Quote:
Originally Posted by bill_mchale
Andurian,
Yes I have generally argued from ethics, but the ethics in this particular case are closely tied to the law. I.e., the law defines a set of rules that authors, publishers and readers should ultimately abide by. The authors write and the publishers publish, hoping that readers will buy their work but without the guarantee that their books will ever be bought. But built into the legal construct, is the concept of fair use. Authors and publishers both know that not everyone who reads their work will directly pay for it, some will read it in libraries and others will borrow copies that friends have bought, and a small percentage of said books will even be read in the book store. Those are all well understood when the publishers agrees to sell the book store books. Since the standard is accepted by all parties involved, it is not unethical to take advantage of fair use to read a book.
What I consider unethical is the practice of obtaining illegally produced copies of an author's work, either for personal use or to make a profit on. By going beyond the reasonable bounds of fair use, one is not only breaking the law, but also breaking the implicit agreement that is made by society with authors when the authors publish a book (that all copies of the book that are read where legally obtained).
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Bill
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First, this sounds like you are completely abandoning "loss of payment to the author" as your stated reason why piracy is wrong. Or perhaps I misunderstood your earlier posts and you never intended that position?
Second, it is *not* agreed by all that fair use and the existence of a secondary market for artistic creations is acceptable. The publishing industry historically fought hard against fair use in anything outside of academia and the recording industry has tried to get laws passed against the sale of used CDs and MP3 players. I am confident that there exist publishers and authors who would throw a fit at the fact people read their books in bookstores rather than purchase them. (Just as there are authors who don't care if their books are downloaded).
Third, "the reasonable bounds of fair use" is a painfully vague term. Many people on the internet consider it perfectly reasonable, for example, to download a complete game to find out if its worth buying. Others (as noted above) find those "reasonable bounds" to be far more restrictive than current law. The "implicit agreement that is made by society with authors when the authors publish a book" is under constant attack by both pirates on one side and Disney and its ilk on the other. Add to that the shifting ground created by new media and I'm not entirely sure there even *is* a real implicit agreement anymore. Just a set of laws that nobody likes.
To your general principle that "the law defines a set of rules that authors, publishers and readers should ultimately abide by" I can only say that I hope that principle comes from some ethical motivation other than an obligation to obey the law. I am completely convinced that ethically (as contrasted with practically) we are under no special obligation to obey the law. In North Korea the law states that one will be shot for treason for criticizing the "Dear Leader." In many states in the American south in living memory the law stated that blacks and whites could not marry. Surely you wouldn't say that those laws carry ethical obligations!
There are, of course, practical reasons to obey the law. If you speed you can get ticketed and if you criticize the Dear Leader north of the DMZ you might find yourself dead. And often the two do match up - good laws make an effort to promote ethical behavior. But laws don't *define* ethical behavior - if breaking a law is immoral it is only immoral because that action would have been wrong even had there been no law.