Why online piracy isn't theft

celluloidprop said:
Photography and writing are not in the same boat as music and software.

A photographer or writer can ensure that there's little or no piracy of work by only publishing via print and not putting photographs online. There is a chance, sure, that work will be scanned and posted but that would be time consuming and of inferior quality.
You're cutting off potential income streams by doing so, but that's the risk/reward of going to extremes to thwart piracy.
Click to expand...

What 'extremes' are we talking about here?

Cheers,

R.
 
Jamie123 said:
As far as I know the iTunes store was launched in 2003 and they only started selling eBooks since the iPad was released.

I don't think pirated eBooks were much of a problem before eBook readers and tablets became popular as most people don't like to read a book sitting at the computer.

Edit: rxmd beat me to it.
Click to expand...


It was available on Mac platforms in 2000, after Apple bought the tech from another company in 1999. In 2003, it became available for Windows OS.

(I stand corrected. The iTunes Store didn't operate until 2003. iTunes existed before.)
 
Not publishing work in easily pirated forms.
If one is publishing e-books/music/photos online, I'd say that the potential for piracy has to be taken into account regarding the value of publishing the work - it's an unstoppable force. If e-book sales are too impacted negatively by piracy, the logical thing to do is not publish e-books.
Of course, the opposite is often true - the lack of middlemen and up-front costs makes e-book publishing more profitable for a lot of people, even with piracy.

It all comes down to working with reality as it is, rather than basing what is and should be on business plans from the pre-digital era.
 
ferider said:
In its current legal interpretation it results in .... people getting sued because they produce a picture of a red London bus in front of a black-and-white Parliament building.
Click to expand...

Frivolous law suits are an entirely different problem and very specific to the Anglo Saxon legal systems. People also have sued McDonalds over serving fat food or hot coffee ... Among others, frivolous lawsuits are fueled by how lawyers are paid, IMO.
Click to expand...

They won the bus case. The picture was found to be infringing, in spite of being quite noticeably different. What's frivolous then, the lawsuit or the law?
 
I didn't see anywhere in the op-ed where the author claimed that copyright infringement was ethical, or should be ignored. He's making a fairly neutral observation that it doesn't easily analogize to tangible property theft. In fact, I think he's actually suggesting that we might come up with better ways to deal with infringement -- both as an ethical and as a legal matter -- if we find better means of characterizing it.

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me -- and, like many here, I've got skin in this game, with plenty of intellectual property at stake.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Have you ever been murdered? To a large extent, that's what the law is there for: to discourage people who would, if there were no legal barriers, commit all sorts of crimes.

I have indeed pointed out to people that they can't use my work for nothing, and they have made redress or ceased to use the material.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

I've not been murdered to date, clearly, and I wasn't being confrontational in my question.

In my working life I released two collections a year for almost 20 years, anything that sold well was copied within a couple of months; however the individual copies didn't have enough value to make it worthwhile going to law, so we didn't bother, I just got on with the next collection.

On the one occasion in the late 90s when we did seek redress through the courts for stolen IP we ran up a legal bill of over five grand just getting past the solicitors to council's advise, another couple for the barrister who advised us that it would be a three day trial that cost a fortune for each day ... we dropped it at that point, as a simple expedience.

That bill would be three times that now so you will understand my scepticism with the sustainability of the present system, I simply don't think it works anymore.
 
Roger Hicks said:
I should be most obliged if you could précis a few of the more workable ones.
Click to expand...

One model which has been discussed in Germany for a while now is based on the established German practice of raising tax-like fees from the consumers of content via certain media, which are then redistributed to registered content producers through associations. Registering as a content producer (for text, pictures, music etc.) is very easy, basically just a matter of submitting a form detailing the work. The idea is to extend this to private broadband Internet connections, redistribute that to content producers and in turn legalize private non-commercial downloading. It's similar to how in Germany you are allowed to make private copies from library books because there's a flat levy paid for every copier; it goes to the content producers' association and is then redistributed.

I'm not an expert on this at all and hence neither in a position to argue for or against it, so I'm afraid we can't have much of an informed discussion on this beyond this point. It's way beyond the scope of my original point. Sorry. Enough has been written on the Internet about it, I'm sure you can find more and better information elsewhere.

