Allow me to invoke Ghandi’s alt march (http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Dandi.html) for an example of working within the system vs civil disobedience. The Indian people could not extract salt. That right had essentially been sold to various corporations. The Indian people had almost no power within the system. Your argument requires that either Ghandi was undertaking an immoral act by making tiny amounts of salt and that he should have attempted to work within the system, despite being fully aware that that would fail. I disagree with both those conclusions.
The ban on Indians extracting salt was exactly like the music download laws. It caused no one any direct harm but it did allow monopolisation by corporations. It was however an immoral law simply because there was no moral basis for it. It caused resentment and inconvenience and limited opportunities for the powerless for the benefit of the powerful. Changing the law from within the system was impossible because of the power structure. The corporations and British elite held such a massive political and economic advantage that legal change was never going to occur. Instead Ghandi invoked civil disobedience. In the same way I do not believe that I can change the copyright laws form within the system. Time-Warner and Disney have too much money, too much lobbying power, too much media control for me to ever affect change.
There are countless people getting hurt by the illegal stealing of songs.
(1) the labels are getting hurt. (not all labels are huge mega labels, and even if they were, it doesn’t matter. This isn’t the middle ages, and the Robin Hood mentality isn’t going to cut it.)
(2) the artists and songwriters are getting hurt, as they are losing out on revenue, which puts the bread on their table. Not all artists or songwriters are rich. Something like 90% of all releases on major labels are flops, with the remaining 10% evening out the budgets.
(3) the studios are getting hurt, as budgets get smaller and less money is spent in these places.
(4) the personel that works in these studios (engineers etc.) are getting hurt, as this in turn means less work for them.
(5) other areas are also effected, as smaller budgets leads to less promotion, ads, etc.
It’s a big ripple effect, that will eventually lead to worse music, imo.
Would anybody here like it, if you knew that %10-%20 (guesstimate) of your yearly salary was taken away from you all of a sudden ? Somehow I doubt it.
You are going to have to define harm if you want to follow this line of reasoning. The artists are certainly not physically or psychologically harmed as one might define it in the instance of an assault or an armed robbery. They ar not financially harmed insofar as they have the same finances after I download music as they did before I downloaded it.
I suspect that you are invoking harm in the sense that they have lost intellectual property rights. I will refer you to my post above on why I o not believe that intellectual property is a moral right.
I have yet to see anyone present a reason why they are morally justified. That is the whole point of this thread. One could argue an economic justification, but that is another debate. I am not arguing whether music downloading should be legal, I am arguing that it is not immoral and that I have seen no moral arguments for why it should be illegal.
I would be interested in hearing how you came to that conclusion. It seems self-contradictory. Any financial benefit, to the artist, of sales can only have come from the purchaser. Any financial harm can therefore only come from the purchaser becoming a downloader. Therefore the financial loss to the artist caused by downloading can never possibly be greater than the financial inconvenience to the downloader caused by not being able to download.
In short, this is an equation operating in a closed system. Any loss from one side must be comparable to gains on the other. Unless you are going to start arguing ecnomies of scale etc I can’t see how the above statement can be true.
If inconvenience is not a harm then how can loss of intellectual property be a harm? You really need to define harm because it appears that you are not applying it as just simple economic, physical or psychological harm.
Beyond that, in some circumstances I would agree about balancing harms but not always. You may well suffer more harm from seeing me kiss my gay lover on the streets than I would suffer if I didn’t do that on the streets, but my response would still be “tough shit”. In many circumstances freedoms/rights outweigh an awful lot of harm. Or perhaps you could just argue that restricting a freedom is a form of massive harm.
Daisy Cutter
I agree with what you say factually in terms of downloading harming the music industry/musicians. I disagree with your conclusions and the implications you draw form those facts.
Firstly I don’t agree that it will eventually lead to worse music. It’s impossible to prove, but most music in human history was written and performed sans copyright. More importantly most music never becomes a copyright issue. There are plenty of manufactured bands around now, but there are also plenty of garage/pub bands that made it big and got downloaded because they wrote good music. They didn’t write good music because they were copyrighted. People are naturally artistic and musicians will always perform. To argue that lack of copyright will lead to worse music is tantamount to arguing all garage bands and all music written before the copyright laws is worse than all music subject to copyright challenges.
