Interesting that this gets modded down to zero, and the many, many specious rationalizations of theft get modded up to 4 or 5 "Interesting" or "Insightful."
Slashdot is jumping the shark.
Or perhaps you don't hold the hallowed moral high ground you believe you do.
But nah, everybody else must be wrong. That's far more likely.
First off, I totally disagree with your interpretation of Piaget's concrete operational stage. The very page you linked describes it as "The child develops an ability to think abstractly and to make rational judgements(sic) about concrete or observable phenomena, which in the past he needed to manipulate physically to understand." Phenomena does not necessarily mean physical objects; it also means observable actions -- such as the act of copying data from one place to another. Somebody stuck in the concrete operational stage would, in fact, see each copy of the data as a distinct "object" with intrinsic value, whereas somebody who has progressed to the abstract operational stage can see that the data is simply a particular binary pattern, and that it is the act of creating the pattern, rather than the pattern itself, that truly holds the value.
I concede that this is basically the academic way of saying "I know you are, but what am I?"
Since piracy of easily copyable items like digital media only involves not paying for the labor that went into producing the good
I should also point out that if we are actually paying for the labor that went into producing a digital good, rather than the good itself, then there should be a point at which the costs of the labor involved have been entirely recouped, and all further copies of the media should be totally free. This, of course, is not the case.
The moral and economic landscape are not changed in the least. By your reasoning, anything that is abundant and can be reproduced at zero cost can be taken from its producer without compensation.
Correct.
That the good required a expenditures of labor and resources somehow vanishes from the equation.
Incorrect. The expenditure of labor and resources should be proportionally paid for once.
This negates the viability of business models that depend on the sales of digital goods.
Correct.
Producers of such must, by your reasoning, not only accept that anyone can make free copies of their goods, but that it is morally acceptable to do so.
Also correct.
You don't explain why this is, you merely assert it. Repeating the "abundant and can be reproduced at zero cost" argument doesn't make it true, even if you heard it from the wise old professor in Econ 101.
You don't explain why it is morally unacceptable to do so, you merely assert it as well. Repeating the "each digital copy of a work has intrinsic value" argument also doesn't make it true.
And regardless of how accepted Piaget's stages of cognitive development are in psychology, it is still an insult to categorically state that anybody with ideas of morality that differ from your own are somehow stuck in the concrete operational stage and lack the ability to think abstractly. (At least, that is what I assume from your calling everybody "children".) On the contrary, I would say that your inability to conceive of moral systems or beliefs that differ from your own would place you quite firmly in the concrete stage.
Not to mention the fact that Piaget's stages are covered in any decent Psych 100 class, since you were so keen to make the "Econ 101 professor" quip.
How about people who like the work of artists they support pay a "micro-subscription" to those artists -- something as small as a buck a month, maybe more if they're a big fan. Those who want stuff for free won't pay a dime, and nothing short of police-state enforcement will stop them; there's no use in denying this. But those who realize "hey, I like what this person does and want to support him or her" will contribute. Maybe those who do pay for subscriptions could get perks like direct downloads of new material, or even tickets to live shows.
Sound familiar? It's the public television / public radio model, and it usually works quite well for them. If there were an easy way to support the music, movies, and television I like in this manner, I'd be all over it.
Holy crap, I should've read your response before writing mine, because you just made my point way more eloquently than I did. Bravo.
You are destroying the notion of selling digital goods. That "no extra effort" is caused is not the point. The point is that the artist was not compensated for a digital good that changed hands. Copying a digital good causes the transfer of information. Music, video, games, etc. are digital information that required a great deal of labor to create. Copying it without compensation or in violation of the artist's chosen license does indeed transfer a good from the artist to the thief. The thief previously did not possess it, now he does. That it is an easy to make copy does not justify the theft.
"No extra effort" is exactly the point. Since the supply of the "good" is infinite, the intrinsic value of the "good" is zero. The only thing with actual value is the time, effort, and talent used to create the good: you organized all of those 0's and 1's into a form that is useful or aesthetically pleasing or whatever. But those 0's and 1's have no actual value. The pattern they are in has no actual value. Only the work exerted actually has value, and that's what you should get compensated for.
What it's supposed to mean is that every computer can have a public address. So if you sign up with one of the dynamic DNS providers (which will probably be integrated with your OS fairly soon) you should be able to share pictures and things from your own computer without having to upload them to somewhere, or be able to log in remotely to look at some file (private) you forgot to bring with you, or any number of other things (fewer firewall errors on p2p networks? true p2p voip, without needing to sign up with a service that lets you punch holes in NAT?). This would also work without the dynamic DNS provider, but the URL would look uglier.