Besides, what is 'non-commercial' use? If someone steals one of my books and distributes it for nothing, that may be 'non-commercial' to him, but it's extremely commercial from where I'm standing.
Click to expand...

One post earlier, when talking about "commercial ripoffs" and "professional thieves", you seemed to have a pretty clear idea what you were talking about. So if you ask me now what "non-commercial" means, either you've forgotten that or you're moving the goalposts.

It's all very well to say that a legal system which permits paying me may cause misfortune to others, but equally, NOT paying me is a pretty major misfortune to me.
Click to expand...

Please let me first be the first to state that I don't care much for eBooks and am not an expert on business models for marketing them. Forgive me if I sounded like I wanted to lecture you on that.

However, if the only way you can be paid is because there's a constant threat level upheld through multi-million lawsuits by amoral content holding companies behind you, it seems overall as a rather sorry state of affairs.

Your argument about typesetters, plumbers, doctors, etc., is completely false, because they are paid to do a set amount of typesetting, plumbing, doctoring, etc., in full, at the time they do the work. Writing rarely works that way, unless you can get a huge advance from a publisher, which ain't gonna happen with e-books.
Click to expand...

Roger, if you would care to remember I started this argument from a particular point about commissioned photographers working as a service. A wedding photographer is also paid in full to do a set amount of photographing, and hence shouldn't be entitled to extra benefits from copyright in my book. That's the entire scope of the argument. I realize that it does not necessarily apply to other areas and, in fact, I think I've made this sufficiently clear several times. I see that as an eBook author your primary concern in this discussion seem to be eBooks, but I don't think we're going to get very far if you continue to stretch my arguments beyond scope, only to then tell me how completely wrong I am.
 
Last edited:
I wish for a software program that will give my images an expiration date....a self-destruct button with charges based on how long you want to use the image.

When I shot weddings, I had two pricing structures. I gave brides professional quality photographs on professional papers for price. I priced it so that brides that were on a budget, could purchase my services and later order prints. If they had enough money, they could purchase license to print and/or copyrights.

I didn't consider them hiring me as though they were a company and were paying me as a work-for-hire contract. Though I'd be perfectly willing to do so for a fee.
 
Roger Hicks said:
If anyone has any good ideas, I'm all ears. But I've not actually heard ANY ideas so far, let alone good ones.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

There are many marketing people who you could hire to help you. I could offer you a few ideas, but you wouldn't want me to take bread from the mouths of others who are trying to make an honest living.
 
rxmd said:
They won the bus case. The picture was found to be infringing, in spite of being quite noticeably different. What's frivolous then, the lawsuit or the law?
Click to expand...

You have this wrong. The picture infringed nothing. Two companies were selling a similar product side-by-side and one copied the other's label design.
 
Roger Hicks said:
I should be most obliged if you could précis a few of the more workable ones. Sure, nothing matters "as long as you find a business model that gives you a good balance of income stream and effort" -- but what business model have you in mind?
Click to expand...

I believe the model many here are espousing is "give it away for free, but make it up on volume".
 
j j said:
rxmd said:
They won the bus case. The picture was found to be infringing, in spite of being quite noticeably different. What's frivolous then, the lawsuit or the law?
Click to expand...
You have this wrong. The picture infringed nothing. Two companies were selling a similar product side-by-side and one copied the other's label design.
Click to expand...
That isn't true. Check your facts. You can read the ruling online ([2012] EWPCC 1). It's an action for copyright infringement. The products aren't all that similar either (one of them is tea, the other are "mugs, stationery key fobs and the like"). The judgement says explicitly that whether or not consumers confuse the products of the parties is not the issue. The whole ruling talks about the copyright for the pictures, not the design of the label.

j j said:
There are many marketing people who you could hire to help you. I could offer you a few ideas, but you wouldn't want me to take bread from the mouths of others who are trying to make an honest living.
Click to expand...

Are you there projecting upon Roger the idea it's somehow dishonest and unethical to help each other out with free advice, as it might take bread away from whoever might offer the same advice for money??

My God, what has this place come to.
 
