Re:Was Megaupload Targeted Because Of Its Upcoming Megabox D...
by roel_v on Wednesday January 25, 2012 @03:35AM
(#3508892)
"I'm not describing my own view. I'm stating my view of what's driving this theory."
OK, fair enough, but I still think the analogy is a misrepresentation of what really drives people who have strong feelings against intellectual property rights enforcement. There are several camps who can't be lumped together, and whose 'theories' are largely in internal conflict: there are the copyright abolitionists, there is the GPL/FSF crowd, there is the entitled crowd who doesn't really care about reason and just repeatedly says that it's 'unfair' that their 'fair use rights' (of which they have a completely warped view, and which have never existed in the form they imagine in the first place) are being curtailed.
Either way, we disagree on enough other points to continue discussing ;) For example, 'website operators' aren't one group who all deserve indemnification under all circumstances. Megaupload, for example, is a clear case (for the reasonable, non-dogmatic observer) of 'intellectual property infringement facilitation for monetary gain'. Arguably Youtube used to be in its early days. Websites aren't 'press' by definition, and while it's not prima facie reasonable to expect them to be the first conservators of intellectual property laws, they can't just say 'oh it's our users, it's not our responsibility'.
Re: the edit, using that quote in that context makes me angry because it's such a fundamental misrepresentation of what Objectivism and Rand's philosophy stands for and was founded in. Having governments enforce property rights is not the same as what happened in the socialist tyranny that destroyed Rand's family and from which she escaped. Crikes, Rand herself made her fortune from writing screenplays and books, without copyright she would never have been in a position to produce abstract works like her work after The Fountainhead!
OK, fair enough, but I still think the analogy is a misrepresentation of what really drives people who have strong feelings against intellectual property rights enforcement. There are several camps who can't be lumped together, and whose 'theories' are largely in internal conflict: there are the copyright abolitionists, there is the GPL/FSF crowd, there is the entitled crowd who doesn't really care about reason and just repeatedly says that it's 'unfair' that their 'fair use rights' (of which they have a completely warped view, and which have never existed in the form they imagine in the first place) are being curtailed.
Either way, we disagree on enough other points to continue discussing ;) For example, 'website operators' aren't one group who all deserve indemnification under all circumstances. Megaupload, for example, is a clear case (for the reasonable, non-dogmatic observer) of 'intellectual property infringement facilitation for monetary gain'. Arguably Youtube used to be in its early days. Websites aren't 'press' by definition, and while it's not prima facie reasonable to expect them to be the first conservators of intellectual property laws, they can't just say 'oh it's our users, it's not our responsibility'.
Re: the edit, using that quote in that context makes me angry because it's such a fundamental misrepresentation of what Objectivism and Rand's philosophy stands for and was founded in. Having governments enforce property rights is not the same as what happened in the socialist tyranny that destroyed Rand's family and from which she escaped. Crikes, Rand herself made her fortune from writing screenplays and books, without copyright she would never have been in a position to produce abstract works like her work after The Fountainhead!