jofo

(this is a reply to Mageth's post)

OK, it seems we have slightly different views on what constitutes a "moral" argument.

I think that something can only be "morally right" if it has some merit for the society it applies to. Does society benefit from the individual's right to own things? Possibly, because perhaps people feel better if they can be reasonably sure that the stuff they have and use is still there in the morning.

I agree with you that "society" views information as things; this is shown by the mere existence of copyright laws. But again, this doesn *not* mean that it is necessarily good to do so. What if this way of looking at things is really just limiting us? If i have a piece of information that I like or have a certain use for, and someone copies it from me during the night, I have really lost nothing. All losses are purely potential; they wouldn't even be possible unless copyright laws were there.

Of course, someone must have broken into my house or my computer to copy it, which is not so nice. But in the case of copyright violation, that is not even the issue; most copying is actually done between consenting people; even the original author of the information is willingly parting with the original instances of it.

I think that there is really only one possible argument for copyright laws, and that would be that copyrights increase the quality and quantity of information available to people. However, I am not at all convinced that either of these are true.

Quality - what mechanisms are there in copyright laws that promote higher quality? Remember, much of the actual information we're discussing is realy different forms of art (music, movies, litteratrue...). Is art really improved simply by competition? Is today's music industry producing "better" music than was produced 200 years ago?

Quantity - I agree that copyright laws probably motivate the creation of more information. But they also limit the actual availability of it. It's completely useless to society if there exists lots of wonderful information that 99% of it can't access. So, it has to pay for it? This is still limiting the access.

This all makes me very uncertain abouty the merits of copyright laws. It's possible that they are slightly advantageous to society's total information content. On the other hand, they impose serious restrictions on everyone, and to me that is a bad thing in itself. I can't see why you claim that an obligation is not in itself a bad thing! Can you mention an obligation that is not bad for whoever it's imposed on? I'd say that the corresponding rights represent the good consequences of the obligation.

So, basically, my point is this: unless there is convincing evidence or arguments that copyright law really does what you claim it does and well, I don't want the laws, because they keep everyone from getting and sharing information. The right for someone to limit what someone else does in private should not be given out lightly.

jofo

Yes, this was the original question. But, as the question of whether copyright violation is theft seems to be a quiestion of interpreting the law ("copyright" and "theft" are legat terms, right?) and therefore more or less a question of definition. So I assumed that the question was really about the moral foundations of copyright laws, since this forum is concerned with moral philosophy. If I was wrong in this I, apologize for my lengthy, off-topic posts and will cease immediately!

I agree that the question is definitely tied to copyright law, but it should be immaterial to the discussion whether we have them today or not, don't you agree? Values that are based on the moral assumptions of a society with copyright law do not work as arguments in a discussion about the merits of copyright law, since they become, essentially, circular.

Mageth

Copyright laws do benefit society. Copyright laws protect the rights of all members of society to control the dissemination of, and to potentially profit from, created materials. They give individual creators power over "evil" corporations - corporations can't just grab recorded songs of artists and sell them for profit without compensating the artists.

But in the case of copyright violation, that is not even the issue; most copying is actually done between consenting people; even the original author of the information is willingly parting with the original instances of it.

There's two instances here; if the original author has no desire to protect his/her copyrights, there's no problem, copy away. It's always been that way. But if the author does desire to protect his/her copyrights (e.g. to profit from the work), the author is definitely not a consenting participant to copyright-violating copying, and is not "willingly parting" with the copies. After all, the author is deprived of compensation each and every time such a copy is made.

I can't see why you claim that an obligation is not in itself a bad thing! Can you mention an obligation that is not bad for whoever it's imposed on?

You imply that an obligation "in itself" is bad, but you haven't established why. I don't think my "obligation" to compensate an artist for the use of his/her work is bad, any more than I consider my employer's "obligation" to pay me a fair salary for a day's work is bad for my employer. In the artist's case, the poor sot deserves the compensation, and needs it so that he/she can survive and keep producing quality works for me to purchase.

jofo

But how can you ignore all the bad aspects of the laws? Why it it not a limitation of my freedom, and therefore in itself bad, to allow other people to decide what I do with some information? You may say, for example, that this limitation is a small price for the benefits, but you can't just ignore it.

What if I would propose a law to abolish street crime, by forbidding everyone from leaving their homes? Would you measure the merit of that law solely by the decrease in street crimes?

All laws work by restricting the actions of someone. Most people think illegalizing murder is good, because they don't feel very limited by it (they usually don't want to murder anyway), and they like the protection it gives. But there's always a tradeoff.

