[veysey]

I'm joining this fray. But hey ...

There is a lot of imprecise argument and verbiage here. Plus some ... um ... impatience. I don't know that I can avoid the former, but I shall try to be civil!

First ....

>Clearly that is your belief, but just as clearly it is depriving the person that
>created the words/file/book/story of making a living at it. That is stealing,
>that is unethical, that is morally corrupt -- unless, as I've said, that person
>has given up their right to their creation.

There is, as moejoe has been contending a legal and physical distinction between theft and copyright infringement. I don't really understand why this is even argued. The common law interpretation of "theft" is the taking of another's property. Physical property. These law predates even the idea of "intellectual property". Indeed, an examination of (eg) US law shows that the penalties for copyright infrigement are substantially different (more severe) than those for physical theft. They are not the same crime.

But there are two undercurrents to this conversation which puzzle me. First is the quote above - the idea that you can steal a creative work and deprive the author of an inalienable right. How can intellectual property exist outside of a contract involving more than one individual? Doesn't a person "gives up a right" to their creation simply by sharing it with others?

Once the creator has done so, their limiting MY ability to talk about it (eg) is an abridgment of my rights. Yet simply talking about it an idea could limit the creator's ability to make a living of the idea. Is it more or less ethical for the author to limit my right to free speech or me to limit his/her "right to make a living"? One is a human right, the other is the product of a social contract.

It seems that in many ethical systems, humanity mostly favors the right to free speech. (The announcements tacked on to sporting event broadcasts notwithstanding ... "Forbid any pictures, descriptions, or account without express written permission ...")

But the question is one of how to balance the rights of individuals and the good of society. We have copyright laws to give some incentive to creators to produce works that benefit society as a whole, and we have limits on those copyrights to preserve the rights of individuals to (e.g.) quote a poem or build on ideas that came before.

Judging an act of copying to be right or wrong is a matter of how it fits in that balance, ones ethical system, and possibly the moral foundation of ones government. Note that right and wrong are not the same as illegal and legal.

All of the charged words --- theft, corrupt,unethical! --- used in this debate are an attempt to color the reader's judgment in this matter.

Myself, I think it's complicated. I think copyright law has been distorted too far towards the creators (or, more explicitly, the owners of a copyright), and away from the public good and my rights. Disney's successful attempts to change US copyright law seem pretty darn unethical, particularly since Walt created his characters knowing the set of incentives that existed in 1923. He ain't becoming more incentivized with each extension!

But on the other side, I DO want to see good works created. Authors should be rewarded and be able to make a living. And middlemen can add value.

But I also know this: the price of an ebook MUST be less than the pbook. Yes, one must account for editing, etc. But it costs less to move electrons than to cut down a tree (since I'm paying separately for the electron moving infrastructure).

So what do I do? Kill trees? Dunno. Try to buy direct and support independents where possible. Try to avoid the corporations that unduly influence my democracy and deprive me of my rights. (if I were to be cavalier about terminology, I might even say they were stealing something from me ...).

It's pretty easy to rationalize copyright infringement as undermining unjust laws and evil corporations. Sometimes it does. Maybe that rationalization is even correct, and the world will be a better place in 100 years if we all infringe away to destabilize the status-quo. I have no idea. For instance, we can now buy non-drm music at the itunes store.

I do know that I've lost money when itunes blanked my paid-for music. Call me a morally corrupt thief, but I feel just fine about downloading those tunes from p2p sites!

My $0.34