And yet if we don’t expel them and majorly screw up their lives, we get this situation: the social acceptance of cheating and theft as normal, because there haven’t been consequences.
Sailboat
The students who endeavored to do their work honestly, that’s who. The ones who acted with integrity, pouring their heart and soul into their work while others chose to act dishonestly.
Which is precisely why these students shouldn’t plagiarize.
Heck, serving a prison sentence can majorly up someone’s life. Does that mean that we should dispense with this form of punishment?
I agree. Please accept my apologies.
Or 3) Borrow it from a friend 4) Wait for it to be on HBO, etc. There are plenty of ways to see a movie again. The video store does not necessarily lose anything.
Yes, because that’s worked so well with drugs, alcohol, sodomy, etc. Your reasoning is seriously flawed.
Unless there is a curve, that is not the case. Either way, don’t hijack my thread.
No, but it does mean the punishment should be proportional to the crime.
Well, again, we’re not really talking about the video store. We’re talking about the creators of the movie (or whomever they’ve sold the rights to). If you borrow it from a friend, that’s fine because he doesn’t have a separate copy that he can watch at the same time. This is pretty much the flip side of what Mr2001 says…you’re creating an artificial abundance if you make a copy for yourself. Just because we have the technology to do things doesn’t mean we should do them or that it’s ethical to do them.
If you’ve waited for it to be on HBO, the creator of the work has sold HBO the right to broadcast the film. You, in turn, pay HBO the right to view their programming which includes this film. Of course, generally speaking, you need to wait a while after the theatrical release to view the film. So as long as you’re current on your cable or satellite bill, it seems perfectly ethical to watch the film on HBO.
First of all, there often IS a curve. In fact, grading by a curve is exceedingly common. And second, even if there were none, the honest students can still lose out on prestige, academic awards, scholarship opportunities and the like. Heck, the mere fact that they get grades that are completely undeserved is itself an act of gross injustice.
It’s not “your” thread… and besides, this subject is entirely relevant to the subject of honestly, intellectual property rights and plagiarism.
Well, I regret bringing the plagiarism thing up. It is germane to the discussion, but it’s moving the argument away from the intent of the thread, IMO. Plus I think it’s detracting from my small hope of persuading the other side that this is unethical behavior.
Of course, do what you will, I can’t stop ya. 
Would it be unethical if you copied the movie off of HBO? If not, how is that different from copying it from Blockbuster?
They do not necessarily lose anything. It’s not always a zero sum game.
Actually, it is my thread, since I started it. Stop hijacking it. If you want to talk about plagiarism, start a thread on it. Otherwise, stop hijacking.
No, it’s not germane to the discussion for many reasons. First, it was brought up to try to establish that I have a history of unethical behavior. It was a drive by attack that completely misrepresented what I said in another thread. Second, just because two things fall under the umbrella of IP or dishonesty doesn’t mean they are germane to the discussion.
They don’t necessarily lose anything, but they often do. To justify your position, you need to demonstrate that plagiarism in school never harms anyone. It’s not enough to say “But there’s a chance that it might not!”
You started the thread, but it is not your sole property. And discussions of intellectual property rights – as well as the ethics of violating these rights – are entirely germane to this discussion.
No, physically it isn’t similar. The effect, however, is the same: fewer copies are sold than would’ve been sold otherwise, thanks to my actions. So tell me, why is it OK to harm the movie company’s sales if you do it with a word processor, but not if you do it with a DVD burner? I happen to believe that distributing the information found on a DVD is a form of free speech as well.
Nonsense. If my neighbor can watch The Matrix to his heart’s content by borrowing my copy, or just coming over to my place to watch it, then there’s no need for him to buy his own copy. His desires with regard to that movie have been fulfilled, and a sale has been denied. So tell me, why does it matter whether he has his own copy or not? He just wants to watch the movie; he doesn’t care whether or not he gets his own plastic disc.
I’m familiar with the first sale doctrine, but thanks anyway.
Well, that actually gets to the question of are you going to watch it once or keep it forever? Would you be lending it? It entirely depends on what use you’re putting it to. Are you just time-shifting?
When a property owner puts their material on HBO, it is with the express knowledge and consent that it can and will be copied. This is obviously not the case with a rented movie. You might as well compare when a baker gives you a free cookie, and swiping one off the counter and running.
PublishCorp has committed fraud against everyone who bought a copy of that book, by lying about its authorship.
