On the morality of copyright.

[incal11]

I heavily disagree. So your pretty much arguing that sharing should be not only a basic human right, but that people who put money, effort and work into something should be forced to share their hard work with people like you who believe they deserve it for doing sod all.

I think you agree sharing should be a right. Forced is a strong word, obliged to let go into the public domain after a period of time more reasonable than your death + 50 years, would be more like it.

(just like the business version of rape really, maybe you think rape should be legal too under the same principle?).

I bring that up because this is the same argument, and you made me LOL there. I wonder, if it was possible to copyright rape, could that decrease it's rate ? XD .

You are correct, that getting rid of copyright would lead to the rise of more artists, but let creativity loose? Are you thick? It does exactly the opposite.

This is a belief, some time ago I would have agreed with you, I only explain what I found out, looking at it more closely. Here's a study :
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4831-net-music-piracy-does-not-harm-record-sales.html
and here is a proof :
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

Imagine J K Rowling made the first Harry Potter book in a world without copyright. A richer book publisher could get somebody to right an unofficial sequel using the same characters and make way more money just because they have better resources and sweep the rug from under her.

You're mixing up intellectual right and copyright, which is made of the words copy and right. Plagiarism is different can of worm, and I'm not defending it. What I do say though is that she could have made even more money (imagine that) in a society wihtout copyrights.
From the zeitgeist link I just gave you :
"Sigismund Hermbstädt, for example, a chemistry and pharmacy professor in Berlin, who has long since disappeared into the oblivion of history, earned more royalties for his "Principles of Leather Tanning" published in 1806 than British author Mary Shelley did for her horror novel "Frankenstein," which is still famous today."

Copyright may be about greed, but why shouldn't people allowed to be greedy when it comes to what they make?

A terrible argument, if you being greedy is causing harm to our long term cultural development you ough to be stopped, even and especially if you dislike that.

you think your morality should be forced on others and make sure that the rich companies gain the monopoly on everything by giving them free reign to rip off all the best tech and things from smaller companies and being able to sell it for cheaper because they already have the resources to make things more cheaply and on a bigger scale.

Now you are mixing up copyright and patenting. While I think ideas shouldn't be kept under lock, their material application should be a source of royalties to the inventor.

You forget that copyright is used to protect smaller companies from the big corporate giants too and removing copyright will up the prices on everything non-downloadable significantly. But I suppose you just want to play your precious NES roms.

Maybe you found a point where copyrights are actually moral, even though since you talk about everything non-downloadable you still mix it up with patenting. I'll look into that.

 

[VicunaBlue]

I am really surprised how unpleasant people on this sight are. I mean the arrogance and nastiness in some of these posts i s nauseating.

Stealing is bad.

Piracy isn't quite stealing, but it's still pretty bad.

 

[incal11]

If an inventor has no assurance that a business entity won't immediately mass produce the product being developed more cheaply than he can, he has no incentive to invent.

The biseness ough to pay him royalties then, but this thread is on copyright, not patenting.

Unauthorized distribution does no direct harm any more than selling patented products, but does do indirect harm by subverting the creators ability to profit from their work and recover their investment.

I'm not sure, but you seem to contradict yourself there.

it makes sense to model copyright law after patent law;(...) Media creators could not impose further restrictions on how I use the property I paid for.

No restriction is basically what I'm advocating, but as you pointed out there are practical differences between inventions on one side, and ideas on the other.
You got me thinking: ideas with material applications... things are getting blurry there, I will think about it.

I was opening his mind to the way of the universe!

oh, I see.

You and the OP are truly awesome.

Of course I am

People like the OP really grind my gears. I'm sick of seeing arguments for piracy. My Computing Science department has a couple of people that are all about piracy and how it is great. Stick to open source if you believe software should be free. If not, you are stealing.

They're not arguments for piracy, they are arguments against copyright. Granted it's a quality difference, but the two issues are tightly linked, as copyrights intend to limit your ability to share, and the word share makes everyone on the internet think about "pirates".

Get it? Stealing. It's not sharing. Sharing a movie or game would be lending the original copy to them. Putting up files on the internet so that millions of people can download exact copies is completely different and not even comparable. Think of it like if some random guy bought a BMW, then figured out how to make it, built a factory, and started giving out exact replicas, down to the BMW logo. You don't think they'd get pissed off?

The comparison you make is impossible and thus irrelevant, no matter the number of people it is still sharing and may be a bad thing only because of external factors.

