Misleading Metaphors That Drive The War On Online Sharing

[Pinecone]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

It's theft in my jurisdiction. Which is why many courts have used the terms "theft" or "stealing" to describe certain types of what were probably charged as copyright infringement.

Can you be prosecuted (not sued, but proscuted by the state)?

Can you go to jail for it?

Is the answer to these is no, it is NOT theft.

[Serpentine]

but... Would you download a car?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Pinecone

Can you be prosecuted (not sued, but proscuted by the state)?

Can you go to jail for it?

Is the answer to these is no, it is NOT theft.

But that's what we're talking about, isn't it? You're right, of course, that copyright infringement isn't classed as theft at the moment. But would it help to reduce piracy if it were to be? Do you think that people who might think nothing of breaking copyright law would be put off if they knew that they were committing theft instead?

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But that's what we're talking about, isn't it? You're right, of course, that copyright infringement isn't classed as theft at the moment. But would it help to reduce piracy if it were to be? Do you think that people who might think nothing of breaking copyright law would be put off if they knew that they were committing theft instead?

No... There are many asinine laws on the books that are routinely ignored by the vast majority of the populace.

Just because something is the law, doesn't mean people will agree with it and follow it. Reclassifying copyright infringment to be theft, which is impossible given the current wording of statutes, does nothing to change the belief of the populace.

The only thing that will change this is if the companies convince a larger portion of the populace that they are getting a product that is worth the price. Convince more people to be a consumer of your product.

But I know, that's a foreign concept in today's world of litigation.

[emellaich]

Just to add an interesting twist here, consider the implications of 3d printing.

As background let me explain a 3d printer. It is a device that can print solid objects by adding layer upon layer of material. All it takes is a supply of appropriate raw material and digital instructions of what to print. It has been used for everything from aircraft replacement parts to replacement organs for the human body -- although most of these are only in the proof of concept stage. A working mechanical clock (gears, etc.) has been printed as well as a circuit board (not the CPU, yet).

One enterprising individual figured out how to use a 3d printer to create an assault rifle. It seems that it's perfectly legal to get parts for your existing assault rifle if you already own one. you just can't buy a new one. All parts are available except one specific part that is likewise controlled to keep you from building a new assault rifle. This individual demonstrated that you could print out the one missing part and buy the rest.

This technology brings the exact same issues we are discussing to both copyright and patents of physical goods. A digital model to print out an object can be copyrighted. If I create a model to print out a novel object and you 'share' my model without authorization what are the implications? What if I print out an object that you have patented?

Today this technology is available via the Internet. You can upload your own model and they will print it and mail the object to you. However, there are already home printers (with limited capabilities) available for $1,000 (US).

Bottom line is that this discussion really isn't just about intangible goods. It relates to all(?) copyrights and patents.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

No... There are many asinine laws on the books that are routinely ignored by the vast majority of the populace.

Just because something is the law, doesn't mean people will agree with it and follow it. Reclassifying copyright infringment to be theft, which is impossible given the current wording of statutes, does nothing to change the belief of the populace.

The belief of the majority of the populace is that it's wrong to take stuff you don't own without paying for it. It's only the minority who are dishonest.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think that fewer people would break the law if the law called if "theft" instead of using "cozy" words like "File Sharing", that make it sound like it's a good thing to do?

Things like that are only really useful for causing arguments on internet forums. I haven't read the article, but I've sent it to my Kindle to read later so I don't know if it already mentions this at all.

But the reason 25% of the online population download unauthorised files is because the copyright holders refused to release authorised digital copies in the late 90s when people first started buying devices to play digital content.

So people turned to other sources instead. Once they went there it was hard for the copyright holders to win them back when they did condescend to give people what they wanted.

Now you have a situation where people aged 21 and under have grown up with unauthorised downloads and really see nothing wrong with it at all. As an overall group, they do still buy things, probably just as much as we did at that age, but everything else will be downloaded.

[DustyDisks]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

Things like that are only really useful for causing arguments on internet forums. I haven't read the article, but I've sent it to my Kindle to read later so I don't know if it already mentions this at all.

But the reason 25% of the online population download unauthorised files is because the copyright holders refused to release authorised digital copies in the late 90s when people first started buying devices to play digital content.

So people turned to other sources instead. Once they went there it was hard for the copyright holders to win them back when they did condescend to give people what they wanted.

Now you have a situation where people aged 21 and under have grown up with unauthorised downloads and really see nothing wrong with it at all. As an overall group, they do still buy things, probably just as much as we did at that age, but everything else will be downloaded.

Methinks that the age stated is much higher than 21.This mind set has been around much longer than 21 years. More like since the first floppy's became popular for mass storage, 640kb and up.

It has just gotten easer too do now.

Back then a 10 Meg hard drive was a dream to have and rare as hens teeth. For the hobbyist.

Been there and done that!

Edit: 300 baud was smoking fast also.

[carpetmojo]

It's interesting that we've "been there/here before" - i.e. the music industry.

There, the sums involved were vast, and the problem so much larger.
However, an answer or compromise was, in a way, found.
It was to basically licence/authorise "sharers" - or big business ones, anyway - to provide music downloads......... and not attempt to bankrupt themselves by using the law on a wholesale effort to put them in jail or out of business somehow.

