Is there a historical precedent for the current digital filesharing situation?

Great Debates
141

I’m also shocked to read the defenses of ripping off music, and i download as much as the next guy. I just didn’t buy into a lie so i can sleep at night. I know i’m doing something wrong, but until there are real world risks at high enough levels, I’m taking my chances. To argue this point morally is ridiculous. I’ll try to refute the points made previously by answering a few hypotheticals posed earlier. Here goes:

Is it selfish to listen to music on the radio? Why or why not?

  • No. You are compensating the artist by listening to ads.

Is it selfish to borrow a friend’s CD? Why or why not?

  • No. Your friend has already compensated the artist on your behalf. 1 copy of music for 1 price. You can listen to it but your friend cannot. However, when you copy that CD, you turn $12/copy of music into 6, and soon the limit as the number of copies goes up approaches $0/copy.

Is it selfish to buy a used CD from a record store? Why or why not?

  • No. The CD has already been compensated by the original buyer. Your second hand dollars not going to the artist’s pocket doesn’t impact the artist being compensated for producing that CD.

Is it selfish to listen to music on Youtube? Why or why not?
-Yes. Unless the music is being hosted by the record company, it’s just another form of piracy. How is that unclear in any way?

Is it selfish to borrow a CD from the library? Why or why not?
-No. Again, the library is analogous to your friend. It has already paid for the record. In lending it to someone, the library doesn’t get to have a copy of the music, and other patrons aren’t getting copies of the music.

Is it selfish to rip mp3s from that borrowed CD? Why or why not?
Taking a free copy of music that you have not purchased, but other people had is selfish. Taking a free copy of music and saying, oh he’ll make it up in ticket sales is also selfish. Ticket sales pay for the service of putting on a concert. It doesn’t compensate the good you’re receiving in a song.

Is it selfish to download the CD from a filesharing service? Why or why not?
I’m kind of stunned that someone would have the nerve to even post this question, as with the previous ones.

I also want someone to come clean and answer how you can justify having people write music, record music, and release music, and the customer does not have to pay for it. The ferrari analogy was not satisfactory. Listening to the same song for the rest of your life after copying will drive you insane. Driving the same copied ferrari around for the rest of my life will not. Also, in flooding the market with copied ferraris, the original ferarri dealer is obsolete and no longer produces ferraris since nobody is paying them for ferarris. So please, another analogy please.

Also, as for copyright duration, the original law was for the author’s life, which i find to be fair. The guy wrote a song/book/cartoon and so he should be compensated. However Disney and their powerful lobby has continuously dragged it out to keep mickey mouse theirs. it’s been continuously extended since disney’s death. so… that’s that.

142

I think I have brought this up before. It is a personal anecdote and is only ONE but I it represents what I think is a real problem.

I used to teach. I was pretty good. While I was teaching (1987-1996 ish) someone discovered I had really good notes/materials on a part of math that many students had problems with.

I was encouraged by school administrators to polish them up and make them available via computer format. This woud take considerable work…but I was willing…until I found out that this was to be ‘in addition’ to regular work.

Ahhhh…no. I had other things going on in my life to use personal time for that. This provoked criticism by them…(another rant another thread).

They then came to me with a great idea. I would do it on my own time, but the school system would ‘publish it’ and charge…and I would get a good chunk of that money.

This sounded promising and I lept at it like a starving rat.

Long story short…I did the first part (there could have been many). It took considerable time on my part. The admin loved it and published it. It sold in bookstores. Things looked good.

Students everywhere had it. I heard great things about it. I was asked when the next one would come out etc. etc.

Sounds great, eh?

Problem. I made about $15. Officially, only like 50 something sold.

You see, it was easily copied (it was a floppy disk). No copy protection. Students could easily copy it from each other. The other probem was that since I was a teacher, OBVIOUSLY I wasn’t in it for the money…so it was perfectly ok to copy. I mean, I even heard admins tell people to just go ahead and copy it.

The crap I had to go through after telling my bosses I was not going to spend another 500+ hours of my personal time to make $15 is another rant.

Bottom line, something people seem to value didn’t get made.

I liked doing it…but I wasn’t going to do it for nothing when I could do something else instead.

This is what will happen to music and other arts. They won’t go away…just that many will find other, more rewarding pursuits instead of doing them.

143

Been tried. Failed.

Copyright violation is a civil offence, as it should be.

You can’t apply it, that’s the whole point. And even if you could, sending millions of people to jail isn’t a terribly clever thing to do.

