“Personally, I don’t think stealing is ethically wrong…”
If he doesn’t think so, then he should have no problem with me stealing. The state he lives in might have a problem with it, and arrest me for it, but he can’t complain.
His belief in property rights has nothing to do with ethics - he believes property rights are good for society only. You’d think that would make him understand and support IP, but whatever.
If you had gone back and read the thread, you’d see that Holden and I have already discussed this and you’d understand the context.
So you’re an attorney IIRC. I assume you have absolutely no problem the next time you do some legal work if a complete stranger comes in and takes your check for your work.
A network broadcasts your song freely over the air. I copy it and watch it in another market that does not carry your song?
You let someone broadcast your work on a commercial supported medium. I TiVo it and play it back many times always skipping all of the commercials?
I torrent an a work that is being freely distributed on hulu, so that I can watch it without all the stutters and glitches of the in browser flash player?
Where is this strange leap in logic coming from? There are certain things I consider ethically wrong. There are certain things that I don’t want to happen. Those two groups are not the same. There’s nothing inconsistent about that.
For example, there’s nothing ethically wrong with my company laying me off during a downturn. At the same time, I don’t want it to happen.
If you still don’t get it, I can try with visual aides.
So if I came to your house and stole your stuff, you might complain a little, but once I had your stuff in my car and was about to drive away, you’d simply give up because what’s done is done. You couldn’t complain to me that it was wrong. Correct? It’s mine now.
Legally they were wrong, of course, but what’s ethically wrong about making available works that aren’t available in any other format? If the works aren’t actually available for sale in a format that makes the copyright holders money, then how are they losing money?
That’s where it leaves money and enters into some theoretical right of first refusal to make theoretical money. And guess what, the out-of-print / abandonware issue is usually the point where rights holders and their allies lose interest in having a discussion.
I don’t know, maybe they have the feeling that the rest of the world shouldn’t be free to paw through eighty-plus years of their garbage. But what if it weren’t garbage?
I remember a court case where two guys were prosecuted for taking copper wire from an “abandoned” railroad. They assumed nobody wanted it. But someone still owned that land and the wire on it, and you can’t just assume that they don’t want it any more just because it’s sitting there unused.
If they have definite plans for that, and it’s within the next couple of years, then yeah, they’d be well within their rights to be pissed off. (Legally of course they have that right anyway). They could contact UKNova and tell them to take it down.
Or maybe it would prompt them to actually make their content legally available.
They have a right to be pissed off in any case whatsoever. Their plans are not known to you, nor do they need to be, nor can you assume them. They don’t have to have any plans. They can change their plans at any time. You may not assume you know what their plans are, nor can you violate copyright based on what you think they are, or know they are.
They are under no obligation to make their content legally available. The fact that they don’t is not your concern. You have no claim to the content whatsoever. You may not take it without permission, for any reason.
Not really. It can just be something you bought from someone, who bought it from someone, who bought it from the original copyright holder; while the actual creator got a small bonus or nothing.
Or not. You also assume that there is an actual clear cut copyright holder.
Yes, it is. If they are just sitting on copyrighted material then they are violating the whole reason that copyright exists in the first place.
But you don’t know. The copyright holder will tell you when you have permission to copy his work, and under what terms. Until then, you must wait.
True, but an entirely different issue.
That’s why we have terms of copyright. The copyright will expire. Until then, the owner owns the content and can do what he wants with it. Most will release it because they can make money that way. A few might not. Overall, it greatly increases the content released to the public.
It quite likely isn’t his work. And no, the copyright holder shouldn’t be allowed to just sit on what they have copyrighted; there should be a use-it-or-lose it clause to copyright.
No it isn’t; quite a lot of “abandonware” has no clear cut copyright holder.
No, our present setup is greatly limiting what is available. And we have copyright in order to encourage the dissemination of information, not to have the government serve as enforcer for people who just want to sit on it.
Or if there are dozens of different copyright holders; like with a lot of TV shows where there’s a different copyright holder for every bit of music or video clip.