Do copyrights violate basic human rights?

Great Debates
1

Interesting essay here from someone who believes that “like freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, the right to copy things is a moral right, a right that exists above government. It is an inherent right that describes a nature of human existence that lives in us from the time we are born,” and that “copyright restrictions on a song or a book are just ridiculous from a free-market perspective” (from a supporter in one of the subsequent replies, actually).

Given all the debates on file sharing, copyright extensions, overly lax patent-granting, and so on, I thought this was an interesting perspective. Anyone care to comment/expand on this?

2

How do you feel about the right to own things? You don’t mind if I come over and help myslef to what’s in your wallet do you? Why should we be allowed to own physical things, but not intellectual property?

3

The basic argument (as I understand it) goes: if I have taken a physical object from you, I have deprived you of something you no longer have. If I copy an IP of yours, I have not deprived you of anything. You still have it, and you can still make a profit from it. Heck, if it’s worth something, I’ll even buy it, and recommend it to friends, making you MORE than you might have otherwise. But I have deprived you of nothing real or potential. Therefore, it is a huge misnomer (“slander” as the post put it) to call IP infringement “theft,” which folks like the RIAA does constantly.

Those who believe the same, please let me know if I’ve gotten this wrong…

4

Hi Leaper,

you’re wrong. Copyright does only protect the right to make new copies. It does by no means prohibit you from posessing a legitimate copy. It does however prohibit you from making new copies.

So if I had an idea and you find it worthy and you pay me to get a copy of that idea, then in the end you will posess a copy. But if you then make a copy of that copy and sell it, then you have taken from me an opportunity to sell a legitimate copy. Therefore you have cost me money. You have deprived me not of something physical, but of the right to take an opportunity.

If you still think depriving someone of something non-physical is not equally bad as depriving him of something physical, then go on copy things as you want. Sooner or later a judge will deprive you from your absolutely not-physical right to choose your place of living, and over the years in jail you can think about the value of non-physical entities.

cu

5

I started to say this:

“As vehemently opposed as I am to the extension of copyright terms far beyond the lives of the creators, regarding copyright protections as an infringement on basic human rights is even farther than I’m willing to go.”

But then I remembered Eyes on the Prize.

It’s not beyond reason to think that access to the historical record might rise to the level of a human right. Even now I’m not sure I want to go all the way there. But it’s important that free discussion of the historical record happen, if at all possible, while the principals are still alive and able to be part of the conversation. To the extent that a system with a copyright term of life plus 70 years gets in the way, and a system where the impossibility of tracking down the creators or their heirs makes it impossible to publish, I’m against that system.

6

Good point RTFirefly, and it is a major point of discussion here in the European Union, when it comes to software patents. Today software here is copyrighted and by consitution scientific use of copyrighted work cannot be forbidden by the copyright owner. This means a historian can review historical documents and cite them, but not reproduce them in their entirety. Equally a cryptographer could analyze an algorithm and publish his findings. However if software patents become real as currently discussed, then an algorithm would become patentable. And a patent owner can forbid even scientific use, which essentially means, cryptographers cannot publish loopholes they find in a patented algorithm, if the patent owner does not allow it.

cu

7

If you steal my IP, you deprive me of the economic benefits of that IP. If I write a smash song, and you record it according to the score I wrote while I’m haggling with a record company, and you make millions from it, I won’t get nearly as much money from it if I record it six months later, if my deal doesn’t fall through completely. While you can quibble over the ultimate amount of money I missed out on, it’s pretty clear that I’ve suffered a very real opportunity loss because of your use of my IP. The situation is even more clear if you steal my novel or screenplay, because imitation or ‘covering’ in those arenas is even less profitable.

8

The person who said that could not be more intellectually and moral bankrupt, IMNSHO.

He’s arguing for a right to get the hard work of others for free, solely for selfish motives. If his corrupt philosophy were followed as a matter of course, all intellectual endeavors would slow to a crawl and only come from those people who could live off of the good will of others while their creations get constantly pilfered by those with no talent or sense of fair play.

9

If you have the right to copy something I made without compensating me, what’s my motivation to make it in the first place? I write for a living, and if I didn’t get paid for it, I’d do it for free. But I sure as heck would spend less time writing, as I would have to get another job that did pay me.

