Morality of Downloading Music

Great Debates
141

I think it is an acceptable working restatement of my position. I would make 1 (very) minor nitpick. The act which violates IP is copying with our permision. Downloading a copy that someone else created might more correctly be considered facilitaion or furtherance.

Let me see if I can answer your question this way. BTW, I haven’t gone in this direction before because I thought it was somewhat outside the scope of this thread. But perhaps it is not anymore.

The justification for private ownership of property has absolutely nothing to do with these societal purposes. I have “ownership rights” to the property I create because it is an expendature of my life. If I spend a year rasing a crop of grain, then I own the grain. Not because my ownership is the most “efficient allocation of scarce resources”, but because my life is mine and not subject to any “societal purpose” at all.

The same principal applies to intellectual labor. In fact, it is this concept of my ownership of intellectual property which is primary. That is, the most important reason that I own my crops is not because I shoveled manure, but because I carefully managed the fields for the last umpteen years, I carefully chose the best crop to grow, I knew when to plant it, when to irrigate it, and all of the other intellectual labor which goes into developing any resource.

That’s it.

Just so we don’t repeat ourselves, please don’t suggest that competition is violating IP. In the example I didn’t invent farming or develop the species of crop.

As I indicated above, you do in fact own the concepts and ideas for the same reasons that you own any property that you develop. However, as you point out, owning ideas has several differences from owning physical property. But I contend that the relationship between those differences is the other way around. The morality of IP ownership is the moral justification for the ownership of physical property. Specifically the expenditure of intellectual labor confers far more value into property than eht expenditure of physical labor.

So, while it may require some labor on my part to copy a CD, that amount of labor does not transfer ownership of the IP to me. At least not unless I discharge the debt I owe to the author of the IP. And that can only be done in the free market. Which means that if I want to copy a CD I have to get permision of the CD’s creator.

There are, of course, many other issues involved with deliniating exactly what rights a developer of IP should have. And even then the discussion would not be complete without listing the rights that a purchaser of a copy of the IP is able to assert. But for the purposes of the OP it should be sufficient that we talk about:

The morality of controlling (owning) IP
The nature of IP as it relates to copying
The rights of a purchaser of IP as it relates to copying
The rights of a developer of IP as it relates to copying

I think I have to include the disclaimer that I am not defending the RIAA or the DMCA. Just the principle of IP.

I certainly did not invent these arguments. I don’t have a bunch of cites, but if you look up John Locke and Intellectual Property you will find a plethora of interesting legal arguments. Also, I have been heavily invluenced by Ayn Rand’s article Patents and Copyrights published in the book Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal. These and other sources explain the the issues much better than I can.

142

Then this is where we disagree. I don’t believe “exclusive use” applies at all to IP.

It’s only unacceptable if someone can demonstrate that the owner of a particular IP is indeed morally entitled to “exclusive use”.

143

This is were I continue to misunderstand. What exactly does it mean to own something and not have exclusive use of it? If you own a car, you have exclusive use of it. I can’t use it in any way whatsoever without your permision and even then, only in ways that you specify. Obviously, you don’t have exclusive use of all cars. But I am not using that as my example. By the same token, If I own the IP contained in a book, I am not claiming ownership of all books. Just the one I created.
If you don’t have exclusive use of your original ideas, what do you have exclusive use of? Your physical labor?

144

That’s a marketing decision my son would have to make, not a moral one.

But suppose, to raise money to produce his CD, he decides to hold a concert. He figures if he sells 500 tickets in a hall that seats 800, he’ll raise enough money, and anything else is profit.

The night of the concert, he does sell 500 tickets. You’re walking by. You don’t have a ticket, you weren’t going to buy a ticket, but you notice the side door is unguarded. You slip in unnoticed, sit in one of the unoccupied seats, don’t disturb anyone else, and leave at the end with everyone else. Did you do anything wrong? After all, you’ve deprived the performer of nothing.

