I've been thinking about this issue for a while, and reading the comments section of this article got me thinking about it again.
All the anti-piracy advocates seem to keep reverting to a single point: "None of your excuses or rationalizations will refute the fact that you're stealing when you make an unauthorized copy of something."
And, well, it works. Every argument that the side against copyright has seems to be perpetually bogged down in definitions and assumptions and challenging paradigms, while the anti-piracy argument has all the emotion, simplicity, and moralism on its side, mostly in the form of two arguments:
- 1. You aren't giving the creators of the art the money they rightfully deserve, and therefore you are directly responsible for their suffering.
2. You are taking something you don't have the right to possess because it belongs to somebody else, which is stealing, end of story.
For both of the above points, if you say anything to the contrary, you are simply trying to excuse away your own thefts.
Both of these points depend on a childlike interpretation of morality (in fact, it's squarely in stage 1 of Kohlberg's stages of moral development), and it's very easy to see any attempted refutations of these two points as trying to negate clearly defined and obvious moral codes for the arguer's own selfish gain, as some of the moralizers are doing. In effect, they're making any person who decries intellectual property look like a criminal just for stating their opinion.
Is there anything we can say to defer this bias, or to shift their paradigm?
There is no moral argument for piracy. There are all sorts of moral arguments against big media. There are all sorts of moral arguments for peer-to-peer sharing of content as beneficial to the artists. But there are no simple, trite, clear-cut methods for arguing that failing to pay royalties for the personal use of media is not the same thing as depriving the rights holder their rightful royalty payment. Piracy is often the outcome of a costs/benefits mismatch, however. A black-or-gray market for something will develop when the consensus holds that something costs far more than it's worth. We're now arguing consensus, though, not morality... which, after all, trails consensus. It used to be immoral to kiss a person of another race. It used to be immoral to have sex outside of marriage. Thoreau argued that if you disagreed with a law you should break it, but you should also be willing (eager, in fact) to pay the penalty for breaking that law. The penalty for piracy is often nothing. If you get caught, it's whatever you can negotiate. Hey - stick to private trackers and never get a notice? You're morally within the law, at least as far as the guy who wrote Civil Disobedience is concerned.
Telling me I can't read, or watch, or say things is infringing on my human rights. Seems pretty clear-cut to me. Counter: but your reading something I wrote without paying me infringes on my rights to information I produce. Reply: You have no "rights" over information, any more than you have rights to the CO2 you exhale, or the river that runs through your land. Producing useful information is invaluable to society. I'm not diminishing that. But it's not something you can practically own, any more than you can own the water cycle, or an emotion, or the right to look at the Moon. My primary argument is more practical than moral. One cannot own information. You can own a book, and take it with you, and hide it away in a box. But you can only 'own' a thought until you speak it. Once spoken, or written, it is no longer physically possible to maintain ownership. Greedy people have been trying very hard for the last 50 years or so. They're failing. They're like the feudal lords of Europe, proclaiming inevitable Divine Right even as the middle class is rising. I'm pragmatic. These people would have you believe I'm an idealistic Commie, and they're the realists. I contend they're the idealists. I work with software. My career is manipulating information. I'm telling you, it can't be stopped. It's like trying to own atmosphere. Three hundred years ago, people decided they could 'own' information. Fifty years ago, technology made sharing information trivial, and people decided they could stop it with more technology. I think they're crazy. Just ask Beyoncé. On the moral side, information, numbers, and algorithms belong to humanity. Just like breathing and watching sunsets. It is a draconian, tyrannical government which infringes on that right and uses force against individuals for learning, teaching, and inventing.There is no moral argument for piracy.
Those sentences don't mean anything. In fact, you didn't address the part of kleinbl00's post that you quoted at all, as far as I can tell. What's the moral argument for piracy? You say: that I have no right to anything I produce. Why? I disagree completely. You can't just say that and expect it to be held as true. You also say: it is impractical. Well, sure, but that has absolutely nothing to do with morality. You finally say: information belongs to humanity. That may be a sort of moral argument, but you don't justify it, you just use more similes. Does my bank account belong to humanity?Reply: You have no "rights" over information, any more than you have rights to the CO2 you exhale, or the river that runs through your land.
But it's not something you can practically own, any more than you can own the water cycle, or an emotion, or the right to look at the Moon.
On the moral side, information, numbers, and algorithms belong to humanity. Just like breathing and watching sunsets.
You're reversing the burden of proof. One must prove something is immoral, not the reverse. What's the moral argument for tying your right shoe first? There is none. Clearly it's immoral, you should always tie your left shoe first. I didn't say you have no right to anything you produce. If you print a book, you absolutely have the right that physical book. But no, I don't believe you or I have the moral right to the information we produce. If you sell that book to someone, I don't think you have a right to tell them "you can read this, but you can't let anyone else read it, and you can't write these same Latin characters in the same order." A bank account is not information. Information is part of it, but it's more specifically a record kept by your bank. Whether that information is public is an issue of privacy, which is related, but probably ought to be saved for a different post. No, I really didn't, because morality is a lot trickier than practicality. And honestly, I haven't decided what I believe precisely, when it comes to the nuances of Deontology and Teleology and all their ilk. I tried to make a moral defense using Classical Liberalism, but yes, I didn't do a great job. If you really want a balanced reasoning, and a better defense than I can make, I do highly recommend Thomas Jefferson's letter. I know I've already linked it twice, but he does a much better job than I can of weighing the implications, practical and moral, of intellectual property.What's the moral argument for piracy?
