Secret Copyright Law Reported

[Barcey]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Here we go again.... It IS stealing. It IS theft in an ethical and moral sense. If you insist on only allowing legal definitions you are simply avoiding the truth and attempting to justify the theft.

In the last 3-4 months when people have asked me about my electronic book reader I've asked them questions on where they get their books today and how many they buy a year. I've been shocked at how few people admit to buying books.

- I get my books from the library
- I borrow most of my books from friends
- I use share libraries at the gym, work etc... take one drop one off
- I'm in a book sharing club with 40 people. We each buy a book and share them within the group
- I don't take books on vacation. I just grab books from the free libraries at the resorts where people leave books they don't want to take home.

This is ignoring the people that buy most of their books from used book stores.

These people are all taking something and consuming it without compensating the creator of the work. You can define it as stealing if you want and call them thieves or whatever label you want. The only moral or ethical difference I see between someone downloading an ebook and what these people are doing is copyright violation. Not theft.

I personally think of them as parasites rather then thieves but that's just another useless label. The larger parasites are the publishers and agents but that's another story.

We're all parasites at some point in our life.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Sorry, but what is "oppressive" about the concept of "don't download copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder"? Nobody is ever forced to do so - if they choose to do it it's their choice, and they really can't complain about the idea of being punished if caught.

Since you cannot know for sure if you have the permission it is oppressive. The point is that the laws and the control framework will hinder perfectly legal and wanted activities.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Barcey

...

We're all parasites at some point in our life.

Well, taken to the base level, life consumes itself.

[kennyc]

One thing I'm finding somewhat fascinating and analogous the the copyright, copying, stealing IP etc is the environmental crises we find ourselves in with global warming etc.

Seems to me there are a lot of similarities, in doing whatever we feel like to the environment until it can no longer sustain life and doing whatever we feel like to the creators of IP until there is no more.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's clearly already happened and increasing. Just look at some of the comments in this thread or any of the "copying is not stealing" discussions. There is less and less sense of ethics and doing what is right and more and more a sense of entitlement and "it's legal if I don't get caught" attitude. A very sad commentary on society.

Not to be rude (I mean that), but your moral absolutism is a bit narrow minded. Doing "what is right" is not an absolute. Stealing may be undesirable, but stealing to eat or to feed one's children is certainly certainly morally defensible. And copyright infringement is not stealing, but we don't need to go into that again.

In the face of gross injustice, people resist, either passively or actively. This is normal human behavior and quite healthy. The continued extensions of copyright are without question theft (not copyright infringement) from the public domain, stolen from all of humanity. This is certainly as great an injustice as making a copy of "Citizen Caine" without the permission of the copyright holder, which denies nothing but some money to the copyright holder. It doesn't even undo the injustice of having the intellectual property of the original material withheld from the public domain, where it would be if copyright extensions had not extended (I am not sure which extension would apply to this particular movie, released in 1941, but I hope you get my point), because the material cannot be legally used for derivative works, impoverishing our store of shared intellectual capital.

No offense!

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, you misread my post. I was talking about the anti-piracy legislation which the British government is going to introduce in the current session of Parliament.

So you're okay with IP law being changeable at any time by secondary legislation and technical measures being applied at the pleasure of OFCOM and the Government on-accusation? Sigh.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by llreader

Not to be rude (I mean that), but your moral absolutism is a bit narrow minded. Doing "what is right" is not an absolute. Stealing may be undesirable, but stealing to eat or to feed one's children is certainly certainly morally defensible. And copyright infringement is not stealing, but we don't need to go into that again.

In the face of gross injustice, people resist, either passively or actively. This is normal human behavior and quite healthy. The continued extensions of copyright are without question theft (not copyright infringement) from the public domain, stolen from all of humanity. This is certainly as great an injustice as making a copy of "Citizen Caine" without the permission of the copyright holder, which denies nothing but some money to the copyright holder. It doesn't even undo the injustice of having the intellectual property of the original material withheld from the public domain, where it would be if copyright extensions had not extended (I am not sure which extension would apply to this particular movie, released in 1941, but I hope you get my point), because the material cannot be legally used for derivative works, impoverishing our store of shared intellectual capital.

No offense!

No offense taken. You at least are on topic and not spewing personal attacks. I don't think I'm narrow minded at all. You say taking someone's intellectual property (to which you have no permission to do) is not theft, I say otherwise based on right and wrong (ethics and morals) regardless of current law.

