Bitcoin Forum

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I doubt bitcoin will see the same success, since there is a barrier to entry to bitcoin. You need to spend money to get a spendable amount of bitcoin and utilize them, whether it be mining or direct purchasing. Unlike bitcoin, you can download torrents for many different trackers with no additional costs.

Agree, the bar might be a little higher to get started, but instead of getting great content for free you get to be free, so that kind of compensates.

Taking the unearned is not freedom. It is the violation of individual rights, and is necessarily opposed to freedom.

Besides the indefensible moral issue of theft, services like bittorrent - when used to steal property - help inflate the same sort of economic bubbles that we have seen (and increasingly will see) bursting, by creating artificial demand that would not exist in a free market that upholds and protects property rights. As one example, a software company suddenly inundated with support calls/emails/forum posts from thieves using their software, is forced to either a) hire more support staff, or b) lock down their support services. In either case, wealth is malinvested and user experience degraded.

Do not want for that which you cannot or will not voluntarily trade.

...as compared to the defensible moral issue of duplication.

Please, allow me to duplicate your wallet.dat, seeing as there is nothing wrong with mere duplication. It's all just ones and zeroes, after all. Information wants to be free!  ::)

Perhaps it's a moral issue, but simply having a duplicate of my wallet.dat is not theft.

Just like having a duplicate key to my apartment is not the same as stealing my TV.

It depends on intent. Nobody goes around duplicating apartment keys for no reason. It takes work, time, money to do that. The key is a means to an end, not the end in itself.

I completely agree. When I duplicate .avi files I have absolutely no intention of theft from hollywood studios.

Agreed. Your point?


As such? Were you planning on providing an argument? Or are you simply going to define theft out of existence for certain realms?

The fact that a large network of computers is involved in a theft does not mean a theft did not occur. It just means it is more difficult to place blame. But that is what a court of law is for - to gather all the facts of the situation and at determine who is to blame, to what extent, etc. The same goes for, say, a mob stampede/riot.

??? So your argument is that duplication is not theft because its not theft? Or that duplication is not theft because you don't intend it to be? Neither constitutes an argument. An objective court of law determines your true intent - you do not get to claim it, and have it presumed to be true.

I like the way people try to say they're not stealing so they can feel all morally well. The keyword duplicate is pretty much the same as stealing when it comes to copyrighted work, unless authorized by the copyright holder.

I used to believe that I wasn't stealing, but now I don't give a shit if I'm stealing or not.

The thing that makes me feel 'morally well' is rewarding those with an efficient business model, and refraining from rewarding those with an out-dated, inefficient business model.

It is funny to watch the RIAA scramble around and spend millions of dollars on a very ineffective strategy to cut down on piracy. The sad thing is that I thought by this time different business models would be sought, instead of hiding behind the government and crying while throwing millions of dollars at lawyers to make college students go bankrupt.

I reckon those guys will still be grasping at straws 10+ years from now, telling us all to get back to 1993 where we belong.

I'd have to find my tape play in that case... pretty sure I tossed that out along with all the copied tapes I had.

Haha, I went out and bought a top-of-the-line (for the 90's) Yamaha tape deck, specifically to archive all my old tapes to wave+mp3. It's taken me about 12 months to get the job half done.

Why not torrent all of those? Probably be a lot faster  :D

I would but they are unique recordings. When a good DJ mixes a set, no two performances are the same ;)

Actually that's true for terrible DJ's also.

Happy Birthday  :)