"Perhaps if companies stopped anally raping their employees without lubrication, treating them with a shred of dignity instead of potential criminals, and paid them somewhere reasonable, perhaps this feel for employees to feel like they should steal from the company as they felt the company had stolen from them would be less likely to happen."

You aren't forced to work anywhere. If you feel you are being raped by your company...leave. Most people that I hear complaining like you just don't have the balls to quit. At this point, it's as much your employer's fault as it is yours.

"What motive do scientists have to deceive us? We don't take Einstein's General Theory of Relativity with a grain of salt do we? (At least only qualified people can meaningfully criticize it if at all.)"

Because global warming research is getting funding from the government. It mean more grant money for research.

Governments around the world are using man-made global warming to charge citizens even more taxes. If this wasn't the case, and no money was involved, I might be less suspicious of these "qualified people".

"There is a big difference between copying others stuff as an aid to making a profit like the corporations the poster is talking about has done and a person copying something without the interest of making a profit off it."

Why does profit matter? It seems the open source community is not interested in making a profit. However, many become interested when someone else puts the hard work into it and makes money.

Since you don't care in the first place, how is it really hurting you if a company makes a profit? You aren't losing anything.

"This is not so much "My information shouldn't be free" but "stop using my works for profit when the license explicitly says for non-commercial use.""

which is only saying that you refuse to follow a license you don't believe in, yet expect others to follow one that you do. Because of all the pro-piracy comments that come up on a weekly basis here, it makes me happy when a company violates an open source license.

It's giving you a taste of your own medicine.

"Go play ball on your side of the court and I'll stay on mine. We can easily co-exist.. as neighbours.. but if you mess with my stuff you have to pay (with labour), as well as you force me to pay (with money) when I play with yours."

More people are getting in trouble with violating the GNU than with abusing copyrights. The reason I'm going to continue violating (and advocate it) the GPL is because of the fact that the same people that are up-in-arms about GPL violations are pro-piracy and even feel it's their right to share copyrighted materials freely.

"In reality, without copyright, the GPL would NOT BE NEEDED."

So the goal of the GPL is to allow people to pirate software?

Without the GPL and the copyright, I would have no obligation to release the source of anything.

"Either ignorant or deliberate misinterpretation. He didn't criticise the company for wanting to profit off the GPL, he criticised them for wanting to enjoy the benefit of the GPL while not wanting to fulfil their legal obligations under the same license."

Kind of like people sharing software: Enjoying the benefit of the software (using it) while not fulfilling legal obligations (paying for it).

It's funny how so many people around here are fine with sharing proprietary software yet get so angry when someone tries the equivalent with GPL software (using it in proprietary apps without giving back/re-licensing).

This is why I stopped taking the community seriously.

"Never said that. Profiting by adding to software with a GPL or GPL-like license and then trying to sell that mix of proprietary and GPLed code, directly contravening the licensing terms, is evil."

So is filesharing. Both are violating the license terms. However, only one is politically correct around here.

"Piracy requires the threat or act of violence to capture ships, cargo or hostages at sea. But it isn't going to happen."

Words change over time. Deal with it.

"Without copyright, GPL could be implemented as a contractual agreement. It would loose some of its teeth, but it could still bite."

It would have no bite. I could take GPL software and do what I want with it. You could take the binaries and share them, but I would not be obligated to give you the source.

"Because those will be their strongest supporters."

This is because software pirates don't care about illegally copying software and will support anything that will give them less of a chance of getting caught.

This is why I can't take the movement seriously.

"The Pirate movement is using the word "pirate" specifically in an attempt to reclaim the word, which is currently used as a propaganda term by the copyright lobby in an attempt to link downloading to stealing ships, and associate it with freedom, privacy and all that other good stuff. It's all a war of words."

If I posted your credit card info on a website, should the site get taken down? After all, it's just data and information. I should have the freedom to do what I want with it.

"But if the "crimes" don't involve money, or physical goods, or (physical) personal interaction, or something else trackable in the real world, then "safely hidden" is probably the same as "free speech", "

Right, so if it doesn't meet you definition of crime, it's a-ok in your book. Since nobody here seems to care about the rights of content owners, I wonder why there is an outcry when people violate the GPL?

"Isn't the desire for privacy really a desire for freedom from some form of oppression?"

You are confusing freedom with copyright infringement.

"Have you ever seen the anime One Piece? It's a fantasized story of pirates"

Pirates have almost always been criminals that steal, rape, and pillage. Your one example of anime where they just so happened to be good doesn't justify a name change.

"Why associate the creation of ISPs that protect your privacy with piracy? "

Because their intent is to allow people to pirate digital goods. Privacy is just the excuse.