What are your views on illegal copying?

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by kennyc

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

I'd recommend the annotated Alice - which doesn't, unfortunately, seem to exist as an e-book

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

I'd recommend the annotated Alice - which doesn't, unfortunately, seem to exist as an e-book

The link I provided is the illustrated version here on MR

I personally don't care to read annotated versions, it's sort of like revisionist history.

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I do think I need to re-read "Alice..."

It's always a good time to re-read Alice! And thanks a ton for the link - the copy I already have doesn't have the Tenniel illustrations, so I shall steal a new one from MR post-haste.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

It's always a good time to re-read Alice! And thanks a ton for the link - the copy I already have doesn't have the Tenniel illustrations, so I shall steal a new one from MR post-haste.

[Harmon]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

The discussion preceded your post. The point, though, is that according to the law, copying is not theft. That's the point - look at the laws indeed.

That is correct.

When people start talking about "theft" in connection with copying, what they are really doing is invoking a deeper morality than that reflected in the law. All things that are legal are not necessarily moral. All things that are illegal are not immoral.

Take speeding. Illegal in most places. Immoral when dangerous to others. But in Montana, with nothing but the sky and the highway, it's not immoral and last I heard, not illegal.

Now, some people believe that it is immoral to violate the law. But even the law does not believe that. The law - at least, Anglo-Saxon derived law - distinguishes between malum in se, (wrong or evil in itself) and malem prohibitum (wrong only because it is prohibited.) Murder for the former, parking violation for the latter.

But it is absolutely clear that in the US, disregard of copyright/DRM is under some circumstances legal, sometimes illegal, but never "theft." It is malum prohibitum, whereas theft is malum in se.

A quick & dirty way to tell the difference is to suss out whether the law can be violated unintentionally. If it can, it is usually malum prohibitum. You cannot unintentionally steal something. But you can unintentionally violate copyright.

So when someone says that copyright violation is theft, what they are saying is that based on their interpretation of prevailing moral standards, it is morally wrong. They aren't really saying that it is theft, legally speaking. If they are, they are wrong.

The discussion gets confused because in the course of enacting and enforcing copyright, the law comes up with a mental construct, "intellectual property," which has no objective existence. You can steal an idea only in a colloquial sense. You cannot actually deprive someone of an idea.

It used to be that IP, to be profited from, had to be embodied in a physical artifact. And that is still true, for example, in connection with medical drugs, or inventions like cars and computers. But it is no longer true in connection with books and music.

You have to be careful here, because if you don't watch out, the discussion takes a turn into the question of copying. Analogies are drawn between digital copying and photocopying, for instance.

But I think the real problem is this: the concept of Intellectual Property never actually solved the problem of rewarding creators. The reason IP seemed to work was, not because it was a coherent idea, but because there was no other way to use IP except to make a physical product, and the economic and technological circumstances of the time made it possible to control the making and distribution of that product.

IP is a kind of fudge factor. It is a mental placeholder for something that we think must exist in order to explain what is going on. But it is entirely dependent on a correct understanding of the situation. That's why in an earlier post, I compared it to aether. Aether explained a scientific understanding that turned out to be a misunderstanding. IP explains an old technology that is being replaced by a different technology. It worked under the old technology, but that technology is no longer "correct."

There are all sorts of legal concepts that disappear, or are replaced by new ones as times change. The oath of fealty is an example. Made sense under feudalism. Not very useful for democracy, but in some sense has been replaced by citizenship - and citizenship itself is changing and might seem quaint in a hundred years or so. I think that IP is going down the same road. Some vestige of the concept will linger, like the Cheshire Cat's smile, even where physical products have been supplanted by digital ones, but eventually, the whole cat will be gone.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Harmon

So when someone says that copyright violation is theft, what they are saying is that based on their interpretation of prevailing moral standards, it is morally wrong. They aren't really saying that it is theft, legally speaking. If they are, they are wrong.

Well, I am reading it as they are saying that is is morally equivalent to theft and then also equivalent in the underlying reasons for why it is morally wrong. And then you have without discussion just assumed what you need to show and what I believe you cannot show to hold.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by kennyc

The link I provided is the illustrated version here on MR

I personally don't care to read annotated versions, it's sort of like revisionist history.

