Ridiculous spin that inhumanely minimizes the innumerable deaths and misery the war on drugs has brought down on entire generations of families throughout the world.
If we could end the war on drugs at the expense of loss of net neutrality and ten thousand years of existing copyright laws persisting I would find this to be favorable a million times over.
When you attempt to draw distinctions between piracy and the war on drugs you are exaggerating on a scale so large that it can only detract from your cause. You do not help it. The piracy issue is not going to go away, but the cost of you not being able to watch what you want when you want to is in no way shape or form as serious a problem as the drug problem. You come back and tell this story when piracy has destroyed whole city blocks, has contributed to a death toll in the tens of thousands, has destroyed the security of nations the size of Mexico, and funds the particular madness of mass murdering drug lords that carry out their violence in impunity.
Eh, I think you're overstating things as well. When two things are compared, they do not have to be alike in all respects — merely those relevant to the comparison. Put another way: Contrary to the title, comparing is not identifying.
For example, something with many layers might be compared to an onion or a matryoshka doll, but that doesn't mean it's edible or that it's made out of wood.
No, that doesn't work when you're comparing something to a tragedy. You can't ignore the seriousness of the matter without it being a statement all in its own. The kind of comparison made in the post is hyperbole.
If we could end the war on drugs at the expense of loss of net neutrality and ten thousand years of existing copyright laws persisting I would find this to be favorable a million times over.
Fight hyperbole with hyperbole?
Ending the war on drugs is about saving lives. Saving lives is laudable, but you have to wonder in what kind of world you want them to live. Is it one where scientific progress, artistic expression and free speech are stifled?
Effects are a function of time. The war on piracy is only now hitting its stride; the war on drugs started more than 40 years ago. Given the same amount of time, i can see WoP resulting in mass convictions, ruined families and a black market, which inevitably brings escalating violence in the long run. We didn't have Mexican cartel wars in the 60s either.
Yes, that's true. And a pragmatic approach to piracy would probably benefit content producers / distributors.
But that's a lousy point to hang an analogy off. Hyperbole is preaching to the converted; it's not going to convince anyone else. There are important points to be made about civil liberties and tying piracy to drugs is means those points are harder to make.
(And I'm someone who doesn't use drugs, but would legalise almost all of them.)
The war on piracy is just the result of intense lobbying and lack of understanding at the top. It's a transitional state until we adjust copyrights for the digital age. I'm not sure we have the same level of lobbying for the war on drugs.
I don't want to start a heated debate about the war on drugs, or drug usage (which is a too frequent topic to my taste on hn), but I think we can agree that pirating doesn't have the same obvious negative effects than certain drugs (legal or not legal, that's not the point): inability to drive, violence, health problems, loss of productivity...
If we could end the war on drugs at the expense of loss of net neutrality and ten thousand years of existing copyright laws persisting I would find this to be favorable a million times over.
When you attempt to draw distinctions between piracy and the war on drugs you are exaggerating on a scale so large that it can only detract from your cause. You do not help it. The piracy issue is not going to go away, but the cost of you not being able to watch what you want when you want to is in no way shape or form as serious a problem as the drug problem. You come back and tell this story when piracy has destroyed whole city blocks, has contributed to a death toll in the tens of thousands, has destroyed the security of nations the size of Mexico, and funds the particular madness of mass murdering drug lords that carry out their violence in impunity.