Confessions of a Book Pirate

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by schex86

I apologize for the lack of etiquette, my last few posts were meant to be satirical. However I disagree with you on communism, for it is an extreme. Extreme socialism in fact, as it completely concentrates power in the hands of a privileged few, who decide with impunity what is best for everyone. No matter the circumstance, this is always the most apparent characteristic of every communist gov't that has ever existed, from Castro to Lenin.

So I apologize again, I should not use the term in jest.

Doesn't this perfectly describe capitalism as well?

Cheers,
PKFFW

[schex86]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

Doesn't this perfectly describe capitalism as well?

Cheers,
PKFFW

Not according to my understanding of a market economy, in which market forces are determined by the individual choices of the many. In fact, true open market capitalism is the exact opposite of communism.

However, in the case of crony capitalism, which I mentioned earlier, the collusion of special interest and gov't coercion combine to grant an economic advantage to groups or industries which would not otherwise survive in an open market economy, thus postponing the process of creative destruction so essential to capitalist innovation.

It could be said to be a form of communism, in which a self serving few dictate economic terms to the masses, but only in a small sector of the overall economy. Regardless of the rationale used to justify this, such arrangements always result in a net loss, as the capital allocation will always be handled in a less efficient manner than if the gov't interference had not occurred. This inefficiency is further exacerbated in scenarios such as our current copyright scheme, in which the interests of society are dismissed as irrelevant, and the exercise of the natural rights of its members labeled as "theft". Any arrangement must include the interests of all concerned, or it will invariably be ineffective.

No wonder the various publishers have struggled in their campaign to propagandize the public. Though the concept of modern "piracy" certainly benefits their bottom line, it goes against the basic understanding most people have in the US about sharing formation. Just like Ben Franklin and his free library and book sharing club, we see a great benefit in pooling our resources and sharing knowledge, art, what have you. It is how we believe society has advanced throughout history, and the past 100 years of copyright legislation is not going to change this.

Some might call it "theft", but I call it sharing for the benefit of all. Others might call it "hoarding", I call it the use of my own property and technology as I see fit, sans any control they might have arranged amongst themselves to have over me.

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by schex86

Not according to my understanding of a market economy, in which market forces are determined by the individual choices of the many. In fact, true open market capitalism is the exact opposite of communism.

However, in the case of crony capitalism, which I mentioned earlier, the collusion of special interest and gov't coercion combine to grant an economic advantage to groups or industries which would not otherwise survive in an open market economy, thus postponing the process of creative destruction so essential to capitalist innovation.

It could be said to be a form of communism, in which a self serving few dictate economic terms to the masses, but only in a small sector of the overall economy. Regardless of the rationale used to justify this, such arrangements always result in a net loss, as the capital allocation will always be handled in a less efficient manner than if the gov't interference had not occurred. This inefficiency is further exacerbated in scenarios such as our current copyright scheme, in which the interests of society are dismissed as irrelevant, and the exercise of the natural rights of its members labeled as "theft". Any arrangement must include the interests of all concerned, or it will invariably be ineffective.

No wonder the various publishers have struggled in their campaign to propagandize the public. Though the concept of modern "piracy" certainly benefits their bottom line, it goes against the basic understanding most people have in the US about sharing formation. Just like Ben Franklin and his free library and book sharing club, we see a great benefit in pooling our resources and sharing knowledge, art, what have you. It is how we believe society has advanced throughout history, and the past 100 years of copyright legislation is not going to change this.

Some might call it "theft", but I call it sharing for the benefit of all. Others might call it "hoarding", I call it the use of my own property and technology as I see fit, sans any control they might have arranged amongst themselves to have over me.

The end result of a truly capitalist society can only ever be the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a very few.

For example, one company produces books and is in competition with another company that does the same. If the market is truly free then both will compete until only one company can survive. The only reason this does not happen is because of anti-competition laws designed to prevent monopolies.

