Pirate Bay founder Gottfrid Warg gets lengthy jail term

[brian_23452]

Last thing I would like to add.  If you were an independent musician, privately recording your work, burning it, and selling it on, I could even see some of your points on empathy and all that.  I may not necessarily agree with your conclusions, but I could potentially be persuaded to at least understand where you are coming from.

But we aren't talking about that, we are talking about corporations, which by their very nature aren't people.  They are legal constructs, unfeeling things.  And so there is no way an appeal to emotion will ever win there.  You can't have a moral interaction with an unfeeling, inanimate  object.  It is, by the very definition you provided, impossible, and so it is impossible for an interaction with a corporation to even be immoral. 

[jaysabi]

Stealing is "inherently wrong." If I have a tangible object, you have no right to it. It doesn't matter if I made it or purchased it, it belongs to me. If you take it without my permission, that is "inherently wrong." I don't see the distinction between something I physically made or some form of art I made. If I made a movie, I own it, the same as if I crafted a physical object. My livelihood is dependent on my ability to sell tickets to see it, so I choose not to grant people permission to see it without paying me for it. If they don't want to see it at my price, the market will sort that out. Either I'll have to lower the price or stop making movies if I can't make a living at it. But these are based on voluntary exchanges. You deciding you have the right to see my work just because doesn't hold up, that's not a voluntary exchange, and that makes it stealing. It's property law; you're taking property that you have no right to. Doesn't matter if the owner is a starving artist or a mutli-national, mutli-billion dollar corporation. You don't have a right to take things you don't own, and you have not asserted any legitimate claim otherwise.

1.  Stealing isn't inherently wrong.  Look at every single other species on the planet, they all take whatever they can get without any sort of moral dilemma.  Look at Human beings, for the overwhelming majority of the time we existed, we did the same thing.  With the rise of civilization we "decided" we were better off agreeing to a moral code, so much so that it is now ingrained in us.  I won't take your stuff and you won't take mine.  I can't say this enough though, it only works if we are all playing by the rules!  Corporations do not follow the code, and so they do not deserve to have it followed with them either.  I mean you're free to follow whatever moral code you want to of course, as am I.  

2.  It isn't stealing.  For most of human history, if I could play a song, I was free to play it.  You didn't own it anymore than you owned how to bake a loaf of bread, or fashion a wheel.  Somewhere along the line, very recently, groups of people *declared* that such a thing was immoral (not coincidentally, they stand to profit heavily from convincing you and I that it is immoral).  As I tried to mention earlier, the Romans, upon whom much of our legal code is bases, specifically had a term for this type of law to differentiate it from moral laws like stealing.  There is simply no precedent anywhere in western law for it to be stealing, and in fact quite the precedent for it to be nothing more than a procedural issue (like illegal parking).  

3.  You bring up an interesting point regarding free trade and western style free market economics.  In theory yes, the free market will sort out the price of these things, and if the market determines some guy is worth 720 dollars a minute we consider that "fair".  Of course western style, free market economics is very rarely free.  In theory you would compete by providing a better product, or a lower price but in fact you demonstrate how it *really* works.  Pass laws to make it illegal for anyone else to compete with you rather than provide a superior product at a superior price.  But now we are getting way off topic.  

I'll keep your enumeration for the sake keeping it organized.

1. I still maintain stealing is inherently wrong. Look at every single other species on the planet, and differentiate what makes us different from them: Meta-cognition and the ability to understand right from wrong. Animals don't act "morally" or "immorally" because they don't have empathy. A tiger needs to eat, it kills and eats and has no ability to understand it caused tremendous pain to whatever it just ate. People have empathy, and the ability to understand how their actions harm other people. And choosing to harm other people is "inherently wrong," whether it is physically, economically, or otherwise.

2. I take your points well on the ability to play a song as being analogous to knowing how to bake a loaf of bread. I agree with you in these instances. I'm not talking about this though. If you want to reenact a movie you've seen and charge admission for it, I see no reason you should be stopped. If you want to play a song ("protected by copyright") and charge for your performance, I also see no reason the law should stop you. But I'm addressing the instances in which this is not the case, like taking a movie or song wholesale and consuming it without paying for it. That's stealing, because it's not based on voluntary exchange.

