Hey, Dex (and other mods) - is filesharing really worse than legalizing hard drugs?

[Charlie_Tan]

I’m not holding a grudge, and Dex and I had a perfectly civil and amiable discussion off board about the thread I started which he closed, which dealt with filesharing (link). We agreed to disagree.

But this morning I found this thread, which seems to be a trainwreck in the making. To spare you guys wading through it, I’ll link to the relevant post for this OP and even provide the quote:

@neutron star

The freedom to put what you want into your own body without fear of retribution is an improvement, IMHO. Then there’s the money saved on drug enforcement, which will improve lives by lowering taxes. Taxing the sale of drugs will make even more money that could translate into lower taxes for non-users and more treatment options for addicts. There’s also the fact that meth can make people paranoid. Criminalization actually gives them a legitimate reason to be that way. Take that away and much of the paranoia-induced violence will likely go with it. And then, of course, there’s the violence directly related to the sale of valuable and illegal items.

Need I go on?

The only way I can read this is that neutron star advocates legalization of drugs. From the context of the thread, it’s obvious too, that hard drugs, such as meth, are included.

The argument, constantly used by the mods, when someone posts anything about filesharing, is that it’s an illegal activity and as such, the SDMB and the Reader want to distance themselves from that. Actually, I know of no other topic that prompts closing of threads as quickly as filesharing, and it seems to me that there’s a lot of leeway given to discussing other illegal activities. I think that if I started two threads in GD, wanting to debate legal issues, one being “Should filesharing be legal?” and the other being “Should pot smoking be legal?”, the former would be closed but the latter would remain open. The only thing that would prompt the mods to close the thread about pot, would be if it started giving out advice about how to grow the stuff or avoid legal consequences -
IOW, theoretical discussions about an illegal activity is perfectly OK on this board, as long as it isn’t filesharing.

The laws within the EU are being changed right now. Downloading will be made illegal (in some countries, it already is) and the rules about fair use, when copying your own stuff, are being changed. There’s talk about taxing storage media, to compensate revenue loss from filesharing and then redistribute to the record companies and artists. Lots of things are happening and we can’t talk about them here.

I think it’s time to change the rules. As long as were talking about the acts of filesharing, and not the mechanics, the “how to…”, it should be allowed.
Caveats: It’s your board, you make the rules, there are plenty of other places were these things can be discussed… Yeah, yeah, I know.

But frankly, those places have a lot of l33t bull shit and none of the sharp brains around here.

[SPOOFE]

I think there’s a difference between communicating via a computer about illegal things done on a computer, and communicating via a computer about illegal things most certainly NOT done on a computer…

… That is, until I get my PCI-Express bong card installed…

[Marley23]

What he said. Anyway since the last thing the mods need is for the board to become a problem for the Reader, I don’t think anybody’s going to change these policies.

[mhendo]

I agree with you completely.

We discuss the merits of legalizing drugs on this message board all the time. We discuss the merits of legalizing a whole bunch of illegal things, and we also discuss the morality of whether or not such things should be allowed. Dex’s comment, in closing your thread:

@Dex

A discussion about the morality/ethics of an illegal action is not one that I’d care to allow on these boards.

seems rather disingenuous to me, given the discussions that are carried out on this board on a regular basis. Hell, i’ve very recently advocated legalizing drugs, and made strong moral and practical arguments about why it would be a good idea.

I understand when the mods close a thread that actually asks about how to undertake an illegal activity. So, for example, if some asks “Where can i buy dope in Baltimore?” or “What’s the best way to get drugs through an airport search?” it’s quite clear why such threads should be closed.

Similarly, if someone asks “What’s a good P2P file sharing service?” or “How do i get around encryption to rip a DVD to my hard-drive?” then i can see why such a thread would be closed.

But closing a general discussion about the morality and the ethics of file-sharing seems to me to be the height of absurdity, the ultimate knee-jerk reaction. As you say, it’s their board and they can do what they want, but it’s a stupid call, IMO.

Dex, you say that you don’t want any discussion of the morality or ethics of an illegal action.

Yet right now, in the Pit, is a thread called Prohibition is the problem, in which some Dopers are arguing about the merits of legalizing drugs, with some saying outright that criminalization is a bad thing.

Or a thread in GD entitled People who buy pot fund murders, discuss, in which the OP states clearly that he supports legalization of marijuana.

Hell, there’s even a thread with the title Is murdering people inherently wrong?. Surely that constitutes “discussion about the morality/ethics of an illegal action”?

And what if i started a thread with this as an OP:

During the war with Mexico in the middle of the nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau spent some time in prison for refusing to pay his taxes. He even wrote an essay in defense of his stance entitled “Resistance to Civil Government,” in which he argues a moral imperative to resist state tyranny through civil disobedience.

Well, a century and a half later, do you think that Thoreau’s position is tenable? Do you agree that there are circumstances in which it is morally or ethically acceptable to break the law by not paying your taxes, in support of something that you feel is a greater good? And what, for you, would constitute an issue that justifies such a stance?

In giving your answer, please state your more general view on taxes so we know, for example, whether you’re a libertarian who tends to oppose taxes on principle, or a democratic socialist who sees taxation as a necessary means of wealth redistribution in an inherently unequal society.

Would such an OP pass muster? And if so, how is it fundamentally different from Gaspode’s question about the morality of file sharing?

[Nightime]

Debates about whether file sharing should be legalized have been allowed in the past, and probably will continue to be allowed.

From the guidelines:

Debates on the legality of this practice are allowed, but do not ask questions of the type “How do I get this peer-to-peer sharing software to work?” or “Can someone help me find a copy of (song or movie clip) using peer-to-peer sharing software?”

It is references to actual downloads, instructions, specific programs, etc, that are not allowed.

