A Study on How Internet Piracy Reflects on Society's Acceptance of Socialist Policies (1 Viewer)

GINN

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Let me begin by detailing a brief summary of how a true Socialist society would function and what some basic government policies would be. The main idea behind Socialism/Communism is for EVERYONE in society to benefit from each other and have what they need to live whilst contributing their own part to society. This means that no one would be hungry, no one would be homeless, and everyone would be equal in status. Everybody is alloted a house, food rations, etc. and in our modern world they should also be given certain necessary communication devices such as televisions and computers with Internet access. Also everyone (who can) must work without pay. However they do not need to buy anything so it really doesn't matter. In a Capitalist trans-Socialist society (i.e. an ex-Capitalist society that has transformed into a Socialist society) in theory might have some sort of credit system where everyone is given an equal amount of credits to trade for enjoyment items such as different DVDs or CDs (not the players but the discs, if you understand my drift), items in the antique market, or collectibles like records or baseball cards. In turn, the vendors who receive these credits could use them for their own entertainment factors or perhaps trade them to the government if they wish to move to a different house or a different location. The house must be pre-owned though, as otherwise would defeat the purpose of Socialism and this would be a good way to reduce the number of new houses needed to be built for the future generations. But I digress. What you need to know is that in Socialism, everyone gets what they need for free without the exchange of money. (The possibility of the existence of a valid Socialist society in a trade and market oriented world is debatable in itself, but that is a debate for another time.)

Now let me explain Internet Piracy and its connection to Socialism. It is quite simple really. Some people believe that software and media should be free and thus create ways to download it from one another, payment-free. The key point here is that actual people, and not companies, sacrifice their own computers and bandwidth to make this software and media available for others to download. Sound familiar? It should. Whatever one person owns is shared freely with the rest of the world or society. It's not even solely piracy that retains this relation. You may also have heard of Open-Source software that is created to be legally dispersed free of charge over the Internet. It is really amazing how this fundamental Socialist policy has conditioned the minds of today's rebellious yet tech-savvy citizens... without them even realizing it! But these same people would be unwilling to accept Socialism as their form of government, because they feeling they should keep what they earn in terms of a salary. Bobby doesn't want to pay for Joe's broken arm or Sally's hysterectomy. Farmer Brown does not want to give his corn to Bobby, Joe, or Sally for free. This is nonsense. This is fear. There doesn't have to be large framed pictures of the Dear Leader hanging up everywhere or 30 million person killing sprees. There simply has to be the desire to share and be shared back with. If Socialism can work on the Internet, then I say we give it a try in our government.

Disclaimer - I admit that my essay here has drifted away slightly from the terms of a "study" but I will label it as such for its overwhelming inclusion of fact and proved etiological information.

Source: John Winthrop
 

Trefoil

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No.

Pure socialism is not the way. Pure capitalism is not the way. While you ideologues are out preaching about sharing everything or how the market must be free 'just because', the rest of the world is getting on with molding a stable, real-world free market framework tempered with just enough government oversight to promote social responsibility and economic stability.

Without the main ills of either system.
 
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Leo 100

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its all well and good in theory
but it , it being 'communisum' has been tested, and failed
a utopian society wont ever exist because people are greedy, this is reality
then people will be protesting like 'bobby' because others arent doing what they should and people will have to keep them in order, making someone the divine power holder, ie 'tyrant' and we are back to square one

see the reaccuring theme?
 

A High Way Man

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I don't believe Software should be free

...i'm just a pirate.

The only argument I can make from a business perspective justifying software piracy is that pirates downloading a certain piece of commercial software to use them for hobbies/etc can lead them to a professional career in using that software. For example, say a pirate has been using Photoshop for years and years and ends up in the graphic design industry. What software is he/she going to buy?

I reckon the ease of acquiring photoshop the last ~10 years has contributed to its large market share.
 
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Trefoil

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A High Way Man said:
I don't believe Software should be free

...i'm just a pirate.

The only argument I can make from a business perspective justifying software piracy is that pirates downloading a certain piece of commercial software to use them for hobbies/etc can lead them to a professional career in using that software. For example, say a pirate has been using Photoshop for years and years and ends up in the graphic design industry. What software is he/she going to buy?

I reckon the ease of acquiring photoshop has contributed to its large market share.
You don't really understand the concept.

Free software is the way of the future in the IT industry; Firefox, Ubuntu, Open Office are just a few examples - but Ubuntu's package repositories hold thousands more.

Free software is not 'economically sustainable' from a perspective of selling software, no. But that market doesn't deserve to exist in the first place - it's artificial, arbitrary. What is sustainable is selling a service - consultation. Instead of selling the product, you make the product, release it for free, and then sell your expertise with technical support, etc. Of course, nothing is preventing contract work on in-house proprietary systems like today, either. Moreover, nothing is preventing innovation. If anything, all signs indicate open source and free software leads to increased innovation, while proprietary software the reverse. Put simple: programmers like to code for the sheer fuck of it, and not making money off it never stopped us before.

Summary: there is little justification for software piracy being 'bad' because there's generally little justification for the software selling model to begin with. Many recognise this already - Sun, IBM, HP, Google, and much of their businesses now revolve around this concept.

So this is not so much about socialism as about ignoring an economic model that is not only socially irresponsible, but just basically unsustainable to begin with for not being competitive to a superior one (consultation).
 

A High Way Man

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Yo I'm all for freedom




including the freedom to write and sell proprietary software
 

Trefoil

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Sure, just like I support a person's freedom to sell apples for $10 each in a shopping mall.

Doesn't mean we have to listen to them play the blame game when they fail miserably. ("it's the fault of the worms that infest my apples!" draws striking parallels with the accusations against 'piracy')
 

chicky_pie

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Free software distribution, but at the same time they survive on sponsorship and other major businesses, not everything comes for free, everything cost something.
 

HNAKXR

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private trackers can be compared to capitalism whereas public trackers can be compared to socialism.
nuff said.
 

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Trefoil said:
No.

Pure socialism is not the way. Pure capitalism is not the way. While you ideologues are out preaching about sharing everything or how the market must be free 'just because', the rest of the world is getting on with molding a stable, real-world free market framework tempered with just enough government oversight to promote social responsibility and economic stability.

Without the main ills of either system.

There is no ill in free markets.


Government interventionism causes the problems.


There was no great depression before the U.S government decided to implement the Federal reserve act and take them off the gold standard.


Governments only mismanage markets.
 
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zstar said:
There is no ill in free markets.


Government interventionism causes the problems.


There was no great depression before the U.S government decided to implement the Federal reserve act and take them off the gold standard.


Governments only mismanage markets.
Climate change skeptic yes? Tragedy of the commons no?
 

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Silver Persian said:
Climate change skeptic yes? Tragedy of the commons no?

I don't deny that the climate is changing I just don't believe that humans are the cause.


Climates have always shifted throughout history and non of them were caused by man.


Now all the left wing liberals with their anti-capitalist agenda are trying to exploit the debate for their own gain.
 

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