Gah. Wish I could downvote articles for being useless.

Can we stop submitting these things? This article, without even touching on annoying design and style choices, is bad. It contributes nothing to the discussion of copyright. It is four paragraphs long, and devoid of useful thought.

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It's short enough, let's tear through it:

"over on hacker news, there are two articles in which the authors are justifying their decisions to pirate music and windows because their respective industries don't make it as easy to get hold of their content as the pirate bay does. as the first author argues "because you are not offering a good service" he is going to pirate his music and films from now on and "the time has come for you to fuck off", the second writes "i am not buying any more software" until microsoft "address the service problem that is causing piracy". "

Okay, so, first paragraph is sloppy quoting of the articles mentioned this week at HN. The hackjob of quoting misses the flavor of the original articles, and skips some nuances. That would be fine--but it took the author an entire paragraph to sum up what could've been said in one line: "Here and here are two articles causing discussion about piracy on Hacker News." Done. Finished. Had they done that, I could've gotten through their miserable little post that much faster.

"
sorry what? yes, drm is broken. yes, copyright doesn't work very well. yes, pirating is easier. since when does that suddenly mean that you can decide that you are no longer going to pay for products that both legally and morally you are obliged to pay for, yet still use them? i am steering clear of the word 'steal' because many will argue that it is not 'stealing' under the strict definition of the word; the content creator still has the song, software etc. "

The author says, in effect, "suck it up, stop pirating."

The author does so with some hilarious painful-to-read phrasing. I'm not asking for art, mind you, in all posts--I just prefer that the written word (especially when submitted to HN!) have something behind it more than mallspeak.

In addition to being worded like a petulant teenager angry about missing the last ship to the Pirate Bay, the author claims that there is a moral obligation to pay for material, but doesn't explain what that obligation is or from what it derives.

The author doesn't so much assail the idea of piracy as show a sort of slow-witted wonder that you can get copies of things without buying them. Drooling into the keyboard and blinking, it slowly dawns on the imbecile that people can do this. The author comes dangerously close to diverging onto a useful thought about the nature of stealing and how it applies to copyright infringement, but then manages at the last minute to pull ignorance from the jaws of victory and flits off to the next paragraph.

"
if you want to protest the crappy way these companies treat their customers, don't buy their stuff. but you can't have your cake and eat it. protest by not using or having it at all. they have something you want; even if you don't agree with their methods, it is still theirs to decide what to do with. all you are doing is supporting the industry in their drive to stamp out pirates; instead, support legal ways of obtaining this content through spotify and others. "

The author makes several assertions again here: companies treat their customers badly, piracy isn't effective, piracy somehow supports the industry, companies can decide what they can do with their IP unconditionally, etc.

This is talking-point vomit, a pile of mealy-mouthed and poorly-articulated sayings lacking backing or explanation. This contributes nothing to the conversation, and serves only to underscore the intellectual laziness of the author.

These claims are all very interesting and exciting to debate, mind you, but that requires an attention span and maturity that the author seems to simply not have.

"
if there is no legal way for you to enjoy it, unfortunate though it is, tough.
write to them. email them. call them to protest. but don't decide to take the law into your own hands...it's not your decision. "

At last, sweet release!

The author has finished the article with a stunted attempt at encouraging protest, and yet again manages to miss a wonderful opportunity to consider the role of piracy as peaceful protest. The author also makes some baseless assertions without provided reasoning in regards to "taking the law into your own hands" and its desirability--again, an interesting philosophical starting point lost on the moron penning the paragraph.

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Look, I'm not going to launch into crazy copyright and anti-copyright discussion here, but for fuck's sake can we start posting articles on this topic that try to display critical thought?

This is insulting.