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rsperberg · 04-10-2006, 06:23 PM

When Leigh and Baigent had a dispute with Dan Brown over infringement of their ideas, they had to go to court and sue the author of "The Da Vinci Code." That was in England. But in the U.S., the "owners" of non-physical material, aka intellectual "property," have succeeded getting the government to do the heavy lifting in enforcing their rights to profit from artists' creations.

Long ago it was established that purchasing a a physical copy of a song on tape or record (or later CD) meant you could transfer it to another medium and listen to it. But if you reason consistently and do the same with an e-book -- "I paid for a physical copy of the book; only one person is reading it at a time; I'm not disseminating it, just consuming it in a more convenient medium -- you are characterized the same as someone who sells thousands of copies of the book illegally.

So now you're a criminal, a "pirate," simply for regarding music and text as similar, since they have similar characteristics and are just soft- and not hard-ware.

This is nonsense, of course, though legal contortions and convenient lawmaking permit it. But 150 years ago, the same type of reasoning pertained to human "property" -- "it's always been regarded as property and the laws should protect me from its theft" -- and isn't it strange from this perspective to think of ownership of humans as being thought normal?

Won't our descendants look back at today's illogical efforts to treat what some call "the invisible world" as deserving of the same legal protections as items in the physical realm?

So why do we consent to this treatment and accept the use of the term "piracy" instead of "copyright infringement" or "potential licensing violation" or some such term more suited to the nature of the activity?

Thus the way your phrase it means I can't answer your question.

Piracy is someone taking a copy of a book and selling it as their own. Perhaps asserting one's right to have an electronic version of a book when one owns a physical copy isn't piracy but civil disobedience, intentional violation of an immoral and corrupt law.

There is a question I can answer -- Will e-books be helped by someone acting in a moral and consistent way ("I paid for the CD and I paid for the book") who assists electronic dissemination of texts?

Yes.

04-10-2006, 06:23 PM	#16
rsperberg Zealot Posts: 114 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: NJ Device: Kindle Voyage	Common sense or criminality When Leigh and Baigent had a dispute with Dan Brown over infringement of their ideas, they had to go to court and sue the author of "The Da Vinci Code." That was in England. But in the U.S., the "owners" of non-physical material, aka intellectual "property," have succeeded getting the government to do the heavy lifting in enforcing their rights to profit from artists' creations. Long ago it was established that purchasing a a physical copy of a song on tape or record (or later CD) meant you could transfer it to another medium and listen to it. But if you reason consistently and do the same with an e-book -- "I paid for a physical copy of the book; only one person is reading it at a time; I'm not disseminating it, just consuming it in a more convenient medium -- you are characterized the same as someone who sells thousands of copies of the book illegally. So now you're a criminal, a "pirate," simply for regarding music and text as similar, since they have similar characteristics and are just soft- and not hard-ware. This is nonsense, of course, though legal contortions and convenient lawmaking permit it. But 150 years ago, the same type of reasoning pertained to human "property" -- "it's always been regarded as property and the laws should protect me from its theft" -- and isn't it strange from this perspective to think of ownership of humans as being thought normal? Won't our descendants look back at today's illogical efforts to treat what some call "the invisible world" as deserving of the same legal protections as items in the physical realm? So why do we consent to this treatment and accept the use of the term "piracy" instead of "copyright infringement" or "potential licensing violation" or some such term more suited to the nature of the activity? Thus the way your phrase it means I can't answer your question. Piracy is someone taking a copy of a book and selling it as their own. Perhaps asserting one's right to have an electronic version of a book when one owns a physical copy isn't piracy but civil disobedience, intentional violation of an immoral and corrupt law. There is a question I can answer -- Will e-books be helped by someone acting in a moral and consistent way ("I paid for the CD and I paid for the book") who assists electronic dissemination of texts? Yes.