BUT, a big mindset change here, at a far lower price for downloads, than the "legal" forms of supply - CD's etc... Perhaps because they regarded the "sharing" community as lost income anyway ?

Indeed, some musicians had begun giving their music away, initially, for free anyway, as they saw it as a way of getting core followers.
Which terrified music moguls !

The financial model made sense, & staved off an inevitable collapse of the industry - which I feel could still occur, depending on technology probably, somewhen in the future.
And there was no equivalent to DRM - other than trying to technically stop people copying/burning/ripping. And that failed totally, and it always was going to.

I think the difficulty for the publishing industry is that it is a much smaller, and probably shrinking, market, accustomed - like the music one was - to high profit margins. Also that the financial "reward" for writers can never approach the scale of (successfull) musicians.
So the near parity of price between physical and digital book is, in a way, the same engine that drove piracy in the music business i.e. cost to consumers.
And I can't see how this can be addressed in the same way with books.
I don't know the figures, but I'd assume the "loss" to publishing is a lot less, percentage-wise, than the huge music busines was facing.

Sorry for the length, but I found myself working it out as I went along.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

So the near parity of price between physical and digital book is, in a way, the same engine that drove piracy in the music business i.e. cost to consumers.

Most of the costs associated with publishing a book are the same for a paper book as they are for an eBook; you save printing costs with the eBook, of course, but printing is a relatively minor constituent in the overall cost model. We're never going to see 99p books from major publishers - it just doesn't work economically.

Another factor, for publishers in the UK market at least, is that eBooks are subject to VAT and paper books are zero-rated. This means that even if the eBook is sold for a price that's 20% lower than the print price, the customer will end up paying the same.

I'd say that most publishers actually get it pretty much right; even with VAT added, eBooks typically are a pound or so cheaper than the paperback equivalent.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Most of the costs associated with publishing a book are the same for a paper book as they are for an eBook; you save printing costs with the eBook, of course, but printing is a relatively minor constituent in the overall cost model. We're never going to see 99p books from major publishers - it just doesn't work economically.

I would have thought distribution and warehousing would be a bigger cost than printing. I can have a 200 page paperback printed for a unit cost of £2.20, and that's with very low quantities so for a 10,000+ print run it would be a lot lower.

Most of the cost of ebooks from proper publishers is due to the 85% cut that the publishers take, that's why independent writers can afford to undercut them so much. But the main reason you will never see 99p ebooks from them is because they don't want people to choose ebooks over paper books.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by DustyDisks

Methinks that the age stated is much higher than 21.This mind set has been around much longer than 21 years. More like since the first floppy's became popular for mass storage, 640kb and up.

Longer than that really, if you include reel to reel recorders and cassette tapes. And a comic mart I used to go to in the early 80s had someone selling photocopies of rare books.

But I was thinking about mp3 and ebooks specifically. People started buying devices to use them on in the late 90s, but legal downloads only really became available in the mid-00s. The logical thing to do would have been to have legal downloads available from the start, as soon as people started consuming them in large quantities. Once people are used to getting something for free it is very difficult to get them going back to paying for it again.

iTunes and similar took off because the price of the hardware came down to a level that enticed a lot of new owners into buying them, and the availability of legal downloads meant they didn't need to look anywhere else for them. I think that's likely to happen with ebook readers too.

The people who download unauthorised files are already lost, calling them thieves, mind-rapists, terrorists or whatever else you can think of won't make any difference, they'll just make fun of you in Youtube cartoons. It's the consumers who came along after the legal downloads became available who matter.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I agree that the metaphors used in the copyright infringement argument need serious revamping: The most common metaphors, examples and hypotheticals, including those used on this and most other digital media devoted sites, tend to be based on bad analogies to digital media.

Also, trying to rule out certain words--for example, "theft"--because of their traditional usage with other kinds of products, is disingenuous at best. Words, and their meanings, haven't been carved in stone for a long time, and there are plenty of examples of a word's meaning being modified or amended to include some new or modernized aspect of life.

Instead of spending so much time in creative wordsmithing, obscuring the real matter at hand, we need to decide what harm is being done and what can be done about it (for all of this is supremely unimportant if wrongdoers can't be identified, stopped or punished).

[wizwor]

I'll take the other side.

The concept of protecting intellectual property needs to be revisited. Generally, the content creator has too many rights which, if enforced, would make everyone a criminal. Afterall, if I play a song on my laptop in a public place, is anyone who is listening in violation? Am I 'illegally distributing' content? What if I am using a boom box in my backyard? Or a block party? In a public park?

Companies copyright/patent everything so they can sue people for competing. Apple has patented just about every motion that can be made with human digits. It's crazy.

Patents and copyright were created to give IP developers a chance to make a fair profit for their effort. Now these rights span generations.

A reasonable approach would have creators licensing redistribution to warehousers who would grant license to a library for a reasonable fee. The fee would be low enough that no one would be willing to acquire and warehouse their own content yet high enough to continue to reward content creation and management.

That's where we are headed right now as Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and others cloud up. I would rather pay $8 for unlimited access for a month than collect and manage my own collection.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by wizwor

Generally, the content creator has too many rights which, if enforced, would make everyone a criminal.

I'll just say: Ha.