[OT] but concerns all of us

[Stas Verberkt]

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 12:56:06PM -0500, Jerry wrote:
> On Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:17:50 -0700
> Chad Perrin articulated:
> 
> > Copyright infringement is copyright infringement -- and not theft --
> > no matter how hyperbolic your choice of phrasing.  Castigate people
> > for the unlawful act of copyright infringement if you want to, but
> > please do not conflate two separate bodies of law by equating one
> > illegal act with another.  This abuse of terms is largely the fault
> > of media conglomerates and their lobbying organizations (e.g. the
> > RIAA and MPAA).  The more you repeat these abuses of terminology, the
> > more they are emboldened; I think it was the RIAA representative at
> > the SOPA hearing yesterday who literally equated copyright
> > infringement with *murder*.
> > 
> > Don't be like that jackass.
> 
> Yes, you must be one of those scumbags that pilfers the property or
> intellectual rights of others sans payment or having acquired the
> legal rights to the property and then tries to hide behind some pseudo
> Divine-Right bullshit. You can fool yourself into believing that running
> someone over with a car and killing them is Vehicular manslaughter and
> not 1st degree murder; however, that does not change one iota the simple
> fact that the victim is dead.
Well, if the driver was not planning to kill the victim, you're not
fooling yourself. The driver may find a hard time living with himself,
but will not be a murderer. For example, if the victim was attempting
suicide, by jumping right in front of the car at the very last moment,
it wouldn't even be manslaughter. The point is, these things are much
more complex than "bad" and "good". You should not oversimplificate
criminal law, but carefully take into account every detail of every situation.

> 
> You can try an justify your illegal actions all you want; criminal
> attorneys make a living out of doing it in court everyday of the week.
> It amazes me how scumbags constantly attempt to justify their illegal
> actions. The simple fact is that a thief is a thief no matter how you
> try and sugar coat it.
First, music is a licensing thing. So, you do not "buy" music, you buy a
license to play it. To illustrate this, if you bought a CD with a song,
in the Netherlands you are allowed to download this song from the
Internet, as you own the license to listen to it for private use. (As a
matter of fact, downloading is legal in the Netherlands, and we pay
taxes to the entertainment industry, but that is a whole different
story, with it's own bad and good features. Also, distributing, thus,
uploading is illegal.)

The main problem is that there are no proportional solutions to the downloading
problem. This means that we may, for example, start filtering all online
traffic, but this would be such an impact on the privacy (and thus human
rights/democracy), that this is not an option. Therefore, solutions will
have to rely on a factor of trust.

Furthermore, we know in no way what illegal activities the former poster
has been doing. Just pointing out the difference between copyright
infringement and thieving (which is important to note) does not make you
a so-called "scumbag". Also, be happy there are attorneys, every side of
the argument has the right to be heard and every single citizen should
be able to access the rule of law. 

Kind regards

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