Works every time, baby. 

stupid per se. I was calling him stupid when he used that argument. Actually, my memory saved it as "his argument was stupid" and i was surprised i didn't word it as that.

I am calling him close-minded and unfocused, because he isn't actually answering any of my arguments and just repeats on and on in his "BLA PIRAZY IS BAEEEEEED!" opinion (indeed at least one of the better), so the result is a soup of unanswered arguments, which makes a discussion not worthwhile (to me).

Also note that i'm only vaguely on the side of the pirate bay, i'm just stating whatever arguments i didn't see properly used, for the fun of the argument (i like discussions [not necessarily on the intardnet though]). 

and i forgot my main point:

http://linuxreviews.org/news/2005/02/10_way_to_go_sweeden/

What i remembered was that before that, swe had quite liberal laws regarding copyright (but i didn't /don't have safe sources for that), which pretty much would justify all of the attitude they had. the answers to the letters were stating exactly this liberality. That's why sleepwalkers argument was so stupid: he didn't know squat about the swe laws and still insisted that they were stupid because they seemingly didn't know about the swe laws :)

Oh, and pardon the use of one-syllable words, i'm not a native speaker. Should we continue this discussion in German and rate based on syllables? 

maybe you should re-read your posts before you submit them. I usually don't like discussions on the internet either, and most of the posts I write for this board never get submitted because I know that there usually is someone who will drag the discussion into the mud.

I just thought I'd chime in here because it's an interesting topic and I still wonder how you can not understand that piracy is stealing, and should therefore not be condoned. But I guess you cannot explain that. Either your moral compass is adjusted like that, or it isn't. 

a brick wall here.

Megaman - Please keep making killer maps, and dont get into law/law breaking :P 

Incredibly bias reporting source, but lawls none the less;

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-lawyer-is-biased-calls-for-a-retrial-090423/ 

Also, I've only just noticed the slightly misleading (and humourous) URL of that article... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_TeYqvpk-A&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div 

i don't see how anybody could think copyright infringement is stealing.

A thief takes something away. Copying doesn't. The sum of the good on the world is actually larger, while with theft it's equal. 

Can you explain how someone copying my IP is good for me as the IP holder? 

He never said it was good, he said it wasn't the same thing as stealing. 

... to recover the money you invested.
I'm working in an IP provider company (i.e Bluetooth and 802.11 IP), and believe me, when you (or your company) invest 1$ you (or your company) want to recover it, and make money by selling the IP several times...
So if somebody comes and copy your stuff, will you make money ? No, because you lost a customer, and you can consider somebody has stolen your IP: That is as simple as this.. 

"He never said it was good, he said it wasn't the same thing as stealing."

Actually, he specifically used the word good:

"A thief takes something away. Copying doesn't. The sum of the good on the world is actually larger, while with theft it's equal." 

I actually converted to a "piracy is kinda bad" attitude but mostly because I embrace free stuff (as in CC, BSD, GPL etc) nowadays.


Never ever think that someone who copied something would have paid for it. Never. Ever. 

Less evil != good. It means less evil. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5JHMpLIqO4 

watching those things float around is badass! 

Oh, and all kinds of smrat from author of one of the better books on file sharing (pdf of which is on most trackers ;)

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/the-tao-of-pirates/everybody-lost-the-pirate-bay-trial 

The fact that they didn�t do so ten years ago cost a generation of artists billions. No-one is ever going to trial for that.

Yup 

this is a tough question, i mean which zero-nuance extreme-end-of-the-spectrum opinion do I agree with?

On the one hand there is the belief that intellectual property is a harmful legal contrivance, and that the government should not enforce any sort of monopoly rights for intangible creations. Probably the assumption is that, either art would be created in the same volumes as today, or that we don't really need this much art and a smaller supply of free art would be better. I guess if you believe this, you already don't pirate the sorts of art that wouldn't be produced at all without the assurance of copyright protection.

On the other hand the the belief that since intellectual property is a good idea in general, then the current state of the copyright law must be the optimal balance between the interests of creators, and the public good. This probably includes a assumption that copyright law isn't written disproportionately by and for the largest copyright-holding corporations. Since the law is the law, you shouldn't infringe copyright. Or jaywalk. 

Artworks is only a part of the goods that IP applies to. What about games, software, non-fiction books? I wouldn't say that those can be qualified as art (maybe contain some art). 

I meant "art" in the really broad sense, meaning creative works. 

If you haven't noticed yet, the Orange Box is supposedly going for $10 this weekend on Steam. 

No thanks! Even for free I would not install Steam. 

Yes, you wouldn't want to install ease and convenience on your computer. Heaven forbid.