You say: that I have no right to anything I produce. Why? I disagree completely.
Does my bank account belong to humanity?
you didn't address the part of kleinbl00's post that you quoted at all, as far as I can tell. What's the moral argument for piracy?
"theft" is not a moral concept. It's a legal one. If Johnny takes possession of rights-managed content legally owned by Jane without according Jane the redress legally accorded her for dispersal of her content, Johnny has committed a crime. Morality has nothing to do with it. All sorts of laws are immoral. Legally Johnny is in the wrong. Let's pretend you live in Colorado. You own a growhouse and are a pot entrepreneur. Because of this, the NSA has all your phones tapped and all your email monitored. You go on a roadtrip to Utah and are arrested in a joint operation involving the DEA, the Utah State Patrol and the FBI. Do you have a problem with this? Because, as you say, "I don't believe you or I have the moral right to the information we produce." I dunno, man. I value protection from unlawful search and seizure and the right to privacy a bit higher than the right to read or watch whatever I want. I would really like to see you elaborate on this one. My uncle used to run payroll for Laemmle Theaters back in the late '60s. That's why he knows COBOL. Thermodynamically speaking, by the way, "information" is any signal that isn't pure noise. I'm curious to see how financial data doesn't fit this definition.You're reversing the burden of proof. One must prove something is immoral, not the reverse.
But no, I don't believe you or I have the moral right to the information we produce.
A bank account is not information.
Absolutely. I disapprove of the law, but Johnny is undeniably a lawbreaker. flagamuffin seemed to be concerned by my moral argument, so I was trying to address that (admittedly poorly). The public certainly doesn't have the right to manipulate the bank's physical systems, to manipulate the account. Whether the public has access to that information is a privacy issue. Privacy is a conflicting value, just like libel is a conflicting value for Free Speech. Yes, I vehemently oppose warrantless search and wiretapping. And I'll freely admit this is somewhat at odds with my belief in Freedom of Information. I don't have everything figured out.Legally Johnny is in the wrong.
I would really like to see you elaborate on this one.
Do you have a problem with this?
I dunno, man. I value protection from unlawful search and seizure and the right to privacy a bit higher than the right to read or watch whatever I want.
I'd like to note ① I'm aware my opinions are unconventional, and I'm not trying to push them on anyone, and ② I don't actually pirate anything. Moral or practical, our current system is how individual content producers make a living, so I grudgingly participate.
I, on the other hand, am pirating something as I type this. In this thread I am merely trying to distinguish from the moral and the practical. Pragmatically, I am doing no "harm" by torrenting music. Morally, I believe I am in the wrong. It doesn't bother me. I've done worse.
But do you see how specific your wording is now? In order to turn your argument into a useful point, you had to abandon any mention of the word "stealing" or "theft", and it's no longer such a simple, trite, cleat-cut point from the other side to say "thou shalt not deprive an author of royalties for your personal use of their creative works". But there are no simple, trite, clear-cut methods for arguing that failing to pay royalties for the personal use of media is not the same thing as depriving the rights holder their rightful royalty payment.
Nope. I'm arguing that the argument "theft is theft" works because mechanically speaking, something of value is being taken. Where your panties are getting twisted is where you're somehow trying to make me take a side here. Read again: That's a rhetorical elaboration of "theft is theft." "Simply put" "Theft" "Is" "Theft." Listen closely: I am a dues-paying, unionized creative in Hollywood. Prior to that I was an in-the-trenches creative in the music industry. By my rough estimation hundreds of dollars' worth of my dues have been spent directly on lobbying for stricter enforcement against piracy. I am also a member of three private trackers. The situation is complex. Those in favor of preserving the old order at any cost see only simplicity. Those in favor of looser restrictions on intellectual property see nuance. My "argument" is that nuance cannot be turned into simplicity. If "you" want to "win" this "argument" you have to get the other side to see nuance, not attempt to find the simplicity in your argument... ...because it isn't there.But do you see how specific your wording is now?
But there are no simple, trite, clear-cut methods for arguing that failing to pay royalties for the personal use of media is not the same thing as depriving the rights holder their rightful royalty payment.
But there are no simple, trite, clear-cut methods for arguing that
failing to pay royalties for the personal use of media
is not the same thing as
depriving the rights holder their rightful royalty payment.
I think I see where Falzar is coming from. The way that's worded, I think it's begging the question. The question isn't whether one has the right to property. That's a given. The question is whether information is property. Whether information can be owned at all, practically or morally.there are no simple, trite, clear-cut methods for arguing that failing to pay royalties for the personal use of media is not the same thing as depriving the rights holder their rightful royalty payment.
theft is theft
Kids these days. Royalties are not new. Royalties for music are over 100 years old. Patents are even older. Information can totally be owned, should be owned and in many cases must be owned. Look up Chamberlen forceps if you need a crash course in the value of intellectual property to the common good.
