Pirate Party's North American Debut 178
adonoman writes "A 25-year-old Winnipeg businessman is the first Pirate Party of Canada candidate to run for federal election. At the same time, the US and UK pirate parties have put out an open letter to Anonymous requesting that they cease Operation Payback's DDOS attacks and focus on taking a legal route to fix intellectual property law."
A politician that listens. What a difference (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in America, we have politicians that tell us to grin and bear the gloved hand of tyranny up our metaphorical rectums. This past week has been a tumultuous time for our country with millions upon millions angry, demanding the end to the usurpation of our human rights. These calls have fallen on deaf ears.
Canada, the great untamed frontier, still seems to have politicians who put people over policy. What a topsy-turvy world we live in that we Americans finally look northward for leadership!
Maybe it's time we held our own Boxing Day.
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I think the word you're looking for is proles [wikipedia.org].
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I think the word you're looking for is proles
I think plebes is a perfectly suitable word.
Its a contraction of "plebeian". It comes from Roman times; where society was divided into the patricians (the elite upper class), the plebeians (the middle/lower class), and slaves. Today its its an insult, meaning that they are inferior and/or ignorant -- which is likely the intended meaning here.
As an aside plebeian is particularly suitable, because for a long while they were forbidden to know the law, but were of co
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Yes, I'm aware of what the term plebe means. I was referring to proles in the 1984 sense, not the "short for proletariat" sense. If you haven't read it, go read it. It will make what's happening in the U.S. right now seem all the more disturbing. You have the party members, who are kept under strict dogmatic control and are not allowed to stray from the party's position (how very Republican) or to question anything the government does, and then you have the proles, who despite having no real freedom, ar
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If you haven't read it, go read it.
I've read it. I'm not really a fan of Orwell. I didn't enjoy animal farm either. I tend to want to beat his characters to death with a stapler.
Perhaps because I feel Orwell is trying to bludgeon me to death with the complete lack of subtlety in his writing.
Yes, I'm aware of what the term plebe means. I was referring to proles in the 1984 sense, not the "short for proletariat" sense.
Orwell's "proles" are in the "short for proletariat sense", not just the roman sense, but a
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My representative is great at listening. Doesn't make a damned bit of difference in what he does, but he will definitely listen to you.
Update (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Update (Score:5, Insightful)
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Indeed... while other O:P people have said they would stop.
The end result is that politicians of other parties will be less able to confuse O:P with the PP, and less able to dismiss the PP as rogue lawbreakers, since the PP can truthfull say they did more than anyone else to try and get O:P to behave lawfully.
Breaking Into North American Politics? (Score:2)
Candidate's single sign... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anonymous is people. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Something in the collective psyche of the English speaking world seems to favour appeasement and compromise with the ru
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The installed governor of Scotland also marched against England, which res
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The Soviet Union found out the same thing. Remove God from society and it falls apart and degenerates into mass drug abuse through the lack of hope and destruction of morality that looks to something greater than humanity itself. Remember, the Soviet Union had alcoholism rates of over 50% in the general population, and the government murdered millions of its own citizens.
Drug use is way up in the former Soviet Union, Now that God is back, taking care of his flock.
I'm not certain, but believe alcoholism is fairly level (and probably was the same during the tsar era, no less). The difference now is the worst drunks no longer have state housing and end up homeless. Birth rates are way down without the state supporting single mothers and such (although they are working on this, I think Putin announced some grants for children recently). Although the Oligarchs are definitely in
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If repetition with the expectation of change is insane, then our political system (voting) and Windows (rebooting) are both insane. Expository speech and writing are insane. Exercise and practice are insane. Repeat after me: history is complicated, and the world and the people in it are different today. No revolution, no crisis, no war is the same as any that have gone before it except when painted with the broadest of strokes.
The French weren't trying to remove $deity from society, they were trying to elim
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Remember, the Soviet Union had alcoholism rates of over 50% in the general population, and the government murdered millions of its own citizens.
so was tsar era, so is the new religious, capitalist and 'democratic' era. thats a cultural trait of that region.
and french revolution's excess, was very probably the result of close to 1500 years of heavy feudalism and serfdom. especially during the last stages, the excesses and abuse of aristocrats were beyond logic.
similar to the situation in russia before the revolution. it was even worse there.
repress a society for centuries, you create psychopaths.
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Well the problem with ever finding their heads in the bucket is that the overwhelming military might is now on their side, as it has become since at least WW I. As long as they retain the support of the military they are confident their heads will stay in place.
Well that and they have spent ages creating public apathy along with their corporate friends...
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The idea that no one ignored "the masses" since the French revolution is simply ignorant. You can see all sorts of riots since then, including in the US, which ended in nothing at all, or sometimes small compromises by the government. You simply don't understand the level of unrest required for a revolution, IP will never be enough, an economic collapse that will cause lack of food supplies might do it...
Oh, and stop romanticising the revolution, they beheaded not only the king, but tens of thousands, mos
nay (Score:2)
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Best be sure you aren't next in line for the chop. (Score:2)
one should equate it to the masses in front of the guillotine back in 18th century. it is not wise, to keep ignoring their will, despite they having started to openly express it and become aggressive over it. last batch to do that, had their heads in a bucket.
21% of peak Internet traffic in North America is a Netflix stream.
YouTube Video 10% Flash Video 6%. Everything BitTorrent, 10%. Video's Expanding Bandwidth, and What It Means for Internet Traffic [seekingalpha.com] [Nov 19]
Netflix reached those numbers with only a bare
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do you think that there are millions of geeks in america ? hehehehe.
and do you think the jury had acted along with the will of masses ? hahahaha.
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equivilant
......
Pushing more people to underground ? morons. (Score:4, Insightful)
during this time, i havent engaged in any illegal activity. havent been involved with the underground world, hacks, cracks, phreaks, and all that goes about it, despite i had ample opportunities, like any tech-savvy i.t. person that lives today.
but rip my freedoms off that way, and you will push a lot of people like me, to underground, with a cause. and, i assure you, pushing that many smart people that way, is not a good thing.
just saying.
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I'm loathe to tell you this because it SEEMS like trolling, but it's not; if you write like this, even in an informal public forum, with bad grammar, no punctuation, a strange logical string that doesn't make any sense, and an overwhelming sense of mis-placed esteem and hubris, you aren't doing yourself any favors. You come off like someone who maybe wanted to graduate in the top 500, but really ended up near the bottom.
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And... you just confirmed eveything I said. Good job!
And upon what authority (Score:2)
Very disappointed in the Pirate Party. If they were winning seats in elections, successfully introducing legslation into parliaments, and making headway in making reforms relecting their policies, then I would understand their calls for Anon to stand down. However, I cannot see what platform upon which they have built their moral authority.
They can distance themselves from illegal actions, other than the illegal actions that *they* have decided should not be illegal, but maybe they should concentrate on cha
Anonymous has "a spokesperson?" (Score:2)
Anonymous’ spokesperson...
I'm sorry, who?
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Ask whathisface (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:4, Insightful)
pissing off one's oppressors is a good thing in itself.
How is that a good thing? If you mean oppressors in a figurative manner, making someone angry doesn't make you more right, and often it causes your side to lose support. If you mean literal oppressors, then pissing them off usually just ends up causing greater oppression. Anonymous and the Pirate Party are fighting a law. Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.
Of course they are. [wikipedia.org]
Quite effectively, too.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Informative)
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The media has a deep invested interest in the preservation of copyright as most of their business models revolve around it, be it in print, TV, radio or online. It's not about left wing or right wing, they're pretty much all pro-copyright mouthpieces. I think trying to win sympathizers, that is non-participants that still sympathize will not get you anywhere. It's about recruiting participants and making them aware how many of the people around them do it too. Raise the "status" of being a file sharer to so
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Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.
Of course they are. [wikipedia.org]
Quite effectively, too.
I actually have mod points at the moment, but instead of modding parent up, I want to reply in agreement.
I couldn't agree more. I'm sure Rosa Parks [wikipedia.org] would as well.
I live in Britain and frankly, I feel disgusting at the way that ordinary people have been increasingly criminalised in recent years. Particularly since Blair, legislation has been more and more as a means of control. This is not a thought, it's a fact. Look at the statistics for the number of new pieces of legislation that came in under his te
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I hate when people bring up Rosa Parks (and linking to her, no less.. as if you are bestowing upon us some fact nobody is in the slightest bit aware of) in regards to copyright laws.
Rosa was not breaking any law by refusing to give up her seat. In fact, the law was on her side, as recent case law had sided with others in her position. She was merely violating bus company rules. Not that her stance wasn't important, but please.. don't equate disobeying a bus driver with breaking federal law that can land
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Can't boycott Hollywood (Score:2)
It eventually lead to a bus boycott, not a bus denial of service.
Except one cannot easily boycott the entertainment industry. True, you throw away your radio and your TV and seek out sources of free cultural works on the Internet. But you still have to buy food at a grocery store that plays non-free music over its speaker system, paying the producers of non-free music with part of what you spend on groceries. And the cable company still gives the lowest tier of TV service for no additional charge with Internet service.