Regarding "People illegally download for the same reason that they commit traffic violations consciously and often agressively. They feel anonymous and protected" and Jamie's story about there being no decent legal alternatives ten years ago:

I firmly believe that people simply choose whatever is most convenient, and music is a great example. Some years ago, pretty much everyone I know downloaded music illegally. Even with iTunes, which was still a hassle: you might want to listen to something only once, or check out a hundred different songs in search of The Right One for a mix tape, or share a playlist with a friend, etc. Nobody wanted (or could afford) to buy all these tracks individually. Piracy was the better option.

Then Spotify (a Swedish startup) launched in late 2008, offering a music streaming service where you could listen to anything, instantly, in a fast, easy-to-use program.

For the first six months you can listen to an unlimited amount of music with occasional advertising in between songs, and then it's either 10 hours per month free, or $4.99/month for unlimited listening with no advertising, or $9.99 for unlimited listening plus mobile support, offline support and a bunch of other things.

Spotify has around 15 million songs; enough to satisfy most people. All the big labels are in on it (and in fact, even own a part of the company). Thanks to heavy Facebook integration you can easily share playlists, "send" songs to friends, see what your friends are listening to and start listening to the same with one click, etc. (Sean Parker of Napster and Facebook fame is an investor in and board member of Spotify.)

Anyway. Point is this. Almost none of my friends pirate music these days. They have Spotify subscriptions. For them, a legal alternative is finally better than the illegal. (Spotify had around 3 million paying users a couple of months ago, and it's still only available in a dozen or so countries - it was launched in Germany just last month.)

For film, at least in Sweden, there are still zero (0) even remotely decent legal alternatives for streaming/downloading. Perhaps the industry should focus on providing something that people actually want to use rather than lobbying for yet stricter laws and chasing teenagers?

(I'm aware of Netflix, which looks interesting, but alas: "Sorry, Netflix is not available in your country... yet")
 
jwc57 said:
It was available on Mac platforms in 2000, after Apple bought the tech from another company in 1999. In 2003, it became available for Windows OS.

(I stand corrected. The iTunes Store didn't operate until 2003. iTunes existed before.)
Click to expand...

ITunes was released shortly before the iPod was released in 2001.
 
Smiert Spionam said:
I didn't see anywhere in the op-ed where the author claimed that copyright infringement was ethical, or should be ignored. He's making a fairly neutral observation that it doesn't easily analogize to tangible property theft. In fact, I think he's actually suggesting that we might come up with better ways to deal with infringement -- both as an ethical and as a legal matter -- if we find better means of characterizing it.

That doesn't seem unreasonable to me -- and, like many here, I've got skin in this game, with plenty of intellectual property at stake.
Click to expand...

I agree. The article points out that digital reproduction is not capable of being controlled by copyright.

And it is not. Clearly it is not by the huge amount of casual transgressions out there.

It is also not purely an ethical issue. The creator of the content did not produce for ethical reasons, but commercial reasons. Once you confine the problem to one of commerce and leave the morality at the door, it is easier to embrace new solutions to revenues.

The laws of copyright have not and cannot adapt to a world of effortless digital copying. Relying on antiquated laws to safeguard revenue is untenable. Going on a morality trip both against individuals and society in general solves not one piece of the commercial problem. In fact, the ethical argument is part of the problem because they get caught up in asserting the law to protect commerce through the imposition of morality into contract rights. Except that the law is extremely expensive to enforce, often at staggering taxpayer expense.

It helps to keep in mind that it is law that makes images and content property. There is no natural ethical stand that this is normal in societies; most pre-industrial societies do not recognize the concept that ideas and their expression can be property. It is not an evolution of the common law, either. Copyright is entirely a regime of statute put in place by commercial lobbies with the ear of government. That industrial legal regimes struggle in an era of effortless digital reproduction is obvious and inevitable.
 
But isn't it also the law, not ethics, that provides property rights in tangible objects & land? Arguably, there is nothing "natural" or "normal" about the concept of tangible private property, either, as there have been pre-agricultural (& mostly failed agricultural & industrial) societies that did not recognize private property in things. Also, while copyright is the historically a statutory creation, other intangible rights, such as trademark law, did arise in the common law & were only later codified in the modern age.

While I agree that the law needs to reflect the realities of current technology & there are better ways of protecting one's revenue than litigation, I do not agree that it is impossible for copyright law to adapt to digital copying. Mechanical reproduction has been around a long time; digital is a difference of scale, not kind.

