CD Morality Question

Great Debates
21

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by QuickSilver *
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No, I mean, just to fleash this out…

You are on a desert island complete with palm tree and fully loaded Xerox machine. The copyright holder is on the other side of the planet. Your cell phones battery dies just after the voice on the other end informs you that the copy of the bible you are holding in your hand is the only one in existence. Do you make a copy of the bible thus preserving it for future generations (remember, the copyright holder doesn’t even have a copy anymore)?

22

I probably shouldn’t even bother, because it’s obvious we’re never going to agree, but my dictionary definition of moral is “good in conduct or character”. Something moral is good and right. Something immoral is bad and wrong. I don’t see the distinction between “immoral” and “wrong”. Are you saying there is absolute right and wrong, but no absolute morality? Aren’t they synonymous?

I agree with you on context–when you get into stealing bread to feed your starving family, killing one child to save two, things start to get grey. If you “stole” the Bible (or Mona Lisa, whatever) to save it, you are working for the greater good.

But let’s get back to the OP. If your only intent is to save yourself a few bucks out of greedy self-interest is that not wrong? Even if the artists in question are greedy as well, don’t they rightfully deserve compensation for their effort? I’d argue that property laws are not an absolute (patents expire, eminent domain, etc.) and are derived from society. Theft, slavery, and murder, on the other hand, are absolute wrongs, only made grey under rare circumstances.

23

Well, this has taken a turn from the sublime to the damn near magical. You forgot to put a pre-condition where I’m standing on one foot and holding my breath while the island begins to sink into the ocean filled with hungry sharks.

What is this now, further Adventures of Indiana Jones?

We went from making a copy of a single track on a retail CD to saving the last existing copy of a book of dubious value (at least to me). Can’t we just stay with reality? I find the real world difficult enough to understand much less explain to my kids.

24

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Moral is what is currently accepted by society. Immoral is what is unacceptable. Hence, you could do something that is wrong in your heart but, acceptabl by society. One part of society might say it’s moral, the onther might not.
But, let’s not get into that. There’s is a whole lot of stuff involved in that argument.

Sure. But, is it immoral. If you don’t see anything wrong with it. And the rest of society doesn’t. Then it doesn’t conflict with societies morals. It is morally ok then. I would claim that the majority of the world does not place any faith[that’s the wrong word, but I just suffereda mind block and can’t think of anything else] in copyright laws. They see nothing wrong with breaking them. It doesn’t make you Immoral to the average person.

25

Here’s my take on this (ignoring the fact that the Bible, of course, is no longer copyrighted, though I suppose a particular translation may be.)

If you’re going to copy the book to save it, then of course it’s OK and probably legal. But if after your return to civilization, you sell your copies and keep the profits to yourself without attempting to share it with the copyright holder, then it’s not OK.

N.B. Since you have a fully loaded Xerox machine, you may also want to make a photocopy of your butt since that is also a unique item that will be lost to posterity in case of accident.

26

:burp: Darn cow is giving me indigestion.

I would say it is wrong to kill in self-defense, yes. Forgivable? Yes, but most things are. If you could not prove to a court you did it in self-defence, you’d go to jail anyway, right?

27

Sorry to be nitpicky, but I just stated that I feel wrong and immoral are two different things.
Dd you feel it is IMMORAL to kill in self defense?

28

I just sprayed my keyboard, screen and desk with my iced tea which came flying out my nose. ROTFLMAO!

Thanks Arnold, I needed that laugh…

29

I’m pretty sure the bible is in the public domain by now.

30

I guess I never really thought of there being a distinction. For your sake, we’ll assume there is, but then yes, we do have get into “that” argument. Can something truly be moral and immoral at the same time?

If so, then while the general world population might think it’s moral to copy CD’s (where do you get those statistics, BTW?), isn’t it a separate issue whether or not it’s moral in the US? Clearly our morals must be different that those in China. How far do we break society down to consider morality? Is it moral to copy CD’s in New York, but not in LA? If you’re at home, but not at work?

31

If you want to start a thread about morality go for it. I will more than happily participate in it. I do want to avoid hijackig this discussion too much.
On a note. I’ve jsut asked 38 different people if they thought the above situation was immoral. All of them replied no. I too think it isn’t immoral. I submit that it is not immoral. It does not go against societies idea of what should and should not be done. Illegal? yes. Immoral? no.