Let’s say you take it one step further and bring a small recorder to the concert. The tickets say “You may not make a recording of this concert” – but you didn’t buy a ticket, so you aren’t bound by anything the ticket says. You then listen to your recording of the concert afterwards. When the CD comes out a few weeks later, you either do buy a copy of it (because the audio quality is better) or don’t (because you already have the music that’s on the CD.) Anything wrong there?

Take it one step further. You then share that file with everyone you think would be interested in that music. According to Gorsnak’s reasoning, that’s a good thing, because it exposes the music to people who otherwise wouldn’t have heard it, right?

And let’s take it to the final step. You take the recording you had made and sell copies of it. You don’t claim that it’s your work – in fact, you make it clear that it’s not an “official” copy. You yourself are not misrepresenting anything, so morally you’re in the clear.

For those of you who assert that others on this board “demonstrate that the owner of a particular IP is indeed morally entitled to exclusive use” – what sort of demonstration are you asking for? May we also ask for a “demonstration” that the owner of a particular IP is NOT morally entitled to benefit from the creation and use of that effort, just as he/she would be for physical property?

145

Blake

[Moderator Hat ON]

Blake, comments such as the above are NOT appropriate for this forum. If you absolutely must call people stupid, do it in the BBQ Pit.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

146

Quick question.

Have you any other cites which indicate that “private copying” includes filesharing? Like a court case or something? It seems clear from the brief snipets of the law included in your cite that it was indended to allow people to make copies of musical CDs as long as they did not then proceed to compete with the original artist using those copies.

147

It means you get credit for being the owner and you have the right to use the work however you choose, among other things.

I believe exclusive use only applies to physical property (PP), where it’s a right given to the owner by necessity. Exclusive use is an extension of the PP owner’s right to use his property however he chooses; since he can’t use it at the same time as someone else, he must be able to decide who can use it at any given time. That isn’t necessary with IP–the owner can sell CDs containing his song and sell some rights to an ad agency, while simultaneously, someone else is listening to it and another person is trading it online–and I don’t see a reason to hand out unnecessary rights.

I do believe the owner should have an exclusive right to profit from the IP, but that doesn’t include the right to stop others from reducing his profits. I’m not sure if I even have a moral justification for that right.

148

If I understand your reasoning, the creator of the work would have the right NOT to release it. That would be “using the work however you choose.”

Suppose I write a story, but feel it doesn’t live up to the standards I set for myself. I have the right to throw it away, correct?

Suppose someone goes through my trash, finds the manuscript and publishes it without my knowledge or consent. That deprives me of nothing, since I already chose not to try and profit from it, correct?

Suppose even that the finder doesn’t try to profit from it, but only puts it on a website as “Kunilou’s unpublished manuscript.” Nothing wrong there, since he’s not profiting from it, either. Right?

If I threw it out because it’s the worst piece of crap I’ve ever written, and I felt that publishing it would ruin my reputation as a writer, well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?

Oh, wait! You said that I have the right to use my work however I choose. That must imply that I have a right NOT to have someone else use it.

Gorsnak asked earlier why my son wouldn’t want to increase his profit potential via filesharing. The answer is – he wants to release the material on CD. Perhaps he’ll change his mind later, perhaps not. Does he have the right to choose his medium?

Does a sculptor have the right to break the mold after one casting, rather than make another 50 identical copies? If you find the mold, does that give you the right to re-assemble it and make copies?

If the creator of the work has the ultimate right to produce or not to produce, and the right to determine how best to produce that work, then I submit the creator also has the right to determine how the work may be distributed, and how it may not.

149

You mean that I have a right to use any copies of the work I might happen to have in my possesion, yes? Because while you say that I have the right to use “the work”, you also want to claim that you have the exact same right to use it. I think this relegates the IP which results from intellectual labor to the non existant.

The language is archaic, and he is talking about PP instead of IP, but…

I found this here. The site discusses a LOT of other issues, but it does address the morality of private property better than I have been able to.

The point being that it is the labor involved in creating property which conveys ownership. Not simply because two people cannot use it at the same time. But because one person had to “remove it from the state nature left it in”. That is, had to develop it.

