| The downvote, at least from me, was because: 1) Suggesting that posting/reading an interview with someone with radical views is "glorifying" them. How dare we listen to the opinions of others? 2) The post implicitly accepts the fact that the culture on HN does not particularly consider Sonde to be a "criminal" but simultaneously calls him one one without argument -- it is nothing more than a nasty smear. 3) Suggesting the current online culture is not "respectful" of content-creators, a point which I think is patently false and is again made without reason, explanation, argument or support. I think the move you and your parent have made which I find disturbing is to call these people "content creators". As if "content" is some commodity that should be bought and sold like pounds of steel or rice. Your phrasing pre-assumes your position; most of the time people are thinking specifically about "artists". And what they produce is not something bland, generic, and revenue-driven like "content", it's art. Many artists don't care if you pirate their work and are happy to say so. Most artists broadcast their art on public airwaves for free for anyone to listen to or watch and are delighted to do it. So delighted that paying for the privilege was so common it had to be made illegal. Art is generated in the context of culture, and culture is a common societal good. Art created in our culture in some sense belongs to us all. The beatles albums, in my view, belong to the public after this long. It is disgusting someone should be able to "own" art that is central to our common cultural history and extract rent from people who want to enjoy it. Especially when the "owner" is just a wealthy capitalist who has decided they want to own thoughts and art, not an actual artist who had anything to do with creating it. I think as a society we should allow artists a reasonable period where they can, in good faith (which is rarely realized because of the way almost all contracts work to brutally exploit non-savvy artists), make money from their art, but after a decent period of time it no longer belongs to them. It belongs to the public. It certainly should not be sold and traded like a commodity. That's the artistic version of patent trolling -- buying intellectual property rights with the sole purpose of sucking money out of them and stifling art/culture/creation, and it should be illegal. |