If everyone believed as the OP did, the artist would be the one that suffers. Since everyone believes as the OP does, only one person ever buys the original work. Then it goes onto the internet, for free. The artist dies of starvation.

Read this please :
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

How do you argue that not paying for their creative labours is justifiable?

You would know if you actually read my posts and links, and made the effort of making out the meaning of the sentences. Then if you still disagree, you are welcome to go about it in detail.

 

[incal11]

I agree with that Zach fellow above.

This concern you too, then.

Sharing is still very useful: Yes, but shouldn't it be the right of the artist to determine if and how a work is shared?

The fact is, ideas are incredibly hard to control, and as I have tried to show, it is counterproductive anyway. There will always be bad apples, but most people tends to respect the wishes of the artist, as the industry not being completely broke proves it.

Stimgamizing file sharing: If we're talking versus copyright, that sounds ridiculous. You still have the right to create.

You misunderstand, you can't deny the use of the word "piracy" is the result of a propaganda, this is what I mean.

More artists: Unlikely, but okay.

Not so unlikely :
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,710976,00.html

Sharing as a basic human right...) Say I send out a book to one of my friends which then gets put up online. Just the fact that it's out there reduces my chance of being published on the grounds that there is little to no interest in already published material. That includes self published or published online.

See link above.

Since this is "On the morality of copyright," not "should certain types of file sharing be okay," it looks like you think I should have no right to my own intellectual property.

Intellectual property =/= Copyright, but if you mean right to profit from it see link above again.

But on the morality of "sharing," there really isn't a lot to say. Even without going down the asinine "piracy is stealing" route, you are still limiting the rights of the author by bypassing their rights and you seek to remove those rights?

One more time, see the link above.

You complain that "sharing" is being stigmatized by authority as part of a campaign. Couldn't it have more to do with the fact that you're using the word "sharing" as a euphemism for "illegally distributing things you have no right to?"

I'm arguing that it's everyone's right for the good of our culture, and against how this is made illegal to begin with.

On the one hand, I've always written and performed music freely. On the other hand, the very notion that you have more right to distribute my music than I do is offensive and disgusting on principle alone.

I also despise the entitlement in yours. I have my right to create, something one of your articles argues is stifled. You are trying to take away my right to my own material.

Especially if you are a musician (performing freely on top of that), I don't understand why you wouldn't feel flattered by people wanting to make you known to a larger public.
Is the urge to control what you make really so strong, nothing I say will make you change your mind ? Or consider me with a little more respect ?
You give me no reason against my feeling of entitlement if you are such a person.

I'll tell you what I do believe is immoral: The slow death of the public domain. The idea of the public domain is a solid one, meaning that a work cannot be held in perpetuity. This makes sense, since neither you or I need copyrights 100 years after we're dead. But things have gotten out of hand for decades now, and it's limited the field of songs which are public domain through extension of copyrights. It's kind of ridiculous that Happy Birthday isn't public domain.

By contesting copyrights I try to safegard the public domain, I think we can understand each other here.

 

[incal11]

Stealing is bad.

Well, I've argued before that "stealing" is not as correct a term as it seem there, make of that what you will.

Piracy isn't quite stealing, but it's still pretty bad.

If there's any chance you can have a more sophisticated opinion, read my original post.

Then I am sorry i went off on you. When it comes to this topic my words get twisted. Often. The idea someone legitimately misunderstood me and isn't just altering what i said to fit there opinions rarely happens.

I never altered your arguments, I only made their meanings more obvious to you, to force you to think more on your position, which succeeded.

In our age? A 16 year old who has never worked a day in there life downloads Avatar while raging on an internet forum about injustice they have never experienced from there cushy suburban home.

Granted the "violence" here is a bit more ethereal, if governments ever go seriously physical with the issue there will be picket lines.

The only reason i can say i side with the Anti Illegal file sharing side is because i hate undeserved entitlement a hundred times more then the weepy exaggerations from corporations.

In this thread I bend over backward trying to get you to see how this feeling of entitlement is justified. What I hate is people who forget arguments faster than I can type, and then go on about something they just dislike in someone as a reason go away their opinion unchanged.
This is not completely true for you, as I see that deep down we are not so different

 

[illas]

Firstly, the rest of your post I find interesting and thought-provoking, thanks. Some kind of utopia where ideas *and* physical things are all freely accessed is an intriguing one, and at the risk of going all Marxist, could be the end result of (the supposed) inevitable Communism.
I hope that the following doesn't come across as too negative/aggressive, However:

-Sharing should be a basic human right. I know how this last one looks, but you should think about it this way: if you want to share something that is yours, you should have the unquestionable right to do so. Obviously copyrights are there to limit or take away this liberty, is it right ? is it wrong ? and how ?

