Most HNers probably believe some sort of property rights for software (or even blog designs). May here would argue that the GPL is a great license and violators should be punished.
You can also often read that Hollywood and the Music Industry are producing worthless crap, but yet The Pirate Bay is dominated by commercial entertainment, not by Creative Commons content.
Much of it is certainly an emotional reaction to the aggressive behavior of RIAA/MPAA, but it really is sad to see so little capacity to see things from a different perspective.
I really don't see much/any hypocrisy in the comments I've read. There aren't exactly many people just saying "Pirate ALL the things!".
There are legitimate reasons to be concerned by these constant attempts to attack certain technology or websites. Personally, I think that having a society that thinks that censorship is a good way to deal with ideas you dislike, which is where we're heading if this keeps up, is a lot more dangerous than intellectual property theft.
Hell, it has been known for years that certain ISPs even go as far as to throttle ALL bittorrent traffic and despite what the MPAA would like people to believe some of the bittorrent use is perfectly legal. World of Warcraft actually uses bittorrent for their patches.
As well, there are the facts that:
-Laws have been passed that are so excessive in punishment that judges are actually slashing the penalties, and there are even stronger laws that lobbyists are trying to get passed.
-This idea of protecting intellectual property at all costs has led to modern electronics devices being very rigidly controlled to the point that if you try to modify YOUR device to just install linux or something, you might be a criminal.
-Copyright lasts a ridiculously long time. There should definitely be some rights so that the creator can benefit, but almost a century is too long.
I think it is a reaction to the copyright cartel, but not necessarily an emotional one. The cartel's position is crazy enough and harmful enough that I'm much closer to being on TPB's side than theirs. The enemy of my enemy. Similarly, if a rabid bear got loose in my house, I might temporarily befriend someone who I'd caught taking from my wallet — my interests align more with the thief's than the rabid bear's.
It's interesting, because there are sources on the internet that catalogue a taxonomy for all manner of fallacious arguments (Wikipedia is one obvious example), but there doesn't seem to be a name for claiming that internet posts written by the people in set A are hypocritical because they presumably-contradict either 1) posts by people in set B happened to appear on the same website, or 2) some hand-waving characterization of the zeitgeist of the site's denizens.
This is clearly fallacious, I don't know why people keep using this technique, and we really should give it a name so that it can be referred to by shorthand. (Any suggestions?)
If you happen to find a person in the set A intersect B, then you've got a case against that individual. But nobody seems to go to that much effort.
It's called the ecological fallacy -- the idea that a phenomenon which is observed (or in the GP's case, totally made up) at the population level can be automatically assumed to apply at the individual level. Stereotypes are a common example of this fallacy.
It may not be a rigorous proof that some individual are hypocritical, but I think it is an indication that it is likely that there are some individuals that are hypocritical.
Supporting the GPL but not copyright in general is actually a completely valid stance. The GPL is the inverse of copyright--copyright normally protects the rights of distributors at the expense of customers; the GPL protects the rights of customers at the "expense" of distributors (this is why commercial companies don't like GPL software). The fact that the GPL is based on copyright is incidental. In fact, I suspect many people who support the GPL would be happy if the rights it protected could be given to customers without relying on copyright; unfortunately, that is not the case right now.
It still rests on the assumption that content creators can set the terms for the use of their products. Something that is disregarded by the hacker community when it comes to films and music.
Most HNers probably believe some sort of property rights for software (or even blog designs). May here would argue that the GPL is a great license and violators should be punished.
You can also often read that Hollywood and the Music Industry are producing worthless crap, but yet The Pirate Bay is dominated by commercial entertainment, not by Creative Commons content.
Much of it is certainly an emotional reaction to the aggressive behavior of RIAA/MPAA, but it really is sad to see so little capacity to see things from a different perspective.