Yes, it is stealing
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Jul 03, 2010 11:30 AM EDT |
I used the word "stealing" on purpose, to cut throught the nonsense. There isn't any difference because it's electrons instead of "vinyl wrapped in cardboard." Here we have all this wonderful technology that makes the distribution of all of these creative works easier, faster, cheaper, and less wasteful of materials than ever. Creative artists can reach more people than ever without being limited by physical media and distribution channels, and can cut out the middle-people entirely. There is tremendous added value in digital media because we can do so many things with it-- convert it to different formats, replaced a damaged disk or printed copy, make multiple copies for multiple devices. We can't do that with everyday things like furniture, tools, vehicles...if we want a chair in every room, we have to buy lots of chairs. If we crash a car we have to buy another one, we can't restore it from backup. And yet all of this wonderfulness is not appreciated or valued, but rather treated as an entitlement, not because of any moral high ground, but simply because it is so easy to "steal" digital copies. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 1:10 PM EDT |
How can it be "stealing" if the person supposedly stolen from still has everything they had before the theft? If I steal a car, the owner is deprived of the car. If I steal a hotdog, the owner is deprived of the hotdog. If I steal someone's soul with my camera...oh, wait, taking a photograph doesn't steal anything even though it makes a copy. Woops, something different is happening, not stealing. TC, no one disagrees that it is illegal. It is just not stealing. > And yet all of this wonderfulness is not appreciated or valued, but rather treated as an entitlement Not "appreciated or valued", yet people go through the effort of acquiring it because they appreciate and value it? Sounds like a logical contradiction. What I want to know is how can someone be entitled to money that no one gave them? The entirety of the "theft" argument depends upon the unproven assumption that the copy would otherwise have been purchased, that the artist is ENTITLED to be paid what they think it's worth. I also try to keep in mind that the prosecutions are not being driven by artists, but by the middle-men who have the most to lose if artists start selling directly to those who appreciate and value their work. |
| tuxchick Jul 03, 2010 1:32 PM EDT |
No Bob, it's theft because it is taking something for free that is supposed to be paid for. If you don't want to pay for it, leave it alone. It really is that simple. Quoting: Not "appreciated or valued", yet people go through the effort of acquiring it because they appreciate and value it Oh puh leeze! Freeloading is not valuing. What's the difference between someone who "acquires" a recording for free, and the entertainment industry execs? None, both see nothing wrong with ripping off the artist. |
| Scott_Ruecker Jul 03, 2010 1:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:I also try to keep in mind that the prosecutions are not being driven by artists, but by the middle-men who have the most to lose if artists start selling directly to those who appreciate and value their work. Precisely Bob, to my knowledge no artist has ever prosecuted anyone for not paying for their music. It is the Publishers who own the rights to the distribution revenues (mostly) and stand to lose the most on money to be made when someone does not pay for a legal copy of it. Artists make money from not only the selling of physical copies of their work but also the performance of that music live and sales of merchandise etc. Most artists never see much money from the sales of their records compared to what they make from touring and merchandise related to that music. When people share music 'illegally' all it does is give the band incredible exposure they never would have gotten or been able to pay for otherwise. It puts more people in the seats of the venues the artists play which is money for the artists, not the publisher. As a musician I can tell you I would rather play to big crowds and make my money touring and selling t-shirts than have tons of record sales and play venues that are half empty. Ask the Rolling stones how good touring has been for their pocket books compared to 40+ years of world class record sales. Radiohead put copies of their new record in a English newspaper recently over the objections of their publishing company and all it did was make the record that much more popular, it still sold millions of copies and they toured heavily on it. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 2:35 PM EDT |
> If you don't want to pay for it, leave it alone. It really is that simple. You're very right. Which is why I do not rob record stores of CDs. Nor do I sneak into theaters. That's theft and trespassing. Everything else is sharing, which is perfectly fine. I learned that in kindergarten. |
| dinotrac Jul 03, 2010 2:42 PM EDT |
>Everything else is sharing You must have gone to a very nasty kindergarten. Sharing is something done by those who hold something, not decided by those who wish to hold something. |
| azerthoth Jul 03, 2010 2:50 PM EDT |
dino except in this case what was there to start with is till there. (I am of the opinion that it's still wrong to leave artists uncompensated) Theft is the wrong word, as that requires removing the ability of the original owner to use or access. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 3:02 PM EDT |
> Theft is the wrong word, as that requires removing the ability of the original owner to use or access. I agree. > I am of the opinion that it's still wrong to leave artists uncompensated And again, I agree. Anyone is perfectly within their rights to sell anything they have for whatever they can get for it. It matters not one whit my opinion of the "justness" of the money they make compared to someone or anyone else, be it artist or CEO. I have never downloaded anything from someone who didn't want to share their property. I've thought about saying what kinds of stuff I do download, but that would distract from the core issue, and come across as equivocating where no equivocation is needed. Just don't assume that because I consider copyright to be a violation of human nature, that it means I rampantly violate that law. The two have nothing to do with each other. |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 3:22 PM EDT |
Quoting:Everything else is sharing Sharing could be theft. Consider you have a whole pie. A very big one, 12 times the amount you could ever eat in your life. I divide your pie in 12 pieces, hand out 11 pieces for free to 'freeloaders' without your agreement. Such a thing has a name: Sharing. What happened? The pie you had diminished in value. Nonetheless, you still can use the piece of pie you have, and were not deprived of anything. You could have sold the 11 pieces who were worthless to you, because you couldn't eat them. After your pie is shared, you can't anymore. But you're not deprived of anything, since you cannot prove someone might have bought the other 11 pieces of pie. But after you passed, it can be proved no harm is done: No matter if I shared your pie without your consent or not, the total amount of pie you could have eaten is still constant. |
| gus3 Jul 03, 2010 3:25 PM EDT |
Except eleven twelfths of the pie. |
| tuxchick Jul 03, 2010 3:28 PM EDT |
Quoting: Sharing is something done by those who hold something, not decided by those who wish to hold something. Exactly. Being generous with other people's stuff? Why is that even debatable? It's just plain wrong. |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 3:29 PM EDT |
But you couldn't have eaten the eleven pieces of the pie in the first place!
