Privacy is an extension of one's right to be secure in one's body, and free in one's thoughts. It is non-transferrable. Disclosure is boolean: it was either voluntary, in which case it does not impose any obligations on those who would reason about it (and copy it, and...), or it was involuntary, in which case it is damage (as in the case of NSA spying). Money doesn't enter into it.
Copyright is a government-granted monopoly, it is typically transferable, and it typically imposes obligations even when licensed. It is about monetizing copies at the expense of free expression and thought, and that expense can be bought, sold, in any measure, at the discretion of the holder. It is intended to be a tool to meter out copies for as much remuneration as possible, not to keep them to one's self forever with no intention of ever monetizing them.
> Privacy is an extension of one's right to be secure in one's body, and free in one's thoughts.
Copyright is an extension of one's right to be paid for the value provided by their labor. Only, in this case, the labor is of an intellectual nature that can be infinitely replicated without recompense. Significantly, each copy of that labor provides substantially the same amount of value regardless of the number of copies, so N copies provides almost N times the value. I don't understand the argument that the remuneration for that value should be anything other than a function of the value provided; anything less than a linear relation looks dangerously, to me, like communism. Not to mention that "Once a work is made, why should anyone pay for it again beyond the cost of transcription?" is a direct corollary to the "you should get an A for effort!" fallacy.
> It is non-transferrable. Disclosure is boolean: it was either voluntary, in which case it does not impose any obligations on those who would reason about it (and copy it, and...), or it was involuntary, in which case it is damage (as in the case of NSA spying). Money doesn't enter into it.
Two things: 1. Copyright has to be transferable else its economic value would be severely restricted.
2. Privacy may not be "transferrable" (the term does not really make sense for "privacy"), but it absolutely is tradeable, and it's hardly as boolean as you make it out to be. As Google and Facebook show us so clearly, people will gladly trade their privacy in exchange for services that would otherwise have a monetary cost. So it definitely is tradeable. But is that really "voluntary"? Well, if anyone dug into Microsoft's "Scroogled" campaign, it was inspired by a survey where the surprising finding was that a large fraction of users did not know that their private information was being mined by Google, and a significant portion of them said did not like it. (I'd like to say the numbers were 45% and 70% respectively, but I can't be sure.) Now: Is that voluntary? What if they didn't know, but did not mind; is that voluntary? What if they knew and didn't mind, but hadn't considered the implications; would you call uninformed decisions like that voluntary?
3. And that's also a clear example that privacy is, in fact, monetizable, so money certainly enters into it.
> Copyright is a government-granted monopoly, it is typically transferable, and it typically imposes obligations even when licensed.
Just like money is a government-granted monopoly on a unique serial number. It's not licensed, but it does impose obligations on whoever owns a hard copy at the moment (no copies).
> It is about monetizing copies at the expense of free expression and thought, and that expense can be bought, sold, in any measure, at the discretion of the holder. It is intended to be a tool to meter out copies for as much remuneration as possible, not to keep them to one's self forever with no intention of ever monetizing them.
Yes it is about monetizing copies; or to put it in Psuedo-economical terms, it is about ensuring economic compensation for the value provided by each copy to the consumer. "As much remuneration as possible" would ideally be econ-speak for "what the market will bear", but this does not apply well to copyright because of the severe market distortion that widespread piracy introduces. What you have instead is some portion of honest (or technically unsavvy) consumers paying more to compensate for large number of pirates who derive value without paying for it.
But, no it is not at the expense of free expression and thought.
1. Free thought is not affected at all. Copyright does not stop you from thinking anything. It only stops you from profiting from copies of other people's expression, which is in no way related to restricting what goes on in your head.
2. It only restricts your "free expression" to the extent that your "free expression" exactly matches somebody's copyrighted expression, or aspects thereof. Unlike patents, it is almost impossible that two independently created works will match exactly in any significant aspect.