Now, take that example and apply it to the entire markets. Soon there is only one company for each field or product. They then must start to canabalize each other in order to continue to grow.

Again, if the market is truly free as it should be in a truly capitalist society, the end result can only be one company that produces everything.

Now take the same principle and apply it to ownership of said companies. Those with wealth are in a position to increase their wealth at a greater rate than others. Hence, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Eventually there is a small minority who control all the wealth.

Now, in the real world it doesn't work exactly that way of course. However, it is a fact that approximately 90% of the worlds wealth is controlled by 1-5% of the worlds population. And as the golden rule states...."he who has the gold, makes the rules".

So I don't see how it is any different to your defining characteristic of Communism. That being "it completely concentrates power in the hands of a privileged few, who decide with impunity what is best for everyone."

Cheers,
PKFFW

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by schex86

My question is, where are your interests in this social contract? If you chose not to pay the tax once you learned its origins, would that be considered "theft" and if so, who would you be depriving of "property"? If you had enjoyed the garden, and even taken thousands of pictures of it, "hoarding" them in your own photo album, would that somehow obligate you to accept the conditions of the "Parks and Foliage" tax without question?

It's an interesting analogy, but there is one key difference from the situation with contemporary content creators. In the terms of your analogy, many gardeners created their gardens with the understanding that people would pay to see them, according to an established social contract. Subsequently declaring that viewing of gardens should be free from now on, and gardeners may not erect walls and charge admission, nor forbid photographs, is a violation of the social contract the gardener entered into when she invested all that time in her garden.

That being said, if walls around gardens are allowed and even expected, and someone peeks over the garden wall early in the morning, and even takes pictures for their own personal use (not for sale), can that really be called "theft"? Do we view this differently if the peekers are children, or indigents, who would never be able to afford the admission fee?

But another way to look at your original analogy might be: suppose the bill to consider the garden a "public work" was not slipped into some council vote, but was publicly discussed and put to a popular vote, and passed by an overwhelming majority. Can a dissenting citizen choose not to pay, because he doesn't like gardens? Or is that considered part of the social contract of the community, because other citizens pay a share of things the dissenter does like (e.g. public statuary), even if they don't use them?

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by nekokami

It's an interesting analogy, but there is one key difference from the situation with contemporary content creators. In the terms of your analogy, many gardeners created their gardens with the understanding that people would pay to see them, according to an established social contract. Subsequently declaring that viewing of gardens should be free from now on, and gardeners may not erect walls and charge admission, nor forbid photographs, is a violation of the social contract the gardener entered into when she invested all that time in her garden.

That being said, if walls around gardens are allowed and even expected, and someone peeks over the garden wall early in the morning, and even takes pictures for their own personal use (not for sale), can that really be called "theft"? Do we view this differently if the peekers are children, or indigents, who would never be able to afford the admission fee?

But another way to look at your original analogy might be: suppose the bill to consider the garden a "public work" was not slipped into some council vote, but was publicly discussed and put to a popular vote, and passed by an overwhelming majority. Can a dissenting citizen choose not to pay, because he doesn't like gardens? Or is that considered part of the social contract of the community, because other citizens pay a share of things the dissenter does like (e.g. public statuary), even if they don't use them?

Let's stretch the analogy further. For building the garden, the gardener get to keep the ticket proceeds for a set number of years and is then required to donate it to the public thereafter. These rules were agreed to before the gardener built the garden.

But now the gardener doesn't want to give up the garden (and the stream of revenue attached thereto). So the gardener quietly convinces the government to not take over the garden at the proper time, but sometime in the far future.

Did not the public, who agreed to the deal in the first place, not get robbed of their garden? They still have to pay fees on something that should have become free, according to the original deal....

[Pardoz]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage is marginally higher. If my experience, and the experience of those I am familiar with, is anything to go by, I would be very surprised if this increase was enough to be of any statistical significance.

Our experiences differ - I recall seeing a post on an online message board from somebody proudly announcing that his collection of cracked games and software now exceeded a gigabyte in size.

