interesting NYT article on "copyright morality"

[rlauzon]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

There's still a lot of disagreement here of whether an e-book counts as a thing that can be stolen. This frankly amazes me. Maybe stealing, by strict legal definition, only covers physical objects... but an e-book is in fact a physical object

No, it isn't and never will be. You may want to believe it is, the facts say otherwise.

An eBook is the essence of a physical book. It's the story the book contains in a non-physical form. It is an idea. You cannot own it. No author owns the stories he writes. Authors are granted, by the law, a limited monopoly on the stories they write. After that limit is reached, the story belongs to public - where the author got most of his ideas for the story in the first place.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

IP laws do not specifically state, but imply in their use, that ideas, concepts, patents, etc, are the secured property of the registered owner, for a finite amount of time

Correct. Please explain how "finite amount of time" and "70 years past death" have anything to do with each other.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

It's not intended to last forever, the way physical property laws are...

Then you agree that "intellectual property" doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Without these protections, how would you expect someone to profit off of any labor that did not produce a physical product?

How do they make a profit today? Nothing really changed except that making copies is now free.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Now, I'm no Da Vinci (don't say it...) but I deserve the same rights and respect as he, and any other artist, to benefit from their work. And illicitly copying and distributing my work does not benefit me.

Eric Flint and Cory Doctorow disagree with you. That illicit copying has made more people aware of you as an author.

And I'll state again, copyright today is disrespectful. To expect people to respect the disrespectful is not realistic.

[Nate the great]

If I steal a physical book, I am not stealing it from its creator; I am stealing from its owner. If I steal a file, I am not stealing it from its creator; I am stealing from its owner.

Thus, copyright infringement is not stealing.

[tompe]

Every time somebody calls copyright infringement stealing I read it as "propaganda speech" and they in principle loose the argument directly from my point of view. And I think I am not alone in this opinion. Especially people that download things and commits copyright infringements usually is well read up on these kind of arguments and on the difference between intellectual property and other properties so you will not gain any points by pretending that there is no difference.

And intellectual property rights did not occur to give advantage to the writers. They were designed to give an advantage to the whole society. So if some other system gives a better advantage there is nothing that says that we cannot change the system.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

The concept of copyright, a way to compensate people for intellectual works, is the highest morality. It addresses an unfairness visited upon them by people who refuse to understand the value of something they can't hold in their hand, or toss down their throats. Denying such an obvious concept is, in fact, taking us back down the road to the Dark Ages and Might Makes Right.

My expectations that the public should respect copyright is common sense. Copyright law may need revising or updating, but that doesn't make it worthless, nor immoral. Strangling the dissemination of ideas by denying due compensation is totalitarian and historically proven to be counter-productive, and that's all you'd accomplish by just abolishing copyright.

I would recommend that you listen to

http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/free.html

which is a very interesting talk by Lawrence Lessig and gives some of the history of modern intellectual property rights.

There is nothing common sense about how intellectual property laws works today.

[Kajti]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

Tell them that if they don't pay for their books, then authors will not be able to afford to write them, publishers will not be able to afford to publish them, and there won't be anything new to read.

Except that's not strictly true. Some people have always been driven to write, and have done so without regard to how widely they're read, if it all. As long as humans are human, this isn't likely to change. Vast amounts of fan fiction and original material exist online, that no one charges for. Also, some writers will manage to get enough return from tip jars or whatever that they will consider it monetarily worthwhile to write even if it's infeasible to charge for copies of their works.

Further, even if writers stop writing (and here I'm mostly considering for-pay fiction writers), does it matter? Yes, I have a list of future books I'll pick up when they come out, mostly continuing series and works by authors I like. But I survive when an author dies, and won't write any more. I'll survive if all fiction writers stop producing. Enough has already been produced that I could read a novel a day in the categories I like for many decades to come. The books are out there, easily available to download. Thousands of books sit on my hard drive, waiting to be read.

[hogleg]

Originally Posted by rlauzon

No, it isn't and never will be. You may want to believe it is, the facts say otherwise.

An eBook is the essence of a physical book. It's the story the book contains in a non-physical form. It is an idea. You cannot own it. No author owns the stories he writes. Authors are granted, by the law, a limited monopoly on the stories they write. After that limit is reached, the story belongs to public - where the author got most of his ideas for the story in the first place.



Correct. Please explain how "finite amount of time" and "70 years past death" have anything to do with each other.