3. True, some derivative expression is unfairly caught in the copyright web, especially when there is no clear way to extricate the creative aspect from the original work. The one example that I personally lament are Anime Music Videos; there used to be a ton of awesome work with very original and meticulous synchronization of music to completely unrelated videos that suddenly had their audio stripped on Youtube. However, if you look at the bigger picture, almost all copyright infringements are simply copying original works to avoid paying for it, either with money or patience.
4. Even then, tons of derivative work gets through just fine, simply because it makes no economical sense to stamp it out. Literary fanfic is one example.
5. The petabytes of torrents exchanged daily (yes, petabytes in the US alone; look up the numbers) is hardly "free expression and thought". Ponder how many movies/songs/games that is, even if you assume a ridiculously generous 50% of the torrent traffic to be legit. It's just the "expression" of the "thought" that somebody else's work should be had for "free".
The image you seem to have of copyright restricting "free expression and thought" is based on a focus on a secondary effect of copyright laws that is actually a very small edge case in reality.
No - labour is the work, effort, and time - and charging twice is fraud.
> anything less than a linear relation looks dangerously, to me, like communism.
McCarthyism and FUD. Also, when you watch pornography, the terroists win.
>> Copyright is a government-granted monopoly...
> Just like money...
OK, this is part of a larger tangent, but this is worth setting apart and responding to. No, money is not a government-granted monopoly. Money is whatever I accept as payment and that does not need a government (a government of one is hardly a government). (As for more conventional forms of money, we all together gave our respective governments monopolies on that - only in a different sense than you mean - not the other way around.)
> "As much remuneration as possible" would ideally be econ-speak for "what the market will bear", but this does not apply well to copyright because of the severe market distortion that widespread piracy introduces.
That works both ways: charging for ideas has distorted access to knowledge via the Internet. You might claim that without copyright there would be less "stuff" on the Internet, but there is nothing supporting that. Humans are creative by nature whereas humans would not naturally clean toilets - and thus should be paid for it.
> What you have instead is some portion of honest (or technically unsavvy) consumers paying more to compensate for large number of pirates who derive value without paying for it.
Remove the part where you call people who share their access to information freely "dishonest," and you have simply repeated the childhood moral "knowledge is power" (and "sharing is caring").
> 1. Copyright does not stop you from thinking anything. It only stops you from profiting from copies of other people's expression, which is in no way related to restricting what goes on in your head.
Profiting implies selling, which is not the case with simple/private copying - unless you mean profiting abstractly, as in increased capacity for thought, then yes - and in which case you have paraphrased me well.
> 5. The petabytes of torrents exchanged daily (yes, petabytes in the US alone; look up the numbers) is hardly "free expression and thought". Ponder how many movies/songs/games that is, even if you assume a ridiculously generous 50% of the torrent traffic to be legit.
It's almost as though the only reason people pay their ISP is for the ability to make copies.
> No - labour is the work, effort, and time - and charging twice is fraud.
I don't understand. How are you charging twice if you ask two people to compensate you for the value you provided? Value is everything. Or do you think people should be paid for their "work, effort, and time" for just digging holes up and filling them up again?
> McCarthyism and FUD. Also, when you watch pornography, the terroists win.
I'm guessing you haven't lived in a communist regime, but know anyone who did? I know some from ex-communist countries like Romania, old USSR, some current day states in India, etc. They all have a deep horror of communism. There is a reason it fails hard.
> Money is whatever I accept as payment and that does not need a government (a government of one is hardly a government).
The point was, information has value of varying, contextually-dependent amounts, either inherently or artificially through monopolies, and uncontrolled duplication can have very bad economic effects. Money is just one example. Copying information is not just copying bits. Ask yourself why printing money is restricted. Ask yourself why bitcoin works the way it does.
> That works both ways: charging for ideas has distorted access to knowledge via the Internet.
Distorted, how? If something gives you value, be it physical or intellectual, charging for it is in no way "market distortion". There are various distortions that can come into play, but they are exactly the same as with physical goods.
> You might claim that without copyright there would be less "stuff" on the Internet, but there is nothing supporting that.
