I checked some of my CDs and DVDs and they all say something to the effect of, “Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws” in tiny letters on the back.
But is that an agreement? I don’t think so. “By buying this disc, you are agreeing not to copy it” would be an agreement - if it were prominent and visible before you bought the disc (the fine print is often covered by anti-theft devices or stickers), so that it would be reasonable to expect anyone who buys the disc to have read and agreed to it. However, as it is, it’s just a reminder that copying the disc is illegal. We know it’s illegal, the question is, is it moral?
I disagree. Keeping one’s promises is a moral obligation, but no one else is obligated to help you keep them. The weight of breaking that agreement–if indeed there is an agreement at all–is solely on the conscience of the person making the copy, not the person downloading.
The phrase “Unauthorized duplication is a violation of applicable laws” in 4-point type on the back of a CD case, quite possibly hidden under a price tag or a plastic trap, is hardly a morally binding agreement not to duplicate the CD.
First of all, my CD says “All Rights Reserved” as well. And this is Implied even if it is not stated. So I think that the agreement implied by the language on the case is more than just a reminder of the law.
But even if it is not, ignorance of the law is never an excuse. And neither is ignorance of the moral situation.
The way WindWalker laid out his example, he was not making a legal argument. The form that the agreement takes is a technical issue rather than a moral or legal one. For the agreement to be moral, all that is required is that both parties agree. The terms used in making the agreement could be anything at all. For instance, If I am not mistaken, the little tape you have to remove before opening the case says something about copyright laws.
My point is that even this small warning can be taken as a moral agreement. And in fact, the warning could be considered just a curtesy by the artist. He has every right to expect you to be aware of copyright laws, and for you to know that they apply to his works. Therefore, the act of buying a CD could morally be considered agreement to those terms. Specifically, you agree to abide by the copyright laws and the artist agrees to sell you a copy of his works.
As you said yourself:
I’m afraid this is not true either. While you are certainly not obligated to stop the copier from violating his agreement, you are not allowed to help him. And making the copy is not the only thing he did to break that agreement. He also agreed not to distribute any copies. As a downloader, you are certainly helping him distribute them.
Finally, let me reiterate. The moral right to benifit from the work of one’s mind is not granted by the state, or agreement with others. It exists by virtue of the intellectual labor expended to create the work. As such, it is not subject to revocation simply because others don’t like it, or agree to it, or believe in it. It is based on the moral premise that each of us has the right to his own life. And is just as irrevocable.
For instance, we could all agree tomorrow that the Shakespear’s plays wer written by Julias Stimpwinkle from lower Siberia. We could all agree to talk about it that way, we could pass laws declaring it to be true, and we could stop giving credit to William. But that would not alter the fact that morally we owe him a great debt.
<OK, now I’m blathering. I’m going to bed > I hope some of this makes sense in the morning.
Ah, but which “rights” are reserved? The ones listed in copyright law? Government isn’t the arbiter of morality.
It should be clear at this point in the thread that the moral situation is far from obvious.
That’s exactly my point - both parties don’t agree. If I see some tiny little words telling me it’s illegal to copy the CD, how is that an agreement not to copy it? I already know it’s illegal. I never agreed not to break the law. The fine print only means “If you copy it and get caught, you could be punished”.
I’ve never seen that.
When did I agree to abide by copyright laws? If I’m a person driven by morality, then I’ll do what’s moral, no more and no less; I’ll respect copyright law when it prohibits something immoral, and violate it when it prohibits something moral.
Allowed by whom?
I agree with what you’ve written here, but you seem to jump from this point to the idea that the creator has a right not only to benefit from his work, but also to prevent people from having a copy without his permission. I don’t see why he should have any more than an exclusive right to profit from his work, or how it’s moral for people to be denied access to an idea based on the whims of the person who thought it up.
You also haven’t placed any limit on these supposed rights. Surely you don’t believe it’s immoral to copy a Shakespeare play without the permission of Shakespeare’s estate, so at some point time must eclipse the owner’s supposed exclusive right to distribute copies - even though the play is just as much a product of Shakespeare’s intellectual labor today as it was when it was written.
You seem to be misunderstanding the “agreement argument”. Let me see if I can summarize it. And of course, I am certainly not speaking for WindWalker.
The artist places a copy of his work up for sale.
In addition to the monetary price, he places an addition restriction on your use of this copy into the conract between the two of you.
One of these restrictions is that you cannot distribute copies of the work.
Now, instead of having a paper which details every nuance of the agreement, he places a notice on the CD saying that buying it is an indication that you agree to a contract which is publically available.
Finally, the contract in question is the current copyright legislation.
So, with all of that in mind, let me address your question.
Right. Government is not the arbiter of morality. But it is the protector of rights. As such it can be the enumerator of which rights are protected. Relating to this thread, no one is arguing that everything in the current copyright legislation is morally justified.
