Re: pirate bay, w3m, and the interface is just an interface (BEST post ever)

[Paul Rankin]

Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> at 00:01 on 15 Dec 2014:

> 1. It's not "piracy".  It's "illegal copying of stuff".  Piracy is when
> I have a ship, and I'm attacking other ships, take prisoners etc.

Meh, I'm a linguistic descriptivist.

> 2. It's not "stealing".  Stealing is taking a *physical* object away
> from its owner so that he/she cannot use it anymore.

Again, descriptivist. But even the "first profession" lacked the
exchange of a physical object, so I don't think you can hold onto this
idea (I'm actually surprised people still say this).

> 3. That said, I am not saying that illegal copying is legal (by
> definiton, it's not) or moral (I am pretty confident that in many cases
> it's not).  This is why I do not download music or movies from the 'net,
> even though it is perfectly legal (at least in my country – provided I
> do not distribute them further).  But fighting immoral deeds with
> immoral propaganda (because that's what the "entertainment industry" is
> doing: essentially they spread lies, like in the infamous "you wouldn't
> steal a car" clip) is again, by definition, immoral.  And I do not
> believe they have the artists' interest in mind *at* *all* (possibly
> with very rare exceptions).

This raises a very good point. I think there has been something of a
cultural shift in the last few decades, or maybe even century, wherein
people have detached somewhat from their communities and constructed a
kind of internal morality. This may seem a plainly obvious point to
make, but contrast it with the kind of deontological societies of a few
hundred years ago and I think we can say we're in a very different age.
So yes, there seems a tendency to look upon the community and judge this
or that law/rule as fair or unfair, then appropriately internalise it,
for example, one might reject with ease the paternalistic law requiring
one to wear a seat-belt, but then become irate at the driver who runs a
red light. Sure, the driver running the red endangered others while
you're only endangering yourself, but that's not the point. We seem to
want the game to have enforced rules because the rules give the game its
meaning, but then accept/reject the rules based on internal criteria.
This of course collides with a contradiction as the overarching rule for
any of this whole humanity project to work is that we all follow the
rules (thank you Kant) and, given the veil of ignorance (thank you
Rawls) we all want that others do the same.