Farcical, probably because it doesn't involve molesting altar boys.

Honest question: Why is it that the Scandinavians in particular are so passionate about digital piracy?

I mean, if you want to steal stuff, do it, but spare me all the rationalizations and sanctimonious bullshiat about how piracy is a right. If you were really a decent person, you would pay for the movies, music, and books you enjoy so that the artist can be supported and compensated for their work. And if you don't want to pay for it, then just do without it. You're not going to die without the latest Hollywood movies. It's not a human right.

My 2¢.

Subby, Buddhism has many, many gods. And the Church knows this, since the first works of comparative religion ever done were looking at Buddhism, Confuscism, and Jesuit Catholicism.

/Maybe honky Buddhism doesn't have gods.

luidprand: Subby, Buddhism has many, many gods. And the Church knows this, since the first works of comparative religion ever done were looking at Buddhism, Confuscism, and Jesuit Catholicism.

/Maybe honky Buddhism doesn't have gods.

Buddhism doesn't require belief in any deity and doesn't require you to give up belief in any deity.

Do you think this guys ever met yous guys?

luidprand: Subby, Buddhism has many, many gods. And the Church knows this, since the first works of comparative religion ever done were looking at Buddhism, Confuscism, and Jesuit Catholicism.

/Maybe honky Buddhism doesn't have gods.

This. They just don't worship a god. Classical Buddhism had many gods in the stories.

the_sidewinder: luidprand: Subby, Buddhism has many, many gods. And the Church knows this, since the first works of comparative religion ever done were looking at Buddhism, Confuscism, and Jesuit Catholicism.

/Maybe honky Buddhism doesn't have gods.

Wikipedia: The non adherence[1] to the notion of a omnipotent creator deity or a prime mover is seen by many as a key distinction between Buddhism and other religions. In Buddhism the sole aim of spiritual practice is the complete alleviation of stress in samsara,[2][3] called nirvana. The Buddha neither denies nor accepts a creator,[4] denies endorsing any views on creation[5] and states that questions on the origin of the world are worthless.[6][7]

Doesn't change my point. Buddhists may not have a God, but they definitely have gods.

AbiNormal:
Buddhism doesn't require belief in any deity and doesn't require you to give up belief in any deity.

Which is what the Jesuits found in the first place - they had found that Christianity, and Buddhism (as well as either Taoism or Confucianism) worked very well together with only minor changes needed for integration. This was one of the reasons that various countries and even the Papacy used as an excuse to suppress them in the late 1700s.

/There's a reason Kung Fu Tzu is known in the West by the Latinization of his name.

It has no single centralized God, but it has lots of distributed, partial gods.

Came here to look for people with a complete misunderstanding of the teachings of the Buddha.

Left unsurprised and disappointed at the same time.

/there are many paths to enlightenment
//seek your own.

As to kopimism, it already has sins and virtues as well as publicly accessible tenets, so I'd say it's on its way to being a faith. Sharing knowledge has been a key tenet of many long-established religions (especially Abrahamic ones), and is usually a very healthy sign.

However, CTRL-V and CTRL-C are not good symbols - too hard to draw quickly and not unique enough. I'd have sacred glue and scissors, with the addition of a work to the holy text as a sacrament that occurs at every service.

/Bug-fixes are sacred.
//Have they beatified Richard Stallman yet?

Catholicism doesn't have a God either, they just think they have one.

=Smidge=
/runs away

luidprand: Doesn't change my point. Buddhists may not have a God, but they definitely have gods.

It depends on the type of Buddhism. See Theravada Buddhism

Oh yes, I like this. Let the copyrights-industry argue that religion should not be an excuse to break the law, then lets apply that to people that their religion is an excuse to be misogynistic racist assholes. Also let the established organized religions argue that this makes a mockery of the whole concept. If a few file-sharers end up with legal problems because of this I won't be too sad either.

I am not a fan of organized religion and its special privileges or industries who bribe politicians to create special laws to rob the public and greedy assholes in general. No matter who losses this it's a win for me.

Guess they had to wait on my submission of same link to expire from when it first hit.

Skyrmion: luidprand: Doesn't change my point. Buddhists may not have a God, but they definitely have gods.

It depends on the type of Buddhism. See Theravada Buddhism

I've known several Theravadan Buddhists who believe in gods, just not God. I don't think I've known any athiestic Theravedans who weren't converts from other faiths.

