Why online piracy isn't theft

rxmd said:
You mean including the cases where copyright holders sue elderly retirees for illegally downloading movies, and said elderly retiree is living alone and neither has a computer nor a wireless router, and the copyright holder wins the case anyway?
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I thinks that's more of a wrongful conviction, than anything to do with copyright theft. Plenty of people have been wrongfully convicted of murder, I still think it should be illegal.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Joosep said:
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Joosep said:
Now I dont want to offend anyone here, there may be guys here who know more about economy than me, but I highly doubt anyone here is smarter than Switzerlands goverment in regards of economy.
Switzerland basicly sayd, it only hurts the big companies and they have to adapt to new "consumer habits".

I would like to remember you guys the ice block makers.
Now think about changing times...

Just read Switzerlands Federal Department of Justice and Police study on this. Its a good read.
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THe problem with your argument is that is completely inapplicable to what's being discussed here [...]
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I see you didnt read the study. Its okey I guess...
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I couldn't read the study. You didn't give a link, nor did you give the title and publication info needed for me to search it out in the academic databases. I'm a grad student in History. I can read, and actually have a stack of academic literature in front of me now for a paper I'm writing. I'm not reading your study if I can't find it....and you blame me for not reading it...I despair for our future. :bang:
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You can actually find it pretty easily on Google using only Joosep's data for the editor, but for your convenience here you have the citations for the report in its three original languages (German, French and Italian) to read for yourself:

 
andersju said:
You're ignoring the fact that when the US was a developing nation, it completely ignored the rights of foreign authors for a very long time. The Copyright Act of 1790 specifically stated:

"And be it further enacted, That nothing in this act shall be construed to extend to prohibit the importation or vending, Reprinting or publishing within the United States, of any map, chart, book or books, written, printed, or published by any person not a citizen of the United States, in foreign parts or places without the jurisdiction of the United States."

Henry G. Henn, "The Quest for International Copyright Protection" (1954):

"The United States had been among the most parochial of nations so far as copyright protection for published works is concerned. For over a hundred years, this nation not only denied copyright protection to published works by foreign authors . . . but appeared to encourage the piracy of such works."
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The United States began life as a country so poor that it couldn't even maintain a navy because it couldn't afford to build ships or pay the crews. When it finally did build a navy, right before the war of 1812, the country could only afford to build 6 frigates and none of the large multideck ships-of-the-line built by even small European countries like Denmark and the Netherlands at the time. That's just an example. Anyway criticising something that happened more than 200 years ago is just a silly attempt to deflect us from the real subject: copyright in the modern world. The founders of the USA understood the importance of IP, but like all countries of the time they took a nationalist view that excluded others from those protections. I suspect the British and French laws of the time did the same.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
The United States began life as a country so poor that it couldn't even maintain a navy because it couldn't afford to build ships or pay the crews. When it finally did build a navy, right before the war of 1812, the country could only afford to build 6 frigates and none of the large multideck ships-of-the-line built by even small European countries like Denmark and the Netherlands at the time. That's just an example. Anyway criticising something that happened more than 200 years ago is just a silly attempt to deflect us from the real subject: copyright in the modern world. The founders of the USA understood the importance of IP, but like all countries of the time they took a nationalist view that excluded others from those protections. I suspect the British and French laws of the time did the same.
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My point was not to criticize something that happened 200 years ago (though it wasn't until 1891 that foreign authors could get protection in the US), but merely to say that perhaps we should show some understanding for bad IP protection in today's dirt-poor, developing nations, considering our own history of piracy and how we got to where we are today.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
That's just an example. Anyway criticising something that happened more than 200 years ago is just a silly attempt to deflect us from the real subject: copyright in the modern world. The founders of the USA understood the importance of IP, but like all countries of the time they took a nationalist view that excluded others from those protections. I suspect the British and French laws of the time did the same.
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Well it was you who brought up the Founding Fathers, so the attempt at deflection really is something you have to question yourself about.