At the risk of inciting your ire: Legally, the key point is that a copyright (or patent) means the corporation owns the IP. By buying an album, DVD, or game, you are buying *ACCESS* to said IP, not the tangible IP itself. You cannot share what you do not own.
Stuff distributed under a GPL (or similar) or which has had it's copyright wavered you also cannot "own". As such, charging others to experience it is illegal too.
Basically: don't make the mistake of assuming that just because you spent money on something that you now own it. Regrettably, it's no-where near that simple.

One of the fundamental tenants of IP law is that of "fair use(/access)". This concept is poorly described at best, and is often over-aggressively implemented (ie: youtube accounts being suspended for innocently using copyrighted music). There is *huge* room for improvement, but the current system in no way supports that part of your argument.

I would however, suggest that perhaps it should.

 

[ARatherHandsomeGent]

DURRRRR I'M A TROLL!

Fixed.

hehe, fair enough, but I was bored and wanted to make a random stupid comment. My real answer I really don't care about piracy, and just making it against the law will not deter people. Those who want to do it will, and those who don't won't. Also, if you show me someone who claims to have never pirated something, nothing at all, I'll show you a liar. So there, a better thought out answer, because I'm a knock-off Nigel, a knock-off Nigel. Knock-off Nigel who downloads knock-off films.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Firstly, the rest of your post I find interesting and thought-provoking, thanks. Some kind of utopia where ideas *and* physical things are all freely accessed is an intriguing one, and at the risk of going all Marxist, could be the end result of (the supposed) inevitable Communism.
I hope that the following doesn't come across as too negative/aggressive, However:

Absolute Communism has already proven that there is no incentive to perform better if you get paid the same. The same model applies to those who would want to enter a market; there's no incentive to do so.

Socially, I think the best model adopts parts of Marxism (for necessity goods/services and state emergencies) and parts of personal Capitalism (for luxuries/hobbies), with the model strongly favoring necessity over luxury. It's finding that equilibrium that's the tricky part.

(If this seems like common sense, you would be shocked to see how little common sense there is in government today)

What we're seeing now is the struggle between two undesirable economic forces:
1) Monopolistic Control (now with less than 10 Major Publishers controlling the majority of the world's gaming market. Even fewer in the music and movie industry, if you count the media mega-giants.)
2) Black Market (piracy)

 

[Helmutye]

I think our copyright laws should probably be revised in light of the pace of modern life. Print is a fundamentally different medium than digital information and code, and it would make sense for the laws to reflect that. Things are much more fast-paced now, and perhaps the amount of time a copyright endures could be shortened without seriously impacting the profits of the author (which is the whole point of copyright law in the first place). Perhaps this might have some significant social benefit as well.

That being said, we are talking about video games here. I don't want to undervalue their cultural impact--I consider myself firmly in the 'games are art' crowd and think they are a marvelous medium for artistic and cultural expression. But denying someone access to a game because they can't pay does NOT cripple that person's intellectual development or ostracize them from culture. As much as we complain about game prices, they are very affordable. Hardware prices are higher than they used to be, but as a percentage of income they are roughly the same or cheaper. Nobody but the most desperate poor is totally excluded from the cultural experience of gaming (and the desperately poor have more important concerns than whether they are able to keep up the latest Modern Warfare installment).

Also, there are TONS of indie games available for next to nothing. If you can't afford a big name title, you can get the indie games, many of which are superior anyway. And part of the reason the big name games are so expensive is because they cost a fortune to create. All those fancy graphics and cutscene cinematics take a lot of work to make. Those companies wouldn't be able to produce games with those features if they didn't spend a lot of money on them, and if they spend a lot of money to make them they have to make a lot of money selling them, or they'll go broke and no big name games will be made.

The thread author made some mention of the Zeitgeist films, and I definitely appreciate the discussion. I myself really like Zeitgeist and think it is absolutely essential for anyone who wants to understand the really big issues of modern times. But as far as sharing and free creation goes, people will only work for free at things they enjoy. Do you know how hard and how long programmers work on those big name games? They put in some crazy hours, I'll tell you what. Do you think they're going to sacrifice that much of their time if they don't get something in return, other than the satisfaction of a job well done? I'm sure they enjoy making games and would do it as a hobby if they weren't getting paid for it, but if game making is not giving them the resources they need to eat and survive they will have to do something else to gather those resources, and that means they will not be able to put in the time required to turn out big name titles at the pace audiences demand.

