interesting NYT article on "copyright morality"

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

You've been using the term IP wrong, Steve. It does not refer to the idea, because you cannot own an idea. IP refers to the pieces of paper that give you the right of sole use of the idea.

Your books are not your intellectual property, Steve. Your IP is the right to copy and distribute the books. Thus, unless someone tricks you into signing away the copyright, your property has not been stolen.

But that's really just semantics. The point of IP is to secure that no one can profit off of the use of an idea registered to me, except me, unless I say it's okay.

That includes ideas that are considered slightly altered from mine, but clearly based on my idea. For instance, if someone writes a story about a Captain Keister flying a space freighter called the Betty with a purple-skinned man from Venus at the helm, a lizard-girl running cargo and a cook who grows orchids in a storage locker, I can sue that person for violation of my copyright, even though the material isn't exactly the same as mine. That's because IP law protects the idea, not just the paper it's printed on.

And that's why IP protects electronic files: It's the idea, not the medium, that is being protected.

There's a lot of inventive word-play that goes on around here, used to justify people's positions. Some of it is legal wordplay. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether or not you took something that doesn't belong to you.

[deviant]

Actually, at the end of the day it comes down to justifying it to yourself. If you can defend your case there (and most people, no matter how ludicrous their motivations, can) nobody can impose the idea that what you did was wrong because, as you see it, it wasn't wrong at all.

Hence why these debates are more an attempt at satisfying oneself rather that convince others, especially since even trying to convince others is a failed attempt before it even began.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

If all you do here is self-justify your case, without listening to the words of others, or considering that others may have a valid point of view, then yes... you're just spinning your wheels here.

If on the other hand, you're interested in honest debate, clear understanding and a desire to struggle for consensus among your peers on contentious cutting-edge issues... and possibly even to help shape them...

You're in the right place.

So...

Let's get back to copyright and the morality of taking electrons. (Because, yes, this issue is becoming as confusing as any quantum physics lecture I've ever heard...)

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

But that's really just semantics. The point of IP is to secure that no one can profit off of the use of an idea registered to me, except me, unless I say it's okay.

It's not semantics. If, as you implied, your book was the IP then I could go to your website and buy a copy. I would then have the right to distribute it because I bought the book. We both know I can't.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

That includes ideas that are considered slightly altered from mine, but clearly based on my idea. For instance, if someone writes a story about a Captain Keister flying a space freighter called the Betty with a purple-skinned man from Venus at the helm, a lizard-girl running cargo and a cook who grows orchids in a storage locker, I can sue that person for violation of my copyright, even though the material isn't exactly the same as mine. That's because IP law protects the idea, not just the paper it's printed on.

And you would have to prove that the defendant had come in contact with your story in order to win the case. That is not easy.

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

And that's why IP protects electronic files: It's the idea, not the medium, that is being protected.

There's a lot of inventive word-play that goes on around here, used to justify people's positions. Some of it is legal wordplay. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether or not you took something that doesn't belong to you.

If an illicit copy is made of a file, exactly what was stolen? No one was deprived of anything. This is why copyright infringement is not stealing.

P.S. I am not using legal wordplay to justify making illicit copies of someone else's work. I only wish to debate the flaws I see in your arguments.

[tsgreer]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

....Hate to burst your bubble, but when parents are giving you "unquestionable love," they are banking on your returning that with care for them in their old age. So, in actuality, it is "you help me and I'll help you.".....

A wee off-topic, but I just had to address this. I'm a parent, and trust me, I don't love my kid because I am banking on him returning that care. I love my pug and I certainly don't bank on her taking care of me in old age. There actually are instances of unquestionable love in the world...

Just thought that maybe in the heat of battle, you got a bit cynical.

Now back to the battle...

[deviant]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

If all you do here is self-justify your case, without listening to the words of others, or considering that others may have a valid point of view, then yes... you're just spinning your wheels here.

If on the other hand, you're interested in honest debate, clear understanding and a desire to struggle for consensus among your peers on contentious cutting-edge issues... and possibly even to help shape them...

Oh no, quite the contrary, I WANT my beliefs to be challenged, else, how would I know if they're right?

However, bitter experience has tough me that people rarely, if ever, relinquish the stance they take at the beginning of an argument, regardless of arguments or material exhibited.

[tsgreer]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

.....There's a lot of inventive word-play that goes on around here, used to justify people's positions. Some of it is legal wordplay. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to whether or not you took something that doesn't belong to you...

That sums it up exactly!! If someone didn't mean for you to have their stuff for free and you took it anyway, then it's stealing. Regardless of whether or not it's electrons, cars, ideas, shoes, etc...

If I walk into Borders, see a book I like but then decide that the publisher is ripping off the author or that Borders is charging too much, I'm still not allowed to stick it under my shirt and walk out. It doesn't belong to me.

[deviant]

Originally Posted by tsgreer

If I walk into Borders, see a book I like but then decide that the publisher is ripping off the author or that Borders is charging too much, I'm still not allowed to stick it under my shirt and walk out. It doesn't belong to me.

Ah, yes - but here you're depriving someone else of that same book and stealing something the bookstore payed for. Stealing a physical book or downloading it from the internet is not the same.

[tsgreer]

Originally Posted by deviant

Ah, yes - but here you're depriving someone else of that same book and stealing something the bookstore payed for. Stealing a physical book or downloading it from the internet is not the same.

