Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Copyright Infringement != Theft

20bits.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#61

Post by mattmaroon »

andreyf wrote: post #55
mattmaroon wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's enough data to prove it's harmful to some people. Maybe not the overall music industry, and maybe not the artists, but clearly to retailers, record labels, middlemen, etc.

There's enough data to prove it's harmful to some people. Maybe not the overall music industry, and maybe not the artists... Aha! But that's precisely the catch! It doesn't matter if it's harmful for some people, because the constitutional foundation for copyright says that its point is to "promote progress of the useful arts". Intellectual "property" is not property. The terms is meant to confuse the law. The questi…

I think the one we have now is doing a fantastic job. The record labels are failing miserably to adapt to the new reality, but that has nothing to do with the copyright system. It's with their own disincentives to adapt (a complex subject I will talk about tangentially soon).

I think the current copyright situation lets citizens do pretty much whatever they want and prevents corporations from infringing on creators and IP owners. That, to me, is perfect.

Corporations, for their part, went a little further than they had to with the DRM (which had nothing to do with our copyright system) and are finally starting to come to their senses.

I'd say the whole thing is working very well.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#62

Post by rms »

tptacek wrote: post #38
rms wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My moral relativism on this issue is as liberal as it gets, so my personal answer is a combination of "yes" and "it doesn't matter."

Which is why I have to suffer FairPlay DRM to download songs from iTunes. Thanks.

I think you have a moral duty to hasten the death of corporations that use DRM.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#63

Post by dhimes »

andreyf wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #3

I'm not sure what the point of this particular semantic debate is. It's not theft. Ok. It's still wrong, it's still harmful, and it's still totally within the purview of a reasonable government to regulate or outlaw.

It's still wrong Really? For the majority of human history, it hasn't been. it's still harmful It is? To whom? Surely not to people enjoying music - infringing copyright has made more people listen to more music. it's still totally within the purview of a reasonable government to regulate or outlaw In a government based on the US Constitution, only if such regulation and law "promotes the progress of useful arts".

For the majority of human history, some humans have treated others as property. That's wrong.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#64

Post by captain-m »

mattmaroon wrote: post #61
andreyf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's enough data to prove it's harmful to some people. Maybe not the overall music industry, and maybe not the artists... Aha! But that's precisely the catch! It doesn't matter if it's harmful for some people, because the constitutional foundation for copyright says that its point is to "promote progress of the useful arts". Intellectual "property" is not property. The terms is meant to confuse the law. The questi…

I think the one we have now is doing a fantastic job. The record labels are failing miserably to adapt to the new reality, but that has nothing to do with the copyright system. It's with their own disincentives to adapt (a complex subject I will talk about tangentially soon). I think the current copyright situation lets citizens do pretty much whatever they want and prevents corporations from infringing on creators a…

"I think the current copyright situation lets citizens do pretty much whatever they want"

Share a song with some friends, create a mashup of two cool songs, use some music in a short film they've made, make a collage of different drawings, write new lyrics for an existing song and record that, use samples from an existing song to create something new etc. etc.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#65

Post by josefresco »

mattmaroon wrote: post #60
jfarmer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You specifically equated the "theft" of a song with the theft of a car, but your definition of theft ignores the difference between theft and copyright infringement. These are distinct concepts, legally, historically, and philosophically. Sorry if I misinterpreted what you were saying, but it sounded like you were arguing that there's a moral force behind copyright and that it rests in its similarity to theft. I'll u…

I equated them only in the sense that they are both natural human behaviors. You could just as easily replace it with "piracy of a song", and the argument would have been the same.

The choice of words is very important and not trivial in the least. Notice how you just said "piracy of a song", when in fact the copying of a song is not "piracy" which equates to robbery aka theft.

The words we choose are very important when discussing ideas, just ask the republicans who have used this technique for years to sway the public to their side on various social and political matters (death tx vs. estate tax being one example).

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#66

Post by yummyfajitas »

tptacek wrote: post #30
jfarmer wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thou shalt not copy this scroll without the author's permission? I don't buy it and it doesn't hold ground historically. Did people not intuit it before the 18th century? It took over 300 years from the invention of the printing press for modern copyright law to form. Copyright (and patent) law exists and has always existed because it makes political and economic sense. See Section I, Article 8 is the US Constitution…

You still haven't rescued this from semantics. What's intuitively wrong is freeloading. Tax evasion is a criminal offense, even though it too is simply an example of freeloading.

Why is freeloading wrong? Or tax evasion, for that matter?

In any case, here is the argument. Theft is wrong because it violates the individual right of the property owner.

Copyright exists to provide a temporary incentive for content creators to continue producing. It's not a natural right, it's a collective bargain between the public and content producers. "You get a 14 year monopoly to make some money, please continue writing songs."