I think you've mistaken me for an ideologue. I believe in Freedom of Information in general, but I do recognize the need for limitations, such as medical records or nuclear weapons. Just like I believe in Freedom of Speech, while recognizing the need for libel laws.Royalties are not new
I am actually somewhat familiar with the history of intellectual property. As I noted elsewhere, it actually dates back to the Statue of Anne in 1710, the Licensing of the Press Act of 1662, or even 14th century guilds, depending on your precise definition :Pin many cases must be owned. Look up Chamberlen forceps
I didn't say "In all cases, no exceptions." So, there are no succinct arguments against your position, and anyone who makes one is a fanatic?there are no simple, trite, clear-cut methods for arguing
Did you, or did you not, say the following:
Telling me I can't read, or watch, or say things is infringing on my human rights. Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
Holy Hyperbole, batman! I argued that legally speaking, piracy is "theft", where "theft" is "taking something from someone without their permission." I further argued that the issue is much greater than that and people who argue "theft is theft" refuse or fail to see the larger aspects of the issue. I would say that's a pretty dispassionate, bias-free assessment of the crux of the argument. If you wanted to argue with it, you'd have to argue the legal definition of "theft" as well as the typical public interpretation of it. You came out swinging with the argument that nobody has any right to anything lacking a physical form. Sure, you're backtracking in a couple places but the point stands: You argued that intellectual property is a crime against humanity. I'd say you did more than prove yourself an ideologue; I'd say you're acting like a froot loop. So we're clear: there have always been and will always be abuses of intellectual property law. I'm not at all happy with lots of it. But you have no more rights to the labor of a composer than you do to the labor of a bricklayer. Arguing otherwise is... ...well, do your best. I'm honestly curious.
Just because something is a natural right doesn't mean it's on the same level as torture and genocide. I have a friends who believe all speech should be free, including libel and things that get people killed. I think they're wrong, but I don't think they're fruit loops. I kinda did. Heh. Sorry I'm not a better debater. Maybe it's because my position is weak and I'll change my mind in a few years. We'll see. ^_^You argued that intellectual property is a crime against humanity.
Arguing otherwise is......well, do your best.
Well, thanks for elaborating on your motives. I can see what you're getting at now. In my case, I was trying to "get you to see nuance" by pointing out how nuanced "your" line had become compared to the platitudes most people spew. Then you ended up simplifying it afterwards, although I still don't quite see how the simplification holds. It was more inferring that you were taking a side due to your opening thesis statement, "there's no moral argument for piracy". If by that you meant "there is no argument that can posit piracy as a morally virtuous act", then I'd agree with you, in the same way that I believe there's no moral argument in support of capricious abortion. But if you mean "there is no moral argument against anti-piracy", that's where I'd start begging to differ.My "argument" is that nuance cannot be turned into simplicity. If "you" want to "win" this "argument" you have to get the other side to see nuance, not attempt to find the simplicity in your argument...
Where your panties are getting twisted is where you're somehow trying to make me take a side here.
So just to be clear, are you denying the "anti-piracy" side their argument on grounds of moral simplicity? Of course there are shades of nuance, as many people here have already established. BFV and wasoxygen both have valid points within their discussion, as does thenewgreen when he mentions that stealing for need inhabits a different space on the moral spectrum as stealing something from desire. In light of all that, it looks like you've oversimplified the argument a few shades. I've seen very few people other than, I dunno, ad men for "The 20" portion of my movie theater experience ever argue that "stealing is stealing, period." I've seen plenty more people supply the below arguments, pro and con. Don't dismiss one side of the argument based on (don't say it don't say it I'm gonna say it) strawman. You know what else I've seen? The effects from the supply side. This isn't something I talk about often here for various reasons, but for the sake of my stance I think it's useful to clarify: I was once a relatively successful supplier of the kind of IP you're talking about. You know why I'm not anymore? Because more people, by orders of magnitude, decided that they valued my IP enough to copy, share, experience and talk about it, than people did enough to attach a dollar value to that IP the same way they would, say, a sandwich (and at much the same price, I should point out). I remember being initially flattered by the numbers I was seeing vis a vis filesharing of my IP. Hey, this is great exposure! People like this stuff! This is awesome! That feeling deflated over time as I realized that: a) A lot of the support I saw at shows was at least as much due to extensive label-side promotion, savvy product placement, licensing exposure, and good ol' fashioned elbow grease from me and mine than from support garnered from the fleeting online hype cycle. We worked our asses off, on the road, for the better part of the year, for several years in order to see the returns we did. Filesharing? It's great for immediate exposure, but it also facilitates a culture of consumers with very low attention span and an insatiable appetite for new stuff faster than you can possibly supply it. b) Roughly ten times as many people just downloaded our shit over the period of five years than bought it. Resulting in c) Our label not being able to afford more publicity support due to always having to dig themselves out of the red. Less publicity and general support from label = less exposure = less money for us. Now, min_wage brought up the tour support thing below (by the way, I have quite a lot of respect for _wage's argument sheerly by virtue of owning it- steal for want, steal for need, but if you're going to do it, tie it to larger philosophy rather than some small-minded moral equivocation). In response: said live purchases are enough to support touring costs- transportation, upkeep, room & board, merch reorders, equipment repair, theft mitigation, management percentage, booking percentage... list goes on. Whatever net profit was left over, that was split anywhere between five and seven smelly, hungry performers. It was often enough to get us through a few months with some pocket change left when we got home... but not always. Money made on the road supports the road. Interesting tangent: you know where we got the most money? Huge corporate interests that wanted to use our stuff to add "hip" cred to their product. The Man everybody loves to rail against? He was the only one willing to assign value to and then compensate that value for our work. Wasn't enough, though. Now, if those that had downloaded our IP for free had instead paid for it- and it was pretty cheap, all things considered- I can say with confidence that I'd still be working at it. I stopped doing what I was doing on the scale that I was doing it because I was broke and tired and finally had to find something that would support my family. So quit and stop whining about it. I did. I bring it up not to cry in my beer, but to highlight a simple point: the less you're willing to pay for the product you choose to consume, the less the producer of said product gets. The less that producer gets, the less incentive there is to supply product. So if you value the IP you're consuming, it might be worth doing a little more empathizing and a little less justifying. Or else, jesus, have the stones to own up to what you're doing rather than trying to snake your way out of culpability. Is stealing sometimes morally justified? Yeah, fine, but you'd be hard pressed to apply those circumstances to this arena. Sure, you're not stealing a physical thing, you're making a copy. But each free unauthorized copy means less food in the producer's mouth. That's taking something you want at the expense of what she needs. And there will come a time when your very favorite product just doesn't exist, because there's no incentive to produce it.
