[Harmon]

Originally Posted by molman

This may be a philosophically nice position to take (and trust me my sentiments are probably closer to this than I may express), but unfortunately it does not match the current situation we find ourselves in. The other thing to remember is that you mention profit, and whilst a major factor copyright and similar laws more broadly provide legally enforceable rights that can include me never selling my creation should I choose.

No, it's more than philosophy, at least in the US where the copyright laws are grounded in a Constitutional provision that strongly implies the need for an element of public benefit that is increasingly missing from the laws Congress has passed.

And although you are correct that the effect of the laws seems to be that a creator can decide NEVER to sell a creation, I wasn't making a legal argument. I was pointing out that there is a moral basis for breaching the law, in that there is an implicit deal underlying the law which creators who wish to make a moral, rather than a legal, appeal cannot ignore.

My appreciation of this was that it had more to do with the element of harm which it easier in the case of distribution of copyrighted works verses having a copy for private use. I can't say I've looked into it enough, nor could I comment with regards to US law.

Not as I read the US law. There is an assumed harm, resulting in statutory damages, in the case of any distribution, even if there is no actual provable harm. (I believe that this is only if the copyright has been registered, though.)

But if there is no distribution, the law does not prevent copying of legally obtained files, and arguably does not prevent copying of illegally obtained files. This is less clear, though, and it does appear that the courts have the authority to order the destruction of copies of illegally obtained files.

This is a little difficult to explain except tediously, and at length. If you are not a lawyer, your eyes will glaze. But the bottom line is that there is no prohitibition against private copying, just a bunch of obstacles placed in the way of your getting the tools to do the copying.

This is definitely an element of the challenge with the current approach though even for the physical space I still feel that law isn't without its issues including in my eyes excessive length of protection, but then that’s a different debate.

I think it has a lot to do with the instinctive sense that many people have that the law as presently constituted is unfair. And once people decide a law is unfair, they start avoiding, evading, & ignoring it whenever practical.