It astounds me that Americans think themselves to be the pinnacle of civilisation, when they still gleefully enact the death penalty. It disgusts me that this vile, barbarous country has so much power in the world.
It seems strange to me how many people feel entitled to block the main source of revenue that allows sites such as Facebook to operate, while continuing to enjoy the benefits of the site. It's very dishonest behaviour, and tantamount to theft.
Even worse of course are companies like Adblock Plus, who essentially hold sites to ransom, by removing them from their blocking lists in exchange for a substantial chunk of their ad revenue.
The bottom line is, if you don't want to see the adverts, don't use the site at all.
Just because my comments challenge the rigid dogma of the pro-piracy horde, does not mean they are a 'troll'. I had hoped HN would be more open-minded.
If you examine both its common and legal connotations, theft isn't so narrowly defined as to preclude nonrivalrous goods.
This really is a common misconception of the word, often played up by the "copyright infringement is not theft" crowd to attempt to deny the consequences of their actions.
I don't see how this invalidates my comment. If rampant torrenting were to cause such industries to collapse, this would adversely affect everyone involved, and everyone consuming their products.
When you steal from the publishers, you are stealing from all within the organisation, whether they be authors, producers, printers, animators, developers, or the many other roles in the content-producing industries.
"What we especially discourage are comments that are empty and negative—comments that are mere name-calling."
Please engage with the substance of comments rather than accusing others of trolling.
It was indeed a provocative comment given the unfortunate HN zeitgeist on torrenting and piracy, but accusations of being a 'troll' are overly negative and insulting.
And uploading many small pieces of files with up to millions of anonymous entities rather stretches the usual connotations of the word "sharing".
Regarding constitutional directives, it's unreasonable to think that "free access to culture" is supposed to imply "steal movies, music and software via the internet".
The idea that musicians make most of their money from gigging is still no excuse to steal their music. That they are getting a minor cut from each sale surely makes this behaviour worse.
And as you live in Europe, there's nothing to stop you ordering CDs and DVDs from Amazon, and paying for what you want to listen and watch rather than just stealing it and making excuses.
Baselessly accusing others of trolling isn't exactly a stellar addition to the conversation.
Sometimes an echo chamber, as HN often is on the subject of piracy and copyright, needs the occasional dissenting comment to add diversity to the conversation.