[Jaime_Astorga]

Xenophon,

I can't tell from your user info what country you are posting from. Perhaps you may not be aware of the public policy justification for the basic concept of copyright here in the US. It may be different in other countries, I don't know details elsewhere.

I live in the U.S. now, but I was born elsewhere. At any rate, I am aware of the constitutional justification for copyright in U.S. law. Let us discuss that below.

Copyright in the US is an explicit trade: Content creators get a temporary limited property right in the content they create, thus "ensuring" that they have the opportunity to profit from their work. In exchange, all content enters the public domain on expiration of copyright. The key idea -- which is explicitly stated in the Constitution, by the way -- is that the opportunity for profit is intended to provide an incentive for content creators (writers, artists, programmers, etc.) to create more content.

I am afraid you make it sound as though the work entering the public domain is a concession the artists have made. The constitution seems to imply that the rightful place of all works is in the public domain. It states:

The Congress shall have power... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

Note that ethics and morals don't enter into it. Copyright is supposed to be a practical measure, enacted to achieve the practical goal of providing incentives for content creation. It says nothing about artsits deserving compensation, but that they should get it because it leads to good things, and that is the only reason works are kept from entering the public domain immediately. And besides, there are some who would contest that entertainment media does not count as "useful" (although that would be another discussion and I am not sure on the whole matter).

Thus, here in the US, if you are "pirating" content you are reneging on the Public's side of the deal by failing to compensate the creator according to the terms he has set. That's the "[...] property right" part above.

I simply believe this is a bad deal, at least in this day and age, and especially given the ever extending terms of copyright currently in place. You might argue that one has no right to renege a deal just because it turns sour, but what obligation have I to obey a deal that was negotiated and agreed on by a bunch of politically influential men a couple of centuries ago? I assure you I wasn't invited to the Philadelphia convention! Perhaps the copyright clause made life better then, I do not know, but now I think it causes more harm than good. Laws are tools intended to better the life of the people, and any law which causes more harm than good deserves to be broken and abolished.

Besides, as you mention, all this takes place "here in th US." However, piracy is a global phenomenon. People in South America and Asia constitute a high number of the global pirate population, and I bet they have even less regard than I do for the copyright clause of the American constitution. A Brazilian friend of mine (who shall remain unnamed), in reference to pirating games from Nintendo (I assume the English Nintendo of America translations), once said "yeah, I'm a brazilian... we don't care about the money the big N is losing... they don't care about us having no money, so there... =P"

So, in the US at least, "idea of needing an author's permission or approval to distribute their work" is far from being ridiculous -- it's a key aspect of our legal approach to encouraging production of interesting and useful (and even enjoyable!) content.

That the idea is the basis of the system does not make it any less ridiculous; it only makes the whole system ridiculous. You are a libertarian, right? Don't you think government makes many ridiculous decisions? I chalk this up as one such.

Libraries aren't a counterexample, because they fall under traditional fair use.

Libraries are a wonderful counterexample; the difference between them and piracy is but one of scale. It "hurts" creators for the benefit of the public; is not each book I read in the library one less book I will buy from an author? The library purchases a copy, to be sure (if it does not get it through a second hand donation), but the original pirates who scan or rip content do the same thing. What is the difference, then? Piracy is the library of the 21st century, accessible right at home and having virtually all available items in stock at all given times!

Exactly!!! And that's why it fits inside the legal and ethical framework. A boycott says that the copyright owner's terms are so far out of whack that you'd rather do without their product than meet their terms. That's a very powerful statement; it gets attention in the business world and in the media.

And this part of your quote explains perfectly why piracy is a problem for everyone -- pirates included! -- in a way that a boycott is not. Sure, you have modestly more economic impact (but arguably not THAT much more). At the same time, you play into the hands of the idiots who don't want to try more sensible business models by both raising the perceived stakes (their view: "we have to DO something or they'll just steal it all!"), you have a negative impact on the folks who actually pay (the idiots say "we'll add DRM to stop the piracy"), you harm the authors/musicians/programmers/whomever who don't get their royalty payment for the copy or copies that you download, and you make the argument in favor of saner business models more difficult (the idiot's response: "But that would only work if the pirates go away; as things stand they'll just steal it all!").

<deep breath...>

On top of all that, you lose the moral weight of saying that the principal of refusing to deal with stupid idiots and broken business models is more important than being able to consume the content they are trying to sell to you. And that moral impact is the best chance you have for getting the attention of legislators and the press. The press loves a boycott. It means there's a controversy, and controversy sells papers (and news shows, and web sites, and...). It gets the attention of legislators too. After all, people who care enough to forgo the latest Steven King novel (or pop tune, or whatever) might also care enough to vote against a legislator who doesn't support their position -- and potential loss of (a significant number of) votes carries even more weight than large corporate donations. Really. We've seen it happen before in plenty of places.

So if you actually want to change the system, hit the big-content idiots in the pocketbook AND the press AND the legislatures. And that requires a boycott. Piracy hits them a little bit harder in the pocketbook, but loses the other two factors. And you really need all three to achieve a sensible change.

I am afraid a boycott is not a realistic solution. I recognize that the majority of pirates in all countries, like the majority of people in general, have no grand ideas about property, intellectual property, copyright, freedom of information, author compensation, post scarcity economies, artificial scarcity, or anything like that... they just want free shit. Thus, trying to organize some kind of content boycott would be impossible, much in the same way stopping piracy is impossible. Still, I support the trends because of where I believe they will lead us. As for voters, I think the people who would care enough to forgo content in a boycott already care enough to support candidates sympathetic to reform.

So if you actually want to change the system, hit the big-content idiots in the pocketbook AND the press AND the legislatures. And that requires a boycott. Piracy hits them a little bit harder in the pocketbook, but loses the other two factors. And you really need all three to achieve a sensible change. For just one example, piracy might lead to modestly saner business models... but it certainly won't do anything to help with the excessive term of copyright!

As I said, a boycott (which would be in essence the elimination, however temporary, of piracy) is simply not an option. As for copyright terms, it will make them near irrelevant, when the action it is supposed to prevent is performed by millions of people every day.

Of course it's always easier to try to have it both ways.

Easier? I consider it smarter. After all, what is better for one than a situation where one cannot possibly lose?

And to me that says that you care more about consuming the content than about changing the system. And if that's the truth, why not just say so? If you care more about changing the system, you should act like it! But talking as though you wish to change the system, while acting like getting the content is what matters isn't just inconsistent. It also leads to worse outcomes overall than taking either of the two consistent positions!

On the contrary, as I have argued, it leads to the best outcome possible, where no matter what happens we always have the other end to fall back on! As for changing the system, the system does not need to be changed in words, if it can be changed in deeds. After all, what is a system's worth but its effect upon the people? A system which nobody pays heed to is as obsolete and irrelevant as one which has been legally overturned, and the end difference is none. Are there no laws nobody pays attention to, such as a certain law not to put pennies behind your ear in Hawaii? Piracy is, as we speak, making the old system irrelevant and by extension useless.

~Jaime