Piracy in the Go industry.

[FlyingAxe]

they can ask for donations to support them in their future endeavors.

Good idea. Please, donate some support to my future endeavors. If it suffices, I can then offer more free contents.

Show me which products you have produced. For instance, I am considering supporting Haruki Murakami for his newest book, even though I can obtain it for free.

See this: http://c4sif.org/2011/08/innovation-in- ... ie-bundle/

Intellectual property advocates say that the use of information needs to be protected by law. But even in today’s world, where this protection exists, there are commercial developers who are trying business models that are relying less and less on that protection.

The latest example is the Humble Indie Bundle 3. For short periods, they offer a bundle of games with no copy protection, and the customer decides how much to pay. You can pay as little as 1 cent to get the bundle. So actually, these aren’t purchases but instead donations for games that can be gotten for free and shared with friends and family without any problems. The average amount per downloader that is actually given is over $5 (Linux users average more than double that). They’ve raised 1.6 million dollars as of writing and there are still 4 days left in the promotion.

So why are people giving more than a penny? People appreciate what is being offered, and they like to reward that. And when you reward a developer of an enjoyable game, that is offered under favorable terms, then this serves as a signal for that developer to keep doing this work in the future, so that the consumers will have new games to enjoy when they’re done playing the current ones. Essentially, when you donate to a developer, you’re saying: “Please keep doing what you’re doing”.

[oren]

There was really enough of this stuff on rec.games.go. We really don't need it here.

[hyperpape]

No bearing on morality of the action. Kidnapping a West African and kidnapping a West Virginian at one point was treated differently by the law. Both actions were equally immoral. On the other hand, criticizing the king at one point was illegal, while criticizing your neighbor was not. Yet, neither action was immoral (on the other hand, jailing or fining a person for criticizing a king was).

This elegantly proves that not every law is worth following. But you seem to be suggesting on that basis that the fact that an action is allowed/prohibited by law is never an independent reason for or against that action, aside from its morality. That's...a special sort of inference.

On another point, with game records, these feel somewhat in between a newspaper description of a sports match, which can't be prohibited by the broadcaster, and a video reproduction of the entire match, which can be.

[FlyingAxe]

But you seem to be suggesting on that basis that the fact that an action is allowed/prohibited by law is never an independent reason for or against that action, aside from its morality.

Well, one reason not to do something is because you're afraid of the cops. Another reason is that it's not nice. For instance, being rude to my wife is not illegal and doesn't violate her rights. (But I don't think the government should enforce being nice to people.)

What I am saying is that every application of law needs to be very strictly justified. You (i.e., the law, federal government, police, etc.) are coming in and telling a person what to do or not to do with his hard drive, with his house, with his car, with his body, etc. -- or else (you threaten with force and violence in the case of non-compliance to the law). You better have a good justification for doing that. One justification I see protection of other people from violation of their rights. In case when this does NOT apply, you're violating this person's rights needlessly. That is why the whole approach of "every law is moral unless proven otherwise" is wrong. Every law is immoral unless proven absolutely necessary to protect other people's rights. That is why people who hold to my point of view (which includes the Founding Fathers and approximately one Congressman today) hold to the idea of a limited government.

[RobertJasiek]

No, this is erroneous.

Why? Your further comments on this discuss other aspects but do not explain why.

Furthermore, the law does not create rights, it recognizes them.

Law can do either or both. E.g., property is not a human being's right per se (some rain forest civilisations are without this concept) but in most civilisations law has guaranteed the right (and often even put it in constitutions).

A statement you have not justified in any way.

The justification comes with the law. In contrast to you, I can accept that law (not in contrast with human rights or dignity) regulates civilisations.

But once I copy information onto my storage device [...], you cannot own that information, since you cannot own that device.

Right. It rquires a court's judgement to change ownership of your copy.

you still cannot justify my restriction to its use, since it is non-scarce.

Once more: Scarcity is your but not my consideration.

You own the money in your customers’ pockets that they may pay you in future if they decide to buy your product?

No. "owning money" and "expecting to have income" are very different things.

I don’t think you can own other people’s money before they gave it to you willingly.

Why do you make it sound so difficult? Of course! "owning money", "expecting to have income", "not being allowed to blackcopy without payment" are three very different things.

[RobertJasiek]

I am arguing that once information has been bought (in a form of a book, pdf, epub, whatever), its owner owns it completely and may put it up online for free distribution.

We understand that that is your preference and it does violate current copyright law.

He is not violating the original writers’ rights, since they do not own the information.

Under valid copyright law, he is violating copyright and is (unless the copyright holder agrees) not allowed to distribute in a copy & paste manner.

Information is not something that can be owned,

Distribution of information can be copyright-protected regardless of whether the information itself can and cannot be owned. IOW, you may discuss the contents of a book and make proper citations but you may not distribute copies of the book (unless it is yours or the copyright owner has entitled you to do so).

If you believe that information is a platonic object,

Who cares. What matters is whether information is copyright-protected.

scarcity

Who cares. What matters is whether information is copyright-protected.

[RobertJasiek]

Show me which products you have produced.

You don't know? http://home.snafu.de/jasiek/books.html

[Bartleby]

This is an interesting thread. This is obviously a computer-centric forum, given the predominance of the "everything that can be reduced to a digital format should be freely available" crowd.