Sure, some of those big gaming companies act like jerks. But it's the ordinary people buying their games that gives them all their power. Gamers demand better and better graphics and scoff at games whose graphics are even slightly behind the times. Gamers whine and complain when it takes a few years for companies to produce sequels to popular games. And while this website is full of gamers who claim to hate Activision and EA and Bobby Kotick and all the big name gaming establishment, most of you probably keep buying their games and expressing a demand for peak graphics and lots of releases. All they are doing is meeting your demands and making a highly desirable product.

As far as being denied access to culture because of your fortune, 'culture' is not a right. Nowhere is it written or implied that everyone has a right to be provided with free entertainment of the finest quality possible with current technology.

Now, if you want to talk about PATENTS, I think the discussion is much more nebulous. The whole intent behind Patents and Copyrights is to protect the ability of the inventor/author to make a fair profit off their labor. But increasingly companies are using Patents as a way to PREVENT the use and development of new inventions. They use Patents to deny others profit, rather than profiting from the idea themselves. Now THAT is a big social problem! But game publishers profiting and trying to protect their creative property is pretty inoffensive. Games are luxury items, not essentials for life.

 

[illas]

Socially, I think the best model adopts parts of Marxism (for necessity goods/services and state emergencies) and parts of personal Capitalism (for luxuries/hobbies), with the model strongly favoring necessity over luxury. It's finding that equilibrium that's the tricky part.

(If this seems like common sense, you would be shocked to see how little common sense there is in government today)

What we're seeing now is the struggle between two undesirable economic forces:
1) Monopolistic Control (now with less than 10 Major Publishers controlling the majority of the world's gaming market. Even fewer in the music and movie industry, if you count the media mega-giants.)
2) Black Market (piracy)

Eloquent and (IMO) accurate, well said. "Personal Capitalism/Expressionism" *within* a Marxist state or world sounds both promising and, critically, plausible.

Absolute Communism has already proven that there is no incentive to perform better if you get paid the same. The same model applies to those who would want to enter a market; there's no incentive to do so.

While I agree with this in the main, I would suggest that in what are currently "creative" industries (ie: film, literature, music, etc.) people would still create their own literature/albums/films/games, if only for self-expression rather than profit.

 

[Kagim]

-snip-

I wrote about four pages and after reading it i decided i was rambling after awhile, and decided to shorten it up really nice.

First, i wasn't talking about you when during my conversation with the other guy. Second, my position on this hasn't changed in a long... long time... You haven't made me reexamine anything. I don't mean that insultingly or aggressively.

Honestly, i doubt anyone really doing anything if things changed. Remember the MW2 boycott? Remember the screen shots of all the people in boycott clubs playing MW2 the day it came out? One thing i have noticed is that people will say all sorts of crap on the net, because they know they won't ever be held responsible for sticking to it.

You say people will picket, i say people will just go back to screaming at the wind.

For everything else? I don't agree with you. My dad is a business owner, a general store, and after working with him and learning i understand a fair bit about it. A lot of the statements i hear made, by more then just you, really show the knowledge on these things is all second hand from people who likely have never owned a business.

I'm trying not to rant so I am cutting this short. However the shortest I can put this as is I don't agree with you. I don't think the consumer has some sort of right to any media. Quite seriously unless the holder of the copyright, be it a company or the creators great great grandchild, you do not have the right to take it for free unless that person or business gives you permission. Just because you have decided to claim as your 'culture' doesn't give you the right to take it for free. Under any circumstance.

Whether someone does it or not is none of my business, right up until they begin to get sympathy or praise from me for being a champion or a victim.

No one has the right to distribute my ideas in anyway i do not approve of. Just because it's not physical doesn't mean its not important or valuable to me.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Eloquent and (IMO) accurate, well said. "Personal Capitalism/Expressionism" *within* a Marxist state or world sounds both promising and, critically, plausible.

I fear that the society of the modern "first world" is incapable of adapting such a system yet. Sadly, they are in both the best position to make the transition, but have the most to "lose".
Compounding the problem is the global market. The way economics work today, it's pretty much guaranteed that if your country isn't in the global market, your country is in virtual poverty (or eventually will be).

Our industries are so interconnected today, that I believe that such a global order is impossible. The individual countries would never agree to such terms, even if they were formed on a humanitarian basis. Just look how hard they fought to prevent the US from going into a second Great Depression.