**
(Let me remind everyone that I am not speaking for WindWalker)
I disagree with this. The moral situation involved with downloading copyrighted files from the internet is quite obvious. The arguments to the contrary amount to little more than rationalizations.
**
But both parties do agree. If you buy the CD, you agree to the terms of that purchase as enumerated by the person you bought it from. The fact that the agreement is not disclosed on the CD case is not relevant. The fact that you don’t agree with the terms is also not relevant. You purchased the CD. In effect, you agreed to the terms. That’s when you agreed to the copyright laws. If you don’t agree to the terms, you have every right NOT to purchase the CD.
**
Well, I certainly could be wrong. I don’t have any of those little stickers. I throw them away when I remove them from my CDs.
**
I meant “allowed by morallity”. A very poor phrase choice on my part. I meant to point out that if it is immoral for one person to break an agreement, then it can be argued that it is immoral for another person to help him do it.
**
Yes. I skipped the arguments detailing how illegitimate copies interfere with the artists right to profit from copies of his work. I am not the one to argue that a sinble copy somehow destroys these rights. This is just as extreme an argument as the other side which says that the artist has no rights to control copies at all. However, I think it is obvious that copying a CD and making this copy available for download to millions of people does certainly affect the artist ability to make a profit from selling copies of his work.
**
Now, this is where we come close to a misunderstanding. I am not suggesting that creating IP grants the creator rights to all ideas. And I am not suggesting that it grants him other works which might use the idea. But it does, and should, grant him many rights (among them excluse distribution rights) to the work that he creates using that idea.
For instance, If I write a book about trees, then I certainly would not claim the right to prevent you from writing another book about trees. However, I certainly would claim the right to prevent you from simply copying my book and distributing it.
**
But I have. Not in the post you quoted, but in previous posts I have acknowledged the limits of time and fair use. And I believe I have indicated that these may not be all of the limits which exist. I have been limiting my arguments to the particular rights and responsibilities of artists and consumers involved in copying and downloading copies of CDs.
**
Correct. Check my quote from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal a few posts above. It specifically mentions time limits. However, I would argue that you cannot copy, word for word, one of Shakespeares plays and distribute it as an original work by MR2001. At least not morally.
This seems to be a common “argument” - alleging that those who want to limit or eliminate copyright law are merely trying to justify… something, but what? An addiction to free content? A bigoted hatred of artists?
I find it to be a crude attack that distracts from the issues, on the edge of being an ad hominem, and I hope we can avoid it in this thread.
Again, though, there’s no indication to the customer that he’s accepting any agreement by buying the CD, unless you’re arguing that there’s always an implicit agreement (with whom?) to obey the law.
The CD case doesn’t say “By buying this disc, you agree to obey applicable copyright laws”, it merely informs the customer that copyright laws exist. I don’t see how a reminder that copying is illegal can be twisted into an agreement not to copy.
I agree that the presence of free copies could impede the copyright holder’s ability to make a profit (though whether it’s actually happened in reality is unclear, and off-topic anyway) - but not that the copyright holder has a right to unimpeded profit. Among other problems, a right to unimpeded profit opens the door to arguments that the artist should have even more rights to prevent his profits from being diminished - perhaps a right to claim damages from a critic who writes a bad review, or another band which releases a similar sounding album at the same time.
In other words, it has yet to be shown that the possibility of copying affecting the artist’s profit implies that the artist has a right to prevent copying.
Yes, the misunderstanding is probably my fault. I use “information” or “idea” to refer to any intellectual property - since a song, painting, or movie can be represented digitally as a number, and indeed is represented as such in most modern cases of copyright infringement. If you accept that a number is an idea, then copyright really is denying people access to an idea based on the whims of the person who thought it up.
That’s the problem with copyright that really sticks in my gut… the absurdity of making it illegal to send a certain number over the internet, or write it on a T-shirt, or mail it in a letter. I believe it’s that same absurdity that leads to the principle of absolute freedom of speech, which is behind projects like Freenet.
Ah, I see.
This might be a whole new discussion in itself, but how do you think the time limit should be decided? I don’t see how an arbitrary time limit can be morally binding - surely it’s as moral (or immoral) to copy a work 9 years and 364 days from publication, as it is 10 years from publication. Should it depend on how popular or profitable the work is at the time?
I agree with you there. Plagiarism is, IMO, the only act that comes close to “theft” of intellectual property - appropriating someone else’s work as your own.
OK, I was going to quote your whole post and respond to individual items, but this thread is slow enough now that I’ll just list my responses. It will be more fun this way
I think you know perfectly well what you and others are trying to rationalize. <silly>;) In the begining of this thread, even sven proposed that downloading music could be a form of civil disobedience. But he did not respond to my questions about limiting downloads to those tracks whose copyrights we all agree should have expired by now. But lets be honest. Most people who download music do so simply to get the latest music for free.