3. I agree with you. I'm against IP laws that are anti-innovation or anti-competition. I do not believe Pirate Bay or P2P networks fit this model however. These are straight theft enablers.

1.  But you haven't really explained why it is wrong.  What makes you the arbiter of what is right and what is wrong?  Now we are getting somewhere though.  Empathy.  As you say, people have this ability.  But what is a corporation?  It isn't a person, despite what US case law will tell you.  And they clearly do not experience empathy.  So why would I experience any empathy for it?  It isn't a person, and it clearly does not experience any sort of empathy, nor does it follow this moral code.  And so I will say again, in my interactions with corporations, I also do not experience any empathy or follow a moral code.  It's like picking up a pretty pebble from the ground, I'm not stealing from the ground because the ground isn't a person.

2.  But it clearly isn't stealing.  I really can't say this any other way.  Since the dawn of human civilization, human beings have done *exactly* what you described, and no where, anywhere, did anyone ever regard it as stealing (except perhaps the originators of the material.  No idea what they thought).  All of a sudden, music is a multi billion dollar business, and all of a sudden, the people who profit from that business unilaterally declare it to be morally wrong to copy their work (in itself obtained in often explotive relationships with the original artists or outright "stolen").  This declaration does not simply make is so, though. 

3.  Another way to look at it is they provide the same service as the corporation, but for less cost. 

I'm gonna cut out some of the early responses to try to keep the quoting from being super long, but also retain the relevancy of the responses that preceded this.


1. It is wrong because we have empathy. If I punch you in the face, I know that causes you physical harm because I can empathize with or reasonably project what being punched in the face feels like. Because I know it causes physical harm, choosing to do so makes it wrong. All moral questions boil down to one thing: does it hurt someone else? If yes, it's morally wrong. If not, it is not morally wrong.

Does smoking marijuana harm anyone else? No, then it is not wrong. Does taking someone's money without their permission harm anyone else? Yes, then it is morally wrong. And all questions of financial harm have to do with voluntary exchange. If I give you permission to watch the movie I created without paying me for it, it's not wrong. If I did not give you that permission, you're taking it and it's not voluntary, and that makes it wrong.

2. Using absolutes like "no where, anywhere, did anyone ever regard it as stealing" almost automatically render your assertion false. I guarantee that in the course of human civilization (before music became a multi-billion dollar industry), someone copied a song someone else wrote and the author considered it stealing. That's human nature to want credit for what you create, even if the "currency" is only the acknowledgement that you created it. And again, I'm not talking about you performing the song. I'm talking about you taking something someone has not given you permission to take and disseminated it without compensation, like the specific recording an artist makes. It doesn't matter if music being a vocation is a recent development in the course of all human history. There is now the implicit (and explicit) understanding that musicians create music as their economic contribution to society, and they do so with the expectation to be economically compensated as part of a voluntary exchange. The person who builds something, owns it. The person who creates something, owns it. You don't get to just say, "Well this thing you created sure is nice, and I don't need your permission to take it because that's the way it's always been." That's wrong. That's stealing.

Like your bread analogy, knowing how to bake bread and knowing how to play a song someone else wrote are knowledges that cannot be owned. But the specific loaf you baked, or the specific recording of the song you wrote, you DO own. Someone using that loaf of bread or that recording of the song you wrote without your permission is wrong. It's stealing.

3. They don't provide the same "services." They provide stolen goods. The electronic version of the song is a unique item they did not create and do not have permission to provide to anyone else. Because their exchange is not voluntary, it is stealing.

1.  I guess you are using a different definition of morality than I am.  "a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.", from dictionary.com.  Many, many societies have moral codes that specifically allow, condone, or even require harming other people.  As well, there are many things I can do that cause direct or indirect harm that I doubt anyone would consider morally wrong.  If we all just flat out ignore your music so that you go out of business, that harms you.  But we aren't morally obligated to buy it.  But to address the empathy, we are talking about corporations.  A corporation is not a person and therefore cannot experience pain or suffering.  If I punch you in the face, you experience suffering.  We can agree that this is generally wrong.  If I punch the wall in my basement though this isn't a moral wrong, because no one (except maybe me) suffers.  So it is with the corporation.  It isn't a person with feelings, so no need to worry about "hurting" it.
Not sure what marijuana really has to do with this; I do find it interesting that you bring it up given that the same SCOTUS that upheld all these copyright laws specifically ruled that it's use DOES harm other people.   Regarding the movie you mentioned, I didn't take it though.  You still have it.  I simply copied it, just like the bread we were talking about (which you agreed was fine).

