An Open Letter to Photography Thieves

Roger Hicks said:
WHY is it not the same thing, using the definition I gave earlier? Do you dispute that it is theft to take something that belongs to someone else, and use it as your own?

To turn your argument back on itself, you're saying "It's not theft because I say it isn't".

Vheers,

R.
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Roger, I'm afraid to say your argument is on thin ground. Firstly, your definition is overinclusive. I could think of quite a few cases where I take something that belongs to someone else and use it as my own while still not stealing anything. E.g. if I borrow my friends scissors to cut a piece of paper. Also, there are different kinds of copyright infringement that would not be included in your definition. If you watch a pirated movie you're not using it as your own just as the movie would not become your own if you watched it in the movie theater.

But even if we ignore that for a second, you simply cannot dismiss sig's legal argument while at the same time referring to such concepts as property (especially intellectual property). There is no private property without a law that defines and enforces it.

In my opinion there is little point in calling copyright infringement stealing because a) the law doesn't treat it as such and b) it simply doesn't ring true for most people. Copyright is a very complex issue and I think it would be better if, instead of meaningless rants, we would try to educate people about the different ways in which copyright infringement harms the people who create the copyrighted material.
Also, there are different kinds of copyright infringement and not all of them are the same. There's plagiarism (pretending to be the creator of someone else's work), commercial usage witout license (using someone's work for free in order to generate income) and piracy (getting something for nothing) and many more. Most people can agree that plagiarism is abhorrent but that's not so much because it's stealing but because it's lying.
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
Cicero was neither a nice nor a wise man, in my opinion and, though I can't find the reference, that seems to me just the sort of inane statement he would have made. . .
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I didn't say he was. But it's a bloody useful trick with which most lawyers are familiar. Along with "there is no such thing as inadmissible evidence" (you can withdraw it, but the jury will still be influenced by it).

Cheers,

R.
 
Jamie123 said:
Roger, I'm afraid to say your argument is on thin ground. Firstly, your definition is overinclusive. I could think of quite a few cases where I take something that belongs to someone else and use it as my own while still not stealing anything. E.g. if I borrow my friends scissors to cut a piece of paper. Also, there are different kinds of copyright infringement that would not be included in your definition. If you watch a pirated movie you're not using it as your own just as the movie would not become your own if you watched it in the movie theater.

But even if we ignore that for a second, you simply cannot dismiss sig's legal argument while at the same time referring to such concepts as property (especially intellectual property). There is no private property without a law that defines and enforces it.

In my opinion there is little point in calling copyright infringement stealing because a) the law doesn't treat it as such and b) it simply doesn't ring true for most people. Copyright is a very complex issue and I think it would be better if, instead of meaningless rants, we would try to educate people about the different ways in which copyright infringement harms the people who create the copyrighted material.
Also, there are different kinds of copyright infringement and not all of them are the same. There's plagiarism (pretending to be the creator of someone else's work), commercial usage witout license (using someone's work for free in order to generate income) and piracy (getting something for nothing) and many more. Most people can agree that plagiarism is abhorrent but that's not so much because it's stealing but because it's lying.
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Ubi remedium, ibi jus.

Quite honestly, I can't get all that excited about it. As long as there is a remedy, I'll live with whatever others want to call the right.

Even so, I'm not convinced about either the scissors or the movie. What if the scissors are borrowed without permission? Yes, there's always implied permission, but that can be wobbly ground. As for the movie, what if it's on a pirated DVD?

Overall, though, I cannot see a moral difference between copyright infringement and theft. Legal distinction, yes. Moral or just, no. And if we want a good example of (effectively) intellectual property that can be (and has been) stolen or usurped, consider an advowson, the right to appoint a priest to a benefice. Though as far as I recall, an advowson is real property, which rather argues than many legal definitions are a matter of historical accident.

Cheers,

R.
 
back alley said:
someone uses one of my images in their website and even claim that they created it.
i discover this, hire a lawyer who engages the police.
what do the police charge the perp with?
simple!
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Depending on how the image is used and the laws of your jurisdiction, it may be a civil case of copyright infringement, or it could fall under criminal fraud statutes, or both.

One interesting point about Internet fraud, though (unless statute or case law has changed since I retired four years ago,) the jurisdiction of a crime can simultaneously lie with the location where the victim resides and where the suspect resides, and in a third location as well; where the servers are located, for instance, or even a fourth if the crime can be shown to have been committed yet elsewhere. It can make for some interesting investigations and prosecution hurdles. Although most law enforcement agencies are more than happy to let a single agency investigate and prosecute.
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
I am put in mind of something I read a long time ago: "a law that cannot be be enforced in the majority of cases is a bad law". No matter what you call it, "infringement" or "theft", how do you enforce the rights that current law gives you?

The truth is, I submit, you cannot. Even huge corporations, such as Sony Entertainment or Microsoft, can only recover damages in a tiny fraction of cases, by their own admission. In some countries, such as Armenia, it has been claimed that as much as 93% of the intellectual property available is "pirated" and that in China, the figure could be 89%.

Before you can begin the process of recovering "lost income", you need to identify that someone has copied your image without permission. How do you find this has happened, how do you identify the legal jurisdiction in which the alleged loss occurred and how do you provide whatever proof of loss will be required in that jurisdiction? If the defendant is in the same country or state as yourself, it will be time consuming, expensive and, as always in the law, a test of stamina between yourself and the defendant. If it is in another jurisdiction?

