Automotive OEM’s disagree with you. Although most cars tend to look alike, if one were to actually copy the designs (thus savings billions of dollars in R&D expenses) instead of original engineering, then that would obviously be an unfair business advantage.
Google GM and Chery to see how a Chinese OEM did copy a GM car and not only cost GM a lot of money, Chery is also taking the profits and now becoming a real competitor. So, not only does Chery get away with ripping off a GM model and making money on it, Chery is using that as a war chest to actually develop other cars that will compete with GM in the US.
Brickbacon, please explain how you’re not trying to get something for free? Eg, you get a $20 DVD for the cost of a rental and a blank DVD and a dose of rationalization. Frankly, I’d respect you more if you said you were a poor college student or trying to stick it to the man.
So what if the auto makers wouldn’t want me to. I doubt they would mind anyway. If I wanted to build a car from scratch, for personal use, using a BMW template, I doubt they would care too much. Also, it’s not a business advantage because I am not in “business” with them, or in their business. In the hypothetical, I would be copying a car they have made with a magic ray.
Chery stole their idea and sold it as their own. That is very different from using copying something for personal use.
Well, I am a college student, but that has little to do with it. It depends on what you mean by something for free. I am not getting the same thing someone who buys the commercial copy of a DVD gets. What I have is not worth $20, it’s worth the cost of a blank DVD, and a burner.
It would surprise you how fast BMW would aggressively go after you to protect their image. You building a BMW in the backyard from a template would make a mockery of the BMW image and quality.
Minus the packaging and the legal rights, you are in fact getting the same thing as someone who buys the commercial copy. You’re also shafting $15 out of the channel, actors, studio’s etc.
Maybe a different analogy would get through to you. Pirating the DVD is little different than shoplifting food. The supermarket has to raise prices to offset the pilferage and the rest of us subsidize you.
True, I don’t think either of us is going to convince the other. I think I have exposed some contradictions in your position, though.
Huh, I think you misspelled “completely”. My understanding is that when you steal something from a store, the store doesn’t have it anymore, and they have to pay to replace it if they want to be able to sell it again. I’ve never shoplifted, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s how it works.
I don’t believe you have. I think you’re confused as to the difference between theft and free speech. You don’t think you are. Given you definition I’m certain there are contradictions. Given my definition, you’re certainly doing something unethical. Again, I don’t think anything has been proven one way or another and I don’t think there is any hope of doing so when we can’t agree on the fundamental terms of the debate.
Again, to me The Godfather is a creative work. Pi was a discovered principle/concept. Though both have value to the world, they are fundamentally two different types of information.
Plus, public domain is an entirely different thing than what’s being discussed here.
Please don’t make unestablished claims about showing me as having been contradicted. I’ve rebuffed your arguments at every turn.
If I’m misrepresenting you, please say so. I’ll continue along that vein until we’ve got that squared away. But please don’t open any more lines of debate because, honestly, I’m bored to tears with this discussion at this point.
Then perhaps you’d like to try answering these questions from my prior post:
*Anyway, who are you to decide it’s fine [to show DVDs to your friends instead of making them buy their own copies]? 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?*
That’s the contradiction. You claim copyright infringement is wrong because it “denies sales”, but there are clear examples where you’re fine with denying sales, such as lending legally purchased copies and writing negative reviews, as long as no copy is created. You seem more concerned with whether or not someone is physically in possession of a copy–the means–than with whether they actually pay for content–the end result–even though we all agree (AFAIK) the physical copies are irrelevant; the content stored on the disc is what really matters to everyone involved.
I’m not CapnPitt, but he’s already referred you to the first sale doctrine. Copyright law doesn’t grant the copyright holder unlimited rights, but attempts to balance those rights against the rights/needs/desires of the purchaser. It isn’t as black and white as you appear to think it is (or should I say as you appear to make CapnPitt) think it is); there are competing interests. Whereas you would draw the line at not granting any more rights to the copyright holder than Joe Schmoe on the street, some see things as more complicated than that. Hence things like fair use and first sale.