So you're not deprived of anything! Moreover, you cannot claim there's a loss, because you cannot prove Bob could have sold the other 11 pieces! Here, no harm done! If you still disagree, and you say Bob is still deprived from his 11 pieces of pie, then the following is the ultimate corollary: Carla makes 11 copies of her 1 piece of pie. Now she has 12 pieces. 1 however, is all she can 'use'. But if you consider Bob is deprived of the 11 pieces of pie even if 1 is all he can use, then in the same way Carla is deprived of the 11 pieces of pie after it's "shared"! |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 3:30 PM EDT |
> I divide your pie Ah, you've committed theft by taking my pie in the first place. I do not punish those people to whom you handed a slice of pie for theft, because all they did was accept YOUR gift of sharing. > You could have sold the 11 pieces who were worthless to you, because you couldn't eat them. I do not rationalize socialism like that. I don't care if Bill Gates has more money than he could spend, it's still wrong to rob him. Your latter paragraph is, sadly, completely incomprehensible to me. |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 3:32 PM EDT |
Quoting:Ah, you've committed theft by taking my pie in the first place. No, because you weren't deprived of anything! The 11 pieces of pie were worthless to you anyway! That is what you claim by saying "no harm is done by means of sharing". |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 3:35 PM EDT |
> The 11 pieces of pie were worthless to you anyway! I don't care if YOU think they're worthless. I consider a painting by Andy Worholl to be worthless, but taking it from someone is still wrong. > That is what you claim by saying "no harm is done by means of sharing". No. Again, no. My copying of someone else's Worholl does not deprive them of anything. They still have it. Your taking of 11/12 of a pie, no matter how "worthless" you think they are, still deprives the owner of those 11/12ths of a pie. |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 3:42 PM EDT |
Quoting:I don't care if YOU think they're worthless. So says RIAA or Carla when you claim their copies are worthless, since they're not deprived of anything! You're so funny! If Carla has 1/12 of a pie (however she doesn't know it's 1/12 yet), makes 11 copies, no matter how "worthless" you think they are (why should Carla care), if you share them without her consent, you still deprived her of 11/12ths of her pie! |
| tuxchick Jul 03, 2010 3:57 PM EDT |
Now I'm hungry. I think I have apple pie fixings... |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 4:06 PM EDT |
> So says RIAA or Carla when you claim their copies are worthless Ah! You've made a false equality. You have equated the copy of a thing with the original. Something I have been very careful to be clear about. This may be why your "second paragraph" above made no sense to me, when Carla made 11 copies of a pie slice and yet somehow.... well, never mind it's still incomprehensible to me. I also did not say that a copy of a song was "worthless". If it were "worthless", people would not bother sharing it because there would be no reason to. What I say, and will continue to say, is that making a copy of something does not deprive the owner of the original. It is by definition not theft. The subjective value of the original, or copies, is irrelevant to the issue of the copying itself. |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 4:13 PM EDT |
So you have a pie, I divide it in 12, 1/12th of it is all you can use, I give away 11 parts without your consent - no harm being done - then it's theft. You have a pie as big as you can use in your entire life, you make 11 copies of the pie - worthless to you because you can't eat them - I give 11 of them away without your consent, then it's not theft? |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 4:16 PM EDT |
> So you have a pie, I divide it in 12 Get your hands off my pie, thief. So you have a pie. I copy the recipe and make thousands of them and give them away. Not theft. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 4:18 PM EDT |
> worthless to you because you can't eat them Red herring. |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 4:24 PM EDT |
So I copy a book, copies are worthless to me cause I have my own, another red herring? If you divide Carla's articles, she might also says: Get your hands of my article, thief. And if the pie is more than you can use so me touching and sharing it without your consent doesn't harm you, it's theft, while no harm is being done and you're not deprived of anything? You don't make sense anymore, and you still failed to explain what it is that makes your pie your property and Carla's article not her. If you cannot define property to be more than the social agreement that copyright is (between a set of a population), then all this discussion is bound to fail. Equally, there are societies which don't recognize physical property. There's just nothing that makes physical property different from 'non-physical' property, that's what this is about. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 03, 2010 4:57 PM EDT |