This is where the disagreement stems from. I think that stealing a physical book and downloading it from the internet illegally is exactly the same thing. So does the law in most countries. So do most authors and publishers. Just because it "costs" less to distribute electronically than traditional publishing doesn't make it any different.

Just because other people have access to another file after you steal it doesn't make it different. You didn't pay for it and the author/publisher/estate didn't want you to have it for free. If they want you to have it for free, they will give it to you for free.

They (the author/publisher/estate) may accept that you may buy a paper book and give it away. They may accept that you can go to a library. They may accept that you can go to a 2nd hand used bookstore. But they don't accept that you take electronic copies and pass it around.

If they did accept that or wanted you to do that, then they would put their stuff (or all of their future stuff) for you on the web for free. And some do do that. The one's who don't probably don't want you stealing their crap! Ok, their books probably aren't crap, but I was being dramatic.

You know, there are authors who agree with you. They make their work available for you. Stick to their work and everything's cool. If you take the the work that people don't want you to have because they own it, you are stealing!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by tsgreer

Just thought that maybe in the heat of battle, you got a bit cynical.

Who... me?!?

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Just to sort of hit everything above that's directed to me (in other words, now that the barrage is over, I'll try to recover)...

There's still a lot of disagreement here of whether an e-book counts as a thing that can be stolen. This frankly amazes me. Maybe stealing, by strict legal definition, only covers physical objects... but an e-book is in fact a physical object, even if it is electronic, and easily duplicated or distributed. The fact that you can't hold it in your hand is not a justification for saying it's up for grabs, or that its illicit possession is okay. (I think I do need a quantum physicist to join in here...)

You can argue the differences between copyright infringement and stealing, but if someone makes a copy of my copywritten book without permission, and gives it to someone else, they are wrongfully duplicating a product of mine. Even if they give it away for free, in the eyes of the law, it is a violation of copyright, and it is considered the same as stealing from me. And if that copywritten work is an e-book, the result is the same as a printed book.

IP laws do not specifically state, but imply in their use, that ideas, concepts, patents, etc, are the secured property of the registered owner, for a finite amount of time, that the owner has a right to profit from that idea, and that he has the right to protection against someone taking and using that idea against his wishes. That includes unauthorized duplication and distribution of that idea. It's not intended to last forever, the way physical property laws are... it's designed to give an individual the right to benefit from the fruits of their mental labors comparable to the fruits of other men's physical labors. And it is not limited to the medium the idea is recorded upon... it transcends and includes all mediums.

Without these protections, how would you expect someone to profit off of any labor that did not produce a physical product? Why would you expect anyone to work at anything that did not make them a profit? If people did not care to produce, because there was no profit in it for them, how much literature, or any art, would we have?

Some of the greatest artists in the world had patrons supporting them. Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Rockwell, Wright... these people worked on commission. Without that, who knows if they would have given us any of the masterworks we have today?

Now, I'm no Da Vinci (don't say it...) but I deserve the same rights and respect as he, and any other artist, to benefit from their work. And illicitly copying and distributing my work does not benefit me.

[Nate the great]

We should not get start a legal argument while discussing the ethic argument.

Originally Posted by tsgreer

This is where the disagreement stems from. I think that stealing a physical book and downloading it from the internet illegally is exactly the same thing. So does the law in most countries. So do most authors and publishers. Just because it "costs" less to distribute electronically than traditional publishing doesn't make it any different.

Just because other people have access to another file after you steal it doesn't make it different. You didn't pay for it and the author/publisher/estate didn't want you to have it for free. If they want you to have it for free, they will give it to you for free.

You know, there are authors who agree with you. They make their work available for you. Stick to their work and everything's cool. If you take the the work that people don't want you to have because they own it, you are stealing!

Another word for stealing is larceny. Larceny is a type of crime. I have never heard of someone being charged with larceny after downloading a file. If you know of one, please tell me.

The two are not the same.

[Nate the great]

Steve, I agree with you about it being morally wrong. But it's not stealing. I guess it is just semantics.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Steve, I agree with you about it being morally wrong. But it's not stealing. I guess it is just semantics.

Well, that's why laws are designed to be rewritten to accommodate new concepts (and new crimes). With all the debating we're doing here, I imagine at some point the law will define what we're wrestling with, and decide what's to be done about it.

[Amalthia]

Originally Posted by Astropin

I'm really surprised this individual did not get a response yet......this is exactly the type of person we are discussing here.

This is wrong. The fact that your player does not work is no excuse to steal movies. Buy a new DVD player (or DVD drive) or "go without".

Um yeah that's not going to work and I can assure you that i'm not the only one that thinks this way. I already paid for a DVD player that works for my older DVDs just not the new ones. I'm not paying more money to the people who are trying to rob me by not making all DVDs to the same standards. There shouldn't be any reason at all why all dvds won't play in my DVD player. DRM is the culprit behind this problem and I'm not paying into the system that encourages companies to release DVDs that don't work!

And also telling people to do without??? yeah also not going to work if there are easy to obtain copies.

Also I already own Jane Fancher books as well as every book Katharine Kerr wrote. I'm trying to replace my 2000 paper books with electronic books and it's not exactly easy since I can't find more than half of them online darknet or ebook store.