Psychoanalysing piracy apologists is a waste of time

[Alterego-X]

Often when someone criticises any aspect of copyright laws, (but especially the ones against personal file-sharing), reactions revolve more around trying to describe the previous speaker's level of self-entitlement, or their possible moral motivations for "trying to justify" what they are doing, and assuming that they need the approval of random forum users so they can still look into the mirror at the morning.

While I personally disagree with most of these claims (since there are plenty of people who have no problem stating that they are pirates and they still consider it wrong, it implies that the other ones really are different from them in their convictions), but even assuming that it were true, I think that it is a kind of logical fallacy, and a diversion tactic, of not wanting to argue with direct claims about the morality of copyright, but simply replacing debate with a form of ad hominem.

The most similar example to that would be right wing politicians dismissing every argument in favor of more social benefits or more government intervention, with the claim that everyone who would argue for that just wants "free stuff", therefore somehow their economical, political, and legal rationalizations are not even worth considering.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

The OP has written an entire post of gibberish. Nothing of any substance is said, it makes little sense and there are clever words being used out of context for the sake of using them.

What claims do you disagree with? Who are you even talking about? Can you cite an actual example of whatever it is you're talking about? And with all the clever words why did you use "most similar example" instead of "analogy"?

Write something that isn't hot air if you want a discussion. The above is a waste of words.

 

[DoPo]

The OP has written an entire post of gibberish.

Thanks I thought it was just me at first. I read it twice and couldn't make head or tails of it.

 

[Berithil]

I'm not exactly sure of what you're trying to discuss here. All I got from this is that you disagree with piracy (I think). You didn't put forward a whole lot of discussion value. I agree with KingsGambit. It kinda is a bunch of gibberish.

And why do I get the feeling you just used this post to throw out a cheap jab at the right wing?

 

[Daystar Clarion]

The OP has written an entire post of gibberish.

Thanks I thought it was just me at first. I read it twice and couldn't make head or tails of it.

Indeed.

I thought I was having an off day

Good to know it's not just me.

 

[Legion]

*snip*

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The OP is basically saying that people are attacking pirates, rather than their reasons for pirating. They are using diversionary tactics to avoid discussing the issues such as copyright laws and other such things.

They then compare it to the way politicians wave away opponents arguments by using attacks as a form of dismissing the argument, rather than countering the argument itself. To use a UK example: The Labour Party will accuse people against the current immigration laws of being racists as a way of avoiding actually discussing the matter itself.

Or to use the recent joyful sexism threads: Calling somebody a misogynistic pig or a Femi-Nazi as a way of justifying not listening to the points they are trying to make. After all, if the person making those points has issues, then that makes it much easier to ignore what they are saying, regardless of whether or not the point is valid.

Although this would mean that the OP supports piracy, on some level or another.

 

[Weaver]

The real question is, if it's a waste of time, why make a thread about it?

 

[barbzilla]

Not entirely sure what I just read... I am guessing you are trying to state that discrediting someone based on their character is not a valid form of defense. If I am wrong then I apologize. I somewhat agree with you though, I would much rather have a person form a valid argument based off of actual evidence or fact, instead of avoiding the accusations and just attacking character.

Out of curiosity, did you have something you wanted to discuss about this, or were you just looking for people to /agree or /disagree?

 

[Daft Time]

The OP has written an entire post of gibberish.

Thanks I thought it was just me at first. I read it twice and couldn't make head or tails of it.

Can confirm.

Source: For a moment I thought I was proof reading one of my own posts if my views on piracy had changed.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

How disrespectful, guys! An emissary from the moon is here, and from his observations of Earth he felt it was most prudent to discuss copyright law and piracy. On an Internet forum. Just because our simple Earth brains can't understand the advanced power of moon logic doesn't mean we need to call it "gibberish". We're all the ones speaking gibberish.

 

[rob_simple]

How disrespectful, guys! An emissary from the moon is here, and from his observations of Earth he felt it was most prudent to discuss copyright law and piracy. On an Internet forum. Just because our simple Earth brains can't understand the advanced power of moon logic doesn't mean we need to call it "gibberish". We're all the ones speaking gibberish.

Your post just made this thread worthwhile, thank you.

OT: Well, I say on topic, but there doesn't appear to actually be one here, so instead I have a question regarding psychology.

Is there any sort of test meant to gauge, perhaps, someones refusal to admit when they don't understand, where the researcher presents them with a wall of text that says absolutely nothing in the context of anything but uses colourful language to sound important so the test subject feels compelled to pretend they understand what is going on?