> So I copy a book, copies are worthless to me cause I have my own, another red herring? Subjective value is a Red Herring. It is irrelevant to the issue itself. It is a distraction. > Get your hands of my article, thief. My use of your article does not deprive you of your original. Not theft, you chose to publish. If the terms of that publication are not satisfactory, that's not my problem. If I claim the article as mine, that's fraud. > and you still failed to explain what it is that makes your pie your property and Carla's article not her. That's because you are making no distinction between the scarce and the non-scarce. Your taking of my pie deprives me of the use of it. My copying of Carla's article does not deprive her of the use of it. One does, one does not. If that doesn't make sense to you, then I cannot be any more clear. > There's just nothing that makes physical property different from 'non-physical' property, that's what this is about. As I said, you make no distinction between the scarce and the non-scarce. If you wish to continue, then we have nothing left to discuss since we do not share that first principle. |
| dinotrac Jul 03, 2010 5:41 PM EDT |
Azertoth - Still there? That is an utterly MORONIC statement. The thing take is not merely the music/book etc. It is the legal right of the copyright holder to control who copies/plays, etc, and to be compensated. If you work a job for somebody who decides not to pay you, you still have your brain, body and skills. You've still been taken. |
| azerthoth Jul 03, 2010 6:13 PM EDT |
*sigh* and I still have legal recourse to recover compensation, as do copyright holders. Theft requires removal, in your example there is a removal. handy picture to show you the difference. http://www.gameproducer.net/images/piracyisnottheft.jpg |
| gus3 Jul 03, 2010 6:18 PM EDT |
Copying is not theft: http://questioncopyright.org/minute_memes/copying_is_not_the... Despite some parties' efforts to make it otherwise: http://blog.ninapaley.com/2010/05/06/correction-again-2/ |
| hkwint Jul 03, 2010 7:32 PM EDT |
Quoting:Your taking of my pie deprives me of the use of it. That's what it's all about, given a pie that's large enough and can be cheaply multiplied / made larger, you're not deprived of anything. Az: Look at the picture you linked. In the right above picture I own 'all' of the total, in the right below picture I own '1/2' of the total. So I lost 1/2 of the total. Let's say there are 100k copies, then I lost 99999/100000 of the total. It's not about 'theft' or not, that's not that interesting, it's about what somebody 'loses'. Given enough copies, the limit of my losses go to 1. Envision a lottery in which one's private DSA key (the one used by SSH) is the lots. If multpile people have the same winning RSA key, the price is 'divided'. Suppose people copy my private RSA key, then my expected return value declines. Given enough copies, as stated, I lose "all of the total". This is in contrary to what other people claim, "you're not deprived of anything, as you can still use the RSA key". It clearly shows that logic is flawed, as I lost all of my expected value as the number of copies approaches infinity. Moreover, if theft does require removal, than it requires property, because something that isn't property cannot be stolen. Given the example of the RSA lottery, 'the making of a copy' removes 'expected value', so there is removal, and harm is being done. Theft is all about what people agree upon, and so is property. Let's consider a society of ants, once again. For them, it's pretty useless to own a human's house, car, an amount of gold, copyright to a book or a patent. Therefore, for them, 'owning' such a thing doesn't provide merit, is not contemplated, probably isn't defined, their society doesn't have need for it, so they'd say speaking about theft of it is nonsense as well. However, let's consider they hunted down another insect which they want to eat, they have a nest, or they have certain 'hunting' ground. Such things have meaning in their society, and so does 'owning' such a thing have. They can and are willing to defend it. If they agree with other ants it's their property, they can consider it theirs. If they disagree with other ants, there will be a fight (or war, sometimes), and until the fight is settled, 'property' is undecided. Therefore, stealing an insect, a nest or 'trespassing their hunting ground' has meaning to their society, while 'stealing gold' or 'owning gold' is meaningless, and as such, cannot be property. It's their society which lead to some things being possible to be property or not. Given the society of humans, there's a (political) fight over whether copyright / patents are / describe property or not. While the fight lasts, 'property' is undecided. Consider this: Before the judges spoke out about software patents, the value of patent portfolio's were undecided: They could be anything between zero or astronomical. Talking about physical things being taken away can be considered the 'classical way of thinking'. But it's an incomplete system because it doesn't account for 'expected value'. Since "expected value" is traded in this world, I think a system which doesn't account for it is pretty broke. In the same way, Newton / Einstein weren't able to account for quantum physics. One can lose things which are not physical. Such as life expectancy because of smoking, just to name an example. You're not deprived of anything physical. England can lose a goal because the referee. Nonetheless, they're not deprived of anything physical (they still could have scored another goal). If somebody changes some electrons at my bank, I might lose all my savings. Nonetheless, I'm not deprived of anything physical (just the expected value that comes out of the ATM when I want to attract money from it has decreased). There's more than the limited system described over here. If you think and reason like 2D persons in a 3D world, chances are you're not understanding the world you're living in. If the model you're using is 2D, while trying to describe phenomenons which are 3D, you're bound to fail. Only thinking of theft as 'taking away atoms' can be considered a 2D view, inadequate to account for more complex problems. In a quantum mechanics viewpoint, 'taking away atoms' is also about chances anyway, and everything is about chances. So the problem is you're trying to use an outdated inadequate 'physical' model to describe a more complex social phenomenon. Such an effort is bound to fail. Unless society agrees 'intellectual property' is not property, in such a case society would have solved the shortcomings of the outdated physical model. |
