Once again, Princhester, you seem to completely miss the point that intellectual property is intangible and unlike physical property. Post after post you talk about cars and hardware stores. Nobody is sharing cars or hardware online!
Maybe in the future we’ll have the technology to transmit copies of physical objects through the internet. When that happens, then theft will be obsolete and unauthorized sharing of cars and hardware will be a reality. Until then, there is no comparison.
Now excuse me while I download a pizza - nope, that hasn’t been invented yet. :wally
So when you say “private” you really mean “laying out in the open where anyone can see them”? Gotcha ya.
If you want them to remain private, put them in a safe or a locked drawer, someplace where people can’t legally get at them. Or just get the people who have access to agree not to distribute copies (which you might even do with a verbal contract, depending on how well you think you’ll need to back it up in court).
Speaking of failing to address things, didn’t you pretend to show interest in the public domain a little while back? In your frothing rage, have you paused to think how the long copyright terms you support affect the public domain, or decide what you’re going to do to help this resource that you claim to think is so valuable?
It’s starting to look like my little theory was right after all.
No one has said nobody downloads MP3s as a replacement for buying CDs.
More correct would be: There are several reasons to buy cars instead of stealing them, for example, getting extras such as warranty.
Well done, it seems you’ve covered every angle. If we suppose for a moment that taking the shop owner’s property isn’t automatically an immoral violation of his property rights (since we obviously don’t agree on property rights), the only things I see wrong in your scenario are:
Trespassing/breaking and entering.
Presumption that you can decide how to spend the shop employees’ time.
Presumption that the shop keeper would have everything back to normal in time for the store to open, that no one would need the mower for any reason after hours, etc. - in short, presumption that the only effect would be a loss of profit.
I assume we’re disregarding (1) for this example. (2) and (3) are, of course, what separate your example from the one I proposed: taking an item and leaving an identical one in its place.
If you know for certain that the clerk has nothing that needs to be done in the morning, so the only result of having to replace the mower is that he gets paid overtime ($72/hr!) to finish paperwork; that he doesn’t care whether his time is spent on paperwork or moving a mower; and that he doesn’t care whether his 10 minutes after work are spent putting in overtime or driving home; then that takes care of (2).
If you somehow know for certain that there’s absolutely no chance anyone will need to use the mower after hours, and there’s no chance the store will be left with no mowers to sell during store hours, then that takes care of (3).
So, if we assume you really did have enough knowledge of the future that your actions couldn’t possibly have left the store without a mower to sell, and if we assume that no one involved minds that you’ve caused them to spend their time differently, and if we don’t care that you broke into the shop, then it’s moral. (But if we’re going to assume all that, why not just forget the money and the employees, and say you have a cloning ray? )
Of course, in the real world, people don’t have that much knowledge - hence property rights. Neither you nor the store owner would be 100% sure that the temporary loss of a mower wouldn’t cause problems, but the owner is better qualified than you to predict that (and has more to lose) so it’s his right to decide how it’ll be used.
I hope I’ve answered your question. Let me know if I missed anything.
Anything that’s not under lock and key or heroically guarded in some other way, yeah. Paintings on walls, half-finished artworks still on the easel, family photos, documents of all kinds that most normal people don’t mind having out in a drawer, but wouldn’t want published to the whole damned world.
And you seriously mean to tell me that you think it’s OK for someone to just blithely copy and distribute (all legally, mind) anything they find in a house that is not under lock and key?
Yeah. Apparently you do. :eek:
And once again, we get back to a “he said she said” kind of thing, which everyone (except you, I suppose) knows will rarely ever hold up, and we also have the premise that every little scrap of anything private (family photos, journals, etc.) need to be locked up or they are open season.
It’s pathetic and ludicrous that I have to explain to you that there are “private” things that people will have in their house that are not necessarily locked up every second. Family photos, pictures of their kids, old travel journals, school projects, sketchbooks—people don’t usually lock these up, but they would definitely consider it a violation of their privacy if they were plastered all over the Internet.
