<story><title>Piracy - You can&apos;t have your cake and eat it</title><url>http://broadmuse.com/piracy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VMG</author><text>What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual.&lt;p&gt;What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won&apos;t be a Windows 9.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>alextingle</author><text>The author has a fundamental misunderstanding of what laws mean, and how they change.&lt;p&gt;In England, it is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day? Why? Because centuries ago England was governed by a despotic, fundamentalist Christian regime that did not approve of Christmas celebrations.&lt;p&gt;Should I then refrain from eating the mince pie? No. I and millions of my fellow countrymen eat mince pies, and most are completely unaware of the existence of Cromwell&apos;s mean spirited law.&lt;p&gt;Why is this crime tolerated by the authorities? Because they do not go about like Robocop, enforcing laws as though they are some kind of computer program. Instead they understand that laws are a crude human attempt to model &lt;i&gt;current&lt;/i&gt; social norms. Those social norms change over time and often the written laws don&apos;t keep up with the pace of that change.&lt;p&gt;The Internet has made copyright law outdated. Social norms are in the process of adjusting to the new situation. It&apos;s perfectly rational and &lt;i&gt;normal&lt;/i&gt; for activists to hasten that process by defying the law, and encouraging others to do likewise. Obviously, the copyright lobby will react by trying to strengthen the laws, and step up enforcement. That&apos;s fair enough too.&lt;p&gt;Which side will win? Well opinions vary, but to suggest that breaking the law is in itself an immoral and irredeemable act, is naive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>comicjk</author><text>Since it seems to be impossible, from a technical standpoint, to prevent piracy, then maybe we have to accept the free rider problem and produce intellectual property on a public basis. One option would be a grant system, as is used in scientific research (solving the free rider &quot;problem&quot; that anyone can read your paper and use your research).</text></comment>
<story><title>Piracy - You can&apos;t have your cake and eat it</title><url>http://broadmuse.com/piracy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>VMG</author><text>What happens if everybody eats mince pie on Christmas? Life goes on as usual.&lt;p&gt;What happens if nobody pays for a copy of Windows 8? There won&apos;t be a Windows 9.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>alextingle</author><text>The author has a fundamental misunderstanding of what laws mean, and how they change.&lt;p&gt;In England, it is illegal to eat mince pies on Christmas day? Why? Because centuries ago England was governed by a despotic, fundamentalist Christian regime that did not approve of Christmas celebrations.&lt;p&gt;Should I then refrain from eating the mince pie? No. I and millions of my fellow countrymen eat mince pies, and most are completely unaware of the existence of Cromwell&apos;s mean spirited law.&lt;p&gt;Why is this crime tolerated by the authorities? Because they do not go about like Robocop, enforcing laws as though they are some kind of computer program. Instead they understand that laws are a crude human attempt to model &lt;i&gt;current&lt;/i&gt; social norms. Those social norms change over time and often the written laws don&apos;t keep up with the pace of that change.&lt;p&gt;The Internet has made copyright law outdated. Social norms are in the process of adjusting to the new situation. It&apos;s perfectly rational and &lt;i&gt;normal&lt;/i&gt; for activists to hasten that process by defying the law, and encouraging others to do likewise. Obviously, the copyright lobby will react by trying to strengthen the laws, and step up enforcement. That&apos;s fair enough too.&lt;p&gt;Which side will win? Well opinions vary, but to suggest that breaking the law is in itself an immoral and irredeemable act, is naive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DrHankPym</author><text>You say that like it&apos;s a problem.&lt;p&gt;Look at it this way: Does Ubuntu or OS X suffer from being pirated? Not really. Windows needs to figure this out for themselves.</text></comment>