32

Originally posted by jmullaney
You are on a desert island complete with palm tree and fully loaded Xerox machine. The copyright holder is on the other side of the planet. Your cell phones battery dies just after the voice on the other end informs you that the copy of the bible you are holding in your hand is the only one in existence. Do you make a copy of the bible thus preserving it for future generations (remember, the copyright holder doesn’t even have a copy anymore)?

i’d consider it my moral duty to burn that last copy…

your morals may differ.

33

Not that I disagree with you, but voicing your side with a fallacy is not a good way to go about it, IMHO.

34

But what if the copyright laws are themselves manifestly unfair?

As I’m a fan of old pulp magazine fiction, copyright laws are of some interest to me in particular. I also took a course in journalism law in college, but it was back in the early '80’s. I’ve forgotten a lot and the laws have changed.

The Constitution gives Congress the right to make copyright law. The theory is that copyrights will encourage more art, literature, music, scientific and scholarly research, etc. etc.

Earlier in this century, a work could be copyrighted for 28 years and renewed for another 28 years. This was later changed so that the copyright extended to the life of the author plus 50 years. Many old copyrights were retroactively given protection under the new law, but many weren’t.

Speaking very generally, works created before 1928 are almost always in the public domain. Anybody can do anything with them they please.

But there’s a problem.

Many copyrights for materials such as old Disney cartoons, old Superman comic books etc. start getting near the end of their copyright terms. What happens? Well, DisneyCorp and Time-Warner simply go to Congress and get the copyright laws changed so they can keep their copyrights. This has happened and will happen over and over again.

Now, the problem is that copyright laws were intended to benefit the entire community and not just the holders of copyrights. The idea was to encourage creativity by providing exclusive copyrights **for a limited time **so that works would eventually become the property of the entire community and part of our common culture.

Copyrights were never intended to be perpetual.

Yet, as the situation now stands, virtually nothing created after 1928 is likely ever to pass into the public domain because the corporate giants will always have the muscle to get the copyright laws changed to suit themselves.

If current copyright law had been in effect when they were created, Santa Claus (the modern version) and Uncle Sam would still be copyright protected and not in the public domain today.

This leads to some weird situations. Consider Conan the Barbarian. His creator, Robert E. Howard, an only child, killed himself when he was 30 and had no children. The copyrights went to his father, who left them to the local sheriff (a family friend) when he died. The people who own the copyrights (on works more than half a century old!) are the sheriff’s descendents, who aren’t even remotely related to Robert E. Howard.

How in the world does a situation like this encourage creativity, invention and research?

The situation is particularly frustrating for pulp magazine fans like myself (and of course for many others). If the old copyright laws were still in effect, we could use computer technology to make text or pdf files of a lot of the old material and distribute them ourselves. Most of this stuff has been out of print for more than half a century, and yet we can’t legally make them available to folks who would very much like to have them. A few fans have taken to simply ignoring the copyright laws and distributing text files for free on the Internet. And why not? Why should a Shadow fan have to pay $70 or $80 for a copy of an old magazine (assuming he can find someone willing to sell) or do without when the Conde Naste company has been sitting on the copyright for 50 years or more?

Some experts in constitutional law consider the current copyright laws unconstitutional because they clearly violate the intention of the framers of the Constitution - but does anybody really believe they’d ever be able to beat Time-Warner’s and DisneyCorp’s attorneys in court?

So I guess my question is: Is it immoral to break a law which has clearly been manipulated to benefit the few at the expense of the many?

35

getting back to the original post…

many people, like yourself, like only one song on a cd, that’s why record labels (albeit on a somewhat limited basis) make “singles”, which, as the name implies, is a ‘single’ track off of the album, sometimes with remixes and bonus-cuts.

if it is not available on a single, check out the label’s site, or other online music sites. more and more record labels are offering individual tracks for download for 99 cents or so…

but of course, i’m sure you knew this already…

so pay the 99 cents and feel good about yourself

36

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Yes, it was suppose to encourage it by protecting intellectural property and allowing the creator to profit from his creation.

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50 years after the death of the creator seems rather reasonable to me.

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I was under the impression that Steam Boat Willie by Disney has indeed become public domain.

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And they benefit the entire community by protecting the rights of those who created it.

