alt Hacker NewsIt's theft. But not all IP theft, or theft in general, is morally equivalent. A poor person stealing a loaf of bread or pirating a movie they couldn't afford is just. A corrupt elite stealing poor farmers' food or stealing content from small struggling creators is not.
Replies
__MatrixMan__ • yesterday at 1:55 PM
When you steal a loaf of bread, somebody's loaf of bread is missing. That's worlds apart from making an unauthorized copy of something.
jasonsb • yesterday at 10:43 AM
Ask yourself: who owns the IP you're defending? It's not struggling artists, it's corporations and billionaires.
Stricter IP laws won't slow down closed-source models with armies of lawyers. They'll just kill open-source alternatives.
➕ show 3 replies
>pirating a movie they couldn't afford is just
I wish this argument would die. It's so comically false, and is just used to allow people to pave over their cognitive dissonance with the real misfortunes of a small minority.
I am a millennial and rode the wave of piracy as much as the next 2006 computer nerd. It was never, ever, about not being able to afford these things, and always about how much you could get for free. For every one person who genuinely couldn't afford a movie, there were at least 1000 who just wanted it free.