

German magazine says intellectuals rejecting Pirate Party - codesuela
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/german-magazine-says-intellectuals-rejecting-pirate-party.ars

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wheels
The original article(s) were better (and Spiegel translated them to English
and put them up on its International section):

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,827877,00...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,827877,00.html)

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,828588,...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,828588,00.html)

Also note that Spiegel isn't just _a_ German magazine, it's probably the most
influential news magazine in Germany (circulation of over a million, compared
to e.g. 1.5 million for The Economist or Newsweek).

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cabalamat
So are technologists and computer scientists not intellectuals these days?

~~~
onli
No, not at all, not here. Well, of course some are, and maybe the german
connotation is different. But an intellectual may very well be anti-
technological, but a computer scientist don't have to be intellectual. For
example, the cliche(!) computer scientist doesn't read the high literature or
makes philosophical statements about the state of society (i know that some
do, but that's not necessarily the image the majority of society has).

~~~
emmelaich
'intellectual' has the whiff of the pejorative in most places these days. And
has for quite a while.

------
paulhauggis
"We derive our demands from the technical realities of the Net"

I would like to see them create photoshop (not copy it, make it).

How about windows?

Anybody?

If you can't do this, there is still demand.

------
kevingadd
It sounds like in this case 'intellectuals' is another word for 'media
creators who don't understand the internet'.

~~~
moe
That about sums it up.

Many older, non-technical people (where "older" can start as low as 35) have
trouble reasoning about this subject even though they're perfectly capable of
complex thinking otherwise.

They simply don't _believe_ that you can't technically ban file-sharing, not
even reduce it, short of shutting down the internet (which nobody wants).

Case in point: All of the largest bodies in media have been putting all their
weight behind stopping "piracy" for the past decade. But they're not even
making a dent[1].

I've had some moderate success explaining this to non-technical non-pirates in
very long and repetitive discussions, with lots of graphic examples such as
"grabbing water" or "how would you ban certain words to be said on the
telephone?".

This mind-gap is extremely widespread and more than once I've wished I could
have pointed them to a blog-post (a "manifesto", if you will) that does
nothing but explain in the clearest terms (with pictures!) today's reality of
P2P filesharing and why the genie is not going back into the bottle.

[1]
[http://asset3.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/07/08/1996_6...](http://asset3.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2011/07/08/1996_610x648.jpg)

------
fleitz
Well if intellectuals say something then it must be true. I don't think an
intellectual has ever been wrong before and especially not en masse.

This article should be retitled: "People who think they benefit from copyright
are against the party that wants to abolish it"

------
paulhauggis
"also created Flattr, a startup that makes it easier for people to financially
support websites they like."

Let's not forget that he's fine with taking away revenue from people actually
creating content.

flattr charges 10%, which is absurd.

