Cut the IP crap

[dalebert]

There is no onus to put on anyone, the creator of media or the pirate. Digital media is instantly reproducible. That's the nature of the beast.

Imagine someone was selling hand-made burritos from a stand and I bought one, then carried it over to my stand where I had a Star Trek replicator and started giving away exact copies of your burrito for free. I could feed the homeless and poor people or just anyone who wanted to save some money for lunch that day, money they could spend on other things and boost the economy in areas where there is more need so those needs can be better satisfied now that burritos are overwhelmingly abundant. This would be massively beneficial to everyone except you.

It would be very dickish of the burrito-maker, to say the least, if he tried to pass a law against replicating food and giving it away for free, and it would be ridiculous to say that I had harmed him. Would he be making less money than he would otherwise be making if he could threaten people with violence in order to create an artificial food scarcity? Of course he is. But that's not harm. That's the result of him clinging to a business model that only made since before modern technology eliminated scarcity of the product he was producing.

The onus is on him to find a way to make money given the realities of the market. He can try custom building burritos to taste. He can try providing excellent service and an alluring atmosphere to eat the burritos in and maybe service a niche market of more wealthy people who will shell out money for extra perks over the insta-burritos. And if he just can't deal with it, he may need to go supply a different market need.

IP is a fucking made-up irrational religion that people cling to because they can't handle change.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

You're not even close.  Every transaction has a discreet value to every person.  What makes a sale in the free market is that the buyer values the product over the seller's offer.  It's a meaning of the minds.  When there is no meeting of the minds, there is no sale.  

And, as has been pointed out repeatedly, there is no "theft" if you still have what you had.  The ones and zeros that were in one place and were copied to another place had value, once moved to one's REAL property--there's no "property" in the ones and zeros themselves.  If they were charged for the bandwidth, they would be so charged under SERVICE AGREEMENT--a meeting of the minds.

Its only a transaction if the owner can say no.

The pirate does  not just end up with zero's and one's on a hard drive. Their SPECIFIC orientation is what give the product meaning and use. Your argument would have move weight if you placed the onus of actual copying to the pirate.  If these guys were retyping the code, or typesetting their books, it wouldn't be as bad.

Fuck, I hate when I read shit like this when I've got a headache, because I don't want you to get away with the bullshit.

You're only the OWNER if it's something you can own.

The "pirate" isn't a "pirate." pirate.  He's not holding anyone at gunpoint, or depriving anyone of any property.

I have no idea what your "onus" argument is supposed to imply.  It's absurd to say it would be any different if work was wasted in the process.

Time is an asset. It can be bought, sold, or traded.

[dalebert]

DON'T STEAL MY VIDEOS!!!

[Turd Ferguson]

DAMN YOU DILAN............. DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

[Zhwazi]

tl;dr

I'm anti IP. Yes you own the product of your labor, but that means nobody can deprive you of it, not necessarily that you can deprive others of it, if it is not a rivalrous thing.

It's not my fault that the MPAA/RIAA/etc have a retarded business model that fails to take into account the realities of information exchange. My money goes to netflix. What doesn't get to netflix, gets pirated.

I don't buy any music, period. I can live a fulfilling life without it. I rarely pay for movies except through netflix. I can live a fulfilling life without them.

They have created an artificial scarcity and overinvested themselves in a completely unnecessary industry that is dependent upon facts which are no longer true. That's not my problem, that's theirs. Reality is asserting itself, and there's nothing they can do about it. Boo hoo. Go do something important. We already have more movies and music and games and books than a single person can watch, hear, play, and read in their lifetime.

Unless you're documenting or writing about something completely new, or inventing something, your IP has zero marginal significance and I see no loss if you don't get compensated for it in any way, because you're being useless.

If you are doing something new then you don't need to follow the business model that is currently the most widely accepted. There are a number of alternatives that don't rely on things to be true which are false.

For you others who tl;dr: PIRATE ALL OF THE THINGS!

[Cognitive Dissident]

You're not even close.  Every transaction has a discreet value to every person.  What makes a sale in the free market is that the buyer values the product over the seller's offer.  It's a meaning of the minds.  When there is no meeting of the minds, there is no sale.  

And, as has been pointed out repeatedly, there is no "theft" if you still have what you had.  The ones and zeros that were in one place and were copied to another place had value, once moved to one's REAL property--there's no "property" in the ones and zeros themselves.  If they were charged for the bandwidth, they would be so charged under SERVICE AGREEMENT--a meeting of the minds.

Its only a transaction if the owner can say no.

The pirate does  not just end up with zero's and one's on a hard drive. Their SPECIFIC orientation is what give the product meaning and use. Your argument would have move weight if you placed the onus of actual copying to the pirate.  If these guys were retyping the code, or typesetting their books, it wouldn't be as bad.

Fuck, I hate when I read shit like this when I've got a headache, because I don't want you to get away with the bullshit.

You're only the OWNER if it's something you can own.