2)That an agreement between the buyer and seller exists is incontestable. The only points to argue are the substance of that agreement. You seem to think that obeying the law cannot be part of the agreement unless it is spelled out. Should car dealers be able to opt out of lemon laws simply by not mentioning them in their contracts?
3)I don’t think anyone is arguing that a “possibility” is a cause for preventing copying. The RIAA is not suing anyone who “might” download files for instance. Also, wether or not a particular instance of downloading resulted in losses to a particular artist is an issue for a jury to decide.
And this brings us back to the primary justification for copyright laws. They are not meant to protect the artists profits. They are meant to protect his right to profits. That is, he has no rights to limit other artists from creating works (assuming those works are not merely reproductions, nor that they are so derivitive as to be primarily reproductions), he has not right to limit opinions (or lampoons for that matter) about his work (accepting slander of course). No one is arguing that he should. But he certainly has a right to protect his property. And that is exactly what you are arguing he should not be able to do.
4)I’m not sure where the misunderstanding lies. But you seem to attribute an aspect of copyright law that is not there. Just because an mp3 is a series of 1s and 0s does not mean it is just another number. No one is claiming the right to copyright 10, 345, or even 234,564,564,345,543,890. But when you create a stream of 1s and 0s which is merely a digital representation of my IP, and which is used expressly and virtually exclusively to reproduce my IP in human readable form, then I don’t see what you have to get upset about. It is a copy of my IP. You know it is a copy of my IP. Everyone knows it is a copy of my IP. As I said in the snippet you quoted, I am not claiming that a work of art gives the artist rights to all art. I am certainly not claiming that it gives him rights to all methods of representing art. But I am claiming that it gives him rights over copies of his work.
Your last sentence here, though throws me for a loop. I’m not sure at all what you mean by “absolute freedom of speech”.
5)Yes. An exhaustive list of what rights are due to the creator of IP would fill a thread by itself. For this OP suffice it to say that he should have “exclusive distribution” rights. At least for some time. I think we have an excellent method for deciding how long copyrights should be enforced. It is called representitive government. I know it is not perfect (I for one think the current law is terrible). But it is the best possible choice.
6)Perhaps we should come at this from the other side. If you agree that Plagiarism is wrong, then is it such a leap that monetary credit should be paid to the artist as well? At least for a short time after the creation?
Please, spell it out. I’ve been accused of so many things that I can’t be sure which thing you’re trying to accuse me of.
I’ll take a guess and say you think I’m trying to rationalize downloading content for free. That implies that you think I’ve arbitrarily decided I want to download content for free, without any reason to think it’s right, and I’m simply making up reasons to support the practice. What makes you think I’m saying IP owners shouldn’t have certain rights because I secretly want to justify downloading content, rather than saying it’s moral to download content because I honestly believe IP owners shouldn’t have certain rights?
I don’t doubt it, although there are many reasons to want to “get the latest music for free”: finding out about new bands, listening to a CD before buying it, etc. I doubt many people download music simply because they can, or to make some kind of political point.
But what bearing does that have on the motives of anti-copyright advocates?
No, of course they’re still legally bound by lemon laws just as a person who buys a CD is legally bound by copyright law. But misleading a car buyer about the car’s history is immoral even without a contract. It isn’t immoral because of some implied agreement that the dealer will obey the law; it’s immoral because the dealer is defrauding the customer.
Yes, I do think obeying the law isn’t automatically part of the agreement - if it isn’t automatically immoral to break the law under normal circumstances (and I believe we agree that it isn’t: morality and legality are separate concepts), why should it suddenly be immoral to break the law just because a transaction is taking place? I can’t think of any case where breaking the law is automatically immoral, without an explicit agreement that one is going to obey all applicable laws.
It seems a little silly to be devoting this much time to the difference between “Unauthorized duplication is a violation of copyright law” and “By buying this product, you agree to obey copyright law”, but I think that little difference is very important when we’re talking about an agreement between the buyer and seller.
If he has a right to profits, and a bad review of his album threatens to diminish his profits, then why doesn’t his “right to profits” protect him there?
It might not be “just another number”, but it’s still a number - one that can be turned into a copy of your IP, when run through certain processes.
Take, for example, the piece 4’33" by John Cage. It’s 4 minutes and 33 seconds (273 seconds) of silence, and apparently it’s copyrighted. It’s also hidden right there in my previous sentence! The number 273 (there it is again) is a very efficient encoding of John Cage’s song: All you need is a simple program, which comes standard on every Unix system and is built into the Windows kernel, and you’ll be able to plug in the number and hear a perfect reproduction of Cage’s piece. (What’s more, that same encoding of the song can be found in just about every physics textbook ever published. It’s usually between a minus sign and “.15 degrees Celsius”, in a section explaining heat and absolute zero.)
Now, that’s a funny example, but it’s still true. In theory, you could be sued for copyright infringement for sharing the number 273. The only difference between sharing that number and sharing an MP3 of Cage’s piece is the length of the number, and the complexity of the process needed to change it back into a “sound”… and the only difference between sharing an MP3 of 4’33" and sharing an MP3 of The Real Slim Shady is the value of the number.