You really should talk to some musicians. For many, to make a living, they have to work a day job and/or do live shows (which is not an option for many), which takes time that they could instead used to create new stuff. If you searched for threads on this topic on HN, you'll hear this lament frequently from people who actually are musicians. So yes, there is support for that.
> Humans are creative by nature whereas humans would not naturally clean toilets - and thus should be paid for it.
No, humans are not creative by nature, some are. And of those, vanishingly few are good at it. For every billion of amateur artist videos on YouTube, you only get one phenomenon like Bieber(!!)
What humans are, however, is greedy and willing to take advantage of others the moment they think they can get away with it. Ask yourself why we have so many laws.
BTW, do you like coding? In that case, I'd guess your a coder by nature. I know a few MBAs who'd love to get their world changing ideas implemented for free.
> Remove the part where you call people who share their access to information freely "dishonest," and you have simply repeated the childhood moral "knowledge is power" (and "sharing is caring").
I don't really get this point... Are you saying people paying for content are stupid?
And if sharing is caring, why don't you share your bank account details? Just information after all.
> Profiting implies selling, which is not the case with simple/private copying - unless you mean profiting abstractly, as in increased capacity for thought, then yes - and in which case you have paraphrased me well.
I meant selling. Copyright law specifically applies to distribution, not downloading. So you agree "increased capacity of thought" is "profiting"! Wow, that sure sounds like you're deriving value from something, and should maybe, you know, kinda, like, sorta want to pay for that benefit if remuneration was asked for? No? Not the least bit? You just want people to put in labor to create new information so that you can benefit from it without paying? Simply because you can get away with it?
Hmm, I can guess why communism failed.
And going back to tzs' point, pirating Iron Man 3 increases "capacity of thought"? Really?
> It's almost as though the only reason people pay their ISP is for the ability to make copies.
It's almost as if you're deliberately trying to avoid addressing my point that information is more than just bits and making copies can have economic consequences.
(Repeating myself) Privacy != copyright.
"And going back to tzs' point, pirating Iron Man 3 increases "capacity of thought"? Really?"
Sure, why not? A specific case like Iron Man 3, is frankly irrelevant when trying to formulate a general rule though - unless it provides a contradiction. The case of Iron Man 3 does not contradict my general rule - namely, that restricting copying for the sake of copyright is immoral (and my mom's rule: "sharing is caring"). Iron Man 3 is not worth copying IMHO, but just because I don't want it doesn't mean I care if someone else does. I cannot know how watching Iron Man 3 might help someone, and I'm not about to guess. But, it would be immoral IMHO to prevent them from copying it, since they are the ones paying for the process (ISP, HD, PC... It's all on their dime), and since copies are not held exclusively.
The work that went into making Iron Man 3 is done. The copies should have nothing to do with the economics: if the product of the process was not viable - without basing that viability on artificially impeding others' private computing and thinking actions - it should not have been done. I have no obligation to subsidize any wasteful endeavor.
Similarly, I do not keep Justin Bieber from charging for his time, in advance (like kickstarter) or afterwards (like most jobs), or accepting gratuities at any point. However, I do not support forcing gratuities with copyright. Copies are as good as thoughts to me, and IMHO it is simply too far past the line of reasonable for a society that claims to value knowledge to willfully prevent access to it. Paying for copies should be optional IMHO. Not everyone tips the same, and I am not breaking the law if I walk out without leaving anything.
"How are you charging twice if you ask two people to compensate you for the value you provided?"
It is paying more than once to pay more than the time and resources that go into a thing. Don't get me wrong - I am often willing to pay a premium (more than once) for physical goods rather than go without, or roll my own, but my good will only goes so far and I will generally not buy something terribly overpriced. In the case of physical objects, it is immoral to keep/take something without paying. In the case of copies, it is immoral to restrict copying for lack of paying. The difference is stark, and has everything to do with their respective natures and respective exclusivities. A physical book can only be in one place at a time - holding it deprives everyone else. Copies, quite to the contrary, can be made freely and each new copy does exactly zero damage to anyone. Again, do not confuse copyright for privacy. I will defend privacy. I will not defend copyright.