It’s not necessarily simply watching the movie, it’s the copying that is the problem. If you sell or lend your DVD to your friend, it’s fine, it’s a balance between your rights as a purchaser and the copyright holder’s rights; but if you copy your movie, it’s a larger violation of the holder’s rights, and less of a right of yours. I know that, since you are against copyrights at all, it may be difficult to spot gray areas, but that doesn’t mean, in any way, that you’ve “exposed some contradictions.”
Indeed. But the first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to exhibiting DVDs to your friends (as opposed to physically giving them the disc to watch on their own), which CapnPitt seems to think is all right, and anyway, we’re talking about ethics, not legality.
Well, I was taking CapnPitt at his word when he said “denying sales” was the problem. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but I’ll let him explain.
Hamlet gives an accurate representation of what I was trying to say.
Please note also that you’re talking about viewing a DVD that you purchased when you talk about lending, etc. You do get certain rights with that.
You ignored where I explained the difference between a review denying sales and your copying denying sales is. I not sure of the post number, but it’s there in direct response to your question. It’s a distinction that you seem unable to make. Disagree with it all you want (and I know you will), but it’s a clear distinction to me.
Legally, yes. But ethically? What’s the ethical difference between exhibiting one of my DVDs for a single friend, and exhibiting it for a few dozen friends?
As far as I can tell, you must be referring to this:
That response simply makes no sense, and as such, I consider the question unanswered. Copyright infringement is not fraud under any reasonable definition of the word. You can “fully believe” that apples are oranges all you want, and I doubt anything I say will change your mind, but that doesn’t make it so, and the least you could do is back it up with some kind of argument.
I’m quite aware of what the law says; this isn’t the first copyright-related thread we’ve had in GD, you know. I was just hoping you’d have some kind of logical basis for your apparent belief that the terms of copyright law–even the arcane parts like public performance rights–perfectly coincide with the ethics of using someone else’s work, or the even more amusing belief that unauthorized copying is a form of fraud.
I think the fraud comes in when a consumer agrees to a contract to buy or rent a movie with the unstated, unagreed to intent to duplicate the movie, especially when duplication is expressly forbidden by the contract. Wouldn’t you consider entering a contract with the intent of violating the terms of that contract a type of fraud?
Well, let me condescend to your ideas now. I find your ideas that any information belongs to you rather child-like. Quite like a two year old saying “mine, mine, mine.”
I’m well aware that there have been other copyright threads in GD; judging from your responses in this thread, it seemed that you hadn’t read any of them.
I’m glad you know the law. I hope you get your kicks from copying DVDs the rest of your days.
Right, because enforcing IP laws is more important than anything else. Maybe if you had been reading the entire thread, you would ralize that we’ve established that the law is a small part of morality, and that the legally recognized “owner’s” rights must be balanced with those of society. Level headed people on both sides can recognize this.
Please don’t, I don’t think I could stand the tongue lashing.
You keep harping on the legality (and I shouldn’t have used the word legal either).
But I assume you were raised in a household where you were probably taught a concept of knowing right from wrong.
You may have heard of the old saying “You can’t get something for nothing”.
I’m only 46 (some of you are older) but in my time span I have never experienced a situation where I got something for free, against the wishes of the party entitled to make that call, that wasn’t ethically questionable.
It just hasn’t happened, and I’m not holding my breath either.
And you, brickbacon, must have a guilty conscience, because you weren’t going to be the target of my pit, someone else was, and yet you felt threatened…
There are some circumstances where a compelling public interest ethically trumps copyright. Making sure that everyone has cheap copies of The Phantom Menace is not one of them.
No guilty conscience, just a bad assumption on my part.
Certainly, this is one of the more trivial circumstances of public interest trumping copyrights, but I don’t think that should matter too much. I wouldn’t go a far to say it’s ethically good, but I don’t think it’s bad either.