You may have shot your thread in the foot when you started it off by saying you were downloading “Desperate Housewives.” That changed it from a theoretical legal question into an actual crime (if you were in the US, which I know you aren’t, but the board goes by US law anyway).

Granted, Dex said:

A discussion about the morality/ethics of an illegal action is not one that I’d care to allow on these boards.

And I think he would agree that this is an oversimplification.

If you just made a thread saying “should downloading things which are not and probably never will be available by other means where you live be illegal?” I don’t think it would have been closed.

[Nightime]

Sorry, that should be “should downloading things which are not and probably never will be available by other means where you live be considered immoral?”

[picker]

@SPOOFE

I think there’s a difference between communicating via a computer about illegal things done on a computer, and communicating via a computer about illegal things most certainly NOT done on a computer…

… That is, until I get my PCI-Express bong card installed…

PCI? You gotta be kidding me. AGP enabled is so the way to go. Hits cleaner and faster.

[SPOOFE]

Man, the new nVidia GeBong 6800 Ultra has an auto-inhaler and dual-slot carb!

(Ironically, the ATI Radeon x800 series of cards was originally code-named r420 while in development)…

Anyway, stoner-hijack over… sorry…

[neutron_star]

@Nightime

You may have shot your thread in the foot when you started it off by saying you were downloading “Desperate Housewives.” That changed it from a theoretical legal question into an actual crime (if you were in the US, which I know you aren’t, but the board goes by US law anyway).

I’m pretty sure that was it. If the OP to a legalization debate started by saying, “I’m in the middle of packing up a bowl right now and I think they should legalize this shit,” the thread would likely be closed. In fact, more than a few threads have been closed in the past due to discussion of current drug use.

Do a search for “file sharing” in GD and you’ll see tons of unlocked threads debating the morality of the practice.

[Cisco]

@Nightime

You may have shot your thread in the foot when you started it off by saying you were downloading “Desperate Housewives.” That changed it from a theoretical legal question into an actual crime (if you were in the US, which I know you aren’t, but the board goes by US law anyway).

You’ve been around long enough, The Gaspode, to know better. How could you not expect a thread that started that way to get locked?

[Charlie_Tan]

Because it served as an example to start off the discussion, i.e. apart from legal issues, is this morally wrong. I can go out and buy a CD or a DVD or a game. I might not, even with the help of amazon, be able to get a hold of this or that.
BTW, if you go to Project Gutenberg to download a text that’s in the public domai, and click P2P, it wil start your filesharing program of choice.

And if the reference to desperate housewives was the issue, Dex could have slapped me on the fingers and edited the post, but it seems to me that his comment didn’t leave that option open.

Now this is not about that thread per se, nor about Dex closing it - it’s a matter of perspective. The argument that the SDMB don’t want to become a liabilityfor the Reader is valid, but I do think it’s fair to compare drugs and filesharing. Why would the Reader get in legal trouble for threads about filesharing, but not about drugs?

I can think of another reason: Cecil writes and sells books. Copyright infringement strikes close to home, and I’m pretty sure a lot of his columns have been ripped off.

[manhattan]

@neutron star

I’m pretty sure that was it. If the OP to a legalization debate started by saying, “I’m in the middle of packing up a bowl right now and I think they should legalize this shit,” the thread would likely be closed.

I agree that I think this was exactly the distinction Dex was trying to make – that the board doesn’t want to encourage morality discussions in the context of an OP (or other person in the thread) who is going right ahead and doing what is being discussed. As noted in this thread, there have been any number of discussions of the morality and legality of filesharing in the past and I’m confident that the administration intends to allow them in the future.

[robertliguori]

I think it’s not a matter of actual liability as it is a fear of being (wrongly) sued. If there was a rich billionaire who sued anyone who posted anything about him on the internet for libel, I’ll bet the boards would ban discussion of him, as well.

[E-Sabbath]

Is it possible to build a bong as part of a water-cooled PC? I can almost see it, actually.

[Lord_Ashtar]

@E-Sabbath

Is it possible to build a bong as part of a water-cooled PC? I can almost see it, actually.

Maybe not a PC…

[Ethilrist]

@E-Sabbath

Is it possible to build a bong as part of a water-cooled PC? I can almost see it, actually.

That would be counterproductive, seeing as how it would heat the water… :dubious:

re: the OP, is there a difference between discussions of legalizing drugs and legalizing filesharing in that the drug discussions tend to focus on the legalizing process and not get into discussion of how to do actually illegal things, whereas discussions on filesharing tend to have side-topics on how to share files (“Well, once they legalize it, going to [this site](this site) and downloading their FileRipper2006 won’t be a crime.”)?

[JohnBckWLD]

Well, without drugs, most of the files (especially those from the 60s & 70s) that get shared wouldn’t even exist in the first place

[E-Sabbath]

You’d just need a second cooler. It’s not counterproductive if the point is to ‘make a bong out of a working PC.’, it’s just not logical or reasonable. Just an interesting technical question. I guess the best way to do it would be like a nuclear plant, two loops, one air, one water, that exchange heat at a radiator?
Hm.

Disclaimer: Don’t smoke. Asthmatic. Don’t drink. What do I do?

Think of really pointless things to build, apparently. Remember, bongs can be used to smoke tobacco with. If I ever were to build this, I’d probably make it a turbo-incense burner or something, instead.

[Gorsnak]

@E-Sabbath

Disclaimer: Don’t smoke. Asthmatic. Don’t drink. What do I do?

Bake brownies?

[catsix]

robertligouri said:
If there was a rich billionaire who sued anyone who posted anything about him on the internet for libel, I’ll bet the boards would ban discussion of him, as well.

People have said plenty of critical things about Scientology on this forum.