Most likely, this would also lead to relaxing the typical rule ISPs tend to have against running servers on home connections. They can't really forbid something that gets built into the OS like these sorts of features probably will.
Sure they can! There is absolutely no way Comcast will give users more control over what they can do with their Internet connection. All the big ISPs have tried for years to exert more and more control over what we can do with our connections -- first via social means, then via technical ones. Get everybody using Webmail. Have everybody post videos on Youtube and photos on Flickr. Use pre-made blogging sites, don't host your own.
I'm not saying these are bad sites -- hell, I use them regularly. But they all lead to what the ISPs would love: let people communicate via port 80, period, no listening whatsoever.
I predict IPv6 will lead to Comcast forbidding routers on their network, charging for each additional IPv6 address they hand out, and blocking all listening ports.
But if I don't like it, I can always find another ISP... oh wait, I can't, because they're the only game in town, and they've purchased laws to make sure they stay that way.
When Comcast switches to IPv6, do you really think they'll give you more than one IP address? You better believe they'll charge you more for each additional one. Maybe they'll give you two or three for free, but I doubt it.
So unless you want to pay per computer you have connected, you'll still need to NAT them through a router. Nothing will change.
I'll take your argument one step further. The real fact is that the product, once created, is totally worthless. It has no value. It is raw data. It can be duplicated perfectly ad infinitum at practically zero cost, therefore supply is infinite, therefore value is zero. The only thing that actually has value is the act of creating the product. The time put into the creation, the time the artist spent honing his or her talents, this is where the value truly lies.
We don't know how to deal with this concept, so we try to prop up old models of compensation with artificial legal constructs like "intellectual property". But we're just fooling ourselves, because as you said, some people just want stuff for free. I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, just that it is reality. So instead of trying to fight this segment of the population (which, barring police-state-level enforcement, will always be a losing battle), we ignore them and focus on the people who want to reward those who are actually creating the art.
Maybe products that can be infinitely, perfectly duplicated will have to be supported via some sort of commission system, the way operas and paintings used to be commissioned. You like what an artist does? Support him or her with a small monthly subscription to that person -- maybe a buck, maybe five. Think that person has gone off in a direction you don't like, or hasn't produced anything of value recently? Discontinue your subscription.
It is, admittedly, a totally pie-in-the-sky, borderline socialist idea, but I'd be happy to support something like that. It would be a sort of micropayment patronage system for artwork. I don't know if it would scale well, and there would certainly be areas ripe for abuse -- you'd need some way to make sure you didn't end up with the very rich dictating our culture by virtue of being able to contribute the most money to artists. But it's a thought.
I chose one because I have a laptop with a bad backlight, forcing me to use an external monitor and essentially turning the thing into a fancy luggable.
I would prefer an unbroken row of screens extending in a U-shape around my desk, with Synergy tying all of them into a single keyboard and mouse which would be attached to my swivel chair. Then I could feel like the Operator in The Matrix.
The fact that you have seen it on Usenet, intentionally or not, means you downloaded a copy, meaning you are guilty of possession of child pornography and an obvious child predator.
What, you deleted it? Okay, now you're also guilty of destroying evidence. You just don't know when to quit, do you, punk?
You know, Slashdot could've gone the way of Wikipedia, which has a bunch of crazy entries on the front page which are actually truthful in some way (albeit usually misleading in a humorous way). Instead we get the usual "HUR HUR MICROSOFT RELEASES CP/M 9.2" bullshit.
Oh, wait, what? This one is serious? Nah, can't be. I mean, you've cried wolf how often?
So, given AT&T and Comcast colluding with the RIAA now, it sounds like now would be a great time for somebody in the UK to set up an encrypted VPN connection, available to folks for a nominal monthly fee.
I swear, I'm starting to consider subscribing to one and routing all of my traffic through it permanently. I am sick of these fuckers pawing through my traffic looking for evidence of wrongdoing.
There are no other broadband ISPs in many places, including where I live. Hell, I don't even get to choose DSL -- cable is the only option.
AT&T and Comcast know this. They don't give a shit about their customers, because they're usually the only game in town. So the only option is to abandon broadband entirely and stick with a dial-up, spend ridiculous amounts on a leased line, or spend even more ridiculous amounts on satellite Internet (which has lag times that are way too high for VoIP or online gaming). If there were another option I'd be jumping on it in an instant.
I'd like your permission to quote that, if you wouldn't mind.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings: (5) All right, who's the wiseguy who stuck this trigraph stuff in here?