/Actually, all of them were white liberals.

Skyrmion: It depends on the type of Buddhism. See Theravada Buddhism

And that's the real key. There is no "one true Buddhism" and nearly universally, Buddhism exists atop another spiritual system. So in India, Buddhists will often be interacting with the local gods. In Japan, they'll often be dealing with the various spirits and entities of Shinto.

Doc Daneeka: I mean, if you want to steal stuff, do it,

First off, it's nothing even like theft, and that should be obvious on its face. But beyond that, they're making the argument that intellectual property restrictions are bad for society and impede the free flow of ideas. Their solution (which I think is overly strong, myself) is to abandon copyrights and other IP systems entirely.

Doc Daneeka
It's not a human right.

OTOH: neither is copyright; or fictional property.

luidprand: Skyrmion: luidprand: Doesn't change my point. Buddhists may not have a God, but they definitely have gods.

It depends on the type of Buddhism. See Theravada Buddhism

I've known several Theravadan Buddhists who believe in gods, just not God. I don't think I've known any athiestic Theravedans who weren't converts from other faiths.

/Actually, all of them were white liberals.

What is the point of your posts? Anecdotal evidence backed with an obvious bias against some imaginary stereotype you've defined only hurts the message you are trying to convey.

"There should be some measuring stick against what you call religion," he said. "In my mind, if religion has nothing to do with God - or what people perceive to be God - then it's a sham. It looks like it's just a way of getting around the law of piracy and copyright. How could a religion promote illegal activity?"

That's rich coming from a Catholic.

luidprand: /There's a reason Kung Fu Tzu is known in the West by the Latinization of his name.

Bruce Lee?

/jk

t3knomanser: First off, it's nothing even like theft, and that should be obvious on its face.

Actually, it's pretty similar to theft, in the sense that you are obtaining something, the product of someone's labor, that is normally sold for money, without paying for it. That's why I think these people proclaim so loudly how it's nothing like theft. Methinks they doth protest too much. They know how similar it is to something that is universally regarded as wrong, so they want to vigorously deny any similarity.

That said, I do understand the distinction between theft and copyright infringement. They are not the same thing. So what? Murder isn't the same thing as rape, but both are wrong.

t3knomanser: First off, it's nothing even like theft, and that should be obvious on its face.

I'd say it's nothing like the commonly used and legal definition of theft, but the term also has broader meanings. For example, when someone plagiarizes, we colloquially say they're stealing. We also talk about theft of trade secrets, but of course, once a trade secret is known by others, it ceases to exist. When a LB jumps out of nowhere to make an interception, the QB sometimes complains he was robbed.

Within a broad definition of "you've appropriated something without rights," infringement would be a subset of the greater concept of theft, as would the specific legal definitions of theft and conversion.

But beyond that, they're making the argument that intellectual property restrictions are bad for society and impede the free flow of ideas. Their solution (which I think is overly strong, myself) is to abandon copyrights and other IP systems entirely.

Unfortunately, they don't get to force their religion on others, specifically copyright holders. It's all very well and good if you believe copying information is divine... just do it with your own information, not mine.

Also, at least in this country, the defense of "my religion says I have to do [illegal action]" is not going to fly, if the law making the action has a secular purpose and is a "neutral law of general applicability". I mean, really... don't you think that Rastafarians, Santarians, and Satanists already tried that argument?

Doc Daneeka: t3knomanser: First off, it's nothing even like theft, and that should be obvious on its face.

Actually, it's pretty similar to theft, in the sense that you are obtaining something, the product of someone's labor, that is normally sold for money, without paying for it. That's why I think these people proclaim so loudly how it's nothing like theft. Methinks they doth protest too much. They know how similar it is to something that is universally regarded as wrong, so they want to vigorously deny any similarity.

It's arguably closer to trespass... If I live near a concert venue and I have a lawn, I can exercise my rights as a property owner to exclude others from parking on it, or I can grant them a temporary license to do so in exchange for $20. If someone parks on my lawn without paying, they haven't stolen my lawn and my lawn will still be there when they leave, but they've interfered with my right to exclusivity. Plus, when the next guy comes up and says "why should I pay you $20, jackass, that guy just parked for free," they've interfered with my ability to commercially exploit my property.