150

pervert:

I see where you’re coming from, but I completely disagree with your assertion of the primacy of the concept of property as it applies to intangible entities. To me, the moral value of copyright is in its encouragement of the widespread distribution of thoughts and ideas, so that they can be built upon by others for the good of humanity.

Unlike a piece of physical property, an idea can be analyzed, deconstructed, improved upon, and otherwise changed by an arbitrarily large number of people, assuming they are aware of it in the first place. These newly generated ideas can then be further passed on to an arbitrarily large group of people, who can then pass on their new ideas, and so on, in a huge number of virtuous cycles. Many of these newly generated ideas will have little value, but some will have greater value than the original idea. The likelihood of producing ideas of greater value will increase with the increasing currency of the idea. So it is in the moral interest of society to find a balance between encouraging distribution and modification of existing ideas and creating incentives for the creation of new ideas.

Relating this back to the OP, I would argue that the act of downloading music is morally justified (and, in fact, a virtuous act) if it has a net positive effect on the generation of creative works. It is morally neutral if it has no effect on the generation of creative works, and it is immoral if it has a net negative effect on the generation of creative works.

By thinking of ideas as property, the distribution of which is wholly controlled by the creating entity, we are throwing out much of the inherent and potential value of the ideas themselves to society. There may be some value in providing support in copyright for individuals’ control over the fruits of their labors, but as a controlling philosophy I can’t help but see this view as a parochial and immoral perversion of copyright. (Did that get your blood boiling? ;))

151

kunilou, it seems to me that the logical conclusion of your arguments is that I am not morally entitled to do anything with your son’s cd that he wouldn’t approve of. That is clearly false. He wants to release it as a cd. Well, that’s nice. But it doesn’t prevent me from putting it on a cassette at half-speed and listening to it while stoned. That he wouldn’t approve of the way I’ve distorted his original music is irrelevant. Now, your original argument way up the thread seemed to suggest your chief problem with people hypothetically file-sharing your son’s music was the potential lost revenue. For small local acts, I think this concern is ill-founded, for reasons given. If I’m right about this, then file-sharing cannot be immoral because of the lost revenue, as there would actually be revenue gains. It might still be immoral for other reasons, but those arguments have yet to be made. “Distorting the artist’s vision” seems to be about the only alternative, but it’s not clear why, once art has been presented to the public, nothing can be done with it without the artist’s consent. Copyright provides a legal monopoly on the right to profit from its sale, why should it do more than that? Do you think writing fanfic should be illegal? Do you think parody should be illegal? Do you think ripping chapter 5 from the latest Stephen King and giving it to your neighbour should be illegal? Do you think my singing your son’s songs in the shower for the benefit of the guy in the next apt should be illegal?

What, if my actions don’t violate his monopoly, have I done wrong? Releasing one’s work to the public entails losing a degree of control. I’m sure Sting shudders whenever he hears a drunken rendition of “Roxanne”, but there’s bugger all he can do about it, and that’s as it should be. If one wants complete control over one’s art, one has no business releasing it to the public to begin with.

pervert: I have no other cite. I did pose more or less that same question in GQ a few days ago, but the thread sunk like a stone without a single response. I see no reason to think the article is in error, though, and I’m not inclined to dig up further evidence. Feel free to look yourself, naturally.

152

Thank you Gaudere. I thought his comments were over the top and I sure didn’t appreciate them.

153

Just so we are all clear on this, and I am, of course, not speaking for kunilou. Let me lay out the way I think copyrights work. Of course IANAL. Also, I realize this is a legal rather than moral argument, but I’ll tie it in at the end.

I don’t think arguing for property rights as it relates to IP is claiming “complete” control over copies of the work. Built into the copyright laws is the concept of “fair use”. I believe this concept essentially says that as a purchaser of a copy of a work of IP you are entitled to use that work in any of several ways. As it applies to CDs, I think you are allowed to use it to listen to the CD privately (which I think includes small gatherings) and possibly to make copies of the CD to facilitate this. The Canadian law Gorsnak cited specifically allows this. There are, of course, other uses which are allowed by “fair use”. But these are the ones important to the OP.

