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Copyright Infringement != Theft

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Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#41

Post by enra »

eyudkowsky wrote: post #27
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.

Would copyright infringement still seem intuitively, morally wrong, if there were no copyright laws to begin with? If creators were never promised a legal expectation of control over their work, would you be violating any legitimate expectation by copying? Let's say that someone produces a musical album, and, knowing they cannot legally stop you from downloading it, they ask you not to copy it unless you send them $5…

What if I would paint a painting and hung it to my outside wall. I would require every passager that would go by and maybe look at it to pay me $5. I wouldn't be able to legally stop them for looking for free. They would walk away with a copy of my paiting in their heads.

I think this is a one problem. In the internet almost anything is public good. It's available for almost everyone and you cannot or you don't want to shut people of from consuming.

Not related, but the second problem of the copyright is that it's hard and expensive to use it properly. If you would want to legally use a song in your presentation, make a mixtape or even sing a song on your mom's birthday, you would have to go through riias, companys, individual artists, lawyers and applications to get proper rights.

Above process is fine for big corporations, they have the time, money and maybe motivation to do this. Individuals don't have this luxury. We all know that singing that song for your mom is copyright infringement, therefore as mattmaroon says, theft, don't we?

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#43

Post by tptacek »

enra wrote: post #41
eyudkowsky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would copyright infringement still seem intuitively, morally wrong, if there were no copyright laws to begin with? If creators were never promised a legal expectation of control over their work, would you be violating any legitimate expectation by copying? Let's say that someone produces a musical album, and, knowing they cannot legally stop you from downloading it, they ask you not to copy it unless you send them $5…

What if I would paint a painting and hung it to my outside wall. I would require every passager that would go by and maybe look at it to pay me $5. I wouldn't be able to legally stop them for looking for free. They would walk away with a copy of my paiting in their heads. I think this is a one problem. In the internet almost anything is public good. It's available for almost everyone and you cannot or you don't want…

What if you put the picture behind a curtain, and demand $5 to look behind it? It doesn't hurt you when someone shifts the curtain to the side, but it does provide yet another silly example that doesn't resolve the underlying problem.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#44

Post by mattmaroon »

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.

Right. My point was more to highlight the absurdity of saying we shouldn't outlaw natural human behaviors than to get into an argument about the definition of theft. I don't know why he chose to worry so much about whether music piracy is theft or some other crime, it's basically irrelevant to my arguments.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#45

Post by mattmaroon »

mariorz wrote: post #28
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.

What makes you so sure it's harmful? There is hardly enough data yet at a systemic level to prove that argument. You can maybe intuitively say (as many do) that artists not getting paid will obviously result in less incentive to create and hence less art will be created, but you see, the tricky part with complex systems like this one is that they tend to actually be counter-intuitive and respond to many feedback infl…

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.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#46

Post by jfarmer »

tptacek wrote: post #37
jfarmer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In two sentences: Copyright and theft occupy different legal, historical, and philosophical spheres. Therefore arguing against copyright infringement because it is a kind of theft is fallacious.

You're right. Copyright infringement is trivial to argue against as a form of free riding. Does your blog post make it in any way easier to reconcile Watterson's rights with the RIAA's demands and the Free Culture people?

Right, ok, now we're on the same page.

Copyright was created because the old system of guild-based monopolies collapsed and authors demanded that the Parliament deal with the influx of cheaply copied books devaluing their works.

That is, the basis for copyright law is in economics and politics, not morality. Passing off copyright as theft creates an emotionally charged environment where rational discussion is difficult.

I intentionally avoided the larger argument because it's about copyright-as-such and how it applies in the digital age. There are people talking about it who are far smarter than I am.

I'm also intentionally not discussing my opinions about the status quo.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#47

Post by mattmaroon »

tptacek wrote: post #31
eyudkowsky wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would copyright infringement still seem intuitively, morally wrong, if there were no copyright laws to begin with? If creators were never promised a legal expectation of control over their work, would you be violating any legitimate expectation by copying? Let's say that someone produces a musical album, and, knowing they cannot legally stop you from downloading it, they ask you not to copy it unless you send them $5…

Let's say that someone produces a musical album, and, knowing they cannot legally stop you from downloading it, they ask you not to copy it unless you send them $5. Would it be morally wrong to copy without paying? Uh, yeah? Like, very?

It would clearly be intentionally rude. Is that immoral?

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#48

Post by mattmaroon »

jfarmer wrote: post #23
tptacek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's equally bad to elevate a semantic argument so you can use it as a straw man, as you implicitly do with the word "even" in the sentence "even if you believe copyright infringement is wrong". And face it, the Free Culture side of this debate uses that tactic a lot. "Copying isn't piracy! Pirates kill people! Abolish copyright!"

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…

I made no such syllogism. You did. Whether or not it's legally defined as theft is irrelevant to the overall article and not even worth mentioning.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#49

Post by tptacek »

jfarmer wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Copyright infringement is trivial to argue against as a form of free riding. Does your blog post make it in any way easier to reconcile Watterson's rights with the RIAA's demands and the Free Culture people?

Right, ok, now we're on the same page. Copyright was created because the old system of guild-based monopolies collapsed and authors demanded that the Parliament deal with the influx of cheaply copied books devaluing their works. That is, the basis for copyright law is in economics and politics, not morality. Passing off copyright as theft creates an emotionally charged environment where rational discussion is difficu…

You're off the rails again. "Theft" isn't what makes it charged. "Crime" is. Plenty of free riding problems are crimes. There's no "economics" versus "morality" issue at play here. Free riding is immoral.

Re: Copyright Infringement != Theft

#50

Post by jfarmer »

tptacek wrote: post #49
jfarmer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, ok, now we're on the same page. Copyright was created because the old system of guild-based monopolies collapsed and authors demanded that the Parliament deal with the influx of cheaply copied books devaluing their works. That is, the basis for copyright law is in economics and politics, not morality. Passing off copyright as theft creates an emotionally charged environment where rational discussion is difficu…

You're off the rails again. "Theft" isn't what makes it charged. "Crime" is. Plenty of free riding problems are crimes. There's no "economics" versus "morality" issue at play here. Free riding is immoral.

Thanks for the insult!

My point was intentionally narrow and I don't really think it's necessary for me to repeat it.

Whether copyright infringement is "free riding" and whether or not "free riding" is immoral will have to wait for another day.

Cheers, Jesse

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