Once content has reached my computer, it is mine to do with as I wish and consume as I wish. If you choose to interfere with this, your site is BROKEN, and I and many others would not use it.
Is it that simple? Morally and ignorantly I agree but I'm not so sure the law and more sophisticated understandings of morality agree.
I mean, I'm happy to pay for & watch Netflix but I understand that (edit: for most titles) I never paid for download rights, only streaming rights.
It is akin to the marijuana legalization movement in many ways - pot was always illegal, so it should always be illegal, and to question why it is illegal is to be unreasonable. Debate about sentencing, classification, possible medical use - possibly reasonable, but to question the fundamentals starts drawing on cultural and emotional ire and identity that starts breaking down reasonable debate.
Copyright to many works much the same way - especially when no new works have entered the public domain in the lifetime of the vast majority of the populace - it has always been there, thus even if you debate duration you assume it must remain because to question why it exists in the first place is, again, to be unreasonable.
But the fact remains that copyright is the law today, and encouraging users to break that law is apparently a consequence of what Google did. It's not unreasonable to debate the actual legal situation, not the legal situation that people who don't like copyright would prefer to exist.
No they really are not, and have never been
Copyright, historically, is a tool for Information Gatekeeping, censorship, and profiteering. Not one of benfiting the Creators of content
See the Talk on the History of Copyright https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI
We see this every day in the modern era where copyright is used to censor critics, prevent research (especially security research), and prevents more content from being created by locking up ideas for over a century
Copyright is a Negative for Society, and for Creators
The idea that as soon as data hits your computer it's yours to do whatever you like with doesn't really hold up to any legal analysis.
And that idea was solidly cemented back in the days when VCRs were common - you had a right to record anything and watch it again whenever, wherever you liked.
What you never had the right to do, even with a VCR, was something like borrowing a movie from your local video rental store, paying a lower rental price rather than a full purchase price for it, and then copying that movie so you could keep it after you returned the original cassette.
Where is this legal? I'm quite sure it would have been an explicit breach of the membership conditions for every video rental store I ever belonged to in the UK, for example.
No, it isn't. That isn't how copyright law works, and it isn't how various business models work.
There are some jurisdictions that do have special private use provisions in their copyright laws that apply under some circumstances, which is probably the closest you'd find to what you're describing. If you're in one of those places then for you the situation might be different. However, even those often have significant strings attached, not least because they obviously undermine any alternative business models based on offering temporary access in return for a lower price.
As a case in point, the UK tried to add a much more limited set of personal use provisions to its copyright law not so long ago, after many years of reviews and consultations. They lasted just a few months before getting struck down at EU level because of those international agreements, and the government backed down rather than pick a fight.
But I'm not so sure that's actually fair and reasonable. If I rent you a VHS, once it's in your house, is it your right to consume as you wish? Do you get to make a copy to watch at a future date? Maybe I don't want that. Maybe the contract I make with you is that you can purchase a loan of this VHS to watch over the next few days.
Maybe when I host your favourite music videos, I don't want you copying to your disk to watch hundreds of times without seeing any ads.
The biggest problem here was that when Google suddenly moved the goalposts, a lot of users assumed it was now OK to download and save stuff anyway. They don't understand that it's a browser update they didn't know anything about that made the change, not the web site they're visiting.
A lot of people complain about moves to incorporate DRM as an official web standard, but it's the sites that haven't who got screwed on this one. It's rather disappointing to see so many people on HN apparently supporting the "I've got it now, it's mine whatever" attitude you'd expect on Slashdot. It's hardly the way to promote either useful new business models or businesses trusting their customers rather than slapping the strongest DRM they can find on everything.
Moreover, you're ignoring all the sites that provide video via web pages that aren't freely accessible.
You should have the right to enter into license agreements with them.
Including limiting what you're allowed to do with that content.
Under your regime there would be nothing wrong with me claiming I am Aviral Dasgupta and that everything you've posted at https://github.com/aviraldg and http://www.aviraldg.com/ are actually my work and you are the impostor.
That is an entirely different thing from requiring (or even expecting) third parties to reduce the functionality of their product to help enforce that license.
Edit to add: I think people like me, who aren't content creators (not to any degree that anyone should care about), need to be careful about telling people who are content creators what they should and shouldn't be allowed to do to protect their content.
Again, that's an entirely different thing from trying to force a third party (who is receiving neither money nor the benefit of viewing the content) from going out of their way to enforce those protections (especially if it reduces the usefulness of their own product).
I do believe in licensing though, so your comment motivated me to add a (permissive) license to my website. That's the only good use for it.
There was a time I believed something similar too, until I realised I haven't created anything worth protecting, so who am I to have an opinion on protecting content.
How does it make even the slightest sense to allow only those who profit from a norm to have an opinion on it?