Your use of "value" is revealing. How "valuable" an idea/copy is to me is known only to me, and dies with me - you can have no insight into my mind other than what I reveal to you, nor should you (privacy!) - that's precisely why gratuities are optional, and why the copyright is pure fantasy (copyright and privacy contradict). Your economic rationalization of copyright is based on an insight you have no access to, and which there is no exclusivity to leverage me or anyone into revealing, since obligation is proportional to exclusivity. Since copies are not exclusive at all, obligation is negligible and payment ("should be"; de facto "is") 100% optional.
People share things they have with people they like. It makes sense that in the case of digital copies, without the exclusivity property, people will share liberally and anyone arguing against it will go blue in the face. Fighting that is fighting human nature...
"I know a few MBAs who'd love to get their world changing ideas implemented for free."
I do not work for free and do not expect anyone to, however: if I have already made something digital, anyone is free to use it.
"Ask yourself why printing money is restricted."
Money is not simply a copy, money is a unit of obligation embodied uniquely in an object or number. It retains exclusivity. A new unauthorized bill is a lie about an obligation, and an obligation that can be used for real goods, amounting to theft. Someone listening to Justin Bieber is not claiming to be Justin Bieber, and in no way harms Justin Bieber and is in no way "theft" since you cannot "trade" a copy as you would trade money because of the lack of exclusivity (even though copyright proponents really wish they could). Saying a copy reduces Justin Bieber's income because it represents lost income is like saying "because I said so." It's circular. Copyright is the only reason people expect payment for copies, and forcing payment is the reason people keep promoting copyright. (Fallacies 101) People were able to get away with it with books and CDs other other physical things, and now they expect to keep getting away with it, even though the physical bottom dropped out and it's 100% digital without any of the exclusivity, and there is no logic left.
"making copies can have economic consequences."
Correct, since making copies can empower someone, regardless of his or her economic background. You may call that communism but it has nothing to do with economics. In fact, I strongly value physical property and ideas, but I'm only willing to pay to own the former since ownership doesn't apply to a copy. You cannot own a sunrise. You can own a photograph or a painting of a sunrise, but you cannot own the meaning, aka: the information. I own my computer, but I do not own copies. Privacy is the line in the sand, and copyright exists beyond the need for privacy - at great expense. Why would I feel obligated to pay for a copy - something I cannot own? If I can't recognize any obligation to pay for copies - why are there laws enforcing payment (monopolies)? It is possible to wash off this muck and move forward.
To say it differently: copies are not worthless... Copies are priceless. A sunset is a thing of beauty. Charging for that is immoral. Charging for the creation and upkeep of a lookout area may be necessary for a popular spot, but the sunset itself is priceless and not the subject of ownership. Do governments charge for pictures of the landscape on copyright grounds? (Similarly, I would not privatize roads, even if that makes me a communist.) Copyright doesn't enter into it. People need privacy, not copyright.
Back to Communism - since it always comes back to that. Communism is simply the largest monopoly possible - a total government monopoly - therefore capitalism and communism are identical in the extreme, unless lines are drawn where necessary (and monopolies broken). (The price of liberty is eternal vigilance... Or something.) Promoting copyright (a monopoly on thoughts) seems to me to be advancing that end (going beyond a reasonable limit in order to inflict a monopoly), and I seem to recall you saying you were against communism (pardon my FUD).
"Are you saying people paying for content are stupid?"
Why does it have to be about insults? People who know how to do a thing should simply be free to, and not be held back for fictional reasons like copyright. Copies do not cause harm or deprivation. 1+1=2. Nothing is lost besides the malice associated with watching someone starve to death. Similarly, people who have a surplus and the desire to give, should be free to. People who leave tips are not stupid.
"I know some from ex-communist countries like Romania, old USSR, some current day states in India, etc. They all have a deep horror of communism. There is a reason it fails hard."
I'm not promoting communism (you brought it up), I'm saying the very comparison is a tangential emotional appeal, as it was with most of McCarthy's accusations. (Also, FWIW, my friends tend to agree with me too.)