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Since companies still profit from characters created over 50 years ago I can understand their feelings. DC still publishes Superman and is likely to continue doing so in the near future. Obviously they have a vested interest in making sure nobody else can make a profit off it.

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I still think that you’re mistaken in why the laws encourage creativity.

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Heh heh…so we should change the laws for you guys. I understand your feelings though. Perhaps there needs to be some sort of compromise. If I were DC I wouldn’t want someone to do something with the image of Superman or Batman that I wouldn’t like.

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You can’t work something out with the people who hold the rights?

Marc

37

oldscratch, you’re playing games with words.

Look up theft in the dictionary. It’s a pretty clear-cut concept. It’s taking something from someone else without their permission. Stealing of intellectual property is no different than stealing of physical property. The reason for the current wave of acceptance of this theft is that building walls around this property is currently difficult. That acceptance does not make it moral.

By your definitions, if the police go on strike, then any crime is permissable, and moral to boot.

38

Absolutely not. However if that crime is permissable and accepted by the majority of society as something that is not immoral, than it isn’t. Several examples of theft that most people do not consider Immoral.
The theft of artifact from the Parthenon to prevent their destruction. (carried out by the British)
The theft of apples from a neighbors tree that happen to fall on the ground by children.
The theft of mushrooms from public parks.
I can post more examples. But, the simple fact is that not all theft is considered Immoral by society. Not all illegal activities are considered Immoral by society. Moral’s flucuate with time. Something that is not illegal can be considered immoral. Usury is a good example. Slavery is another example of something that can be legal and immoral.

39

Wrong. Theft is immoral. If you take an apple off the ground under the neighbor’s tree, and the neighbor hasn’t given you permission, it’s theft and it’s wrong. Same for the other examples.

You can argue about what the damages are in any case, including a fallen apple or an MP3, but small damages don’t make it moral. Especially if the person being stolen from doesn’t want their property stolen. Which is certainly the case with MP3s. And in the case of MP3s, the damages are significant.

Every time this please-rationalize-my-stealing thread comes up (which seems to be at least twice a week now), people go on and on about the true “cost” of an MP3. The cost is not the damage. The cost is irrelevant. The damage is what it could have been sold for, not what it cost to build. It doesn’t matter if it was free to build. If it belongs to someone else and in a free market it has value, that value is the damage. When you download an MP3, you have stolen. The dollar amount you have stolen is the amount it would’ve cost you to buy it in a record shop. The fact that in a record shop you would’ve gotten physical media, artwork and additional songs is irrelevant. You’ve stolen the value of that album.

Everything else is rationalization.

40

Ah, the relative wrongness of stealing. Let’s switch to a slightly different medium (don’t worry, I’ll come back to CDs in a moment): books.

Any student will tell you that used textbooks are a godsend, because they cost so much less than new books. And, because books, unless mistreated, last a good long time, they can be sold back to the bookstore at the end of the school year, minimizing the financial burden on the student. The bookstore can then resell the books the following year to new students, making another profit from the same product. Bookstores and students both love used books.

Textbook publishers, on the other hand, hate used books, because every time a book gets resold, the publisher gets no additional money (or, in their business-like minds, they lose money). So, in order to ensure that they’ll continue to make a healthy profit, publishers release new editions of old textbooks as often as possible, annually in some subjects. New editions are often substantively equal to the old textbook, but problems have been changed slightly, so the old book is useless in a course taught using the new book. Bookstores don’t mind this too much, because they still make a profit from sales of new books and, since they know when new editions will be released, they won’t buy back the old textbook and lose money on it.

On to CDs. When you buy a new CD, the artists and producers get their money. When you return the CD to a store that trades in used CDs, no money is pulled from the pocket of the producers or artists; they already got their cash. The used CD trade is a privately-run, in-store deal. The money made from used CD sales belongs to the store and the store alone. Stores like used CDs, because the public doesn’t expect them to be well-sorted or prettily-displayed, stuff that costs the store money.

So, who’s the thief? You, for copying one song from a 12-song disc and taking a $8 loss when you sell the CD as used? Perhaps the store, for trading in used CDs and encouraging the resale of a durable medium, thus causing the studios to lose money from lowered new-CD sales? The guy who buys your used CD, for choosing the format that causes the studios to lose money? All of the above? Is anyone a thief?

Answer: got me. Strong arguments for and against all of them. Guess that’s why they call this “Great Debates”.