Quote:
Originally Posted by Desertway
It is not easy to argue morality in this venue. I'm not going to try and develop my moral position from certain first premises. We could argue forever. I'll just say that it not my experience that most of the material available via the DarkNet is "orphaned" or no longer available by any other means. Much of the books, music, movies, etc, that can be downloaded gratis can also be purchased.
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I'm sure that you're right in that much of what is available on the darknet is not orphaned. The most common frustration on this thread and elsewhere seems to relate to either orphaned or otherwise unavailable books (e.g. geo), however.
I'm not trying to argue for a particular morality - I'm not sure that you can argue such things from first principles in any convincing way. My point was simply that one could reasonably take a view that by sitting on content, publishers gave up any rights that society had granted them to exclusive copyright (because they weren't making copies available, which was the deal).
One could also reasonably argue that, having given someone a right, you ought to allow them to exercise it however they saw fit. If they want to make no copies, or charge £1,000,000 each - that's their business until the copyright expires. If copyright was, say, 10 years, I would probably take this view.
With current copyright set at, effectively, "forever", corporate greed and weak government has broken the system, so that the public get nothing in return. It is perhaps unsurprising that many are responding by giving up on their side of the bargain as well - and copying whatever they please. My preferred solution would be a new contract that both sides would be prepared to stick to - but I can't think of any practical way to achieve such a thing. In the absence of that, making good quality, easy to use, cheap copies available seems the only way that copyright holders are likely to make any money.