When is piracy morally justifiable?

[Saxon]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

Agreed, artists do not owe me anything, but if you claim that I do owe artists payment, then that just goes back to the question of whether people deserve to be paid for work. Any work. (smear poop on a piece of paper, post it online, "Oh, you saw that? $5 please!") The obvious answer is no they don't. Start exploring the question of what kind of work someone does actually "deserve" to be paid for, and you'll come to the same conclusion I proposed.

I think you're attacking a straw man again.

This is the entitled attitude of pirates though. :\  If they think a piece of software or music is too expensive to purchase then they should refrain from buying it, instead of stealing it and comparing it to 'a smear of poop'. It is like a man sneaking into the cinema without paying, and then saying that he should be entitled to leave without paying, when he is discovered, because he doesn't enjoy movies anyway. If the content made by creators really is worthless as poop, then why download it illegally and enjoy it?

If you don't think someone's work deserves payment, you don't have to buy it and don't pirate it.

 

 

[Derin Darkpaw]

Whether or not piracy is morally justifiable and how one can justify it depends entirely on the system of morality one uses.  I personally tend towards a consequentialist utlititarian viewpoint when it comes to morality.  So for me the action can be justified if the consequence leads to a greater increase in net pleasure.  So for example if the amount a work is being pirated doesn't greatly impact the creator's ability to generate more content or their ability to provide for themselves I would tend to view the act of piracy as morally acceptable.  Also this leads me to come to many of the same conclusions as others have already posted here.  So I would also view the pirating orphaned works or works that can not be purchased due to regional restrictions as morally acceptable because the creator is not impacted because they could not receive compensation in either case.

Also from a practical standpoint a small amount of piracy can be beneficial to a work as it can help to create free publicity.  If a work is good many people who pirated the work will tell their friends and/or family about said work which through word of mouth may lead others to buying a work that they would have otherwise never heard of.  In my own personal experience I used to pirate a lot of music back when I didn't have much of a disposable income.  I discovered a large number of bands that I would never have heard of otherwise if I had to purchase their music before even experiencing it.  Now that I have a greater disposable income I am going back and slowly buying many of these albums and also I am buying new content that these creators put out.  Through the act of piracy sales and a loyal fan were created where otherwise these would not have existed.  Of course I also tell people about my favorite bands at every opportunity thus generating publicity and possibly additional revenue for these creators.

[Rassah]

1 hour ago, pheonixbat said:

I think you're missing the point of paying someone for a talent.

You're not paying for the mere sight of it, you're paying to tell them you want more and will try and support them for their work! When you pay for a program or something, you support their choices and their ideas. Not just to look at it.

I'm all for this! But what you're describing is donations, like with a Patreon account, not being forced to pay for intellectual property, and being fined or arrested if you don't.

[pheonixbat]

12 minutes ago, Rassah said:

I'm all for this! But what you're describing is donations, like with a Patreon account, not being forced to pay for intellectual property, and being fined or arrested if you don't.

If the world ran off of "suggested donations" no one would pay squat for anything. I mean yea it would be great if everyone did stuff for free but that's not a world we live in.

[Rassah]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

This is the entitled attitude of pirates though. :\  If they think a piece of software or music is too expensive to purchase then they should refrain from buying it, instead of stealing it and comparing it to 'a smear of poop'.

Speaking of strawmen, you seem to have misunderstood this point.

When someone gets paid, that means someone else gave up something of theirs (money). The only way this can be morral is if it's done voluntarily. No one "deserves" to be paid simply because they have done some labor, since not all labor is wanted by someone, such as smears of poop (or as a more commonly used example, digging a hole in the ground and filing it up for no reason). If no one wants your painting, you do not deserve to take someone's money just because you made it.

Likewise, no one "deserves" for someone to create art for them for free either. That would likewise deprive the artist of something they own against their will.

However, when you make a copy of the original, you are not actually depriving the artist of the original piece. "But you are depriving the artist of his potential income!" you might say. But then you're just going back to defending the point that the artist deserves an income in the future because they worked on something. They do not. If they give something that others willingly pay for, they get an income. If they do not, they don't deserve a right to anyone's wallet.

Quote

It is like a man sneaking into the cinema without paying, and then saying that he should be entitled to leave without paying, when he is discovered, because he doesn't enjoy movies anyway.

Bad analogy. In that case the man is trespassing. He is imposing on the movie theater owner's private property, not on the movie. The movie and the people who made it are not affected by his trespass in any way.

I hope that explains the point a bit better.

34 minutes ago, pheonixbat said:

If the world ran off of "suggested donations" no one would pay squat for anything. I mean yea it would be great if everyone did stuff for free but that's not a world we live in.

Actually they would. Because if I have a loaf of bread, and you decide to donate nothing or less than I want for it, I won't give it to you. The difference is that my bread and most other things in the world are actual property, while intellectual property is just a legal concept.

Edited December 26, 2015 by Rassah

[evan]

11 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Bad analogy. In that case the man is trespassing. He is imposing on the movie theater owner's private property, not on the movie. The movie and the people who made it are not affected by his trespass in any way.

I hope that explains the point better.

But the intent is present regardless. It is a chain of justification to ignore the process in place for contributing to the movie's revenue. Whether or not we need to instate the gravity of economic chains is not the issue as much as the attitude. We can assume this same person would then proceed to, say, pirate music under the same logic. So then in that situation where is the problem?

[Rassah]

I'm arguing that the chain itself is built on faulty logic and ethics. The intent of the man who snuck into the theater is to steal an actual service that the theater owner is selling, which has actual costs involved. There's the cost of purchasing and maintaining the building, the cost of all the video and audio equipment, the cost of electricity to run it, and the cost of the licensing contract to lease the original film that contains the movie being shown (since the licence is a voluntary contract, I'm fine with it). The film makers aren't providing a service by having their work portrayed as photons on the wall. Their work is done.

The problem comes when someone deprives someone else of their property (artists are not deprived of property when copies are made), breaks an agreement or a contract (artists do not have a contract with someone who simply downloads their art, but they're free to sue the movie theater owner who does have one), or when someone claims thought crime is an actual crime, because you have the art in your brain from having experienced it, and this by thinking about it have stolen something.

[Saxon]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

Speaking of strawmen, you seem to have misunderstood this point.

When someone gets paid, that means someone else gave up something of theirs (money). The only way this can be morral is if it's done voluntarily. No one "deserves" to be paid simply because they have done some labor, since not all labor is wanted by someone, such as smears of poop (or as a more commonly used example, digging a hole in the ground and filing it up for no reason). If no one wants your painting, you do not deserve to take someone's money just because you made it.

Likewise, no one "deserves" for someone to create art for them for free either. That would likewise deprive the artist of something they own against their will.

However, when you make a copy of the original, you are not actually depriving the artist of the original piece. "But you are depriving the artist of his potential income!" you might say. But then you're just going back to defending the point that the artist deserves an income in the future because they worked on something. They do not. If they give something that others willingly pay for, they get an income. If they do not, they don't deserve a right to anyone's wallet.

Bad analogy. In that case the man is trespassing. He is imposing on the movie theater owner's private property, not on the movie. The movie and the people who made it are not affected by his trespass in any way.

I hope that explains the point a bit better.

Actually they would. Because if I have a loaf of bread, and you decide to donate nothing or less than I want for it, I won't give it to you. The difference is that my bread and most other things in the world are actual property, while intellectual property is just a legal concept.

Buying a piece of software or music is voluntary. Many platforms offer free trials so that the consumer knows they will be satisfied with the product.

If you don't want something you don't have to buy it, and you don't have to pirate it either.

I think my analogy, of a man sneaking into the cinema and complaining that he didn't like movies anyway when he is kicked out, is apt. If that man is so keen to argue that the cinematic industry's content is so poor they don't deserve money, why is he sneaking in to view it? Accusing him of trespass is a distraction from this point, and you know it.