However, you are not allowed to make copies and use them in a way which constitutes “unfair competition”. So, this means you are not allowed to buy 1 copy of a work and then duplicate it and sell it as your own. You are not allowed to play it for large groups. Of course, you can get permision from the artist or his agent for these things.

No one (in this thread) is trying to claim that ownership of IP grants the owner control over singing in the shower. I am only suggesting that the owner of IP is owed a debt for his creation by those who use it. And, as it relates to the OP, that debt consists of paying for copies of his work, and not destroying the market for that work.

154

Nothing in my arguments is designed to prevent this. If you hear a piece of music and are inspired to write a new one which is similar, that would not necessarily be immoral.

The problem, of course, is that this definition of morality leads to all kinds of nightmares. It is the basis for socialism, facism, and many other evils which have plagued mankind throughout history. And this particular issue is probably outside the scope of the OP.

But while we are offtrack…

Actually the only thing I object to is the parochial part.:slight_smile: The esthetics of perversion are also outside the scope of this OP, but suffice it to say that the perversion of a vice is not immoral.:smiley:

155

It seems to me the entire thread is about whether (1) intangibles (i.e., a file) have a value and (2) whether obtaining and using that intangible without the creator’s consent is immoral, even if no one profits from it.

In regards to the first issue, I submit that the precedent for intangibles having value goes back at least as far as the Old Testament, e.g. the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Bearing false witness involves words. Words have no intrinsic value. Bearing false witness might affect (either positively or negatively) a person’s reputation, but reputation has no intrinsic value.

Whether or not you happen to subscribe to a religion that accepts the Ten Commandments as part of its values, I think you can agree that the concept of moral precepts encompassing intangibles was stipulated long before computers were invented.

As to whether any given downloader would have paid for the work if the file had not been available, obviously I can’t prove that it would have happened anymore than you can prove that it would not, so we’ll have to declare that part of the issue moot.

The final part of the argument involves whether making, distributing and receiving an exact copy of the work somehow violates the creator’s right to own and profit from it.

I return to my analogy of a sculptor making a cast. If you reassemble the mold and make “perfect duplicates” of my work, and hand them out on a street corner, I think you have violated my right to own and profit from my work. Just because you personally aren’t profiting from my work doesn’t mean you haven’t made an affirmative action that damages my ownership.

The next question is whether the person who downloads the file is acting morally or immorally. Can the person obtain the information (the exact information) on the file in other ways? Yes. It might take some effort, but it is possible. Did the person take action to receive the file? Yes. The person CHOSE to download it – it did not just mysteriously appear on a hard drive.

As the downloader has made a decision freely and taken an action, I therefore believe he/she is culpable. And the downloader certainly profits from downloading. “Profit” after all, is not simply money. Profit can include benefit. Once you download the file, your benefit (i. e., profit) is that you have unlimited, permanent access to the entire work.

To those who would argue that file-sharing is simply capitalism at work, I believe that’s twisting the definition of capitalism. Capitalism depends on the consent of both parties. Assuming you agree that the owner of the work has ANY RIGHTS AT ALL to his work after it is offered to the public, then downloading does not meet the criterion of a consensual transaction and the argument of “capitalism” does not apply.

Regarding your questions about fan fiction, singing in the shower, ripping a chapter out of a novel, etc. All of those involve changing the original in some way so that it is no longer a copy and/or is no longer represented as being the creator’s original work. Trademark advocates will argue that fan fic and parody involve plagiarism, but I’m not prepared to accept that argument as a general principle.

156

Did I just call you a Facist AND a Socialist? How’s that for boiling blood? :):):slight_smile:

157

Nothing in your arguments is designed to promote it either. Unless I’ve missed something, you haven’t presented any principle that moderates your claim of exclusive rights for the creator. Yet, you seem to believe that fair use is moral. How do you justify that belief? How about the morality of compulsory licensing (e.g. licensing of music on the radio and in public venues)?