No, I'm trying to point out how the above two arguments, which seem to be quite prevalent on the Internet, are too simple and are generally used to shut out debate instead of doing anything useful. Oh, I know there are definitely cogent, nuanced arguments against piracy. But it's been my experience that there are way too many Internet commenters who use the two ahem "straw men" I pointed above, and I was wondering whether we could do anything about those people, because as you mentioned, they are hurting the side that argues in favour of intellectual property by not actually letting anyone talk about the issue. I don't believe in using arguments like that. They're ad-hominem and altogether too dismissive of the humanity of the other arguers. However, this is simply a form of "if you say anything to the contrary, you are simply trying to excuse away your own thefts." Your essay would be just as cogent if this line were omitted. That being said, if there were something I would "own up" to, it would be phrased as such: I infringe copyrights. Not just by making unauthorized copies of creative works, but also by creating unauthorized derivative works. So just to be clear, are you denying the "anti-piracy" side their argument on grounds of moral simplicity?
In light of all that, it looks like you've oversimplified the argument a few shades. I've seen very few people other than, I dunno, ad men for "The 20" portion of my movie theater experience ever argue that "stealing is stealing, period." I've seen plenty more people supply the below arguments, pro and con. Don't dismiss one side of the argument based on (don't say it don't say it I'm gonna say it) strawman.
So quit and stop whining about it.
Or else, jesus, have the stones to own up to what you're doing rather than trying to snake your way out of culpability.
If I sound like I'm saying something along the lines of "if you say anything to the contrary, you are simply trying to exuse away your own thefts," it's because within this particular framework, that's a valid response to the question as posed. In the arena of filesharing, "can we refute stealing is stealing?" In short, no. But here's what you can do: you can re-frame the debate. There's a reason for this. Me? It's in my marked interest, as it is for anybody who works within and stands to benefit from the current system, to keep the debate firmly on grounds of morality. Because, barring a change to the system, it's not only an extremely easy argument to make, but it represents the last available appeal to people who would otherwise bypass that system entirely at the expense of a few distant actors. You can get this by means that lie outside of my preferred marketplace, but if you do, you are effecting my bottom line. That's an easy and potentially powerful argument. You're going to have a hard time refuting it, too. On the other hand, if you as a file-sharer take up the argument on practical grounds, your job becomes easier: "whether or not my actions are moral is moot; available technology allows me to assign lower monetary value to the stuff I want. The onus doesn't fall on me to ignore available tools, it falls on the market to correct for the presence of those tools." Then again, I can counter (and already have) with the argument others have taken up in other IP arenas. Sure, you can leverage available tools to take my IP, and there's nothing I can do about it. But if there's no money in it for me, I'll stop producing. That's a market correction. Anyhow, the question about "how to counter the morality argument" seems a bit off the mark, as you're looking to fight a very uneven fight. Which is why you as a consumer are better off reverting to practical arguments, as others have done. But then I'm not sure that road takes you anywhere you necessarily want to go, either.Every argument that the side against copyright has seems to be perpetually bogged down in definitions and assumptions and challenging paradigms
That's also a valid answer to the original question - "You really can't". I mean, perhaps it's not the most useful of answers by itself, but with your added explanation about the course of action people like us should be taking, it does still contribute to the discussion. It means that people like us will just have to keep working at changing that system - to show consumers and creators alike that you can still be compensated for producing content without copyright. One of the reasons I asked about this problem in the first place is because framing the copyright debate in terms of morality is a political move as much as it is a rhetorical one. Somebody who espoused the above argument would be summarily dismissed by copyright proponents as a selfish, amoral sociopath. On the other hand, as a creator who believes in the culture of sharing and remixing, I'd say that adopting the existing copyright system for small periods of time on some of my own works would be favoring pragmatics over morality on my own part. There's a reason for this. Me? It's in my marked interest, as it is for anybody who works within and stands to benefit from the current system, to keep the debate firmly on grounds of morality. Because, barring a change to the system, it's not only an extremely easy argument to make, but it represents the last available appeal to people who would otherwise bypass that system entirely at the expense of a few distant actors.
You're going to have a hard time refuting it, too. On the other hand, if you as a file-sharer take up the argument on practical grounds, your job becomes easier: "whether or not my actions are moral is moot; available technology allows me to assign lower monetary value to the stuff I want. The onus doesn't fall on me to ignore available tools, it falls on the market to correct for the presence of those tools."
