

Young Pirates Evicted From Festival For Giving Out Free Waffles - kalleboo
http://torrentfreak.com/young-pirates-evicted-from-festival-for-giving-out-free-waffles-120722/

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droithomme
> If you can’t compete with the “free” that file-sharing offers, you can’t
> compete, period.

This is a ridiculous argument. It is identical to "If banks can't compete with
counterfeiters and Robin Hood who give out cash for free, they can't compete,
period." Never mind that counterfeiters and Robin Hood are not actually
creating any value or the products which they then "give away".

In the waffle case it's different since they were personally making the
waffles and spending the money to give them away. This should not have been
interfered with. But, like western food dumping aid to Africa, it's not a
sustainable "business model", and has the side effect of destroying actual
sustainable businesses that actually create the products. Even so though, it
should be allowed if both parties permit it. In the case of food aid where it
is paid for with tax funds and is primarily a system of price supports to
large corporations like ADM, it is problematic because natural economic forces
don't come into play. A government with tax authority can dump wheat surpluses
into Africa on a random schedule, creating chaos and starvation indefinitely
by destroying local agricultural markets. This is bad. A private organization
like the Pirate Party or Knights of Columbus or Greenpeace or whatever won't
be give out free waffles indefinitely as long as it is funded by themselves,
and so any negative effects eventually work themselves out and should not be
interfered with legally.

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vannevar
_In the waffle case it's different since they were personally making the
waffles and spending the money to give them away. This should not have been
interfered with._

In an open market, yes. But this was at a municipal festival. It's quite
likely that the festival itself was in part funded by fees paid by licensed
vendors. You might argue that the festival should be paid for some other way,
and maybe that was the point. If so, the protest probably should have included
some demonstration of an alternative.

If the purpose was to draw a parallel with file-sharing, it missed the mark.
The real problem with the modern music industry isn't that people are charging
for music, it's that distributors are taking the lion's share of the money
when they are no longer needed. They maintain their position artificially
through marketing, essentially manipulating demand at the expense of the
consumer and the vast majority of artists. Without them, more money would go
directly to more artists and there would be fewer mega-acts.

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gizmo686
An amusing article, but the point it can make seems closer to to "don't assume
an instance of file-sharing sharing is illegal", than file sharing is a
business, not legal problem.

It sort of reminds me of when my friend thought I was breaking the law by
torrent`ing Ubuntu.

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jack-r-abbit
Spending your own money to buy ingredients and equipment, becoming an event
vendor and making waffles for free is not the same as making a copy of
something that other people have created and then making it available for
free.

No body is stopping people from using their own money to acquire recording
equipment, write/record/produce a track and make it available for free. Of
course that would not be illegal... and neither is giving away your own
waffles.

As amusing as this waffle story is, I fail to see how it can be compared to
illegal file sharing.

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mdonahoe
Did the Pirates limit number of waffles per person?

The waffle sellers could have just consumed all the free supply. :)

Pricing things helps prevent abuse