2.  If you reread what I wrote, I specifically excluded the original artists.  I'm sure they too, just like today, wished they could created an artificial monopoly to drive up the price of their product.  The difference is that for most of history, society did not agree with that.  I perhaps should have worded it less aggressively; what I was trying to get at though is that for most of human history is was morally acceptable to copy someone else's invention, song, poem, whatever.  And rightfully so!  Imagine where we would be if a corporation had a patent on something like the wheel.
But I haven't taken it!  You still have the song.  All I did was copy it.  I guess what I am saying is, if you chose a profession that is so easy to copy, it is only natural that you not expect much compensation.   You're taking the typical corporate response to natural competition and attempting to legislate it out of existence, instead of asking yourself "what can I do to encourage people to purchase MY work instead of a copy".

"Like your bread analogy, knowing how to bake bread and knowing how to play a song someone else wrote are knowledges that cannot be owned. But the specific loaf you baked, or the specific recording of the song you wrote, you DO own. Someone using that loaf of bread or that recording of the song you wrote without your permission is wrong. It's stealing."

No.  If I come into your recording studio and physically take your CDs, that is stealing.  If I purchase your CD and then copy it, it is *exactly* like purchasing a loaf of your bread and copying that.  

3.  No, it is an easily reproducible arrangement of 1s and 0s on a physical medium.  Metaphorically, just like the recipe for bread.

1. Perhaps a different definition. I'm not interested in the dictionary definition necessarily. I'm interested in how we know what is "right" and "wrong." Right and wrong are subjective to the society, as you have pointed out. As it is "wrong" to eat beef in certain cultures, or to drink alcohol in others, but these are social constraints different cultures create that people can choose to accept or not. I'm not concerned with the voluntary and arbitrary additional moral constraints such as these. My concern with morality is what is the most basic, irrefutable moral law? And the centers on causing harm unnecessarily.

If you ignore my music and I go out of business, that's not harming me through fault of your own. That's you not valuing what I create, and if I'm smart, I'll adapt my music to what people want to hear or find another way to make a living. But I can't force you to like my music. If I'm creating music that is not enjoyable, forcing people to listen to would not be right. You are correct, you aren't morally obligated to buy it, but you're not morally excused for stealing it. If I'm playing it on a corner, there's an implicit understanding that if you stop to listen to it, a voluntary exchange has occurred. If I did not want to provide it to you for free, I would not play it in public. If I recorded it and offered to let you listen to it for a price, you could choose to pay for it or not. But you cannot choose to not pay for it and then listen to it anyway. That's not voluntary.

2. The whole argument that "that's not how it was done before" has no significance to the question of morality. There's a lot of things that were done a certain way for a long time that stopped when we thought better of it: human sacrifice, slaves, burning witches, etc. These practices enjoyed a long existence as being proper or necessary before we decided they weren't. The length of time something was the way it was has no significance once it's no longer that way. Further, taking our cues from the a time when civilization was markedly less civilized is not a convincing argument.

And lastly, and most importantly, the main difference between the "old" days you're referring to and now is recording technology. In the 1800s, if you wanted to see an opera or symphony, you had to purchase a ticket. If you didn't didn't, you weren't allowed in. Contrary to your assertion, they knew it was wrong to attempt to attend a performance without a ticket LONG before there was a Big Music industry. Now, artists have the technology available to them to disseminate their performances more easily, but that does not negate the expectation to be paid for it if you want to hear them perform it.