Some say stealing food to feed you kids is morally right, is it right under all circumstances. I don't know. The thing I do know is that you or the world is not going to die or suffer because you are not willing to pay a fair price for my intellectual property. Nor is or does the public domain have any rights to any IP, you can't characterize it as needy or deprived. Why is it you can claim not sharing the IP is theft where's you say otherwise when someone makes a copy of my IP? Sound like a double standard at the very least even if it were true. Copyright and the other IP laws are in place SPECIFICALLY to allow creators to share the IP in managed ways with the public. I not saying copyrights should be able to be extended as those rights and laws have clearly been abused, in fact I'm not saying anything about copyright or IP LAWS at all and have done my best to avoid it. I've said many times in this thread exactly that -- I don't care what the current law is or says, what I do care about is the ethics, morals and behavior of those who would intentionally violate my rights and deprive me of my ability to make a living (to feed my children if you will) from my abilities to create IP.

[llreader]

To continue: The problem with copyright and violations thereof is that they are not subject to an absolute morality. Copyright (like most morality, but let's not get sidetracked) is a social contract entered into by several parties with fairly clear goals and responsibilities apportioned to the various actors. The government seeks to increase creative works, and thus sets aside a protected period for intellectual property, and legally defends this new right. The public accepts the loss of what was once their right to take ideas freely from the public domain in exchange for two things: 1) an overall growth in intellectual property brought about by the legal rights of these new intellectual property owners to exploit said property and 2) the knowledge that their property will be returned to them in a reasonable period of time (initially 14-28 years). This is a great system, because not only does it do what was intended, it automatically apportions value to intellectual property that market activity deems as having social value, rather than some sort of centralized distribution of support for creative thinkers (which also exists).

The problem is that one of the parties, the intellectual property owners (who increasingly are not the creative thinkers) have decided that they do not want to uphold their end of the agreement and have used the immense wealth created by intellectual property in recent decades to influence public policy, essentially violating this social contract. There was a deal. It has been broken.

I know people are going to pirate my book. It makes me sad, but I understand it completely. In the absence of justice, people take the law into their own hands. I understand that this is larger than me or my personal stake in this.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No offense taken. You at least are on topic and not spewing personal attacks. I don't think I'm narrow minded at all.

Narrow minded is probably not the right term, just trying to say that you are focusing on this one sliver of moral absolutism without putting the shifts in intellectual property law and the way society and citizens deal with them in a historical and social context. I know you think that your moral code exists outside of historical and social context, but I have to strongly disagree.

In any case, I made another post while you were posting that explains my thinking a little better.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by llreader

To continue: The problem with copyright and violations thereof is that they are not subject to an absolute morality. Copyright (like most morality, but let's not get sidetracked) is a social contract entered into by several parties with fairly clear goals and responsibilities apportioned to the various actors. The government seeks to increase creative works, and thus sets aside a protected period for intellectual property, and legally defends this new right. The public accepts the loss of what was once their right to take ideas freely from the public domain in exchange for two things: 1) an overall growth in intellectual property brought about by the legal rights of these new intellectual property owners to exploit said property and 2) the knowledge that their property will be returned to them in a reasonable period of time (initially 14-28 years). This is a great system, because not only does it do what was intended, it automatically apportions value to intellectual property that market activity deems as having social value, rather than some sort of centralized distribution of support for creative thinkers (which also exists).

The problem is that one of the parties, the intellectual property owners (who increasingly are not the creative thinkers) have decided that they do not want to uphold their end of the agreement and have used the immense wealth created by intellectual property in recent decades to influence public policy, essentially violating this social contract. There was a deal. It has been broken.

I know people are going to pirate my book. It makes me sad, but I understand it completely. In the absence of justice, people take the law into their own hands. I understand that this is larger than me or my personal stake in this.

I don't disagree with any of that (except that there is no such thing as absolute morality) and in fact agree you are right with regard to copyright law and it's abuse. If I could, I'd snap my fingers and all corporations would disappear.

I think the authors/creators should be receiving a much bigger reward for their part (upon which entire industries are based) and I think the opportunity for that is at hand with the internet. Yes there will always be thieves and criminals that prey on society but the current attitude of copying IP and claiming it harms no one is totally bogus, that is what will destroy society. The ethics and morals it exhibits are what will destroy us. That attitude of taking regardless of the consequences. It may be music today, ebooks tomorrow ...


First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

--Pastor Martin Niemöller

[llreader]

OK, copyright violations are not equivalent to stealing bread to feed your children in Dickens' England, but neither are they equivalent to the Nazi genocide. We don't need to re-Godwin this thread every few pages...