Then you agree that "intellectual property" doesn't exist.



How do they make a profit today? Nothing really changed except that making copies is now free.



Eric Flint and Cory Doctorow disagree with you. That illicit copying has made more people aware of you as an author.

And I'll state again, copyright today is disrespectful. To expect people to respect the disrespectful is not realistic.

Is it wrong for me to expect you to pay for a book that I spent 4 months writing? Perhaps any one could do it, but I'm the one that did. Stealing a book, for any reason, is wrong. How would you like to come down to where you work, and ask you to a bunch for me free? I make money off a talent or hard work, just like baseball players, just like computer programmers, just like almost everyone. The bottom line, no matter what you want to argue legally, is intellectual work == time, in any business. Some of us are more efficient than others, but ethically, you are stealing my time, the same as if I came down to your job and did something inane to waste your time, and force you to make it up otherwise. It may be different if there was going to be some moral dilemma, like you need to eat the book, or you'll die. I have yet to see that.

Also, I think anyone who claims there is no such thing as intellectual property is an apologist in denial. No amount of semantic shenanigans or attempts to legally split hairs can change the fact that ideas have weight, regardless of their physical substance. The "attack music" from Jaws is used and example of one of the most successful examples of classical conditioning ever. A book, a movie, a song are all ideas made corporal by the collaborative efforts of dedicated people. Even though I think the majority of problems we have with any kind of digital distribution are the fault of greedy jerks, it would be a lie to claim that they don't do work. Someone has to write it down, if nothing else. That alone justifies the idea of intellectual property. That you have this viewpoint saddens and shocks me. I had the misfortune of not being born before you could easily steal my work, so that justifies it? If you're more that a french-fry maker, chances are someone is paying you for knowledge you have that they don't. Maybe you are a lackey, or maybe you actually have a skillset. If someone is paying for knowledge you possess, How can you say that ideas have no value? Are they really paying for a chair warmer? Do they only pay you to do things they know how to do, but have no time to do? Artists are even different, because they have to be adroit in their medium. You can be an antisocial computer tech or ad exec...no one will buy a song that articulates thing poorly, or a book that makes no sense and is full of errors. Would you pay an artist to sketch your face? You wouldn't get very far if all you were willing to pay is the cost of charcoal and paper. Intellectual property is very real, and saying there is no such thing is beyond ignorant. I hope you don't like my books, of which there will be at least 3, because with a stupid idea like that, I'm sure you'd steal them. I guess we can be assured you'll never try to write a book, or song, or movie, or paint a picture.

I'm not talking about copying a book you've paid for. You have the right to a backup and the same work on a different media. When it's hairy is when you distribute it to other people. A person that copies your copy of The Princess Bride is acting unethically. They didn't pay for it and now they possess it. Books are one of the oldest value added commodities, and digital books are more so. Because the physical value is low the inherent one is? If I write a novel in the sand, and that novel is ground breaking 9no pun intended), is it only worth the sand it's written on?

Ethically, to argue that you shouldn't have a right to your own ideas is to argue that they are valueless to the individual. That won't change until ideas no longer change the way we behave and even think. Legally, you can argue whatever you want, semantically you can sharpen the axe and take your luck with the hair. The state of Copyright Laws may not be right, but two wrongs don't make a right. Reacting to that by stealing the works of art (and simply adding one more "wrong" to the chain, while expecting it to be right) is ethically wrong, whatever you claim your justification is.

[hogleg]

Originally Posted by tompe

Every time somebody calls copyright infringement stealing I read it as "propaganda speech" and they in principle loose the argument directly from my point of view. And I think I am not alone in this opinion. Especially people that download things and commits copyright infringements usually is well read up on these kind of arguments and on the difference between intellectual property and other properties so you will not gain any points by pretending that there is no difference.

And intellectual property rights did not occur to give advantage to the writers. They were designed to give an advantage to the whole society. So if some other system gives a better advantage there is nothing that says that we cannot change the system.

That's ludicrous. Maybe I should take what you said, post it to every message board I know, claim its mine, and if I get famous and make a lot, take all the credit. It's not stealing after all, there wouldn't be anything wrong.

It is irrelevant what made intellectual property rights come about, because this discussion is an ethical one. Maybe all the laws are totally wrong. Maybe the laws don't reach all the way to the intent. Should I steal a program you wrote? Its just 1 and 0's. It's not "real", and the majority of thieving pirates I know would agree with me.