Intellectual property was an essential part of society. It doesn’t work anymore. At least not the personal use parts, you can stop people making money off it.

144

The reason music is concentrated on is simply because it is the most vulnerable to new technology. Software, games in particular, is also a huge problem. Movies are a growing problem, the reason they aren’t a big one yet is simply lack of bandwidth. As that increases, that problem will become worse as well. In general, anything for personal use is doomed under the current setup. Patents are different, because they are only useful to other people trying to make money, which forces everything into the open, making it enforceable. Personal use areas are the huge problem.

It’s not an argument against capitalism/people making money off their work. It’s an acknowledgment that current system of allowing people to make money off their work does.not.work.

145

In a competitive market, marginal revenue equals marginal cost. What is the marginal cost of digital distribution? Basically, zero. Capitalism may be “for” a lot of things, depending on who’s talking the talk. Copyright is economic rent, pure and simple.

Which just happens to be patent and copyright law.

Personally, for patents, I like this auction idea I read about somewhere, but that’s another thread. I don’t know what to do about copyright other than to banish it to hell, or at least shorten its lifespan.

146

Here is what the Constitution says

Congress shall have the power

“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

This debate reminds me of those who only want to read half of the Second Amendment. Congress is promoting science and useful arts precisely and expressely by giving inventors and creators exclusive right to their works. One goes hand in hand with the other and cannot be divided apart or seperated.
The free lunch crowd here seems to be saying “but the penalites do not work because they are unenforcable”. But when a high profile arrest is made, they are among the first to object to it and want the offender to go free. They talk out of both sides of their mouth.

Millions of people violate speeding laws every day all over America. We are not about to abolish those.

Its been brought up before and never answered. Why would you want to deny any author or creator their rightful control and economic share of their intellectual property?

.

147

And that regulation may be, “The term for copyrights is ten years after creation” or, “Only living persons may hold a patent or copyright,” or any number of ideas.

148

The point is, copyrights for artists was the method, not the goal. You seem to be confusing the means with the end.

Cite? It sounds like you are guilty of exactly what you are accusing others of. Have you actually read anything at all about copyright reform, or do you ‘refuse to understand what even the basic principles behind it are’? And is all your self-justification pseudo-intellectual claptrap just a ruse for filling the pockets of the greedy entertainment industry, which hurts both consumers and artists??

And being for copyright reform is not the same as being “against” copyrights.

149

Can you detail what you think is a workable plan for copyright reform that creates a mutually beneficial market for artists to create/sell works and for consumers to purchase access to and reasonably use those works?

150

I’m sure everyone has heard the phrase, “Nothing can stop an idea who’s time has come.” That is basically what is going on with digital file sharing right now. For the record, I am not arguing that pirating media is morally justified, and I don’t think that anyone in this thread has either. (Although after decades of what was essentially stealing from artists AND consumers, I’m certainly shedding no tears for the RIAA.) What those of us who live in a world that has shades of grey are arguing is that the current copyright system is already fatally undermined, and that the situation is only likely to get worse. No amount of scolding people and filing high profile lawsuits is going to put the genie back in the bottle, as recent events have clearly demonstrated. That leaves us a choice, we can either devise a better system or we can continue to delude ourselves that only if we can come up with some magic system (most of which tend to involve privacy violations, btw) the current outdated system can be preserved.

151

Consumers are not forced against their free will to part with any money to buy these items. Each purchase is a free exchange of money for goods that is made between consenting parties operating in the market system that we have. Any consumer that feels they have been mistreated or cheated by the current system has full access to the fourts and our legal system.

Artists are not forced to make any deal to market their work against their will. Both the artist and the company are consenting parties who enter into a contractual agreement of their own mutual agreement. Any artist who is defrauded or cheated by a company has full access to the courts and our legal system.

If you are either a consumer or artist and you feel you have been unfairly hurt or taken advantage of, we have a foolproof method to make sure this never happens again. Just stop.

152

I don’t know what this argument aims at, but it doesn’t seem to make any sense. Sure, Kwik-E-Mart can price its hot dogs at whatever price it wants without hurting the overall market because anyone can make hot dogs. Using the government to enforce your “ownership” and then charging whatever you want free from competition can hurt consumers and means things will generally be quite inefficient.

Sorry, but there is more for “no one gets hurt” than completely voluntary action. I may support every single penny I am taxed for but that doesn’t mean when I am taxed my choices are unchanged and when I get taxed more, Target, Game Stop, and Newbury Comics feels it, even if they also agreed I should be taxed more.

This may make you feel good on your soapbox but the issue is larger than you make it seem.

