If you use BitTorrent, the terrorists have won...

[Adagio]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Please answer my question - is copying wrong if the content that you are copying is not available where you live , though you are willing to pay for it ?

I see nothing wrong with it at all, since there would be no way for you to buy productX so those who made the product wouldn't have any chance of getting your money anyway

Of course it'll still be illegal

[Wraith]

Yeesh. Guys, downloading copyrighted works is copyright infringement, not theft. The penalties for the two are different. In fact, most copyright infrigement matters are civil, not criminal. (Selling that work again is another matter, but not really what was being talked about here.)

MPAA and RIAA have been working hard to change this, I admit, but it hasn't happened yet. Their ads are disengenuous, and are confusing the distinction on purpose. It's much more threatening to say "this is theft" than to say "this is copyright infringement".

BTW, Oncle Boris, since when have you taken corporations at their stated word? These guys have an agenda behind the misrepresentation, because it can make them more money.

The basis for the difference is pretty clear. Copying a work does nothing to deprive the owner of the original or of anything he already has. Stealing his car (or food, or whatever), quite obviously does.

--"That's a very shallow view of property- property also extends to a person's right over his work, hence the very possibility of intellectual property."

Intellectual Property has been controversial as long as it's been around. It is not a simple extentesion of property rights. It's a limited monopoly granted by the government for the ostensible purpose of encouraging innovation. In copyright's case, it originally only covered printed works that were specifically registered, and for a rather more limited time than at present. Now there's not a whole lot that isn't automatically covered by copyright, which lasts for nearly a full lifetime after the originator's death, which can hardly induce him to create new works from beyond the grave.
This is a big part of the problem. The only ones who can take advantage of the current rules are the big (and technically immortal) corporations. The worse the laws are, the more inducement there is for people to ignore and break them.

IP is broken up into four areas, each of which operates under different restrictions. People lumping them together blindly do no service to the various arguments that go on. People like MPAA and RIAA are the worst at this, because they're doing this on purpose to obsfucate their arguments. You cannot apply trade secret or patent rules to copyright, no matter how much these guys want to.

--"Exactly. Thus replicating a Ferrari would be as much theft as would replicating a movie be."

I really don't see how you can claim this, even if you are arguing from a labor theory of value. After all, it's the copier performing the extra labor, he's not taking it from anyone else. You could use the labor theory of value to argue only in the case of IP, since you could claim he's stealing someone else's "brain labor", but since the labor theory of value is complete bunk it doesn't matter.

Wraith
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies."
-- Groucho Marx

[DRoseDARs]

Groucho Marx

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by Oerdin




How naive and clueless. There are around 4-6 major record labels which form a distrubition oligarchy in the US. They control around 90% of all distrubutions and they don't like carrying to many bands which compete head to head with one another. That means that even if a really good band pops up they aren't likely to sign them since they don't want to much competition for the bands which they've already heavily hyped & promoted. You know the really good bands like the backstreet boys or Brtney Speers.

If you bothered to look then you'd know that nearly all the innovation and original sound comes from the underground. That's where the great artists are and that's where the best music is but you won't hear it on the radio because the few corporate owners which now own most of the stations only play top 40 since it is bland and poppy and it doesn't upset anyone. The people who keep their nose to the ground and who watch the internet are the ones who pick up on the great undiscovered bands and more and more it is releases and word of mouth on the internet which is pushing them to stardom.

I think (hope) that he was joking with that comment....

[asleepathewheel]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Wraith
The penalties for the two are different. [QUOTE]

Not so much these days.


Theft and copyright infrigement are fairly analogous in the scheme of things. Both involve the use of someone else's interests without their permission. While they are under different statutes and different names, its not a shock that it would be framed to the common man as being one and the same. Everyone knows what theft is, not many people know about copyrights. If you think this is manipulation or whatever, then that is on you to re-educate the masses otherwise.

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Wraith
The basis for the difference is pretty clear. Copying a work does nothing to deprive the owner of the original or of anything he already has. Stealing his car (or food, or whatever), quite obviously does. [QUOTE]

Copying someone's work or allowing it to be copied from your source without the creator's permission deprives that person of the right to distribute their work as they see fit.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by asleepathewheel


Copying someone's work or allowing it to be copied from your source without the creator's permission deprives that person of the right to distribute their work as they see fit.

