Ethics and Piracy

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming

Well... you haven't shown that an individuals creation is not property...

If it is an idea, then I think I have. Properties are things which, if they are taken, the other person is necessarily deprived of them. If I copy your idea, you still have it. As Thomas Jefferson (hurrah for Jefferson!) said, "He who lights his taper at mine doth not diminish my possession of the flame." Or something like that.

or proven that there isn't a special relationship between a person and an idea... so your point?

Generally it's incumbent on a person who asserts something like this to prove it. The same goes with God. It isn't incumbent on atheists to show that God doesn't exist, but on those making the positive existential claim.

What would this special relationship be? Creating it? If so, then we are in trouble because most new ideas are really developments of old ideas and it is simply impossible for someone to "pay all his influences". Moreover, if you have a strong conception of creator's rights you may well end up a Marxist.

Are you really claiming that a book or song created by an author isn't theirs?

I'm claiming it's not property. I am not claiming that there is no way in which we should compensate people who produce ideas, only that this cannot be done on a property model. I favour a utilitarian system, where copyright is awarded solely on the basis that it encourages people to produce more ideas. That was Jefferson's idea and I think it is the only sustainable one.

Of course if you buy into the utilitarian model, rather than the property model, then there is reason to reform the copyright system when it is no longer rewarding creation and is instead rewarding the hoarding of copyrights. People who have a lot invested in copyrights (i.e. hoarders) try to push the property model so that they can keep things as they are.

And that there is no special relationship between the two... you are the one that needs to start proving something. Songs or books don't create themselves... somebody does creates them...

Sure, but the material from which they are created is the cultural commons. For example, Eddie Van Halen created a new guitar style, but he was influenced by and copied people like Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck. Yet he paid them nothing, nor did they those that influenced them (this is another reason why the property system breaks down, enforcement would be too complicated).

As I said, copyright law should be framed so as to provide an incentive for idea creation, not because of the dubious claim that ideas are a form of property.

and works hard to do so... just as hard if not harder than the efforts you extend in teaching... which you get paid for.

Relax. You are still going to get paid, but you will be paid in a way that provides an incentive for you to create ideational works. The law needs tweaking to make sure that this occurs as efficiently as possible. The property model would object to such tweaking because it is derived from an absolutist conception of rights rather than a utilitarian system.

There are alternatives. People like me are paid to produce ideas that we give away for free. That is how universities work. Say I give a talk about Plato. Other people who are interested in it can listen and develop their own ideas from mine without paying me a cent. Same goes for scientists who publish their papers in journals (for which they receive pretty much nothing). Society pays people like us a retainer with the proviso that we share our information freely because freedom of information is paramount when it comes to peer review. Private markets simply cannot compete with this system, which is why universities generally do not operate on market principles (but through donation and taxation).

But this sort of system doesn't work for everything. That is why we have copyright laws. But there is no reason to have monolithic copyright laws, we can alter them depending on what works best in each area. Standing in the way of this are those who would make ideas property and attempt to constrain the essential nature of information (that it wants to be free) to enrich themselves at society's expense.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Agathon
Generally it's incumbent on a person who asserts something like this to prove it.

Yep... and since the law and tradition set down through history has agreed that it is indeed the case, then the burden to prove it isn't is on your shoulders

While it's nice of you to admit that people should get paid for their ideas, it doesn't balance out your thought that it's ok to steal their ideas since YOU don't consider them property. But this is really no surprise since you have posted in another thread that theft has more dignity than honest work... kind of puts your thoughts in this thread in the proper perspective

[Agathon]

Originally posted by -Jrabbit
I confess to writing before back-reading the full thread... butcan't believe this is still being debated.

It seems that this is because you've misunderstood what is at issue.

Let's get straight to the point.

Puh-lease. The idea of intellectual property is an old one, with both patent law and copyright law as preludes to what is now called "intellectual property" law. These concepts have been well established for many decades.

Yes, and what is at stake here is how that should be understood. Jefferson and those who helped create such laws saw them in utilitarian terms. In other words copyright law exists only to provide an incentive, it does not exist because ideas are property (in the non-utilitarian sense).

I am arguing that certain people are promoting the latter idea as a means of preventing copyright law reform that will benefit society and cost them money.

This is mere rationalization, Agathon. The key point is that ideas cannot be capitalized upon without being dispensed. The fact that hard goods cannot be cloned but must be stolen is not germane. "Zero sum game"???? To make this logic leap (that the zero-sum proposition must apply equally to both physical and ephemeral property) is naive at best.