But forget it. You are past hope. Either you you just slinging shit to the wall and seeing if it will stick—amusing yourself while we react to it—or you are living in some bizarre alternaworld.
Before I published my software, I took a crash course in United States intellectual property law (YMMV).
As I recall (and do correct me if I’m wrong), anything that you create that is unique/artistic enough to qualify for copyright protection, you can claim ownership of the copyright but cannot take somebody to court over it unless you have registered the work with the Library of Congress. When you register a copyright, they send you a certificate that vouches for your ownership of the work and will stand up in court as proof.
If somebody posts your journal on the internet, unless you took the time to register it with the LOC, you could send a cease and desist letter to the offending party but any legal recourse you would have would fall under privacy invasion and not copyright infringement.
Art, on the other hand, and especially music, AFAIK is usually registered with the LOC. In fact, the lawsuits being filed by the RIAA pretty much demonstrate that the works in question have been registered, otherwise (again, correct me if I’m wrong) the RIAA would have no legal grounds for a lawsuit.
So the point is, that which is kept private and away from the eyes of anybody but your closest friends, or away from anybody at all, does not fall under the same legal protection as artwork that has been registered with the LOC and released to the public, and even the total demolition of all copyright law would not diminish your right to privacy, which in the United States falls under the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.
Other countries, of course, have similar intellectual property laws, and I assume that they are largely similar with respect to the foreign equivalents of the LOC. Again, YMMV.
aryk29, I’m not sure exactly what your point is. I understand that there is a distinction between works that have not been registered and ones that have not. I also understand that these things are automatically copyrighted as soon as they are created.
However, this still does not change the basic premise which Mr2001 (and on another thread, UnuMondo) wish to support: that any “private” stuff in the home (journals, photos, artwork, files in a computer) should be legally allowed to be freely distributed, as long as someone can get “access” to it. And our own UnuMondo “emphatically” agreed that anything that anyone can get “access” to should be shared with the world. (Quoting his post from the other thread:)
Would you also agree with this? Would you also wish that my photographs are copied against my wishes (while they were at the photo lab, or in my home) and published? Would you like this done to you and would you want to make it legal for people to do it to you or me or anyone? (Bear in mind, in UnuMondo’s alternaworld particularly, copyright would not exist, so no one would be registering anything with the LOC.)
This is, quite possibly, the stupidest comment I have ever heard. I’d explain why, except if you are so stupid that you would actually make the comment, I do not believe it would be possible to explain to you just how stupid it is.
Actually, I would favor shorter copyright terms rather than eliminating copyright altogether. No I would not support that paragraph, as quoted, within that specific context. But it sounds to me like the post you quoted was a sarcastic comment aimed at you, in an attempt to tell you how information spreads.
The point I was trying to make is that private works and publicly released works are, the way the law is written, covered differently and hence it seems silly to me to drag them into the same conversation.
Bwahahahahahaha! The stupidest comment. Try me! I might not be quite as stupid as I look.
In fact, Princhester, I’ll even beat ya to it. It’s stupid becuase the Chicago Reader is willfully making this message board free to anyone who wants to view it, and membership (=the right to post) to anybody for free. Whereas major record labels are not making their products free for anybody who wants to take them. Right?
Well guess what - even if it’s legal and moral, it’s still free. Some might say it’s still leeching. I am not saying that it is, IMO, leeching. But those who would say that it is would point to the costs of maintaining servers, user accounts, upgrades, etc…
I am sure it was also sarcastic, but it was clear from the context of the thread that yes, the basic premise (that anything anyone can get “access” to should be “shared”) was dead serious. And I also don’t doubt that UnuMondo would not at all be distressed if my photos were “shared” against my will.
Excellent point and I am glad you brought it up. (And I confess the “privacy law” angle had not occured to me before.)
Assuming you are correct about “private” works being protected, separate of copyright law, it is interesting that these other fellows seem so eager to ignore such basic rights of privacy and “emphatically” wish that people could legally be allowed to distribute the private, unpublished works of others.
Look, asshole, you’re not going to recruit sympathizers by insulting their intelligence.