The network I mentioned is designed to be anonymous, unaccountable, and unstoppable: No one but the poster knows who posted a certain item, no one knows who’s hosting a certain item (or which items are hosted by a certain person), and it’s impossible to remove an item as long as people are still interested in it.
The principle behind it, as far as I can tell, is absolute freedom of speech: The idea that the benefits of allowing anyone to post or say anything at all–even if it’s offensive, obscene, or illegal–outweigh the drawbacks. Absolute freedom to post is necessary for the network to serve its purpose, because if a loophole were added that lets “good guys” remove content that shouldn’t be posted, it would also let “bad guys” remove content that really should be posted. If Metallica can keep people from posting their latest album, then Saddam can keep people from posting uncensored news reports.
No. Not really. There is legal action pending I think. But certainly not for using the number 273. And certainly not for using it in a physics handbook. Meanwhile, I could point out other absurd uses of product liability laws. Should we scrape the concept of corporate liability because someone sued after spilling coffe on themselves? No. Abuses of a legal system do not invalidate the morallity that the system is based on.
Not at all. One of the differences is the length of the number certainly. But it is not the only difference. If this is the only difference, then please give me a cite where the mp3 of John Cages work is used in any other context. And while you at it, please do the same with an MP3 of any other recorded music track.
Seriously, I am not trying to be abrasive or insulting, but this argument is silly. Claiming that copyright laws infringe on your ability to use numbers, and then concluding that you should be able to download The Real Slim Shady anytime you want does not even rise to the level of rationalization.
I have said a few times that an artist’s rights to the fruits of his labors does not give him rights to anything else. He doesn’t sudenly gain rights over all artistic works, or all ways of expressing artistic works, and no one (not even those suing on behalf of John Cage) are arguing that it does. No one has ever been threatened with legal action for using the number 273, and no one will. And even if they were, downloading The Slim Shady would not be an act designed to protest such a law anyway.
Let me put it to you another way. I have a vynal record duplicating machine in my home. I would like to produce records and distribute them. However, I know that frisbees are made out of plastic. I don’t agree that frisbee makers should be able to stop me from producing my records, so I am making copies of the latest Mel Torme album and giving it away on the street.
In both cases (yours and mine) this is not the case.
- Abuses of a legal system do not necessarily undermine the moral system on which the law is based.
- No one has suggested that artists gain rights over anything other than the product of his own labor. Not me, not congress, not even the RIAA.
- No one want to interfere with your rights to free speech. One of the reasons states have been slow to enact any digital property laws is because of this.
- Finally, your connection between 273 and Slim Shady is not even tenuous. I think I made a better connection between vinyl records and frisbees
Actually, I did respond. I believe that the people who participate in the underground activities (unpaid, mind you) which allow for copyright cirumvention on a mass scale will become increasingly important to maintaining our artistic and intellectual freedom, and thus I feel obligated to do what I can to support them.
I am a scholar, and have devoted a good chunk of my undergraduate career to studying copyright law, the history of intellectual property and it’s future. I hope to continue my studies in grad school, as I consider handing control of the arts to a few huge corporations ot be the biggest threat to art and culture today. But I still feel like I have to support more guirilla efforts, The intellectuals cannot fight this themselves, and these gurilla efforts are laying the foundation for an information underground railway of sorts, which is less needed now but may be essential for us all in the future.
Because you are not willing to limit your downloads to those files which would accomplish this. I have been willing to admit to limits on artists power. Will you do the same? What limits should moral downloaders adhere to?
The question practically begs me to generalize…so I will!
“Anti-copyright advocates” take many forms. I have encountered 2 on these boards. First is the extremist who holds that IP is an invalid concept and not worthy of any protection of any sort. The second believes in a variant of the idea that copyright legislation has gone too far recently. Specifically that IP holders rights should not trample other people’s. (this is the variant you expressed with your 273 argument before)
I’m not addressing the rest of this to the first type. I have left hints earlier in this thread to philosophical texts or search phrases if anyone is interested.
The second type, however, betrays a somewhat sinister motive. They wish to stretch the concept of free speech to cover appropriation.
You see, no one is objecting to the concept of sharing data over the internet. The only objection is to sharing data which belongs to me.
No, you missed my point. Lemon laws do not prevent car dealers from misrepresenting the history or functionality of a car. They provide for standard terms of use which all contracts between car buyer and seller must include. That is they provide standard, legal, definitions of many terms used in such contracts. That way the buyer can be confident that when he buys a car he is getting reliable transportation (for a given value of reliable). The implied contract argument that WindWalker and I were making (and again, I am not speaking for him) suggests that copyright laws could apply to CDs in a similar way. That is, when you buy a CD you know that the seller expects you to obey copyright law. He is expressing as much merely by noting that the material is covered under such a law. This argument proposes that purchasing the CD amounts to accepting all conditions that the seller has placed on the purchase. And that violating those conditions is imoral.
