Copyright Infringement != Theft
20bits.com
20bits.com
Arson is also wrong, harmful, and should be illegal. But we don't regulate it in the same way that we regulate theft, nor should we. It would be bad policy.
Or maybe it is. People clearly see arson and theft and distinct things even if they don't understand that they're both prosecuted similarly.
But legally speaking arson and theft are closer than copyright infringement and theft.
Initially it was deemed legal to tape the radio for personal use. Now that has moved into the digital age.
It does not whatsoever eliminate the point of copyright. I can't bootleg albums and sell them on the street.
To answer your question, nothing would happen if more people downloaded movies and music for personal use. Lots of Canadians still buy music to support the artists, and still purchase DVDs. Movies still make a killing in theatres, and musicians still make most of their money on tour.
(1) It's a tax on everyone that, at least in part, takes money out of reasonable people's pockets and gives it to Miley Cyrus.
(2) No equitable mechanism exists to apportion that tax revenue, with an end result that Nielson SoundScan becomes social policy.
The problem with copyright isn't copyright. The problem with copyright is that the music distribution channel is controlled by a small, intertwined group of cartels. We should solve the right problem.
Your proposed problem to focus on solving would drastically improve the American system if changed, so I hope it happens.
One final point I would like to add: I did not purchase music in university when I could not afford the luxury. Since I have improved my economic situation, I have recently purchased various older albums. I think that is a good example of how the system can potentially be successful.
I find this concept very objectionable. If I buy a blank CDROM for the purpose of distributing my own software then music companies receive some of the proceeds of the sale because I could have used the discs to copy their work.
That's a bad law because I'm assumed to be guilty and I have no recourse to prove innocence. Furthermore, why is the levy specific to recordable media? If we're going to be fair then we should have similar levies on cars, crowbars and numerous other items which can be used in crimes that deprive people.
Edit ... not that Miley Cyrus is a public good, but still.
In Canada, you can't sue for any amount - you have to show damages. So if downloading a song was copyright infringement here, you would only be able to sue for the cost of the song.
So, it is in the recording association's to have a levy rather than to pursue individual legal action here.
You might argue that both are wrong, that both are illegal, or whatever. Fine. Just don't say they're the same thing, because they're not.
Redefining words for purposes of brainwashing consumers is propaganda pure and simple, even if you believe that copyright infringement is wrong and should be illegal.
And face it, the Free Culture side of this debate uses that tactic a lot. "Copying isn't piracy! Pirates kill people! Abolish copyright!"
Copyright infringement is a kind of theft. All theft is bad. Therefore copyright infringement is bad.
He talks about stealing songs and says, more or less, "Well, you can argue all you want, but downloading a song is stealing and stealing is wrong."
No, it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement. The two are distinct along legal, historical, and moral dimensions.
Did people not intuit it before the 18th century? It took over 300 years from the invention of the printing press for modern copyright law to form.
Copyright (and patent) law exists and has always existed because it makes political and economic sense.
See Section I, Article 8 is the US Constitution, for example, where Congress gets its authority to establish copyright. Why do they have that authority? To promote the progress of science and useful arts.
Copyright law is a fundamentally different creature than the criminal law that governs theft and, IMO, this is just a reflection of their differing moral status in society.
Matt's argument, however implicit, was that copyright infringement is wrong because it's a kind of theft. It's not, nor has it ever been and therefore his argument is fallacious.
If that's a semantic argument then I guess I'll have to live with that.
In any case, here is the argument. Theft is wrong because it violates the individual right of the property owner.
Copyright exists to provide a temporary incentive for content creators to continue producing. It's not a natural right, it's a collective bargain between the public and content producers. "You get a 14 year monopoly to make some money, please continue writing songs."
That bargain was broken a long time ago (roughly Mickey Mouse invention date + 14 years).
Even if there was broad consensus that copyright infringement is 'intuitively wrong', intuition has a rather spotty track record for producing sensible normative ethical guidelines. Consider slavery, for example. It used to be so 'intuitive' that owning other humans as property was not morally problematic.
Sorry if I misinterpreted what you were saying, but it sounded like you were arguing that there's a moral force behind copyright and that it rests in its similarity to theft.
I'll update my article accordingly.
The words we choose are very important when discussing ideas, just ask the republicans who have used this technique for years to sway the public to their side on various social and political matters (death tx vs. estate tax being one example).
I agree with you about choosing words carefully, but either choice doesn't change the article. In context, the semantics were irrelevant.
Let's say that someone produces a musical album, and, knowing they cannot legally stop you from downloading it, they ask you not to copy it unless you send them $5. Would it be morally wrong to copy without paying?
Is it the same amount of moral wrong as copying the work of someone who produced an album relying on the promise of legal protection for it?
Uh, yeah? Like, very?
>Let's say that someone produces a musical album, and, knowing they cannot legally stop you from downloading it, they ask you not to copy it unless you send them $5. Would it be morally wrong to copy without paying?
