Magic

Jezus christ had one bottle of water one bread. He did some magic and turned it many loaves of bread and fed hunderds of people. Or something along those lines; I'm not raised religiously.

In todays world this would be illegal. You cannot just make copies of products, even though you own them. This would be copyright infringement. I recently came up with an analogie quite similare to the one above:

Suppose there was magic in the world. You could just point at a physical thing and you could create a perfect copy out of thin air. Everybody could do this; getting copies of everything in the world for free. With how the industries and governements are today; this would immidiatly be shut down and forbidden.

Think about this for a second; even if we had magic in this world; our own elected governments would forbid this. Magic would be forbidden.

Of course this is what we do everyday with computers and the internet; copy things we see and like. I think the reason we came to this point can be seen if we look at the history.

Before the invention ofmass production in the 19th century, there was no such thing as copyright. Nobody held the right to make swords in a certain way; the creators might have tried to keep it a secret by not telling anyone, but they had no right to keep something from following their receipe if that someone might have gotten it. Nobody held the copyright on certain types of ballistic weaponry, clothes or bread receipes.

Mass production could only thrive if there was some kind of copyright protection; the new TECHNOLOGY made it impirative new legislation was made to ensure it's succes. Otherwise competitiors could now blindly copy products and outsell the original inventor because they didn't had to make the investment of inventing. Because the rich and powerfull people were made and stood behind mass production, this legislation could be enforced.

We are seeing the same thing happening over copyright infringement on data right now, in these times. The man made powerfool by and standing behind the entertainment and software industry are creating legislation to protect their power. They use the part of this new TECHNOLOGY to protect their own and forbid the parts which endanger them.

Piracy is not (just) about getting stuff for free, it is about using a technology in its full force, without the idea's from the past. Forbidding copying information is like forbidding magic.

Incze Romania. June 16 2012 23:40. Posts 951

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I'm trying to find the point in your post. Everything is so hypothetical. Were there magic, like the one you described, the world would be very different, obviously. There wouldn't be any mass production, or, if there was, there would definitely be some measures of protection (I guess that in a world where magic exists, anything can happen, including objects shielded by mystical runes that prevent them from being copied and such).

Religion: Buckethead

AegonC United States. June 16 2012 23:41. Posts 244

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I think the magic is like in book you eat and be filled. But this mean somtime you break the law as mentioned. Some people need to be like microwaves in life, others strive to be like the goat. But all people need guidance and magic in life, i think answer to your question. This problem with technology might be good, or bad.

Navane Netherlands. June 16 2012 23:47. Posts 2405

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I'm not sure about the point yet, too.

To me, it's mainly the realiziation that we live in a society that would ban 'free everything for everyone.' And that that idea doesn't disguist people.

blubbdavid Switzerland. June 17 2012 00:04. Posts 2241

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What bothers me is why pirates MUST download stuff. Are they so entangled in the consume culture of the 21th century that they even need to form a party so that they can go on consume the TV shows and games legally? Why not read a book?

What do you desire? Money? Glory? Power? Revenge? Or something that surpasses all other? Whatever you desire - that is here. Tower of God

empty.bottle June 17 2012 00:18. Posts 627

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Oh I pirate a loot of books too :D

jrkirby United States. June 17 2012 01:43. Posts 506

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You assume that if this "magic" were real, that we would live in a capitalistic society. If we had this magic, there would be no scarcity, everyone would have as much as they need of everything they need. Always. If I invented a new sword, why would I want to keep it away from a farmer? To get bread from him? No. I can replicate as much bread as I want. To get gold from him? Same deal. And since its not hurting me in any way, nine times out of ten, I would just give away anything new I made. And so would everyone else. It's the perfect communistic society.

