Re: when did piracy/theft become expression of freedom

[Charles Morris <cmorris () cs odu edu>]

Dear Valdis and whoever else;

The really ridiculous points are the following:
A) Every time you execute/install/download a program you are
committing evil data theft by not only copying
"secret" or "illegal" information into
RAM/Disk/Registers/Buffers/Busses/photons coming off the screen/human
memory/history of the universe but potentially not just your physical
property but on hundreds of routers and deduplication boxen around the
earth.
B) You can't "copyright" or "own" a number, all digital
representations are numbers, due to the boolean nature (no fuzzy
data), etc.
C) Any data is a form of any other data given a specific transform,
e.g. manifold / encryption key + algo, something as trivial as XOR
D) You guys already know these points so why do we even care anymore
about what these people say? Why even have these conversations. They
will never stop. It's about greed and shortsightedness, not about what
is moral or logical. Just try to ignore them or change the subject
when the parrots start talking.

And to preempt the flames from the blind, Yes I feel artists should be
compensated for their contribution. It's 5am- bye.

On Sat, Jan 28, 2012 at 5:26 PM,  <Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu> wrote:
> On Fri, 27 Jan 2012 19:02:09 PST, "Zach C." said:
>
> > If you buy an album used, the seller generally loses possession of it, you
> > gain possession of it at a reduced cost, and the original purchase still
> > gave the original seller and producer value.
>
> Note that if I shoplift a CD that sucks and isn't worth the $14.99 sticker price, I
> have deprived the producer of the ability to sell it to somebody else.  That's
> the crucial point that underlies our social concept of "theft" - if I take it from
> you, you don't have it anymore.
>
> If I copy an album that isn't worth the sticker price, and which I would not
> have purchased at that price, two things of note happen:
>
> 1) As much as the labels wish it were so, they can't count that as "lost
> revenue" because it wouldn't have acccrued to them anyhow, any more than a car
> dealership can legitimately call it "lost revenue" if I walk onto their lot,
> tell the salescritter they're crazy if they think I'll pay $28K for a given
> car, and walk off the lot. (Now, if they want to count the "Damn, we lost the
> $4.99 that guy *would* have paid if we charged that instead of $14.99", they're
> welcome to that. :)
>
> 2) More importantly, they still have the original bits and are free to look
> for other suckers who *will* pay $14.99.
>
> For the record, all my media is legitimately acquired, though a large portion
> *was* obtained used and if the producers don't like that, they're welcome to go
> re-read "first sale doctrine" ;)  Just trying to make people actually engage
> their neurons - this stuff is *not* easy to sort out, because intellectual
> property and digital information do *not* behave the same as cars and cows in
> the physical world, and unintended consequences of policy decisions are all
> *over* the place.  (DMCA anti-circumvention clause prohibiting me from fair-use
> accessing my own media, I'm looking at you. :)
>
>
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