Whoa, boy. I’m not advocating this approach as a general principle, just for intangible creative works. You do realize that the US constitutional basis for copyright is very much in line the justification that I provided:

158

Capitalism doesn’t exist in a void, though. The terms of consent depend on what society has defined consent to be, and which acts shall require consent.

Your phrase “ANY RIGHTS AT ALL” is misleading. If, for the sake of argument, we suppose that the owner of the work has an exclusive right to profit from his work, but not to prevent others from distributing copies, then it doesn’t matter whether or not I have his consent unless I want to make a profit from his work. Downloading could still be called “nonconsensual”, just like buying a new car could be called “nonconsensual” if my neighbor doesn’t like the color, but it would be irrelevant.

159

All right, I’m going to take a crack at this one, and answer the original OP (with some of the replies in mind).

Some people (notably Blake) have argued that it is not immoral to download music because it does not take anything away from anyone. You are using a copy, and everyone else still has their copies. However, I think some others have pointed out that the artist in question would lose revenue from their work if people copied instead of bought. And (correct me if I’m wrong) Blake argued that artists don’t have a moral right to make money off of their intellectual property; they can if they want to (by selling CDs or whatever), but if people choose to download their product for free without their consent, it is not a moral wrong.

But I do see the whole file-sharing apparatus as immoral, because of the following. When a band puts together a song and releases a CD (either by themselves or through a company), they are expecting to make their living off of their work. OK, so just because they are expecting to do so, that doesn’t mean it is immoral to act contrary to their expectation, right? However, explicitly stated in the text of the album is a prohibition on copying and redistributing the music. I think that this agreement is also implicitly known by most people as common sense. Thus I would argue that when you are buying a CD, you are also agreeing to these terms, for both the explicit prohibition written in the CD jacket and the common sense understanding that this is how things work in this society. If you do not want to subscribe to this agreement, then you should not buy the CD. Otherwise, I think you are morally bound to this agreement, as you are morally bound to any agreement, no matter how unenforcable it is (and certainly, it is very unlikely to get caught breaking this agreement). Note that this is not a legal argument, but a moral one. I think it is immoral to break an agreement.

As for downloaders, they are taking advantage of sharers’ having broken their agreement. Again, most downloaders know that the copyright agreement exists, and that it applies directly to some of the works they are downloading. Whether or not the copyright is a good idea or not, you are, by downloading, helping someone break their agreement with whatever entity supplied the original CD (who expressly forbade redistribution as an implicit contract that comes with the work). I think it is immoral to help someone break their agreement.

Therefore, I think it is immoral to download works that you know are copyrighted.

Notice that I don’t say anything about the corruption in the music industry, or the worthiness of copyright law. I think they are irrelevant to this way of looking at it. An agreement that is made in good faith (i.e. not under duress) should be honored. I believe that this agreement is implicit when buying CDs. And I think it immoral to break the agreement. If you think the agreement is a bad one, then lobby to change it, or support labels that don’t have such an agreement, or boycott until they do change it. This is not a necessity that we can’t live without; there is no overriding moral reason to take the immoral action of breaking (or helping to break) an agreement.

(sorry for the repetition… I guess i’m just reiterating my position to clarify it for myself)

Please feel free to point out flaws in my reasoning or assumptions (why am I saying this? I know you will anyway ;))

160

Well, I would argue that the best way to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", is to protect the property rights of those who create it. And it seems from your quote that the Founding Fathers agree with me. :slight_smile:

Of course I think that’s not the moral argument for why we should protect them, nor for why they exist. But it is only one of the arguments I have with our founding documents. :smiley:

Sorry if I got carried away. I probably forgot a couple smileys. I know you were not advocating those social systems in general. But you did advocate the philosophies behind them. :wink:

I have said a few times that I think the DMCA has gone too far. And that the RIAA is too agressive for my taste. I said this to indicate that I had not been discussing all of the rights or responsibilities of the artists. This starts to get far beyond the OP. How exactly the ownership rights should be limited is a whole discussion in itself. But just for fun, let me try. I’m quoting from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal since it says it more succintly than I can.