[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tompe

It is not a natural law that every person should be able to sell whatever that person choose to sell and make money. You are motivating copyright from something that is totally different from the original motivation (which was a utilitarian motivation) and the fact is that many people (most?) do not agree with you fundamental beliefs here.

I didn't say it was a natural law, which is what you are arguing for. It is a social law, which is often fundamentally different from natural law.

Natural law, i.e., Every man For Himself, simply does not work when you are talking about large and complex societies, no matter how much human nature may want to force it to. Social law enables large and complex groups to function as fairly and efficiently as possible, even when human nature at its base urges individuals to ignore it (which is why social law requires rules and enforcement to succeed).

Originally Posted by spooky69

You don't need to convince the people here that stealing is wrong...well, most of the people here. You seem pretty willing to attack the righteously indignant pirates, and I can't exactly slap you on the back for arguing with a group of people who wantonly abandon the accepted norms of the goods-and-services plan.

Many posters here act as if I don't know what's really going on around here. On the contrary: It is painfully clear to me that many of the posters here have consciously and subconsciously wrestled with the differences between social law and natural law, and natural law has won out in their minds. Whereas I have wrestled with the exact same issues, and in my case, social law has won out. I understand human nature very well, and I know how tempting it is to throw off the needs of the society you live in, and do whatever pleases you. I also know how incredibly well-adapted the human mind is to rationalize a justification for anything it does, regardless of its social, natural or moral implications. This thread, and many others like it, have been a veritable study in these physiological and psycho-social issues, of which I have been glad to participate in and contribute to.

"Piracy vs Bookstores" is just another phrasing of "Human Nature vs Society." It's a debate that has gone on since humans first started cooperating to survive, and it will continue to go on long after we're all gone. And the Devil, as it has always been, is in the details.

So the real issue, here, is to find the compromise in the details, the human desires, and the social requirements, that make up this battle. Tools like "cassette taxes," for instance, represent one of those compromises. Fines and jail time, in other cases, are also examples of compromises. And finally, keeping a person from being paid for the things they create, is another compromise.

The trick is to figure out which, of your available choices of compromises, will best serve the majority of people... the society at large. And the only way to do that is to discuss those choices, and to attempt to explain to others why your choices make more sense than others. My preferred compromises are, IMO, better for society at large than some of your compromises. So far, the compromises I've heard from many posters here are better for individuals... themselves... than they are for society... everyone. I maintain that those individually-favored compromises won't work, specifically, because they are anti-social. And I have been trying to explain why.

That's all I've been trying to do here.

Originally Posted by spooky69

Onnnn the other hand, the goods-and-services plan doesn't ever really hold up in a market where the good can be perfectly replicated down off the block and beyond. I know you're just the sassy wild wild west librarian-with-a-charge at heart, but if you aren't going to adapt your service to anticipate the pirate dynamic then you aren't going to be viable in the long term, because there will eventually just be too many jerks like me who can get your project for free.

I've pointed out before that an e-book should not be thought of as a physical object. It is an intellectual property, set free of physical constraints. Creators of intellectual property deserve as much protection as physical craftspeople (more, since, as you say, it's so easy to copy their work). A society understands this, and sets up copyright laws to make it happen... because human nature is effectively incapable of making it happen without them. A successful society does not let human nature overcome the need for societal order. And a pro-social individual accepts society's needs and follows its direction.

And, if eventually there does turn out to be "too many jerks," and society cannot rein them in... than I will stop producing books for anyone to read. So will a lot of people. Think about how enriched life will be... the individual's, and society's... when good writers cannot make a living. Americans who watch TV just had a taste of this, when the television writer's strike brought some TV shows to a halt, and reduced many others to airing old material, or material that was unscripted and not up to its usual par. That is what happens when artists cannot create, and stop providing the rest of us with creations. I, for one, do not look forward to a society like that.