No it doesn't... They can still distribute it however they want.

It only deprives them of the ability control how other people distribute their work.

[Hueij]

Question: I have all the original Beatles albums on vinyl, either bought myself or given as a present. So the copyright has been paid for. Is it then legal to download the cd's?

[Wraith]

--"Groucho Marx"

Got to give the man credit. He knew more about the human condition than most self-styled intellectuals ever will.

--"Not so much these days."

Unfortunately true. This is what massive lobbying can get you these days. Thank you, Senator Disney, I mean, Senator Hollings.
If Disney weren't so freakishly paranoid about Steamboat Willie slipping into the public domain, the problem would be a lot less. Which is strikingly hypocritical, given that Steamboat Willie, as well as most Disney works, are remarkably derivative of other peoples "Intellectual Property".

--"Both involve the use of someone else's interests without their permission. "

Maybe it's just me, but it seems pretty obvious that depriving someone of something is more serious than not depriving them of it.

--" If you think this is manipulation or whatever, then that is on you to re-educate the masses otherwise. "

Why do you think I'm bothering to post in here? I tell people this kind of thing all the time when the subject comes up. I just don't have billions of dollars cheated out of creators to run ads and fund election campaigns.

--"Copying someone's work or allowing it to be copied from your source without the creator's permission deprives that person of the right to distribute their work as they see fit."

Why not? They've still got it, right?

BTW, I would highly encourage you to read up on the history of copyright. It's very interesting.

--"Is it then legal to download the cd's?"

Depends who you ask. Most people will say "no problem". RIAA will say "No way". They don't like people converting from one media to another, they don't want you to have a digital version unless you pay again. The way they've been attacking Fair Use, it's pretty clear they want to charge you for every time you listen to it.

Wraith
"The penalty for laughing in the courtroom is six months in jail: if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence."
-- H. L. Mencken

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by General Ludd


No it doesn't... They can still distribute it however they want.

It only deprives them of the ability control how other people distribute their work.

Congratulations, you win the ignorant semantic masturbation award of the day.

Unless the right is granted in the first place, other people have no rights to distribute their work at all, so any unauthorized distribution is by definition an interference.

[Kuciwalker]

Congratulations, you win the ignorant semantic masturbation award of the day.

Surely you have to award more than one of these per day

[MichaeltheGreat]

If I read all the posts and all the threads, I'm sure I would probably have to. That one just stood out though, so I'm sure it's at least a bona fide candidate for today's winner.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


Congratulations, you win the ignorant semantic masturbation award of the day.

It's not ignorant semantic masturbation, there is a signifigant difference between what was said, and the correction I made. What he said implied that by downloading an MP3, you are denying the artist the ability to sell his work. Complete hyperbole.

Unless the right is granted in the first place, other people have no rights to distribute their work at all, so any unauthorized distribution is by definition an interference.

You'll notice that I purposely left out the word 'right' because I do not accept that such nonsense is rightful.

[Q Classic]

Actually, in all of this--the only thing that really bugs me is that they took down btefnet.

TV shows that aren't on dvds yet, and aren't going to be broadcast again for a while... honestly, I say it's fair game. No different than passing around a VHS copy. (granted, iirc, that's technically illegal as well. )

There's an interesting op-ed piece someone wrote. It's linked to on BoingBoing, and it's about how Battlestar Galactica destroyed TV...

Or, in other words, how the hyperdistribution of BSG using torrents shows that there's a new way of getting media out, and it's a shame that the current dinosaur companies are unwilling to adapt.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Wraith
Yeesh. Guys, downloading copyrighted works is copyright infringement, not theft.

But copyright exists on the basis that IP is property. Its legal workings are very similar to that of traditional property.

The penalties for the two are different. In fact, most copyright infrigement matters are civil, not criminal. (Selling that work again is another matter, but not really what was being talked about here.)

It only means that officials do not strongly enforce these laws - arguably for a reason, because copyright infringement is a benign crime.