I carry around a lucky rabbits foot...i consider people who toss salt over their shoulders to be silly.

/all superstitions are silly

FYI, I'm not just making this argument to be a shill for the record/movie companies.

Personally, I believe that copyright terms are currently far too long, and need to be reformed. I believe strongly in the value of a vibrant public domain.

I just disagree with the ideas that copyright should be done away with entirely (I think, as did the framers of the US Constitution, that copyright serves a valuable purpose), nor do I agree with the perverse argument that piracy is in any sense a right.

Nrokreffefp: luidprand: Skyrmion: luidprand: Doesn't change my point. Buddhists may not have a God, but they definitely have gods.

It depends on the type of Buddhism. See Theravada Buddhism

I've known several Theravadan Buddhists who believe in gods, just not God. I don't think I've known any athiestic Theravedans who weren't converts from other faiths.

/Actually, all of them were white liberals.

What is the point of your posts? Anecdotal evidence backed with an obvious bias against some imaginary stereotype you've defined only hurts the message you are trying to convey.

I'm just sick of people who have no sense of the history, complexity, and depth of one of the great world religions hijacking it to pretend it is and has always meshed with their particular world views. For example, I've known pacifists who insist Buddhism has never been a religion of conquest, ignoring the history of Tibet or the freaking Mongol empire. Such interpretations smack of Orientalism and I encounter both the New Age and atheist versions frequently. I think Buddhism is particularly vulnerable to this sort of simplistic study because it is so compatible with so many other faiths. This isn't to say that there aren't strains of Buddhism that don't lend themselves to pacifism or atheism, but saying something like "there are no gods in Buddhism" shows a lack of research about the faith. To be fair, I'd definitely say the majority of Christians have little understanding of what their own faith subscribes to or the traditions that have built their religion to its current state.

hubiestubert:

But in Buddhism, the gods are cautionary tales of being caught into roles, and no matter how powerful, how kind, how influential, the gods cannot attain Enlightenment. Buddhism adopts gods into their systems of teaching, as much for the rich metaphor as much for cultural relevance. In this, the gods, while they are useful, are not central to the teachings. They are side notes, powers to be respected, but in the end, the important thing is not their worship, but your own path. You and those around you are the most important thing. Not gods. Not demons. Not the thousands of Hells, but what you do right now. This moment. Being aware. Being awake. Gods are useful to teach lessons about, but in the end, you have but one thing to rely upon: your own effort.

/Buddhist
//Republican
///born in Japan

THANK YOU.

luidprand: Nrokreffefp: luidprand: Skyrmion: luidprand: Doesn't change my point. Buddhists may not have a God, but they definitely have gods.

It depends on the type of Buddhism. See Theravada Buddhism

I've known several Theravadan Buddhists who believe in gods, just not God. I don't think I've known any athiestic Theravedans who weren't converts from other faiths.

/Actually, all of them were white liberals.

What is the point of your posts? Anecdotal evidence backed with an obvious bias against some imaginary stereotype you've defined only hurts the message you are trying to convey.

I'm just sick of people who have no sense of the history, complexity, and depth of one of the great world religions hijacking it to pretend it is and has always meshed with their particular world views. For example, I've known pacifists who insist Buddhism has never been a religion of conquest, ignoring the history of Tibet or the freaking Mongol empire. Such interpretations smack of Orientalism and I encounter both the New Age and atheist versions frequently. I think Buddhism is particularly vulnerable to this sort of simplistic study because it is so compatible with so many other faiths. This isn't to say that there aren't strains of Buddhism that don't lend themselves to pacifism or atheism, but saying something like "there are no gods in Buddhism" shows a lack of research about the faith. To be fair, I'd definitely say the majority of Christians have little understanding of what their own faith subscribes to or the traditions that have built their religion to its current state.

You should listen to this guy, he's a level five Laser Lotus in his Buddhist group.

/I keed

An anointed pederast says what?

Doc Daneeka: Actually, it's pretty similar to theft, in the sense that you are obtaining something, the product of someone's labor, that is normally sold for money, without paying for it

Without depriving them of access to it, the primary element that defines theft. Trespass would be a better analogy, or, if we wanted to be really accurate, we'd call it "infringement"- we're infringing on their control of their creative work.