| tuxchick Jul 03, 2010 7:51 PM EDT |
Sigh and sigh. Bob, you've gone off the rails yet again. |
| dinotrac Jul 03, 2010 8:18 PM EDT |
azertoth - There is removal in precisely the same sense as in copyright infringement. Once somebody infringes your copyright by taking your work, they are unlikely to buy it. |
| gus3 Jul 03, 2010 10:41 PM EDT |
@hkwint:Quoting:That's what it's all about, given a pie that's large enough"Large enough"? And who gets to decide when the pie that I made is "large enough" for others to decide how it should be shared? You? Oh, puh-leez. The government? I know some Russians who can tell you how wrong that is. Qvis cvstodiet ipsos cvstodes? Anyone who thinks they are more qualified to make that judgment than I am, needs to read "The Little Red Hen": http://www.enchantedlearning.com/stories/fairytale/littlered... I didn't bother reading the rest of your comment. I saw no point. @dino: Demonstrably wrong, when product quality/resolution is reduced for fast transmission (e.g. MP3, FLV). And demonstrably correct, when product quality remains intact (e-books). |
| azerthoth Jul 03, 2010 10:54 PM EDT |
sorry HK what you own has been diminished in no way, in any manner. |
| krisum Jul 04, 2010 2:54 AM EDT |
> sorry HK what you own has been diminished in no way, in any manner. As per HK, the expected value has been diminished (so far as I understand what he is saying). |
| tracyanne Jul 04, 2010 3:24 AM EDT |
Of course it is not stealing. If I take your car without your permission I have stolen. If you depend on your car for your lively hood I have also deprived you of your ability to make a living. If I copy a song or a book or a movie or a work of art, that is covered by copyright, I have stolen nothing, I have a copy of the original, the original remains in the possession of the owner, and the owner can continue to make their own copies, if that is what they choose. I have taken nothing away from the owner, be they the copyright holder or some other owner. I have not even taken from them the means by which they can make a living. What I have done is usurped the right to make a copy... breached copyright. While that in itself may be punishable under law, It is still not theft. |
| hkwint Jul 04, 2010 5:47 AM EDT |
Quoting:And who gets to decide I feel sorry for you, all you seem to care is about "who decide's somethig" while that's not important at all. If in a mathematical text, it is claimed "given N large enough", do you care about who decides how large N should be? Your statement is just plain bollocks, because that's not at all what this is about. I bet you stopped reading your math-book after you read that one sentence too, because you saw no point. But let me tell you something, the rest of the math book was where interesting things were explained, because after you stop worrying about the totally non-interesting question "who's going to decide how large N should be" there are all kind of interesting proposition, hypothesis and proofs. Quoting:sorry HK what you own has been diminished in no way, in any manner. "What I own" is exactly your inadequate 2D model which can't account for losses in expected (return) value. Shows the model is failing, because it doesn't account for the difference of owning "all of something" or owning "a part of something but now the total amount of that something becomes bigger (while the posession you have doesn't change)". It doesn't account for if a product you own suddenly has become less scarce, like Bob seems to be advocating. Even in a physical world such a thing fails: Let's say one (before we start arguing about "who") owns 1kg of gold, tomorrow 4 times the total amount of gold "known to man today" is found, then one looses nothing? I'm pretty sure even in your limited view, you can still understand one lost something! The expected return value of ones 1kg of gold just diminished. But nothing was taken away. But gold declining in value is accepted in society it seems, so that's not theft. But what one owns diminished in expected value, so one could consider harm was being done. However, when money is involved, some people all suddenly call it 'theft' if 4 times the existing amount of money is printed, even if nothing is removed. And why? Because it is socially accepted new gold is being found and therefore the value of the existing gold diminishes, but it is not unanimous agreed upon new money is being printed and therefore the value of the existing money declines. Envision a world in which all one owns is some amount of gold, just enough to buy a bread. One is hungry, so one wants to exchange the gold for bread. That day, all central banks decide to sell their gold, so the amount of gold one has isn't enough anymore to buy the same amount of bread. See, nothing taken away, but what one owns diminished in value, and harm is being done because one is hungry now. As I noted, the model which considers "no difference" because nothing was taken away is inadequate, even