You keep coming back to the examples that include patents on ideas, like the wheel in your most recent response. Again, I think on the concept of patenting ideas, we have similar views. I do not support patents on concepts. If you invent the wheel, that is now in the public domain. People can't take the wheel you created, but you can't stop them from building wheels also. We agree there, but where we differ is, specifically, on digital goods and P2P networks. These are not protections on ideas, but on a specific item: the recording of a song or movie. You're not paying for the song, you're paying to hear that artist sing it. If you purchase a CD and make copies of it, I don't think you're breaking the law. It's what you do with the copies that determine whether or not you are though.

3. The recipe for a loaf of bread and the specific arrangement of 1s & 0s that make the audio sound you hear are not analogous. I can give you a printout of the 1s and 0s and it's worthless to you. We both know you're not interested in the 1s and 0s, you want the sound of the artist. You're being disingenuous by trying to frame the question that way, and the reason you have to try so hard is to justify something that's not justifiable. If it is a question of which 1s or 0s are arranged in a specific order, then I do accept 'patents' for music, the same as for books. Under your system, books could not be copyrighted because all the words exist in the public domain, and at any time could be arranged in any order to create a story. Someone who does it first would have no claim to copyright and books could be reproduced without legal consequence. I would not accept that circumstance as acceptable either.

[jaysabi]

Stealing is "inherently wrong." If I have a tangible object, you have no right to it. It doesn't matter if I made it or purchased it, it belongs to me. If you take it without my permission, that is "inherently wrong." I don't see the distinction between something I physically made or some form of art I made. If I made a movie, I own it, the same as if I crafted a physical object. My livelihood is dependent on my ability to sell tickets to see it, so I choose not to grant people permission to see it without paying me for it. If they don't want to see it at my price, the market will sort that out. Either I'll have to lower the price or stop making movies if I can't make a living at it. But these are based on voluntary exchanges. You deciding you have the right to see my work just because doesn't hold up, that's not a voluntary exchange, and that makes it stealing. It's property law; you're taking property that you have no right to. Doesn't matter if the owner is a starving artist or a mutli-national, mutli-billion dollar corporation. You don't have a right to take things you don't own, and you have not asserted any legitimate claim otherwise.

The Culture Industry

TL;DR "... popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods — films, radio programmes, magazines, etc. — that are used to manipulate mass society into passivity. Consumption of the easy pleasures of popular culture, made available by the mass communications media, renders people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances. The inherent danger of the culture industry is the cultivation of false psychological needs that can only be met and satisfied by the products of capitalism"



As for the market deciding the price - well, it is in a way, even with the "stealing" - most people are prepared to pay nothing at all.

I reckon the way forward is the Thom Yorke approach FWIW.

They're not prepared to pay nothing and go without, they're prepared to steal in order to pay nothing. That says nothing about the market price. If the technology wasn't available to steal easily, they would either go without or pay for it, and that would help determine the market price. Stealing does have an effect on the price, but you can't say that stealing is a component of the market price because the market price is based on voluntary exchange, not theft.

But none of that really addressed my points about theft anyway.

It says everything about how corporations typically work in a supposed "free market", actually.  Someone else is providing the exact same product as you are, albeit somewhat inferior in quality, and is destroying you on price.  Do you improve the quality of your product?  Do you reduce the price to one that is competitive?  No and no, you pass a law to make it illegal for that person to compete with you. 

Not providing a substitute, providing the thing you created. Arguing this with name-brand vs. generic drugs is one thing. Arguing it with digital content is another. On digital content, you have nothing to stand on.

I have everything to stand on.  As has been mentioned several times already, for thousands of years it was perfectly acceptable to copy someone else's discovery.  Music still got made, books were still written, drugs were still discovered, inventions were still invented, etc.  Then, all of a sudden and fairly recently, the powers that be realized they could make more money if they were the only providers of a particular good, and so they made it illegal, and have attempted to make it immoral (it appears you were convinced).  But simply declaring it to be so, just not make it so. 

Sorry, I've already debunked this claim. See above responses. Stealing is still immoral. Taking something without permission is still stealing. No matter how much you don't want to pay for the stuff you torrent, it will never be right.

But see you haven't.  All you have done is repeat the claim over and over.  Obviously, we have both shared both our sides and will never convince the other.  So I'll just sum up my point which is essentially, you can unilaterally declare something immoral all you want, and can even believe it if you choose.  That does not however, make it so.  And no matter how much you want to impose an artificial monopoly on your product to artificially drive up the price, people will still only pay you what it is really worth.  And it ain't no 720 dollars a minute (this is a better example, as I don't actually listen to music).

To be as brief as possible because our other thread is more productive, I've explained how morality is based on volutaryism. In order for it not to be stealing, it has to be based on voluntary exchange. If you don't think something is worth the price they're asking, you don't have to pay it. But just because you say it's less doesn't make it a voluntary exchange. Voluntary means you both agree on the price. If the market as a whole doesn't agree, the artist can lower the price, but if he doesn't, you taking it still doesn't make it voluntary just because the artist is being unreasonable. Voluntary exchange requires meeting of the minds on the value of the exchange, and one side cannot unilaterally decide.

[jaysabi]

Last thing I would like to add.  If you were an independent musician, privately recording your work, burning it, and selling it on, I could even see some of your points on empathy and all that.  I may not necessarily agree with your conclusions, but I could potentially be persuaded to at least understand where you are coming from.

But we aren't talking about that, we are talking about corporations, which by their very nature aren't people.  They are legal constructs, unfeeling things.  And so there is no way an appeal to emotion will ever win there.  You can't have a moral interaction with an unfeeling, inanimate  object.  It is, by the very definition you provided, impossible, and so it is impossible for an interaction with a corporation to even be immoral. 

Corporations and emotions are irrelevant. Again, it's about voluntary exchange and ownership. Someone sold the recording to the corporation, and now they own it. It doesn't matter that it's not an individual, you don't have a right to take it because you don't want to pay the price they're asking.

[jaysabi]

As a final note though, I would like to add that although you remain unconvinced, I appreciate the intelligent discussion. I know what I believe and the reasons I believe it, but having the opportunity to debate it intelligently with someone of the opposite perspective has given me the opportunity to organize my thoughts better on the matter and really drill down into the reasons I have the beliefs I do.   

[BADecker]

I don't know about this case directly, but here are some of the most important things when you are accused of something in a common law country.

1. You have the right to face your accuser, human being to human being. If it is the State that is bringing the complaint or accusation, the State better show up and take the stand and verify the accusation under oath or affirmation. Not the State's attorney. But the State himself/herself.

2. There needs to be harm or damage done. If there was no harm or damage brought in the complaint, there is no case. The harm or damage needs to be real harm or damage inflicted upon the complainant or his property, or it has to be under breach of contract. The harm or damage needs to be verified by oath or affirmation by the complainant, not his attorney(s).

3. There needs to be a witness to the harming or damaging done by the defendant. The complainant's word is not sufficient alone. There at least needs to be strong, provable evidence that solidly shows that it was the defendant that did the wrong. In capital cases, there needs to be a competent witness.

Without these things, there is no case.

If it is the State making the complaint without a human being that they are making the case for, or if the human being is unable or unwilling to take the stand and testify under oath or affirmation of harm or damage done, the State in almost all instances has no case. Dismissed.

Wake up and use the right law. If you don't, you lose.



http://voidjudgments.com/

[goxed]

The people in the copyright industry are delusional and have made up these numbers of sales that they have 'lost' by claiming that said amount of people downloading this equals to however many sales they could have gotten if the technology didn't exist, I'd also like to point out that these same scumbags never stick up for independent or small artists and consistently rip them off.

This.. I wouldnt' pay more than a buck to watch a movie, and no more than 10cents for a stupid song. Ever since RIAA and MPAA gotten too big, esp. after recruiting big label politicians (Chris Dodd IIRC) I have made it a point to avoid visiting cinema halls and purchasing dvd/blurays etc.   I use redbox for movies, and listen to songs on youtube.

[DhaniBoy]

actually what the pirate bay is something that is illegal and against the law, copying thousands of movies and music files into the server pirate bay and downloaded by millions of internet users in the world, it is included in the copyright infringement, the film and music definitely feel greatly harmed by the act of pirate bay is, of course, the owner of this website must account for his actions before the law, hopefully copyright infringement will not happen again in the future ... 