Which doesn't sound terribly impressive, until you realize that the post was on a dial-up bulletin board, and he'd worked out the gigabyte estimate by counting the number of 1.44 meg and 720k floppies he had by his computer.

An extreme case, of course, and not one that one can draw general conclusions from (other than the possibility that the fellow might have benefited from psychiatric attention).

One of the (many) things that make this discussion futile is the shortage of anything other than anecdotal experience.

[nekokami]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Did not the public, who agreed to the deal in the first place, not get robbed of their garden? They still have to pay fees on something that should have become free, according to the original deal....

Oh, sure. I don't think it should be legal to extend copyrights on existing works. (It probably shouldn't be legal to reduce copyrights on existing works, either, at least not beyond what they were at the times the works were created.)

Your analogy extension raises the question of where the gardener built the garden. It would make sense for the garden to revert to public use if it had initially been built on public land, or if the gardener had been paid by the public to build it. If the garden was built on private land from the gardener's own resources, it seems less clear why anyone would have expected the garden to revert to public ownership.

So, examining this analogy again, when an author writes a story, are they writing it on "public land" or "private land"? I am inclined to say "public land," actually. No author writes in a vacuum. We build on existing experiences, including things we've read, seen, heard, many of which were creations of someone else. Our effort creates our particular work, but we perform that work in a kind of public space. I think we acknowledge that with our concept of "public domain."

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by nekokami

So, examining this analogy again, when an author writes a story, are they writing it on "public land" or "private land"? I am inclined to say "public land," actually. No author writes in a vacuum. We build on existing experiences, including things we've read, seen, heard, many of which were creations of someone else. Our effort creates our particular work, but we perform that work in a kind of public space. I think we acknowledge that with our concept of "public domain."

Applying the analogy, it would depend on where the author did the writing/who he was writing for. If done for a public entity, or with public resources, it would be considered a public document. If done themselves, or for a private institution, that did not use public resources, the document would be private. But the document could be done as a private project, then offered to the public for purchase, essentially making it "public-access."

This doesn't mean it can't still have restrictions on what the public can or cannot do... for instance, to vandalize the work, or to refuse to pay whatever (reasonable) compensation the author demands for access.

Drawing from public experiences does not necessarily make the document public, IMO, any more than land that benefits from blown seedlings to establish its garden cannot still be private land.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by PKFFW

The end result of a truly capitalist society can only ever be the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a very few...

Competitors can peacefully coexist, even in a "truly capitalist" society.

There is nothing about capitalist society that demands "the strongest must survive by consuming all competitors." You are describing a society of 100% greed and unreasonable avarice, and despite common perception, capitalism and greed are not absolute bedfellows.

In fact, too much greed can corrupt a market to the extent that all competitors are destroyed, including a top dog that cannot sustain itself after fighting too hard to control its market, and finally leaving a market to more savvy and reasonable newcomers.

Don't condemn a system for its bad practitioners.

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by nekokami

So, examining this analogy again, when an author writes a story, are they writing it on "public land" or "private land"? I am inclined to say "public land," actually. No author writes in a vacuum. We build on existing experiences, including things we've read, seen, heard, many of which were creations of someone else. Our effort creates our particular work, but we perform that work in a kind of public space. I think we acknowledge that with our concept of "public domain."

Hmm, following this line of thought, in order to create anything 'private' you'd need to forgo public education? It seems to me that what you're proposing is anarchy-a social system in which everybody is free to impose their own rules on everybody else, to the extent they are able to, whether by physical force or mental coercion (aka persuasion).

Not my cup of tea, at all.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Oh, sure. I don't think it should be legal to extend copyrights on existing works. (It probably shouldn't be legal to reduce copyrights on existing works, either, at least not beyond what they were at the times the works were created.)

Your analogy extension raises the question of where the gardener built the garden. It would make sense for the garden to revert to public use if it had initially been built on public land, or if the gardener had been paid by the public to build it. If the garden was built on private land from the gardener's own resources, it seems less clear why anyone would have expected the garden to revert to public ownership.