In order for such a government to exist, many institutions will have to be eliminated or restructured from the ground up, and unfortunately, most societies rely on these institutions (Global Banking, Petrol Production, Communications+Media Giants to name a few) to run.

And of course, there's always the human element. The scariest element in any equation involving government.

Even if such a future were feasible, I don't believe it will be in my lifetime.

While I agree with this in the main, I would suggest that in what are currently "creative" industries (ie: film, literature, music, etc.) people would still create their own literature/albums/films/games, if only for self-expression rather than profit.

They would, but the problem is distribution. Even the best work won't be replicated unless it has some sort of value to others.

Companies like Youtube and Blip TV stand almost diametrically opposed to the media giants who own and publish most public works. And of course, Youtube and Blip TV aren't technically free either; they wouldn't be in the business if they didn't want money.

It's unfortunate that in practice, the relative quality of a title isn't the most important factor that matters to the publishers; it's the price that matters most. The price of investment vs the rate of return (which can be represented as the chance of return in a competitive market).
That's why the gaming market has completely stagnated despite the fact that game budgets are skyrocketing.

 

[Knusper]

File sharing is legal in Canada. Yay!

I'll take your word for it, but I could swear Canada signed ACTA, which basically condemns piracy.

 

[illas]

And of course, there's always the human element. The scariest element in any equation involving government.

Even if such a future were feasible, I don't believe it will be in my lifetime.

I'd have to agree. Change is scary, even on a small scale. Give it a century

Companies like Youtube and Blip TV stand almost diametrically opposed to the media giants who own and publish most public works. And of course, Youtube and Blip TV aren't technically free either; they wouldn't be in the business if they didn't want money.

While I agree that Youtube is primarily in it for the money, I would think that allowing anyone to reach a mass audience without significant cost would be a boon to the creative industries - even if the majority of stuff on Youtube is, unsurprisingly, average. Furthermore, I'd expect the advancement of technology to render server costs/hosting/bandwidth near moot, reducing the basic financial element.

Justing Bieber, for example, has reached mainstream media purely as a result of Youtube.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

Sharing should be a human right? The day some homeless guy demands that it's his right to half of my cheeseburger is the day that I punch a homeless man for demanding half of my cheeseburger.

But if you want to give him half of your cheeseburger, you should have every right to do so.

The OP isn't saying that we have a right to demand people to share their things, but that we should have a right to share something we purchased.

 

[NotSoNimble]

I just hope Incal makes something worth giving away. If he ever tries to sell it, and it gets stolen, I would laugh.

The thing is, if you want to distribute your work to 'share' go right on ahead. As far as other peoples work, mind your own business.

It's still wrong to tell me after x amount of years it should be free regardless of what the people who own it say.

For the record, I don't click on links to random sites, so please don't pull that card on me like you did for most of your responses.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

People act like Publishers are these big drooling monsters.

Considering the amount of my creative work that Publishers have stolen, I'll treat them like the scum they are.

 

[Kagim]

People act like Publishers are these big drooling monsters.

Considering the amount of my creative work that Publishers have stolen, I'll treat them like the scum they are.

Considering the fact that

1) Most of the creative works you speak of wouldn't exist if it wasn't for publisher funds.

2) Developers go to publishers for money. Publishers don't hunt down indie developers and force them to sign contracts at gun point there for nothing is stolen. If you sign a contract that screwed you well tough shit for you.

3) If it wasn't for the consumer demanding 100% perfection from every facet of the games they play with cutting edge graphics they wouldn't need to take 20 million dollar loans in the first place.

4) You do realize the big name developers, the ones you think have had there creative works stolen since most indie games are created out of pocket, could finance there own games... It just would involve risking there own money. So before you blame the Publisher why not blame the people unwilling to risk there own cash and the consumer who demands everything be cutting edge and sold for the smallest amount of money possible.

Publishers are pretty much middle men between investor and creator. They give money under the condition they will make it all back and then some. If a developer doesn't like the idea of someone editing there work, or making money off of said work, they can finance the game on there own.

But that would actually involve risking there own money.

And god forbid an Xbox or PlayStation game gets released that isn't on the cutting edge of graphics design.

I know scape goats are awesome and all, they don't fly with me though.

Goodnight.

 

[QuantumT]

So actually on the topic of the morality of copyright, what amount of time is appropriate/enough? It seems to me like there is clearly some upper limit on how long it should last (for example, a 1000 year copyright length sounds absurd). The trend in the US has been a continuous increase since the country was founded, shown [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Copyright_term.svg"]here[/a].

I'm not really sure what I think the right amount of time is, but what do others think?