Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by damoncali 5241 days ago
Perhaps simpler: If you make something and I take it without permission, I'm a dick. Going around being a dick is bad karma. Morally, we should all strive to not be dicks.
1 comments

  > Perhaps simpler: If you make something and I take it
    without permission, I'm a dick.
Yes, I agree. But this has nothing whatsoever to do with copyright law.
If you record a song, and I copy it to my hard drive without permission, I'm a dick. Same same.
Your reasoning is too simple. It doesn't have enough rules to reflect the complex nature of reality:

- If I breathe, and you grow a plant that utilizes the carbon dioxide from my breath without my permission, are you a dick?

- If I go to the park, make a snowman, and leave, and you use the snow to build an igloo, are you a dick?

- If I'm singing a song in a subway, and you're also in the subway, and your tape recorder picks up a faint echo in the background from a mile away, are you dick if you keep the recording?

- If we live in a hunter gatherer society, and I create the idea to build a house, and you take my idea and build a house on your land, too, are you a dick?