torrentfreak.com — This Sunday, the Swedish Left Party voted in favor of a motion calling for the legalization of sharing copyrighted files for personal use. The party, which currently holds 22 seats in the Swedish parliament, sees piracy as something positive, much like public libraries.
Jun 9, 2008 View in Crawl 4
thirteenthcorJun 10, 2008
You all are aware that we are Federal Criminals?
cumeansibylJun 11, 2008
Indeed, it is much superior to the VCR. A further reason why it should be allowed.
opticwindJun 11, 2008
Because it reduces DEMAND.
cliffskiJun 11, 2008
cool. so how do you make the orange box or lord of the rings at the weekends then genius?
attackpandaJun 11, 2008
No, but you're missing the point, and raising a new, more insidious one. The point is that the government has no business legislating this type of stuff...that's exactly why we have a market. Regardless of whether they *run* the system, they're granting authority to an organization that is able to *force* people to pay money. And, while in Sweden they're culturally equipped to handle force with little corruption, on this side of the pond things would run very, very differently. You can bet that any private organization entrusted with such authority would be staffed with media and software industry insiders, coordinating a type of public/private partnership that funnels money straight into the pockets of people who are already very, very rich. And doing it by force, instead of by choice. I just don't get why any time there's a problem, the solution is to give the government more power, to decrease the number of choices people can make about their lives, and to violate the intended function of government. Instead of creating more and more laws, why not repeal a few? Why not cut the amount of time a patent or copyright is in effect by a few years? Why not expand the idea of fair use? Better yet, why not simply ignore the piracy problem, instead of legislating a "solution" that is based on force and not choice?I'm not really a fan of the idea of intellectual property. I figure that information cannot be owned by anyone, since it's replicable within the human mind, and the human mind cannot be owned. We've created a legal and moral fiction with intellectual property, and have allowed government to treat intellectual property as if it were real property because the market functions best when someone can profit off of their work for at least a little while. Unfortunately, we get further and further away from that idea when we grant control over intellectual property to governments. Go try a search on google.cn to see how well that works.
msartgeekJun 11, 2008
File-sharing is not stealing, but it IS infringement, it's taking more than you give back, and past a certain point (like the point where you tell all artists to get another job, but still keep making you art and music to enjoy), it is hostile towards creators."Artists do not have to be paid for their art. They can get another job."When exactly then do they make art for you if they're spending most of their waking hours holding down some non-art job? When exactly are they supposed to be creative enough to make something original when they're all out toeing the line and being a good little worker/consumer/drone?I agree that the RIAA/MPAA/et al are waaaay overzealous in their protection of copyrights and engaging in practices which ultimately hurt the consumer... but this kind of "all art should be free, and let's nor pay artists ever" attitude is seriously detrimental to people trying to make a living at the same time as making art. Money's not the root of art, but artists still have to pay their expenses just like you, and the time they spent making their art is worth something. I'm sure none of them appreciate your total devaluation of them and the things they worked hard to create- things that you could not and did not create yourself. Go ahead and try telling your artist and musician friends (if you have any) that you think you're entitled to anything they make without a penny ever going back to the from you or anyone else. While you're at it, tell programmers that they should code for free and teachers to forego a salary. They can all get second jobs. See how far that gets you and let us all know how that works out.
msartgeekJun 11, 2008
You're not depriving them of the original, but saying that to justify never paying a dime for music is douchey. By doing it, you send the message to the musicians that their creations are worthless in and of themselves, and that they have to either travel to you personally and play a show in your area (and hope you buy a ticket), or sell you some useless consumer goods that will be landfill inside of 20 years to recoup their investment of time and money that made your entertainment possible.Technically, it's not stealing. But it IS infringement, and past a certain point, it's hostile to artists by cutting off what should be the main avenue of income- the music itself. I don't expect farmers to make a living based on selling me cute farm themed outfits, I expect them to make a living selling me the things they worked hard to produced.Just because the RIAA is immoral doesn't mean you get a free pass just for opposing them.
Closed AccountJul 1, 2008
everybody here seemed to miss that TOP GEAR reference, oh well, you are all on the internet. LOL