The argument that people wouldn’t like losing 20% of their income is highly spurious because it depends on an assumption that those artists have amoral right to that income. I’m sure the local coffee shop didn’t like it when Starbucks opened next door and they lost 10-20% of their annual profits. That doesn’t make what Starbucks did immoral or illegal. In our supposedly laissez faire capitalist system it is up to every individual to utilise whatever methods are available to maximise their own returns, and the market acts by attempting to obtain those services at the lowest possible price. It is not immoral of me to leave my barber for free cuts at the local barber college just because my barber will lose income.
I think you missed my qualifier, way back in a post, that I was speaking of the morality of obeying laws in a democractic society. Your example is not a democractic society.
Exactly the same? Again, I ask you if you think copyright laws are immoral. I think this is a critical aspect of the equation.
Again, note the inportance of democracy. Do you think copyright laws need to be changed? If so, why can’t you change them from within the system?
If you actualy think copyright laws are immoral, then we will never agree on my proposition. Perhaps that’s the point where we need to agree to disagree.
On scottmccloud.com , Scott McCloud writes the following in support of micropayments for online content:
“Most users are neither Saints nor Sinners. If getting it legitimately is just a few more cents, while getting it for free is just a little more work (or even risk), a significant number will “do the right thing” at the drop of a hat. At a time when 1% of computer users (Mac owners running OS X) just bought 10 million songs in four months—nearly all of which they probably could have found for free with a little effort—it seems a little odd to be speaking of the collapse of paid content.”
I agree that the internet should really be a “money vs effort” place. If you’ve got no money, well, if you look hard enough, you can find just about anything you want. But if you do have money (and the amount of money needed is dwindling all the time), then you can go right to, say, Radiohead’s website and get a very cheap, very reliable, and very high-quality recording of their music. And as prices for legitimate online product go down, the effort required to find it for free will go up.
On scottmccloud.com , Scott McCloud writes the following in support of micropayments for online content:
“Most users are neither Saints nor Sinners. If getting it legitimately is just a few more cents, while getting it for free is just a little more work (or even risk), a significant number will “do the right thing” at the drop of a hat. At a time when 1% of computer users (Mac owners running OS X) just bought 10 million songs in four months—nearly all of which they probably could have found for free with a little effort—it seems a little odd to be speaking of the collapse of paid content.”
I agree that the internet should really be a “money vs effort” place. If you’ve got no money, well, if you look hard enough, you can find just about anything you want. But if you do have money (and the amount of money needed is dwindling all the time), then you can go right to, say, Radiohead’s website and get a very cheap, very reliable, and very high-quality recording of their music. And as prices for legitimate online product go down, the effort required to find it for free will go up.
No I didn’t miss that, and I am well aware India was not democratic. I consider it irrelevant. If it is impossible for an individual to change the system due to overwhelming advantage on the part of the then disobediance is moral. It doesn’t matter if the advantage is gained because the opposition has all the guns and is a dictatorship, or if the advantage is there because the opposition has unlimited economic resources. The fight can never be won by playing within the system because the system reinforces the status quo. Just because we have a democracy does not morally oblige me to follow every law. That is a position without basis and seriously flawed to boot. I will accept that one should work within the system within reason, but when working within the system is futile why should one accept the status quo just because a lot of other people do? The reason I say that it is seriously flawed to assume that there is a moral obligation to follow ‘neutral; laws in a democracy is because we don’t vote on these issues. We vote for people whose platforms often never address these issues and who are then open to bribery, coercion, lobbying etc to create certain positions. The majority may mildly disagree or be unaware of the position. How then is it immoral to oppose such a position?
It just seems that you are arguing that the is a immoral to oppose neutral laws in a democracy just because it is. Is there any justification for such a position? I would agree that if a referendum were held on a truly neutral proposition such as prohibition then one could possibly argue that morally one is wrong and being duplicitous by accepting the benefits of society while opposing societies will. However where society has no clear will, or where society’s will is based on enforced ignorance or seriously biased, flawed, slanted or corrupted sources then there is no moral obligation to endorse a decision that is based on deception to begin with.
That is the whole subject of this debate. No one has yet shown that copyright laws have any moral basis. That doesn’t necessarily make them immoral, but it does mean that disobeying them is not immoral. I will restate what I have said before: personally believe that any law is immoral if in interferes with the people without moral cause. It’s a default position.
Would you agree John Mace that impinging on another’s freedom is automatically immoral if there is no overriding moral basis for doing so? That it is immoral of me to order two homosexuals to stop kissing in public when there is no moral reason to do so? That it is immoral to order a black man to sit at the back of the bus when there is no moral reason why he might not sit at the front? Or do you believe, as your argument suggests, that it is moral to do both those things so long as a majority of people agree with me? Does
Nobody has a moral right to it. Or perhaps more accurately in our capitalist society anybody who can convince a person to part with it has the right to it. Whether that is the artist or the corner bottle shop who can convince me to buy a bottle of Beam rather than a CD.