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Anonymous and the Pirate Party are fighting a law. Laws are not repealed by going out and breaking more laws.
Actually, in my view, the Pirate Party should not have so much as made mention of what Anon is doing. By writing the open letter, they might be taking a bit of a moral ground, but at the same time, they are associating themselves with that sort of behavior.
Do I think what Anon is doing is "right"? Nope.
Do I think that they should keep doing it? Absolutely.
I think at some point it is up to everyone to take a moral stand and make their view heard. If the person you are speaking to has their hands on th
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Or the end justifies the means.
Bingo.
Often times you have to do what is wrong for the greater good. Please allow a simple example about war - something we can all pretty much say is "bad" and "wrong":
Is war okay?
What if that country is talking about attacking your country?
What if that other country attacked your country in the past?
What if the country happens to be developing a dangerous technology that it might or might not use against your country in the future?
What if the country is doing horrible things to it's own people th
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Not to get all godwin or anything, but i'm sure Nazi's thought the ends justified the means as well. The problem is, very few people can honestly say that without being self-serving.
In most cases, there are better, and more legal ways to achieve the end. The end only justifies the means when there is absolutely no other way to achive "the greater good". And, in the case of Operation Payback, i do not believe for one second that there isn't any other way. Even the name is a very important clue as to the
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The Nazis ends were evil as well as their means.
Every moral entity decides what's right and wrong. There's no way around it; if there is an objective morality, it's not directly accessible. You can delegate your decision making to some authority, and claim that following the dictates of authority is right while vio
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People have been *wrongly* held for violating the DMCA. Dmitry and Elcomsoft were Acquitted of any wrongdoing.
I don't like the DMCA either, but the blame for that situation was with the FBI, not the DMCA (although certainly it gave them a reason to wrongly hold him).
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Not to get all...
While I do agree with some of your points totally, I am less convinced by others. And this isn't having a go at you at all. You might even convince me :)
Anonymous's major problem is that it feels it is justified in deciding what's right and wrong. They feel they can impose their beliefs on others.
How is that different to **AA imposing their beliefs on others - and not only that, but buying enough lobbies to make it law? They now don't even have to fully impose their beliefs - the law system does it for them?
While I too think Scientology is a sham, i also don't believe it's my place to pass judgement over anyones religious beliefs. Doing so is a very slippery slope.
I too think it is all a sham, actually I think it is nothing more than a "networking religion" at best for the top few folks in there. But they
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The difference between Anonymous and The **AA's is that the **AA's (mostly) work within the framework of the law. Anonymous works almost entirely outside the law.
Yes, there have been times the **AA's have done something shady, but then they should be held liable for that in court. (and in most cases, they have been).
There's a difference between standing up to a bully in a legal manner, and doing illegal activities to get back at the bully.
What's more, the advice to stand up to bullies has lead to incidents
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Advice to stand up to bullies might have resulted in Columbine (no idea about the specifics of that) - but I am sure that it has also resulted in a countless number of GOOD THINGS.
As for being sued for millions of dollars not being a life changing event? "Just declare bankruptcy?" Are you kidding? So, you lose
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Questioning authority is the very spirit of America. Otherwise we should never have had a revolution, and never left the British Empire. The revolution was very much illegal. Nor would we have advanced as far in technology and science. We took good ideas from Europe, and made them better. Didn't have to ask any European for permission. Also quite against the rules (their rules), and England did protest, not that it gained them anything.
You ought not to be so blindly obedient. Nor should you talk as
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I would call the harassment that Anonymous conducts at physical scientology locations to border on terrorizing people. They taunt, annoy, and scare them, throwing things at them, scaring off potential members, etc.. That's a powerder keg waiting to errupt in something more violent.
My concern is that someone is going to take things too far. I liken Anonymous to the right to lifers that protest abortion clinics. Both think they're right, and that their opinion is the only correct one. But things have gone
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Please allow a simple example about war - something we can all pretty much say is "bad" and "wrong":
No, we can't. War isn't inherently wrong - if you start with the assumption that it is, then all your follow-up reasoning is completely irrelevant. As I said, I don't think you understand the meaning of the word "wrong".
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If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.
If an action is "wrong" or "not right" that means you shouldn't do it. If it's "right" then that you are permitted to do it, or in some cases should do it. To say that some action is "not right" but that one "should keep doing it" is a contradiction.
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If the end justifies the means, and the end is right, then the means are right.
Really?