MPAA and RIAA have been working hard to change this, I admit, but it hasn't happened yet. Their ads are disengenuous, and are confusing the distinction on purpose. It's much more threatening to say "this is theft" than to say "this is copyright infringement".

I'm surprised that a simplistic comment like this would slip into your rather intelligent post. Their idea is that copyright infringement is a form of theft; as I previously tried to say to Pekka, rhetoric-wise, saying that copyright infringement is... copyright infringement would get them nowhere.

BTW, Oncle Boris, since when have you taken corporations at their stated word? These guys have an agenda behind the misrepresentation, because it can make them more money.

Of course they do. It's not like I'm defending them. Consider my intervention strictly limited to the notions of property and theft.

The basis for the difference is pretty clear. Copying a work does nothing to deprive the owner of the original or of anything he already has. Stealing his car (or food, or whatever), quite obviously does.

I think the idea of deprival clearly goes beyond material objects. Your argument does not take into account some assumptions relating to the spirit of the notion of property. If people put work and money into the production of IP with the idea of selling it, then they are deprived of something if they can't get paid: not only the labour, but the material resources that were consumed during the production process.
There would a clear intellectual dishonesty here if you would say that there is any important difference between being directly deprived of an object, and being deprived of payment for objects (including money, labour and resources) consumed during the production of IP with the express intent of receiving compensation for it within the frameset set by copyright laws.

Intellectual Property has been controversial as long as it's been around. It is not a simple extentesion of property rights. It's a limited monopoly granted by the government for the ostensible purpose of encouraging innovation.

Honestly, I don't see why this definition couldn't also apply to traditional forms of property.

In copyright's case, it originally only covered printed works that were specifically registered, and for a rather more limited time than at present. Now there's not a whole lot that isn't automatically covered by copyright, which lasts for nearly a full lifetime after the originator's death, which can hardly induce him to create new works from beyond the grave.
This is a big part of the problem. The only ones who can take advantage of the current rules are the big (and technically immortal) corporations. The worse the laws are, the more inducement there is for people to ignore and break them.

I'm no legal expert, but don't patents expire after a certain time anyway (that is not related to the lifespan of the owner)? As for cultural productions (a non-patent form of IP), I can hear you. The extent to which property can go can hardly be justified to scope beyond a lifetime IMO.

IP is broken up into four areas, each of which operates under different restrictions. People lumping them together blindly do no service to the various arguments that go on. People like MPAA and RIAA are the worst at this, because they're doing this on purpose to obsfucate their arguments. You cannot apply trade secret or patent rules to copyright, no matter how much these guys want to.

Personally I've never seen record labels try to pass cultural copyrights as trade secrets or patents, but whatever.

I really don't see how you can claim this, even if you are arguing from a labor theory of value. After all, it's the copier performing the extra labor, he's not taking it from anyone else. You could use the labor theory of value to argue only in the case of IP, since you could claim he's stealing someone else's "brain labor", but since the labor theory of value is complete bunk it doesn't matter.

I don't know why the labor theory of value is complete bunk, and heck, I don't even know if I adhere to it, even though I guess I might, because as a commie I think that what justifies collective takeover of the means of production is the undervaluation of labor.

Back to your point, I think this argument is a bit prematurate. Replicating a Ferrari through reverse-engineering of patented technologies would be illegal, however rebuilding one from the ground up is perfectly fine. The comparison being done here, though, assumed the hypothetical possibility of skipping the reverse-engineering step with a replicator machine - i.e, a CD burner. And as far as I know, replicating an album does not reenact the labor associated with the original creation. So at best it can justify not having to pay for the media (because it does the work), but not for the content.

BTW, it may be a bit too late, but I'd like to point out that I do despise the RIAA, and that I'm a strong proponent of lifting barriers on intellectual content. My argument here seeks to show that there is no meaningful distinction between material property and IP, if you believe in the former (which stems from a very conservative view of property). Even though this is beyond the scope of thid debate, let me just say that the reasons for which I reject most notions around physical property, are also those for which I reject most notions surrounding IP.

[Agathon]

I might actually listen to the anti-Bittorrent people if their arguments weren't so transparently an attempt to retain control of all media distribution.

**** them. They can die out like the makers of steam engines.