The problem is that you can't selectively apply a social contract. Once a society lets these types of agreements be trampled willy-nilly, all bets are off: "They" are stealing from us, why shouldn't we steal from "them"? The IP owners are certainly not setting an example of restraint and ethical behavior, even if they have convinced the government to back them up.

I am not sure who was arguing that the breakdown of social consensus around copyright "harms no one", but when you declare "no rules in a knife fight", someone is going to get kicked in the nuts.

[igorsk]

Originally Posted by llreader

The problem is that you can't selectively apply a social contract. Once a society lets these types of agreements be trampled willy-nilly, all bets are off: "They" are stealing from us, why shouldn't we steal from "them"? The IP owners are certainly not setting an example of restraint and ethical behavior, even if they have convinced the government to back them up.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1841.
(comments on the proposed bill to extend the term of copyright to sixty years from the death of the writer)

I will only say this, that if the measure before us should pass, and should produce one-tenth part of the evil which it is calculated to produce, and which I fully expect it to produce, there will soon be a remedy, though of a very objectionable kind. Just as the absurd acts which prohibited the sale of game were virtually repealed by the poacher, just as many absurd revenue acts have been virtually repealed by the smuggler, so will this law be virtually repealed by piratical booksellers. At present the holder of copyright has the public feeling on his side. Those who invade copyright are regarded as knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men. Everybody is well pleased to see them restrained by the law, and compelled to refund their ill-gotten gains. No tradesman of good repute will have anything to do with such disgraceful transactions. Pass this law: and that feeling is at an end. Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot. On which side indeed should the public sympathy be when the question is whether some book as popular as Robinson Crusoe, or the Pilgrim's Progress, shall be in every cottage, or whether it shall be confined to the libraries of the rich for the advantage of the great-grandson of a bookseller who, a hundred years before, drove a hard bargain for the copyright with the author when in great distress? Remember too that, when once it ceases to be considered as wrong and discreditable to invade literary property, no person can say where the invasion will stop. The public seldom makes nice distinctions. The wholesome copyright which now exists will share in the disgrace and danger of the new copyright which you are about to create. And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by llreader

OK, copyright violations are not equivalent to stealing bread to feed your children in Dickens' England, but neither are they equivalent to the Nazi genocide. We don't need to re-Godwin this thread every few pages...

The problem is that you can't selectively apply a social contract. Once a society lets these types of agreements be trampled willy-nilly, all bets are off: "They" are stealing from us, why shouldn't we steal from "them"? The IP owners are certainly not setting an example of restraint and ethical behavior, even if they have convinced the government to back them up.

I am not sure who was arguing that the breakdown of social consensus around copyright "harms no one", but when you declare "no rules in a knife fight", someone is going to get kicked in the nuts.

Many in this thread (and the silent ones who do it), claim that no one is harmed, not even a sale is lost because of a copied file.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Many in this thread (and the silent ones who do it), claim that no one is harmed, not even a sale is lost because of a copied file.

Well, as a matter of fact, this is true. Many file sharers would never have purchased the original, and many DO purchase the original. This is not in dispute, the question is only to what extent this is true.

The damage I was talking about it the damage to the public goods to be brought about by the original social contract. Revolutions are a messy way to redress poor governance - lots of good and innocent people get hurt. which is one of the brilliant aspects of democracy, it limits the social upheaval of armed conflict.

The guys who are kicked in the nuts in that knife fight don't necessarily deserve it. But that is what happens when you mess with the rules - you get no rules. See the post above yours - it summed up the situation 170 years ago, as well as or better than either of us have:

And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living.

Excellent quote, igorsk. I would send you some karma, but it looks like you are swimming in it (I like to help out the little guy)

[fugazied]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

My my, what resentment. When someone says the "West", they generally mean the USA, seeing as we have the most economic, and political impact of any nation in the world.

The west does not mean the US. Such arrogance. All the US does now is make terrible international policy decisions like invading middle eastern countries looking for 'terrorists' with 100'000 soldiers and create debt. We are great at borrowing money, that's a large part of our 'economic impact' on the rest of the world - creating debt, spending more than we earn and giving the Chinese a debtor.

As for the copyright law, I'm not suprised. Corporations tell governments what to do, social democracy is in jeopardy. Just look at the financial collapse and the trillions given to corporations to bail out their greedy irrational enterprise. All sides of politics agreed on the bailouts, while the over taxed public had to grin and bare it while their hard earned money went into the pockets of billionaires.