Maybe I'm not explaining it well, then again I'm not as skilled at saying so much about nothing as the OP is.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I just wish a pirater was truthful and said "i dont want to pay for it cos i can get it for free." I would totally respect that. But no, they come up with all sorts of bullshit reasons instead.

I love the "its copy, the original is still there" but thats rubbish, because if your copying it then you wont by the original. If 1 million people made a copy, then that is a million lost sales. Its common sense. Wow, i do wish these piraters would create something, a game, a book or a cd. I bet if everyone just made copies and he didnt sell one copy he would be the first to ***** about pirateing and copyright.

 

[McMullen]

snip

I agree that this is nearly unreadable. I think it's mostly because each sentence is its own full-length paragraph, which is a good way to ensure that the message is lost. Please edit your post and then, once it is readable, we can discuss it.

 

[Berithil]

How disrespectful, guys! An emissary from the moon is here, and from his observations of Earth he felt it was most prudent to discuss copyright law and piracy. On an Internet forum. Just because our simple Earth brains can't understand the advanced power of moon logic doesn't mean we need to call it "gibberish". We're all the ones speaking gibberish.

Oh... that makes total sense now. Why didn't I see it before? Still, I think we need some sort of translator. Anyone know if Rosetta Stone has Lunar-Speak?

 

[barbzilla]

I just wish a pirater was truthful and said "i dont want to pay for it cos i can get it for free." I would totally respect that. But no, they come up with all sorts of bullshit reasons instead.

I love the "its copy, the original is still there" but thats rubbish, because if your copying it then you wont by the original. If 1 million people made a copy, then that is a million lost sales. Its common sense. Wow, i do wish these piraters would create something, a game, a book or a cd. I bet if everyone just made copies and he didnt sell one copy he would be the first to ***** about pirateing and copyright.

Except many of them say exactly that. The most common excuse I hear for pirating is "I can't afford to buy the game, so I downloaded it". Many do come up with excuses (especially here, but that is because of the stance on Piracy that the website itself takes), but many more just straight up answer the question.

As for the second part of your post: 1 million pirated copies does not equal 1 million in lost sales. It does equal 1 million unpaid for copies, and that I will agree with, but there is no correlation with the number of pirated copies vs the number of lost sales (with the exception to say that the number of lost sales is fewer than the number of copies stolen).

I do agree with you on the fact that useless excuses and lies don't make it any better though. It is still stealing in its baser form, it is just one that is not punished as harshly as others.

 

[Angie7F]

Well, I ould love to join in the conversation if only someone would summarize the OP...

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

OP in short: Pirates who try to justify what they do are wrong, proven by the existence of pirates who do not try to justify what they do.

I disagree. There. That's everything covered I think, good day.

EDIT: Actually no, I read the post again and it looks more like "The immorality of pirates is a scapegoat for the actual problems with copyright". But I can't be sure.

 

[DoPo]

Well, I ould love to join in the conversation if only someone would summarize the OP...

Hey, you're doing it already - that has been the conversation so far!

In all fairness

The OP is basically saying that people are attacking pirates, rather than their reasons for pirating. They are using diversionary tactics to avoid discussing the issues such as copyright laws and other such things.

They then compare it to the way politicians wave away opponents arguments by using attacks as a form of dismissing the argument, rather than countering the argument itself. To use a UK example: The Labour Party will accuse people against the current immigration laws of being racists as a way of avoiding actually discussing the matter itself.

Or to use the recent joyful sexism threads: Calling somebody a misogynistic pig or a Femi-Nazi as a way of justifying not listening to the points they are trying to make. After all, if the person making those points has issues, then that makes it much easier to ignore what they are saying, regardless of whether or not the point is valid.

Although this would mean that the OP supports piracy, on some level or another.

If I squint at the OP hard enough and tilt my head a bit it does seem that is correct. As in that is what is written. Only I don't think it's "people are attacking pirates, rather than their reasons for pirating" but "people attack other people who are attacking copyright laws by calling them pirates ", so I'm not sure how much sense it makes. I do not wish to discuss this blindly, as from what I can actually make out it appears OP really is speaking gibberish - even leaving confusing one sentence paragraph structure aside. I cannot discuss that which has no meaning and OP doesn't really seem to care that much about discussion on the subject or even just clarifying/supporting their points.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

How disrespectful, guys! An emissary from the moon is here, and from his observations of Earth he felt it was most prudent to discuss copyright law and piracy. On an Internet forum. Just because our simple Earth brains can't understand the advanced power of moon logic doesn't mean we need to call it "gibberish". We're all the ones speaking gibberish.

Seems to me that way. The OP is one of the only reasonable posts I've read on here for a while.

 

[Frission]

This post is actually a Rorschach test on pirates. Look at the OP and say what you see there.