The author was also being pretty stupid, spending two years on his life on something that there’s really no logical way to profit from. At best, he’d have to rely on a nearly unenforceable law to intimidate people into buying copies from him rather than making their own; at worst, no one would want to buy the book at all and his time would be wasted.
Would an accountant spend his own time and money to research a company’s finances, prepare their tax forms, etc. in the hopes that he might be able to sell his finished work to that company after the fact? I sure hope not.
Presumably the girls were credited with writing the song, and presumably the cover was better than the original - otherwise they would’ve put the original on the radio instead. Can’t fault the market for preferring a better version of the song, can you?
Ah yes, the old “no one will ever write anything again” canard.
Again, why would the movie maker sink all this money into making something when there’s no sensible way for them to profit from it? Did they not expect that someone might get access to it and distribute copies? Maybe they should actually find someone who’ll pay them before they start spending all their own time and money on mere speculation.
I’m glad you asked. I start with the principle that it’s good for people to be able to get the things they want and use them how they wish. With scarce property, there’s a conflict: two people can’t both have the same car in different places, they can’t both use the same land for different purposes, etc., and therefore we need some way to determine who gets to have it - that person is the owner. With non-scarce pseudo-property, there is no conflict, so the first principle dictates that everyone should be allowed to have it.
You are, perhaps deliberately, abusing the term “scarce”. Books, movies, and songs aren’t scarce, because they can be copied without limit and used at every corner of the globe at once. If I’m watching King Kong at my house, that doesn’t prevent you from watching King Kong at your house - you can’t use the same physical disc as me, but you can use the same content.
Never said it was. The disc, however, needs an owner; the information on the disc does not. It’s true that The Godfather (like any movie) is an original creation and different from every other movie, but once it’s been produced, copies are free. The time and talent that went into creating it is scarce; the information that resulted is not.
I see. How long have you hated freedom? 
You’re comparing apples and oranges here. What you’re doing is creating an artificial abundance of the content of the DVD simply because you CAN. You’re distributing something that is not yours to distribute. You’re doing it just because you want to or because you can, not because it’s ethical.
A reviewer may have the effect of denying sales, but if it’s an honest review and not a hatchet job by some rival, then it’s ethical because he’s not claiming something that isn’t his. I know we’ll never agree on this because you think all the information on all the DVDs in the world belong to you as a free speech right. I fully believe that it’s theft and fraud. An honest reviewer isn’t being fradulent; he’s speaking to the merit of the work as he sees it. Two entirely different things that may have the same effect.
A small group watching it together is fine. If you get much larger, you really need public performance rights because then you are indeed defrauding the creator of their rights to their work.
If he has his own copy, he’ll have paid for the content of the DVD and can feel free to watch it at his leisure. If he borrows your plastic disc, you can’t watch it at your home at your leisure, but he can. If he moves to Arizona and you want your movie back, you either get your copy back from him or you buy a new one.
Simply, you can’t watch the content of the plastic disc without having possession of the plastic disc.
Why, in your estimation, doesn’t Blockbuster just buy one copy of The Matrix and not just burn 30 billion copies of it?
Um, you’re arguing in this exact same post that noone ever should write anything again. If you’re that opposed to the existence of artistic creations, why are you in favor of copying movies anyway?
Truth be told, in a world without protection of intellectual property, the arts would not die. There would still be a trickle of material created for the love of art. Refer to the previous mention of the asian artistic market for some idea of the scale of this.
I disagree with your first principle. Just because, say, you want pictures of somebody naked, doesn’t mean you have any right to it at all; even though the pictures can be reproduced freely. This holds true even if the person has let certain other people see them naked; even if they allowed that other person to take pictures. A person has a right to keep certain things to themself, and to control who, where, when and why these things are shared. The set of these ‘certain things’ are not limited to concrete objects.
This was not addressed to me, but I’ll answer it anyway: I’ve hated the freedom to exploit others for as long as I’ve had moral judgement.
I consider myself an ethical person and yet cannot get myself to feel bad about burning a rented movie.
See, the world we live in is not an ethical one. In fact, it is fundamentally unfair, sometimes appalingly so I might add. If the world was a company ruled by someone, that someone would be very unethical. Assuming of course that we agree that being ethical is “doing what is right”.
There is simply no ethical reason why anyone should have more than $10 million dollars to their name let alone several billions. And I’m being generous about the 10 millions. Not while millions of people starve, tens of millions are slowly die of disease and billions live in unacceptable conditions.
