Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Fine.
Just stop saying that Free Market doesn't work.

We never tried it, so we don't actually know whether it works.

But analyses of different attempts on introducing free market practices lead to the conclusion that it should work.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Van Gogh, Serat, Kafka, Poe, Gaugin, El Greco, Bach, Keats, Thoreau and many others (would have) beg(ged) to differ.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Thank you!

I'm sorry but I can't do that. I'm not sure of which analyses you are refering to, but in the end, it all comes down to a monetary system, and everything within that system will fail. You know why? One word: ethics. It does not, but more importantly cannot, exist within a monetary system. Is it financially suicide to be ethical. If you make and sell lamps for exemple, in your own store, and there's another store in front of yours that also sells lamps but better than yours, you cannot tell your customers: "My lamps are 20$, the same price as my competitor, but you know what? His lamps are actually more durable, illuminate more and take less energy than mines". You cannot trust anybody in a monetary system. Free market or not, it shouldn't matter.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

How would you know? Who are you to be able to tell what was behind their creativity? I admit I am not familiar with these artist's background and personal life, but I stick to my point, that a great artist should not be motivated by money, or he shouldn't be descrived as an artist. They do it because they love it, and they know they bring a difference aspect/perspective/point of view to their existing worlds.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

1. Which monetary system are you referring to?
Do you know that there is more than one monetary system?

2. Free Market is about voluntary exchange of goods. You can have it without monetary system in use at all.

3. And your ethics example... If you try broadening your perspective and think about it again, you will see how deeply flawed it is.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

The people I mentioned above did exactly that. They also had to resort to 'real jobs' or live on loans/help from friends and family to be able to fuel their passion and mostly died in poverty and/or lone and forgotten. I wonder how many *acclaimed* artists would have remained unknown had they not decided to monetize on their work, and how many DID make that choice, only for the general public never to became aware of them.

On an unrelated note - the Gaiman link is tangential - he's not saying piracy is justified, he's saying targeted on-line distribution can be used as a business model. Those are very different things.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Who are these people? (wink)
Is it possible that they pursued a life path that was no interest in other people lives, so they did not see any reason to provide for these so called artists?

Nature does not provide free meal. So do people.

Ergo: You either do some portraits, concerts, speeches, etc. to fund your experiments in art, or find a wealthy patron that fancies collecting spurs of your "ingenuity".

One cannot expect the community to provide for him, just because he called oneself "an artist".
Otherwise I will make sitting on my arse an art. ;P

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

Isaac, you've made so many inaccurate assumptions and arrived on erroneous conclusions due to it.

Look up artist's name + patron.

Almost all the great ones have em.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

1. There is only one monetary system in existence in our current world. I hope you don't mean there are different currencies... As defned: "A monetary system is anything that is accepted as a standard of value and measure of wealth in a particular region." I suggest you take a look at the following:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_system
As you would understand there are technically only two "types" of monetary system, as one has been abolish many many years ago.

2. Would I be mistaken if I think you are making reference to Free Trade? If that the case then you must be talking about Barter. Again, take a look at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barter

3. If you could take two minutes of your time (which I would personally appreciate), this is what I meant to say:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W_P_30b9jY

I know I copy a lot of links but I just don't feel like writing a book here, lol.

Re: What is "piracy" and is it ever justified
 

From a person that actually believes we are in a free market society and that competition is good, your words are of no value to me and I hope that one day you will realise how wrong you are. I strongly recommend starting by taking a look at the Zeitgeist movies, broaden your horizons a little bit.