Piracy, intellectual property rights, sites like Anna's Archive - thoughts? \ stacker news ~FiresidePhilosophy

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Piracy, intellectual property rights, sites like Anna's Archive - thoughts?

511 sats \ 19 comments \ @Signal312 30 Jul FiresidePhilosophy

My thoughts are a little muddled on these topics. I think I believe that intellectual property rights should not be enforced by the government. But then I think about people who've spent years writing some amazing books, and how this is supposed to happen without intellectual property rights, and I'm not so sure.

What are some things to read, to understand more about the libertarian views on intellectual property?

Is it actually moral to, for instance, download books from annas-archive.org or similar sites? If you do this personally, do you have any rules of thumb you apply (for instance, download a bunch of books from an author and then subscribe on Substack or try to find some other way to compensate the author).

Thoughts?

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165 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 30 Jul

There's very little evidence that IP increases innovation (see Against Intellectual Monopolies).

The philosophical case is best articulated by Stephen Kinsella in Against Intellectual Property. I haven't read his new book, so maybe that's even better.

There are several business models that could work for creators. Kinsella discusses some.

It's worth noting that pretty much no one publishes public domain works as though they had written them. That seems to indicate there's not much incentive to do so, since it's completely legal.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 OP 30 Jul

When you say "no one publishes public domain works as though they had written them" - do you mean that nobody is publishing, say, Tom Sawyer, and pretending that they wrote it?

Would you think someone would be completely justified, and not committing any kind of moral error, in downloading and reading a pirated copy of The Bitcoin Standard?

(That's actually a bad example, because I saw on Twitter that Saifedean Ammous responded to somebody who tweeted about not having the money to buy a copy of The Bitcoin Standard. He said to feel free to pirate it, he doesn't have a problem with it.)

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 30 Jul

When you say "no one publishes public domain works as though they had written them" - do you mean that nobody is publishing, say, Tom Sawyer, and pretending that they wrote it?

Yes. This is one of the concerns I hear authors express. They're worried that they'll write something great and someone else will just slap their name on it.

I don't think it's immoral to "pirate" content, but I make an effort to respect the wishes of the creators and compensate them for content that I value. If it's someone like Saifedean, who doesn't believe in IP, then it's just a matter of deciding if you'd like to support him financially.

89 sats \ 1 reply \ @cyberpunk02 30 Jul

IP is proof of stake rent seeking. Copywrite is a little different and I think can be ok privately enforced. V4V is moral enough for me

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 OP 31 Jul

What do you mean by V4V in this instance, and how would it work with, for instance, a book?

And how are you differentiating copywrite from intellectual property? Copywrite is one of the types of intellectual property, is my understanding.

55 sats \ 0 replies \ @john_doe 31 Jul

Personally I often download books from these kind of websites, as I don't use DRMs. What I do also is buy a physical book and then pay the service to get a digital copy by giving the book to a business which converts it to a pdf for me. Typically I do it for books on Amazon. With DRMs is it moral to lend a book to your wife for example? I believe so but Amazon doesn't since with DRMs I can't even use it myself without installing proprietary software.

So my solution: buy the physical book then share it with friends and my wife (totally legit for physical books but this is called piracy for digital versions) OR download it from a website and then give some money to the author (most often this option is not available so I give nothing) OR buy the book from a website which makes the book available without DRMs so I can read it without proprietary software and share it.

In the past at school we had to buy books, then the following year we had to sell it to the next students. Incredible waste of time and money. This is not possible with digital books with DRMs, and to be honest I would be in favor of the school buying the digital version and sharing it with the class. This is actually what I do currently, I use digital copies of textbooks and never even had the physical copy in my hands.

For technical book I see sometimes a choice of how much we want to give for the author, I like it as there is a reasonable minimum. Technical books by the way can be quite expensive, the price can easily go up to $100-$200.

Morally I guess Intellectual Property brings similar problems we have with source code. Is it morally ok to share the source code of Bitcoin for example or any other program, whatever its license, without giving money to the author? I think so but the business model which goes with it is/was disruptive for businesses which distribute proprietary programs.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @Kontext 31 Jul

I've been pirating stuff since I started using the Internet (well, actually even before that, tape-recording songs off the radio) and releasing music under Creative Commons licenses even before I understood Bitcoin. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject:

"I do not think copyright laws are useful for us anymore at a time when we are moving towards (digital) abundance. Digital scarcity only makes sense in digital money, not information." Source: "The Basics of Yoga" (2022)

"Call me a far right extremist, but I think information should be free and copyright laws should be a thing of the past. "Intellectual property" are, after all, mere ideas and no one can "own" ideas." Source: nostr (2023)

"First mover advantage is the only real "intellectual property" right." Source: nostr (2024)

"In another sense, bitcoin is the only real intellectual property anyway. It’s the only thing that’s scarce. All the rest of it can be as abundant as we let it be. Information yearns to be free." Source: nostr (2024)

I've come across many brilliant ideas, artists and writers thanks to pirating, and whenever possible and warranted, I think I've always found ways to "pay them back." Value for value is real, it's based on trust, which is lacking in a society built on fiat money, which is why I understand the skepticism behind those ideas and a propensity to put a "price tag" on everything. But Bitcoin helps bring it back and we are at the frontlines of this revolution.

Open Source Culture, motherfuckers 🤠

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @StillStackinAfterAllTheseYears 31 Jul

I do believe that writers benefit from getting paid and have more incentive to keep writing if they do. That said, I also know enough about the industry to know how little they're paid to begin with, and also that pirating a book is not necessarily a lost sale (since unlike a physical book, nothing has been lost, and not all folks who pirate would ever have purchased).

I do try to support writers I like when I can, but I also don't feel bad if I can only find a pirated copy. And I've got no qualms when it comes to dead authors.

34 sats \ 5 replies \ @Satosora 30 Jul

I have never heard of Anna's Archive. Is that like the Gutenberg Project?

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Signal312 OP 30 Jul

No, the Gutenberg site only lists items that are in the public domain.

Anna's archive has all kinds of books, mostly NOT public domain.

In other words, most people would call it a pirate site.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 30 Jul

Oh, I see. Do they just scan the pages?

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @Signal312 OP 31 Jul

Sometimes it's scanned pages in pdf format, usually it's mobi or epub files and some other less common formats.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 31 Jul

I really like the gutenburg project. They have lots of books l normally wouldnt have access to. But they are public domain books. When it comes to books that are still being published to make money for the author....that becomes more difficult. Is it right, is it wrong?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Zenul_Abidin 31 Jul

No, it's like Z-library or Library Genesis

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @037447d9ca 31 Jul

Have you written a book or plan to do so? If so is profit the motive?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @SatsMate 31 Jul

I think it is best to pay someone the value for the product. I understand many can't get access to information and in those cases I think It should be okay for those people to pay as much as they can afford to.

As a creator, I would like to be compensated for my hard work.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 31 Jul

In the age of internet and free information, there's no space for individual rights!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Cje95 30 Jul

Sitting through the AI Task Force meetings the intersection of AI and IP is going to be a doozy. I have heard comments across the board but the one that stuck out the most had to be this lady who stated you and I as individuals should not be able to have our voice licensed by an AI (highlighting the AIs that can generate Elong Musk or ScarJo). Her reasoning was individuals did not know what they were agreeing to... It was a wild claim that had bipartisan pushback because after all if someone wants to and can they shouldn't be told by the government what they could or could not do

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @5d586573ac 31 Jul outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.