And let me address one more thing. This is NOT a legal argument. That is, this argument is not suggesting that copyright is moral because it is legal. It is merely suggesting that a moral argument against copying CDs can be made based on the seller’s expectation and the buyers agreement to that expectation.
Let’s clear this up. I agree that morality and legality are not equivalent. However, I disagree with your characterization of “normal circumstances”. I would suggest that it is immoral to break the law under most circumstances. Morality and legality are not identical concepts, but they are not seperate and unlinkable either. Most laws are based on some moral precepts.
I’m sorry, but this clause is implicit in every transaction you undertake. It is the clause that makes the transaction enforcible.
I agree the difference is important. But remember, the “implicit agreement” argument did not rely on the copyright legislation being spelled out at the time of the purchase. Just as you don’t have to spell out the legislation confering value on your money, the seller does not have to spell out every aspect of his obligation to you. Many of the aspects of common transactions are taken for granted.
Because he has a right to profit, not a right to $120 per week profits. The prohibition against interfering with profits has to include a phrase like “unfair”. In this context it means that you can certainly destroy a band’s profits by selling an album of your own which the market finds more attractive. But you cannot do so by copying that bands music and selling that.
Right. I understand what freenet is and freedom of speech. I was confused at your link between copyright and those ideas. but I think I understand them better now.
earlier you said…
I think much of our misunderstanding over this issue is based on this issue. But I think you have taken the concept of copyright too far. Copyrights do not grant control over freedom of speech to any particular artist. For instance, if I write a book and it includes every word in the english language, no one would take me seriously if I tried to extort money from all English speakers. And by the same token, no one is claiming the right to prevent you from transfering numbers over the internet.
But fair is fair. If I invent something is it really moral for you to play a tape recording describing every aspect of the invention over the radio constantly without my permision?
Just because it is easy to duplicate my property, does not make it moral.
I agree with this. This is one reason I have not made the “record sales are declining because of downloaders” argument. I think an argument can be made that other forces have effected recent record sales. Not the least of which is the declining artistic quality of today’s entertainment.
And I agree with you again, to a point. I think that the RIAA and DMCA have gone too far in their zealousness. And in the future methods of circumventing overly restrictive laws may be necessary.
However, I think your cohorts go too far in the other direction. What does it mean for artistic and intellectual freedom to have no enforcible IP rights whatsoever? And I know you have not made this argument explicitly, but that is the future that you describe. I don’t believe that it is necessary to destroy all property rights in order to protect freedom of speech. In fact, I believe that property rights are a necessary corellary to the right of freedom of speech.
Right. You did respond, but you did not answer the question. (or if you did I missed it) What limits should downloaders adhere to?
I’m not chastising you mind, just a friendly reminder because I am genuinly curious about your answer. I think your proposal of “civil disobedience” has some merits. And I would like to explore them. I don’t think, however, that it can be streched to completely justify unlimited downloading of copyrighted information.
No, no one has been sued for writing 273, and I doubt anyone ever will. My point is that the same arguments that make it illegal to share one number–an MP3 of Eminem’s song–make it illegal to share 273.
The major difference is intent, of course. When most people write “273” they aren’t trying to send a copy of a song to anyone, whereas you’re far less likely to use the MP3-number in any other context. However, intent doesn’t matter to copyright law AFAIK, and it doesn’t matter to my belief that protecting an artist’s supposed right to make a buck is a poor reason to ban sharing a number.
I’m not sure what you mean by “files which would accomplish this”.
I certainly do limit my downloads to those I think are moral: I don’t download anything I plan to use for profit, and I don’t make a profit from anything I download.
I don’t consider it appropriation - plagiarism is appropriation. The only file sharers who come close to plagiarizing are the ones who credit every funny song to Weird Al Yankovic because they don’t know any better, or the RIAA flunkies who intentionally mistitle songs to confuse downloaders.
In that case, then, I’d say it isn’t necessarily immoral to violate the lemon laws. The agreement between buyer and seller is the only morally binding contract. If the law says “reliable” means one thing, and the contract of sale says it means another, then the definition in the contract is the only one which the seller is morally obligated to provide.
I suppose we’ll never agree on this point. I don’t believe the mere existence of a law, and the fact that I’m aware of it, means that agreeing to obey the law is an implicit condition of the purchase. If the seller wants me to agree to obey the law, then he can write that on the package.
Right, but as we’ve agreed before, violating “most” laws is immoral not because they’re laws, but because they prohibit actions that are themselves immoral.
If it isn’t immoral to violate copyright in a certain way in a noncommercial situation, then it doesn’t suddenly become immoral to violate it in the same way just because money is changing hands - it only becomes immoral through an agreement not to violate copyright. You say that agreement is implicit, but I simply don’t believe it.