You're right about the British and French laws in the 18th century, except that the USA were particularly late in allowing foreign authors to register copyright at all (effectively extending the period where US authors could pirate with impunity). The divergent case is German law, which didn't know copyright at all until 1837 and not universally until 1870, and (as argued by German historians recently: Eckard Höffner (2010), Geschichte und Wesen des Urheberrechts) this was one of the major factors contributing to the economic, industrial and scientific prosperity of Germany at the time.

So what was your point again about prosperity? It seems that the relatively most prosperous nations in the 19th century were exactly those that either didn't have strong copyright (Germany), or those that allowed pirating foreign works (USA). For the 21st century read the Swiss study quoted above.
 
Sparrow said:
I seldom take things seriously ... but whose international And ethical rules would those be exactly? surely not the most populous nation on earth! ... we wouldn't want democracy involved in issues of corporate income
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Good point. But exporting contaminated milk and poisonous children toys is hardly ethical by any standards. Of course corporate greed made it that companies like Nestle were fully aware of the milk contamination and the consumer had no way to know where the milk used to make their chocolate came from since the label claimed it's a Swiss product.
 
EdwardKaraa said:
It is also not fair for the guys who actually paid for the tickets. It always pisses me off.

Also, I find it very interesting that the attitude towards this issue seems to be cultural as well. For instance Americans seem to be more conservative (and more ethical) while Europeans seem to be more cool about it. Don't flame me for this remark, just my observation.
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No i am not flaming you, but i see that the ipad has come up in this thread.
Interesting that the discussion is about ethics and morality. So who believes they have a strong moral compass AND buys Apple products? considering their employment practises and `theft' from employees.
Not getting at you, just an observation that europeans are more likely Not to buy a product because of the background issues.
Chris, i sure hope you don`t use any Apple stuff🙂
regards
 
Joosep said:
I have looked at this topic since birth, finally gonna say something, just cant resist anymore.

Ill tell you guys a story I was once told on this topic.
Before modern fridges there was a pretty big business on selling small ice blocks. Then came the boom of the fridges and a whole industry just disappeared. Think about this for 5 minutes...


I would like to remember you guys the ice block makers.
Now think about changing times...
"
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hah i had to laugh at this "analogy". I suppose you think the invention of modern telephone systems putting telephone operators out of business is also analogous..."let's remember the telephone operators guys..." (email vs. snail mail is another)

Apples to oranges. Putting an industry out of business by STEALING vs. putting an industry out of business through innovation are completely different scenarios. The latter should be encouraged, the former discouraged. Chris is right also that if you put artists out of business, culture has died. It's thus not a relevant analogy at all. I'm surprised anyone even attempted to draw such a bad analogy . . .

Copyright affects a whole spectrum of work and people, from the one man artists in their basements to billion dollar multinational corporations...Society in their mind I think has been separating the two, (justifying downloading videos but would probably not justify stealing for a small artist) but the law does not carve out exceptions like someone might in their head. I think the commoner feels it is okay to steal copyrighted stuff from the billion dollar corporations because they make so much money (and often in very unethical ways...see apple and foxconn). Bending your own morals to justify your actions is a slippery slope, but i have to sympathize to some extent with the notion of corporations raping everyone (and the environment and lobbying for laws that protect them more and more...). the problem with taking a position such as those saying it isnt theft is that it also hurts the little guys, and that is really sad.


Copyright laws are not limitless, they serve to protect the innovator to an extent, but it doesn't prevent others from being inspired off the ideas and creating others...they just can't directly steal it and then share it. The rights also expire after a duration, though in some areas that duration has expanded (and yes Disney and some big US Corporations have been the lobbyists behind that...so thats another debate. I wouldnt advocate throwing out the whole baby with the bathwater due to it...)