That bargain was broken a long time ago (roughly Mickey Mouse invention date + 14 years).

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#67

Post by tjr »

andreyf wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #3

I'm not sure what the point of this particular semantic debate is. It's not theft. Ok. It's still wrong, it's still harmful, and it's still totally within the purview of a reasonable government to regulate or outlaw.

It's still wrong Really? For the majority of human history, it hasn't been. it's still harmful It is? To whom? Surely not to people enjoying music - infringing copyright has made more people listen to more music. it's still totally within the purview of a reasonable government to regulate or outlaw In a government based on the US Constitution, only if such regulation and law "promotes the progress of useful arts".

Really? For the majority of human history, it hasn't been.

For the majority of human history, there has been but a tiny fraction of copyrightable material compared to what has existed over the past, say, 200 years.

It is? To whom? Surely not to people enjoying music - infringing copyright has made more people listen to more music.

It's harmful to the producers. It's not cheap or easy to put together a professional music recording. Producers wish to both recover the costs of production, and have funds available to live on and produce more.

In a government based on the US Constitution, only if such regulation and law "promotes the progress of useful arts".

Yes. If you allow the producers to profit from their works, then they will have both the funds and more motiviation to continue producing more.

U.S. copyright law began with discussions between educator Noah Webster and lawyer Daniel Webster. Noah had completed new textbooks for use in the public school system, which he had based on existing works. Nevertheless, his books were new productions, and he wanted to have control over how they were copied; he wanted to be able to profit from the production of his works. (Noah was never a very rich man, by the way; don't get the idea he was insanely wealthy and scavaging for more.)

Daniel Webster agreed wholeheartedly, that authors should have the right to how their works are copied and should get royalty payments for a limited time. He claimed this was so obvious it was like "natural law"... as obvious as laws against murdering and theft.

Some people in recent history (e.g., the RIAA and other big corporations) have taken copyright law to absurd and abusive levels, and that is wrong. But the basic principles of it -- to allow the author of a work rights over who copies it and rights to limited royalty payments -- are not absurd and do contribute to the furthering of more and better works.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#68

Post by maw »

calvins wrote: post #17
tptacek wrote: post #3

I'm not sure what the point of this particular semantic debate is. It's not theft. Ok. It's still wrong, it's still harmful, and it's still totally within the purview of a reasonable government to regulate or outlaw.

I think the point is that we should be more careful with the words we use. Saying that copyright infringement is theft is just sloppy thinking, and is likely to confuse the issue and lead to even more sloppy and confused thinking. You might argue that both are wrong, that both are illegal, or whatever. Fine. Just don't say they're the same thing, because they're not. Redefining words for purposes of brainwashing cons…

Well put! I would have written much the same thing had you not beaten me to it, and will only add that sloppy thinking about this question isn't purely an academic concern: among other things, it leads to bad laws with difficult to foresee, but often undesirable, consequences.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#69

Post by brl »

tptacek wrote: post #25
jfarmer wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a semantic argument. The syllogism Matt is using, implicitly, is: Copyright infringement is a kind of theft. All theft is bad. Therefore copyright infringement is bad. He talks about stealing songs and says, more or less, "Well, you can argue all you want, but downloading a song is stealing and stealing is wrong." No, it's not stealing, it's copyright infringement. The two are distinct along legal, historica…

Demonstrate how this isn't a semantic argument? People aren't "brainwashed" into thinking copyright infringement is wrong. Copyright infringement is intuitively wrong.

I don't know if I can agree that copyright infringement is intuitively wrong as my own intuition tells me the exact opposite: Legal enforcement of an artificial scarcity on our cultural and intellectual artifacts so that a minority of individuals can personally benefit is morally incorrect.

Even if there was broad consensus that copyright infringement is 'intuitively wrong', intuition has a rather spotty track record for producing sensible normative ethical guidelines. Consider slavery, for example. It used to be so 'intuitive' that owning other humans as property was not morally problematic.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#70

Post by mattmaroon »

josefresco wrote: post #65
mattmaroon wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I equated them only in the sense that they are both natural human behaviors. You could just as easily replace it with "piracy of a song", and the argument would have been the same.

The choice of words is very important and not trivial in the least. Notice how you just said "piracy of a song", when in fact the copying of a song is not "piracy" which equates to robbery aka theft. The words we choose are very important when discussing ideas, just ask the republicans who have used this technique for years to sway the public to their side on various social and political matters (death tx vs. estate…

If the people who engage in it call it theft or piracy, because they think they are stealing, then it's morally equivalent.

I agree with you about choosing words carefully, but either choice doesn't change the article. In context, the semantics were irrelevant.

Post reply on HN