I disagree with property from an ideological standpoint and I disregard property rights whenever convenient. Intellectual property is really convenient. I have no problem with being called a thief for fallacial reasons because I'm fine with being called a thief for legitimate reasons: I steal real, physical objects, sometimes for money. It's a fantastic rebuttal. Yes, I steal. You cannot stop me. If I think an artist should have my personal financial support, I will go to a show, buy a ticket, buy a shirt or patch or even media at their merch table, and maybe toss some cash in the tips jar. They'll get 100% of my money, sans label or PayPal fees, and I get a more memorable experience than a pile of FLACs. Last time I was at a show, I dropped $30 on shitty t-shirts, and my friends (that I introduced to the band via my pirate ways) dropped more. Good tradeoff, no matter how you count it, and it didn't require the exercise of intellectual property. Don't argue the semantics of the word "stealing". Attack and offend the idea of property (whatever form) directly. According to IP, copying is stealing. Embrace and acknowledge it. If you want to argue about why IP isn't a social construct worthy of maintenance, do so. But don't try to nullify its points while leaving the rest of it standing, because the rest of it is very clear on the fact that point exists.
Do you mean don't deconstruct the points of intellectual property while leaving the rest of property in general standing? Because I am definitely against the concept of intellectual property itself and would love to see it abolished, but I'm not sure about physical property rights. But don't try to deconstruct its points while leaving the rest of it standing, because the rest of it is very clear on the fact that point exists.
I have, in fact. Although none of it is currently marketable regardless of whether it's truly original content or not, I do have more creative endeavours planned in the future, and in spite of that, I still think intellectual property is mostly a sham.
That's entirely possible; I've had pangs of thought about it before. Although, most likely, it won't involve open-source software. That stuff, where I develop it, has already culturally shifted its paradigm to the marketing of services around the software instead of the software itself.
I think food should be free. Have you ever owned a restaurant? no, but I have a refrigerator but nobody likes the food I keep I think if you owned a restaurant, you might change your thinking. Ive considered opening a restaurant in the future Yeah, let's revisit this topic after you open it.
I feel like I've struck a nerve somewhere. But anyway, as for the restaurant analogy, I would object to the notion that I have to be a successful creator in order to even have an opinion on intellectual property. I'm still working on it (and I've tried a few times but they've all fallen flat), and in terms of making open-source software rather than works of art, I have actually gotten places with a team of people, and we make a game that's currently being enjoyed by a small community. Perhaps my opinion won't be as weighty or relevant until I make something truly marketable, but to dismiss it outright seems a bit harsh. Perhaps I shouldn't have been so self-deprecatory when I said "my creations are so bad". A bunch of people have in fact expressed appreciation for the things I've created, and I've reached a lot of people with my work. By marketable, I meant something that would keep its presence on the large-scale commercial creative market, not just something a lot of people would like. In fact, come to think about it, I've had a small business deal with a company in the past with regards to a game I created. So while I may not have opened a restaurant, I've definitely run a bake sale that turned up actual proceeds. I have a refrigerator but nobody likes the food I keep
Of course you are allowed to have an opinion. I would never suggest otherwise. However, let's pretend that your "bake sale" was successful and that you depended on its success in order to do things like pay your rent, buy food etc. Now let's pretend that someone took your loaf of bread you were trying to sell and began giving it away, right next to you to people, some of whom would have gladly paid you for that same loaf of bread. Also, for what it is worth you have not hit "a nerve" I just don't agree with you. I think it's been a cordial discussion. Also, in no way do I mean to suggest that you don't have the ability to create awesome software. I have no idea of your abilities, I just mean to suggest that your opinion would almost surely change if you were making software and getting paid for it and were reliant on that money and someone came along and stole it.
Well, that's good. It just felt like you were acting just a tiny bit aggrieved with your "let's revisit this topic after you open it" line (and the "nobody likes the food I keep" line also came off as somewhat derogatory), especially since b_b had said essentially the same thing and you were replying to my reply to him as if to further force the point. Also, for what it is worth you have not hit "a nerve" I just don't agree with you. I think it's been a cordial discussion.
Also, in no way do I mean to suggest that you don't have the ability to create awesome software. I have no idea of your abilities, I just mean to suggest that your opinion would almost surely change if you were making software and getting paid for it and were reliant on that money and someone came along and stole it.
Intellectual property is a bullshit notion. I do not deny you a file by making a copy of it. This is not a moral issue, it's a policy issue. Calling sharing copies of files "stealing" or "piracy" is just rhetorical trickery. The only really relevant question is whether society benefits more from allowing organizations to claim ownership of culture, allowing them to fund its production by charging for access, or from being able to share it freely among ourselves. Anyone saying "none of your excuses or rationalizations will refute the fact that you're stealing when you make an unauthorized copy of something" is either a sophist or a rube.
If you plan to earn a salary in computer science, you or someone will have to find customers to pay for what you create. If technology allows unlimited perfect copies to be made of your creation, and the customers see it as perfectly ethical to use these copies without paying for them, it seems like a non-trivial problem to keep you in work. (I work in IT, and I "make unauthorized copies" of content like books and music. I think it's usually wrong.)Intellectual property is a bullshit notion. I do not deny you a file by making a copy of it.
You are not denying me anything, but you are denying something to the content creator: compensation for the work of creation according to the terms by which that person made (or intended to make) the content available to you.
Software companies have had to innovate with their business models specifically because they produce a product which is easy to duplicate. This does not mean that the duplication is moral or immoral. Suppose you had two clients with identical needs. One client says to the other, "Hey, instead of paying BFV Inc., we can just burn you a CD with the solution they provided for us, and next time you can return the favor." This might be beneficial to society (initially), but it hurts your business. You might consider coming to an agreement with your clients to discourage this kind of behavior. The fact that it may be easy for people to get the value of your work without compensating you does not make it ethical. IP is an imperfect tool, like a padlock on a warehouse, that some producers rely on to make a living by selling their time, talent and effort.