Legally enforcible, yes, but not morally.
Well, in that case we’d have to agree that it’s “unfair” to share someone else’s music. I do agree that it’s “unfair” to sell someone else’s music, though.
Would you agree it’s “unfair” for a respected reviewer to intentionally write a bad review of an album? His opinion isn’t something that can be objectively measured–you can’t say for sure whether he really does like an album, even though he said he didn’t–but it’s something people will base their buying decisions on. Doesn’t the “right to profit” suggest that a band could sue someone who intentionally writes bad reviews, and if so, how could they distinguish between honest and dishonest reviews?
Of course - not all numbers, just some numbers. A set of numbers that constantly changes as new works are released and new technologies evolve.
Certainly. It’s even legal, since patent applications are available to the public. That’s the entire purpose of patents: to give inventors a reason to release their plans instead of keeping them secret.
If by “invention” you mean a book or a song, then my answer depends on whether I’m making a profit from playing it over the radio. I suppose my intentions for playing it play a part too, even if I’m not making a profit: Am I playing it in order to convince people not to buy it from you, or am I trying to raise interest in your work and bring you new fans?
I would argue, though, that those intentions play a part in the morality of an act even if that act doesn’t involve copying your work: It’s just as immoral to write a dishonest review as it is to distribute your work, if the intent in both cases is to convince people not to buy your work. But intent is a pretty shaky thing to be judging an act by, since you can’t really know someone’s intent after the fact (as I mentioned above).
No, not at all. The argument that Eminem owns his songs is not the same as an argument that Cage owns 273. You are once again acusing artists of having too much power.
While intent might be a difference, the major difference is that the number 273 is not intellectual property owned by anyone.
There are more restriction on what can be considered intellectual property than you may realize.
I’m not sure how this qualifies as moral unless you verify that those you transfer the files too will adhere to the same standard. BTW, Earlier I offhandedly accused you of having socialist sympathies. Do you? Your comments about profit make me wonder.
Plagiarism is one form. Another would be to deny fair use of someones property to him.
Your right. We will not be able to agree on this. I’ll make one more point then let you have the last word if you wish.
An agreement cannot contain all possible clauses and definitions of all words used in it. It has to rely on common understanding of most terms it uses. One such term is fraud. Very few contracts (certainly not the ones used to purchase CDs which consist of little more than a credit card reciept if that) contain a clause wereby the seller agrees not to defraud you. Do you believe that he has no moral obligation to be honest therefore? Fraud can be found in several dictionaries, but which one applies to our particular contract? The answer is simply that the definition of fraud is codified in law. It serves the dual purpose of making contracts easier to understand and defining exactly what is enforceable.
I’m not sure I follow you here. I don’t think I ever tried to make the argument that distributing copyrighted material was immoral only if you tried to make a profit with it.
Well no, that is not the only reason distributing music is immoral. I don’t even think it is the most important. WindWalker was only making the point that you could consider it part of the purchase agreement. As far as its implicitness, I think you would be hard pressed to present your “its not in the contract so its not morally binding” argument to anyone involved in any sort of contract. Every contract I know of assumes that certain laws apply.
Once again, I use a term commonly applied to the law and confused the issue. No, I meant morally enforceable. Have you ever signed a contract which states that you agree not to break the terms of the contract? The agreement not to break the terms is implicit in the act of signing. Thats what agreeing to a contract means.
Why?
Possibly, but it would have to be pretty blatant to qualify as slandorous. And even if not actionable, that would be the only case I could see as immoral.
No, not even some numbers. If I create a work of intellectual property, I do not get rights to some numbers. I get rights to copies of my work. Seriously, is there really confusion as to what a copy of a work is and what a general number is?
I’m not suggesting that it was put up for patent. And even if it were, the fact that I applied for a patent give me certain rights as to who can use my invention.
I’m not sure I understand why your profit makes any difference. Can you elaborate on this point?
No, its not. As the owner of a work, I can make no claim to your opinion. If you want to lie and say to did not like my work that is your business (ignoring the slander issue for now). You’ll notice, that earlier int the thread I said that anyone is free to interfere with the profits of an artist as long as they do it under a couple rules. The rule which applies to this OP is that they not distribute copies of his work without permision.
Maybe you should explain some of those restrictions.
Suppose someone invents a new audio compression algorithm that can compress a song to just a few bytes: ad0c930be93f057c. Is that not intellectual property? Suppose the next version’s compression is even better: ad0c (also known as 44300). Is that not intellectual property?
Suppose, more realistically, that I have a program which can rip a song from a CD and create an MP3 from it. I do this with John Cage’s piece, creating a 4 megabyte MP3. Is that not intellectual property? Now I have another program that uses another format, designed specifically for songs like Cage’s, and when I run it I get a two byte file containing the number 273. Since the algorithm is optimized for Cage’s type of song, that two byte file contains all the information I need to reproduce the song. Why is the two byte file not intellectual property?
