Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
That's not the correct distinction. It's legal right, protected by law. The only difference between it a natural right is that it also happened to be bestowed by law. No different than the RIGHT to vote. A privilege is different. It can be taken a away without due process.
A funny thing here is that many people treat the RIGHT of copyright protection as a mere privilege requested by others that they are free to ignore, and many people treat the PRIVILEGE of driving on public roads as some kind of natural right of theirs that cannot be denied, even by the due process of a DUI conviction, no matter how dangerously they abuse the privilege.
Maybe that's not so funny. The commonality there seems to be that a lot of people see OTHER people's interests as optional, but their OWN interests as absolutes.
ApK
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As an artist/writer who's also been a freelance web designer for years, I can tell you the one thing that's consistent: people feel art and writing are "FUN" for the creator, and thus not that big of a deal. I mean if the end result is entertaining in any way, it must have been entertaining to create, so what's the big deal? They think it's a privelege for us to have our work consumed, which is why it's sort of difficult to convince them of the real issue. Namely, that the issue is not consuming something for free that you wouldn't have if it cost you money (which is what they talk about constantly), but consuming something at all that you are asked to pay for first. That's all. At the end of the day SOPA was a ridiculous overreaction, but one that was a result of the public's complete lack of accountability, and in many cases pride in what they're doing. In half of the discussions on the topics of megaupload and SOPA, people bragged about what piracy sites they used and which ones they would switch to if their favorites got shut down. Hiding behind all the excuses doesn't change reality.