Buddrow_Wilson

The only use of copyright that i find justified is too enforce who may use such in a business context. Everything else doesn't feel right to me. Take music file swapping for example, I honestly do not see a crime in reproducing a file and sharing it. Its not like you are destroying the original copy when doing so. What if you were to memorize a copyrighted short story and share it with others who were interested and they in turn memorized it and shared with others? Where is the crime? I realize the issues of lost revenue etc, but I refuse to believe that the free exchange of information is a crime.

Theli

While on the subject on "illegal" MP3's, there seem to be some problems with holding that illegal.
If I download an album on MP3, what am I stealing from the recordcompany/artist?
If it's the profit they would have made if I had bought the CD, then you must first prove that I actually had the intention to buy the CD if I hadn't downloaded the MP3.
If I hadn't then the recordcompany/artist would not lose any business on my downloading.

dshimel

"Take music file swapping for example, I honestly do not see a crime in reproducing a file and sharing it."

"If I download an album on MP3, what am I stealing from the recordcompany/artist?"

You are stealing the right of the owner of the material to determine who has access to the material, how, and for what purposes.

They do not have to porve you would have purchased the song to prove you have stolen. You have taken and used someone's creation, without their permission. It is stealing.

If I took your car without permission, drove it around for awhile, then refilled the gas tank and left you a few bucks for wear and tear before putting it back, have I stolen it? DAMN RIGHT. You have the right to determine who uses your car, when, how, and for what.

Just because something is easily copied does not change the fact that using without permission is stealing!!!!! They created it, they own it. Using without permission is stealing.

You may not want it to be so, but it is. The "doesn't feel right" crap could be used to justify God. "It doesn't feel right that the universe came into existance without a cause. That cause is God."

"It doesn't feel right" that taking ans using someone else's property without permission should be a crime, because downloading music is cool. Cool or not, feel right or not, it is stealing. It is immoral.

I do it. I just feel guilty, accept I'm commiting a crime, and move on.

jofo

I think copyright is a bad idea.

A "copyright" is a legal device for protecting a specific piece of information. Property laws are legal devices for protecting physical things.

Ownership is a complicated matter; basically it's in itself a piece of information. There's no way of finding out who's the owner of a particular piece of matter or information (unless it has his name on it, and that's not recognized by law as far as I know) without asking around. In principle, "society" says who owns what, mostly through convention. However, let's assume that ownership is well defined.

If you make a pair of shoes out of material that belongs to you, they're yours. You can sell them to someone else, transferring the ownership and all rights concerning the shoes to them. They are now free to do whatever they want with the shoes, and you can happily go on making more shoes or whatever you want without worrying about what happens to the shoes you sold.

Now, let's say you decide to write a computer program instead. You're still free to sell it to anyone, only in this case, you'll still have it even after it's sold! Let's say that you've invested a fair amount of work into this program, and you're expecting a certain income from selling it, so you want to sell it to, say, 1000 people.

Since a computer program consists solely of information (not counting the paper manual and packaging), anyone with a minimum of skill can easily copy it for next-to-nothing. The last thing you want is to see that only one person buys the program and the other 999 people just copy it from him/her. So you claim copyright on the program and forbid everyone from doing that, supported by the justice system, and the money starts rolling in.

The difference between these two cases is that in the second, you're imposing an artificial restriction on your customers. The shoemaker isn't stopping anybody from copying his shoes; for almost everybody this would mean much more work than simply obtaining the money for another pair in some other way. Thus, that is never a problem for him/her; he/she probably doesn't even consider it.

The software developer is seemingly producing in the same way as the shoemaker (and he/she's quite possibly investing a similar amount of work), but his/her product is fundamentally different! Once written, his/her program can be duplicated indefinitely practically for free. (Imagine if this was true about food!)

Now, why would it be "moral" for him/her to limit this possibility by effectively threatening to punish people for doing whatever they want with something they've paid for? Granted, it's in his selfish interest to do so, but that is not the same thing. What the copyright laws are doing is granting the programmer certain extra rights, while it's limiting the rights of everyone else, in order to compensate for the "unfortunate" nature of information (ignoring the fact that the programmer is also benefitting from this nature, since it enabler him to sell it to an unlimited number of people!)

