Author Slams eBook Piracy, Son Outs Her As a Music Pirate

There is the flaw: the second does not follow from the first. There is no necessary requirement that produce -- in this context copies -- be controlled.

Consider the basic logic/physics of abstract goods. There is no necessary dependence of production on subsequent copies. In fact it is the opposite: the copies depend on production. It is perfectly conceivable that things be produced -- and the producers paid for that -- without any restriction of copies.

And this is clear in practice. Take an architect for example. They are commissioned and then design a building: they have done intellectual work and been paid for it, and so 'reaped the benefits' of their creativity to survive. Yet there has been no need for restriction on copies of their designs.

> The point of IP is that it's the produce of someone's mind, . . . If you copy it without permission . . . you're undermining somebody's ability to benefit from their creativity

But as explained above, this is not essential: it is only true for a particular, contingent, commercial arrangement.

You see that production is good, and also that copies are good too. What I ask is that you see that there is no essential need that one should restrict the other. And since both do us good, surely we would want to do both. What we want is a system that supports people to produce and allows freedom of copying.

This is why the pragmatic argument is the only plausible one. If we don't need, for practical reasons, to restrict copies, why would we? How can it be moral? What good does it do us? The idea that people have some intrinsic right to interfere with others, based merely on creatorship, is nonsensical and utterly self-destructive.

Just compare the limit cases (and since it is already established there is no necessary dependence of production on copies, we can look just at the copying aspect). Either: with free copying/sharing, we all greatly magnify our access to good stuff, at no cost to anyone. In a group of 100, if each of us makes some music, everyone has 100 pieces of music to listen to. Or: with absolutist IP, we all keep our own stuff (our own 'property') to ourselves, and so we all have much less stuff available to us. If each of us makes some music, everyone has only one piece of music to listen to. -- And what could be the justification there? that we 'know without doubt' we are doing the right thing? -- Which community to join is an easy choice.

It is not possible to say a priori what particular structures of organisation or commerce are efficient. But it is possible to say the moral essentials mean we should prefer free-sharing rather than copy-restricting.

Actually, I'm not sure that US law is the same. But that's how it is in England.

In fact, piracy in this case seems to partially solve the fundamental economics problem. The marginal cost of music is zero, so if people who wouldn't pay full price aren't getting the music, then there is lost utility for society. By giving those people music for free (and, unrealistically, holding everything else constant) it's a Pareto improvement.

(And I'm not trying to avoid the argument that stealing $50 from society is morally he same as stealing $50 from a single person; it pretty much is. I'm just saying that the reason that we correctly intuit that sneaking on to a train is less worse than stealing from a wallet is because of considerations like those I've described.)