joe

What are your thoughts on capitalism in your utopian society? Are they allowed?

What led you to believe I'm interested in piracy? Double check your assumptions. I'm interested in rational moderation and intellectual property laws.

The law is pretty much settled on this, there is no real danger of some surprise lawsuit; that's not how the copyright system has worked for decades, now. They'll get a notice first, for a specific instance of copyright infringement, and they'll take it down. If that really is their concern (and I do not believe it is really their concern) then it's unfounded and they can unblock these communities as they suggest they will do in the post.

And to be clear, there was no given example of these communities not adhering to their own rule of not linking to infringing material. So the "omg it's cached here" argument is weak even if copyright holder behaved as you are imagining, which they do not.

No big government or corporation is likely to come after an American hosted site for weed, or cars, because those things are socially and legally accessible in that country, but pirated media isn't.

I don't know what this means. Do you mind elaborating or rephrasing?

That's also fair. Thanks for the discussion!

I don't recall bringing up morality at all. My question still stands.

It's the point Douglas Adams was making with this quote:

I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.

This is exactly how these moral panics go. It's always relative to the world the person grew up in.

Isn't society in general the best judge of what is or is not extreme, considering that, as you say, it's a relative description?

That's fair. How does hyperbole factor into this, do you think. I hesitate to say anything that might appear to be defending the comment above, but considering the context (banning people for weak reasons) it seems pretty certain that the user doesn't actually mean to imply that banning people from some somewhat obscure website for a poor reason should result in death by beheading.

I'm personally of the mind that "it was just hyperbole, bro" isn't an excuse-- or maybe only very narrowly so-- but what are your thoughts? Is the bannable offense the specific phrase, or the intent of the user?

I can't help but point out that downloading isn't even illegal everywhere. Should they likewise ban communities around marijuana or, I dunno, loud cars?

And yes, that's exactly how it should work. Specific instances of rule violations should be dealt with, and if (and only if) it continues to be a problem because the piracy mods aren't doing their job, then blocking makes sense. The LW admins did this all backward.

What flawed argument are you referring to? The admins of this site claimed they had to block those communities for fear of legal repercussions. If we all agree that discussing piracy isn't illegal, and there's no examples of them breaking their own rules against linking to infringing content, then from where is the danger of a lawsuit coming from? It makes no sense and feels much more like an excuse that was concocted after-the-fact to rationalize it.

Oh, I see now. Capitalism.

Do you consider yourself an extremist?

prove to me that nothing like this ever happened in those communities though

Is that the bar you use? If I post a link to some infringing content in this thread, should this community be banned?

Would you like to reconsider this stance?

Please don't misunderstand. Even the government (US, in my case) doesn't have unrestricted free speech, and that's a good thing. We agree here. I even would say that the line as it is currently set in America is "too broad" and that we need to tweak it down a bit. We fail to acknowledge that stochastic terrorism is a thing, in our speech laws, and it essentially makes it completely legal to do as long as you remain sufficiently coded/vague.

If you don't mind humoring me one more time, feel free to weigh in on my questions, again, but assuming the quotes were both made in context; that is to say, JFK quote for a scenario where peaceful revolution was being restricted, and four boxes (which, in my mind, comes a little too close to the line) in a scenario where people were losing their ability to weigh in on their government actions via speech, voting, and juries.

I can't seem to articulate, even to myself, why the JFK quote is generally (in my mind) considered non-violent, but the four boxes one (again, in my mind) is more threatening. I'm hoping random internet polling will lead to some insight. haha