The only difference I’m seeing between the 4 MB file and the 2 byte file is that one is shorter than the other. Both are numbers or sequences of numbers that can be turned into a song by a certain process. One is the number of seconds of silence; the other contains various coefficients for the frequencies that make up a sound wave. Neither actually contains the song in any directly usable form. The song can only be reproduced by applying a mathematical formula to the numbers.
I’m not trying to be obtuse. I’m trying to figure out why you say a long file is IP and a short one isn’t.
The most common use of file sharing is personal use; I’ve never heard of anyone making a profit from songs he downloaded from the internet. I wouldn’t let someone download from me if I knew he was going to use it for such a purpose, but I have no reason to assume anyone would do that.
Only if you consider Canada socialist. I’m certainly not opposed to profit in general; that’s how I get paid.
Which has nothing to do with file sharing. The creator can continue to use his IP however he wants. There’s a difference between denying him use of his property and using it in a way he doesn’t approve of.
The moral obligation not to trick someone into agreeing is always present, whether it’s mentioned in a contract or not. Not so for copyright.
Hmm, that’s one I haven’t really thought about as much as I should.
It seems to me that if you’re going to exploit someone else’s work to your own financial benefit, then you ought to have the consent of everyone who was involved in making it. By offering something for sale, you’re representing to your customers that you’re authorized to sell it - otherwise it would be perfectly moral to “sell” the Brooklyn Bridge to anyone who walks past.
Perhaps there is. An MP3 is a sequence of numbers (which can be considered a single number) which is nothing like a song in itself; it only becomes a song once you run it through a lot of complicated math. “273” is a single number which is nothing like a song in itself, but it becomes a song once you run it through some much simpler math.
Isn’t that begging the question? Obviously, if you start with the rule that it’s immoral to distribute copies of an artist’s work without permission, then file sharing is immoral.
Cite
Specifically, “Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.” This is a pretty good working definition. Notice that IP is a creation of the mind. Also, recall that earlier I suggested that the debt owed to the creator of IP cannot be extended indefinately. These, I think, are a pretty good descriptions of the limitations. Under these restrictions, you cannot claim 273 as your IP because I’m pretty sure you did not create it.
Meanwhile, there really is no such confusion with copies of songs which are traded on the internet. No one seriously argues that the MP3 files are simply strings of numbers that look pretty, or cause people’s hard drives to spin differently. They are clearly copies of songs which in the vast majority of cases the downloaders to not have legitimate copies of. Wether the MP3 is 2 bytes of 4 MBytes make no difference. Of course it would be most difficult to prove in a court of law that a 2 byte value could only be used as a copy of a particular song. (unless, of course the 2 byte value refers to a copy of the song in some central data base :D)
But this is one thing that confuses me. I’m not sure what difference profit makes. If I make a million copies of a book and hand them out at street corners I am violating the authors IP wether I charge for the copies or not.
But it certainly does reduce the market value of his property. Which means he cannot sell his IP. The question is whether or not distributing copies of others works is OK.
Right. That’s what we were talking about. An implied contract, or an implied part of a contract is not specifically mentioned. But it may have legal, and in other cases moral justification. The argument about an implied copyright has to do with differing opinions on what IP is, and how it can be used. Once again, I’m not speaking for WindWalker, but I don’t think we were suggesting that copyrights are legally considered part of the purchase contract. In fact the argument simply says that when you purchase something you have to come to an agreement about exactly what you are buying. You cannot buy a car and then come back and say you think the definition of “car” is lots of cars. Similarly, when you buy a CD, the artist understands that his property rights are defined by current copyright legislation. Its not fair for you to act otherwise without his permision. The “obey copyright” clause is not spelled out in the purchase contract because it is implicit in the fact that the artist believes the thing he sells you is a copy of his IP. And IP as he understands it is copyrighted material.
Right. And all I’m suggesting is that this principle should also apply if the “sales” price is $0.00.
Well, no, there isn’t. There is a lot of confusion about how to enforce copyright in the digital age. But anyone downloading a several mega byte file with a title identical to the name of the latest Eminem song is under no illusions that he is getting an interesting mathematical exercise. Everyone (OK not really every single person, but the vast majority) who downloads music off of the internet knows precisely that he is downloading copies of copyrighted material. I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who honestly thought he was getting an interesting number.
I really don’t think so. I’m not a logic profesor, but I don’t think I was starting with this assumption. The premises I was basing the exclusive ownership of IP on is the same one that applies to ownership of physical property. Namely the labor of the owner. So, it goes like this:
[ul]
[li]Intellectual Property consists of the result of intellectual labor[/li][li]The person who perfoms this labor becomes the “Owner” of said IP[/li][li]Ownership means “exclusive use”[/li][li]Therefore, the creator of IP has a right of exclusive use of said IP[/li][/ul]
And to bring the argument back to the OP, downloading files which are copies of IP to which the downloader does not have ownership rights violates the property rights of the individual who created the IP. And is therefore immoral.