If you are having trouble de-convolving the two, then consider a man who downloads a movie online and complains that the movie wasn't worth watching when he is caught; if the movies are so bad that the content creators don't deserve anything, why is the man downloading and enjoying them?

 

Intellectual property is an essential concept, not just for art and music, which are the small potatoes, but mostly for science and medicine, because without it research labs would have no chance at all of redeeming their huge costs.I'm all up for arguing about nuances in piracy law, but I think we should all start from the same foundation, that at least some concept of intellectual property is necessary in order to facilitate intellectual production; if everybody could get away with stealing each others' ideas and coding solutions without benefiting the creators, then the creators are not going to get fair pay for their fair work.

 

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

I'm arguing that the chain itself is built on faulty logic and ethics. The intent of the man who snuck into the theater is to steal an actual service that the theater owner is selling, which has actual costs involved. There's the cost of purchasing and maintaining the building, the cost of all the video and audio equipment, the cost of electricity to run it, and the cost of the licensing contract to lease the original film that contains the movie being shown (since the licence is a voluntary contract, I'm fine with it). The film makers aren't providing a service by having their work portrayed as photons on the wall. Their work is done.

The problem comes when someone deprives someone else of their property (artists are not deprived of property when copies are made), breaks an agreement or a contract (artists do not have a contract with someone who simply downloads their art, but they're free to sue the movie theater owner who does have one), or when someone claims thought crime is an actual crime, because you have the art in your brain from having experienced it, and this by thinking about it have stolen something.

That's not what thought crime is. By the same token, sexual voyeurs who spy on women's changing rooms are 'just stealing photons' and the police are 'belligerently prosecuting them only for thinking about those women's bodies,'.

Sensitive or private information can be stolen when it is copied and redistributed, and this includes designs, code, discoveries and so forth.

Edited December 27, 2015 by Saxon

[Taikugemu]

 Didn't you guys have the exact same discussion on FAF that led to absolutely nothing?

[Rassah]

50 minutes ago, Saxon said:

If you don't want something you don't have to buy it, and you don't have to pirate it either.

But if you want it, you can buy it or pirate it too. I don't see your point here, sorry

Quote

I think my analogy, of a man sneaking into the cinema and complaining that he didn't like movies anyway when he is kicked out, is apt. If that man is so keen to argue that the cinematic industry's content is so poor they don't deserve money, why is he sneaking in to view it? Accusing him of trespass is a distraction from this point, and you know it.

It doesn't matter what the man says about his music. The point is that he used a service that is being charged for, and refused to pay. This is no different from someone getting a haircut and refusing to pay, or getting a meal at a restaurant and refusing to pay. You got a service, provided by the proprietor of the venue, with an implied contract that you will compensate them for their work. There was no contract between the movie producers and the man who snuck in, nor any work done by them in that case.

I don't know why you are even using this as an example, since claiming you didn't like it is completely irrelevant.

Quote

Intellectual property is an essential concept, not just for art and music, which are the small potatoes, but mostly for science and medicine, because without it research labs would have no chance at all of redeeming their huge costs.

Well that's absolutely not true!

Quote

I'm all up for arguing about nuances in piracy law, but I think we should all start from the same foundation, that at least some concept of intellectual property is necessary in order to facilitate intellectual production;

I would like to start from a foundation too. But so far your foundation is that people deserve to be paid simply for doing with. Or that people will not produce intellectual products without pay. Or that people can't be compensated for intellectual production without intellectual property laws. None of which are true. Let's pick a foundation actually built on logic and facts please...

[Saxon]

You've been making the bizarre and irrelevant argument that content creators don't deserve to be paid 'because some content isn't good'. Obviously this is irrelevant because pirates are downloading the content that they enjoy- that they think is good.

If you don't enter into a contract with the content creator, by paying for their work, you don't have the right to make copies and redistribute it, robbing them of their potential sales.

I don't know why you think this equates to forcing people to pay for substandard work, or why you would expect the world to be better if there were no consequences for stealing other people's work and ideas, but there we go.

[Rassah]

I just had another thought about this. You need to know where prices come from to follow this argument, so if anyone here doesn't, please watch Supply Curve, Demand Curve, and Equilibrium here https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/microeconomics

 

Because the supply of digital media, and any information, is potentially infinite, the price of intellectual property is potentially zero as well. If the information is controlled, and the supply of it is limited, then there can be a price discovery. I as a seller of the intellectual property can ask for a price, if no one wants to pay, I can lower my price, and if I get too many offers, I can raise it. The negotiations between the sellers of the art and the buyers is what leads to an established price for the art. But the price is for the actual original piece, OR the service provided (such as showing a movie at a theater, which charges the same price for the service regardless of what movie they play), or for expertise in something limited and difficult to copy (such as a custom commission, or knowing how to make a certain drug that no one else does).

However, there is NO price discovery mechanism when it comes to things dealing with piracy. For example, say I created a game like this one https://youtu.be/HxyjwMM4K9w and I put up up on the market, charging $5 for it. I doubt anyone would actually pay for that, let alone $5, but that's the price I came up with. Now say you obtained a copy of that game for free, and I found out. Can I now demand that you pay me $5 for that game? Why? The $5 wasn't determined by the market, I just picked that as the number I liked. Can I claim that by copying that game you have robbed me of potential $5? Not really, since I doubt anyone would pay $5 for it. Unlike all actual market exchanges, where actual economic exchange and price discovery happens, with intellectual property as it relates to piracy, none of that applies.

 

[Rassah]

11 minutes ago, Saxon said:

You've been making the bizarre and irrelevant argument that content creators don't deserve to be paid 'because some content isn't good'.

I'm sorry that you still don't understand. I'll say it plainly:

No one deserves to be paid for anything. No one. Because no one is entitled to anyone else's money. It doesn't matter if the work done was good or bad. It doesn't matter how hard you worked. No one is entitled to take other people's money against their will.

The example of content that isn't good was only used to illustrate that point more clearly, by pointing out that if you do believe that people "deserve" to be paid simply for producing content, then by that logic someone who produces content (or any work) that no one wants is entitled to take money from someone else in compensation, even if that someone else does not want your work, never asked for it, and does not want to pay for it. I'm sorry, I can't state that any more clearly than this. Maybe someone else can help, step in, and explain what I mean to you a bit better?

11 minutes ago, Saxon said:

If you don't enter into a contract with the content creator, by paying for their work, you don't have the right to make copies and redistribute it, robbing them of their potential sales.

If the copies are freely available, then why would you enter into a contract to get them? And "potential sales" is the whole "deserve to be paid" argument I'm talking about. No one deserves "potential sales." You can't use that to defend anything, because you can't quantify it.

11 minutes ago, Saxon said:

I don't know why you think this equates to forcing people to pay for substandard work,

Because when you defend copyright laws, that's what you're defending. If someone makes a shit movie, tries to sell it, and you watch it by downloading a copy of it, you are defending a position that says that someone should be able to force you to pay for their substandard work.

[evan]

3 minutes ago, Rassah said:

No one deserves to be paid for anything. No one. Because no one is entitled to anyone else's money. It doesn't matter if the work done was good or bad. It doesn't matter how hard you worked. No one is entitled to take other people's money against their will.

I'm trying to understand your logic here.

At what point is force a part of it? Most services offer the ability to discriminate between unwanted and wanted materials; at some point this isn't a question of someone parting with their money unintentionally. I feel like you're saying that infringing copyright law and then being questioned for doing so comes before the fact that copyright law exists to protect the work that people are willing to pay for and/or steal without payment. It's almost as though you're trying to argue the process in reverse.

Nobody gets forced to pay for anything purely by the idea that it is bad and costs money. In fact that notion is simply convoluted because it implies that your opinion of the work gets to dictate the price. 

I'm trying to understand your point, and while I think I understand the reasoning, I don't see why your principle dictates the merit of questioning copyright laws, as though exceptions should be made simply because you have an opinion of the work.