You have a choice to either do nothing, or do evil. But that evil will prevent a greater evil, are you then "right" or "wrong"? Imagine it's right before D-day and you have a captured Nazi officer that has detailed knowledge of the German troops and defenses. Breaking him will save many Allied and civilian lives and end the war sooner, but he's an ideological hardliner and won't talk willingly. Would it be right to torture
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News Corp's conflict of interest (Score:2)
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If you want to reduce it to playground logic, "so and so" beats you up for your pocket change. The teachers take his side. He's been taking more and more of late. You have a chance to throw sand in his face. Do you take it? He'll still take your pocket change, so it won't improve your situation any.
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Telling the teacher or clubbing him won't stop him from pissing you off either. what it does is make you feel good/better if not only for a short period of time.
Yea, it make you feel better when you are trapped and nothing you can do will change the situation so you do what little you can for payback. That's what I'm saying.
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Let me guess.
The bully is giving the teacher a cut of the money he takes from you.
And seriously, the real world isn't much different from the playground. What starts out as bullies testing their muscles escalates to companies flexing their legal strength, and countries proving their military might.
The entire world is about power and who has the most of it. When people are "looking out for number one", power is the only thing that actually works.
Throwing sand in someone's face could quickly get you detenti
More than that (Score:3, Interesting)
I think what it means is that it makes you feel good.
There is that but there is also the fact that if it makes your oppressors even more oppressive then they are likely to irritate even more people. This will improve your support and give your arguments even more weight.
An important step has already been taken in that direction in Canada: Access Canada, the body which licenses Universities to use copyrighted material, has raised its fees by almost a factor of three and also added additional, more restrictive terms. The result is that all the major Canadia
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Legal means have been exhausted
Unless and until a dictatorship is in place, there is always a legal means: getting elected and changing the copyright laws.
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Unless and until a dictatorship is in place, there is always a legal means: getting elected and changing the copyright laws.
The thing is, can one or a handful of elected people make a change? In the States, Libertarian candidates actually get elected every once in a while, but I'm afraid nothing has changed.
But if one has quite a bit of money, it's amazing how the system just bends to your will.
The big corporate machines with all the cash will never allow anyone to change IP law.
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Finally, someone nails exactly why the status quo isn't going to change.
Not to mention that the big corporate machines get that cash in the first place by exploiting legal loopholes that already do exist.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
"...there is always a legal means: getting very wealthy and changing the copyright laws."
FFY
MPAA news (Score:2)
getting elected and changing the copyright laws.
Anyone who runs for the U.S. Congress on a copyright reform platform will get buried by the major U.S. TV news organizations, all of which share a corporate parent with a major movie studio [pineight.com].
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Internet non-users vote. (Score:2)
I doubt if dramatic chipmunk, annoying orange, llama song, badger badger, they've taken the hobbits to Isengard, or any similar video has been made popular by the major TV networks.
Works that have become "Internet popular" aren't necessarily known to the electorate. I see people who haven't heard of any of the "Internet popular" videos you mentioned, yet they still vote. They don't see the point of spending $600 for a PC+monitor and $600 per year for home Internet access and learning how to use them when they're satisfied getting their news from newspapers and traditional television. Howard Dean in 2004 and Ron Paul in 2008 tried to run as the so-called Internet candidate, yet their c
No, that isn't an option (Score:2)
It sounds nice, but where do you get the party machine from? This is an issue the Dutch PVV has (Geert Wilders). As a small party with a very low income (it has no members because of how it is organized. By comparison, the Socialist Party has millions in income from members) and can't properly vet its people. Since these people haven't been roasted on the traditional decades of party membership, some real whacko's come up and are then exposed.
So you NEED the large party machine and "us knows us" to filter
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That, right there, is the attitude of a WINNER.
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Legal means exhausted (Score:2)
If by "legal means" you are saying millions in campaign contributions then legal means have not been exhausted. Maybe if the RIAA/MPAA ceased donations they could stop claiming lost sales?
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copyright laws have largely been address independent of the **AAs.
Those seem to be American organizations and copyright laws have all been started in Europe first then brought to the US. Even the infamous DMCA was the result of an international treaty.
Sure, the **AAs might encourage the stuff. They might even activly support it. But if you are going to concentrate on them, you will never win. You have to find the problem, not the front man in the operation taking advantage of the problems.
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The reason for that is that international treaty supersedes the US constitution.
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No it doesn't.
The courts have let some treaties supersede- mainly the ones in existence at the time the constitution was created but the constitution says that the laws and treaties (except for the existing ones) shall be made in accordance with the constitution.
However, this is pointless as the constitution give congress the power to regulate copyright. All treaties the US enters in has to be implemented into law too.