I learned a lot from this version, which is by Martin Gardner of mathematical puzzles fame. Alice benefits from commentary, I think, both because it is full of references to things familiar to children a century ago - many no longer familiar today - and also full of references to logic and puzzles, some of which are much easier to miss than the acrostic at the end.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

I learned a lot from this version, which is by Martin Gardner of mathematical puzzles fame. Alice benefits from commentary, I think, both because it is full of references to things familiar to children a century ago - many no longer familiar today - and also full of references to logic and puzzles, some of which are much easier to miss than the acrostic at the end.

Oh, yes. I also read the annotated version and it became a better and more interesting book.

Reading an old book without proper knowledge seems to me to be revisionist history since you will interpret things according to current values.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by tompe

Reading an old book without proper knowledge seems to me to be revisionist history since you will interpret things according to current values.

Of course it is...and part of the test if a book is great or not is if it retains its relevance

[troymc]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Of course it is...and part of the test if a book is great or not is if it retains its relevance

That's an interesting statement...

Does a book "fail" the test if it doesn't retain it's relevance? And what does it mean if it does fail? That it is or was a poorly written book?


Sorry, don't mean to distract anyone from the "copy/theft" wars.

Troy

[DawnFalcon]

If it doesn't retain relevance, it tends to only be of interest to academic scholars after a century or so This dosn't mean it's bad, but... well... It's no coincidence that Mary Shelley's most famous novel has remained popular to a degree that her Husbands, Percy Shelley, writings have not.

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by tompe

You asked a moral question:


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.

This makes absolutely no sense.

The word "deserving" refered to the justification people use for helping themselves to something that does not legally belong to them.

Twisting a statement to suit your purposes has pretty much been the standard in this thread. There is no true justification for pirating someone else's property (whether digital or physical). The main excuses by those who do it is that they want it so they take it and since it's only a "copy" they aren't really hurting anyone. I think if you were the one who sweated heart and soul to produce something for which you would like compensation, you would feel quite differently. I have stated that I think the Royalty system is antiquated and don't have a solution. I do know, however, what the law states and pirating something for your own use without the consent of the owner is . . . wait for it . . . illegal.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kazbates

This makes absolutely no sense.

The word "deserving" refered to the justification people use for helping themselves to something that does not legally belong to them.

That was a very strange question then. Why do you believe that people need to think that they deserve thing to take them? I really could not guess that what you asked was simply why people broke the law. The question was not at all formulated in that way.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kazbates

There is no true justification for pirating someone else's property (whether digital or physical). The main excuses by those who do it is that they want it so they take it and since it's only a "copy" they aren't really hurting anyone. I think if you were the one who sweated heart and soul to produce something for which you would like compensation, you would feel quite differently. I have stated that I think the Royalty system is antiquated and don't have a solution. I do know, however, what the law states and pirating something for your own use without the consent of the owner is . . . wait for it . . . illegal.

And here you are assuming it is ordinary property. Can you explain why it is OK to copy somebody else property (according to you terms) 70 years after his death? If it is his property what gives you the right to copy it? Why can he not give his property to somebody else before he die or in his will?

[kazbates]

Originally Posted by tompe

That was a very strange question then. Why do you believe that people need to think that they deserve thing to take them? I really could not guess that what you asked was simply why people broke the law. The question was not at all formulated in that way.

Perhaps it's just the way my brain formulates questions. I was pretty much typing "off the top of my head" which in many instances, only makes sense to me.

As I read further after my last post, posters are thinking that people who feel that pirating a copy of something is illegal is based on morality. I have tried to leave the question of morality out of my posts by staying as close to what I know of the laws that are on the books here in the US. The funny thing is, many of our laws are based on moral principles. Trying to separate the two seems like an exercise in futility to me.

By the way, as to the whole Judge Dredd thing; there are plenty of laws here in the US that are out and out senseless and many that need refining and clarifying. The gray areas in our Judicial system are huge and far beyond my simple self. However, ignoring a law simply because you disagree with it for moral, ethical, or any reason is still breaking the law. It happens, sometimes for a good reason and when it does in those instances that action causes changes in the law. Perhaps that will happen here.