So, examining this analogy again, when an author writes a story, are they writing it on "public land" or "private land"? I am inclined to say "public land," actually. No author writes in a vacuum. We build on existing experiences, including things we've read, seen, heard, many of which were creations of someone else. Our effort creates our particular work, but we perform that work in a kind of public space. I think we acknowledge that with our concept of "public domain."

We're a bit at cross-purposes. In the garden analogy, the ownership of the "value added" of the garden was granted by the public for a defined period. No one was coerced to create the garden, and all parties were informed about the terms and conditions for said garden creation. The creator did so with open eyes and full knowledge of the limited nature of the garden ownership.

But when one side or the other suddenly decide to abrogate the terms and conditions, well after the fact, is not the the party (whichever one that is losing value) being robbed?

If so, does this not reduce the "ethical standing" of those doing the robbing?

[perversity]

Originally Posted by schex86

This is the typical emotional propaganda used to justify the current draconian status of copyright and patent law.

However, in cases where the basic nature of "property" and the ability to deprive someone of it, as in "theft" are in question, the onus is on the proponents of IP to justify their position, and not the other way around.

You are the one stating that government enforced monopoly power and control is the ONLY way in which the arts and sciences can progress or flourish, yet you have NO quantitative studies which can demonstrate this, only qualitative and subjective "common-sense" arguments. And, as you loudly trumpet the economic benefit to "artists" and their hangers-on, those of the privileged elite, you ignore the multitude of costs to other members of our society. Can you quantitatively answer the question "Does copyright law, as it currently stands,provide a net benefit to society".

So since common-sense has taken center stage here, let me make use of it as well. Because even though I am not advocating communism, you are the one demanding a social contract. A truly just contract then, would necessarily incorporate a delicate balance of interests between society and the artist. If the artists or their appointed representatives (lawyers), however, choose to circumvent the interests of society, and instead collude with special interest to bind society against its will and/or without its knowledge, then any arrangement arrived at in such a fashion is, by definition, unjust.

The chart I posted earlier demonstrates almost certainly a conflict of interest in the way the social contract of copyright has been handled by those in power. Or who here would be willing to bet against the possibility of new copyright legislation being introduced as we approach 2023? I've got 100 bucks on it.

http://techliberation.com/2009/08/06...ey-mouse-curve

No, I didn't say anything like that. My statement can be summed up in one sentence, "Thieves will create their own justification(s) to steal whatever they want"
If this bothers you, you probably fall into that catagory

[guyanonymous]

Originally Posted by perversity

No, I didn't say anything like that. My statement can be summed up in one sentence, "Thieves will create their own justification(s) to steal whatever they want"
If this bothers you, you probably fall into that catagory

Wow.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by perversity

No, I didn't say anything like that. My statement can be summed up in one sentence, "Thieves will create their own justification(s) to steal whatever they want"
If this bothers you, you probably fall into that catagory

And moralists will define their own crimes to fit their own prejudices...

American Prohibition, (1920-1933) anyone....

[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by Pardoz

Our experiences differ - I recall seeing a post on an online message board from somebody proudly announcing that his collection of cracked games and software now exceeded a gigabyte in size.

Which doesn't sound terribly impressive, until you realize that the post was on a dial-up bulletin board, and he'd worked out the gigabyte estimate by counting the number of 1.44 meg and 720k floppies he had by his computer.

An extreme case, of course, and not one that one can draw general conclusions from (other than the possibility that the fellow might have benefited from psychiatric attention).

One of the (many) things that make this discussion futile is the shortage of anything other than anecdotal experience.

Yes, one message on a single BB could not be used to draw any general conclusions. And that really is my point.

Just as people do not take the idea of "every download is a lost sale" seriously because there is no evidence for it, so should the idea that "most/lots of people just like to download for the sake of it and would never buy or read the books" be taken with a grain of salt.

Cheers,
PKFFW