I don’t have to prove my intelligence to you. But should you doubt it, why don’t you read my explanation of chirping fences. Just be aware that it’s not in the Pit, so if you absolutely must post to it, you’ll be asked to refrain from your usual drivel. And I don’t give a shit if you go read it and still conclude I’m some kind of idiot. I did not post it specifically for YOU.
As far as I’m concerned you’ve lost whatever credibility you may have had. From this point forward, anything you say to me, unless you are parroting somebody with a functioning brain, will be taken with a grain of salt.
Or–God forbid!–I genuinely don’t agree with copyright law, and I live in the same world as everyone else: the same world as the hundreds of thousands of OSS developers who don’t feel copyright is necessary to foster creativity (though they may not spend their time debating it), and the people behind systems like Freenet dedicated to preserving absolute freedom of speech.
So, speaking of freedom, how about the public domain? You say “Public domain is important, and should be preserved”, so what have you done lately to help it? How will any of the policies you support help relevant works enter the public domain?
Or will you just ignore the question once again?
Perhaps you shouldn’t be so quick to point fingers, especially right after you admit the “privacy law angle” hadn’t occured to you either. :wally
I suppose if a law were to make it illegal to disclose personal information, medical records, family photos, diaries, etc. then I wouldn’t have a problem with that. A key point is that it must protect privacy, and works of a private nature or containing personal details (whether created by you or someone else), not just anything you create; specifically, it shouldn’t apply to anything sold or offered to the public.
And it’s so dandy that this world you live in is filled with people who feel this way about the work that they do, but the problem is that you think that this should apply to the rest of us—including people who work on more artistic and creative works, which you have repeatedly demonstrated that you understand little about.
Oh, I see. Try to shift the attention away from yourself for a while, eh?
What do you want me to do, sign a petition? I think that Life+ a certain amount of years is fine.
Oh, but my dear—I was the one that knew—yeah, was convinced—that such activities were wrong and were offensive to people’s sense of privacy, before it was pointed out to my addled little brain that there were already privacy laws that would cover the situation that you seemed so eager to see legalized.
You, on the other hand, were all for it. As long as someone can get their mitts on it without having to break in, let ‘em copy away. Photos taken to the photo lab—copy away. Anything that isn’t frickin’ nailed down—copy away. I mention journals and diaries and personal photos—but hey, that didn’t seem to make you flinch. If people have access to it—copy away! Because information wants to be free! :rolleyes:
“Uh, oh, well, I guess if it’s illegal…” :rolleyes: But aren’t you the one that saying that there’s a difference between “illegal” and “immoral,” and you see no problem with now following a law that is not “moral”? You certainly seemed to think it was “moral” for people to start copying the stuff in someone’s house (and the photos they have developed in a photo lab, etc.) just a little while ago. So why are you so suddenly abandoning something that you so recently thought was completely peachy-keen? Sorry, it’s too late to start flip-flopping now. :wally
Oh, this is such a huge, steaming load of CRAP.Now you pay lipservice to “privacy”? Oh please. Spare me. I’ve been specifically talking about “private” files for a while now, and you seemed completely unconcerned about privacy then. But now all of a sudden you pretend that you are? This is beyond ludicrous.
So as I understand it, Mr2001, in your view in principle there is nothing wrong with taking someone’s physical trading stock and paying them only their costs but no profit, as long as you don’t inconvenience them at all?
Okey dokey. But I would respectfully submit to the judges of the contest that while arky29’s chirping fence post was, (I suspect, I haven’t really thought it through) wrong in its conclusions, at least the reasons for the chirping noise he observed are sufficiently obscure as to allow room for being wrong without being stupid. Contrastingly, even Arky29 admitted that his “Dopers are leeches” post was stupid, in a succeeding post. I submit that finding another post of Arky29[ that is so stupid that even he admits that, is going to be tough.
The worst suckers, addicted to the latest corporate pop music, think they have a right to steal that music from the corporations that make it. To complete the irony, they ridicule the corporations for being greedy.
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