Whether he's "deprived" or not is a matter of point of view. The copyright laws in themselves are the only thing that allow him to demand this compensation. Therefore I don't think that is at all something to be taken for granted, regardless of the present state of copyright laws. I think it's more of a "privilege" than a "right". Society is not obligated to grant privileges, unless they can be shown to be beneficial to society as a whole.

I don't quite agree. If you want to compensate an artist, you will always be able to do so, if he/she will accept it, regardless of obligations by law. If you're obligated to compensate X amount of money for something, but only think it's worth, say X/2, isn't the obligation then bad for you? If you always feel that it's good to compensate an artist, why would you need the obligation?

I think that if the word is going to be useful, an "obligation" should simply mean something you must do (or not do), even if you don't want to. That means it is just removing a piece of your freedom of choice. That may lead to good or bad consequences for your environment, but for you, the obligation is never good. If it only forbids things that you think are bad, and would never ever do anyway, it does nothing.

The corresponding right (i.e. the right not to get killed, in case of laws againt murder) would then represent the positive results you may experience of other people being under the same obligation.

A law that imposes obligations may then be "good" or "bad", depending on the balance between these two.

Buddrow_Wilson

Can you explain how society would be worse without the current copyright laws? Maybe i'm a fool, but it seems to be it would actually be better. As far as crime goes there is so much more to worry about anyway.

I think at this point all we are doing is rehashing our own arguments. I'll just say that I will continue to copy music, TV shows, and whatever the f*** else I fell like copying until they come and lock me away in a dungeon to stop me. I'll be smoking my marijuana while im at it. I just hope nobody catches me rolling one "marley" style, cuz thats like intellectual property n stuff dude.

All in all, I honestly and completely do not believe that I am hurting, cheating or denying the rights of anyway by doing these things. And, thus, I now bow out of this conversation.

Enjoy.

Arrowman

jofo:

1. I disagree with your continued reference to the subject of copyright laws as "information". This is imho a "weasel word" which implies that copyright laws in some way impede the dissemination of information, something which most reasonable people would find undesirable.

Copyright does not restrict the dissemination of information per se - it protects the right of the author of an original work, to determine the extent to which they wish to be acknowledged and/or remunerated for the production of that work. Copyright applies to creative works - not "information" in general.

This brings to mind a hypothetical "push poll". Imagine the following alternative questions being asked in an opinion poll:
A. Do you agree that there should be laws in place to control the dissemination of information in society?
B. Do you agree that the creators of original works should have the right to determine the extent to which they wish to be remunerated for the production of that work?

I think it is fair to assert that the answer to A. would overwhelmingly be "No" while the answer to B. would be "Yes". You are asking A. The subject of discussion is B.

2. You said (my emphasis)I beg your pardon? Is this intended to be some sort of argument that copying creative works is not unethical? Are you trying to say that because an original author "willingly parts with an original instance" that this implies that they also willingly give up any right to ownership beyond the single instance? Show me a piece of work where the "original author" has willingly parted with an original instance without any claim to remuneration for the use of that material and you might be right. It would also be irrelevant to this argument.

3. You said:Of course all laws restrict people's freedoms in one way or another. Everyone knows that, and it is a common thread in almost all public debates on new laws. And of course such restrictions must be balanced with the benefits. Noone is trying to "ignore" the restrictions on freedom implicit in copyright laws; it's just that those restrictions are heavily outweighed by the benefits. The only "restriction of freedom" you have managed to cite throughout this debate is the freedom of people to acquire creative works for free. Can you do better?

4. You said:Without getting in to the broader issues of "rights vs privileges" and the extent to which "society" (through legislation) has the right to regulate these - the right of an author to compensation for their work has not been "created" by copyright laws - the laws represent a mechanism by which society tries to protect a right which, as a society, we agree all people have. It is universal. It is not a privilege. All people have it. Again, you use "privilege" in place of "right" in the same way you use "information" in place of "creative work" - inaccurately.

5. You said:And if I take my neighbour's garden hose, I will always be able to pay them for it, if I want to, regardless of obligations by law. What is your point?If the price of a new car is $30,000, but I only think it's worth $20,000, then the (legal) obligation to pay for the car is "bad for me". Or I can buy a cheaper car, or I can do without. What is your point?1. Because I don't have Bruce Springsteen's postal address; it's easier this way.
2. To protect the artist from people like you.

6. Question for you: Do you believe that the creator of an original work has any right to determine the manner in which that work will be distributed, and in particular, the extent and nature of the compensation they wish to receive for the production of that work?

Edited to add:
This post is (c) copyright Arrowman, 2003. All reproduction etc...

Arrowman

Perhaps you should read some of the earlier posts. The utilitarian argument for copyright laws is well presented earlier in this thread.

Really? Please elaborate.

