Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
The problem is that "copyright infringement" has, for many people, become a term that does not imply any wrongdoing. The difference to theft is that the original owner still has a copy, but the similarity is that the infringer now has a copy he has taken by illegal means. Copyright gives the owner the almost exclusive right to create copies (with fair use exceptions) and if you get yourself a free copy you have trampled on his rights and unduly enriched yourself. In the end, what is important is that the infringer has obtained something he has no right to get without paying for it. Arguing "the original is still with the author" is just ridiculous semantics, trying to justify a despicable act. Whatever you call that act is another matter.
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To me, copyright feels like a prohibition on the act of thinking. Thought and expression of those thoughts was free before copyright, thought is not free currently, thought will be free when copyright is abolished.
Do you think that those who copied books before the invention of the printing press felt that they were involved in wrongdoing? Or do you think that they understood that what they were doing, copying and spreading knowledge, was beneficial to all.
Time to visit the library to find an old post about it??
There's an argument about the potential benefits of copying outweighing the potential harms of copying. It appears that all the new copying methods, although at first vehemently opposed by the entrenched copying industries of the time, eventually resulted in oodles more money for those copying industries, as well as the creation of new copying industries.
If history is anything to go by, once copyright is abolished, we should expect the most massive increase in wealth generation the world has ever seen. I don't buy the poor little artist argument. Probably because I might be one and I like copying stuff. I mean stealing stuff, to paraphrase Picasso.