in everyday life. Suppose tomorrow I'd be able to copy gold through P2P. Then, no harm is done and everybody who already owns gold still has the same amount of gold tomorrow. They could still use it. Nonetheless I predict riots. Consider another example with nukes. Let's say a country has one small piece of it and they're fighting with their neighbor country. Now their neighbors first don't have a nuke as well, but tomorrow they have 3 large ones. In an inadequate model, the country with the 'small' one didn't loose anything, because the country "can still make use of it". However, that doesn't explain the situation. Suppose I am to sell a shed. I ask a certain amount of money for it, and somebody is willing to buy it for that amount. Before the sale, I rig the shed with dynamite which chances are about 90% the new buyer won't find it within the week after I sold it. I make such a device, chances are a half the dynamite will blow the barn away the week after I sold it, but if it doesn't, it will never go off and is biologically degraded or something along those lines. From an 'inadequate' point of view, the value of the shed has increased: Now the potential buyer gets the shed and some dynamite. No harm is being done before the dynamite explodes (or if it doesn't), as the buyer still has the shed. He didn't loose anything, nothing removed. An adequate point of view would probably say: The shed diminishid in value by 90%*50% = 45% (disregarding the value left after explosion). That's what happens in everyday life. That's why a shed which is more prone to fire might be less worth than the same shed which is less prone to fire, so even without 'unlikely scenarios with dynamite' this is still true. For example, if a house was in a game reserve, and now someone builds a refinery in the game reserve next to my house. My house diminishes in value. However, as long as the refinery doesn't explode, nothing is taken away, no harm is being done. But still what I have diminishes in value. Such things happen in copyright as well, but discussing copyright with a model that doesn't account for 'expected value' doesn't make any sense. Just as it makes no sense to talk about quantum mechanics with a model which only accounts for 'classical mechanics'. |
| dinotrac Jul 04, 2010 10:01 AM EDT |
gus3 - >Demonstrably wrong, when product quality/resolution is reduced for fast transmission (e.g. MP3, FLV). And >demonstrably correct, when product quality remains intact (e-books). Gus3 - There is this cool new product out that you should try. It's called an iPod. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 04, 2010 10:17 AM EDT |
TC, > Sigh and sigh. Bob, you've gone off the rails yet again. Could you take 30 seconds and tell me why you think I've "gone off the rails"? A drive-by pot-shot like that is easy, so very easy, but it does nothing to advance the discussion. Dino, > If you work a job for somebody who decides not to pay you, you still have your brain, body and skills. You've still been taken. Contract violation. The non-payer is breaking the agreement of work-for-pay. Hk, > Given the example of the RSA lottery, 'the making of a copy' removes 'expected value', so there is removal, and harm is being done. There it is again, "expected value". YOU even put it in quotes yourself. Prosecuting people for "expected value"? That's entitlement again. No one is entitled to my money, just as I am not entitled to their property. Does your entire argument really rest upon "expected value"? > Unless society agrees 'intellectual property' is not property, in such a case society would have solved the shortcomings of the outdated physical model. Look around, Hk. Look at the vast quantity of sharing going on, and tell me that "society" has NOT made that very conclusion. Copyright is obsolete. Give it up already, so we can move on to something better. |
| gus3 Jul 04, 2010 11:27 AM EDT |
@hkwint:Quoting:I feel sorry for you, all you seem to care is about "who decide's somethig" while that's not important at all.It's noteworthy, how the deciders think "who's deciding something" doesn't matter. Talking about legal/political matters in terms of mathematics is why programmers don't make good lawyers. Conversely, talking about calculus isn't exactly a strong point of most lawyers, either. Whence Groklaw: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111151305785 @dino: Does the iPod still have "write-only music tracks" capability? Or was that something imposed by Apple's music player on the Mac? |
| dinotrac Jul 04, 2010 3:55 PM EDT |
So Bob,
Who cares? We've decided that nothing has been lost. No damage, no foul. No wait -- That's not really right. What we've actually decided is that you are offended by people asking to be paid what they are worth unless you are the people. |
| tuxchick Jul 04, 2010 4:12 PM EDT |
Taking something when you have no right to it is stealing. It's that simple. Even for those who think that 'steal' is the wrong term, it's still monstrously petty when it comes to music downloads, when there are skillions of legitimate free venues for listening to music, when singles cost as little as a few cents, when small monthly subscriptions make gigabytes of great tunes available, when we can easily pay creators directly and bypass all those loathed RIAA persons. I have yet to hear one single champion of freeloading express the slightest regard for musicians, authors, and other creators. Just megabytes of juvenile rationalizations for why it's OK to take stuff for free even in this new golden age of instant gratification, and lower prices than ever. So much entitlement! Where does all this entitlement come from? |