In return Yosemitebabe can I ask who you believe has the moral right to the coffee shop’s income in the example I gave above? Is it the coffee shop who earned that amount last year, or Starbuck’s who is earning it now? Is Starbucks performing an immoral act by depriving the competion of income?
Of course they do, as does everybody else. To the extent that it harms no one else they have the right to exchange their services or products for whatever the market will stand. Just like bricklayers, brain surgeons and short-order chefs.
Gotta go for the evening. But I’m very much enjoying this debate and hope we can continue tomorrow. Just a note, though. I didn’t think we were arguing copyright laws per se, but just music downloads. And the question being, is there a difference?
I’m not arguing copyright laws. I’m arguing the morality of downloading music. I only mentioned copyright laws because you asked me about it directly several times.
Having siad that the two are closely interrelated. Any conclusion reached regarding dowmnlaoding music also applies to downloading novels, copying CDs, recording LPs and other breaches of copyright. Although the specifics might change the general argument remains the same.
I guess this is really a debate on whether it is morsl to breach copyright.
The morality of intellectual property is derived from your right to profit from your labor. If you expend labor you have some right to profit by that work. Now I think we can all agree that in the case of physical devices (crops, machines, etc) this is easy to accept. That is, if I build a machine, I should be the one who profits by selling it or using it. But a similar principle suggests that if I create a book, I should be the one to profit by it.
No. It may be improper for me to copy methods or plans which are not common knowledge, or at least well known, but being first is not the same as being original. If you write a book about moving tractors somewhere and selling them, then maybe you have a right to own the idea. But owning an idea does not prevent others from doing similar things.
For instance if you build a tractor dealership and start to sell tractors, I certainly do not have a right to move into the CEO’s office of your building and start changing your prices. However, if I build my own dealership and find another source for tractors thers nothing you can do.
My point being that competition is not copying.
I assume from this that your work does not involve thinking. Since thinking involves the creation or re arranging of ideas and you have no moral right to own what you create
Well, the difference in music before there was copyright laws and now, is that before, people did not record their music for release. There was no production process involved. Also I have read that the composers guarded their sheet music very closely hundreds of years ago, so that only they could perform it. One can argue that perhaps the quality of the raw songs itself will not suffer, as all it takes to write a good song is a cheap guitar/piano and a talented songwriter. However, I think it is fairly safe to state that the quality of the final production will most definitely suffer. Who is going to spend $100,000 to record a CD, if there is no chance of seeing any money back ?
When somebody pops a Sting (insert big artist of your own preference here) CD in their player, the people behind that product are professionals, who have devoted their entire lives to their career. It would hardly sound the same if a bunch of amatuers had attempted the same thing.
Engineers spend thousands of dollars on schooling etc. to pursue their career choices. As an example, if the music biz evolved into a copyrightless business in the future, nobody would be bothered to pursue these career choices, as they would be doomed to a miserable life of starvation.
Now, if some local bands want to release their homemade product on the net for free, then this is fine, and hopefully plenty of people download their stuff. More power to them. The people that fall into this category may very well be talented in terms of musicianship etc., but they are also amatuers in regards to recording/producing their music, which is why most homemade music sounds like crap, from a production standpoint.
However, If I spend $10,000 out of my own pocket to record a song, which I own the rights and publishing to, then it is not ok for people to download my work, without compensating me for it. I decide how my product will be distributed, not anybody else.
The thing is, most of the people saying that the music that the majors release today sucks, are usually not downloading “free” mp3s from some homemade garage band, they are downloading metallica (insert artist of choice) tunes. I find this kind of hypocritical.
I’m just curious, this no copyright theory: Does this apply to everything or just music ?
Do certain people think everything in our society should be copyright free ?
Personally, I find the idea absurd, and I’m pretty sure that this will never happen in our lifetime.
Do you have a cite for the claim that record companies are losing money to file sharing, instead of to a weak economy, or to other entertainment media (DVDs, video games)?
The last statistics I saw showed that the music industry’s revenue had dropped, but not nearly as much as the number of releases had dropped - i.e., they’re releasing fewer albums but making more money per album.
No, I have no cite to show that labels are losing money due to file sharing. I agree with you however that there are a number of other factors also involved, and not just filesharing.