That's not what is at issue. Ideas are a fundamentally different kind of thing from physical objects. It's not a rationalization, it's an undeniable fact. If I tell you about Plato's theory of forms, my knowledge is not diminished by my telling you, whereas if I give you one of my sweets, I no longer have it.

But just as wrong - both morally and legally.

It depends. Legality is not at issue here, but what the law should be. We take other people's ideas all the time without having to pay. The only reason we should have to pay is if society would be better off than if we didn't.

What's at stake here is the way we think about copyrights rather than copyrights themselves.

People who rationalize their actions through illogical notions are engaging in the merest of sophistry -- in essence, just because they don't feel guilty, like they did when they snarfed a candy bar from the store, it must be morally/ethically OK.

If I steal a candy bar from a store then the store owner no longer has it. If I tell someone else a joke he told me, we both still have the joke. To assume that every single idea that everyone ever thinks up is a kind of property and should be protected by the law is both unworkable and misses the essential point that ideas are not like property.

Trying to further justify this because someone did a study claiming that "filesharing" (love that guilt-free nomenclature!) carries no net effect on sales is equally erroneous. Proving the economic neutrality of an action has NO BEARING on its legality or morality.

Actually, you are completely off base here. Economics is the only thing that matters here. The reason that we compensate musicians for their music is that we believe that if we didn't, no-one would produce music. That is the original justification for copyright laws - go read the history for yourself.

But if it turns out that lots of worthwhile music is still produced while people share files then we realize that copyrighting music is simply a waste of time. It's the same as jokes. Most jokes are produced and given away for free, but that doesn't stop the continual flood of jokes that are produced. Hence there is no need for a market for jokes (although exceptionally funny people can still make a living at it). It is perfectly possible that people can make a good living at being musicians even if they give away their music for free (most artists make more money off of concert appearances and memorabilia anyway).

The jury is still out on this. But there is no need to confuse the issue by appealing to a wholly ridiculous notion of intellectual property.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming

Yep... and since the law and tradition set down through history has agreed that it is indeed the case, then the burden to prove it isn't is on your shoulders

Except that the law and tradition support my argument and not yours. Copyright law was formulated to provide an incentive for people to create ideas that benefit society. It was not created because people believed in a form of "mental property" after all copyrights are quite new (only a few hundred years old) whereas property laws are as ancient as the oldest law code we know of.

While it's nice of you to admit that people should get paid for their ideas, it doesn't balance out your thought that it's ok to steal their ideas since YOU don't consider them property. But this is really no surprise since you have posted in another thread that theft has more dignity than honest work... kind of puts your thoughts in this thread in the proper perspective

The stuff in the other thread was an obvious joke, and you know it.

This debate is over what conception of copyright underlies people being paid for ideas - the property model or the utilitarian model. History and rationality are on the side of the utilitarian model.

Supporters of the property model are only using it because it is in their interest to prevent alterations in the law.

If it turns out that copyrights aren't necessary to ensure the flow of quality music to society, then there is nothing wrong with file sharing any more than there is anything wrong with people on Apolyton sharing their ideas with each other.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Agathon
If it turns out that copyrights aren't necessary to ensure the flow of quality music to society, then there is nothing wrong with file sharing any more than there is anything wrong with people on Apolyton sharing their ideas with each other.

And if indeed that is the case... and the laws change, and the creators of ideas can get paid fair value for their ideas... GREAT.

Until then, people are stealing when they rip off software and fileshare, and are depriving the creators of such property their fair share.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Agathon
Except that the law and tradition support my argument and not yours. Copyright law was formulated to provide an incentive for people to create ideas that benefit society. It was not created because people believed in a form of "mental property" after all copyrights are quite new (only a few hundred years old) whereas property laws are as ancient as the oldest law code we know of.

They were created to PROTECT people's ideas and to allow people to PROFIT from those ideas... Copyright laws only added legal support to an already accepted idea that people OWNED their ideas. That books, music and other such ideas were the PROPERTY of the people that created them... Your version is just your opinion

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming


And if indeed that is the case... and the laws change, and the creators of ideas can get paid fair value for their ideas... GREAT.

Until then, people are stealing when they rip off software and fileshare, and are depriving the creators of such property their fair share.

Except there is no such thing as a fair share in a market system. There is only what people (individually and collectively) are prepared to pay for it.

Fairness has nothing to do with copyright laws - their only concern is to promote the creation of ideas by providing the prospect of financial reward. There's no "fair" price, only the price that works. If sufficient ideas are created without the need for copyright, then there is no price.