[Rassah]

I'm arguing, as the OP's topic is based on, that piracy is OK, and copyright laws are not OK. That making a duplicate of something is not by any definition or sense of the word "stealing" it.

My argument is based on the claim that intellectual property laws distort what property actually is, create unethical and unjust scenarios, and are based on faulty logic, the core of which is that you deserve to be paid simply because you create something (the illogical "potential earnings" argument). If the very foundation of the idea is illogical and immoral, then intellectual property laws are also flawed and immoral.

Basically, instead of arguing why I think it's OK to steal music and art by downloading them, I'm arguing that the idea that it is somehow theft is wrong to begin with.

People's opinions of the work, and of EVERYTHING out there, does indeed dictate the price. That's where prices come from in the first place. But copyright laws twist that around by making the suppliers of the product not only dictate the price, but then force you to pay for it if they find out you made a copy of their product without compensating them.

Force is where someone threatens you, your property, or someone you care about, in order to make you do something you would otherwise not do. Such as threatening you with a fine, armed men, and a jail sentence if you do not comply with their demands.

[Onnes]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

No one deserves to be paid for anything. No one. Because no one is entitled to anyone else's money. It doesn't matter if the work done was good or bad. It doesn't matter how hard you worked. No one is entitled to take other people's money against their will.

For all the universe cares, no one deserves anything beyond the inexorable passage of time. Rights to property, liberty, and even life are human social constructs that enshrine cultural values and promote overall welfare. The form these rights take vary greatly between societies, because much like different people value different things so too do different cultures.

Copyright laws are simply a comprehensive way to encourage the creation of new intellectual products. I emphasized the word 'encourage' because copyright is not supposed to be equivalent or even anything like regular property rights. It's meant as a pragmatic way to guarantee sufficient support for intellectual creations, and while I could say many, many angry things about the current implementation, that would be irrelevant since you are arguing against all forms of mandatory compensation for things traditionally falling under copyright.

For all I can tell, your argument here is based on an anarchist view of the role of government. As you well know, most people are very far from anarchists, especially when it comes to fiscal issues. You can't claim this kind of position on liberties and governance as a universal truth and make that the moral basis of an argument; that only works if everyone involved already agrees with that moral foundation. Since most people hold very different morals and values, an effective argument would have to be based either on known shared values or on recognized outcomes supporting your values.

Edited December 27, 2015 by Onnes

[Rassah]

By the way, I would argue that copyright laws actually discourage the creation of new intellectual content, rather than enlarge it, because they create a monopoly on specific ideas, and prevent others from experimenting with and expanding on those ideas, let alone sharing and allowing ideas in general to expand to the rest of the world. If you've never heard a song or saw a piece of art because of copyright restrictions, you are only left to draw inspiration from the things your limited amount of funds allowed for. Things like memes would not even be able to exist if copyright law was enforced properly.

There are other much better ways to get paid from creating art than trying to enforce copyright laws. Some of my favorite artists earn a decent monthly income from just donations and paywalls that let their fans see their creations first (despite them inevitably appeaeing for free elsewhere a week or two later). Star Wars just had a record breaking opening weekend, despite everyone knowing it will be available for free online in a few months.

As for what my argument is based on, it's nothing more than an understanding of property and force. It doesn't matter whether government exists or not, forcing someone to give up something against their will, for something they never agreed to, is still force. The moral foundation here is that taking other people's stuff without consent, aka stealing, is wrong. Normally that's a fairly normal and uncontroversial statement. But you are correct, government did make such an idea debatable, and this idea may not be palatable to those used to living in a socialist society. Kudos for noticing a cognitive dissonance issue.

[Saxon]

Of course the duplication of sensitive or privately owned information without permission is stealing. The duplication of a credit card is an example.

You're not entitled to own copies of other people's information; it belongs to them, not you. If they give you their permission to use their information, they are entitled to state conditions, such as a cost for purchase or rental. If you don't like those conditions, you should not buy or pirate their information.

You are arguing the weird position that, if someone state's conditions for you to access their work, that this amounts to stealing from you. What an entitled and backward perspective.

 

[Rassah]

A transaction requires both parties to give something up.

Until you can show me what I am depriving an artist of by making a copy of their picture, music, or movie, there's nothing that the artist can ask me for in compensation. They did not lose anything, and I did the work of making a reproduction. If there was a contract that I had to sign to agree to the artist's terms, point me to it.

And if you believe I am depriving the artist of "potential income," I have provided my arguments for both, potential income, and lack of price discovery, so feel free to refute those. After all, that's what a debate is.

Edited December 27, 2015 by Rassah

[Onnes]

14 hours ago, Rassah said:

By the way, I would argue that copyright laws actually discourage the creation of new intellectual content, rather than enlarge it, because they create a monopoly on specific ideas, and prevent others from experimenting with and expanding on those ideas, let alone sharing and allowing ideas in general to expand to the rest of the world. If you've never heard a song or saw a piece of art because of copyright restrictions, you are only left to draw inspiration from the things your limited amount of funds allowed for. Things like memes would not even be able to exist if copyright law was enforced properly.

There are other much better ways to get paid from creating art than trying to enforce copyright laws. Some of my favorite artists earn a decent monthly income from just donations and paywalls that let their fans see their creations first (despite them inevitably appeaeing for free elsewhere a week or two later). Star Wars just had a record breaking opening weekend, despite everyone knowing it will be available for free online in a few months.

First, let recall what you are arguing for: not just the removal of copyright but the abolition of any compulsory fees for the reproduction of creative works. There's a major gap between paying for something that you could get for free, but only illegally, and paying for something that is absolutely no-strings-attached free. You've shifted the underlying principle from compensating someone an agreed upon value for their creative work to one of pure charity.

Anecdotes really don't say much here, and since you brought up Star Wars, I'll use it as an example. Star Wars is so well-known and so culturally important that George Lucas could figuratively shit in a box, send that box to theaters, and still make more money off the proceeds than anyone on this forum will see in a lifetime. If your level of exposure is high then you have a lot more options in how you conduct business because you have an established customer base that trusts you and is interested in your product.

If you want an example of where copyright is highly necessary, look no further than professional photography. Many professional photographers rely on licensing their photographs to businesses and other commercial users, which is something they can only do if the business can't just legally use them for free. This isn't a low demand area; just look at how the internet has made photographic figures pervasive in news stories and articles -- figures which are often professionally sourced. I think my favorite writer on this issue is Alex Wild, who has a fairly comprehensive article on Ars Technica.

 

14 hours ago, Rassah said:

As for what my argument is based on, it's nothing more than an understanding of property and force. It doesn't matter whether government exists or not, forcing someone to give up something against their will, for something they never agreed to, is still force. The moral foundation here is that taking other people's stuff without consent, aka stealing, is wrong. Normally that's a fairly normal and uncontroversial statement. But you are correct, government did make such an idea debatable, and this idea may not be palatable to those used to living in a socialist society. Kudos for noticing a cognitive dissonance issue.

Unless you define stealing as any transfer of goods that is not directly reciprocal then I'm not sure what you're talking about here. Your statement seems to imply that taxation and all legislated compulsory fees are also theft. This is an area where I find the (very generalized/broad) concept of the social contract useful, because if you phrase everything in terms of a contract that applies to those within a country's borders and participating in its governance then it applies just as well to hypothetical private entities. People support these contracts because they greatly enhance the cooperative benefits of society, but they only function if they are made a requirement of participation, i.e., are required by all those who take part.

Edited December 27, 2015 by Onnes

[Saxon]

2 hours ago, Rassah said:

A transaction requires both parties to give something up.

Until you can show me what I am depriving an artist of by making a copy of their picture, music, or movie, there's nothing that the artist can ask me for in compensation. They did not lose anything, and I did the work of making a reproduction. If there was a contract that I had to sign to agree to the artist's terms, point me to it.

