[J3L2404]

The majority of the HNers believe that there should be no intellectual property at all. Whether this is wise or not hardly matters because changing the law to reflect such a radical position will be virtually impossible. Enforcing the current law is, of course, another matter.

Edit: I could be wrong about the majority of HN but pg clearly feels that way.

[hythloday]

I'm aware that pg believes that intellectual property should enjoy less protection that it currently does (which I'd suggest is the consensus view of HN?). Your claim that he clearly feels that there should be no intellectual property is at odds with what I've read from him. Can you link me to what he's written or said that displays his feelings as you understand them?

[J3L2404]

In his essay about property http://paulgraham.com/property.html he claims copyright is like smelling the aroma of a entree. Essentially anything that can be easily copied deserves no copyright. He has intimated that it is fine to pirate AutoCAD and Photoshop, although he dances around and never says anything concrete, so all the downloaders are free to think they are helping his revolution with every copyright infringement.

[planetguy]

>The majority of the HNers believe that there should be no intellectual property at all.

Most also make their living off producing intellectual property, which is... interesting at the very least.

Also most will totally get onboard the intellectual property train as soon as it's the IP of a sympathetic target (e.g. The Oatmeal) that's being threatened.

Basically the average HNer believes that copyright law should be "I can have whatever I want for free", hasn't thought it through too carefully beyond that.

[MartinCron]

Basically the average HNer believes that copyright law should be "I can have whatever I want for free"

That's not the average HNer, that's the average human. HNers are willing to go to great lengths to justify and rationalize their self-serving positions.

[J3L2404]

Indeed, as they snipe from the safety of their SaaS towers.

[MartinCron]

Not that safe. Someone could always steal your hard work by doing a copy/paste of your site's CSS and using it for their SaaS tower.

[J3L2404]

Well I would think pg has thought it through, but there are a lot of newbies on HN as evidenced by the sudden use of OMG and LOL that was absolutely not on HN before his "Kill Hollywood" essay.

[planetguy]

Quite possibly. Certainly in the old days one could express an opinion that "Hey, maybe there's certain advantages to copyright law" without getting modded down to numbers so low that the HN system refuses to express them.

Y'know that book "Fifty Shades Of Grey"? Well that's what your comment's gonna go through in the next hour if you disagree with (I can't believe I'm saying this) the hivemind.

edit: Also, what's with this new "You're submitting too fast. Please slow down" message you get if people start downvoting your posts? I've had it swallow a bunch of (intelligent) posts this morning due to the fact that I expressed an unpopular opinion on a copyright thread.

That fucking does it.