Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBlueSky
There are four inaccuracies in that statement 
1. I, don’t require your permission.
2. No you haven’t.
3. Yes I can.
4. Information has rights too — it wants to be free.
Btw, having been granted a (temporary) monopoly does not mean that you have been awarded ownership rights too, Your so-called ‘property right’ (you really mean ownership) remains firmly in the public domain.
From a philosophical point of view, are you saying that every single monopoly holder in existence is now living under a constant barrage of actual mental harm caused by file-sharing? You can’t be referring to any physical or material harm — because I already don’t need your permission to read a library book, read a friends book or find a secondhand one.
No wonder authors tend to loose their marbles the more books they write The sheer pressure of not knowing with 100% certainty that their books are NOT being shared must indeed be a meddlesome burden to have to live under. Perhaps every monopoly licence should come with a health warning on the box!
On the other hand, If I don’t explicitly TELL you that I have indeed shared YOUR particular book, how does this imaginary ‘harm’ manifest itself in your mind? Your ‘right’, to your own knowledge, has not been disturbed. You remain, as it were, still living in a state of serene and blissful ignorance of my (real or imaginary) dastardly deed — so how has any ‘action at a distance’ on my part impinged on the mental map of your world? |
Copyright is an artificial monopoly which exists to promote the creation of new creative works.
Copyright controls the legal right to create and distribute new copies of a creative work. Selling a used book does not infringe copyright because it does not constitute making a new copy. Xeroxing a book does, because that does constitute making a new copy.
This is why file-sharing is both copyright infringement and a real threat to many authors. It's copyright infringement because it involves creating new copies. It worries authors because regardless of the exact percentages involved, it would be very surprising to presume that no one who downloaded a work would have bought it if they could not have got it for free. That's as ludicrous as assuming every download is a lost sale.
Given that some fraction of downloads are lost sales, this has two effects. First, the author may not earn out their advance, which can have a material effect on the advance on their next book, and second they may not generate enough sales to be offered a contract for the next book-- and so readers may never get to read the sequel.