Utilitarian arguments such as "there wouldn't be any software if there weren't any copyrights" are often heard, but for me they become pretty meaningless once you get a glimpse of the "free software" world. The assumption is, apparently, that people wouldn't want to use computers unless there were copyright laws.

Also, the "what if you were in the same situation"-arguments aren't always very enlightening. What about the happiness of the 999 people who could have gotten the software for free in the above case? I might argue that they're basically paying for nothing.

(Of course, these arguments apply to other forms of information as well, I guess it's just that software is especially interesting to me

Fisheye

Sure, it's stealing, but that doesn't translate into lost revenue. All the industries that are "affected" by piracy, apparently, from what I've heard, count every download as lost profits - which seems a bit dishonest. A lot of downloads are things people would have never bought. It's a bit like if I printed out 1000 copies of a Kenny G cd, left them on a sidewalk, and counted every one taken as a cd that would otherwise have been bought.


I think copyright laws are a very necessary thing, though. Without some form of protection in place, I don't think we would have very many professional authors, software designers, musical artists, etc., because there would be no way to ensure that the creators of a work would get anything out of it.

Carlos

I think you dismiss the utilitarian argument too easily. Some things just wouldn't be around without copyrights.

Free software is, IMO, the best example for your case. I should know; I use it every day and have written some of my own. This stuff was written by people like me for people like me; if I had more time I would still be at it. But there is a problem - while it is good for me, it is not good for everyone. Who writes software for those other people, those who cannot code themselves? If it's not something I would use (or a very interesting problem), I'm not willing to spend any of my free time on it. But I might be willing to if I were paid enough.

Where are the free books? The free music? The free medicine? The freely available design for a new CPU or car engine? The free newspapers? Without intellectual property rights the end result (book, medicine, ...) would have to be sold at or slightly above its manufacturing cost. Everyone else would just be reproducing information and would sell at that price, so the creator would be forced to do the same. But selling at that price would not support the creation process. It would make more economic sense not to create.

Free software exists because the people behind it are able to make money in some other way. Often by writing software that is not free.

There is value in the work done to create information. Copyright laws help preserve that idea; they allow for the value to be set (partly) by market rules. If we do away with copyright, how will those who produce information be rewarded? All other solutions I can think of (donations, government sponsored, etc.) are worse. If we can't pay enough for these tasks, then those with such talents will be forced to find other jobs and their potential product will remain just that - never reaching beyond the minds of the creators.

Certainly there are many bad things with the system. The US Patent Office awarding patents that they shouldn't have. Disney's extended copyrights through the Sonny Bonno act. Money grubbing companies using and manipulating the system to extract even more money. There are problems, but that doesn't mean we should throw the whole idea away. The alternatives are worse.

jofo

You're right, I did dismiss it too easily I just wanted to say something about my view the most common arguments against my point, without going into detail.

I think you're oversimplifying. The question about what would be produced in a sociaty without copyrights is not really answered by looking at the stuff being sold and comparing it to the "free stuff" today. You can't say that everyone who is making the slightest profit from producing information would cease completely if they weren't paid anymore.

If there wasn't something like copyright available, it would mean that it would probably be harder to make money from writing, sure. But is that really the only motivation people have for writing? I'd say that books written *only* for the purpose of making money for the author, are usually inferior works. This is even more obvious when it comes to movies. Do we really benefit so much from all the "entertainment" that we're drenched in, by people and companies that are really only after our money? Wouldn't, say, a tenth of it all be enough, if that tenth was done by really passionate people?

I'm not caliming that I know what would happen if copyrights would disappear, but I'm sufficiently sceptical to their effectiveness to be sceptical. The reproductive potential of information is infinite, but copyright restrictions are limiting us.

Another point I think is interesting, is about the enforceability of a law. Imagine a crime that is 1) almost exclusively committed in private, 2) the connection to its victims is entirely intangible and only measured in "estimated loss of income", a purely potential loss, and 3) in 99% of the cases it's almost entirely untraceable. Even if the punishment is severe, it's hard for the average citizen to see the moral motivation for the law, and it's almost certain that you'll never get caught. Basically, the law becomes more like a prescription -- "don't do this" -- without any kind of reason or threat behind it.

