u/Comrade-jp

What are your thoughts on “piracy” of creative works and copyrighted materials?

Do you reject the institution of copyright itself as a state-enforced monopoly and an extension of private property, or do you accept it to some degree?

And do you think paying creators for their work is important from the perspective of mutual aid and solidarity, or do you believe that knowledge and culture are inherently a commons, and that it is better to make works freely available and shared with the community without charge?

If not paying for works became widespread, how do you think creators should sustain their livelihoods? Do you envision methods outside the market and money, such as mutual aid, donations, or collaborative production?

Also, if you yourself created a work, would you welcome other people freely sharing and redistributing it without permission, or would you feel resistance to that?

Furthermore, do you feel any tension or contradiction between “respecting the labor of creators” and “allowing culture to circulate freely”? If so, how do you reconcile that?

Assuming you reject copyright, what concrete anarchist mechanisms or practices do you think could allow creators to sustain themselves while still widely sharing their work?

Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the carceral systems in places like Japan and Nordic countries. In these regions, prisons (and juvenile correctional facilities) place a heavy emphasis on acting as a "social safety net" rather than just focusing on retribution.

​For instance, inmates can obtain various vocational licenses, and juveniles in detention can study for and take high school equivalency exams. They are provided with stable housing, food, and clothing, alongside rehabilitation programs aimed at reducing recidivism and helping them reintegrate into society.

​Prioritizing rehabilitation and human dignity is undoubtedly far more humane than just locking people up and torturing them in standard punitive systems. From a societal standpoint, it also reduces future crime and benefits the economy. But to me, this feels completely backwards.

​Why on earth do people have to pay the ultimate price—being arrested by the State and stripped of their freedom—just to access basic education, job training, and temporary stability for their survival?

​If someone falls into poverty and turns to crime out of desperation, it feels like the State is hijacking basic human welfare to justify the existence of its own violent carceral apparatus. In fact, in my country, there are actually people who say that if they ever hit rock bottom and can't survive, they will commit a crime just to go to prison (especially since prisons here serve cake on Christmas and hold sports events).

​As anarchists, we believe in prison abolition. Therefore, I want to pose a question to this community:

​How can we take the "good elements" currently locked inside these prisons—free education, vocational skills, and survival security—and replicate them on the outside (in our everyday society), entirely independent of the State?

​What kinds of mutual aid networks, community workshops, or autonomous infrastructures do we need to build so that no one ever has to look at a prison as their only available safety net? I would love to hear your thoughts and practical ideas.

postscript In the end, churches and mosques are probably the closest models, right?

I love reading, so I buy a lot of books as e-books because they're so convenient—no need to carry heavy volumes around or worry about storage space. But unlike physical books, e-books don't actually give you ownership; you're basically just buying a license to use them.

So when I come across a passage I really like and want to share a longer excerpt with friends, I often hit a wall with messages like "You've exceeded the shareable character limit." Or when I'm highlighting, it suddenly says "You can't highlight any more." I get the logic behind it—it's to prevent the whole book from leaking out and to protect the author and the content. But it still pisses me off that I'm paying the same price as for a physical copy, yet I'm hit with all these restrictions. Do you think this is just unavoidable if we want to protect books and authors?

I'm not entirely sure if this is the right place to post, but I really wanted to get some perspectives from those with anarchist or libertarian leanings. If this topic isn't a good fit for this sub, I sincerely apologize.

​In my country, while young adults can legally engage in sex work—such as appearing in adult videos or working in the sex industry—at the age of 18, the age restrictions for drinking and smoking remain at 20, and gambling (like state-run racing) is restricted until 21. I've always felt a deep sense of contradiction regarding this dividing line; it seems bizarre that self-determination is recognized for sex work at 18, yet other activities deemed "harmful" are restricted until later.

​Fundamentally, why do we impose age limits on activities like sex work, drinking, smoking, and gambling in the first place? Furthermore, I fail to see any real justification for why specific ages like 18, 20, or 21 are chosen as the cutoff points. Biologically speaking, there is no magical threshold where the brain suddenly matures at 18, so why does the state or society enforce these arbitrary, one-size-fits-all rules?

