Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
If copyright violation does not meet the legal definition of theft, but I think one is one rather shaky ground to try to claim that it is in a different ethical realm than theft.
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Well, I guess I'm on that shaky ground. I really do think copyright infringement is in an entirely different ethical realm than theft. To me, theft is about depriving someone else directly of something they possessed. Copyright infringement may dilute the value a creator receives from work, but does not directly deprive the creator of anything. I'm not saying I think it's right, only that the ethical problem is completely different from theft. It's not only that every legal system I can think of treats copyright infringement differently from theft. I think the legal systems are a reflection of a widespread understanding that the two are not equivalent. Based on my readings of these rather repetitive arguments over the past couple of years, I strongly suspect that most of our MR members see it the same way.
I have noticed in these DRM/Piracy discussions that often people become entrenched in particular arguments more because they are attached to the conclusion than because the arguments hold up logically. One person may be convinced that downloading an unauthorized copy of a work is simply wrong, and will find any argument that seems to support that conclusion and cling to it. Another person will think that downloading copies is fine, and will seek and repeat any arguments that seem to support that point of view. There are also a number of factors that play a part in this ethical decision about which we are not all in agreement, such as the concept of idea ownership, the effect of copying on creator motivation to produce, and the appropriateness of civil disobedience in different circumstances. Frankly, I don't think we are going to agree on many of these issues. We come from a variety of different cultural backgrounds and have different priorities in our lives.
Each of us may feel that we want to explain our position, and that's fine. We may hope that our arguments will convince someone else to change
their position. But we need to understand and respect that most other people here have heard all of these arguments and their variations before. I have seen several people shift their positions somewhat on these issues (and I've done so myself) on the basis of a particularly clearly stated chain of reasoning, but simply hammering away at the same point isn't likely to change anyone's mind, and in fact, may cause other participants to simply stop reading one's posts.
Thus ends today's lecture. Please, carry on.