You've never owned a big chemical plant, so who are you to have an opinion on protecting chemical plants from environmental regulation?
You've never had an income over 100 million, so who are you to have an opinion on how that income should be taxed?
You've never had slaves, so who are you to have an opinion on protecting the property rights of slave owners?
Unless everyone is living on a different planet, some people will necessarily be affected by the consequences of the chemical plant's operations. Looking out for those people is reasonable.
You've never had an income over 100 million, so who are you to have an opinion on how that income should be taxed?
That's a different and actually quite a good question, from an ethical point of view. Answering it without resorting to arguments based on either greed or envy is surprisingly difficult, and almost certainly requires some exploration of both economics and philosophical views on the nature of modern society.
You've never had slaves, so who are you to have an opinion on protecting the property rights of slave owners?
That's more like the first question. The slaves are necessarily affected by that arrangement, and again looking out for them is reasonable.
Given that in the sort of cases we're talking about probably no-one needs to have access to any given content, the situation we're considering is actually closer to your second example than your first and third. And I'm not sure exploring the economics of content creation more thoroughly rather than making a superficial analysis is going to lead to the conclusions you want it to.
It's actually not that hard: The concept of property itself is a social construct, so without a social norm that establishes property, you having an income of 200 million doesn't mean anything. If you simply claim ownership of something, but noone agrees with you, then you don't actually own it. If society grants you the advantages of this norm and enforces it for you, it's just as valid to partially revoke it where that is to the advantage of society at large. It would be completely arbitrary to say that everyone is obligated to help enforcing a norm that's to their own disadvantage and they should not have any say in it because the person profiting from it says so.
> Given that in the sort of cases we're talking about probably no-one needs to have access to any given content, the situation we're considering is actually closer to your second example than your first and third.
What does "need" mean? Does a slave need freedom? Or is that just a preference?
Is the ability to save and replay information sources under your own control (and as is explicitly exempted from copyright restrictions in quite a few places) just a luxury in a democracy?
Does a human need participation in culture?
In any case, you presenting those arguments already contradicts the idea that you only should be allowed to have an opinion on a norm if you profit from it.
> And I'm not sure exploring the economics of content creation more thoroughly rather than making a superficial analysis is going to lead to the conclusions you want it to.
What conclusion do I want it to lead to?
I see what you're getting at, but I think you're missing something. What we're talking about here is a concept of legal ownership, which essentially means a recognised form of ownership that society will defend on the owner's behalf. The alternative to that, historically, is usually not everything being communal, but rather power resting with those wealthy or otherwise powerful enough to enforce their claims of ownership independently rather than relying on the state.
What does "need" mean? Does a slave need freedom? Or is that just a preference?
This one is easily argued on "veil of ignorance" grounds, I think.
Is the ability to save and replay information sources under your own control (and as is explicitly exempted from copyright restrictions in quite a few places) just a luxury in a democracy?
I don't think we're really talking about just being able to do these things under your own control, though for the record I challenge your claim about exemptions; I know of no jurisdiction where it is legal to copy content even for personal use when you've explicitly agreed not to as part of something like a PPV deal.
What we're really talking about in this sort of discussion is whether it's worthwhile for content creators to create and distribute new content at all. At present, it is, but in many cases that remains so only because of the customer base who do comply with the law and provide a solid economic foundation for doing the necessary work. Freeloaders benefit from the content but contribute nothing to support its creation, and if the legal environment were changed so that everyone could lawfully act as a freeloader, the economics would change radically. This is not to say that some other economic model to support creative work couldn't function as well or better than what we have today, but so far I don't think we've found one that does and I think it's quite clear that relying on voluntary donations alone does not.
In any case, you presenting those arguments already contradicts the idea that you only should be allowed to have an opinion on a norm if you profit from it.
I would think that common sense and common decency made it clear that everyone was entitled to an opinion on whatever subject they want, and however unpleasant anyone else might happen to find that opinion. What we're really talking about is how much weight or influence any given person's opinions should have on anything or anyone else, and I think the view that those doing the work from which many benefit should have more influence than those who are not contributing anything of value is at least a rational position to take.
What conclusion do I want it to lead to?
Perhaps I've misunderstood you, but you seem to be opposing the idea that the views of those who create the content should carry more weight than the views of those who merely benefit from the content's existence without contributing. In that case, economic arguments much like those you have just made yourself in favour of physical property rights would also tend to support strong IP rights that support the content creators in this debate.
Nope.
> The alternative to that, historically, is usually not everything being communal, but rather power resting with those wealthy or otherwise powerful enough to enforce their claims of ownership independently rather than relying on the state.
That's kindof a self-referential definition, isn't it? The power to defend property was with those who had the power and the property ... yeah, obviously?
All of that is rooted in social norms. What does it mean to have wealth? What does it mean to have power? Sure, if you have a gun, I guess you could say that that gives you power somewhat independent from social norms. But the moment you try to get someone else to use their gun to defend your property, they could potentially just ignore your request, and that would be the end of your power, and consequently of your property/of your wealth.
Power and property are granted by society, not an intrinsic property of the powerful or wealthy person. And that applies even to "communal property".
> This one is easily argued on "veil of ignorance" grounds, I think.
As can the equal say of everyone in deciding on copyright rules? That was kindof my whole point: The weight of your opinion should not depend on the position that you end up in in society, be it a slave, a slave master, a "content creator", or a "content consumer".
> I don't think we're really talking about just being able to do these things under your own control, though for the record I challenge your claim about exemptions; I know of no jurisdiction where it is legal to copy content even for personal use when you've explicitly agreed not to as part of something like a PPV deal.
Really, I am not sure how things map to modern technology and the business models/contracts it enables, and in any case, it's usually not just a blanket permission to make as many copies as you like, but there are quite a few options of what is in US law usually called "fair use":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
Those exceptions usually exist for very good reasons, and are part of the rules that society decided to be a fair deal. Now, if modern devices/software intentionally don't implement the functionality that would enable people to make use of those exceptions (in addition to possibly illegal activity), that de facto takes away people's rights, which is why it's morally questionable: The software does not distinguish between a user exercising their right to, say, pull an excerpt from some video to create a political commentary on it, and another user illegally making a copy of a movie purely for entertainment purposes, it just enforces the wishes of the creator/platform.
> I think it's quite clear that relying on voluntary donations alone does not.
I am actually not that convinced of that, but well, sure, some things might be difficult to finance on that basis.
> What we're really talking about is how much weight or influence any given person's opinions should have on anything or anyone else, and I think the view that those doing the work from which many benefit should have more influence than those who are not contributing anything of value is at least a rational position to take.
I think you might have inadvertently changed the topic: TheSpiceIsLife's comment referred to how much weight their opinion should have in determining the rules of society (in this regard). Your argument doesn't really make much sense in that context, as valuation is subjective and exactly the subject of political discourse, and it doesn't make sense to say that the creator of some thing should be given special privileges because they themselves value their work highly--and if you base the decision instead on how the rest of society values their work, you have just found a confusing way to say that everyone should get equal say in what the rules ought to be.
Your argument makes sense as a principle for how the rules that are to be determined should distribute power, not so much for who gets the power to decide the rules in the first place.
And I'd like to say, my opinion hasn't changed. I still think creators should have fairly strong rights over what they create, and that my opinion on the matter carries less weight because I'm not part of the creator cohort.
I don't think conflating slavery and intellectual property in this context is helpful at all.
In other words: You haven't understood a thing I wrote?
> I don't think conflating slavery and intellectual property in this context is helpful at all.
Why do you conflate them, then?
And at the time DVDs were launched, many in hacker/geek/whatever circles were pretty horrified by this development. To me, it's more than a little alarming how rapidly we've normalised the idea that end users' devices should be obeying the wishes of content publishers rather than their owners.
Even in the vhs days, ntsc v pal, and the lack of international awareness that was common pre internet, provided region locking of a sort.
It is a legal gray area if a individual who obtains libdvdcss breaks the law by using it, however no software vendor can include it if they are a US Company
This is why VLC, Handbrake, and many other organizations that distribute it are very very clear they are not US Organizations and exist outside the Jurisdiction of US Courts
And yet right here in this HN discussion there are numerous people openly defying the current legal and technological position, which is just going to promote more and stronger technical measures to limit how content can be consumed. For example, it's already hard to just buy a permanent copy of a lot of TV shows on disc any more. They're moving to online, streaming-only channels where it's harder to copy, and that's reducing choice even for legitimate paying customers.
To me, it's more than a little alarming how rapidly we've normalised the idea that end users' devices should be obeying the wishes of content publishers rather than their owners.
I agree, but it's also more than a little alarming how rapidly we've normalised knowingly breaking the law and/or explicit agreements with other parties and totally ignoring economics just because something is technically possible.
In what other circumstances would it be OK to make an explicit deal with someone, then totally renege on that deal and just say "Well, I don't think you really deserved what we agreed anyway"?
In what other circumstances would it be OK to knowingly break the law to someone else's cost and in the expectation of suffering no adverse consequences and just say "Well, I don't think this law is a good law so I'm not going to follow it"?
The everything-should-be-free culture of Generation Me isn't sustainable. Maybe the laws and economic models we're using today aren't the best way forward, but that doesn't mean we should support or condone totally ignoring them until we've got a better idea.
That's one of the reasons the industry insists on DRM technologies, even if broken, and tries to encumber them with as many patents as possible. It allows them to exercise control over the end-user experience.