The "pirate" isn't a "pirate." pirate.  He's not holding anyone at gunpoint, or depriving anyone of any property.

I have no idea what your "onus" argument is supposed to imply.  It's absurd to say it would be any different if work was wasted in the process.

Time is an asset. It can be bought, sold, or traded.

So what.  I've never bought time from a movie or record label, nor have they offered it.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

Its only a transaction if the owner can say no.

The pirate does  not just end up with zero's and one's on a hard drive. Their SPECIFIC orientation is what give the product meaning and use. Your argument would have move weight if you placed the onus of actual copying to the pirate.  If these guys were retyping the code, or typesetting their books, it wouldn't be as bad.

Fuck, I hate when I read shit like this when I've got a headache, because I don't want you to get away with the bullshit.

You're only the OWNER if it's something you can own.

The "pirate" isn't a "pirate." pirate.  He's not holding anyone at gunpoint, or depriving anyone of any property.

I have no idea what your "onus" argument is supposed to imply.  It's absurd to say it would be any different if work was wasted in the process.

Time is an asset. It can be bought, sold, or traded.

So what.  I've never bought time from a movie or record label, nor have they offered it.

If someone programs for a living, they're selling their labor, right? What tangible asset comes from their "work?"

Do you think they're not working? Or does time not exist as a tradable commodity, or what?

[Cognitive Dissident]

Its only a transaction if the owner can say no.

The pirate does  not just end up with zero's and one's on a hard drive. Their SPECIFIC orientation is what give the product meaning and use. Your argument would have move weight if you placed the onus of actual copying to the pirate.  If these guys were retyping the code, or typesetting their books, it wouldn't be as bad.

Fuck, I hate when I read shit like this when I've got a headache, because I don't want you to get away with the bullshit.

You're only the OWNER if it's something you can own.

The "pirate" isn't a "pirate." pirate.  He's not holding anyone at gunpoint, or depriving anyone of any property.

I have no idea what your "onus" argument is supposed to imply.  It's absurd to say it would be any different if work was wasted in the process.

Time is an asset. It can be bought, sold, or traded.

So what.  I've never bought time from a movie or record label, nor have they offered it.

If someone programs for a living, they're selling their labor, right? What tangible asset comes from their "work?"

Do you think they're not working? Or does time not exist as a tradable commodity, or what?

They're not selling their time to me.  I have no contract with any of them.  It's possible they have contracts in their little clique, but not with me.

[dalebert]

I can't even tell what point either of you is trying to make. Honestly.

[Cognitive Dissident]

I can't even tell what point either of you is trying to make. Honestly.

I'm trying to understand and answer his ridiculous claims.

[Diogenes The Cynic]

I can't even tell what point either of you is trying to make. Honestly.

I'm trying to understand and answer his ridiculous claims.

Srsly? 

[Cognitive Dissident]

YARLY

[The Green Bastard]

I have no problem with IP, on the condition that the creator is solely responsible for the costs of securing it.

I cant invent some new gadget in my work shed and expect two armed, taxpayer funded guards to posted on my property to ensure nobody steals it, so why should musicians and authors get special treatment?

This is one of the points I was trying to get across. If you want to secure your "IP", go ahead and secure it via any means you desire. Just stop forcing me to pay to secure it.

[Cognitive Dissident]

I have no problem with IP, on the condition that the creator is solely responsible for the costs of securing it.

I cant invent some new gadget in my work shed and expect two armed, taxpayer funded guards to posted on my property to ensure nobody steals it, so why should musicians and authors get special treatment?

This is one of the points I was trying to get across. If you want to secure your "IP", go ahead and secure it via any means you desire. Just stop forcing me to pay to secure it.

I agree with this, to a point.  If "securing it," implies paying an army of thugs to hurt "wrongdoers," I might not be anxious to see that--even if "they" pay.

[jeffersonish]

I also think many libertarians don't want to admit that downloads "harm" record labels because of the whole, "Do whatever you want unless it harms someone else," mantra.

That's only a 3rd grade level introduction to libertarianism. The real sentence should read, "Do whatever you want so long as it does not infringe upon other peoples' property rights." We harm people all the time. Go cheat on your significant other and see if it doesn't cause harm. But was it an infringement upon his/her rights? No.

Yes, downloads have "harmed" the music indutry....but so what? The music industry doesn't (at least shouldn't) own property rights in digital patterns.


Here is a graph I found of real revenue for the music industry in 2011 USD. I have no idea if its accurate, but it seems to show a sharp decline in revenue starting around 2000. Not that surprising, right?

Revenue is only part of the story. Consider that digital downloads cost much much less to the producer than CD's sold through an international distribution system that allows for buy backs of unsold product. You can see that every distribution media in the past has declined when a new, better media gained popularity. The only part of this graph that goes to the point of the poster is the decline in paid digital downloads.

As a DJ I buy CD's and digital downloads from known sources because I know I'm getting the best possible copy and the quality of my music is important.