It's a good point. In that case, I don't see the original lawyer having a very strong complaint. To distort it a bit, suppose the lawyer spent many days preparing for a case, then prepped the client before the court date, sharing the entire strategy. The client then dismissed the lawyer without paying and hired a cheapo lawyer, providing the new lawyer with a ready-made case. That would be pretty shady, even if there was no formal agreement against such behavior.
True. But has it been true from the perspective of a regular consumer outside of one of those large institutions? That's the perspective I was talking about before, and to me, personally, it seems to have shifted from around those time periods onward.
Do you mean that the software consumers not part of an institution has access to has been software sold as a product to them? I guess that's probably true, if you ignore the work of the free software community. What significance do you see in that though?
Most software that makes money nowadays makes it in the form of providing services around the software rather than providing the software itself, or at least that's my impression from my own experiences with tech nowadays. I barely see anyone still selling the software itself, on its own.
I would highly recommend to anyone who is interested in the idea of property, its history, and its relationship to society in more than just a cursory fashion read Property and Freedom. It's written by a conservative academic who is an expert in the history of Russia/USSR, so I'm sure he'll have some detractors on these boards, but as a piece of scholarship, it's brilliant.
Richard Pipes dismantled communism/marxism-leninism in such a thorough and relentless fashion that it fundamentally altered my perception of world politics. You're right; he didn't vote for Mondale or dukakis. Doesn't diminish his arguments one iota.
As a companion, I also recommend Thomas Jefferson's letter to McPherson. It's a very intelligent, well-reasoned consideration of the concept and implications of information as property, written at a time when the concept was new to the world. http://www.red-bean.com/kfogel/jefferson-macpherson-letter.html
In my opinion, there is a huge gulf between stealing a loaf of bread to feed your family and illegally downloading the latest Miley Cyrus song. There are differences between wants and needs. Now, if it were a Wilco song, or a previously unreleased Beatles track.... Edit: in all seriousness, take someone like cW that recently released an album that he put a lot of time and money in to making. He is not wealthy, has no label and is counting on album sales to cover costs. What if his album becomes popular enough that 1000 people would have paid $10 each to buy it, but instead 70% of them illegally download it? He's out $7k. That's a real hit. That's stealing bread out of his mouth. Miley can afford it, cW cannot. Where do you draw the distinction? When is it okay to steal it? It is stealing.
Note: I wrote this essay length reply to thenewgreens post on my smallest laptop in the world workaround, currently my window into the cyberverse. My eyes will take their vengeance on me presently. Meanwhile, I see there is much more discussion here, probably much of which refers to that which I refer, and much more. Hopefully, someday, I'll catch up. Realistically, I won't. Cheers to all nonetheless! Well, thanks for looking out for my interests, my friend, and I hate to do any injury to my theoretically possible future self/career, but at a moment like this, it would be simply perverse not to adduce the following: Copying is Not Theft The fact that it doesn't serve my personal economic interests would be no worthy excuse not to confess the following: the foundational problem here is that ownership (the basis by which theft can be assessed) is itself nothing more than a contingently necessary mass-hallucination. It has no self-evident qualities, no a priori claim upon being. It might as well have been a dozen other ways, and in fact, it has. Even among societies which have participated in the belief in ownership, modern western notions of ownership remain distinct, the most highly augmented and elaborate. This distinction reveals primarily the importance of ownership, i.e., the regulation of access to stuff as a means of controlling reality, to our society. The most fantastical of these notions, the furthest abstracted from any basis or grounds in material reality, is that of intellectual property. The above video does a brilliant job of illustrating this fact, along with a hilariously nursery rhyme-esque ditty and animation to boot, which is why I love it so much, and am so delighted to share it. The laws that protect intellectual property serve to reward and thereby fuel visionaries (and any of those legally capable of appropriating said-visionaries breakthroughs), and as such, we must regard it as a powerful tool for discovery and progress. This rationale is, however, entirely utilitarian, and therefore contingent. It has no basis in reality, and is in fact contrary to what we see in the natural world, wherein discoveries, developments, evolutions, etc., are distributed, disseminated, inherited, etc., equally, and without any thought for compensation or establishment of paternity. I ought to say that the difference between taking bread and taking files of music/what have you does demonstrate something significant about different kinds of ownership, as defined. While the taking of bread for the hungry is palpably more urgent, it also deprives the former bread-holder of actual calories. Dude now needs another loaf. On the digital download side of things, we see no urgency of acquisition, but also no deprivation of anything previously held. The mp3 is the digital equivalent of Jesus Christ's loaves and fishes, broken 5,000 times and still remaining entirely whole. I do believe it is important to support our artists, and I am incredibly grateful to all those who have, and who will, support my own artistic endeavors. However, I would argue that to protect my own wellbeing, and indeed the vitality of our culture, we must take a different tack than that which our production/consumption based society would offer us. Instead of regarding our art as units of production, which are expected to go out into the market and return us ducats from faceless consumers in whereverland, as would a pair of tennis shoes or a smartphone or a spool of floss, we might regard it as a vital medium which connects us all, and in which we all are welcomed to have ownership, not the ownership of exclusive access, but the ownership of active participation, of engagement, and of the enfranchisement which attends active engagement. Someone once said (and I think it was Billy Corgan, though I can't track it down ... any help?) that the music industry had basically invited the scourge of illegal downloading by pushing its artists for so long to make songs which were ever more disposable. The pop song is meant to hook you on the first listen, infect you on the second, and sicken you on the third. That way you'll be ready to welcome the next one. So what if we instead create work that is meant to outlast us, and welcome a community of listeners to be as actively engaged as were any of Shakespeare's rambunctious penny audiences? I'd like people not to download music illegally, but not because I think it's theft, or because I think it's wrong. Rather, I'd like them to consider what they are cheating themselves out of by not committing to the works of art they are consuming, and how much more rich will their experience of it become once they show up and participate in the experience, and contribute, not just financially, which is an expression of what we value, but also with their focus, their thoughts, and their vital life energy. We don't have to swallow the modern Western faux-divides of audience/performer, connoiseur/virtuoso. This is something we're meant to do together.
