In Switzerland Downloading Copyrighted Materials for personal Use is Legal

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I would really appreciate it if you didn't put words into my mouth; if I wanted to say what you (erroneously) attribute to me, then I'll say it myself.

Your arguments aren't particularly interesting or novel, but from those arguments your motivations seem clear enough. Maybe you're too close to the problem and can't see the forest through the trees.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

I have no stake in this, but why should it be acceptable for someone to take it for free, even if he or she never would have paid for it? That is the worst form of greed. The authors are not greedy, they are fine if those people just stay away from their works. Financially the end result for them is the same, they get nothing.

So what if people are greedy? If someone gets something for free (wrongfully), we should only care if that harms someone and we should only use laws to prevent that first harm if the laws themselves don't cause more harm than they help. There are more and more studies coming out from reputable groups that show that the overall economic harm of copyright infringement is minimal; much lower than the harm caused to people by heavy-handed copyright enforcement.

If I go and download from PirateBay a program that someone obviously sank their blood, sweat and tears into designing, that strikes most people as a wrong on a gut-level. However, if I would never have bought that program in the first place, is the designer harmed? What money have I deprived him or her of? Do they lose some ability to sell the program to another person?

I suggest that our gut reactions to right and wrong are too simplistic in the context of copyright infringement. The concept of "theft" is the easy analogy to make but it doesn't apply cleanly to infinite goods that anyone can copy for zero marginal cost.

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

If I go and download from PirateBay a program that someone obviously sank their blood, sweat and tears into designing, that strikes most people as a wrong on a gut-level. However, if I would never have bought that program in the first place, is the designer harmed? What money have I deprived him or her of? Do they lose some ability to sell the program to another person?

I'd agree with this argument, iff it was possible to determine whether someone would have bought a certain piece of media/software. Otherwise, there'd never be any copyright infringement; one could just claim "I wouldn't have bought it anyway".

That's not to say that I approve of draconian IP-protection laws. I most certainly do not. The DMCA as it stands is already an execrable piece of legislation.

[kartu]

Originally Posted by miguel1626

I'd agree with this argument, iff it was possible to determine whether someone would have bought a certain piece of media/software. Otherwise, there'd never be any copyright infringement; one could just claim "I wouldn't have bought it anyway".

Mm, no, actually there would still be copyright infringement (not that there absolutelly has to be ) if someone would try to sell somebody else's work.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by miguel1626

I'd agree with this argument, iff it was possible to determine whether someone would have bought a certain piece of media/software. Otherwise, there'd never be any copyright infringement; one could just claim "I wouldn't have bought it anyway".

That's not to say that I approve of draconian IP-protection laws. I most certainly do not. The DMCA as it stands is already an execrable piece of legislation.

That's a good point. Individually, it's really hard to say a particular person would have bought something if they hadn't copied it. However, it's not impossible to make good predictions of what groups of people would have done, and determine the harm from that. If we're making laws that affect everyone, we really should be looking at the group level first anyway, even if enforcement is against individuals.

I just think if you make copyright laws that restrict liberty, legislators should be able to (roughly) quantify the harm that infringement is doing and (roughly) quantify the benefits. The default should be to not pass harsher laws unless they reduce harm generally.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

If I go and download from PirateBay a program that someone obviously sank their blood, sweat and tears into designing, that strikes most people as a wrong on a gut-level. However, if I would never have bought that program in the first place, is the designer harmed? What money have I deprived him or her of? Do they lose some ability to sell the program to another person?

Enough of that tired line, already. That's the lamest excuse since "I'll only stick the tip in."

The point is, when you illegally downloaded the file, you committed copyright infringement, you harmed the creator of that property by depriving him of income, and you should be punished. It's really that simple.

Saying after the fact, "If I'd known a cop was going to be there, I wouldn't have been speeding," doesn't cut the mustard in a court of law. Neither does pleading innocent to a theft because "He had others to sell."

Your making flimsy excuses for plain and simple greed and a total lack of consideration for the producers of the goods you take. (But then, you are a lawyer...)

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

The point is, when you illegally downloaded the file, you committed copyright infringement, you harmed the creator of that property by depriving him of income, and you should be punished.

You are also depriving the author of income if you buy a second hand book.

[italianReader]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, because you're not making an additional copy of the book. That's what the word "copyright" means - it gives you the right to determine who can copy the book.



When you give someone a copy of an eBook, you are creating additional copies which did not previously exist. Hence copyright law does come into play.

A definition like that one in the digital era is obviously flawed.

I copy an e-book when I transfer it from my pc to my e-erader, so what?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by italianReader

A definition like that one in the digital era is obviously flawed.