Now, how much control does someone have of their creative work? Without a structure of copyright law, absolutely jack-squat. Unlike personal safety protections, or even traditional property rights, copyright law is something entirely defined by fiat. For other kinds of property, it's very easy to establish ownership and rights-of-use. We can discuss zones of control, property boundaries, etc.

Intellectual property, on the other hand, does not have any such easily determined restrictions. It's only wrong to infringe copyright because it's more broadly wrong to violate the law, and we have laws about infringing copyright. If there were no legal recognition of copyrights, would it still be wrong to appropriate someone's work (assuming proper credit were given)?

Doc Daneeka: I just disagree with the ideas that copyright should be done away with entirely (I think, as did the framers of the US Constitution, that copyright serves a valuable purpose), nor do I agree with the perverse argument that piracy is in any sense a right.

I also disagree with the idea that copyright should be done away with, but I also would argue that there are clear cases where what is termed piracy is perfectly right. Let's say, that I subscribed to cable, but instead of using a TiVo, I chose to "pirate" TV programming. I already have a license to consume this programming. My license already allows me to record, time-shift, and strip commercials for my private enjoyment. I can archive those recordings and save them for years. If I use a TiVo or a VCR to do this, I'm completely in the clear. If, on the other hand, I download the same programs from the Internet, I'm pirating them.

In a similar sense, a user might choose to both purchase a game and play a pirated copy, since the pirated copy can be used in ways the original game cannot (most DRMed PC games can't be played easily inside of WINE or similar tools, but with certain cracks, they can be- I've played many-a-game on the Mac that never received a Mac port).

These are violations of copyright law. They are piracy. But I'd be hard pressed to call them wrong.

meat0918: Doc Daneeka: FYI, I'm not just making this argument to be a shill for the record/movie companies.

Personally, I believe that copyright terms are currently far too long, and need to be reformed. I believe strongly in the value of a vibrant public domain.

I just disagree with the ideas that copyright should be done away with entirely (I think, as did the framers of the US Constitution, that copyright serves a valuable purpose), nor do I agree with the perverse argument that piracy is in any sense a right.

I agree with you. It needs to be reformed and copyright shortened. The Copyright Term Extension Act, dubbed the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act", violates the spirit of the Constitution while preserving the letter of the document, specifically the bold part here "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Yeah, it's limited, until Mickey is close to coming off of copyright protection, then it will be extended another 50 years.

Unfortunately, the "copyright terms should be shorter" argument is tough to defend when you're talking about very, very short terms, which most people are. I think it could be a lot stronger if, rather than a simplistic "all copyright terms should be shorter," you split off derivative works and say that those should have a much shorter term.
You want to copy an entire album, bit for bit, without paying for a license or royalties? Sounds like piracy.
You want to sample sections to make a remix or incorporate them into an entirely new song? That starts sounding like art again, and is much easier to defend on a moral and policy level.

t3knomanser: Their solution (which I think is overly strong, myself) is to abandon copyrights and other IP systems entirely.

Actually, their aim is to shorten the term of copyright to 5 years, with an option of extension to 20 years. Their view was adopted by one of the EU parliament's main blocs last year. Link (new window)

Personally, I like the idea that the length of copyright and the restrictiveness of a type of copyright should be inversely related.

So, if you want to put your work under the most restrictive type of copyright, which prohibits all sharing or quoting or any other use, you only get 5 years. But if you use a Creative Commons or free software license, you'll get a much longer term that can last decades (depending on how free the license is).

Honestly, you guys really think that it's good for our culture that all our art is locked down until 70 years after the author dies? Who the hell does that benefit?

Doc Daneeka: FYI, I'm not just making this argument to be a shill for the record/movie companies.

Personally, I believe that copyright terms are currently far too long, and need to be reformed. I believe strongly in the value of a vibrant public domain.

I just disagree with the ideas that copyright should be done away with entirely (I think, as did the framers of the US Constitution, that copyright serves a valuable purpose), nor do I agree with the perverse argument that piracy is in any sense a right.

Honestly I don't consider piracy of music to be acceptable anymore. Entire albums are up on Youtube, so you can preview them there. You have iTunes, Amazon, Google, and Zune all fighting to sell you a DRM free MP3 of the song for under two dollars. Pay the money. If a monopoly ever forms and prices skyrocket, then I'd start to support piracy again.

