Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew H.
This is immoral. You are stealing, and using the physical/digital distinction to justify your theft. Stop it.
|
What, exactly, do you think is being stolen?
Now, think before you answer. "Stealing" is an actual word with a real legal definition. Violating a license, for example, is NOT theft. Stripping DRM for private use is NOT illegal, much less "stealing."
You should also take into account that in no instance do I transfer a file to anyone else. If I did, in some situations - but not all - that would be stealing.
Please don't waste your time arguing with me on these things. I'm a lawyer, I've read up on the law in these areas, and these are my conclusions. It would take another lawyer to make a point that would make me need to spend any more time on that, and i doubt you are a lawyer.
But we don't have to go there. Let's stick to general understandings about specific situations.
Here, let me help you:
I rip about half my Netflix DVDs and put them on my iPad. I return the DVD and watch the movie at my convenience. What have I stolen?
I buy ebooks from Amazon, strip the DRM, and read them on my Sony 650. What have I stolen?
I borrow a book from the library, strip the DRM, and read it on my Kindle a year later. What have I stolen?
I don't think you can identify anything that has been stolen.
The only theft that can take place in the digital world is the theft of the right to make money.
That is all that copyright law is about. And my point is that what is being bought & sold is not the digital file, it is the service involved in providing convenience. if providers fairly price the convenience they are offering, they will make money. If they try to put arbitrary barriers in place so that they reduce convenience or increase prices, they won't. At least, not from me.
--------
This is a postscript. It is not about legal point, or even a moral one. it's just a thought I have about the nature of intellectual property in a digital environment. I don't think that an author or other creator has ever actually owned the content they create. It's just that in the pre-digital world, the physical problems involved in copying or creating the physical object containing the content, combined with legal rules, made it seem like they owned the content for all practical purposes.
I think that in the digital world, content can no longer be constrained physically, or even by the law. DRM is an attempt to do that, and on the whole DRM is a failure.
All that remains for the creator or the provider to make a buck off of is convenient delivery of a product to an audience that might not even be aware it would like something.
Steve Jobs has said that he regards Apple's job to be to produce products that the customer didn't know he wanted until Apple makes them. I think it's the same thing for ebooks. Except that the hard part for content is hooking up with the customer - i.e., the reader. Providers make money off the hooking up, not off the content. The hooking up is a large part of what I have been calling "convenience."