How I stopped worrying and learned to copy
 

Link

This has got to be one of the worst articles on copyright that is currently being circulated. I can't say enough things about it, but yes, there are idiots in the world. Tell you what, after you read this, I'll put up more information in regards to why he has no commentary on this and why it's just so bad...

That is grade A trolling argument.

I wish his desire for a free society was coherent enough to allow comments on that post.

Then I would ask, "You do know that dollar bills are not digital media, right?"

.

Actuallly among the many ways in which this is such spectacular trolling is that he's not wrong about this; dollars essentially are digital media.

Like, IIRC the amont of "money" in circulation that exists purely as electronic numbers IIRC vastly outnumbers the amount of actual printed money in circulation.

So something that theoretically destroys the economy of an entire country by causing massive inflation, assuming it were on a large scale, which it probably isn't (counterfeiting) = something that decreases imaginary foregone profit for entertainment corporations (pirating)?

Unless he is saying that it is impossible to completely destroy counterfeiting? In which case he is right and is just looking for a pat on the back I guess for his completely obvious observation?

EDIT:
But aren't you stealing actual physical goods with fake money that the people paid real money for, as opposed to digital copies of electronic media--Oh, wait, you're just being an asshole. Nevermind.

(Not to mention that the argument that the government should focus on people selling counterfeit money over people using it for personal use...is actually a good argument? They should focus on those people over the others. At what point is the sarcasm supposed to kick in?)

Special Paper, Special Ink, Microprint, Etc. You can't just run it off your laserjet
 

If you want to talk seriously about stuff he got wrong, I liked the assertion that anyone can print money with what they have in their living room.

Though I think I prefer just kind of rolling our eyes at it in its entirety and stamping a troll face on him.

I kinda hate the "I'd never buy this thing so it's not stealing to pirate it" but lets apply that for a second.

Now in this theoretical scenario I download an image editing software piece called Kittens illegally. The company that made Kittens will likely never know that I did so, and after a few uses of Kittens I'll probably just delete it and go about my business like nothing ever happened.
But if I were to produce actual physical currency and then go "buy" Kittens with that money I've just made, then it's almost entirely different.
Not only have I taken an object that cost money to ship, produce, and be stocked on the shelves, but it's actually kind of likely that I had the balls to get some change for it.
I've just been paid $5.50 in change for stealing Kittens from the store, and that's terrible.awesome.

It is indeed someone ~just joking~ in order to, by that joke, uncritically advance premises which themselves are sensationally idiotic; a classic of the trolling forms.

The real failure in the comparison made is that counterfeiting currency involves copying something, and then, deliberately representing it to someone else as an item actually produced by the original issuer and backed by the full faith and credit of that issuer.

If this fairly doltish fellow were to copy a bunch of dollar bills, then keep them in his home for the purpose of admiring his own handiwork, never attempting to pass them into actual circulation, then well it'd probably still be illegal, but I for one would look askance at any massive government intervention meant to stop him.

But once he takes those bills, misrepresents them as actual dollar bills, and exchanges them for goods and services with people under the impression that they actually are legitimate currency, then that's the actual point where it becomes a problem.

But he's specifically justifying printing physical bills because he wants to appreciate their artistic value, pretending that their value as money is unimportant. Which part of that has anything to do with the "digital revolution"?

By the way can money even be described as "goods" as in "an object whose consumption increases the utility of the consumer"? I think consuming money does the exact opposite of that, since you get stuck with specific stuff instead of the ability to buy any stuff. It's the age old conundrum of "What does money actually do for you unless you use it?" or as we used to say "You can't eat money" which is something everyone had figured out like a few thousand years ago except this guy.