Maybe I am old, but to me piracy is simply thievery. The theft of the fruits of someone else's intellectual efforts. To me, intellectual property is still property, and it belongs to the person who created it.

There are a lot of bright people in this thread and elsewhere on the internet rationalizing this kind of theft. Nevertheless, I believe it is theft, pure and simple, and therefore morally wrong. All these pseudo-economic-inevitability mumbo jumbo arguments that clever schoolchildren can come up with won't change that. I particularly find the "it's for your own economic good" type of argument morally offensive. Who are you to decide what is for the author's own good?

I'm afraid I don't consider piracy any less thievery because you might later pay for something that you originally stole. Perhaps that makes you a thief capable of occasional remorse, but nevertheless a thief.

Sorry, I know this kind of opinion will be wildly unpopular here. Perhaps even get me banned from the forum. Frankly, I don't much care. Harsh statements of frankly held beliefs also sometimes have their place in civil discourse.

[karaklis]

I am arguing that once information has been bought (in a form of a book, pdf, epub, whatever), its owner owns it completely and may put it up online for free distribution.

That's a different thing. When you buy a book, pdf etc. you are just supposed to use that information for your private purposes, not to redistribute it. Purchasing the right to redistribute or whatever you want to do with that information would probably be much more expensive for you, maybe a thousand to ten thousand times more than the right to just use it information for your private purposes.

[Peter Hansmeier]

I happen to have done some work in the area of copyright enforcement. My experience working with content producers (not RIAA, etc.) has led me to agree mostly with John on this matter. Sure, bad markets and small audiences hurt your ability to recoup your initial investment, but so does piracy. I would add that pirates sound political and idealistic, but once they sit across the table from an attorney their smugness evaporates pretty quickly. Whatever your thoughts and feelings are on the matter, I assure you (without offering legal advice) that U.S. copyright law is VERY pro-copyright holder.

[topazg]

The law and morality and necessarily one and the same thing.

You can stand up for political ideology that you believe to be right, and still end up in prison for it. That doesn't mean you're morally wrong (or morally right), it just means you may have to face the consequences of your actions.

[Stable]

Sorry, I know this kind of opinion will be wildly unpopular here. Perhaps even get me banned from the forum.

Don't be a matyr Bartleby, of course it won't get you banned.

While in theory I like the "information want to be free" side of the argument, in practice I don't think it can support creative production at anything close to our current level, so I have to support the status quo. Crowd support can be very effective for popular projects (eg order of the stick comic just raised over a million dollars to reprint their books and some other projects, which is amazing to me), but it risks a tyranny of the mob where ONLY popular/well known creators and projects have a decent chance.

[tapir]

On tsumego collections:

I believe the phenomenon of tsumego collections spread without solutions is in part due to the copyright discussions around and the SL policy to present classical tsumego collections without their contemporary solutions. The point is that the classical tsumego collection is public domain while the recent solutions and comments by whomever are not, obviously this doesn't work the same way for contemporary tsumego collections. I guess this is in part due to a misunderstanding of the said SL policy / discussion that people spread contemporary collections the same way.

As far as I can tell the tsumego on cards series is pretty popular and offers something that a raw copy a .pdf etc. does not. I would advise anyone planning to publish a tsumego collections to do this on flash cards.

On author rights:

What irks me most is that despite all discussions about author rights many translations of supposedly ghost written books don't even bother to mention the genuine authors: the ghost writers. I want their names printed in big letters before I can take discussions about author rights seriously.

[hyperpape]

You better have a good justification for doing that. One justification I see protection of other people from violation of their rights. In case when this does NOT apply, you're violating this person's rights needlessly.

Let's have some fun. This position sounds like it's simple and consistent, but it's actually quite difficult to justify.The idea that the government should use my resources to protect you from Jimbob's actions is odd if you're going to be strict about individual rights. After all, I'm not Jimbob, so why should I be liable for what he does? What's next? Making me pay for your house because you don't have enough money? See Robert Nozick's brilliant Anarchy State and Utopia for a serious discussion of the issue.

That is why the whole approach of "every law is moral unless proven otherwise" is wrong.

Strawman.

That is why people who hold to my point of view (which includes the Founding Fathers and approximately one Congressman today) hold to the idea of a limited government.

Your views of what the Founding Fathers thought are quite debatable.

[hyperpape]

Maybe I am old, but to me piracy is simply thievery.

I'm stealing from a store. Assume you're not cowardly, you can feel entitled to punch me to stop me.

Now, I'm next to you reading a copied book. Care to take a swing?

Seriously, I think there's really good evidence on this subject. People grasp theft at an intuitive level. They often do the wrong thing, but they don't have to be browbeaten to recognize the issue.

Update: just in case it's not completely clear what I'm saying (I got a PM), you're saying piracy is like theft. And we don't just fine people for theft, or wag our fingers at them on the internet. We regularly send them to jail, or even use physical force to restrain them if we need to. I doubt many people here would go to such lengths, because they get the badness of theft at a gut level that doesn't translate to copyright infringement. And I think that's entirely accurate. Copyright infringement just isn't theft, however you slice it. That doesn't mean it's right, or even that it should be perfectly legal, just that there's a big difference.