The naysayers are pretty firm on their positions, really no sense in anyone trying to pound a stronger ethic into them i guess
 
EdwardKaraa said:
Good point. But exporting contaminated milk and poisonous children toys is hardly ethical by any standards. Of course corporate greed made it that companies like Nestle were fully aware of the milk contamination and the consumer had no way to know where the milk used to make their chocolate came from since the label claimed it's a Swiss product.
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Do you support the laws of libel as vehemently? ... just in case Nestle should ask?
 
pakeha said:
No i am not flaming you, but i see that the ipad has come up in this thread.
Interesting that the discussion is about ethics and morality. So who believes they have a strong moral compass AND buys Apple products? considering their employment practises and `theft' from employees.
Not getting at you, just an observation that europeans are more likely Not to buy a product because of the background issues.
Chris, i sure hope you don`t use any Apple stuff🙂
regards
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I don't. Well, to be honest, the only apple product I own is the iPad I'm typing on now, but it's a gift.
 
Sparrow said:
... was it Benjamin Franklin who said the heat sensitive should stay out of the kitchen?
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Ah, Franklin, a wonderful man. Also called one of the original IP pirates by some, as he made unauthorized reprints of European books.

Another one of the Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, wrote beautifully:

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."

Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13, 1813
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
The United States began life as a country so poor that it couldn't even maintain a navy because it couldn't afford to build ships or pay the crews. . .
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And therefore relied on bribing the pirates (or at least the Dey of Algiers).

Who would imagine that the USA could ever have been willing to rely on corrupt Near Eastern client states?

Cheers,

R.
 
Jack Conrad said:
Creativity is linked to freedom. Music itself is dependent on the appropriation of musical notations and ideas that came before it.

When we create laws to protect our creative financial livelihoods, we are in many ways cutting off perhaps the greatest wellspring of creativity we have, which is the appropriation of other ideas that came before us.

In that context, it could be considered hubris to think that our creative work is somehow exclusively and uniquely our own.

There is a flow to creativity that when cut off, dies just as surely as
the body dies from lack of sustenance.
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Of course, not many will choose to engage in creative pursuits for a living, if they can't profit from their output. Guess music, literature, painting, etc. will be the exclusive preserve of the hobbyist after the revolution?
 
ChipMcD said:
Guess music, literature, painting, etc. will be the exclusive preserve of the hobbyist after the revolution?
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I think the perception of what your 'product' is will need to change. When that string of 0's and 1's is by a general public conceived to have no monetary value with the ease it can be exchanged, your product as poet for example might not be those pages of words, but a public reading in local cultural center or library. As creator you might keep screaming that it all has great value and that file exchange is theft, but when people just don't see it that way, and actually share with their friends what they truly enjoyed (as culture has always been - it's only so much easier now), it won't help you much. Add a value that cannot be exchanged on a simple usb stick. Give workshops, live performances, sell prints, organize "meetings with author, photographer" whatever. There's plenty of money to be made from the arts, just not from (digital) content any longer. Because nobody sees the value of it.
 
jippiejee said:
. . . Add a value that cannot be exchanged on a simple usb stick. Give workshops, live performances, sell prints, organize "meetings with author, photographer" whatever. There's plenty of money to be made from the arts, just not from (digital) content any longer. Because nobody sees the value of it.
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Easy to say when you're neither a writer or a performer: harder to do when you are. Even harder if you're selling factual information that doesn't lend itself to a music-hall turn. Not all artists are (or want to be, or should be forced to be) performing monkeys.

Cheers,

R.
 
See how good the discussion goes without name calling?
Now let's just leave out snide digs and then we'll have a truly mature discussion.
This is a very thought provoking thread.
 
ChipMcD said:
Of course, not many will choose to engage in creative pursuits for a living, if they can't profit from their output. Guess music, literature, painting, etc. will be the exclusive preserve of the hobbyist after the revolution?
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That would be genuinely sad that anyone would choose not to engage in creative pursuits if they didn't get paid.
 
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