If you want to start talking about fairness then welcome to communism, Comrade Ming. Why shouldn't janitors be paid a "fair" wage as opposed to what the market determines?

More to the point, you need to consider the consequences of restricting the flow of information. In some cases they can be worse. So it's not a one-sided issue.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming


They were created to PROTECT people's ideas and to allow people to PROFIT from those ideas... Copyright laws only added legal support to an already accepted idea that people OWNED their ideas. That books, music and other such ideas were the PROPERTY of the people that created them... Your version is just your opinion

No - it's the facts. Note the bolded portions.

1787: U.S. Constitution

According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution, "the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."


1790: Copyright Act of 1790


The First Congress implemented the copyright provision of the U.S. Constitution in 1790. The Copyright Act of 1790, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies, was modeled on the Statute of Anne (1710). It granted American authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of fourteen years and to renew for another fourteen. The law was meant to provide an incentive to authors, artists, and scientists to create original works by providing creators with a monopoly. At the same time, the monopoly was limited in order to stimulate creativity and the advancement of "science and the useful arts" through wide public access to works in the "public domain." Major revisions to the act were implemented in 1831, 1870, 1909, and 1976.

The US led the way in copyright law. Care to recant?

[Ming]

While you want to argue what the value of fair might be... you also want people to be able to just TAKE the ideas with no compensation... You are the one expousing communism... I'm saying that people deserve to get paid for their ideas and that they own their own ideas

[Agathon]

More.. here is a case that proves that the Constitution did not have your conception in mind.

The case arose from a dispute between the official reporter of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Richard Peters, and the previous reporter, Henry Wheaton. Peters began publishing "Condensed Reports" of cases decided during Wheaton's tenure and Wheaton sued. The case went before the U.S. Supreme Court. Peters argued that Wheaton had failed to properly obtain copyright, while Wheaton argued that authors were entitled to perpetual property rights in their works. Justice McLean delivered the majority decision, stating that "since the statute of 8 Anne, the literary property of an author in his works can only be asserted under the statute. . . . That an author, at common law, has a property in his manuscript, and may obtain redress against any one who deprives him of it, or by improperly obtaining a copy endeavours to realise a profit by its publication cannot be doubted; but this is a very different right from that which asserts a perpetual and exclusive property in the future publication of the work, after the author shall have published it to the world." The decision struck a decisive blow against the notion of copyright as a perpetual natural right, and the utilitarian view of copyright embodied in the U.S. Constitution prevailed, i.e., "that patents and copyrights are exclusive rights of limited duration, granted in order to serve the public interest in promoting the creation and dissemination of new works." See the amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by Tyler Ochoa and Mark Rose in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, May 20, 2002.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Agathon
The US led the way in copyright law. Care to recant?

And yeah... the same document protected the rights of slave owners... It was written to sound good

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming
While you want to argue what the value of fair might be... you also want people to be able to just TAKE the ideas with no compensation...

Which we do all the time and nobody cares.

You are the one expousing communism... I'm saying that people deserve to get paid for their ideas and that they own their own ideas

But you are hovering dangerously close to a labour theory of value. Trust me, you don't want to go there.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming

And yeah... the same document protected the rights of slave owners... It was written to sound good

But copyright (in the sense we understand it) had no real existence before this. It is a legal fiction. Nowhere in US copyright law AFAIK is the utilitarian view of copyrights rejected.

Face it, copyright laws are enacted for utilitarian reasons. Those are the facts.

[Ming]

They were inacted to "legalize" concepts already in existence. Writers "owned" their work... Artists "owned" their paintings... you seem to be claiming that wasn't the case before the law. Bad argument

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Ming
They were inacted to "legalize" concepts already in existence. Writers "owned" their work... Artists "owned" their paintings... you seem to be claiming that wasn't the case before the law. Bad argument

They were most certainly not. Artists owned their canvases but people copied them all the time. Writers owned their manuscripts, but these were copied all the time.

You say that copyright law was enacted to legalize concepts already in existence. While it may be the case that utilitarian ideas of copyright had existed before, and perhaps natural rights to ideas (although I can't find any cases of either), it is simply a fact that what was legalized was the utilitarian notion of copyright.

More to the point, no one was more hung up on the notion of natural rights than the framers of the US Constitution (who borrowed heavily from Locke), but even they did not conceive of natural rights to ideas. If they had, there is no way that they would have included a conception of copyright that explicitly denies this in their Constitution.

You can't have it both ways - either the history is relevant (and I am right) or it isn't and you need to provide a better argument for natural rights to ideas.