii_uppercase + ',.!? ', n)) for n in xrange(1, 2**32))): print ''.join(x)

It's currently limited to 4GB though. I am also afraid it will produce content that infringes someone elses existing rights.

k-mcgrady 14 years ago |

Kind of explains the “Good artist borrow, great artist steal.” saying but the examples given are terrible.

Smartphones did not steal wrist watches. A better example might be that Apple 'stole' the iPhone/smartphone idea from Palm or RIM.

And I wouldn't say iCloud is stolen from Dropbox. They fit two different purposes imo. iCloud doesn't do the folder sharing Dropbox does and doesn't have the file management capabilities power users need.

kingsidharth 14 years ago | |

If iCloud did exactly what Dropbox does, that would be a copy, no?

iCloud syncs, in principle, and makes things available on all your i-devices.

Dropbox syncs, in principle, and makes things available on your devices.

k-mcgrady 14 years ago | | |

You just invalidated your own point. If iCloud was 'stolen' from Dropbox it would take what Dropbox does and vastly improve and build upon that based on your login. But you have just said above that iCloud 'sync and make things available on all your devices' and that Dropbox' syncs and makes things available on all your devices'.

twiceaday 14 years ago |

Suppose you had millions of copies of some object for sale. As the manufacture cost of the object tends to zero, the outcomes of copying tend to the outcomes of theft.

mkramlich 14 years ago |

I was hoping the piece would truly stick to the title point: that stealing != copying. But after a page or so into it it became clear he was just another person trying to make a distinction between two degrees of copying.

Good rule of thumb: if someone steals something from you, you don't have it anymore. If someone copies something from you, you still have it.

antonb2011 14 years ago |

Not to nitpick, but the logical inference in the title is backwards. What they want to say is "Copying is not necessarily Stealing", because "Stealing is not always Copying" is obvious because stealing can be done by other means. Sorry for geeking out.

aaronmoodie 14 years ago |

I think the quote is "good artists borrow, great artists steal".

roopeshv 14 years ago |

starts article with "creation-stealing", discusses "copying-stealing". divulges into apple vs others as usual

merciBien 14 years ago | |

I think you meant "diverges" not "divulges"?