I copy an e-book when I transfer it from my pc to my e-erader, so what?

So nothing. That is authorized copying, and is perfectly OK. Giving a copy to somebody else is unauthorized copying, which is not OK.

[SleepyBob]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

I only have a crippled donkey in the race myself, but this is the part I don't really understand. Obviously I would rather they bought it, but if for whatever reason that isn't going to happen I would still rather they read it for free than didn't read it at all.

But the issue is more like: 10 people are going to spend money to buy 10 books. Would you rather:

A. 7 buy John's book and 3 buy Jeff's book, or
B. 5 of the people that were going to buy John's book saw it on a torrent, so they decided to download it and they buy Jeff's book instead (which didn't come up immediately in a torrent search). So now 2 buy John's book, 8 buy Jeff's book, and 5 copies of John's book got torrented.

Sure, mid-lister Jeff is elated that his book is selling so well, but John isn't getting nearly the royalties that he ought to from his popular book, "Henry Porter and the Scholar's Stocking".

The amount paid on ebooks may be the same, but the compensation to the appropriate content owners certainly isn't.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

But the issue is more like: 10 people are going to spend money to buy 10 books. Would you rather:

A. 7 buy John's book and 3 buy Jeff's book, or
B. 5 of the people that were going to buy John's book saw it on a torrent, so they decided to download it and they buy Jeff's book instead (which didn't come up immediately in a torrent search). So now 2 buy John's book, 8 buy Jeff's book, and 5 copies of John's book got torrented.

Sure, mid-lister Jeff is elated that his book is selling so well, but John isn't getting nearly the royalties that he ought to from his popular book, "Henry Porter and the Scholar's Stocking".

The amount paid on ebooks may be the same, but the compensation to the appropriate content owners certainly isn't.

I understand the point you are making, and I only speak for myself when I say I'd rather they read it for free than not at all.

But I'm not really convinced that many people look for pirate ebooks in that way. They're more likely to browse a pirate site in the same way that others would browse Amazon looking for something to read.

Apart from anything else, anyone who would specifically go looking for something on a pirate site that they could buy for £2 probably needs the money more than I do anyway.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by SleepyBob

But the issue is more like: 10 people are going to spend money to buy 10 books. Would you rather:

A. 7 buy John's book and 3 buy Jeff's book, or
B. 5 of the people that were going to buy John's book saw it on a torrent, so they decided to download it and they buy Jeff's book instead (which didn't come up immediately in a torrent search). So now 2 buy John's book, 8 buy Jeff's book, and 5 copies of John's book got torrented.

Or they could conclude that since Jeff's book isn't good enough to get pirated, it's not good enough to be read, but John's book is, so they go and buy his previous works. Since every study shows that people who download are more likely to spend money on what they are taking, this is the more likely scenario.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

So nothing. That is authorized copying, and is perfectly OK. Giving a copy to somebody else is unauthorized copying, which is not OK.

And what do you think of copying the book to your reader and lending it to a house guest?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

And what do you think of copying the book to your reader and lending it to a house guest?

I have absolutely no thoughts on the matter. What do you think about it?

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I have absolutely no thoughts on the matter. What do you think about it?

Doesn't it count as "Giving a copy to somebody else"?

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Enough of that tired line, already. That's the lamest excuse since "I'll only stick the tip in."

The point is, when you illegally downloaded the file, you committed copyright infringement, you harmed the creator of that property by depriving him of income, and you should be punished. It's really that simple.

Saying after the fact, "If I'd known a cop was going to be there, I wouldn't have been speeding," doesn't cut the mustard in a court of law. Neither does pleading innocent to a theft because "He had others to sell."

Your making flimsy excuses for plain and simple greed and a total lack of consideration for the producers of the goods you take. (But then, you are a lawyer...)

But if I download a file I would never have purchased, how have I "harmed the creator of that property"? If I enjoy the work and tell others about it, who subsequently buy, have I benefited the creator of the property? Maybe they owe me some money in that instance, otherwise they're getting a benefit they didn't pay for.

Just because you've violated a copyright doesn't necessarily mean you've caused harm. I don't like greed either, but I don't think we should try and legislate away greed unless it's actually causing a harm. Conversely, if laws are made that restrict people from legitimate uses of something they bought (e.g. making it illegal to strip DRM from a file, even where the DRM server is gone and there's no other way to use it), then that is causing a harm that we should stamp out.

I'm not saying it should be a complete free-for-all, but I think people need to put copyright into the perspective of how much harm are violators actually causing. Sending people to Siberia or levelling multi-million dollar fines is probably not proportional to the actual harm.