An anonymous piracy poll.

[Rhialto]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I'm not sure what the point of this poll is, other than: Yes, I know someone who's pirated a book for one reason or another.

It's not complicated. The point is that only about 10% of the people who responded to this poll (and yes, ~100 responders is a small subset of the MR forum users) have never engaged in illicit acts as defined by the publishers.

Furthermore, this anonymous poll's granularity gives interesting insight into the proportion of people engaged in these various activities ranging from DRM removal to downloading whatever books they feel like. This is a much more informative poll, although it is generally consistent with the binary non-anonymous poll on this same subject in this forum.

[anamardoll]

I think some voters are interpreting "I knew someone..." differently from other votes.

But that's the risk we take when we keep things totally anonymous.

* I assume that somewhere in the forum software it is actually possible to know who voted for what, if only because that data must be stored in order that OUR choices be left italicized for our individual viewing. So please do not post how you, personally, interpreted the terms "I knew someone".

[anamardoll]

(I am also pleased but not even remotely surprised that the two Red options are the lowest piracy options on the poll. Fits nicely with the Piracy! It's More Complicated Than That opinion I already held.)

[Rhialto]

Morality color coded. Hmm. More thought went into this poll's design than I had realized!

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Rhialto

Morality color coded. Hmm. More thought went into this poll's design than I had realized!

LOL, no, that was a coincidence. But a happy one.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Rhialto

It's not complicated. The point is that only about 10% of the people who responded to this poll (and yes, ~100 responders is a small subset of the MR forum users) have never engaged in illicit acts as defined by the publishers.

Only if you assume that self-reporting is accurate reporting.

[Rhialto]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Only if you assume that self-reporting is accurate reporting.

You mean the last selection should be even lower than ~11%? Given the relative anonymity of the poll I can't see why it should be inaccurate in the other direction.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Rhialto

You mean the last selection should be even lower than ~11%? Given the relative anonymity of the poll I can't see why it should be inaccurate in the other direction.

I mean people can say anything for whatever reason.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I mean people can say anything for whatever reason.

Yes, but this is a given for all polls of any kind.

There is also always the possibility that people misunderstood the answers. Or that their cats walked on their keyboard. Or that they were possessed by aliens for the time it took to answer the poll. Etc.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Yes, but this is a given for all polls of any kind.

There is also always the possibility that people misunderstood the answers. Or that their cats walked on their keyboard. Or that they were possessed by aliens for the time it took to answer the poll. Etc.

Sure, but this poll is asking about bad behavior, so there's more likelihood of deliberate lying or self-deception than in a poll that's asking an opinion where all the choices are morally neutral.

[JDK1962]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

James Boyle, law school professor & copyfight activist, one of the founders of the Creative Commons movement, wrote The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (free legit download) points out (emphases added):Copyright law wasn't designed for individuals; it's a form of corporate regulation intended to allow a flourishing entertainment and education industry. It was never meant to be relevant to college students, except in the sense of "someday I might be published, and when that happens, copyright law will let me choose the terms I'll accept in exchange for publication."

The problem is that the law hasn't caught up with the technology--the law was based on the premise that copies were expensive to produce, and therefore the only way to make copies that competed with authorized ones, was with a corporation's resources--printing press, movie theatre, sound studio, etc. A single person hand-copying chapters of a book to mail to his friend in the army wasn't worth noticing. Neither was the "copying" of music involved when someone sang a popular song at a dinner party.

Now, however, the casual copying that people have *always* done, has become instantly sharable worldwide, and instantly reproducible effectively for free. And the law never had a specific exemption for noncommercial copying done by individuals--because when the laws were designed, those copies were so rare as to not need specific mention.

Of course most people are oblivious to copyright law. It wasn't designed to matter to them. How much do most individuals know about commercial kitchen health regulations? Would they think that if they have friends over for dinner, even if they're not charging, they're "in the food industry" and therefore should have to match those standards? If the friends each offer to pitch in $10 for pizza and beer, does that make the host an illegal restaurant?

Copyright law is an aspect of corporate business law that's suddenly been inflicted on individual activity, and most individuals are quite reasonable in their desire to ignore it. The growing encroachment of business law into casual interpersonal life is just surreal.

This is a really interesting perspective. Thanks for writing it.

(I find myself repeatedly trying to give you karma for your posts, but the system tells me I must spread it around a bit more. Hence, the public shout out. )

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by JDK1962

This is a really interesting perspective. Thanks for writing it.

(I find myself repeatedly trying to give you karma for your posts, but the system tells me I must spread it around a bit more. Hence, the public shout out. )

I repeatedly get that warning and it's all Elfwreck's fault... too many darn good posts

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Sure, but this poll is asking about bad behavior, so there's more likelihood of deliberate lying or self-deception than in a poll that's asking an opinion where all the choices are morally neutral.

Yes, so I would expect the votes on the last option to be artificially inflated, not artificially lowered.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Edit: Was talking about uploading there, not downloading. If they pass a law that downloading pirated stuff becomes illegal that would be interesting to see how they try to enforce that ...

What do you mean, "IF they pass a law..."? Downloading pirated stuff IS illegal in the vast majority of countries.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What do you mean, "IF they pass a law..."? Downloading pirated stuff IS illegal in the vast majority of countries.

Oh thought it is the distributing only that is illegal, not the receiving of such material. My bad.