Then maybe we'll never see eye-to-eye. I grew up with an iTunes account, but I never spent my money on music. Some weeks my family lived paycheck-to-paycheck, some nights skipping dinner. I downloaded my music off YouTube to my 2005 HP Compaq, put it on my iTunes library and synced it to my iPod Shuffle. Didn't weigh on my conscience when I pirated video games or FL Studio either, not then and not now.

If that made me an asshole, then 11-year-old me was a supervillain bumping Aphex Twin. Oftentimes I think HN forgets to consider the 99% when contemplating ethics over sous-vide.

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9dev 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Our legal and economic systems just don’t work that way, being poor is no excuse for doing something illegal.

Add to that that not all musicians are Beyoncé or Taylor Swift, but might just as well have to fight to survive, living from Spotify payout to gig revenue as well.

I sympathise with people trying to get access to culture by all means, but we cannot wholesale morally legitimise freeloading because of that. We all get to enjoy a broad cultural landscape, but that can only exist if most people pay for content.

	▲	scns 6 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Spotify payout ~1000$ to ~12000$ a year: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/12/19/zoe-keating-spot...
	▲	aspenmayer 6 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Our legal and economic systems just don’t work that way, being poor is no excuse for doing something illegal. Copyright infringement is a civil offense, not criminal. Or in other jurisdictions, it’s not an offense at all, but rather priced in to the costs of recordable media and storage media/devices.

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slg 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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bigyabai 6 days ago | parent [-]

You actually don't understand the consumer desire for free, if you necessarily conflate it with class warfare and moral grandstanding. It seems to be a karma sink insisting upon this, but this is the hacker ethos. Nobody lords information over anyone, any paywall you erect will eventually fall. For fuck's sake, children are being firebombed in Gaza right now, and this is the imperative ethical hill you choose to die on?

Draw out this line of reasoning long enough, and one could argue that Richard Stallman is the worst human alive for "moral grandstanding" the software industry and taking glee in destroying software jobs with copyleft licensing. But more accurately, he ushered in the information age for everyone and prevented it from being cordoned-off behind a proprietary paywall. Yes, he predicated Napster and ThePirateBay and 4chan and all the horrible examples you're apt to draw upon. But he also invariably pushed technology forward - we're better people, that we aren't slaving away remaking the Cairo library for the 30,000th time. Common access to at least some information enables a great deal of art and provides countless value to would-be artists.

I'd like to think that the entire human race is bettered with access to information. It would certainly be idyllic if we could compensate artists, authors and scientists along the way, but humanity would be ruined if all information came at-cost. I am willing to fight for a world where individuals have free access to information, and I reckon my tools are more powerful than the publishers who seek to thwart me. I won't stop when the musicians scream out bloody murder, and if you think that's the most immoral thing imaginable then don't ask how 15-year-old me found the money to afford Jimmy John's.

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AlecSchueler 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

Argue one way or the other but it's extremely distasteful to use the suffering of children in Gaza in that way.

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slg 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>For fuck's sake, children are being firebombed in Gaza right now, and this is the imperative ethical hill you choose to die on?

Nonsense like this is where I leave the conversation. You can't deny the accusations of moral grandstanding in the same breath you say this. I commented directly on the topic being discussed in a specific HN thread. That does not mean I think this is the most important issue on the planet and the non-sequitur of contrasting a discussion of IP law with children in Gaza being firebombed is just straight up offensive. The "karma sink" here isn't voicing your "ethos", it is you.

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jazzyjackson 6 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I love seeing your perspective here among all the hand wringing, thanks for not letting downvotes scare you off. IMO it’s regressive to think just because someone has no money they should have no music, and it’s rich seeing calls for free information get downvoted on the same site singing praises of LLMs, as tho those companies paid a dime for their source material

	▲	AlecSchueler 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		> IMO it’s regressive to think just because someone has no money they should have no music The person they're responding to has repeatedly said this is not their position.

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5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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cindyllm 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[dead]