Funny I don't feel like a criminal

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by kennyc

What I find odd it that you don't have a clue what I'm talking about and you keep acting like you do. No you are NOT CORRECT. It is a very poor example and has little relevance to the digital book world. The sports ticket or movie ticket example is way more relevant.

So the acts of trespassing fraud and adding wear and tear onto someone's facilities are the equivalent of of creating some 0's and 1's on your computer that come in the same pattern as the 0's and 1's someone somewhere might be selling but then again they might not have even made the source into 0's and 1's themselves at all and may never do so. But the act of using images of a copyrighted work without permission from the creator for sale is nothing at all like ebook copying. Got ya. Well my original point was that things aren't so cut and dry.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's sure a funny thing to believe. Property = Theft.

Mmm, Karl Marx thought it was odd too. Say, you're not one of these damned commies are you kennyc?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by TGS

Mmm, Karl Marx thought it was odd too. Say, you're not one of these damned commies are you kennyc?

No, worse. I'm a Libertarian!

[GhostHawk]

The only thing that I can say for sure kenny, is that on every discussion of terms, you seem to end up on the wrong side.

With no physical property being taken it can not be theft.
Society decides what terms mean, you don't get to change the meanings to suit yourself. Not unless your willing to put yourself outside of society. Even then the only person who will agree with you, is you.

No matter how much you want to, you can not make gray into black, nor black into gray.

[kennyc]

It's not me that's on the wrong side of the law.

(or ethics or morality for that matter )

[GhostHawk]

Is it immoral to speed? Its against the law, yet people do it all the time.
Is it Immoral to cheat on your taxes?

Leave Morality out of the picture. That is a personal choice and definition.
What is moral for one person is not for another.

[Iphinome]

wouldn't a liberation be against the government enforced monopolies on copying as it prevents a free market for the work and puts restrictions on your freedom to copy to create derivative works? I'd think a libertarian would be opposed to all copyrights and patents as not being the government's buisness. Heinlein's society on Tertius had no copyright laws.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

Is it immoral to speed? Its against the law, yet people do it all the time.
Is it Immoral to cheat on your taxes?

Leave Morality out of the picture. That is a personal choice and definition.
What is moral for one person is not for another.

In that case.... copyright infringement is illegal! So what are you arguing about?

And haven't you considered that "copyright infringement" is just another word for a specific type of theft that involves IP, not physical goods?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by GhostHawk

...
Leave Morality out of the picture. That is a personal choice and definition.
What is moral for one person is not for another.

No. And no it's not, morality is only applicable within a society it has nothing to do with individuals. Law is an outgrowth or implementation of morality (regardless of whether it is a correct implementation or not).

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

wouldn't a liberation be against the government enforced monopolies on copying as it prevents a free market for the work and puts restrictions on your freedom to copy to create derivative works? I'd think a libertarian would be opposed to all copyrights and patents as not being the government's buisness. Heinlein's society on Tertius had no copyright laws.

Well you seem to think a lot of things. Keep thinking. But please quit assuming you know what others think or believe and quit putting words in their mouths, most people here can speak for themselves.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by kennyc

No. And no it's not, morality is only applicable within a society it has nothing to do with individuals. Law is an outgrowth or implementation of morality (regardless of whether it is a correct implementation or not).

Laws put restrictions on individual freedoms for the sake of society as a whole. There's nothing moral about a speed limit it's just there because one day people decided it was safer for everyone if some bozo didn't go tearing though town at top speed. There's nothing moral about a law against murder society simply wouldn't function if everyone was killing each other, that's not moral that's practical. If you want laws that conform to your morality go found a theocratic state, the holy kennyc empire. Personally, I like a system where other people aren't suppose things on me based only on what they think is moral. I love living in a place where people don't go to jail for adultery or sodomy or working on a sunday or coveting or blasphemy goddammit! It sure isn't a perfect system but hey I get to decide what's moral for me and then not force it on you unless for some reason a whole big bunch of people decide it's really necessary for a functioning society and a bunch more people in funny robes and answering to "your honor" decide it doesn't violate constitutionally guaranteed freedoms.

[Iphinome]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Well you seem to think a lot of things. Keep thinking. But please quit assuming you know what others think or believe and quit putting words in their mouths, most people here can speak for themselves.

I apologize for taking your claim of being a librarian at face value.

[kennyc]

Can we get back on topic please.

[llreader]

Originally Posted by Iphinome

I apologize for taking your claim of being a librarian at face value.

The problem is that Kenny wants everyone to listen to the voices in his head, but I can't hear them!

No offense Ken, but no one seems to be able to figure out exactly what you want the world to be like.

Anyway, back to the topic feeling like a thief. It looks like some other countries are not thrilled about adopting the US interpretation of IP protection, and are saying so as part of the ACTA process. So, people all over the world, including governments, don't "feel like a criminal" even though some companies say they should.

[TGS]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Can we get back on topic please.

The topic seems to be that A thinks activities of type X constitute theft, whilst B thinks that activities of type X do not constitute theft. All seem to agree that activities of type Y constitute theft, and all seem to agree that activities of type Z do not constitute theft.

So the dispute is about what X is going to count as - theft or not theft, and the protagonists adduce arguments to support the claim that X is more like Y than it is like Z, or X is more like Z than it is like Y.

We might think that the way in which things come to count as something is in some way a property of the world - that's just how it is, and we come to know about it by discovering it. However, following the philosopher John Searle, the way in social facts such as whether X constitutes theft come to be known is not by discovery but by social action. If X is some kinds of copying of copyrighted material it seems we are not yet in a position to say whether X counts as theft. Yes, we can call it theft, but that is to use the word "theft" in a way that it has not heretofore been used. But there are things about X which make it a lot like theft.

As much as kennyc will not like this, it is simply indeterminate at this point whether X is to count as theft. It is because it is indeterminate that we have all sorts of inflated talk from government and industry which is aimed at resolving the indeterminacy. But such a resolution has not happened yet.

Embrace the indeterminacy I say