Major Copyright Judgement

[Ethan Thane Athen]

"Someone else" paid for it. Thing is, now two people have copies of that work, and one didn't pay for it. My beef with the "lending" bit is that there is still only one copy lying around, and with the "ripping" bit, that still only one person is using it.

I think you may have misunderstood me. I was pointing out that technology is sold specifically on the basis that I should use it to convert eg my vinyl record, or tape or VHS tape (which I paid for) to a digital copy - which gives the same result as if I downloaded the MP3s or film but I believe would be considered as something very different by RIAA. Although, as I also stated, I thought they didn't allow the former activity either....so how can shops sell kit specifically for that purpose?

Both parties had paid for eg a copy of the music, one digitises it and the other uses that digital copy rather than bothering to digitise themselves. Both have paid for a copy so why the difference...if there is any?*

*Though note my earlier comment that I believe you don't have rights to any media other than the media you purchased the copyrighted material on.

 

[CatInTheBag]

It is irrelevant to this argument how far down the pecking order they are.

Irrespectively, it's not a point on which any of my points has been based.

I covered that.

 

[Yoink]

The semantic argument aside, what about loss?

What is the apple tree owner losing?

What is the artist (or, rather, the distribution company, because, let's face it, the artist is very low in the pecking order) losing?

The artist loses their percentage of the sales that would otherwise be made.
The distribution company loses their percentage of the sales that would otherwise be made.

But wait--I know how this particular self-serving BS argument goes.

"Oh, but I go to lots of live concerts--so they get their money that way."

Whoopty-do. It's not your right to choose how musicians should or shouldn't get to make a living. They have a right to determine under what conditions their music is made available. If they want to charge for it, that's their right. If you want to own the recording, you should pay what they and their music company have decided to charge. If you think it's too much, then don't buy it.

"Money corrupts art. In the utopian future, musicians will all be amateurs sharing their music!"

Great. There's nothing stopping that utopian collectivity from emerging right now. If people want to share their music, that's cool. If you record something and choose to share it for free, that's your right. That doesn't give you the right to tell someone else, however, that they have to share their music for free too. If they choose to charge money, then that's their right. Infringing that right is theft.

"But all the money goes to the evil recording companies. If the money went to artists, man, I'd pay it, but instead it goes to the evil record companies, and I don't want to enrich them."

First of all, you're lying to yourself, and that's just ugly. If you wanted the artist to have money, there's nothing stopping you sending them money directly after you pirate their music. Funny how nobody does that, isn't it? Secondly, if an artist wants to record and self-market their music, that would be their right--and you would be able to pay the artist directly (a business model which is spectacularly unsuccessful, because people don't actually give a hoot about 'supporting the artist'--they just want to get the music they want for free). If they choose to sign a deal with a record-company, however, then that record company has the right to whatever share in the profits they have negotiated with the artist. You might not like the deal the artist signed; you might think the artist was a fool to sign that deal; but that does not give you the right to steal the music--ensuring that neither the artist nor the record company makes any profit from the music they have produced.

The plain and simple fact of the matter is that people like getting stuff for free but they hate having people point that out to them so they try to dress it up in more noble language.

 

[CatInTheBag]

Sorry mate that is cack.

You do not have something. You cannot afford it. You download it from a pirate site. You now have it.

You do not have something. You cannot afford it. You steal it from a store. You now have it.

Same outcome from different routes.

Technicalities aside the morality is the same.

Morality and legality make for strange bedfellows.

The moral argument against theft is that it deprives someone of something.

Downloading a copy of a dvd / mp3 / game deprives nobody of anything.

 

[Gate2501]

Sorry mate that is cack.

You do not have something. You cannot afford it. You download it from a pirate site. You now have it.

You do not have something. You cannot afford it. You steal it from a store. You now have it.

Same outcome from different routes.

Technicalities aside the morality is the same.

Different outcome, different routes. This is a false analogy. I do understand that there are some parallels, such as the gain on the part of the infringing party and the shoplifter.

The morality is entirely subjective, and I'd rather stay away from that since we could endlessly argue about it with no resolution. It may very well be the same morally as far as you are concerned.

 

[Yoink]

Exactly.

"Identity theft" is a term in and of itself, not a two word statement describing an event. You have not literally stolen it and left them a terrible husk of a person without any identity, this is friggin' obvious. You are illegally using their identity in an act of fraud for personal gain.

Though fraud can be considered a type of theft when speaking informally, it is technically an entirely different crime. This is all rather irrelevant to copyright violation, which is not even informally considered to be a type of theft by anyone but the misinformed.

You include all nine members of the Supreme Court among the "misinformed" I take it? In Dowling vs. United States, the six judges who found that pirated DVDs did not qualify as stolen goods do explicitly aver that "colloquially" it is appropriate to refer to copyright infringement as theft, and the three dissenting justices argue strongly that it should be regarded as theft legally as well.

 

[CatInTheBag]

The artist loses their percentage of the sales that would otherwise be made.

That's not an actual loss. That's as good as saying that every album that I have never bought is a loss to the artist.

<snip>

tl;dr, and I'm not prepared to sift through it for sentience.

 

[CatInTheBag]

You include all nine members of the Supreme Court among the "misinformed" I take it? In Dowling vs. United States, the six judges who found that pirated DVDs did not qualify as stolen goods do explicitly aver that "colloquially" it is appropriate to refer to copyright infringement as theft, and the three dissenting justices argue strongly that it should be regarded as theft legally as well.

So it's not theft then. Except for colloquially. By your own petard.

 

[Belz...]

Under certain conditions, you would be wrong.

Well, it wouldn't be the first time.

Conversely, an individual making copies is not losing the artist one single penny.

If he's keeping those copies to himself, no. If he's copying for someone else, potentially (if that someone else would've bought the damn thing, had the copies not been available to him).

 

[Gate2501]

You include all nine members of the Supreme Court among the "misinformed" I take it? In Dowling vs. United States, the six judges who found that pirated DVDs did not qualify as stolen goods do explicitly aver that "colloquially" it is appropriate to refer to copyright infringement as theft, and the three dissenting justices argue strongly that it should be regarded as theft legally as well.

I have absolutely no problem with you referring to copyright infringement as theft colloquially. I wouldn't care if you called it arson, so long as you admit that you are speaking colloquially.

 

[Belz...]

The semantic argument aside, what about loss?

What is the apple tree owner losing?

What is the artist (or, rather, the distribution company, because, let's face it, the artist is very low in the pecking order) losing?

Er... money from the potential sale, perhaps ?

Sure, you can say that, maybe, the pirate wouldn't have paid for it, anyway. But since we can't know that, we have to assume that illegal copies represent a lost sale.

You would be missing the whole "art for art's sake" bit then. And failing to understand irony.

How ironic.

Perhaps if you explained yourself it would help, instead of dancing around and continuing to claim that I fail to understand, which I already admitted to.

 

[Yoink]

Morality and legality make for strange bedfellows.

The moral argument against theft is that it deprives someone of something.

Downloading a copy of a dvd / mp3 / game deprives nobody of anything.

"Deprives nobody of anything." What amazing moral blindness.

O.K., so how about this. It's a little known fact that brick-and-mortar CD stores don't pay 'upfront' for the new CDs they stock. Thus if someone shoplifts a CD from a brick-and-mortar store, the shop doesn't wear the cost of replacing the CD, the supplier does. But the cost of the CD to the supplier is simply the physical cost of the disc, the jewel-case, the booklet etc--which, of course, is very little; something in the order of $1. Now, if I shoplift a CD from a store, and then send $1 to the supplier, does that mean that no theft occurred? I mean, the supplier can print another disc; the $1 I sent them covers the cost of that printing; the store loses nothing--it can always order more copies of the CD. Would that be theft or not, in your view?

 

[CatInTheBag]

If he's keeping those copies to himself, no. If he's copying for someone else, potentially (if that someone else would've bought the damn thing, had the copies not been available to him).

That's different.

Copying for yourself results in no loss to the IP owner, unless you presuppose that the yourself would have otherwise made a purchase, rather than go without.

Copying for others (or distributing copies) is far more likely to cause a loss to the IP owner, unless you presuppose that every other individual might have not made a purchase, and is where the law steps in with civil remedies. Where there is profit to the distributor, the offense is often criminal.

So while it's easy to say "If I had not downloaded / copied, I would not have purchase", the same may not be said for any third party.

 

[Belz...]

Yeah, you are equivocating physical personal property and intellectual property, then declaring copyright infringement to be theft upon this basis.

Yes, I am. And how am I wrong ? In both cases the "thief" now has something that doesn't belong to him, at the author's cost, whether financial or material. So where's the real difference ?

I really don't find anything morally wrong with it in many cases. Obviously we cannot go about having laws based on subjective criteria, such as the economic state and/or potential of the infringing party. I understand full well why it is illegal, I am not anti-copyright.

It isn't a black and white issue imo.

Issues are rarely black and white. But in what cases _don't_ you consider copyright infringement wrong ?

 

[Yoink]

I have absolutely no problem with you referring to copyright infringement as theft colloquially. I wouldn't care if you called it arson, so long as you admit that you are speaking colloquially.

Except that to refer to it colloquially as arson would be incorrect. "Colloquially" doesn't mean, as you seem to think, "on drugs" or "while raving off my head." It simply means "in ordinary parlance." It is correct, by any ordinary language usage of the term, to refer to illegal downloading as "theft." The ONLY place where it would be incorrect to refer to illegal downloading as "theft" would be in a court of law.

You are the desperately trying to seize on a very limited and technical definition of the word in order to find some moral excuse for a clearly immoral practice.

 

[Belz...]

I think you may have misunderstood me. I was pointing out that technology is sold specifically on the basis that I should use it to convert eg my vinyl record, or tape or VHS tape (which I paid for) to a digital copy - which gives the same result as if I downloaded the MP3s or film but I believe would be considered as something very different by RIAA. Although, as I also stated, I thought they didn't allow the former activity either....so how can shops sell kit specifically for that purpose?

Both parties had paid for eg a copy of the music, one digitises it and the other uses that digital copy rather than bothering to digitise themselves. Both have paid for a copy so why the difference...if there is any?*

*Though note my earlier comment that I believe you don't have rights to any media other than the media you purchased the copyrighted material on.

Ok you were talking about downloading something you paid for ?

 

[CatInTheBag]

"Deprives nobody of anything." What amazing moral blindness.

O.K., so how about this. It's a little known fact that brick-and-mortar CD stores don't pay 'upfront' for the new CDs they stock. Thus if someone shoplifts a CD from a brick-and-mortar store, the shop doesn't wear the cost of replacing the CD, the supplier does. But the cost of the CD to the supplier is simply the physical cost of the disc, the jewel-case, the booklet etc--which, of course, is very little; something in the order of $1. Now, if I shoplift a CD from a store, and then send $1 to the supplier, does that mean that no theft occurred? I mean, the supplier can print another disc; the $1 I sent them covers the cost of that printing; the store loses nothing--it can always order more copies of the CD. Would that be theft or not, in your view?

More strawmen? Why would anyone do that? I would imagine that it is theft, as it is depriving someone of something.

 

[Belz...]

That's not an actual loss. That's as good as saying that every album that I have never bought is a loss to the artist.

Except that people who don't buy something and don't download it, don't want it, and don't have it. Since the owner of the intellectual property gets to set the conditions by which you can use their property, you must abide by those conditions, including paying money. So, if you don't, then yes, the owner loses money as surely as if you had stolen the CD from the factory that makes them.

 

[CatInTheBag]

Perhaps if you explained yourself it would help, instead of dancing around and continuing to claim that I fail to understand, which I already admitted to.

I'm alluding to the notion that an artist, by definition almost, does something for the art itself, and not for the reward. The reward is incidental. If that artist is doing it for the reward, they are not an artist, but a businessman.

My argument does not rely on this narrow interpretation of what does, or does not, constitute art, or artists.

 

[Belz...]

That's different.

Copying for yourself results in no loss to the IP owner, unless you presuppose that the yourself would have otherwise made a purchase, rather than go without.

Copying for others (or distributing copies) is far more likely to cause a loss to the IP owner, unless you presuppose that every other individual might have not made a purchase, and is where the law steps in with civil remedies. Where there is profit to the distributor, the offense is often criminal.

We seem to be in agreement on this.