| Sander_Marechal Jul 04, 2010 4:28 PM EDT |
Quoting:Such things happen in copyright as well, but discussing copyright with a model that doesn't account for 'expected value' doesn't make any sense. Beep. Wrong (Sorry). Expected value is exactly what copyright is all about. It's the *only* thing copyright is all about. The only thing we all disagree about is what the expected value is. RIAA claims it's $150,000 a song. The Pirate Party claims it's a negligibly small amount per song. Most of us think it's somewhere in between. The current system accounts for just that. You sue someone not based on the physical value of the copy, but on the expected value that you estimate you would get from it. |
| tracyanne Jul 04, 2010 5:32 PM EDT |
Quoting:Taking something when you have no right to it is stealing. It's that simple. Correct. Making a copy is not taking something. It's copying it. Therefore by any definition I'm aware of, and yours, it's not theft. Quoting:Even for those who think that 'steal' is the wrong term, it's still monstrously petty when it comes to music downloads, when there are skillions of legitimate free venues for listening to music, When it comes to Music and Movies stored in digital formats. Petty maybe, Illegal in most jurisdictions yes, Theft no. And the argument that it's readily available at unbelievably inexpensive rates is most likely a red herring. The availability makes no difference to whether it's Theft or not. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 04, 2010 5:36 PM EDT |
Dino,
> So Bob,
> Who cares? Clearly you do, as do I, and lots of other people. > What we've actually decided is that you are offended by people asking to be paid what they are worth unless you are the people. That's interesting, because what I have said (as opposed to what is said about what I have said), is that people deserve to receive whatever remuneration they can for their work. So ask away! That's what I do, and I've priced my services such that there are people who consider it fair for the service I perform, and thus we each gain from the transaction. What I do not do is follow the "labor theory of value". If someone labors very, very hard for a long time and produces crap, I don't see any reason to pay more for that crap than I would for a beautiful ink-brush painting that took very little effort and all of 1 minute to create, because to me that's not crap. TC, > I have yet to hear one single champion of freeloading express the slightest regard for musicians, authors, and other creators. Please, where are these "champion[s] of freeloading"? So far I don't remember reading anything in comments here or over on BrandX advocating freeloading. > Where does all this entitlement come from? Personally, I blame public school. The environment is such that a sense of entitlement is instilled, be it "entitled" to an education, "entitled" to a living wage, "entitled" to health care, etc. |
| tracyanne Jul 04, 2010 5:56 PM EDT |
The use of the term "Champions of Freeloading" is both a red herring and an appeal to emotion, and irrelevant to the original argument that making copies of Music or Movies, or any other copyrighted material is Theft. Clearly nothing has been taken away from the copyright holder, not even their ability to make their own copies of the copyrighted material. What has been done is a copy has been made contrary to the prohibition that only the copyright holder is allowed to make copies. |
| dinotrac Jul 04, 2010 6:29 PM EDT |
No Bob, What you've actually said is that people who cannot protect their work from thieves should not be paid. |
| hkwint Jul 04, 2010 6:35 PM EDT |
Quoting:Does your entire argument really rest upon "expected value"? No, but society does rest on it. "Information" can be considered a certain configuration of the medium. But so is 'gold', it's a certain arrangement of electrons, protons and neutrons. If you own gold and the configuration of gold is copied to lots of other 'media', the value of your gold declines. And so does the 'expected value' of it. If you own a medium with certain information on it that encodes for content and it's copied to lots of other media, the value of the medium with certain info on it declined. In the same way the 'expected value' of it diminishes. Even more, the configuration of some piece of gold isn't scarce at all, there's lots of it. The configuration of a medium holding a 'freshly created piece of content' however might be unique, the only existing configuration in the universe, so the content may be considered scarcer. If you own gold, the expected value of your gold is entitlement just as well. Someone is going to judge how scarce the configuration of your medium is, very much the same with some piece of information created you try to sell. So there's absolutely no difference! gus3: I already read the 'information theory for lawyers' BTW. And I don't care all that much about lawyers, because all they do is studying the institutionalization of social phenomenons which were there before the law was. So you can argue about these things without arguing about 'laws'. I'm just showing "copying a configuration" can deprive someone of something either if nothing is taken away, and property is a social phenomenon. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 04, 2010 6:38 PM EDT |
> What you've actually said is that people who cannot protect their work from thieves should not be paid. A complete misrepresentation of what I have written. What I have said is that people deserve to be paid whatever they can get for what they do. Can you elaborate as to which statement of mine has led you to this mistaken impression of yours? |