Fair enough. I do that too. I'm just not arguing that it should be legal, and I'm not attempting to rationalise simple self-interest as some sort of ethical virtue.

Mate, if you ever do come up with a worthwhile original contribution to the discipline of spliff creation, I hope you will be able to take advantage of the patent laws to protect your IP. Hate to see you get ripped off

[edited because my typing made it look like I'd been smokin' wi' Buddrow]

Carlos

Copyright is designed to allow the creator of a work to make money from the creation process. The work is created once, although what each customer purchases is a reproduction of that work. Copyright is an attempt to reconcile this difference. It recognizes that creation takes time and/or money, and attempts to provide similar rewards for "information" (Mageth's "expression of information" or Arrowman's "original work" are more apt) as already exist for the creation of "stuff."

Without copyrights, rewards are not mandated. That does not mean that the creator will receive no reward (donations and contributions do and will continue to occur), but it does mean that the stability (predictability) and magnitude (amount) of the reward will likely decrease significantly.

The argument being made for copyright is based strongly on just how much these rewards will decrease, and what that implies. A writer who is no longer able to live off of his creations might become a baker, though he might still write at night. A pharmaceuticals company that spent millions on R&D for the latest drug will find that a competitor is able to sell the same product at a much lower cost (they have no R&D investment) so the company that "discovered" the drug ends up losing money. Result: they go out of business and no one spends the money required to create. Aggregate result: stagnation. Dark ages of a sort. Copyright protects the little guy and the big guy, and in doing so promotes the creation process which benefits everyone.

The argument being made against copyright, near as I can tell, is that it restricts the rights of the majority of the population while not making much of a difference to the creator.

If we were all honest and honorable folks, who paid fair value for those things that deserved it to those who deserved it, I think we could get along without copyrights. Then again, if we were all honest and honorable folks we wouldn't need any laws, and anarchy would allow for the benefits we now enjoy (and more) without any of the overhead or wastefulness that are side effects of laws.

jofo

(Not quoting Arrowman's post for copyright reasons :)

I agree that copyrights are not supposed to apply to all information, and so my use of the word may be inaccurate. However, I maintain that all creative works are in principle reduced to information. A book is really independent of any physical representation of it; the only important aspect of the actual creative work is the order of the letters.

Now, how do you actually measure what information is "creative work" and which is not? Of course, trivial information such as what I had for lunch could not really be labeled creative, but then again, if someone was to collect info about lunching habits from a population, I think he could have this information protected under copyright and sell it (I'm not entirely sure though :).

So, the reason I'm using the word "information" is that I can't really see any convincing evidence that copyrights can't be used to limit access to basically any kind of information. Therefore, I think your poll is simplifying things; copyright and IP law IS limiting the dissemination of certain information; exactly what information is not well established.

Also, if I am to agree with B, the word "right" should not be in it. I agree that it would be good if a person producing "creative work" that others enjoy would get something from it ebsides the joy of creating. However, I don't recognise the *right*. It's very easy to talk about rights, because everybody wants all the rights they can get. However, all rights impose obligations somewhere, and copyright is one whose corresponding obligations are too heavy, IMHO.

With "parting with the original instances", which was a clumsy way of expressing myself, I simply meant that even the first copy of a creator's work was not necessarily stolen; he may very well have sold it consciously. I found that interesting in the context of my argument.

A few questions for you: If you and lots of other people regularly violate copyright law, don't you think that the law is potentially destructive to the psychological working of the legal system as a whole? Isn't an essentially toothless law reduced to a "don't" without real weight? Couldn't that make other laws seem less convincing too?

The argument that copyright promotes creative works, whether it's true or not, in most peoples ears could easily sound like "it's so the big music/movie/software industry can make more money from you". That's not sounding very morally convincing to me. I don't think there are many people who would consciously rip off a struggling artist whose work they enjoy. However, how much of the money that the average person spends on "creative works" really goes to those actually creative people today?

The discussion about privileges was slightly beside the topic of discussion. I just felt that I had to elaborate on what I percieve as the meaning of the word. If we're to discuss the goodness of a law, we have to be able to weigh both good and bad aspects of it, right? I thought Mageth was ignoring all bad points and didn't get my argument.

If my definition of "obligation" is not understandable, I apologize. I feel as if we're basically just tossing the same arguments at each other anyway, so I guess we might as well agree to disagree..?

Johan Forsberg, 2003. All rights reversed :)

tronvillain

I was going to say this in my last post, but I do think copyright laws are a good thing, in that they attempt to promote and reward creation of original works. Of course, I think that reducing the time for which works are protected would do even more to promote such creation. Granted, it would cut into the reward, but as long as the period was not excessively short I doubt it would discourage artists from creating.