Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

You made the case of "knowingly taking something", that in the knowing that it was "unethically" obtained, there's wrong doing.

However I'd posit that media businesses "knowingly get into the business where it's easy to copy your content". If you don't want your content to be reproduced easily, then don't get into a business where it is virtually costless and harmless to make millions of copies immediately very easily. You're not entitled to put people in jail because you willingly chose to take part of a business that's at the mercy of technology.

To me this is like deciding to open up a grocery and then getting upset at the amount of produce you have to throw away because it goes bad when people don't buy it all, that's just a known factor of the nature of the business. If you don't like it, you're not entitled to shape the world to your liking. Get into blacksmithing or glass working instead.



Right, people will copy your content if it's easy, but should they? These are separate questions.

A chance to bring up my favorite philosophical concept, the "is-ought problem" aka "Hume's Guillotine"! [0]

> An ethical or judgmental conclusion cannot be inferred based on purely descriptive factual statements.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem


Yes, companies will bitch about piracy, but should they? :)




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: