What are your views on illegal copying?

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Which is exactly what I've been saying about "laws" all along.

They are the current best implementation of what a particular society thinks is right

I'm not so sure about that - I'd stick to our best attempt at regulating conflicting interests, which is not the same.

In any case, what you've been saying all along is that copying is theft, but that is NOT what the law says. As you said on a previous post - you don't give a huff about the law - it is, for you, a moral issue.

You can't have it both ways.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by kazbates

With the exception of your last "newspaper" point, the law clearly defines legal usage.

Unfortunately on e-books it really doesn't. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, I think pretty much everybody agrees the laws need to be changed and clarified. Basically at the moment it's perfectly legal and acceptable to "steal" a book (in the sense the word is so often mis-used in these discussions) but only if you do so using 15th century or earlier technology; once you get to late 20th century technology you hit a legal minefield.

And, of course, there's the little problem of separating what is right from what is legal, and people tend to duck across that line a lot in this discussion.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kazbates

I follow the law. That's my answer.

You asked a moral question:

I've been thinking about this quite a bit since I first saw the statement and I have a question, "Why do people who pirate books feel that it is within your "right" to do so?" Why do you believe that you are so deserving of something that you take it without giving compensation to the true owners?

So your answer to why you are so deserving to take it without giving compensation to the true owners is that you follow the law?

I would say that laws do not specify that you are deserving.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by kazbates

You completely missed my point. I have not called it theft, etc., I called it illegal, which it is.

I thought that because you assumed that people responded to you, you had. Can't check because I'm typing this on a phone, which is a bit like browsing through a matchbox. I agree that it's illegal (in most cases, most places)

To be honest, I had no idea who Judge Dredd is until I googled it and still have no clue as to your reference.

He was keen on making people obey the law - even when the morality of doing so was dubious to say the least. But it was a throwaway quip.

It does disturb me that there is a holier than thou tone in those who equate copying with stealing, which is not justified. I never stole sweets from a shop, even as a child, because I knew it was wrong, even then.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

I'm not so sure about that - I'd stick to our best attempt at regulating conflicting interests, which is not the same.

In any case, what you've been saying all along is that copying is theft, but that is NOT what the law says. As you said on a previous post - you don't give a huff about the law - it is, for you, a moral issue.

You can't have it both ways.

I'm beginning to think you just want to argue and that this whole thread was started for that reason.

You are interpreting my words though. Please quote them exactly rather than put your words into my posts.

"If you take something of mine without my permission, you are a thief."

And quite trying to spin the topic or the other posts.

Do you know what Alice said?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

...

You can't have it both ways.

You clearly don't understand government, law, and society if you believe that.

Law is (or should be) just as government, the will of the people. That means it is in flux at all times and at any given time is the best we know how to do as a society. It will and does change constantly as does life and as does science.

[Patricia]

It seems to me that there is a confusion between two different types of law going on in this thread.

DESCRIPTIVE laws describe the way that the universe is. For example, Kepler's law of planetary motion states that planets move in ellipses. If it is no longer an accurate desciption then the law will be thrown out, and a more accurate one devised.
Scientific laws are descriptive.

PRESCRIPTIVE laws prescribe how things ought to be. Moral rules and the laws of a country are all prescriptive. The commandment "Thou shalt not murder" is prescriptive. It doesn't tell us whether there are, in fact, any murders. It merely tells us not to do them. And if someone does commit a murder, then we don't jettison the law. Instead the person gets punished.

Laws about DRM are all prescriptive. I'm not sure that it helps to compare them to descriptive laws, which are an entirely different category.

[Krystian Galaj]

Originally Posted by kennyc

This was in response to Harmon's Aether posting. Just to show it can go both ways -- sometimes the things we believe turn out to be false, sometimes true.

Intellectual Property is the curvature of space time.

It might as well be when it starts making sense.

I have several problems with IP:

1) if it's property, why does it revert to public domain after a time? It would make sense for it to stay a property and licence forever. It's said that it's not really a property, but it's called property. Bad naming.

2) parts of it are property as well. With small enough parts, it's likely that different creators created the same part independently, so the latter one is in copyright violation. Where does it stop? There is a good short story about society in which people are allowed to trademark words, and have communication systems good enough to detect every use of that word and demand payment. Is that what it'll be?

It's a bit like Ptolemeus and Copernican systems of the movement of planets to me - one just makes more sense.
Anyway, those seem to be basic principles that contradict, and from which the rest of argument and disagreement originates.

Maybe it's that I have a bad memory and I remember everything like in mathematics, re-deriving it from simplest laws I can remember. People with a good memory who can just remember and apply thousand pages of laws might not have problem with such theories.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Patricia

It seems to me that there is a confusion between two different types of law going on in this thread.

DESCRIPTIVE laws describe the way that the universe is. For example, Kepler's law of planetary motion states that planets move in ellipses. If it is no longer an accurate desciption then the law will be thrown out, and a more accurate one devised.
Scientific laws are descriptive.

PRESCRIPTIVE laws prescribe how things ought to be. Moral rules and the laws of a country are all prescriptive. The commandment "Thou shalt not murder" is prescriptive. It doesn't tell us whether there are, in fact, any murders. It merely tells us not to do them. And if someone does commit a murder, then we don't jettison the law. Instead the person gets punished.

Laws about DRM are all prescriptive. I'm not sure that it helps to compare them to descriptive laws, which are an entirely different category.

Thanks for that. Great food for thought Patricia!

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I'm beginning to think you just want to argue and that this whole thread was started for that reason.

It was started as a poll to get a more nuanced view than the "piracy is good/bad" debate - with some success, I think. When people run out of reasoned arguments, they often resort to attacking the person that they're arguing with, rather than what they're saying.

You are interpreting my words though. Please quote them exactly rather than put your words into my posts.

I did not put my words in your posts - whenever I use quote, it's a quote.

And quite trying to spin the topic or the other posts.

(sic)
I'm not. You said elsewhere, discussing piracy, that this was not a question of the law, but a moral question. Now, on this thread, you appear to be saying that the law captures a social consensus, so should be obeyed. My point was that the law does not call copying theft - so it's not theft under your latest argument.

Do you know what Alice said?

Curiouser and curiouser

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

It might as well be when it starts making sense.

I have several problems with IP:

1) if it's property, why does it revert to public domain after a time? It would make sense for it to stay a property and licence forever. It's said that it's not really a property, but it's called property. Bad naming.

If you look at it like real estate there are cases where it reverts to public land. It's my feeling that in the computer age Intellectual Property becomes or should become just like any other property in how we manage it. The copyright and patent system is very outdated and often inappropriate to digital technologies.

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

2) parts of it are property as well. With small enough parts, it's likely that different creators created the same part independently, so the latter one is in copyright violation. Where does it stop? There is a good short story about society in which people are allowed to trademark words, and have communication systems good enough to detect every use of that word and demand payment. Is that what it'll be?

...

it's TURTLES all the way DOWN!

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

....

Curiouser and curiouser

Nah, try yahoo answers:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...8001854AAGRbw0

or

A famous example of paradox is Through the Looking Glass (1871) by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of Charles Dodgson ( 1832-1898). The entire book is a mirror of the "real" world" through the "looking glass" world. When Alice goes into the Looking Glass world, she has trouble getting places by heading towards them. When she walks toward a place, she finds that she is actually walking away. One of the characters advises Alice to walk away from the place she wants to go, and finds "It succeeded beautifully."


From Chapter 5:

`Only it is so very lonely here!' Alice said in a melancholy voice; and, at the thought of her loneliness, two large tears came rolling down her cheeks.

`Oh, don't go on like that!' cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands in despair. `Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way you've come to-day. Consider what o'clock it is. Consider anything, only don't cry!'

Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears. `Can you keep from crying by considering things?' she asked.

`That's the way it's done,' the Queen said with great decision: `nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to begin with -- how old are you?'

`I'm seven and a half, exactly.'

`You needn't say "exactly",' the Queen remarked. `I can believe it without that. Now I'll give you something to believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day.'

`I ca'n't believe that!' said Alice.

`Ca'n't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one ca'n't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!'

--------------


and this one's kind of interesting:

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
~Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

[Pardoz]

In the 'copying is theft' argument

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master--that's all.'

might be more apropos...

[kennyc]

I do think I need to re-read "Alice..." ....probably be time better spent than reading threads like this.

Downloadable from MR right here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...ice+Wonderland

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

might be more apropos...

Now there's a nice knock-down argument for you!