153

Point of fact, intellectual property law is required to “promote the progress of” artistry and creativity. When creation and distribution entails a lot of risk, protectionism makes sense… some publisher could just jump on anything that becomes popular without incurring the risk of funding artists/creators. Publishers who do take risks to bring unproven content to market need to have that investment protected.

With global networks of digital content, where distribution is trivial and anyone can be a global publisher, it’s not clear that protectionism or trying to force game changing technologies to abide by the old rules promotes progress. If it does not promote progress, it is illegitimate and without authority.

154

erislover

you ignore one basic reality here … nobody is forced to buy anything that is under discussion here. It is a free transaction without force or coercion. So please , when somebody tells me they are HURT by this situation … you can stop the pain anytime you want to… just stop your part in the process.

155

I’m not ignoring it. It is precisely the point I addressed.

156

Everyone of you guys arguing “for” copyright are missing the point. Of course if artists aren’t compensated in some way, they’re gonna stop working very hard, and all that will be left is amatuer art. That’s gonna suck if that happens. I don’t want that to happen.

Now, how do we stop that from happening?

And this is where you guys can’t seem to understand. How do we stop it from happening?

If your plan is to browbeat strangers on the internet that copying is bad, that is not going to work. Why won’t it work? For the same reason that artists won’t produce quality work unless they get compensated. If your plan is just to convince everyone that copying is bad, why not try instead to convince everyone to send the artist a check every time they copy a CD? It makes as much sense. Relying or exhortation WON’T WORK. It would be great if it did, but it won’t. Simple human nature. IT WON’T WORK, and wishing it did work won’t make it work.

You all insist that we follow the law. But people aren’t going to follow the law because as you all point out, they’re greedy bastards. You can’t stop greedy bastards by yelling at them on the internet that they’re greedy. It won’t work.

The current system cannot work unless you come up with a way to transform those greedy bastards into altruists. That’s not going to happen today or tomorrow, or next week. Since the current copyright system won’t work unless human nature is changed from greed to altruism, the current copyright system won’t work. Period.

Maybe some other system will. Remember, I WANT artists to be compensated, I just wish there was some way of doing so. Maybe there is no way. But if we keep going the way you guys insist we go, then the future is that artists will get nothing. You keep insisting that artists deserve compensation, yet under your preferred copyright scheme artists will get ripped off, and will continue to get ripped off, forever. When we ask how you’re going to stop the ripoffs you just insist that the ripoffs HAVE to stop, you don’t explain how to stop them. And that’s because there’s no way to stop them.

Which is why we need a copyright system that works in the computer age. Restricting copying is a shiboleth. It’s foolish. Rather than restricting copying and distribution we have to allow it and figure out some way for creators to be paid even with free copying. Because if we can’t then the future is that creators get nothing. I don’t like that future, so I’d rather figure out some other way of doing business.

157

In what way is anything “free” from competition? There are lots of different songs created by different artists, if I don’t like the price or quality or both from artist A I can look at what artist B has to offer.

158

If we were talking strictly about the original work of the artist, yes. It is easy to think this is what is under discussion in filesharing complaints from both sides, and indeed one side seems obsessively preoccupied with it (not without merit). Nevertheless, copyright is about reproduction of the work. Artists can compete with each other regardless of who can reproduce their work. They do so every time one band is playing at the Agora while another is playing at the Grog Shop.

What it is hard to do is find a way to profit from digital reproduction of the work. Everyone suggests, because we’ve always done so, that artists should receive the proceeds from reproduction, or at least a portion of them (publishers/distributors have to stay in business, too!), but that doesn’t mean it must be this way, and the problem is that digital reproduction is so damned inexpensive.

159

But yes, substitute goods would constitute competition. But we’re not discussing substitute goods, we’re discussing reproduction of copyrighted material which, legally, is free from competition. It’s important to keep the layers of this discussion manageable. One side seems quick to jump to the protection of “artists” and the other seems quick to bash the record industry and both sides seem to lose sight of what the real problem is. It’s just this: reproduction has become practically free. Moral highgrounds cannot make this basic fact vanish.

160

We grant creators this entitlement to promote creation. If the entitlement instead results in creators making one thing and then nothing else, it is not performing its required function of promoting creation and the entitlement should be revoked.

Or if it results in rights holders using the rights we have granted them to impede the progress of other creators, we should revoke those rights.

How are you defining “good movie”? Primer had a budget of $7000. I would prefer we make 25 THOUSAND small budget films like Primer than ONE big budget movie like Waterworld.