This is why I say that the only thing a sensible person can and should do is decide if they wish to keep control of their images or not. If they do wish to keep control of their images, in my opinion, they should never post them on the web or post them in such a way that most people won't consider re-using those images.
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Probably the most sensible post in this thread!

Like it or not, once something is uploaded onto the internet, the very nature of that medium means you've lost control of it. Complaining about ethics, morals or laws solves nothing. I don't condone theft, infringement or whatever else it's called but there is, currently, no practical solution.

If the entire world were a single nation and every user's upload/downloads monitored there might be a chance but that isn't going to happen any time soon.
 
Welcome to the 21st Century

Welcome to the 21st Century

1. Exposure is necessary to sell visual, musical, or literary art.
2. This ALWAYS comes with a price (money to publisher or record company), both yesterday and today.
3. Yesterday, one's work was posted in print or in a gallery for that necessary exposure; today one posts on the internet.
4. The minimum cost for an infringement suit that can claim damages to the creator is now $100,000 as per ASCAP's site.
5. Although copyrights and patents are designed to protect the creators, historically the money goes to whomever gets the idea to market successfully.

Today what folks used to call 'infringement' is just the cost of doing business, and copyright can provide cease and desist orders, or damages if they can be accounted.

OTHERWISE, stop yer damn whining! Your exposure is FREE!!! This is the 21st Century!!!!
 
Which is why I don't put photos I care about on the internet. I publish, in a printed newspaper, anywhere from 10 to 20 photos a week. Most of them also get posted on our website. I don't put any pictures I don't want copied on the internet. So Dektol Dan's argument flies with me. I still call it theft - it's mine to do with as a choose. And I choose not to post some photos.
 
It is wrong, but lets face it. You make the image and put it where it can be stolen with little problem and then blame the thief.

I would not do it, but this is so easy and times are bad.

Perhaps some smart programer could make an image melt if downloaded.
 
Thardy said:
back alley said:
is this thread EVER going to die?
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If it were one of those "let's agree to disagree" type of topics I'd say yes. But some people like to make up their own definitions of things which have already been defined.
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Dear Thomas,

Definitions change: they are not frozen for all time. That's part of the nature of debate. And the point of this particular debate is who has what rights, and how enforceable those rights are. Does it matter whether we label copyright infringement as theft? Not really. Does it matter that so many people have so little respect for intellectual property rights? Yes.

Cheers,

R.
 
Does it matter that so many people have so little respect for intellectual property rights? Yes.
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Isn't this in danger of becoming like the old Scottish joke: "Och, look at aw they sodgers. They're aw' oot a step, 'cept oor Wullie."

As you say, Definitions change, as do social norms and the laws that seek to enforce them. It wasn't long ago that a British citizen who used force to stop an intruder could, and did, end up in prison. Now the law has changed to make that much less likely. So, the definitions of theft and infringement may well change. If and when they do, I think there will be both winners and losers. I, for one, am not going to make any foolish predictions as to who will fall into each category.
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
Isn't this in danger of becoming like the old Scottish joke: "Och, look at aw they sodgers. They're aw' oot a step, 'cept oor Wullie."

As you say, Definitions change, as do social norms and the laws that seek to enforce them. It wasn't long ago that a British citizen who used force to stop an intruder could, and did, end up in prison. Now the law has changed to make that much less likely. So, the definitions of theft and infringement may well change. If and when they do, I think there will be both winners and losers. I, for one, am not going to make any foolish predictions as to who will fall into each category.
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That was in turn the case for a relatively short time. At law school in the 1960s/early 70 I was taught about Levett's case, K.B. 1638, and "self defence" was still quite generously interpreted.

You are of course right about winners and losers, but the important thing is that there should be a debate, rather than a blinkered view that "It's like this right now, so this is the way it's always going to be", sometimes further blinkered by the assumption that all jurisdictions are the same.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Does it matter that so many people have so little respect for intellectual property rights? Yes.
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I truly don't think it's malicious, though. In my experience it's not so much a lack of respect as it is a lack of understanding. That's why I don't think it helps to give simplistic answers and just say it's stealing. It's like some ads that ran a while ago that said something along the lines of "you wouldn't steal a dvd at the store so why would steal a movie online if it's the same thing?". But if people do one thing and not the other then obviously there is a difference. It's like trying to convince someone that oranges are apples. Even if they agree they will still see a difference between the different kinds of apples. (As a side note, an old German term for orange is "apple of china".)
 
Jamie123 said:
I truly don't think it's malicious, though. In my experience it's not so much a lack of respect as it is a lack of understanding. That's why I don't think it helps to give simplistic answers and just say it's stealing. . . .
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Highlight: you are almost certainly right. The question is, how do we promote understanding? Calling it "stealing" is probably something more people can understand, on a more visceral level. The trick lies in getting that across without ranting. There are those who, when they see the word "intellectual" in the term "intellectual property" will immediately and automatically put themselves on the other side from "pointy-headed innerlekshuls".

Cheers,

R.
 
I believe that lying and making copyright infringement "more bad" than it is by calling it stealing does not help (assuming the goal is trying to change peoples behavior)
Why should people listen to a message that is a lie?

When people are told they are doing something wrong, they will be skeptical about the messenger and the message. And everything the messenger/message is doing wrong (like lying) will make the message easy to ignore.
 
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