And if you believe I am depriving the artist of "potential income," I have provided my arguments for both, potential income, and lack of price discovery, so feel free to refute those. After all, that's what a debate is.

If I make a copy of your password, I'm still stealing from you, even though you still retain your original copy.

If I make copies of intimate photos of your partner, I'm still stealing from them, even though they still have their original breasts.

Get it?

Information can be stolen. Privately owned information, such as people's musical compositions, architectural designs, coding solutions, is their property, and you're not entitled to it anymore than you're entitled to have copies of their intimate photos.

Whether or not you think you're depriving someone of their income (which you are) or don't value their work (which you obviously do if you're gong to the trouble of reproducing it) that information isn't your property and you've no right to it.

[Rassah]

2 hours ago, Onnes said:

First, let recall what you are arguing for: not just the removal of copyright but the abolition of any compulsory fees for the reproduction of creative works. There's a major gap between paying for something that you could get for free, but only illegally, and paying for something that is absolutely no-strings-attached free. You've shifted the underlying principle from compensating someone an agreed upon value for their creative work to one of pure charity.

I'm not sure what you mean here exactly, so let me clarify what I am arguing for. If it takes work to reproduce something, such as paint a copy of another painting, perform a piece of music or a play, or even provide the service of displaying that art, such as by providing access to an art gallery, concert hall, or movie theater, then the person doing the work should have the right to charge others for their work. And, likewise, others should have the right to not buy they're service. I'm not in any way advocating that ALL creative works should ONLY be supported by charity, and fully support artists being "compensated" by "someone for an agreed upon value for their creative work." Though the key word there is "agreed upon." Both parties have to agree.

Quote

If your level of exposure is high then you have a lot more options in how you conduct business because you have an established customer base that trusts you and is interested in your product.

Don't we want art made by people who strive to have high level of exposure, and have a customer base that trusts them and is interested in their product?

Quote

If you want an example of where copyright is highly necessary, look no further than professional photography. Many professional photographers rely on licensing their photographs to businesses and other commercial users, which is something they can only do if the business can't just legally use them for free. 

And we want to protect this particular style of profession... why? Does a profession being able to exist, justify the questionably ethical legal system that allows it to exist? (You can probably think of plenty of examples where the answer is no). 

 

Quote

Unless you define stealing as any transfer of goods that is not directly reciprocal then I'm not sure what you're talking about here.

Not just "not directly reciprocal," but also non voluntary, and carried out under a threat of force or coercion. At least that's the dictionary, and generally agreed on definition.

But there is no transfer of goods when I create my own copy of something without touching the original.

Quote

Your statement seems to imply that taxation and all legislated compulsory fees are also theft.

That's not my fault those things fit the description, definition, and all other criteria...

Quote

This is an area where I find the (very generalized/broad) concept of the social contract useful, because if you phrase everything in terms of a contract that applies to those within a country's borders and participating in its governance then it applies just as well to hypothetical private entities.

Only problem is there's no such thing as a social contract. No one has seen it, no one has signed it, everyone is automatically bound by it simply by being born, and it does not guarantee a reciprocal exchange. Which by definition makes it not a contract, but just a made up term to excuse the ever worsening things governments and societies do to each other. But I don't want this discussion to go into politics (even though, as mentioned, copyright law has similar entitlements to government socialism). I'd be fine with it in a different thread, but here I'm just going to stick to the logic and ethics of copyright and piracy, so that's the last comment on that.

[Rassah]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

If I make a copy of your password, I'm still stealing from you, even though you still retain your original copy.

No you're not. You'd be stealing of you used that password to break into my private file system, not just by making a copy of that password.

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

If I make copies of intimate photos of your partner, I'm still stealing from them, even though they still have their original breasts.

Not if I post those photos online in a public space. Or give them out to people. You would only be stealing if you broke into my private file storage to make copies of them. In which case, as in the one above, you are digitally trespassing and violating my personal property.

If I put photos, or art, or a movie online (like a furry at site) or in public, and people make their own copies, they are not trespassing on anyone's private property, and not taking anything, but simply reproducing what is already in public.

Get it?

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

Information can be stolen. Privately owned information, such as people's musical compositions, architectural designs, coding solutions, is their property, and you're not entitled to it anymore than you're entitled to have copies of their intimate photos.

No arguments there. And it's their job to keep that information private and secure.

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

Whether or not you think you're depriving someone of their income (which you are)

Can you even quantify how much? I'm arguing it's $0. Prove me wrong.

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

or don't value their work (which you obviously do if you're gong to the trouble of reproducing it)

For the last time, I never said I would only steal if I don't value their work. I only said that not all work deserves compensation, because not all work is valued. I thought you were from UK and thus a native English speaker? Are you not?

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

that information isn't your property and you've no right to it.

If they put it out publicly, then the information I personally make, using my own tools and my own work, that is a duplicate of their information, isn't their property any more. If a furry artist posts something on FA, I make my own local copies of it simply by pointing my browser to it (since that's how browsers work). When I watch a movie on Netflix, I make my own copies on it on my computer. I do not take the information they own. I only make copies that I own.

[evan]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

I thought you were from UK and thus a native English speaker? Are you not?

I'm writing a reply but I'd like to take a moment and honor this point of speech where you've now jumped to ad hominem with someone who is providing an argument to you respectfully.

Your inability to understand why people argue against you the way that they do is showing.

Back to preparing a reply...

Edited December 27, 2015 by evan

[Saxon]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

No you're not. You'd be stealing of you used that password to break into my private file system, not just by making a copy of that password.

Not if I post those photos online in a public space. Or give them out to people. You would only be stealing if you broke into my private file storage to make copies of them. In which case, as in the one above, you are digitally trespassing and violating my personal property.

If I put photos, or art, or a movie online (like a furry at site) or in public, and people make their own copies, they are not trespassing on anyone's private property, and not taking anything, but simply reproducing what is already in public.

Get it?

No arguments there. And it's their job to keep that information private and secure.

Can you even quantify how much? I'm arguing it's $0. Prove me wrong.

For the last time, I never said I would only steal if I don't value their work. I only said that not all work deserves compensation, because not all work is valued. I thought you were from UK and thus a native English speaker? Are you not?

If they put it out publicly, then the information I personally make, using my own tools and my own work, that is a duplicate of their information, isn't their property any more. If a furry artist posts something on FA, I make my own local copies of it simply by pointing my browser to it (since that's how browsers work). When I watch a movie on Netflix, I make my own copies on it on my computer. I do not take the information they own. I only make copies that I own.

Making a copy of people's private information, whether or not you use it for further criminal activities, is stealing. 

Lots of companies don't make their software available for just anybody to download online; many require activation keys to prove you purchased them. Does this mean you acknowledge that downloading music and software that the content creator did not want posted on file-sharing sites, is stealing? 

As a pirate, you are taking advantage of information, that lots of content creators did want kept secure, but which has been stolen and distributed online by third parties. Garth suffered this when his book was stolen and distributed on a third party website for free, taking away lots of sales he could have made because people can view his book without having to pay for it. Piracy isn't a victimless crime. :\

I don't see how arguments about the value of work are relevant. If you want work, you pay for it. If you don't, then you don't have to bye it. In neither case is pirating it justifiable.

At least [I think] we have agreed that making copies of someone's work and posting them on file sharing sites without the creator's permission is theft. So now I want to move on to persuade you that even when information has been distributed by its creator, the content still belongs to them. Consider printed books; if you were to produce copies of someone's published book, and distribute them for free, that is also theft.

If you publish a magazine, and use photographs from a professional's website, without consulting them and arranging payment and credit, then that is also theft.

 

 

[Onnes]

Given that this thread appears to have already hit the event horizon, I'm going to try and be more succinct with replies.

 

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

And we want to protect this particular style of profession... why? Does a profession being able to exist, justify the questionably ethical legal system that allows it to exist? (You can probably think of plenty of examples where the answer is no). 

I used this example partly because there's high, sustained demand for professional photography. The issue is that the commercial customers who actually pay for this service are forced to subsidize those who don't. The presence of a significant fraction of freeloaders puts actual business customers at a competitive disadvantage and encourages paying businesses to become freeloaders. It's a  completely dysfunctional market absent curbs on freeloading.

 

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

That's not my fault those things fit the description, definition, and all other criteria...

Only problem is there's no such thing as a social contract. No one has seen it, no one has signed it, everyone is automatically bound by it simply by being born, and it does not guarantee a reciprocal exchange. Which by definition makes it not a contract, but just a made up term to excuse the ever worsening things governments and societies do to each other. But I don't want this discussion to go into politics (even though, as mentioned, copyright law has similar entitlements to government socialism). I'd be fine with it in a different thread, but here I'm just going to stick to the logic and ethics of copyright and piracy, so that's the last comment on that.

I should have known using any sort of metaphor was a bad idea. Also, politics is basically ethics on the level of groups.

Let's try putting this another way: the way you wish society to be organized is mutually exclusive to that of almost everyone else. Most people want a robust government with broad fiscal powers including taxation and market interventions. The same laws must apply to everyone, so the only way you can fully reject them is to leave the country and renounce citizenship.

What you're really asking for here is that the values of damn near everyone be made secondary to your own. You're trying to get around this issue by saying it's immoral for you to be asked to follow the rules of where you live because you don't want to. This argument goes no where with most people because most people define their morality in a social context that places some value on individuals other than themselves.

 

[Rassah]

4 hours ago, evan said:

I'm writing a reply but I'd like to take a moment and honor this point of speech where you've now jumped to ad hominem with someone who is providing an argument to you respectfully.

Your inability to understand why people argue against you the way that they do is showing.

Back to preparing a reply...

Sorry, but by this point I have explained 4 times that I am not making an argument that it's OK to download something if you don't like it. I have tried explaining why I used an example of work others may not want (the poop smeared on peper) many different ways, trying to word it as best and in different ways as I could. That Saxon keeps repeating the claim that I am supposedly defending the idea that you can pirate things if you don't like it, and keeps telling me that no one would download art if they didn't like it, despite numerous times of trying to explain that this isn't at all what I meant, means that he is either dumb, or has language comprehension issues. Since we have people from all over the world here, many of whom are not native speakers, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also,as someone who also isn't exactly a native English speaker, I would take offense at the suggestion that asking if one is is an ad hominem. I would, but I don't care enough to.

[evan]

11 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Sorry, but by this point I have explained 4 times that I am not making an argument that it's OK to download something if you don't like it. I have tried explaining why I used an example of work others may not want (the poop smeared on peper) many different ways, trying to word it as best and in different ways as I could. That Saxon keeps repeating the claim that I am supposedly defending the idea that you can pirate things if you don't like it, and keeps telling me that no one would download art if they didn't like it, despite numerous times of trying to explain that this isn't at all what I meant, means that he is either dumb, or has language comprehension issues. Since we have people from all over the world here, many of whom are not native speakers, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Also,as someone who also isn't exactly a native English speaker, I would take offense at the suggestion that asking if one is is an ad hominem. I would, but I don't care enough to.

That's exactly my point. You're more willing to call the other stupid than even remotely begin to think that your point has been about as clear as shit on paper.

Edited December 28, 2015 by evan

[Rassah]

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

Making a copy of people's private information, whether or not you use it for further criminal activities, is stealing. 

I already said that I agree with this. At least I tink mentioned this. Yes, stealing people's private information, which, being private, involves violating their private property in some way, is wrong.

But we're not talking abou private information. We're taking about public art and public information.

 

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

Lots of companies don't make their software available for just anybody to download online; many require activation keys to prove you purchased them. Does this mean you acknowledge that downloading music and software that the content creator did not want posted on file-sharing sites, is stealing?

If their software is already available, then it's already public, not private. Moreso, that code is now running on my own system, that I own, and that I should have the right to manipulate in any way I want. Even if that means changing how my system runs certain code to make the previously locked software that I am now in possession of run again.

You are getting in VERY dangerous territory with the idea that a third party can take ownership and control of your own physical property, which you paid for and have complete claim over, without your consent. There are lawsuits going on now about whether car manufacturers can lock car owners out of their own vehicles, preventing them from modifying them in any way, even after the car owners have paid and took complete ownership of those cars.

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

Garth suffered this when his book was stolen and distributed on a third party website for free, taking away lots of sales he could have made

Then he should have used some other method to distribute it and make money off of it? You're also back to the "people deserve to be paid" argument. Did Garth deserve to be paid for that book? Who should have been forced to give their money to Garth? And how do you know he lost "lots of sales?" I can claim that he lost zero sales. Who is right?

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

I don't see how arguments about the value of work are relevant. If you want work, you pay for it. If you don't, then you don't have to bye it.

You just described how the value of work is relevant right there. If people want the work, they value it, and will pay for it. If they don't want the work, they don't value and won't pay for it.

Copyright makes people pay for work regardless of whether people want that work.

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

At least [I think] we have agreed that making copies of someone's work and posting them on file sharing sites without the creator's permission is theft.

That's these point we haven't agreed on, no. I'm arguing that if someone's work is in the public, it doesn't really matter who owns copies of it, since they are all copies, and the artist isn't deprived of these original.

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

Consider printed books; if you were to produce copies of someone's published book, and distribute them for free, that is also theft.

Why? Defend that point. Why is it theft for 25 years (now 75 years), and then not theft? Why is it not theft in some countries and theft in others? What was stolen exactly? "Potential earnings?" (That the artist deserved to be paid for, but which can not be valued at anything?)

4 hours ago, Saxon said:

If you publish a magazine, and use photographs from a professional's website, without consulting them and arranging payment and credit, then that is also theft.

Same questions for this.

[Rassah]

7 minutes ago, evan said:

That's exactly my point. You're more willing to call the other stupid than even remotely begin to think that your point has been about as clear as shit on paper.

Did you understand why I said:

No one "deserves" to be paid, simply for doing work. People get paid because their work is valued, and because someone else is willing to give up their money, and if you believe that someone "deserves" to be paid for simply working, then someone can smear shit on paper, show it to someone who doesn't care to see it, and demand $5 because they "deserve" to be paid for the work they put into creating that.

I'm basically describing "Labor Theory of Value" there.

Or do you also think that what I'm saying I'm those words above is that pirates aren't stealing because they can simply say that they didn't like the art or the movie?

I didn't call him stupid. I was hoping the misunderstaning was due to a language barrier. You're the one who called it an ad hominem.

[Rassah]

3 hours ago, Onnes said:

I used this example partly because there's high, sustained demand for professional photography. The issue is that the commercial customers who actually pay for this service are forced to subsidize those who don't. The presence of a significant fraction of freeloaders puts actual business customers at a competitive disadvantage and encourages paying businesses to become freeloaders. It's a  completely dysfunctional market absent curbs on freeloading.

To me this sounds like it's a profession totally overloaded with too much competition, and entirely sustained and subsidized by expensive copyright lobby and legislation. I think it should be allowed to find it's own market equilibrium...

Quote

Let's try putting this another way: the way you wish society to be organized is mutually exclusive to that of almost everyone else.

I said this is off topic and I won't discuss this here. Let me start another thread...

EDIT: Here you go https://phoenix.corvidae.org/topic/1796-stupid-politics-bitchfest/

The title is cause I'll be bitching about stupid politics too.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Rassah

[Saxon]

9 hours ago, Rassah said:

I already said that I agree with this. At least I tink mentioned this. Yes, stealing people's private information, which, being private, involves violating their private property in some way, is wrong.

But we're not talking abou private information. We're taking about public art and public information.

 

If their software is already available, then it's already public, not private. Moreso, that code is now running on my own system, that I own, and that I should have the right to manipulate in any way I want. Even if that means changing how my system runs certain code to make the previously locked software that I am now in possession of run again.

You are getting in VERY dangerous territory with the idea that a third party can take ownership and control of your own physical property, which you paid for and have complete claim over, without your consent. There are lawsuits going on now about whether car manufacturers can lock car owners out of their own vehicles, preventing them from modifying them in any way, even after the car owners have paid and took complete ownership of those cars.

Then he should have used some other method to distribute it and make money off of it? You're also back to the "people deserve to be paid" argument. Did Garth deserve to be paid for that book? Who should have been forced to give their money to Garth? And how do you know he lost "lots of sales?" I can claim that he lost zero sales. Who is right?

You just described how the value of work is relevant right there. If people want the work, they value it, and will pay for it. If they don't want the work, they don't value and won't pay for it.

Copyright makes people pay for work regardless of whether people want that work.

That's these point we haven't agreed on, no. I'm arguing that if someone's work is in the public, it doesn't really matter who owns copies of it, since they are all copies, and the artist isn't deprived of these original.

Why? Defend that point. Why is it theft for 25 years (now 75 years), and then not theft? Why is it not theft in some countries and theft in others? What was stolen exactly? "Potential earnings?" (That the artist deserved to be paid for, but which can not be valued at anything?)

Same questions for this.

I think your attitude towards the victims of piracy is astoundingly callous. The sale of book copies is a well established route for authors to make their living. Nobody is being forced to give up their money to buy books; that's a voluntary action. We can be confident that piracy damages authors' income because by producing free copies of their books you undermine their sale platform, by way of the fundamental law of supply and demand [maybe this law can be overlooked in cases where it doesn't support your arguments?].

It is especially cruel to say someone doesn't deserve money for their books, when they never wished for them to be distributed on file sharing websites; e-books are sold as a private service for people who pay for digital access, just like a cinema is a private service for films to be screened. Copy-pasting a book and redistributing it is just like video-taping a movie in a cinema, and distributing copies; it is a breach of contract with the private service which supplied the content, under the agreement that no copies would be made. :\

Copyright does not make people pay for work they don't want. If you don't want the work, nobody is forcing you to purchase it, and therefore you do not incur any fee. [duh]

 

I think you need to review your attitude, because you're advocating the position that once information is made public, even if it was made public by a thief who stole it from the creator's private collection, that it is okay to flood the market with copies of the work, pulling the rug out from beneath the creator. :\

Your recommendation to content creators is that 'they should figure out the how' of how they can actually make any money, in this situation, given that parasitising thieves can steal absolutely anything with total impunity.

Do you honestly expect that content creators should be expected to support themselves by being charity cases? ._.

 

You aren't entitled to have copies of anybody's private information. If you want a copy, you should consult the creator; there are plenty of private services for creators to grant you access to their work.

Plenty of creators will give away some of their work for free, but If someone is distributing free or cut-price copies without the creator's permission, then that's clearly immoral, because the work has been stolen against the wishes of its creators. It's the same reason that distributing someone's intimate photographs on a file sharing site is immoral; if they didn't agree to make the content public, then why are you entitled to their private material? 

 

 

9 hours ago, evan said:

That's exactly my point. You're more willing to call the other stupid than even remotely begin to think that your point has been about as clear as shit on paper.

Well you see, I can't understand what he's saying because

Ek eam an Saxon, ond ek cann aenlic ealdes Aenglisc spreccan . :C

I am a Saxon, and I can only old English speak.

 

Rassah, please translate all future posts into Aenglisc so that my feeble brain can understand them. ;^;

Edited December 28, 2015 by Saxon

[Azure]

i dont bother to justify my theft but at the same time i give 0 fucks about societys views on my alleged crimes. so i guess what im saying is catch me if you can cunts. also i sleep great at night fuck you pay me

[Onnes]

On 12/14/2015 at 6:45 PM, Rassah said:

Actually, this might surprise you to learn, but I don't champion the almighty profit, I actually champion unwavering ethics. It just so happens that if people voluntarily trade for mutual benefit, and make a profit out of it, I support that too. And if someone tries to steal something from them (take, by force or threat of force, without their consent), well then I don't consider that ethical. If a friend of mine has a digital copy, and he shares it by letting me have a copy too, then the third party that buts into it, wanting something of mine, is the one being unethical. I'll even go one further: no one has a right to a profit or an income. If your software/art/music isn't making you money, it's no one's fault but your own.

10 hours ago, Rassah said:

I said this is off topic and I won't discuss this here. Let me start another thread...

From the very beginning you founded your arguments on ethics. Were ethics off-topic then this entire line of discussion should have ended a long way back when everyone else rejected your ethics and by extension any argument founded on them. Since the discussion clearly didn't end, I saw nothing productive to do with it other than either addressing the ethical side or shitposting.

 

[Rassah]

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

I think your attitude towards the victims of piracy is astoundingly callous.

I reject the very idea that they are victims. That statement to me is like blaming me for being callous to a poor victim bible thumper, because he can't defend his legal definition of marriage from those evil homosexuals. He's not a victim, he's the perpetrator. And so are the people pushing for copyright laws.

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

The sale of book copies is a well established route for authors to make their living.

"Well established" isn't an argument. The picking of cotton by slaves is a well established route for cotton farmers to make their living. Or was.

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

Nobody is being forced to give up their money to buy books; that's a voluntary action.

But they are, by the copyright legislation, if they get caught. You could get a book or a piece of art from some site, not know that it was copyrighted and "illegal" to own, and get busted and fined when someone finds out you have it.

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

We can be confident that piracy damages authors' income because by producing free copies of their books you undermine their sale platform, by way of the fundamental law of supply and demand [maybe this law can be overlooked in cases where it doesn't support your arguments?].

The supply of digital media that can be copied is infinite. Thus the price of those should be zero. Like the supply of air is practically infinite, and thus costs zero. There is no way to prove how much you actually undermine an author's sales with copying. The author could say "I usually sell 5 books a month at $20, this month I sold 0, so you owe me $100," but did the sales drop because of piracy? Or because people simply did not want to buy his books that month? And, conversely, piracy is like free advertisement for the media, where more people share the content, become aware of it, and if they like it, can go and buy the originals. So does that mean I can likewise charge the artist for spreading their content because I improved their sales platform? Of course not.

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

It is especially cruel to say someone doesn't deserve money for their books, when they never wished for them to be distributed on file sharing websites

Then why did they put those books up online for people to be able to easily distribute them? While nobody deserves money for their books, if writers want money for their books, then they should figure out how to get people to pay for them. Write good books, sell them in print only, give them out for free and ask for donations in the book, release them one chapter at a time to people who pay for a subscription, whatever.

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

e-books are sold as a private service for people who pay for digital access, just like a cinema is a private service for films to be screened.

In the case of cinema, the service isn't really the movie, it's the hardware and the experience that you watch the movie on. In case of e-book services and things like iTunes, the service isn't the music, it's the service of storing and organizing your music for you, giving you easy access, providing suggestions based on what you like, etc. That's why those services make money, despite e-books and music being freely available online.

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

Copy-pasting a book and redistributing it is just like video-taping a movie in a cinema, and distributing copies; it is a breach of contract with the private service which supplied the content, under the agreement that no copies would be made. :\

The breach of contract is with the people who signed the contract. If I download the movie from a BitTorrent site, or a piece of art from some art archiving site, whom have I signed a contract with?

6 hours ago, Saxon said:

Copyright does not make people pay for work they don't want. If you don't want the work, nobody is forcing you to purchase it, and therefore you do not incur any fee. [duh]

God damn dude!!! WTF is wrong with you? Fuckit, I give up.

 

5 hours ago, Onnes said:

From the very beginning you founded your arguments on ethics. Were ethics off-topic then this entire line of discussion should have ended a long way back when everyone else rejected your ethics and by extension any argument founded on them. Since the discussion clearly didn't end, I saw nothing productive to do with it other than either addressing the ethical side or shitposting.

Fine. Can you please defend copyright to me from an ethics point of view? Pretend we are a community on an island. There is no government, religion, or law to distort what is ethical and what isn't with written text. You come up with an idea for how to make something, or draw a pretty picture. Explain to me why it is unethical for me to use my own labor to make that something for myself, or to draw a copy of that picture for myself.

[Saxon]

Thanks Rassah; if you're an author who expects to get money for selling copies of their book, rather than a warm fuzzy feeling for giving it away for free...then guess what? You're just like a homophobic slave owner!

 

Well argued. O_o

[Lucyfish]

Personally, I pirate games as a sort of test run. I get the full game, play through it, and if I like it I'll buy it on Steam. If I don't like it, they get no money from me. So yeah, I'm gonna buy Fallout 4 but I'm probably not gonna buy Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.

Edited December 28, 2015 by Lucyfish

[Rassah]

20 minutes ago, Saxon said:

Thanks Rassah; if you're an author who expects to get money for selling copies of their book, rather than a warm fuzzy feeling for giving it away for free...then guess what? You're just like a homophobic slave owner!

 

Well argued. O_o

If you depend on unjust laws, that involve a police state that monitors people's private activity, and when it busts them for something, fines them, jail them, and tries to extort money out of them on your behalf, because of something they did with their property that not only didn't affect you, but you likely weren't even aware of, then yeah, fuck you.

There are other ways to earn money from writing books besides depending on the immoral copyright lobby. It's not my job to figure that out for you. Just like there are other ways to pick cotton besides using slaves, and it wasn't the job of the people who were pointing out that slavery is wrong to figure that out for the slave owners.

[Saxon]

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

If you depend on unjust laws, that involve a police state that monitors people's private activity, and when it busts them for something, fines them, jail them, and tries to extort money out of them on your behalf, because of something they did with their property that not only didn't affect you, but you likely weren't even aware of, then yeah, fuck you.

There are other ways to earn money from writing books besides depending on the immoral copyright lobby. It's not my job to figure that out for you. Just like there are other ways to pick cotton besides using slaves, and it wasn't the job of the people who were pointing out that slavery is wrong to figure that out for the slave owners.

I think you just went full tin-foil hat. :\

A friend of mine was recently fined £80 / $160 because she was caught illegally downloading software and movies...I'm not sure why she had to download the software because the thirty day free trial period was longer than the period for which she would need the software, but there you go. The world didn't turn into a police state, and she wasn't dragged to prison.

If you can't propose a realistic means for content creators to get a dependable income by creating their content, I think it shows that your desired version of copyright law- absolutely none- is an environment in which it's not possible to do so.

This situation obviously isn't comparable to slavery. I'm expecting you to godwin-law this thread any moment, now though.

 

 

[Lucyfish]

While the current copyright and patent laws definitely have issues, we can't just have NO copyright laws. When you create something, you ought to be able to make money off of it without some dicknose hijacking it from under your feet.

[Onnes]

2 hours ago, Rassah said:

God damn dude!!! WTF is wrong with you? Fuckit, I give up.

The people remaining in this derelict hulk of a thread have been relatively respectful towards you. This isn't helping.

 

2 hours ago, Rassah said:

Fine. Can you please defend copyright to me from an ethics point of view? Pretend we are a community on an island. There is no government, religion, or law to distort what is ethical and what isn't with written text. You come up with an idea for how to make something, or draw a pretty picture. Explain to me why it is unethical for me to use my own labor to make that something for myself, or to draw a copy of that picture for myself.

In response to me, specifically, you said that photographs should not be covered by copyright, thereby making it impossible to charge licensing fees. When you save and import a photograph into your magazine layout with licensing it, you're adding nothing to the original photograph and you're doing nothing to compensate the original photographer and contribute to additional photographs. This is commercial, non-transformative use and you think there should no mechanism for compensation.

I'm a consequentialist; to me ethics are defined by their outcomes. Like most people, I believe that, in principle, some form of copyright is necessary to encourage creative works and suppress freeloading. I've seen no evidence that in general this is not the case and that any of the downsides of copyright necessarily outweigh the benefits.  And like most people, I believe that any such copyright must be applied equally. Thus, to me copyright is ethical in its existence and application unto all people, including Rassah. (Aside: The repeated 'most people' is due to the fact that consensus influences effectiveness. Highly unsupported measures are much less effective.)

 

38 minutes ago, Saxon said:

This situation obviously isn't comparable to slavery. I'm expecting you to godwin-law this thread any moment, now though.

From the US perspective, slavery comparisons are already Godwin level. That's literally the nicest thing I can say about that Rassah post.

[Rassah]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

A friend of mine was recently fined £80 / $160 because she was caught illegally downloading software and movies...I'm not sure why she had to download the software because the thirty day free trial period was longer than the period for which she would need the software, but there you go. The world didn't turn into a police state, and she wasn't dragged to prison.

There's a giant government department (one in UK, one in US, and one in many other countries) that spends minions of dollars and resources every year to spy on people, track their downloading habbits, monitor their conversations, all so they can catch them downloading something they deemed illegal. So there's your police state.

Look, if you can't argue this without resorting to logical fallacies and feels, In not interested in debating.

1 hour ago, Lucyfish said:

While the current copyright and patent laws definitely have issues, we can't just have NO copyright laws. When you create something, you ought to be able to make money off of it without some dicknose hijacking it from under your feet.

Did I fail at explaining why you don't deserve to make money from something simply because you created it? How about we pay artists for work they do to create art? So instead of them just making something once and then sitting on their hands collecting money indefinitely, they are actually motivated to keep creating more so they get paid more?

Not only does intellectual property law stifle innovation and creativity, it gets rid of incentives for people to create and innovate...

32 minutes ago, Onnes said:

The people remaining in this derelict hulk of a thread have been relatively respectful towards you. This isn't helping.

Five times I explained that the point isn't that "no one would download stuff if they didn't like it." Five times I explained that the only reason I brought up an example of bad work that no one wants was to show that just work alone does not warrant payment. And he still went back to the same argument. At this point, I'm left to believe that either Fallow is trolling, though considering how seriously he replies I doubt it, or that he is literally retarded, in which case I'm sorry I got into an argument with him in the first place.

32 minutes ago, Onnes said:

In response to me, specifically, you said that photographs should not be covered by copyright, thereby making it impossible to charge licensing fees. When you save and import a photograph into your magazine layout with licensing it, you're adding nothing to the original photograph and you're doing nothing to compensate the original photographer and contribute to additional photographs. This is commercial, non-transformative use and you think there should no mechanism for compensation.

You can license the actual photographer to take pictures for you, and pay the photographer to actually do the work of providing you and you alone, nice pictures that no other magazine has. Instead of just licencing the pictures and paying for the pictures regardless of who took them. For instance, in my company, I have contacts with my software developer employees and I pay them for the work of writing that software, even though the software they write for me is completely open source. That doesn't mean my company can't make money off that work.

32 minutes ago, Onnes said:

I'm a consequentialist; to me ethics are defined by their outcomes.

To me, ethics are defined by what is good and fair for all people. E.g. all people want to have a choice over whether they live or die (don't kill), all people want to not have things stolen from them that they have created themselves, and all people people don't like being lied to and defrauded.

Really, the argument with copyright is whether the act of making a duplicate of something is considered stealing. Considering the original creator is not deprived of anything, I don't see how it can be.

32 minutes ago, Onnes said:

Like most people, I believe that, in principle, some form of copyright is necessary to encourage creative works and suppress freeloading.

Which is ironic, since dismissing creative works and encouraging freeloading is exactly what copyright does  

32 minutes ago, Onnes said:

I've seen no evidence that in general this is not the case and that any of the downsides of copyright necessarily outweigh the benefits. 