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In theory no.
In practice, all the law does is serve as a tiebreaker in a fight that isn't settled before trial.
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pissing off one's oppressors is a good thing in itself.
So if you're getting beat up by a cop with a nightstick, the best thing to do is scream at him "YOU CALL THAT A SWING? WHAT KIND OF PANSY ARE YOU?" ??
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Given the choice between that and "Please sir, may I have another?", yes.
Note that I'm referring to pissing off one's oppressors as a _moral_ good. As a practical matter, kneeling at the zipper is safer.
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It's not just software (Score:2)
How am I oppressing you by holding title to software I write?
Computer programs are not the only kind of work at issue here. It's easy to avoid reading (and therefore copying) a computer program because computer programs aren't performed publicly as background noise. But once I hear a song on the radio or on the grocery store's speaker system, I am forever barred from writing a song that uses a similar melody. Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music; Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton. So what should I do to make sure that any song I write hasn't been written before?
"Pirate" is hyperbole (Score:2)
I thought of a couple more (Score:2)
You oppress me when you convince a government to make use of your software mandatory. For example, Microsoft has convinced some governments to make their tax return software require its Windows operating system.
You oppress me when publishing my own work requires the same device that can be used to break copy controls on works to which you hold titles. Nintendo has attacked makers of devices that run "homebrew", or software developed by individuals for Nintendo platforms, in court systems around the world
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No, they're not stealing your property.
And no, pointing out the fact that copyright infringement isn't theft does not mean that I'm a pirate or that I endorse piracy.
And yes, that IS what you were going to claim.
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You went pee-pee in the washroom, and then you flushed, and your pee went into the water supply, and one of the H20 molecules in that pee eventually ended up inside a glass of water which I poured out of the tap. I'm sorry for taking something that you didn't give me. Who shall I make the cheque out to?
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Let's say you draw a circle inside a square. I look at your drawing, and then I draw a circle inside a square as well. You pretend I've taken your idea and it wasn't mine in the first place. I reply that you've taken my freedom to come up with this idea in the first place and this freedom wasn't yours. You called me a pirate, I call you a pirate too. You say that act was theft? I am saying you've thieved first.
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You're just semantically misguided. The fact is, if you have something that belongs to me and you didn't pay me for it then either I gave it to you for free or you stole it.
Woah - now YOU sound semantically misguided.
If someone steals from you and gives it to me - I did not steal from you.
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Wow, you have a very narrow field of focus. I can think of many other possible ways something you consider to be yours came into my possesion without my having stolen it from you.
1) You dropped it, and I found it.
2) Someone else took it from you, and I found it.
3) I was awarded it as a judgement against you
etc.. etc.. etc..
There is a reason it's legally called "infringeme
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Okay. You're not necessarily a pirate. You're just semantically misguided.
UK case law rests on his side, not yours. It's not just semantics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_v_Moss [wikipedia.org]
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Pirates create junk media for the honest people.
Wha?
If you disagree, please post your Credit Card and Bank numbers
with security codes.
Disagree with WHAT?
It is just electrons for all to see.
I knew you would not. Pirates are hypocrites.
WTF? Were you stoned when you wrote that comment?
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No. I'm stoned _now_ and I can't make hide nor hair of it.
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Do you actually speak English, or are you just running this stuff through google translate?
FYI, "copyright" doesn't mean what you apparently think it means.
Trade secret != copyright (Score:2)
You refused to post your Credit Account number.
Authentication is much more like a trade secret than like a copyright. Please don't listen to people who claim that copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets should be treated equally just because they're all "intellectual property" [pineight.com].
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The Movie Network [themovienetwork.ca] and Netflix [netflix.ca] are USA-only?
Re:Open letter in Flash? (Score:4, Informative)
Why do we need to allow Flash to read the letter? It's a letter ffs, it should be in text or html format.
I just posted the PDF on our website [pirateparty.org.uk]
Yeah, I hate scribd too.
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Unless they're on an OS that isn't supported by freaking Adobe.
Adopting Pejoratives is a time honored tradition (Score:2)
For example, "Black" was pejorative. The accepted term at the time was "Negro", which has turned around and become a pejorative. Similarly, "queer" was also an insult, and it became the name of a movement.
If you unfairly treat X to the point where X has a higher moral claim then you do, then eventually X becomes a compliment.
When "pirates" were copying floppies and the industry was simply saying "don't do that", the industry seemed to have the moral high ground. In those days, I was on the side of the in
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The Marijuana Party is also named after something illegal. I don't see the problem.