I think this kind of laws only undermine the psychological working of the justice system; if one law looks meaningless, it will damage the credibility of the rest of them.

This is part of the reasons why I think that we should not make laws limiting peoples liberties without *really* good reasons. In this case, I don't recognise the "right" to make money from your work. If you can, then sure, go ahead, but if you need other peoples freedom of action limited in order to do so, then I don't think that it's society's job to help you.

Buddrow_Wilson

Im not convinced that we need this right.

This would be similar to seeing a famous designer's living room on TV, copying the design exactly for your living room, and calling this stealing. Are you saying the designer is entitled to a royalty?

This doesn't even apply. Unless i was actually somehow producing an exact replica of your car and driving it around, but all the while your original car is left undisturbed. Who you argue that as a form of theft?

Actually I'm fairly certain that every copy of a file that I have ever had made was done with permission from the owner of the medium that said information is embedded on. Using without permission isn't a definition of theft. If I broke into your home and used your toilet without permission, I would be guilty of tresspassing, but not theft of your toilet. Thus only if I used your computer without permission to copy a file do I feel there is a crime being committed.

Furthermore, I am convinced that truly talented individuals would find employment/income without our current copyright laws. Musical groups would still fill stadiums. Government, companies and other institutions would still need programmers. People would still want to buy beautifully bound novels rather than reading a book on a computer screen. Sure much would change and many institutions would collapse, but such is life. Society would not suffer in the long run.

Carlos

You're right in that some people will continue to produce information despite the lack of funding. And you're also right that the best creative works are borne from passion and not from a desire for money. But other types of information, the kinds that depend not so much on inspiration but more on repeated trial and effort (e.g. producing new technologies) are inherently expensive. The lone artist or writer may continue to create after hours, but the big corporation will not exist to fund (at a loss) the next CPU or the next medical breakthrough.

I can understand not wanting to see your freedom reduced; I feel strongly about that too. If I took that belief to its logical extreme I would be supporting anarchy, which will not do. I have to decide just what price my liberties are worth, which tradeoffs are worth it. I'd rather have an imperfect system that restricts my liberties and allows for the reward of creativity and innovation rather than a perfect system that does not provide such rewards.

dshimel

jofo wrote
"A "copyright" is a legal device for protecting a specific piece of information. Property laws are legal devices for protecting physical things."
and
"Now, why would it be "moral" for him/her to limit this possibility by effectively threatening to punish people for doing whatever they want with something they've paid for?"

But, you didn't buy the intellectual property. You bought the right to use it for your own personal enjoyment.

I know that people don't want it to be immoral to use other people's stuff without permission (as long as the stuff is only "information") but it is.

The person that spends the time, effort and money to create information, should be allowed to say how that information is used. Don't like it, go spend your own time, effort and money to create information, then just give it away.

If I write a book, you should not be able to photo-copy it and hand it out. If I create a TV program, you shouldn't be able to rebroadcast it in your TV network without my permission. If I create a song, and allow you to listen to it, you should not be able to copy it and post it on the net. If I design a new kind of shoe that is way more cool than anything else on the market, you shouldn't be able to start cranking out exact copies. I can't open a burger joint and call in McDonalds. I can't open a store in the mall and call it Hot Topic.

Just because music, movie, info swapping on the net is easy and cool, doesn't mean it isn't immoral. It is stealing. Is every download a lost sell? Of course not. It every 10,000,000 download at least one lost sell? Without a doubt. Music sells dropped 10% last year. Why? Becuase people are making their own CDs at home.

It is wrong to use someone elses stuff without their permission, even if they are not "learly, one-for-one harmed by doing so.

Also, greater good is a lame argument. If we count that 1000 people got a song free justifies stealing from the guy who made it and would have sold the song to 100 people, then we may as well steal all of Bill Gates money. The 40,000 millionaires we could make would justify stealing from this one guy. Oh, wait. This guy would be worth noting, because his company would be bankrupt on the day that stealing information became okay.