Not even the discouraging of creative works and freeloading? If someone makes some art, or an invention, no one else can use it, or improve on it, for years. And those who do, can sit back and collect royalties without actually contributing anything. Not to mention the millions we waste on the legal system, bureaucracy, and police needed to monitor and control this idea.

32 minutes ago, Onnes said:

From the US perspective, slavery comparisons are already Godwin level. That's literally the nicest thing I can say about that Rassah post.

Any "most people agree, thus it is right" argument is pretty much Godwin level.

[Lucyfish]

9 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Did I fail at explaining why you don't deserve to make money from something simply because you created it? How about we pay artists for work they do to create art? So instead of them just making something once and then sitting on their hands collecting money indefinitely, they are actually motivated to keep creating more so they get paid more?

Yes, because your points make no logical sense. Sorry Rassah.

[evan]

31 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Did I fail at explaining why you don't deserve to make money from something simply because you created it? How about we pay artists for work they do to create art? So instead of them just making something once and then sitting on their hands collecting money indefinitely, they are actually motivated to keep creating more so they get paid more?

Not only does intellectual property law stifle innovation and creativity, it gets rid of incentives for people to create and innovate...

Wait, hold on, that's why you think copyright law stifles innovation and creativity? That's...no! The amount of money that it costs to actually get a piece of art into a professionally published medium where it can be charged for profit is functionally almost completely at a loss. Piracy captures don't benefit the artist extraneously, they ensure that the artist gets profit at all instead of random consumers deciding that they don't deserve money. 

You know what does stifle innovation and creativity? Subjecting the rights of the artist to the consumer's discretion. If everything I do has to be dictated by my audience, not only will I almost definitely be stuck in the same cycle of music and ideas, but I will only ever profit by meeting someone else's expectations, which is absurd. We could talk about "shit on paper" but the reality is that there is a large enough market of professionals that that example is a fallacy to argue at best. You're not going to compare that 13 year old  brony cover of "Jingle Bells" to a professionally produced recording of the New York Symphony playing "Sleigh Ride", because one has no market, and the other one is part of an active and competitive market.

Giving the artist a chance to mark their product as an actual product instead of subjugating to the opinion of anyone, even a non-professional in the field, is necessary. This is the entire point of publication/production companies/studios. The whole point of talent agents, etc, of intellectual property, is to guarantee that a certain set of musicians that are both profitable and representative of innovation are hired and protected from being subjected to opinion-based pricing. While I don't like how the industry works as a whole, the fact that you think intellectual property law prevents the artist's success and is the reason they don't produce as much art/music as you want is just outright absurd.

Maybe you've addressed some of this, but at the same time I seriously doubt you've addressed it in a way that's tangibly relevant to the topic. And we haven't even touched on how live performance plays into this. That's a whole other level. I've been putting off my reply to double check the copyright extensions in that vein, but this statement is just...impressively out of touch.

31 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Any "most people agree, thus it is right" argument is pretty much Godwin level.

waiting for that to come along. haven't seen it yet.

 

Edited December 29, 2015 by evan

[Rassah]

20 minutes ago, Lucyfish said:

Yes, because your points make no logical sense. Sorry Rassah.

So, if I cut your hair, once, then collect money from that one single haircut for 75 years, like some sort of a welfare check, that's logical and will motivate me to cut more hair, instead of just sit back and collect my check.

But if you were to insist that you only pay me once for every haircut, where the only way I get paid is by continuing to cut hair, then that is illogical and will discourage me from cutting hair.

[Lucyfish]

Just now, Rassah said:

So, if I cut your hair, once, then collect money from that one single haircut for 75 years, like some sort of a welfare check, that's logical and will motivate me to cut more hair, instead of just sit back and collect my check.

But if you were to insist that you only pay me once for every haircut, where the only way I get paid is by continuing to cut hair, then that is illogical and will discourage me from cutting hair.

That's not how it works, though. The whole point of copyright laws is that there are restrictions and guidelines for how it works.

[evan]

2 minutes ago, Rassah said:

So, if I cut your hair, once, then collect money from that one single haircut for 75 years, like some sort of a welfare check, that's logical and will motivate me to cut more hair, instead of just sit back and collect my check.

But if you were to insist that you only pay me once for every haircut, where the only way I get paid is by continuing to cut hair, then that is illogical and will discourage me from cutting hair.

Or, alternatively, you cut many people's hair, but then several people leave without paying and you get that money later.

As opposed to many customers just deciding if they'll pay for their haircut or not, creating loss.

That's a terrible analogy. This isn't a sole individual, this is a market.

Edited December 29, 2015 by evan

[Jerry]

7 minutes ago, Rassah said:

So, if I cut your hair, once, then collect money from that one single haircut for 75 years, like some sort of a welfare check, that's logical and will motivate me to cut more hair, instead of just sit back and collect my check.

But if you were to insist that you only pay me once for every haircut, where the only way I get paid is by continuing to cut hair, then that is illogical and will discourage me from cutting hair.

...you're not serious are you?

This argument is going nowhere. What exactly do you disagree with? The abuse of the copyright system or paying an artist for their work? Those are two quite different debates.

[pheonixbat]

This needs to be a bingo board for this thread.

[Rassah]

58 minutes ago, evan said:

The amount of money that it costs to actually get a piece of art into a professionally published medium where it can be charged for profit is functionally almost completely at a loss.

That's a problem of oversupply, not copyright. Do you believe we should artificially raise prices of other products (bread, milk, airline tickets, cell phone chips) and make consumers post higher prices to help support the producers of those products too?

58 minutes ago, evan said:

You know what does stifle innovation and creativity? Subjecting the rights of the artist to the consumer's discretion.

But... ALL products and services, outside of intellectual property, are subjugated to the consumer's discretion. If consumers don't like it, they don't pay for it, and the product or service fails. So makers of products and services strive to improve and innovate to get more consumers to give them money. Why should art be any different?

58 minutes ago, evan said:

If everything I do has to be dictated by my audience, not only will I almost definitely be stuck in the same cycle of music and ideas...

But I'm not arguing that consumers have to dictate to the artists exactly how things must be done. Just that they have to like what is done. I don't even know what prompted the suggestion that artists should (or can) only earn if they do what they are told.

Sorry if that wasn't clear somewhere.

58 minutes ago, evan said:

We could talk about "shit on paper" but the reality is that there is a large enough market of professionals that that example is a fallacy to argue at best.

And the professionals get paid. While whose who put shit on paper do not, but the argunent from the copyright supporters is that they also must be paid. That is what this example is about. Why do people who produce shit on paper must, deserve, obligated to be paid too?

 

By the was, my current most favorite music artist group is Studio Killers. All their music, and music videos, and even art, is freely available online. But they still earn money... Maybe you guys who keep telling me there's no way to make money without copyright, or that I can't give examples of how to, should look to them as an example of how it's possible.

58 minutes ago, evan said:

And we haven't even touched on how live performance plays into this. That's a whole other level.

I didn't even think live performances would be related to the topic. You can't copy a live performance, and the people paying to attend are actually paying for a job being performed.

1 hour ago, Lucyfish said:

That's not how it works, though. The whole point of copyright laws is that there are restrictions and guidelines for how it works.

But that is how it works. I created a form of art, the way the haircut looks, and I deserve to be paid for it, for 75 years, especially if anyone takes pictures. And if someone else cuts your hair again, to look similar, I will sue them for copying my work!

1 hour ago, evan said:

Or, alternatively, you cut many people's hair

Why??? With copyright, I only need to do the work once to be paid for my entire lifetime.

1 hour ago, evan said:

As opposed to many customers just deciding if they'll pay for their haircut or not, creating loss.

You mean as opposed to "customers" who's hair I didn't cut, and didn't really do any work for, refusing to pay me what I deserve.