Is this a pirate site?

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's why we need to call it what it is: THEFT!

Originally Posted by Iphinome

What color is the sky in your world?

Is honest a color?

[Moejoe]

This is all very simple to figure out, and it has nothing to do with copyright or IP. It's a generational conflict. The same baby-boomers that screwed over the younger generations (and will continue to do so in the coming years) don't have any music to complain about like their parents did (popular music now being as threatening as yoghurt), so they shift all that age-rage over to IP and file-sharing. Young people, being young and excited by new things, don't see any problem with copying. The *cough* older generations need something to complain about, then you add a little physical nostalgia into the mix, and the copyright=theft argument becomes the digital equivalent of 'get off my lawn'.

So don't worry If you're under 40 and you can rub two brain cells together to start an idea, the world is yours. The baby boomers will die off soon enough, the lawns will grow, and sometime in the future we'll all have to mow them too.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Hey, I took your car for a spin and returned it before you noticed!

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

TWOC (a criminal offence, for a tangible object, not Theft.

I wonder how you would feel about it if you needed to get somewhere fast only to discover someone was out joyriding in your car?

Originally Posted by HansTWN

... And I took that idea you had at work and said it was mine. Since I created a second copy of your idea and you still have that original idea in your head, so no harm done!

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

TWOC (a criminal offence, for a tangible object, not Theft.

I'd be telling all my co-workers that SOB stole my idea ... and I'm willing to bet you would, too!

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I have another one for you: I took that file showing the details of that great invention of yours and made a copy. No problem, you still have your copy -- no theft, right?

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Misappropriation of a trade secret (a civil offence, for an intangible), not Theft.

A talented sophist can make black look white, and convince a jury that up is down, but does that make it right?

As someone once said, "How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."

Originally Posted by HarryT

Saying that something shouldn't be regarded as a crime, merely because lots of people do it, seems like a rather poor excuse. I suspect, for example, that the overwhelming majority of people who hold a UK driving licence get a speeding ticket at some point during their driving career; should we de-criminalise speeding simply because a lot of people do it?

Harry, I couldn't agree more!

[Zipr]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

If you're under 40 and you can rub two brain cells together to start an idea, the world is yours. The baby boomers will die off soon enough, the lawns will grow, and sometime in the future we'll all have to mow them too.

Does your mommy know you are on the computer unsupervised?

[Moejoe]

Originally Posted by Zipr

Does your mommy know you are on the computer unsupervised?

Mommy took the bwocks off da indernetz four me *giggle*. How's your lawn by the way, anybody on there who needs to get off? (One ad-hominem attack deserves another).

EDIT: And on a more serious note, I've come to expect anybody defending copyright and arguing the download=theft lie as being over 40, and I haven't been much wrong yet.

EDIT 2: Here's a handy-dandy guide to dealing with the different generations and their ideas.

The mp3 generation - ~25

Everything is free.

The cassette generation 25 - 40

Everything can be free, but we want to pay for some of it.

The vinyl generation 40+

Everything must be paid for.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

What's unfortunate is that regardless of rhetoric, some people insist on doing harm and encouraging it. I mean you'd think society has lost any moral decency they might once have had.

Oh, Kenny, Kenny—you really need to get up with the times, my man. Concepts of right and wrong are so antiquated. Ethics are out. Justifications and legal wranglings are in. Get with the program, or else I may have to shut my ears!

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Oh, Kenny, Kenny—you really need to get up with the times, my man. Concepts of right and wrong are so antiquated. Ethics are out. Justifications and legal wranglings are in. Get with the program, or else I may have to shut my ears!

Concepts of right and wrong are great - when you're teaching a child which can't yet understand or be interested in precise, real explanation. They're always needed for that, but at some point in life a man is expected to stop reasoning with those.

Ethics are like esperanto - trying to copy, analyze and adapt to reality, but really artificial. Some people speak esperanto, but it never really caught on. That doesn't mean each society doesn't have its own rules, only that they can rarely be described with simple words, and so speaking of the world in such general terms as ethics is a hopeless simplification.

Justice, justifications, courts and legalities are a way to show who's in control without unnecessary bloodshed, as always.

Just my $0.02

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

This is all very simple to figure out, and it has nothing to do with copyright or IP. It's a generational conflict. The same baby-boomers that screwed over the younger generations (and will continue to do so in the coming years) don't have any music to complain about like their parents did (popular music now being as threatening as yoghurt), so they shift all that age-rage over to IP and file-sharing. Young people, being young and excited by new things, don't see any problem with copying. The *cough* older generations need something to complain about, then you add a little physical nostalgia into the mix, and the copyright=theft argument becomes the digital equivalent of 'get off my lawn'.

So don't worry If you're under 40 and you can rub two brain cells together to start an idea, the world is yours. The baby boomers will die off soon enough, the lawns will grow, and sometime in the future we'll all have to mow them too.

Moejoe, some of us geezers don't mind kids on the lawn (and our brain cells have totally ossified....)

[TGS]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

When I can't see his posts, I'm not tempted to reply - and if someone cites them, in agreement, I can then discuss the matter with someone else whom I might influence, or who might give me some reasoning, not based on truthiness that would convince me.

I do take your point, and ignoring people who one feels keep labouring the same hackneyed point with mind-numbing tedium and in a bumptious way is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. But telling them that you are ignoring them is something different - the telling seems in itself to be a rhetorical move.
But my original point was really about invoking the mods of the forum to take some kind of action against kennyc - which I just thought was a bit over the top.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Mommy took the bwocks off da indernetz four me *giggle*. How's your lawn by the way, anybody on there who needs to get off? (One ad-hominem attack deserves another).

EDIT: And on a more serious note, I've come to expect anybody defending copyright and arguing the download=theft lie as being over 40, and I haven't been much wrong yet.

EDIT 2: Here's a handy-dandy guide to dealing with the different generations and their ideas.

The mp3 generation - ~25

Everything is free.

The cassette generation 25 - 40

Everything can be free, but we want to pay for some of it.

The vinyl generation 40+

Everything must be paid for.

Moejoe, the linky things don't work....WAA...

[TGS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I suspect, for example, that the overwhelming majority of people who hold a UK driving licence get a speeding ticket at some point during their driving career; should we de-criminalise speeding simply because a lot of people do it?

Doesn't this suggest that there can be a disconnect between what the law says and what the overwhelming majority of people think is right? So, whether the action of infringing someones copyright gets called theft, or piracy or just plain and simple copyright infringement, loads of people will think it's OK to do, just like loads of people think it's OK to exceed the speed limit every so often. A difference between the two cases seems to be that we don't create a moral panic and predict the collapse of civilization because people exceed the speed limit.

[Patricia]

Ok. We moderators have already posted one "play nice" message.

Our posting guidelines can be accessed on the blue bar at the bottom of this page. We do not want further personal attacks on people. Please aim for a courteous disccussion of the issues. Otherwise, we will regretfully decide to close the thread.

[Logseman]

I would say it sounds frivolous to compare the circumvention of a barrier whose effect is the loss of income for certain people with connections to the state with... inadequate speed in the roads, which more often than not costs human lives and healths.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by TGS

....
But my original point was really about invoking the mods of the forum to take some kind of action against kennyc - which I just thought was a bit over the top.

as do I.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I'd be telling all my co-workers that SOB stole my idea ... and I'm willing to bet you would, too!

You lose. PM me for my paypal details. I'd say "took" my idea.