I am just speaking from personal experience. As an example, there was an album that I was involved in that was released about a year ago. About two weeks after the album hit the store shelves, I logged on to a few different filesharing systems to see how many tracks from that specific album were already floating around the net. There were literally hundreds of tracks already up being shared from that specific album, something a simple search revealed. I also downloaded these tracks to verify that they were indeed the same original tracks from that album. Those hundreds of tracks were in turn being downloaded by many more people, obviously. So, it is reasonable to assume that thousands of people had downloaded certain tracks from that album. Had most of those people gone out and bought the album, had they not downloaded it for free ? No, certainly not. It is however, reasonable to assume that a certain percentage of them would have. So based on that example, I think it is not far fetched to prove a certain loss of revenue. How much this percentage figure is, I have no idea, but it would be absurd to assert that no revenue is being lost.
What makes you so sure? All you know is they have MP3s of the songs from that album on their computer.
You don’t know whether they downloaded the MP3s from someone else or ripped them from a CD. You don’t know whether they bought the album, or others from the same band, after hearing the MP3s.
If you lose revenue from one source, but gain revenue from another source, you can’t really call it a loss.
For example, suppose there’s a band that released three albums. I heard one of their songs on the radio and downloaded a few of their MP3s. I liked them so much that I bought that album (their second), and later bought their first album. Then I got a copy of their third album from a friend, who downloaded the songs.
That band lost the sale of their third album, but gained the sale of their first two albums. Without file sharing, I never would have bought any of them. That’s a net gain for the band, not a loss.
Of course, I’m not the only person who downloads music. Neither of us knows how many file sharers cause net gains and how many cause net losses, so anecdotes aren’t going to prove anything.
It’s an example of something that is wrong legally but everyone does it, almost like jaywalking and speeding. Sure, the copyright issue factors into it, and the artists are getting screwed, but let’s face it. It’s morally wrong but we all do it. Why? Deep down we know the record companies have always screwed the artist. The only difference was that the legal system didn’t have protection set up for the musical artist. The legal system does, however, protect the companies.
Record companies have always screwed over the musical artist, from the moment rock gained predominance, and record executives never shed on tear. Black artists have always led the way for popular music, and in the 50’s record companies ripped them off, slapped a white face onto it and made a crapload of cash of their backs. Did they give a lot in return? Only if your definition of “a lot” includes “jack squat”. And it’s been like that, in one form or another, ever since. How many published and recorded songs today “sample” other music and give nothing back in return? Is the record company defense or RIAA going after them? Hell no! They’re publishing them!
So do I feel bad when I download music? A little. Enough to make me stop? Nope. The reason record companies are crapping their pants at the moment is because, for the first time in history the public has a say in the whole affair. Their only stance? “It’s morally wrong”, when in fact, they never had that moral ground to begin with and we know it.
I agree wholeheartedly. You have the right to profit form that to the extent that the market will bare. However not having intellectual property does not stop you from profiting from that book any more than not having a patent stops you from profiting form a machine or a crop. As such it has no bearing on my argument.
It is when the competition copies my location and my inventory as in this case. That’s beyond dispute.
I never said that. I sais that EMI has no right to monopolise what they create, not that they have no right to own it.
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Let’s assume that you are right. Why should people be forced into paying for a higher quality product whether they want it ir not? Why shouldn’t people have the choice as to whether they wish to donate to support high quality music or just let high quality die in favour of garage? If people feel that they do not want to produce $10, 000 music for whatever reason they don’t have to. Similarly if they want to they can. It’s their choice. I can’t see why it is moral to force consumers to subsidise that choice by curtailing the choices avialable to the consumer.
This is like forcing people to spend money on the morris dancng so that the quality of morris dance doesn’t decline. It’s a baseless argument. Don’t People have the right to decide how much they wish to fund the quality of any art form, whether it is music or Morris dance?
But this is just argument from assertion. You haven’t yet established that you have a right to any such control. If you don’t want people copying your $10, 000 music then don’t make it publicly available. You were the one who wanted to make this public. To me this is akin to spending $10, 000 dollars landscaping the local park and then telling people that they can’t walk their dogs their because you spent money on it. If you want to spend money on something for public access then the public get the right to use it as thy see fit. If you don’t like the public using it as they see fit don’t make it public.
I will repeat for the umpteenth time: no one has yet presented a reason why the copyright laws are moral.
So said Witchfinder General Pulcifer when someone suggested that witchcraft should not be illegal because it is a valid religion. A concept being absurd to a resident of a culture in which that concept is entrenched does not make it immoral. Nor does the reluctance of the powers-that-be to change that concept.