10

To reinsert myself back into my own thread, the argument I read most often is that artists should do it for the love of their work, not money. If you’re after money, you SHOULD get a “real” job. And besides, people produced art all the time before there was ever any such thing as copyrights!

hroomba: Most of the arguments I read have to do with post-publication copying, but you have an interesting perspective on it that I don’t think most folks on Slashdot really consider…

11

Yeah, but it was only after the introduction of copyright, that they could do so without having a patron who feeds them. Bach, Mozart et al died in poverty.

12

The economic costs of IP theft are a little murkier post-publication, but there’s still a fairly easily demonstrated opportunity loss. For example, I write a best-seller science-fiction novel. You write a sequel that takes my fantastic world building in another direction. You’ve done two things that damage my ability to make further money with sequels:
[ol]
[li]You’ve diluted my creation, the sci-fi universe and characters. If I stick to my plans, the continuity of my universe is fractured, which damages the overall property.[/li][li]Of the total money that the sci-fi universe has in it, to be exploited by writing, you’ve grabbed a share of it.[/li][/ol]Would Star Wars be the mega-property it is today if, in the time between Return Of The Jedi and The Phantom Menace, every two-bit film studio and publishing house had been releasing books and films set in the Star Wars universe?

Now here’s where the anti-copyright argument has a reasonable rebuttal: Multiple authors can create their own franchises of the sci-fi universe, and the market will decide who’s best; also, the overall market will be enlarged, enriching more authors overall, so my share is smaller, but more people get a share.

Here’s where the original argument for copyright comes in: by providing artists with a monopoly on their work for a set time, they’re encouraged to create it, knowing that it will enter the public domain after they’ve had a fair chance to exploit it. Without that chance, fewer would do so, especially smaller authors/musicians/etc. who’s work can be much more effectively exploited by large operations like recording studios and publishing houses.

That’s one angle. The other is the obvious one of, if you’re selling counterfeit copies of my book, then people are paying you for my work rather than me. When file-sharing comes into play, it’s a little murkier, since freely copying distributes the work more widely than it would be otherwise; nonetheless, it’s reasonable to assume that, of some of the people who got it for free, they would have paid for it absent the freely available copy. For those people, it’s money out of my pocket.

As for the Slashdot crowd, most of them understand that copyright is what give the GPL its strength, since the GPL is just a particular way of managing copyright. The reason they steal music and download films quite happily is because, like everyone else, there’s a fair number of people among them who rationalize it as a victimless crime or as Robin Hood redistribution of wealth.

13

Okay, having read the silly essay linked in the OP, it basically reduces to two things: IP theft doesn’t deprive the creator of something (which it does, namely from opportunity loss and lost sales of existing works); and copyright wasn’t necessary in the past, so it’s not necessary now.

Well, the second is a counterfactual, which is trivially true but nonetheless empty speculation easily refuted by two points: There’s no shortage of creative works now, both mass produced Hollywood dreck and valuable indie stuff; And any artist who doesn’t want to make use of copyright’s protections can simply release it to the public domain or apply a licence such as the GPL or a BSD style licence.

I think that copyright has gotten silly–letting Disney extend Mickey’s copyright every time it’s about to expire violates the essential point of copyright, which was an exchange between an artist and society, namely that the artist will be protected in return for releasing his work. Disney is violating its part of the bargain, which is commercially understandable, but makes a mockery of the point of copyright.

But the original essayist’s point is absurd, especially in light of today’s world where the cost of copying is essentially zero. In the time he cites, when copyright didn’t exist, the cost of actually producing and distributing a work served as a barrier to widespread copying. There’s no sense paying a sculptor to copy a statue when its effectively as much work and money as the original.

14

“like freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, the right to copy things is a moral right, a right that exists above government. It is an inherent right that describes a nature of human existence that lives in us from the time we are born,”

There are no “human rights”.

We make this stuff up, because it benefits our society and typically the individuals in that society.

Having said that, here is my view:
Copyrights: Good within reason (reasonable amount of time, whatever that is)
Software Patents: Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad!
As for the argument “artists should get a real job”, one persons view on what a different person should do for their income is hardly relevant to just about anything.

15

What a load of hogwash.

Nowadays, people go to school (film school, design school, music school) to hone their craft and get good at what they do. Many artists will tell you that their college experience really helped them grow and mature as an artist. But if film/design/art is not a “real” job, then what incentive is there to go to college with that as your major? You’re never going to make any money. Better to major in business. The hell with this art stuff. You’ll starve or you won’t have any time for it anyway, because you’ll be too busy with your “real” job. :rolleyes:

Usually they had rich patrons, who comissioned works from them, and got to dictate what kind of work they did. And if these rich patrons chose, they could keep the commissioned work to themselves (displayed in their house, for instance) and very few outside their circle of friends would ever enjoy it.