​To be clear, I am by no means defending child pornography or child prostitution. I understand that children are less equipped than adults to fully foresee the long-term consequences of their actions, and it is incredibly difficult for them to bear financial or emotional responsibility when things go wrong. I agree that there are times when parents and society need to step in and provide a baseline of protection.

​However, my doubts persist. Under criminal law, minors are routinely held criminally responsible for their actions, and risks can often be financially mitigated through systems like insurance. To take it to an extreme, my fundamental belief is that "anyone, at any age, should be able to take responsibility for themselves." Instead of banning things outright based on age, couldn't we address these issues through education, transparency, voluntary contracts, insurance, and prior informed consent?

​From an anarchist, libertarian, or liberty-leaning perspective, aren't these kinds of age restrictions a textbook example of state paternalism? If we truly respect individual bodily autonomy and the right to self-determination, protecting minors under 18 is understandable—but keeping restrictions on young adults who have just reached legal age feels like the state sending a message that it simply doesn't trust individual judgment.

​Looking around the world, age thresholds for voting, driving, military enlistment, and marriage are completely inconsistent. Should all of these be evaluated under a single, unified standard, or should they be separated based on the nature of the activity? How do anarchists approach these "blanket age regulations"? I would love to hear your thoughts, particularly on the following points:

​Balancing Individual Accountability and Social Protection: How should we balance the two?

​Age Limits in an Anarchist Society: Would these age restrictions even be necessary in a stateless society, or would communities establish consensus through alternative means?

​Stigmatized Labor vs. Vices: How do you view the difference in treatment between highly stigmatized labor like sex work and "vices" like drinking or gambling?

​I welcome all viewpoints, whether radical or moderate. I’m looking forward to using this discussion to deepen my own understanding.

​Thank you!

Cooperatives sound ideal in theory, but it’s precisely because they’re cooperatives that they can’t really compete with capitalism or welfare states. Everything has to be decided democratically by the members, so decision-making is slow, and it’s hard to get everyone to agree on risky investments. Raising capital is also difficult — you can’t easily bring in outside investors like with stocks, so you’re mostly stuck relying on the members’ own contributions, which makes scaling up almost impossible. In the end, to survive the competition, they often have to suppress wages or abandon growth ambitions.

​Given these challenges, do you think cooperatives can still achieve sustainable long-term growth for a community — especially in a society where anarchism hasn’t fully taken root?

​Or, do models inspired by figures like Robert Owen, where corporations provide exceptionally generous welfare benefits, hold more promise for the future? For instance, we’ve seen a trend recently where major corporations grant company stock to employees as part of their compensation. (Of course, I understand this is meant as a financial reward rather than a form of cooperative management, but it's an interesting shift.)

On the right to bear arms. Governments often take away citizens' right to be armed under the pretext of protecting peace and public safety. Except for the United States and Switzerland, most developed countries don't recognize the right of ordinary citizens to possess weapons, right? That's why, if the government ever goes rogue and the law itself stops functioning, we would have no means to protect ourselves from the government. Of course, it's not just about defending against the state — I also think we need the right to bear arms to protect ourselves from crime happening in our own neighborhoods.

That said, it would be scary to see people casually walking around town carrying guns or knives every day, so I believe some kind of mandatory training or qualification should be required. However, even if private organizations run these courses, they would end up wielding enormous power by controlling who gets to exercise the right to bear arms — essentially creating another extremely powerful authority.

I'd like to hear what other people think about the right to bear arms. I want to organize my own thoughts on this.

I'm interested in the idea of "Asylum"—spaces that exist outside the reach of the State's coercive laws. Historically, these were often religious or communal spaces where people could flee from debt, prosecution, or systemic violence.

​From an anarchist point of view, how do we distinguish between "Asylum" as a mere temporary escape and "Asylum" as an actual practice of stateless autonomy?

​Also, are there any modern examples (besides Rojava or Chiapas) that you think embody this "Right to Asylum" through mutual aid and self-governance?

​Thanks!