Ah yes, Nina Paley. I was wondering when she would make an appearance here. I have never heard that analogy before, but that is a brilliant comparison. Imagine the vendor of the original loaves and fish going, "Hey, Jesus! You can't do that, you're artificially inflating the food supply so that the original maker of the loaf didn't get his money for all of them! You're depriving poor breadmakers of their livelihood!" Copying is Not Theft
The mp3 is the digital equivalent of Jesus Christ's loaves and fishes, broken 5,000 times and still remaining entirely whole.
Miley can afford it, cW cannot. Where do you draw the distinction? When is it okay to steal it? It is stealing. The traditional counterargument goes that nobody really has any idea how many people "would have bought" an album but pirated it instead, and that the consequences of piracy extend far beyond just a lost hypothetical sale. Would cW's album have become popular without 70% of people pirating it in the first place? That's the question that needs to be answered. What if his album becomes popular enough that 1000 people would have paid $10 each to buy it, but instead 70% of them illegally download it? He's out $7k. That's a real hit. That's stealing bread out of his mouth.
If he had a stack of CDs on a table, selling them on the street and someone stole 70% of them and set up a table 20 feet away, handing them out for free. Would we bother with the question of whether those that took the free cd would have purchased it or would we condemn the practice? I think the question is one of physicality. For some reason, something has to be able to be held in your hand or it doesn't count. It doesn't matter that it's the same group of songs, the same effort put forth to produce it. Somehow the digital version is okay to steal, in fact we are somehow debating whether it is even theft. It's irrational.
Yes, the question is completely one of physicality. Because physicality places a limit, and therefore a finitude, on supply. When you make a copy of something, you don't decrease the supply of the thing that the original vendor has; you've just created one of your own without taking one from the original vendor at all, regardless of whether you'd paid for it (buying) or not (stealing). Correct. But then again effort doesn't always correspond to marketability in the first place. People may just not listen to your music at all if you can't distribute it widely enough to the right people. A lot of the anti-anti-pirates would state the inverse, that's it's in fact irrational to equivocate piracy with physical theft. I think the question is one of physicality. For some reason, something has to be able to be held in your hand or it doesn't count.
It doesn't matter that it's the same group of songs, the same effort put forth to produce it.
Somehow the digital version is okay to steal, in fact we are somehow debating whether it is even theft. It's irrational.
The vendor doesn't want to have inventory. The vendor wants compensation.When you make a copy of something, you don't decrease the supply of the thing that the original vendor has
Clearly you increase the supply of the thing. An increase in supply reduces demand.
One of the better arguments I've heard for intellectual property. But here's the issue I see: reducing demand isn't illegal or immoral. It's perfectly legal for me to tell a friend "Don't buy that CD, it's trash." So, presuming copying is otherwise acceptable, why is it ok (legally/morally) for me to reduce demand by saying "don't buy that CD" but not ok for me to reduce demand by copying?Clearly you increase the supply of the thing. An increase in supply reduces demand.
This conversation was originally about whether the word "stealing" applies when the work is acquired by unauthorized duplication. I have come to think that piracy is different in enough particulars that using the word "stealing" to describe it gives people too much leeway to confuse the moral issue with semantic arguments and cartoon jingles. Copying is not Theft. Putting Merchandise in Your Pockets and Walking Out of Buildings is not Theft either. If you hire a wedding photographer, and they provide you with digital proofs so you can select prints, and instead you copy the files and make your own prints, you are in the wrong. You have clearly violated an agreement in a way that harms the photographer. It doesn't matter that you have only copied "information" in the form of data files. Almost everything can be conveyed as information. Somewhere in between is downloading music. Most pirated music was created for commercial purposes. There is a contextual understanding that the producers create music for fans to enjoy in exchange for some kind of compensation. Failing to provide the compensation is a violation of that understanding. Identifying the parties subject to that understanding is murky. The fan auditing a new album before deciding whether to buy it is not the entrepreneur selling counterfeit CDs on the sidewalk. Radiohead is not Rachmaninov.reducing demand isn't illegal or immoral
Right, that's not the problem. The trespass is failing to pay someone who produced a work for sale.why is it ... not ok for me to reduce demand by copying?
In my view, it depends on the particulars. If a celebrity coins a clever Twitter hashtag that goes viral, I don't think they have grounds to complain about people copying their creation.
So you're saying it's the consumer's job to keep supply artificially low in order that demand can stay up? And in any case, increasing supply is not something you'd associate with theft. Clearly you increase the supply of the thing. An increase in supply reduces demand.
The purpose of your post, I understand, is to determine if the word "stealing" can be fairly applied to piracy. You've convinced me that "stealing" is not a good term for this behavior. But I still think it is in many cases unethical. To determine when it is wrong we would probably do well to take it on a case-by-case basis.So you're saying it's the consumer's job to keep supply artificially low in order that demand can stay up?