With TV and movies though I see things like Project Free TV (and First Row Sports) as the invisible hand of the market. The technology is here. We have things like Netflix (which the movie industry keeps trying to screw), Hulu, or things like ESPN3. Plus you can always sell on iTunes. So there is a revenue stream available. I watch Hawaii Five-0 on the CBS website, so they get ad revenue off me. I buy Squidbilles and Archer to watch on my phone, so that's straight cash for them. I also have no remorse about pulling up someone on Project Free TV that's you can't easily get your hands on though. There are multiple ways content providers could make money off me and it the content provider's decision to go toss it on some obscure cable channel or release it on overpriced disc Blueray only. If I'm willing to watch a poor quality rip encoded in Flash instead of paying them money, that's the market voting on the quality of their content.

If I want to pull up Game of Thrones and the website says "Hey you need to be paying Comcast a bunch of money to get onto HBOGo and be allowed to pay us more money...", well HBO decided to go with the TV exclusive business model and the market is self correcting on that one.

I'm just sick of people who have no sense of the history, complexity, and depth of one of the great world religions hijacking it to pretend it is and has always meshed with their particular world views. For example, I've known pacifists who insist Buddhism has never been a religion of conquest, ignoring the history of Tibet or the freaking Mongol empire.

The Mongols were animists and shamans. They allowed the practice of all religions in their empire but they themselves were not Buddhists.

t3knomanser: Unlike... traditional property rights, copyright law is something entirely defined by fiat. For other kinds of property, it's very easy to establish ownership and rights-of-use. We can discuss zones of control, property boundaries, etc.

Oh, Honey...

"Traditional" property rights are also defined by fiat, unless you're prepared to shoot all trespassers. And even then, without government support, that's murder.

Intellectual property, on the other hand, does not have any such easily determined restrictions. It's only wrong to infringe copyright because it's more broadly wrong to violate the law, and we have laws about infringing copyright. If there were no legal recognition of copyrights, would it still be wrong to appropriate someone's work (assuming proper credit were given)?

Yes, because you're interfering with the ability of someone to exploit the fruits of their labor. It's not as much an issue in this country, but check out "moral rights" of authors in Europe.

I also disagree with the idea that copyright should be done away with, but I also would argue that there are clear cases where what is termed piracy is perfectly right. Let's say, that I subscribed to cable, but instead of using a TiVo, I chose to "pirate" TV programming. I already have a license to consume this programming. My license already allows me to record, time-shift, and strip commercials for my private enjoyment. I can archive those recordings and save them for years. If I use a TiVo or a VCR to do this, I'm completely in the clear. If, on the other hand, I download the same programs from the Internet, I'm pirating them.

In a similar sense, a user might choose to both purchase a game and play a pirated copy, since the pirated copy can be used in ways the original game cannot (most DRMed PC games can't be played easily inside of WINE or similar tools, but with certain cracks, they can be- I've played many-a-game on the Mac that never received a Mac port).

These are violations of copyright law. They are piracy. But I'd be hard pressed to call them wrong.

Actually, it's questionable whether those are violations. The strongest argument is that you're inducing someone else to infringe - the uploader. But if you can format-shift, then there's nothing that necessarily requires you to use your own encoder. It's one of the reasons the RIAA has never gone after leechers.

Esn: Honestly, you guys really think that it's good for our culture that all our art is locked down until 70 years after the author dies? Who the hell does that benefit?

The author and the author's estate. If we ignore authors, then "what's good for our culture" is that we simply make everything public domain immediately, no? Copyright acknowledges that authors are entitled to some benefit, so you can't simply write them out of any equation.

Also, I highly recommend reading this short article by the wonderful artist Nina Paley, who drew the above comic:
The Cult of Originality (new window)

ha-ha-guy: You have iTunes, Amazon, Google, and Zune all fighting to sell you a DRM free MP3 of the song for under two dollars. Pay the money. If a monopoly ever forms and prices skyrocket, then I'd start to support piracy again.

While I agree with your other points, in the late 90s, a CD cost on average around $15 at Newbury Comics and the like, for around 10-15 songs. That's under two dollars per song, too. Prices still are "skyrocketed", the only distinction is that we don't have to pay for filler.

Esn: [i.imgur.com image 640x199]

Arguments against censorship kinda require the person to be stopped from speaking their own ideas, y'know. Saying "you're censoring me because you won't let me distribute copies of your movie for free" doesn't hold much water.