| azerthoth Jul 04, 2010 6:39 PM EDT |
A copy of the mona lisa does not devalue the original, nor does it remove any part of the original. Now that we have that straw man knocked down (dino and hans). We can address that if nothing is removed nothing is stolen. Pretty simple. Since it's not theft, it must then be something else, illegal use of copyrighted material seems to fit the bill. This leads us to copyright infringement, which is still illegal and still has ramifications. But calling it theft is buying into the RIAA/MPAA kool-aid. Theft removes, copying copies. Propping up the strawman is ludicrous, annoying, and ultimately untruthful. |
| dinotrac Jul 04, 2010 6:43 PM EDT |
azertoth -- Talk about straw men... You're as bad as Bob -- simply refusing to acknowledge any value that you yourself don't receive or that you may wish to ignore for your own self-interest. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 04, 2010 6:43 PM EDT |
Hk,
> If you own gold, the expected value of your gold is entitlement just as well. Again you seem to have me confused with someone else. There is no entitlement. If no one will trade for your gold, the gold is worthless. No one is entitled to value. |
| dinotrac Jul 04, 2010 7:17 PM EDT |
>No one is entitled to value. And no one is entitled to take that which belongs to another, even if that something is a legal right, such as the right to rent a house, explore for minerals, cross a piece of land, or get paid for work performed. Buyers get to offer a price for things of value, and sellers get to determine if the price is sufficient to alienate the valuable item. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 04, 2010 7:21 PM EDT |
> And no one is entitled to take that which belongs to another I couldn't agree more, and have stated so many, many times. |
| azerthoth Jul 04, 2010 7:23 PM EDT |
your arguing theft when nothing tangible has been taken again dino. |
| jdixon Jul 04, 2010 7:50 PM EDT |
> Buyers get to offer a price for things of value, and sellers get to determine if the price is sufficient to alienate the valuable item. Unless the buyer is a government, (in some states) a utility company, or (again in some states) someone who has curried favor with the government. Then the seller is out of luck. :( |
| tracyanne Jul 04, 2010 11:23 PM EDT |
Quoting:your arguing theft when nothing tangible has been taken again dino. Nothing Tangible has been taken away, In fact the copyright holder still has possession of the original, and they still have the right and the ability to make copies, and to sell those copies. Nothing has been taken from the copyright holder, all rights, and items remain with the copyright holder. Not even the means to make a living from the sale of copies of the original have been taken away, as would be the case if it was theft, and the original had been removed from the copyright owner's possession. |
| krisum Jul 05, 2010 2:49 AM EDT |
> nothing tangible has been taken Let me try and help: and anything defined as "tangible" should be protected because? |
| tracyanne Jul 05, 2010 3:14 AM EDT |
Quoting:and anything defined as "tangible" should be protected because? All sorts of reasons, depending on what the tangible is. Short answer, it depends. However this is rather irrelevant to the original argument that making copies of Music or Movies, or any other copyrighted material is Theft. |
| hkwint Jul 05, 2010 4:18 AM EDT |
Bob: No, I wasn't confusing you for somebody else as you were the one speaking about 'entitlement',
yes, I was confused about the term "entitlement" because it sounds as something it's not. Anyway, like said: It's the configuration of the medium from which its value is derived. The configuration is scarce, not the medium. No matter if it's the configuration of some matter which make it gold, or of a harddisk, or characters in a book. In both cases the medium is tangible BTW, while the recipe for the configuration isn't. It depends on the configuration being scarce what you get for it. Hence why U235 is much more valuable than U238 while it is the same material. Copying a certain existing configuration to another medium can't be considered theft, but it surely diminishes the value of the existing configuration because it has become less scarce now. So therefore, one could consider the original owner of that particular configuration being harmed. |
| dinotrac Jul 05, 2010 7:13 AM EDT |
Bob - Has a disinherited child lost anything tangible? No. So long as the parents are alive, all he has is a claim against the estate, with no present right to take. Has a disinherited child lost anything valuable? By your reasoning, no. Others might argue. And when did this "Bob's tangibility" -- whatever that may be -- become an essential part of property rights. Easements, right of ways, transferral on death, and all manner of property rights -- non-tangible legal constructs -- have been recognized for centuries. But, what the hey -- what do the assorted legal systems and social structures of most modern civilizations know? Seriously, Bob -- You should step up the plate and take your throne. |
| azerthoth Jul 05, 2010 1:25 PM EDT |
non tangible legal constructs, all aimed at a physical thing, all aimed at physical property. All your arguments thus far have been aimed at items that once taken are either destroyed or need to be returned to be restored dino. That is not true in the case of copying. While it is still wrong, and the artist is still entitled to compensation, it is not theft, to the point that even as a matter of law it has a separate name. Are all those other lawyers and the supreme court wrong too? |
