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Originally Posted by calvin-c
This sounds so great-until your kids grow up & realize that you can't combat unethical behavior by being unethical yourself. (Hopefully you're teaching them that, along with these beliefs.)
An example of what I mean is the very common excuse: It's unethical that they charge so much so I'll just steal it. Even if it actually is unethical on the owner's part (questionable-do you also teach your children tolerance for people who have other beliefs?) it's also unethical on the thief's part.
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"It costs too much so I'll steal it" is not ethical. But "it costs too much so I will legally work toward the financial and social ruin of whoever's charging so much" is ethical.
I teach my children awareness of other ethical systems, including the consequences of clashing with the ones most common; I don't teach them to attempt to adhere to them unless they're trying to avoid a particular consequence.
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Doesn't matter whether the creator is ethical or not-the person taking it without payment is definitely unethical, IMO.
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Depends on what "taking" means.
A lot of copying is legal--for parody, for review, for transformative works.
And none of that copying is "taking" because it's not removing anything from the original owner.
If your "ethics" say that all copying-without-permission is wrong, then parody is just as wrong as unauthorized sequels or audiobook versions.
If I buy a table: I can chop it into pieces, reshape them into a chair, and sell the chair. I can make plans to make fifty more chairs, from raw materials that I'll shape like the table was shaped. I can take a lot of photos of it and post them on my blog, both before & after the chopping.
If I buy a book, and cut it into pieces and rearrange them, and sell them... I can do that once. I can't do it with 50 more books that I'll type onto new paper without getting sued. I can't take pictures of the pages and post them on my blog, either.
You're trying to claim that IP both should, and should not, be treated like physical property. You're claiming "theft" about actions that are not "theft" when done to physical property.
Plenty of people agree that copyright infringement is *wrong.* They just don't agree that it's *theft.* Just like they agree that stealing someone's wallet from his pocket is wrong--but it's not "assault."
OTOH, maybe IP infringement should be treated like "theft." You can't get fined $150,000 for stealing a single physical CD; no reason you should be fined that much for putting a single copy of it on a server somewhere. Limit the copyright penalties to the physical theft penalties, and we'll have a basis for using the same word to describe the crimes.