I hate it when people hear the word communism, and get all riled up: "The soviet union was a communism! Therefore communism is BAD!!" The soviet union was a dictatorship. That was why so many people died. The communism didn't make it evil, only inefficient. People wouldn't work because they saw no incentive to work. Therefore less was produced. In a world with scarcity, this can have drastic reprocussions. Inefficiency plus dictatorship created a society doomed to fail. Why communism got all the bad media, I don't know.

Incentives do exist in a world where there's no scacity too. It's different from our incentives, but it exists. People want attention, they want others to appreciate what they do. It might not be as strong of a driving force as wanting to eat, but it's incentive. And what are the repercussions if someone does not comply in a scarcity free world? Who is hurt? No one. There is just slightly slower progress for society.

The reason why we have all these laws and a messed up society is the combination of scarce goods (like bread) in the same world as non-scarce goods (like TV shows). Some can be copied for free, and others take just as much work as the original to copy. But it took work for both of them to be created in the first place. An we can't just give away all the TV shows, because then the makers of the TV shows wouldn't be able to eat bread! So we can't just have a communistic society, we still have to rely on capitalism. But enforcing capitalism is impossible with these goods that are free to copy. Also, what do you do about goods like cars where the design can be copied (which cost millions of dollars) but the parts cannot? Since we originated in a society where everything was scarce transitioning into a society where some things are scarce and others aren't is a huge social, political, and most of all economic problem. Our current capitalism doesn't quite work, but communism doesn't work either! This is a major problem in today's age, and if anyone had a clear fair solution that works in every case, we'll it would be solved yet, but we would be a huge step closer.

figq June 17 2012 05:46. Posts 9589

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google "3D printers" ;-)

If you stand next to my head, you can hear the ocean. - Day[9]

heyoka Administrator June 17 2012 07:31.

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On June 16 2012 22:56 Navane wrote:
You cannot just make copies of products, even though you own them.

Yes, you can. How do you think digitization of media is legal in any way?

@RealHeyoka

Navane Netherlands. June 17 2012 07:54. Posts 2405

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On June 17 2012 07:31 heyoka wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yes, you can. How do you think digitization of media is legal in any way?

You're right. I should hace specified; allthough I own the DVD of The Hulk, I cannot copy it and give those copies away. Like JC gave his copies of the bread away.

JingleHell United States. June 17 2012 08:51. Posts 11262

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On June 17 2012 07:54 Navane wrote:

Show nested quote +

You're right. I should hace specified; allthough I own the DVD of The Hulk, I cannot copy it and give those copies away. Like JC gave his copies of the bread away.

So your analogy in defense of piracy is based on an allegory about charity?

I'm completely fucking confused. Tell you what, let's assume for just a minute that copyright was abolished and copy protection was made illegal. Now, let's ask a realistic question: Do you really think people would invest millions in producing the media so that you could legally get it for free, in the HOPE that you would throw some money their way?

Call me a realist, but people are greedy and selfish. Every country has laws to protect it's citizens from the greed and selfishness of each other, copyright is just the same thing.

Now, are the current laws a little ridiculous? Yeah, a touch. But that doesn't mean the solution is to do away with the system completely. That's like saying that Anarchy is the only solution for a corrupt government.

http://jinglehelltech.blogspot.com -- Pics of my rig in Profile

Navane Netherlands. June 17 2012 19:15. Posts 2405

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I understand that in the past, the invention of stuff had to be motivated, for instance via copyright protection. But I feel that the stuff being invented right now is all -- we're over the top of the hill. There is no lack of inventions. There isn't even lack of stuff. The only problem is the way it's divided.

JingleHell United States. June 17 2012 22:50. Posts 11262

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There is no lack because the laws still keep enough people paying for a product that there's a profit to be made making stuff.

The less profit available, the less people want to spend making things. Certain aspects of quality would pretty much have to start dropping off to maintain a profit margin.

Just because you found a rather impressively drug-induced analogy that's utterly irrelevant doesn't change the fact that to some extent the system protects innovation.

http://jinglehelltech.blogspot.com -- Pics of my rig in Profile

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