Do you?

[JSWolf]

If I find a copy of an ebook I want with NO DRm and I then go out and buy a copy with DRM and then download the DRMless copy, am I doing wrong? I think not as long as I don't go giving out that DRMless copy. Technically I might be, but morally, I say no. I did pay for the ebook in the first place.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by rjnagle

People, you are making this issue more complicated than it needs to be.

People pirate because they don't feel a personal connection with the artist who produced the content.

People pirate ebooks because most of the books they pirate are not legally available in electronic form and a lot they pirate that are available were not available when it was put out for download. So if we had more ebooks available, we'd have less piracy.

[JSWolf]

Does anyone know the cost of a pbook (that has a price of $7.99 before any discounts) when the price of the paper, printing, shipping, storing, etc are all removed from the cost? I want to know what the price of an electronic book really costs. I'm not talking with markups. I'm talking the expense to make this book before it becomes a pbook. I'm not talking matching the ebook to the hardcover or to the new format that's just designed to suck our money from our wallets. But the ordinary pbook at $7.99 price. What is the remaining price once you remove all the pbook specific costs.

[hogleg]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

People pirate ebooks because most of the books they pirate are not legally available in electronic form and a lot they pirate that are available were not available when it was put out for download. So if we had more ebooks available, we'd have less piracy.

I don't buy that. Piracy isn't just downloading books, it's uploading them. When one guy can upload hundreds or even thousands of ebooks for any one to indiscriminately download, it's just as bad. Think he paid for them? How can you justify that? That is like saying there is only theft because money is so hard to get...make money free and you'll eliminate theft.

It's an excuse. Theft is theft, no matter why you did it. I'd accept you saying some thing like this in a thread called "why do you steal eBooks". Ethically, you're wrong for stealing it, no matter why you did, or what you think justifies it. That does't make stealing any more right, it just gives you a reason. As for your point two up. I have less of a problem with you downloading an un DRMed version when you own it than I do with the guy who uploaded it. Its you downloading things which you haven't paid for, or uploading them for other people to do it that bothers me.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

If I steal a physical book, I am not stealing it from its creator; I am stealing from its owner. If I steal a file, I am not stealing it from its creator; I am stealing from its owner.

Thus, copyright infringement is not stealing.

if you steal a file, it depends what is in that file as to who you are stealing it from. You could be stealing it from both the owner and the creator who could be the same person or different people. An ebook is very much a physical entity. It has substance. It is every bit as real as a pbook, just in a different form.

[Nate the great]

Yes, but copyright infringement is not stealing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by hogleg

I don't buy that. Piracy isn't just downloading books, it's uploading them. When one guy can upload hundreds or even thousands of ebooks for any one to indiscriminately download, it's just as bad. Think he paid for them? How can you justify that? That is like saying there is only theft because money is so hard to get...make money free and you'll eliminate theft.

It's an excuse. Theft is theft, no matter why you did it. I'd accept you saying some thing like this in a thread called "why do you steal eBooks". Ethically, you're wrong for stealing it, no matter why you did, or what you think justifies it. That doesn't make stealing any more right, it just gives you a reason. As for your point two up. I have less of a problem with you downloading an un DRMed version when you own it than I do with the guy who uploaded it. Its you downloading things which you haven't paid for, or uploading them for other people to do it that bothers me.

Someone offers an ebook for download. es that is illegal. But, I have the choice to download it or not. if I choose to, I'm guilty as well. But if nobody is downloading then nobody is losing any money as this ebook is not getting copied beyond the copy available for download. A lot of the ebooks that you find on the darknet are there because the publishers don't see fit to actually produce enough ebooks. The publishers could cut down the piracy by making more books available. And pricing needs to be sorted as well. I understand the difference between paperback and hardcover. There is a cost difference to actually produce each version. But an ebook costs exactly the same to make no matter the container of the pbook. That is where the publishers don't get it. We look at a hardcover and know it costs more because of the container. We look at an ebook priced like a hardcover and see the container does not warrant the cost. They need to get their heads out of their asses and make ebooks priced reasonably. Imagine $7 for an ebook when the ebook in in hardcover and then $4 when the ebook is in paperback. That would make it a lot harder for people to justify a crappy scanned copy with lots of errors.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Yes, but copyright infringement is not stealing.

Yes it is. It is the stealing of ideas.