16

Meh. I’m pretty convinced that the essay is nothing much more than an attempt to justify a pattern of behaviour; I don’t want to pay for software/music/movies, so I’ll argue that any system that tries to make me pay is immoral. Pshaw!

Yes, an individual act of IP ‘theft’ (let’s leave aside whether that is an accurate term or not, just as long as we know what we mean by it) doesn’t directly deprive the artist of anything tangible and probably has minimal impact on the artist’s income, just as an individual act of sneaking into a cinema without paying doesn’t directly deprive the cinema of the ticket price and probably has minimal impact on their income (yes, I know the profit is all from the concessions anyway). Granted - little things have little effects, but it is incorrect to use this as a basis to argue that there should be no system by which due payment can be extracted.

Yes, individuals and organisations will make software/art for free and distribute it openly, that’s wonderful, but how could, say, Pixar produce their works without (legally)expecting payment for their use?

17

Creative artists and publishers in Japan would answer your problem with a resounding YESSSSSSSS! There, they not only permit but encourage fans to make manga, etc. of their own set in the universe of popular series, and to sell them. They consider these to be free marketing opportunities that build on the success of the original story/manga/anime that inspired the fan artists. They do not begrudge the fan artists their sales at all.

Interestingly, what countries comics and animated series are so popular that they are making inroads in the U.S., at a time when it’s generally U.S. popular art that makes inroads in other countries’ markets?

Japan’s.

I think the copyright fiends on this board are a little close-minded on this subject, Leaper. You will not get much traction here, but this is an EXTRAORDINARILY anti-freedom-of-information board relative to others on the Web.

18

Are you simply relaying this argument, or are you actually saying you suport this line of thought?

Writing is a real job. It is very hard, very involving, and can be quite emotionally painful and exhausting when done properly. It is as much work as any other job. Why shouldn’t an author be able to control and own the product of his great labors?

19

Yes, because their culture is soooo much like ours. :rolleyes:

Perhaps they think that’s okay. I do not. I am working on a novel. It’ll probably never get published, much less the other three in the series. But I have a specific plan for how MY universe – MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE – unfold, and I don’t want any mouth-breathing fanfic loser spoiling it. Or stumbling across something I plan to do in book 3 or 4, and thus putting me in a legal bind. Fan fiction on the Internet is a pathetic escape for losers… but to legitimize it and encourage it would be to allow the rape of the universe I am attempting to create, which I have formed from whole cloth, and which belongs completely and totally and only to me. If others want to take a look around it, they can pay ME, thank you very much.

My novel is not “information.” It is an extension of me. It is part of me. It belongs totally to me.

20

I am not anti-copyright, although I think going back to copyright terms on the order of a few decades, as opposed to “life of the artist plus seventy years” or whatever it is today, would probably be an improvement. That said, the argument that we should have copyrights because otherwise the artist is deprived of the income from his work, is not very strong by itself.

Consider this: in Western law today, we do not have the possibility to copyright pure ideas. If I come up with a brilliant new theory on some subject, and I write a bestseller about it, you are not allowed to copy large parts of my work literally, and you may get in some hot water if you run with my idea without crediting me, although that hot water would probably be mostly in the court of public opinion. However, I do not own my ideas. You are free to build on my ideas, refute them, summarize them together with rival theories, and so on. If you explain my ideas better than I did and as a result your book sells better than mine, tough cookies for me.

Most people would agree that this state of affairs is a good thing, even though it deprives people who come up with good ideas of the full benefit of those ideas, and may discourage people from putting as much effort into having original ideas and writing books about them as they otherwise would. If we lived in an altenate reality in which such a possibility of copyrighting/patenting pure ideas did not exist, there would surely be many people who would defend that state of affairs on the ground that people who come up with good ideas deserve the full profit from them. Yet I suspect very few people on this board would suggest establishing such laws.

This does not prove that copyright (either blatant direct copying, or the post-publication “dilution of characters” hroomba describes) is bad. It only demonstrates that just because a certain law allows people certain opportunities to profit from their work, that does not necessarily mean that such a law is a good idea.