| krisum Jul 05, 2010 3:12 PM EDT |
> Short answer, it depends. Slightly long answer: primarily two reasons, one that it is of direct utility to the owner, and two that it provides some value proposition to the owner (even though no substantial direct utility may be there). The second one is the point of discussion here. > However this is rather irrelevant to the original argument that making copies of Music or Movies, or any other copyrighted material is Theft. It is not irrelevant at all, if you pause a moment to give it a thought. Even in normal conversation "passwords are stolen" even though the owner very well still remembers the "original", or "credit card numbers are stolen" even though the original one is still embossed on the card. The reason being that something was taken (precisely a copy in these cases) that diminishes the value of the "original" to the owner, so whether it is the "original" or a copy is irrelevant. |
| dinotrac Jul 05, 2010 3:53 PM EDT |
azertoth -- Yes, it is theft, regardless of what statute it gets prosecuted under. Your argument is like saying that fire is not fire because it's really combustion. When you take something that belongs to somebody else, in this case the legal right to make a copy, that is a theft. It doesn't matter that the person has the right to make a lot more copies, just as it doesn't matter that stealing a watermelon leaves the farmer able to grow more watermelons. You have taken a valuable interest from somebody. Something, by the way, every bit as tangible as American money, which, if you look at it, is actually a promissory note. |
| Bob_Robertson Jul 05, 2010 4:22 PM EDT |
> Has a disinherited child lost anything valuable? No. They have everything that they had prior to the parent's change of mind. The parents who decide not to give their money to the child have not "stolen" anything. They have chosen what to do with their own property. Copyright violates private property, by saying that the book I bought is not mine, the music I perform is not mine, the disk I made is not mine. > And when did this "Bob's tangibility" -- whatever that may be -- become an essential part of property rights. It didn't. You're arguing with someone else again. I said "scarcity". > Easements, right of ways, transferral on death, and all manner of property rights Yes. Every one of them dealing with scarce objects. A piece of actual property can only be owned by one person at a time, or there is no such thing as private property. The entire world can inherit a song, or a book, without anyone stepping on anyone else's equal rights to it. It requires the artificial scarcity of the monopoly grant of copyright in order to disinherit the entire world in favor of one "heir". The artist who wishes to retain control of their creation has the absolute monopoly about what they wish to do with it. If they truly want no one else to mess with it, they have the undeniable right to keep it to themselves and NOT PUBLISH. theft Pronunciation: ˈtheft Function: noun Etymology: Middle English thiefthe, from Old English thīefth; akin to Old English thēof thief Date: before 12th century 1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an unlawful taking (as by embezzlement or burglary) of property 2 obsolete : something stolen 3 : a stolen base in baseball |
| skelband Jul 05, 2010 4:25 PM EDT |
dinotrac- > Your argument is like saying that fire is not fire because it's really combustion. Well fire is fire AND combustion. There seems to be some confusion on this forum about what is and is not "theft". I think some are using the term in the loosest sense where others are talking about legal definitions. Arguing about different things is pointless. In English law, theft is strictly defined as "permanently depriving someone the use of their property". The law was originally formed around the concept of physical items and does not translate well to something more ephemeral. If you borrow a key, copy it, then give it back, it is not theft. If I buy a Toyota Corolla Haynes manual, and make my own car, I have not stolen a car. Have I infringed Toyota's copyright though? Maybe. Mark my words though, if someone invents a machine that can duplicate exactly a physical item in the way that a computer can with music and video, copyright law as it pertains to selling things is going to get very messy indeed. |
| chalbersma Jul 05, 2010 5:04 PM EDT |
Where is the spelling and Grammar Nazi when you need one? theft=stealing; Copyright Infringement in a broad sense can be defined as a type of theft. In the legal sense they are two different things. In the US Copyright Infringement is a civil crime dealing with Intellectual property. Cases are taken to civil court and dealt with between two private parties. Also in the US Theft/Larceny/Stealing is a criminal crime and depending on the value of the item sold, one can go to jail for it. So (Stealing != Copyright Infringement) in a manner similar to (3.14 != Pi). They are close and commonly referred to as the same thing even if legally they aren't. So please can we quit flaming about Legal shit and get back to flaming on emacs vs. vi (emacs all the way btw). :) |
| skelband Jul 05, 2010 5:46 PM EDT |
chalbersma-Quoting:So please can we quit flaming about Legal shit and get back to flaming on emacs vs. vi (emacs all the way btw). :) Sorry, I'm a vi man. ;) Oh, and well said BTW. |
| chalbersma Jul 06, 2010 6:38 AM EDT |
Thanks skel. |
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