Finally, thank you for a very interesting conversation. I have had a unique oportunity to hone my thoughts on these matters. I believe that the nature and enforceability of IP in the digital age is a very important topic. There is a war coming between those who believe IP is an outdated concept and those who think that any rights trampled in the name of protecting their IP are acceptable losses. Unfortunatley the truth and most of us are caught in the middle.
I must still be missing something. Under what criteria are a sequence of coefficients for various frequencies in a sound wave (i.e. MP3 encoded audio) a “creation of the mind”, while 273 is not?
The artist didn’t create those coefficients, a program did. He created a sound waveform which someone converted to a mathematical description using a program, just like John Cage produced a sound waveform which my hypothetical program converts to a (much simpler) mathematical description. If one set of numbers is a “creation of the mind”, then they both must be.
I’m not saying there’s any confusion. Whether 273 is a copy of a song, or just an “interesting number”, depends on what you want to do with it.
However, even without any confusion, there can still be problems when you make numbers illegal. Here is a page about a prime number which may be illegal to share, because it corresponds to a gzipped copy of the DVD decryption source code. (For your protection, that page doesn’t show all the digits.)
Legally, yes. But I believe an author only has the moral right to exclusively exploit his work for profit, so the difference between moral and immoral copying is the difference between noncommercial and commercial copying.
Sure he can sell it. People still buy CDs, don’t they? The argument always comes up that file sharing will make it impossible for anyone to make money from content, but reality just doesn’t agree.
If you didn’t read the text on this site, you might think you were just looking at pretty pictures… but in fact each picture contains DVD decryption code, encoded in such a way that it doesn’t noticably change the actual image. (The code you see on the picture isn’t the DVD code, it’s the algorithm to extract the DVD code from the picture.) How do you know the pictures on the front page of CNN.com or the SDMB don’t have something like that hidden in them?
Well, that’s just pushing the problem back one step. Presuming that exclusive use applies to IP is begging the question as well.
I had to retype this. So please regard that my responses are more erudite than they might appear.
273 has many obvious uses other than a reproduction of a copyrighted track of music. The “creation” is the song itself. The MP3 is merely a copy.
Your examples referencing the DECSS are not relevant to this discussion. The DECSS is claimed illegal because of the clauses of the DMCA which prohibit “methods of breaking copy protection”. It is not a violation of IP to have a copy of DECSS.
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Are you really arguing that it is perfectly ok for me to scan a book into an electronic format and send it to as many millions of people as I can? Can you explain by what right you think that is OK? It seems to me that this consists of the preverbial extrordinary claim.
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Well, this is still open to debate. I’m not sure all of the evidence is in yet. The copyright issues page seems to be broken, but there are several links to articles about his work here.
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I don’t think so. I have left out certain precepts as “I hold them to be self evident”. Perhaps I need to enumerate them.
All humans are free independant beings. As such they are entitled to certain rights. Among these is the right to the fruits of thier own labor.
Claiming exclusive rights to the results of one’s own labor is the same thing as suggesting that my labor belongs to no one but me.
This is the concept which in my mind leads to the conclusion that copying IP is immoral.
Mathematicians suspect, but cannot prove, that pi is an absolutely normal number. This means that in any numerical base system, all possible finite-length strings of digits can be found in pi somewhere. This means that, in theory, you could find an exact digital copy of every CD, DVD, and MP3 that ever was and ever will be made inside of pi. If someone were to find such a string of digits, would it be illegal to distribute information about the beginning and ending digits in pi where it could be found?
OK, I’ll bite. You and Mr2001 finally convinced me that respecting IP means denying people the right to use numbers. So, yes, we must regulate the use of pi. Any further use of that number or any other method of reffering to it must pass scrutiny by the “Committee to Regulate Numerical Information”.:rolleyes:
OK, seriously. Let’s assume for a minute that an exact copy of a CD could be created from otherwise unrelated information. The answer to your question about illegality would have to be “maybe”. Just like it may not be illegal to posses a copy of a CD, it may not be illegal to talk about particular digits in pi. So even if it possible to distribute copies of IP via reference to digits of pi, it would not be illegal to discuss pi.
The question is whether or not it is moral to distribute copies of IP for the express purpose of distributing copies of IP.
Let me restate the OP for purposes of highlighting what I am saying in regards to this. Disclaimer. I am not speaking for anyone else in this restatement. I am not claiming that these are your arguments, nor that you would agree with these statements. They are merely my understanding of your positions.
Is it moral to send digital infromation across the internet?
Is it moral to copy other’s IP and distribute it?
I think that the answers are no and no. I also do not think that there is any contradiction in this. The fact that information sent across the internet might not be someone elses IP does not negate the truth of IP and the right of a creator to own it.
> I hope some of this makes sense in the morning.