[deluxeCITY]

The people in the copyright industry are delusional and have made up these numbers of sales that they have 'lost' by claiming that said amount of people downloading this equals to however many sales they could have gotten if the technology didn't exist, I'd also like to point out that these same scumbags never stick up for independent or small artists and consistently rip them off.

This.. I wouldnt' pay more than a buck to watch a movie, and no more than 10cents for a stupid song. Ever since RIAA and MPAA gotten too big, esp. after recruiting big label politicians (Chris Dodd IIRC) I have made it a point to avoid visiting cinema halls and purchasing dvd/blurays etc.   I use redbox for movies, and listen to songs on youtube.

You are still effectively paying for the movies with redbox via the rental fee or monthly fee (whichever would apply) and are paying for the ability to listen to the songs via the advertisements that are on youtube.

You need to remember that you are receiving something of value by watching a movie/listening to a song (entertainment) and there is no reason why you should not pay for this value

[axxo]

Another example of the determination of governments to chase and prosecute individuals who cause harm to their corporate benefactors. The robber barons of finance who caused a world market crash and misery for untold hundreds of millions (if not billions) are still collecting nice fat paychecks and busy robbing everyone all over again, with no consequences in sight.

[spy100]

there is no such thing as real justice in the world

[ReserviorHunt]

There are always open doors 

Be careful on the internet, there are always ways to get to you.

[dontCAREhair]

Another example of the determination of governments to chase and prosecute individuals who cause harm to their corporate benefactors. The robber barons of finance who caused a world market crash and misery for untold hundreds of millions (if not billions) are still collecting nice fat paychecks and busy robbing everyone all over again, with no consequences in sight.

Well the financial collapse of 2009 caused the loss of trillions of dollars worth of assets and more or less caused a world recession.

The culprits were the socialists who demanded that people should have access to home loans who were otherwise not qualified (read the poor) and these people should be able to finance their home with essentially no down payment. This resulted in the price of real estate to increase as more people were buying homes, and when the poor eventually defaulted on their home loans they would attempt to sell causing the price to decline

[BADecker]

I didn't check out the story or trial at all, but...

Standard law in America, if a defendant wants to invoke it is...

1. You have the right to face your accuser, not his lawyer...

2. There has to be an injured party...

3. There has to be a witness or very strong evidence that it was you who injured the one injured.

Were these present at the trial? Probably. But maybe not.

Who accused him? If it was only the State/Federal, there was no damaged party accusing him. If he were smart enough to apply law the way it could be applied, he just might get out on mistrial.

But, like I said at first, I haven't followed it at all.

[ScryptAsic]

I didn't check out the story or trial at all, but...

Standard law in America, if a defendant wants to invoke it is...

1. You have the right to face your accuser, not his lawyer...

2. There has to be an injured party...

3. There has to be a witness or very strong evidence that it was you who injured the one injured.

Were these present at the trial? Probably. But maybe not.

Who accused him? If it was only the State/Federal, there was no damaged party accusing him. If he were smart enough to apply law the way it could be applied, he just might get out on mistrial.

But, like I said at first, I haven't followed it at all.

This is true for civil cases, but not necessarily for criminal cases. The vast majority of criminal cases involves something that is so "bad" that society as a whole suffers, so "society" is the victim. As a result "the state" will prosecute criminal cases on behalf of "the people".

By your logic it would be impossible to prosecute any murder cases as the victim would be the person you killed, but it is not possible to face a dead person.

You have the right to face anyone who testifies against you and to question them (usually via your lawyer)

[AleCrypt0]

fuck these bastards,nobody should pay for music or film unless its made by small independent labels

What is the incentive for artists to produce if everyone is stealing?

Music existed for how many literally thousands of years before copyright laws came into being? 

Holy words. Speaks for a thousand posts.

[Candystripes]

fuck these bastards,nobody should pay for music or film unless its made by small independent labels

I can't agree with this more. Why should we pay assholes like Drake, Lil Wayne, all these pieces of shit that don't deserve $100K a year. In fact, some hacker should go ahead and jack them from what they have to show them how it feels to have close to nothing. They shouldn't care about even 50% of what they have, they would still have tens of millions.

Fuck celebrities, all major celebrities should make music for free, they have enough money already.