Trent Reznor actually did this recently with his Ghosts I-IV album. It was released under a CC non-commercial license, making it freely copyable. But the only Reznor-endorsed way to download it was to pay him $5. In this particular case, at least, there is absolutely nothing immoral about downloading Ghosts from The Pirate Bay, even if Reznor would like the $5.
Reznor seemed guilty about pulling the pay me to download a CC album; his most recent album had sanctioned free bittorrent downloads of ultra-high resolution music files.
I think this is a one problem. In the internet almost anything is public good. It's available for almost everyone and you cannot or you don't want to shut people of from consuming.
Not related, but the second problem of the copyright is that it's hard and expensive to use it properly. If you would want to legally use a song in your presentation, make a mixtape or even sing a song on your mom's birthday, you would have to go through riias, companys, individual artists, lawyers and applications to get proper rights.
Above process is fine for big corporations, they have the time, money and maybe motivation to do this. Individuals don't have this luxury. We all know that singing that song for your mom is copyright infringement, therefore as mattmaroon says, theft, don't we?
You can maybe intuitively say (as many do) that artists not getting paid will obviously result in less incentive to create and hence less art will be created, but you see, the tricky part with complex systems like this one is that they tend to actually be counter-intuitive and respond to many feedback inflection points.
Better access to more works of art, for example, would undoubtedly lead to some people being inspired to create that otherwise would have not.
Aha! But that's precisely the catch! It doesn't matter if it's harmful for some people, because the constitutional foundation for copyright says that its point is to "promote progress of the useful arts". Intellectual "property" is not property. The terms is meant to confuse the law.
The question we should be asking - what system of copyright best promotes progress? It sure as hell isn't the one we have now, but it also isn't an abolition of copyright altogether.
I think the current copyright situation lets citizens do pretty much whatever they want and prevents corporations from infringing on creators and IP owners. That, to me, is perfect.
Corporations, for their part, went a little further than they had to with the DRM (which had nothing to do with our copyright system) and are finally starting to come to their senses.
I'd say the whole thing is working very well.
Share a song with some friends, create a mashup of two cool songs, use some music in a short film they've made, make a collage of different drawings, write new lyrics for an existing song and record that, use samples from an existing song to create something new etc. etc.
Really? For the majority of human history, it hasn't been.
it's still harmful
It is? To whom? Surely not to people enjoying music - infringing copyright has made more people listen to more music.
it's still totally within the purview of a reasonable government to regulate or outlaw
In a government based on the US Constitution, only if such regulation and law "promotes the progress of useful arts".
I've been interested in this field for a while and never seen sign of such a thing. "IP" has grown out of the lobby groups, not out of academic integrity.
For the majority of human history, there has been but a tiny fraction of copyrightable material compared to what has existed over the past, say, 200 years.
It is? To whom? Surely not to people enjoying music - infringing copyright has made more people listen to more music.
It's harmful to the producers. It's not cheap or easy to put together a professional music recording. Producers wish to both recover the costs of production, and have funds available to live on and produce more.
In a government based on the US Constitution, only if such regulation and law "promotes the progress of useful arts".
Yes. If you allow the producers to profit from their works, then they will have both the funds and more motiviation to continue producing more.
U.S. copyright law began with discussions between educator Noah Webster and lawyer Daniel Webster. Noah had completed new textbooks for use in the public school system, which he had based on existing works. Nevertheless, his books were new productions, and he wanted to have control over how they were copied; he wanted to be able to profit from the production of his works. (Noah was never a very rich man, by the way; don't get the idea he was insanely wealthy and scavaging for more.)
Daniel Webster agreed wholeheartedly, that authors should have the right to how their works are copied and should get royalty payments for a limited time. He claimed this was so obvious it was like "natural law"... as obvious as laws against murdering and theft.
Some people in recent history (e.g., the RIAA and other big corporations) have taken copyright law to absurd and abusive levels, and that is wrong. But the basic principles of it -- to allow the author of a work rights over who copies it and rights to limited royalty payments -- are not absurd and do contribute to the furthering of more and better works.
Durn kids, get offa my lawn!
The idea of copyright extends beyond money. By being able to freely copy an artist's work the artist loses control of his creation. Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes, did not license out his characters for lunchboxes or plush toys because he felt it would hurt the artistic value of the comic, even though he could have made much more money licensing it. He was able to prevent licensing because he owned the right to copy his creations.
Copyright and theft occupy different legal, historical, and philosophical spheres. Therefore arguing against copyright infringement because it is a kind of theft is fallacious.
Copyright was created because the old system of guild-based monopolies collapsed and authors demanded that the Parliament deal with the influx of cheaply copied books devaluing their works.
That is, the basis for copyright law is in economics and politics, not morality. Passing off copyright as theft creates an emotionally charged environment where rational discussion is difficult.
I intentionally avoided the larger argument because it's about copyright-as-such and how it applies in the digital age. There are people talking about it who are far smarter than I am.
I'm also intentionally not discussing my opinions about the status quo.
My point was intentionally narrow and I don't really think it's necessary for me to repeat it.
Whether copyright infringement is "free riding" and whether or not "free riding" is immoral will have to wait for another day.
Cheers, Jesse