>Stealing happens when I take resource from you in a way that denies you that resource
Are you saying it isn't stealing to pirate my iPhone app? Are you saying it isn't stealing to copy my website's design? Are you saying it isn't stealing if I take something out of your house for a day but return it before you need/notice the item?
Most of the people on HN sell/create digital goods and to say that we have no rights over the things we create is very insulting.
Yes.
> Are you saying it isn't stealing to copy my website's design?
Yes.
> Are you saying it isn't stealing if I take something out of your house for a day but return it before you need/notice the item?
No.
For stealing to have occurred, the owner of the item must be deprived of ownership of the item. Pirating software or design is (probably) wrong, but that doesn't make it stealing.
Yes. And the law agrees with me. Copyright infringement != theft. You could, of course, say they're the same because they're both illegal, but by that logic parking on a double yellow line is the same as genocide.
I think the argument is used so often because proponents of intellectual property protection realize that constructing an appeal to more axiomatic laws/rights breaks down very quickly. Traditional property rights are very easy to formally argue for by appealing to scarcity of resources. That obviously doesn't work for intellectual property.
We can say we have rights, and the law supports us in that and in general we will use that to advance our goals, whatever they are.
But that does not mean that we can not have reservations about all this and that we think that there might be a better alternative (for instance, trade secrets).
I'm all for opening the floodgates and abolishing copyright, even if that will hurt me personally.
Trademarks are a bit of a snag for my philosophically. I have a big problem with intellectual property, but I can understand the problem that would arise if anyone could market their products with another company's name or logo. One option I've come up with is that stores themselves could enforce trademarks.
Plenty of so-called knock-offs are produced right alongside the 'genuine' article, the only difference is in who gets compensated. The whole reason this idiocy exists is because goods are often traded well above their intrinsic value.
Ditto. I love writing, blogging, etc. Maybe I can make money by selling my writing at some point in my life, even. But you know what, I'm willing to forfeit that possibility if it means that copyrights are no longer in existence.
An even better solution would be one that returns copyrights to their original limits (14 years, renewable for another 14), but before that happens every member of the RIAA will magically turn into a flying saucer and explode into a burst of maple syrup, I imagine.
I ran a business selling software to small business for years. When I was selling software I'd written, I never tried to restrict the rights of my customers to resell copies of what I sold them. To say that they didn't really own what they'd bought would have been very insulting.
If copying physical objects were as easy as copying software, the practice of renting a car wouldn't make a sustainable business, in exactly the same way. That doesn't mean we should restrict the production of automobiles by law; it just means another business model is required.
If you aren't particularly crazy about some band,and they release an overpriced album, you will not buy. You will borrow from your friend and listen a couple times.
Why is that so hard?
Most of those involved in the ACM and IEEE also sell/create digital goods for a living, and yet in their ethics literature they conclude or imply that treating intellectual property like actual property makes little sense logically or philosophically. Of course, they stay safe by admonitioning us to obey laws unless there's ethical compulsion otherwise.