Aristophanes said:
It helps to keep in mind that it is law that makes images and content property. There is no natural ethical stand that this is normal in societies; most pre-industrial societies do not recognize the concept that ideas and their expression can be property. It is not an evolution of the common law, either. Copyright is entirely a regime of statute put in place by commercial lobbies with the ear of government. That industrial legal regimes struggle in an era of effortless digital reproduction is obvious and inevitable.
Click to expand...
 
Roger Hicks said:
Who are 'they'? I'm not a big business or a rich man but I've got by for 30+ years on freelance writing and photography. Suddenly, it's my problem if my work is stolen? How would people feel if I were suddenly to say, "Private ownership of cars is an outmoded concept, so I'll just borrow your car, without permission, to drive to the shops. You needn't worry, because you'll still have the car afterwards, and I'll even put gas in it" ?

This is why we have society: for fairness, and collective action. Intellectual property theft is bread out of my mouth, and no-one so far has made any suggestion about how to replace the 'outmoded' model of copyright. If anyone has any good ideas, I'm all ears. But I've not actually heard ANY ideas so far, let alone good ones.

Cheers,

R.
Click to expand...

They are the people who created DRM??

Not necessarily your problem, but not necessarily NOT your problem. None of us are guaranteed the same environment or facility of our chosen professions, occupations, or their markets. Reality dictates that things can change. We try and find the best ways to continue to protect the property and rights we've enjoyed. A new tech comes along, things start getting digitized, suddenly it's easier to create, distribute, collaborate...and steal. A new problem. We try and find ways to "solve" it. Just because you've enjoyed the luxury of not having to protect your work for 30 yrs doesn't mean it's a right. Don't get me wrong - i don't think it's in any way right to steal digital property. And when people are prosecuted - as long as it's a consistent application and fair - then I don't feel sorry for them. My point was, if there was a standard - not excluding a standard DRM - used, where I could play my Richard Marx MP3 on my iPhone and my Sony Walkman easily, then life would be easier. As it is, DRM is rarely effective. Who should be responsible for finding a way to theftproof their property if not those who are making $$ from it? That's not to suggest those who get caught shouldn't get prosecuted.
 
RealXenuis said:
They are the people who created DRM??

Not necessarily your problem, but not necessarily NOT your problem. None of us are guaranteed the same environment or facility of our chosen professions, occupations, or their markets. Reality dictates that things can change. We try and find the best ways to continue to protect the property and rights we've enjoyed. A new tech comes along, things start getting digitized, suddenly it's easier to create, distribute, collaborate...and steal. A new problem. We try and find ways to "solve" it. Just because you've enjoyed the luxury of not having to protect your work for 30 yrs doesn't mean it's a right. Don't get me wrong - i don't think it's in any way right to steal digital property. And when people are prosecuted - as long as it's a consistent application and fair - then I don't feel sorry for them. My point was, if there was a standard - not excluding a standard DRM - used, where I could play my Richard Marx MP3 on my iPhone and my Sony Walkman easily, then life would be easier. As it is, DRM is rarely effective. Who should be responsible for finding a way to theftproof their property if not those who are making $$ from it? That's not to suggest those who get caught shouldn't get prosecuted.
Click to expand...

Of course things change: no argument. And traditional copyright is unenforceable in the digital world: no argument. But we still need SOMETHING to prevent industrial-scale pirating. Until a better scheme is agreed and in place (which I agree is possible), you will understand why I still have a weakness for the old, flawed scheme in the absence of anything better. Obviously, I can't produce a better scheme all on my own, and even if I could, I couldn't enforce it. That's why I made my point about 'society'.

Actually, I've done quite well out of the ALCS (Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society), which in 2012 paid for most of my M9. This means I'm totally in favour of fair rewards for content creators, however they are calculated. I just get a bit short with those who say that we should abandon the old system when (a) it doesn't directly affect them, or rather, when they can see the advantages if stealing but not the advantages of paying the creators, and (b) there's nothing better in its place.

I don't write or play music, so music copyright doesn't directly affect me. But we need some solidarity among those who earn a living from the creative arts, or those who want to steal, unfettered, will gain the upper hand.

Cheers,

R.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom