Major Copyright Judgement

[Belz...]

As I understand his position, the point of laws and morality is to create rules that optimize societal benefit. The concept of "rights" as inherent or basic entitlements with underlying moral significants runs counter to this.

I'll say. Laws based on society have usually been made by failed societies (see communism, etc.). I thought we had gotten rid of those and instead based those laws on individual rights.

So, he's not interested in copyright law as an application of a fundamental right to property -- he's interested in copyright law as it is beneficial for society to have it.

And with that, deny people their freedoms "for the greater good" ?

 

[Belz...]

Since rights only exist in the first place if they further social utility

You keep saying that. Do you have any evidence that rights are not, instead, based on individual liberties ?

 

[AvalonXQ]

Edited to highlight parts of the quote that were changed.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Tricky

You only got two of the three.

 

[AvalonXQ]

And with that, deny people their freedoms "for the greater good" ?

Can you explain how NOT enforcing copyright laws is somehow denying people their freedoms? Copyright laws, like most laws, are themselves restricting freedoms.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

You keep saying that. Do you have any evidence that rights are not, instead, based on individual liberties ?

Rights are granted by society and are thus a societal construct. No individual has any rights other than what society deems should be allowed. There are plenty of societies with different values and "rights" than we enjoy in the US.

Hell, individual "rights" differ between the US, England, Germany, etc.

Can you provide evidence of any individual "right" that every society/culture has respected?

 

[GreyICE]

This is simply woolly thinking. The concepts are intertwined in your head, so you conclude that nobody else is able to tease them apart.

It turns out in practise that it's socially beneficial to extend some privileges to all citizens without exceptions. You can call those privileges rights if you like. However even if you call them that, they are rights only because they are socially beneficial.

The minute it turns out that a "right" does more harm than good to society when you take everything into account we should abolish that "right".

But here's the problem. You declare the rights socially beneficial, but we can show in specific instances that it would be more socially beneficial to allow someone to violate those rights.

Therefore you end up with a situation that looks an awful lot like individual rights trumping social benefit. You can declare that this is all for the greater social benefit, but that's levels of abstraction.

As I said, even in your construct, rights seem to be more than you hypothesize they are.

Since rights only exist in the first place if they further social utility, the idea that rights can trump social utility is an absurdity.

Rights exist independent of social utility. Social utility is a function of individual utility. Do you deny this? Individual Utility is a function of individual rights and individual privileges.

Individual utility is therefore more fundamental than social utility.

Sure it can. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the Libertarian.

They do not.

*snip magical babble*

Right. You mentioned magic, not me. Strawman.

I think this may be the one time AvalonXQ and I have agreed about anything, but AvalonXQ is precisely on the money in this instance.

Feel free to put me on ignore too, if you put people on ignore whenever you get caught in a really basic logical error.

Where do these Magical Inalienable Transcendental Rights you believe in come from? How do you know what is a Magical Inalienable Transcendental Right and what is not? Did God tell you they exist, or was it a mystical revelation that came to you after hours of navel-gazing?

Once again, there's no magic.

And you didn't take a post of mine and lie about what I said. I mean what if I took a quote box and did this:

I believe that we should all submit to greater social utility, like Karl Marx said!

Really obnoxious, neh? There's no point in discussing things with liars who do crap like that. That's why the ignore list got expanded. If you think that's the same as 'disagreeing with me' then you're 100% wrong.

 

[Belz...]

Can you explain how NOT enforcing copyright laws is somehow denying people their freedoms? Copyright laws, like most laws, are themselves restricting freedoms.

The freedom of property.

As I said before, if I compose a song, but can't sing; and someone decides to steal my song and make money off of it and NOT pay me royalties, how can my ownership of the song and associated freedom be protected without those laws ? I have no recourse without them, except maybe kill the guy and take his money, assuming there are no laws protecting his life.

 

[Belz...]

Rights are granted by society and are thus a societal construct. No individual has any rights other than what society deems should be allowed.

I didn't say they were not social constructs. I said they were based on the idea of individual freedoms.

Is anybody actually reading my posts properly ?

Can you provide evidence of any individual "right" that every society/culture has respected?

No. And ?

 

[BobTheDonkey]

I didn't say they were not social constructs. I said they were based on the idea of individual freedoms.

What about the individual freedom of using the music I purchase in a manner I desire? Or the freedom to download whatever I want?

Or is it only the individual freedoms of the artist that count?

 

[mumblethrax]

As I said before, if I compose a song, but can't sing; and someone decides to steal my song and make money off of it and NOT pay me royalties, how can my ownership of the song and associated freedom be protected without those laws? I have no recourse without them, except maybe kill the guy and take his money, assuming there are no laws protecting his life.

That freedom cannot be protected even with copyright law. It can only be conferred, since it simply does not exist until you have a legal apparatus capable of enforcing your claims. As you intimate, in a world without intellectual property law, you have no freedom to enforce ownership claims over a song you've composed. Similarly, I am unable to enforce my claim that everyone else in the country owes me a dollar, pending passage of the Give a Working Man a Break Act of 2010, which defenders of liberty everywhere ought to vote for. Freeeeeeeedommmmmmmm!

The pertinent question, then, is why we should like to confer that particular freedom, particularly given that there is a range of options that can bring about the desired outcome.

 

[GreyICE]

That freedom cannot be protected even with copyright law. It can only be conferred, since it simply does not exist until you have a legal apparatus capable of enforcing your claims. As you intimate, in a world without intellectual property law, you have no freedom to enforce ownership claims over a song you've composed. Similarly, I am unable to enforce my claim that everyone else in the country owes me a dollar, pending passage of the Give a Working Man a Break Act of 2010, which defenders of liberty everywhere ought to vote for. Freeeeeeeedommmmmmmm!

The pertinent question, then, is why we should like to confer that particular freedom, particularly given that there is a range of options that can bring about the desired outcome.

Would you say that creative works including, but not limited to, songs, engineering designs, architectural designs, movies, books, and computer programs, were a net benefit to society, or a net detriment?

If the answer is the former, then you have answered your own question.

 

[AvalonXQ]

The freedom of property.

Freedom is the ability to do things, and other peoples' inability to stop you from doing those things. Property certainly does have some freedom associated to it -- but what you're talking about isn't freedom at all. It's restriction.
If I own a piece of land, I can prohibit you from trespassing on it. This is a good thing, but it's a real stretch to call it "freedom" -- my right to restrict others from using my land isn't about freedom at all; it's about the opposite.
Copyright, which is entirely the right to stop other people from doing certain things, isn't about "freedom" at all. There is nothing that copyright actually enables you to do. All copyright does is restrict the freedom of others.
This doesn't make copyright automatically bad; as I said, many of our laws are based on restriction. But don't confuse restriction with freedom.

 

[mumblethrax]

Would you say that creative works including, but not limited to, songs, engineering designs, architectural designs, movies, books, and computer programs, were a net benefit to society, or a net detriment?

A net benefit.

If the answer is the former, then you have answered your own question.

No. As I suggested, intellectual property law is just one way of encouraging people to do these things, and it seems like a particularly bad way of doing so in at least some cases.

 

[Cavemonster]

Freedom is the ability to do things, and other peoples' inability to stop you from doing those things. Property certainly does have some freedom associated to it -- but what you're talking about isn't freedom at all. It's restriction.
If I own a piece of land, I can prohibit you from trespassing on it. This is a good thing, but it's a real stretch to call it "freedom" -- my right to restrict others from using my land isn't about freedom at all; it's about the opposite.
Copyright, which is entirely the right to stop other people from doing certain things, isn't about "freedom" at all. There is nothing that copyright actually enables you to do. All copyright does is restrict the freedom of others.
This doesn't make copyright automatically bad; as I said, many of our laws are based on restriction. But don't confuse restriction with freedom.

Freedom is a funny word. Because freedom and restriction are not really opposites unless you're only looking through a microscope.

In reality, every "freedom to" means you lose a "freedom from" and every "freedom from" costs a "freedom to"

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You keep saying that. Do you have any evidence that rights are not, instead, based on individual liberties ?

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

But here's the problem. You declare the rights socially beneficial, but we can show in specific instances that it would be more socially beneficial to allow someone to violate those rights.

I defined rights for my purposes as privileges which it is socially beneficial to extend to all persons. So claiming that it's socially beneficial to allow people to violate your rights can only be true if they weren't rights in the first place, as I defined rights.

Rights exist independent of social utility. Social utility is a function of individual utility. Do you deny this? Individual Utility is a function of individual rights and individual privileges.

Individual utility is therefore more fundamental than social utility.

Utility is just utility. Nobody's utility is more important or more fundamental than anyone else's.

And you didn't take a post of mine and lie about what I said. I mean what if I took a quote box and did this:

Really obnoxious, neh? There's no point in discussing things with liars who do crap like that. That's why the ignore list got expanded. If you think that's the same as 'disagreeing with me' then you're 100% wrong.

I think when your position has been shown to be completely incorrect then you should fix your position first and see how your interlocutor responds, rather than pretending that your position is not incorrect and putting the person who corrected you on ignore.

 

[GreyICE]

I defined rights for my purposes as privileges which it is socially beneficial to extend to all persons. So claiming that it's socially beneficial to allow people to violate your rights can only be true if they weren't rights in the first place, as I defined rights.

You're weaseling. Obviously if you apply a generality such as a right, beneficial to be applied across the board to all people, it will in specific circumstances not be directly socially beneficial to apply it. That would be the very point of declaring it extended to all persons, and the point of the example I gave, which was not disputed. If the purpose was to maximize social utility, and applying that standard would always maximize social utility in each specific case there would be no need for the argument that social utility is maximized if the laws were applied across the board. Otherwise one could simply look at the specific situation and determine that the social utility was maximized in that one specific case.

Examples are copious. A smart Engineer murders her husband. She has no intent of murdering again, and has invented several important innovations, with more in development. If one were to examine how that individual case maximized social utility, one would conclude that there was no value in removing the woman from society.

You start building the arch from the top stone downwards. Social utility must be an aggregate of individual utility. To start at social utility and attempt to reach maximum aggregate individual utility is a pointless exercise. You must assume so much that one would not know where to start. It would boil down to a simple statement - one believes that such a thing must be socially beneficial because one knows socially beneficial things benefit society.

To reach maximum social utility, it only makes sense to begin with maximizing individual utility. Thus, social utility is at best a subordinate function of individual utility.

What you are attempting to do is take a class of children and determine how best to raise the math score by examining their average score, with no reference to the score of the individual child. No matter how much one looks at the composite test scores, one reveals very little.

What you have done is taken this class full of students, and stated that their individual ability, strengths, and weaknesses in math are relevant only in the context of average class test score, and that to maximize average class test score, one should at best briefly take into account individual child test scores.

Utility is just utility. Nobody's utility is more important or more fundamental than anyone else's.

This merely states that individual utility exists. There is no use to this in a discussion about social utility versus individual utility.

I think when your position has been shown to be completely incorrect then you should fix your position first and see how your interlocutor responds, rather than pretending that your position is not incorrect and putting the person who corrected you on ignore.

Anyone who could show my position to be completely incorrect could correctly quote my position. To lie and misquote me is to show me that one is uninterested in discussion, merely grandstanding and lies.

If you believe otherwise, if you believe that there can be non-fallacious arguments that can only be made by changing a person's words, lying about what they said, you are wrong.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You're weaseling.

You ignore the definition of rights I was using, substitute your own, claim that I have contradicted myself because of your substitution, and then accuse me of weaselling?

I think rights are a fundamentally flawed idea. You're the one who keeps trying to fish them out of the trash can and polish them up.

Obviously if you apply a generality such as a right, beneficial to be applied across the board to all people, it will in specific circumstances not be directly socially beneficial to apply it. That would be the very point of declaring it extended to all persons, and the point of the example I gave, which was not disputed.

That's a remarkably simple-minded point of view.

If the purpose was to maximize social utility, and applying that standard would always maximize social utility in each specific case there would be no need for the argument that social utility is maximized if the laws were applied across the board. Otherwise one could simply look at the specific situation and determine that the social utility was maximized in that one specific case.

Examples are copious. A smart Engineer murders her husband. She has no intent of murdering again, and has invented several important innovations, with more in development. If one were to examine how that individual case maximized social utility, one would conclude that there was no value in removing the woman from society.

There is enormous value in rules which are clearly understood and impartially enforced, and you cannot realise that value if you are constantly making up exceptions for short-term gain.

Presumably you realise this, or else you would be in favour of decriminalising copying computer games in cases where the copier wasn't going to buy the game in a store anyway.

You start building the arch from the top stone downwards. Social utility must be an aggregate of individual utility. To start at social utility and attempt to reach maximum aggregate individual utility is a pointless exercise. You must assume so much that one would not know where to start. It would boil down to a simple statement - one believes that such a thing must be socially beneficial because one knows socially beneficial things benefit society.

Now you've descended into word salad and empty assertion.

To reach maximum social utility, it only makes sense to begin with maximizing individual utility.

Total rubbish. If I would enjoy your stereo more than you, from the perspective of maximising individual utility I should just take it. The idea that we should use that sort of calculation as the starting point of any social structure is hilarious.

More of the same nonsense snipped...

If you believe otherwise, if you believe that there can be non-fallacious arguments that can only be made by changing a person's words, lying about what they said, you are wrong.

Again, total rubbish.

You can demolish a stupid argument without using those tactics.

You can also demolish a stupid argument by using those tactics.

Your stupid argument was demolished, and instead of fixing it you put the person who demolished it on ignore and complained that they demolished your argument in an unnecessarily mean way.

 

[GreyICE]

You ignore the definition of rights I was using, substitute your own, claim that I have contradicted myself because of your substitution, and then accuse me of weaselling?

I think rights are a fundamentally flawed idea. You're the one who keeps trying to fish them out of the trash can and polish them up.

You don't answer the question I asked, but instead answer a completely different question. Yep.

There is enormous value in rules which are clearly understood and impartially enforced, and you cannot realise that value if you are constantly making up exceptions for short-term gain.

Presumably you realise this, or else you would be in favour of decriminalising copying computer games in cases where the copier wasn't going to buy the game in a store anyway.

But I believe that a creator has a right to profit from his creation, so of course it is internally consistent for me to believe that the right is universal.

Also, you have an unproven hypothesis. What is the value you gain from rules that are impartially enforced, and why does that value you gain outweight the value added by considering each circumstance individually? Also, if we assume the American legal system, are judges right to consider individual circumstance when applying these universal rules in terms of sentencing, rather than consider social utility in the sentencing?

Total rubbish. If I would enjoy your stereo more than you, from the perspective of maximising individual utility I should just take it. The idea that we should use that sort of calculation as the starting point of any social structure is hilarious.

Nonsense. If you would enjoy a stereo more than me, we both have the right to purchase the same stereo. This seems fair, and actually universal access to free trade of goods is a right in this society - and a very good one.

I'd also note that you have the option of giving me money equivalent or greater than my value of the stereo (but less than your version of the stereo), which will give me greater individual utility, as I now have money that I can use to purchase things that have more individual utility to me, and you will have a stereo that you purchased for less money than the individual utility to you.

Of course the right that assures this individual utility maximization must flow from social utility in your system. Interesting to see how you explain how it does so.


By the way, I see that you have taken to responding to the majority of my writing with simple insulting words. I applaud you!

When Avalon was similarly unable to explain how my arguments were wrong, he resorted to editing my posts, while you simply write 'Rubbish,' a tactic that any intelligent reader can see as a transparent ploy to make an argument that you cannot refute seem too trivial to refute (a typical internet tactic, and one I am sure that the majority of intelligent readers have seen and dismissed). While I don't approve of the use of said tactic, the honesty of not editing my words so the arguments you cannot refute go away is undeniable, and I do find you far superior to other people on this thread for that reason.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

You don't answer the question I asked, but instead answer a completely different question. Yep.

But I believe that a creator has a right to profit from his creation, so of course it is internally consistent for me to believe that the right is universal.

I guess it's time to cut and paste.

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

Also, you have an unproven hypothesis. What is the value you gain from rules that are impartially enforced, and why does that value you gain outweight the value added by considering each circumstance individually? Also, if we assume the American legal system, are judges right to consider individual circumstance when applying these universal rules in terms of sentencing, rather than consider social utility in the sentencing?

We're getting into relatively abstract territory here, and away from the point. The short version is that the Rule of Law, where rules are objectively stated and enforced more or less literally, has been found to be preferable overall to the Rule of Man, where someone makes up the rules as they go along.

Rules like "If you steal a car you get two to ten years, and the exact sentence you get depends on specifically enumerated factors" work fine. They even work fine if you say "It's actually okay to steal a car under a different set of specifically enumerated situations, such as to save someone's life or whatever".

Nonsense. If you would enjoy a stereo more than me, we both have the right to purchase the same stereo...

...and we're off into fairyland, where your response has nothing to do with what I posted. Cut and paste time again:

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

What you are doing is casting about desperately for any half-baked excuse to dismiss overall social utility as a basis for lawmaking, because you're fixated on a primary-school moral philosophy based on an unsupported sense of entitlement. What you have utterly failed to do is present any positive argument whatsoever for your talk of "rights". So one more time:

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

 

[GreyICE]

I guess it's time to cut and paste.

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

They come from a logical framework of philosophy and ethics. There's literally been thousands of pages written on the subject, I'd suggest you take some college courses on it if you're interested, or read philosophers. You can check out the background of the philosophers the writers of the constitution based their rights on, the Magna Carta, the International Bill of Human Rights, and other sources. Epicurus, Kant, Foucault, Joyce, I'm not really sure where to point you to start.

There's dozens of very good sources on pretty much exactly this matter.

We're getting into relatively abstract territory here, and away from the point. The short version is that the Rule of Law, where rules are objectively stated and enforced more or less literally, has been found to be preferable overall to the Rule of Man, where someone makes up the rules as they go along.

Rules like "If you steal a car you get two to ten years, and the exact sentence you get depends on specifically enumerated factors" work fine. They even work fine if you say "It's actually okay to steal a car under a different set of specifically enumerated situations, such as to save someone's life or whatever".

Okay, then. Assuming your hypothesis is correct, whatever is the reason that judges take into account individual circumstance, not social utility when determining where in the 2-10 year spectrum the sentence falls? And are they right to do so?

...and we're off into fairyland, where your response has nothing to do with what I posted. Cut and paste time again:

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

Interesting that you cannot help repeating yourself. More interesting that you cannot answer me.

What you are doing is casting about desperately for any half-baked excuse to dismiss overall social utility as a basis for lawmaking, because you're fixated on a primary-school moral philosophy based on an unsupported sense of entitlement. What you have utterly failed to do is present any positive argument whatsoever for your talk of "rights". So one more time:

Where do you think these "rights" or "individual liberties" come from? God? Fairies? "Self-evident" ass-pulls?

Once again, rofl.

That was your best argument? That literally 2,000 years of philosophy and ethical framework don't exist?

It's argument from vast ignorance? Really?