I mean to say that copying should not be construed as having no harmful effects, simply because the producer's inventory is not touched. A lost sale is a plausible effect.
That's fair. The discussion about the ethics of piracy is totally acceptable, but I just hate it when people try to spit moralizing platitudes about "stop trying to justify your stealing" in anybody's face who has an opinion to the contrary. The purpose of your post, I understand, is to determine if the word "stealing" can be fairly applied to piracy. You've convinced me that "stealing" is not a good term for this behavior. But I still think it is in many cases unethical.
I believe in Freedom of Information. Let's simplify the system. (1) I have a thought no one has yet purchased. Say, "apple green puppies." (2) I pay money to the government, to be given "ownership" of my thought. (3) Any time anyone else reads, or writes, or says "apple green puppies," independently or not, I claim they have stolen from me. What? Seriously? My argument isn't. My argument is simple: you can't own an idea. The concept of owning information is Marxist to the extreme, telling people what they can think or read. Thoughts, ideas, and information are not and cannot naturally be property. The artificial construction of information ownership is morally bankrupt and practically catastrophic to technological progress. The cost of patents holding back scientific progress for the entire world far exceeds the gain of corporations developing intellectual property. Thomas Jefferson has good thoughts on the ownership of information. From his letter to McPherson: That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man,
and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Ultimately, Jefferson concluded that patents and copyrights were a necessary evil. Patents were originally limited to 4 years, and copyright to 14. Then the wealthy bought laws extending patents to 17 years, and copyright to effectively eternity. Again, I think all information should be free. All information can be mathematically reduced to a number. Then, information ownership is equivalent to owning numbers. When you reduce it thusly, the idea that someone can own a number is even more bewildering. Information ownership is a relatively new idea. Until the Statue of Anne in 1710, the world basically didn't have the concept. I feel like society accepts it because we've lived with it all our lives. It feels natural. But it isn't. And I think when one examines the concept and really thinks about the implications, it's madness. I say this as someone currently making their living from sold information (software). But I firmly believe our economy could and would adapt to free laws. For example, live concerts, theatres, and software support services. That said, I am willing to concede Jefferson's conclusion. I think 4-year patents and 14-year copyrights would (and did) permit information profits without excessively harming scientific progress.you're stealing when you make an unauthorized copy of something
Every argument that the side against copyright has seems to be perpetually bogged down in definitions and assumptions and challenging paradigms.
It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility.
Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line
Are you sure? Could you please give some references to owning information in Marxism? Do you think (or believe) that Marxism is telling people what they can think or read?The concept of owning information is Marxist to the extreme, telling people what they can think or read.
To quote the great wasoxygen: compared to what? I do not steal content I would otherwise pay for. I steal content I would not otherwise pay for. Stealing content isn't a zero-sum game. This is a very underrated "appeal to common sense" argument, but it doesn't say a thing about the morality of filesharing. From that angle, I agree with wasoxygen -- at the most basic level I'm taking something someone made and enjoying it without paying for it. I don't pretend to be moral while doing so, because I'm not an ass. And like wage said, with musicians at least you can turn the "immoral" decision into a moral one by contributing more directly in other ways. What's hilarious is the intellectual property militants who pretend they have some human right to all content ever created. It's the old study about the lottery owners turning conservative all over again ... how many musicians who espouse that ideology make their music free on bandcamp? Some, but not too many. [Oh, b_b said this below -- to be honest all the good opinions are pretty much on display in this thread. Nice job hubski.]You aren't giving the creators of the art the money they rightfully deserve
It was McCarthy. That's a belief that you have? No. It's called statistics. Just how dangerous is he? Wells shrugged. Compared to what? The bubonic plague? He's bad enough that you called me. He's a psychopathic killer but so what? There's plenty of them around. This was even better: He turned the lights on. How much money? A lot of money. What will you take to drive me to San Antonio. The driver thought about it. You mean on top of the five hundred. Yes. How about a grand all in. Everything. Yes. You got it. The driver nodded. Then how about the other half of these five caesars I already got. Moss took the bills from his pocket and handed them across the back of the seat. What if the Migra stop us. They wont stop us, Moss said. How do you know? There's too much shit still down the road that I got to deal with. It aint goin to end here. I hope you're right. Trust me, Moss said. I hate hearin them words, the driver said. I always did. Have you ever said them? Yeah. I've said em. That's how come I know what they're worth.Somewhere in the world is the most invincible man. Just as somewhere is the most vulnerable.
Turn the lights on, Moss said.
What's hilarious is the intellectual property militants who pretend everyone else has some human right to all content they create. I reject your reality and substitute my own!What's hilarious is the intellectual property militants who pretend they have some human right to all content ever created.
Where did he say this? I can't find it anywhere. I don't pretend to be doing good (and to be honest I barely ever pirate anymore; most content to me nowadays is not worth consuming), but I don't pretend to be doing bad either. Is that what you meant by "being moral"? To quote the great wasoxygen: compared to what?
at the most basic level I'm taking something someone made and enjoying it without paying for it. I don't pretend to be moral while doing so, because I'm not an ass.
Hmm. Maybe, not exactly. It's all very definitional, though. Immoral may not mean bad. (See the zero-sum point above.)I don't pretend to be doing good (and to be honest I barely ever pirate anymore; most content to me nowadays is not worth consuming), but I don't pretend to be doing bad either. Is that what you meant by "being moral"?