In Switzerland Downloading Copyrighted Materials for personal Use is Legal

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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

Yes, you are.

But since ebooks can't be second-hand, that's actually (Though, in this case, that's something of a blessing.)

But I don't feel like entertaining another endless discussion obsessing about hypotheticals and circular arguments, while pointedly avoiding actually discussing the issue at hand, so I'll just leave you guys to it...

[stonetools]

Here is what an esteemed author( an SFF author,even) says about copyright:.

Copyright is a limited and carefully designed law to protect authors from poverty. It allows authors control over the rights in their books, so that they, like any worker, can make what profit they can from their work.

It’s called “copy” right because it involves, literally, the right to make copies of the work.

An author contracting with a publisher sells the publisher a limited piece of her copyright: that is, the right to make copies (i.e., publish the work in a certain form for a certain period of time) in exchange for a share (usually 15% or less) of the publisher’s profits.

Discussion: Copyright has existed only since the 18th century. Till then, writers mostly lived by finding and sucking up to a rich patron. Since then, writers have been able to make an independent living… well, dependent on the whims of publishers — but after all, publishers and writers have pretty much the same stakes in the very chancy game of making books.

Only ignorance or irresponsibility dismiss copyright as “irrelevant to the Digital Age.” It’s needed more than ever, to protect authors from trying to live by selling themselves to corporations or selling their text space to advertisers. Copyright law has to be extended and rewritten to work with the new technologies of publishing. The notion that it’s unnecessary makes it all the harder to get that necessary work done.

A lot of people quote Stu Brand: “Information wants to be free.” I wonder why they hardly ever quote the other half of Stu’s sentence: “It also wants to be paid for.”

Information can be free to the user, the reader, and pay a living wage to the originator, the author: Think of the free Public Library.

This balance can extend to the Internet, if we can rewrite copyright law to cover the new technologies.

Sneers and sloganeering ain’t going to butter the beans. It will take hard and careful work. Can you imagine trying to explain to the current Speaker of the House how it might be done and why it’s important to do it?

LINK

UKL will likely find it difficult to explain the importance to copyright to those here who "just know" authors are happy to work hard at writing books just so someone can read their hard work for free .

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

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

Probably it does, if you want to follow the absolute letter of the law, but I doubt that it's the sort of violation that anyone would be bothered about. What do you think?

[stonetools]

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.

This oft-repeated argument is really complete nonsense. Lets substitute another item to see if the logic works.

" If I steal a diamond ring from a jeweler that I would never have purchased, how have I harmed the jeweler? If I enjoyed the work and tell others about it, who subsequently buy, have I benefited the jeweler? " Well, of course you haven't .
Just because products are "digital" on and the Internet doesn't mean that thje prperty laws and thje laws of economics cease to operate.

[CyGuy]

Originally Posted by stonetools

This oft-repeated argument is really complete nonsense. Lets substitute another item to see if the logic works.

" If I steal a diamond ring from a jeweler that I would never have purchased, how have I harmed the jeweler? If I enjoyed the work and tell others about it, who subsequently buy, have I benefited the jeweler? " Well, of course you haven't .
Just because products are "digital" on and the Internet doesn't mean that thje prperty laws and thje laws of economics cease to operate.

That argument does not work. If you made an exact copy of the ring using the replicator from Star Trek you have not stolen the original ring. The original owner is not out anything, they have exactly what they started with. You are mistaking theft with copyright infringement.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by stonetools

This oft-repeated argument is really complete nonsense. Lets substitute another item to see if the logic works.

" If I steal a diamond ring from a jeweler that I would never have purchased, how have I harmed the jeweler? If I enjoyed the work and tell others about it, who subsequently buy, have I benefited the jeweler? " Well, of course you haven't .
Just because products are "digital" on and the Internet doesn't mean that thje prperty laws and thje laws of economics cease to operate.

That comparison is irrelevant. There's a reason why, legally, copyright does not equal theft; downloading a file does not deprive the owner of the file. A more apt comparison would be you have a car parked on the road and I walk by, make an exact duplicate of the car and then drive the duplicate away.

Theft is legally distinct from copyright infringement and it's intellectually dishonest (and non-productive) to equate the two.

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

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.

I totally agree on this point.

I've known people to advocate a police state and gulags for file-sharers in order to deter copyright infringement.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Yes, you are.

But since ebooks can't be second-hand, that's actually (Though, in this case, that's something of a blessing.)

But I don't feel like entertaining another endless discussion obsessing about hypotheticals and circular arguments, while pointedly avoiding actually discussing the issue at hand, so I'll just leave you guys to it...

I don't want to derail this thread more than I already have, but actually, buying second hand book sales does negligible harm to authors. In fact, the opposite is probably true; there's considerable economic data to support the fact that a robust used market supports the primary market.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

That comparison is irrelevant. There's a reason why, legally, copyright does not equal theft; downloading a file does not deprive the owner of the file. A more apt comparison would be you have a car parked on the road and I walk by, make an exact duplicate of the car and then drive the duplicate away.

Theft is legally distinct from copyright infringement and it's intellectually dishonest (and non-productive) to equate the two.

Its not the same offense, we understand that- but it is an offense against the property rights of the creator.
The point is that its an infringement of the authors right to control the use of their creation-an infringement that reduces the value of their creation. Its intellectually dishonest-and self-serving , to boot- to pretend that it doesn't cost the creator anything.

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by CyGuy

That argument does not work. If you made an exact copy of the ring using the replicator from Star Trek you have not stolen the original ring. The original owner is not out anything, they have exactly what they started with. You are mistaking theft with copyright infringement.

In a sense we do have replicators, knowledge replicators. They still require a bit of energy to run, but hopefully theoretically we will soon draw that power from the sun...

The benefits of free knowledge outweigh all cons.

[Beryll Snyder]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

So if you have a kid over to mow your lawn and afterwards you give him a pat on the back and say "hey, I would never have asked you to do it if I had to pay you for it" that is ok? After all, you have taken nothing from him, he still has everything he had before.

I hope you know: that comparison sucks ...

[miguel1626]

Originally Posted by Giggleton

The benefits of free knowledge outweigh all cons.

That's highly debatable. If you deprive content creators of income, both quantity and quality of available content will decrease.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Yes, you are.

But since ebooks can't be second-hand, that's actually (Though, in this case, that's something of a blessing.)

Lots of people sell second hand ebooks on Ebay, though their value seems to be very low because they have to sell thousands of them at a time.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by stonetools

Its not the same offense, we understand that- but it is an offense against the property rights of the creator.
The point is that its an infringement of the authors right to control the use of their creation-an infringement that reduces the value of their creation. Its intellectually dishonest-and self-serving , to boot- to pretend that it doesn't cost the creator anything.

Pretending it is anything other than copyright violation is counter productive. I actually think a lot of the pro-piracy sentiment that exists within society is entirely down to corporations trying to equate it with theft, terrorism, organised crime, etc and then declaring war on it. Wars cause people to take sides, and wars are won or lost through propaganda. Po-faced messages about how evil it would be to download a car really can't compete with all the parodies of it on Youtube.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by miguel1626

That's highly debatable. If you deprive content creators of income, both quantity and quality of available content will decrease.

That's what they said about music in the 70s. Never happened then, won't happen now.