If I am poor and I know that I would not buy the movie anyways, there is nothing wrong with burning a copy for myself. The net result of my action is one person made a little happier (me) and no one made more miserable. If I burned it out of greed when I could have easily afforded it legally, I am committing an unethical action.
So the line is fuzzy and there are lots of shades of grey. Those of us who only see sharp lines and black and white are the most judgemental and dangerous. Anyone judgemenal is most probably just as flawed as his fellow sinner yet arrogant enough to think himself a better man and mean-spirited enough to harm his fellow man without remorse, convinced that he has just done the right thing.
Beware that man for he Satan’s most powerful tool.
No, I don’t. My position was never that plagiarism was ethical.
No, it’s not. Stop hijacking.
Let’s say you are going to add it to your personal collection.
Really? Putting your movie on HBO means you consent to people copying it? Cite please? To even think this is the case is ridiculous. Why would anyone put their movie on HBO if that were the case?
Artificial? It’s natural. There is no natural limit on the number of copies of a certain piece of information, or the number of people who can use it or know it. As Thomas Jefferson wrote:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
It’s just as true whether the “idea” is democracy, directions on how to make scrambled eggs, the digits of pi, or a very long number representing a song or movie.
It doesn’t belong to anyone. It’s a number.
By copying a DVD, I’m not claiming anything that isn’t mine either. I’m using a laser to burn tiny dark spots on a plastic disc. I’m not taking them away from anyone else, claiming that I produced the movie, or anything like that.
You might want to look up “defrauding”; I don’t think it means what you think it means. Anyway, who are you to decide it’s fine? If you subscribe to this idea that it’s wrong to “deny sales”, shouldn’t it really be up to the copyright holder to decide if he wants you to deny him that particular sale or not?
Why is it OK to deny one sale by showing a DVD to my friend, but not to give him a copy? Don’t come back with some nonsense about how it’s different because he gets to keep his own disc–why does that matter, when the end result in both cases is that he gets to watch the movie for free and the movie company doesn’t get a dime from him?
He’s free to come over to my place and watch it any time he wants. Let’s say we both work from home and have very flexible schedules, so literally, he can come knock on my door any time he wants to watch a movie. Is it still OK for me to deny the movie company a sale by letting him watch my DVDs?
Because that’d be illegal, and a company like Blockbuster would get caught very quickly.
I have no idea how you could get that impression from anything I’ve written. It’s absurd and I’ve said no such thing.
I have no problem with anything producing books, movies, songs, or whatever, and in fact I’m willing to pay them to do it. I am not willing, however, to be strong-armed into paying them for making copies of something that’s already been written, because I can easily do that myself.
Indeed. There are rare exceptions, such as for personal medical and financial information. The issue is not that the information “belongs” to someone else, but that its distribution would be so harmful that limiting freedom to prevent it is justified.
But I find it ridiculous to think that putting a buck in someone else’s pocket, or maintaining some company’s profit margin, is a legitimate reason to set aside such an important principle. If we could magically replicate food, and feed every starving person on the earth for nothing, would we choose not to because that would undermine the companies that’d like to sell them food instead? I sure hope not. Entertainment might not be as vital as food, but I think giving everyone access to information, entertainment, and culture is a noble goal as well.
Mr2001 you and I don’t agree on the basis of the debate, so no meaningful discussion can really take place.
You believe that creators of content don’t have rights to their work…it’s an idea that belongs to the world.
I disagree, I believe creators of content do have rights to their work…to me, The Godfather isn’t the same thing as say, 1+1=2.
When we’re approaching it from such diametrically opposed viewpoints, no persuasion can be acheived.
That’s what you say now… yet that didn’t stop you from saying “Who is hurt when some high school kid pays a friend to write his essay?” just a few posts earlier. (The clear implication being that plagiarism within the classroom hurts nobody.)
“No, it’s not.” What a brilliant response! I’m not surprised that you now want to distance yourself from your earlier statements on classroom plagiarism.
BTW, brickbacon, I’m sure that you’ll quickly repeat the part where you said, “Publishing something that you stole is unethical,” as though publishing were the only form of plagiarism. It is not.
And even if we grant that you were not defending plagiarism, the point remains… To justify your claim that nobody is harmed “when some high school kid pays a friend to write his essay,” it’s not enough to point out that not all teachers grade on a cruve, and so harm doesn’t necessarily ensue. Rather, one must demonstrate that (a) NO teachers grade on a curve, and (b) nobody is deprived of academic awards, scholarships or other forms of merit as a result.