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Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

computationalculture.net

151–160 of 163 posts

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that everyone agrees copyright is a good thing...

I make no such assumption, I'm just pointing out that it's the current framework that we have and that with it content creators are given actual rights and among those rights is the right to significant control over distribution and consumption of their content.

And the current framework hands out almost no punishments at all. Given the theory that social norms and laws are not what is written but what is enforced, then the current framework only supports limited cases of copyrights that apply generally between financially very well endowed entities.

If the current framework written was fully applied, it would not last two full election cycles.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they wouldn't have gotten my money anyway, and I am copying the work, it is not theft.

Ah, but I wanted to give them my money. I do recognise their right to be recompensed for their work. However if they then decline to exercise that right....

You could have bought the paperbook, and also pirated the ebook.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#153
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule. I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available…

Sure, it's all virtual, you're not actually 'stealing' their money since you weren't actually going to pay for it anyways, but if we're pedantic about it you are depriving them their rights. As the owner, they can copyright it, they can specify the terms by which you're allowed to view it or not view it. They can decide to not let you view it. You are taking that right from them. You are saying your right to access t…

"[...] if we're pedantic about it you are depriving them their rights"

Don't confuse the economic and moral rights in copyright. When you copy something you aren't necessarily depriving someone of their rights so much as disregarding their awarded monopoly. Just like you usually do if you make moonshine or take a unlicensed taxi.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#154
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule. I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available…

Curious that this argument only ever applies to the intangible bit patterns that define creative works, but never to the equally intangible bit patterns that define money. If I copy the numbers in a very rich person's bank account to my bank account, I haven't stolen anything from them. All I've done is made a copy of some information. And yet one kind of copying generates rants about the cultural value of free distr…

You're comparing two very different types of values. The number in your bank account has no informational value to people outside of describing what you are allowed to spend it on. Nobody will gain much value by just looking at it unless they want to know how much they can sell or collect from you. If you're copying someone else's bank account, it's a matter of fraud, misrepresenting yourself. If you copied someone else's album and released it as your own, it would cause the same problem.

When we're talking about copying information, the issue isn't fraud, it's that you copied somebody else's recipe and made your own version. Now if you were selling this thing and representing it as your own, that would be one thing, but if you're just using it for personal reasons, people might look at it differently. It's as if you found the recipe for a Big Mac and made your own in your own kitchen for your family using your own materials. McDonalds might not like that because you aren't buying theirs, but I don't think they have any legal way to stop you from cooking a Big Mac copy. You could even sell it as long as you don't use their trademark.

Media companies, however, can stop you from "cooking your own Big Mac," even when you make that copy with your own equipment in your own home for personal use. You aren't allowed to use the recipe for a copyrighted media file, in some cases, even if you bought the original (because of having to circumvent DRM). Lawrence Lessig used an example of an ebook of a public domain work that contains the stipulation "this book may not be read aloud." The only justification for this distinction between rights to these recipes is that the law doesn't consider a recipe for food or flavors to be substantial original works but does consider a recipe for sounds or text to be original works of authorship. Some people would see this as an arbitrary distinction. We simply made computers too good at copying things to work within a traditional publishing framework.

None of this automatically makes any of these things ethical, but it's entirely possible and not hypocritical to have differing opinions about fraud and copying. Some people are concerned about the ethics of restricting copying in the way we do. It gives big advantages to those who have been first to file patents and copyrights, companies like Disney who have made their fortune by adapting public domain works and then copyrighting their versions and extending them perpetually. Some people see this as a movement toward a world where no creativity is allowed because somebody owns all of the foundational ideas, stories, and sounds on which we base our culture, which is always derivative of the past. It's already difficult to create anything without being assaulted by lawsuits, and this problem is only getting increasingly worse. To some people, avoiding this dystopia of a ban on creative works is much more important than protecting the profits of established companies with large legal departments. As the world is joining the global economy, they're increasingly being forced to adopt the intellectual property laws of the same countries that have been exploiting them and appropriating their best ideas for generations. Now they're finding it increasingly difficult to compete with the information economies of the already rich. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#155
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule. I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available…

Do we have to do this song and dance every single time there's a discussion about copyright? This is yet another example of a semantic argument as a proxy for values. What matters is not whether piracy "is theft", it's how bad we think it is. But by framing the argument as a semantic one, it ensures that people will focus on technicalities and constantly talk past each other, all the while ignoring what actually matt…

> Do we have to do this song and dance every single time there's a discussion about copyright?

This rather shows how hardened the fronts between the positions already are.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they wouldn't have gotten my money anyway, and I am copying the work, it is not theft.

Ah, but I wanted to give them my money. I do recognise their right to be recompensed for their work. However if they then decline to exercise that right....

Shouldn't they get to determine the nature of the compensation? They did not decline to exercise the right, they exercised it in a way that was not convenient for you so you chose to ignore their right to be compensated. Doesn't seem like much of a principled stand to me.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#157
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about as legal as buying a stolen TV.

I think a knockoff TV would be a better analogy.

I don't think this is a good analogy either: Since at a knockoff TV the seller deceives the buyer that the TV is an original. So it's a clear case of fraud.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

either you have a free economy, in which case you make every damn thing free, or you accept that rules of ownership are necessary and that the output of labour has value independent of the ease with which it can be copied. Rules of ownership are necessary for rivalrous goods, and not for others. Citing Thomas Jefferson, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who l…

Jefferson's talking about memetics -- about the spread of ideas and ways of thinking. I don't see how IP law interferes with meme competition; and I don't see how meme competition justifies pirating entertainment (which requires large investments in visuals, audio, acting or voice-acting, computer programming, and so on, all of which the spread of ideas doesn't need).

The argument he used works for any non-rivalrous good, even if his specific concern at the time was with memetics.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest thing I'd like to see, is fine, DRM everything you want, but file an unencrypted digital master with something long-lasting like the Library of Congress, along with a firm public release date. So much software, media, and books today are not readily available anymore, without a lot of good reason for it. And if it's temporary while copyrights run out, I guess I have to understand that. But my biggest fear…

It's definitely even worse for games, as copyright law and the nature of the industry can mean that a game might not be legally obtained again for over a century. Nintendo, for example, goes out of its way to punish people for distributing games that they no longer publish or license, even despite their abandonware status.

In Nintendo's case, the interesting thing is that they do resell a lot of their titles. Virtual Console is a big market for them now, with NES and SNES titles especially. They at least demonstrate a clear desire to monetize their old properties. The biggest thing we often lose is access to third party titles on Nintendo platforms.

Re: Book Piracy as Peer Preservation

#160
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it isn't "stealing". You're not depriving them of the content, you're copying it. And you're not even depriving them of the price they charge to access that content, unless you would've bought it had it not been available through piracy. And that's I think really the exception, not the rule. I know I download a hell of a lot of movies, tv shows, etc. that I would definitely never watch if they were not available…

Curious that this argument only ever applies to the intangible bit patterns that define creative works, but never to the equally intangible bit patterns that define money. If I copy the numbers in a very rich person's bank account to my bank account, I haven't stolen anything from them. All I've done is made a copy of some information. And yet one kind of copying generates rants about the cultural value of free distr…

If you create money in the banking system without creating corresponding value in the world, you have simply depressed the value of money a little bit, effectively "stealing" purchasing power from everyone else (though their balances remain untouched).
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