A Game of Thrones - TV Show Discussion Thread

[Felch]

I enjoy the NHL playoffs. I want to watch it on a big-screen HDTV. So I'm going to go to Best Buy and grab the biggest ****ing one I can find and walk out the door. I'd never actually pay for it, mind you; it's not like anyone is losing a sale here.

If I found the plans to build my own replica of an HDTV, and I went and mined all the minerals and cooked up the plastic and glass that went into it, and wired it up, and made the TV myself, would it be the exact same thing as stealing an already made TV from the store?

[Kuciwalker]

By contrast, the market failure copyright solves is very different: the free rider problem. Some things are public goods: they benefit many other people when produced, but there is no way for the producer to profit from this, so no one makes them and we are all worse off. The traditional example is a lighthouse; you can't prevent a ship from using your lighthouse beam without paying you, but lighthouses are obviously quite valuable to ships. The traditional solution is for the government to use tax revenues to provide these goods.

With original works like books, the reproduction cost is very low, so producing a book many people want to read is quite valuable. But authors have little incentive to do so, since they would receive no extra money. For a long time, this problem either wasn't solved, or was solved through the traditional solution - e.g. the Renaissance patrons of the arts. Eventually, as reproduction costs fell and as governments became more economically sophisticated, they introduced the alternate notion of copyright, which better aligned incentives to produce with the value of the thing produced. But there are large deadweight costs to copyright, and it isn't necessarily the optimal solution. Most importantly, it isn't recognition of existing moral rights of authors - it is a privilege granted for our own expedience.

[Kuciwalker]

You know, I'm starting to wonder if you ever went to kindergarten, because I'm pretty sure I was taught that there is a natural concept of "yours" and "not yours"

Yes, embedding property rights in social norms from an early age is an excellent strategy by society for ensuring they are respected

and government is not the source of this concept.

You went to a public school, dufus.

Whether or not men with guns are capable of taking away what is yours is not the definition of this idea.

Dude, we extend the notion of property all the ****ing time. When we [Europeans] came to America, we introduced the previously unknown idea of land as property. When we invented the radio, we introduced the previously unknown idea of radio spectrum as property. When we were in danger of reducing our fishing stocks below sustainable levels, we introduced the notion of catch quotas as property. When we decided to fix the problem of acid rain, we introduced the notion of sulfur emission permits as property.

What is the common factor? THESE ARE ALL TRAGEDIES OF THE COMMONS. When there are scarce resources, be they cars or land or spectrum or fish or the environment, we have to create property rights to prevent market failure. "Personal possessions", followed by land, need these protections most strongly, and so it is no surprise that they were invented so quickly they may have even predated government as such.

[Hauldren Collider]

You know, I'm starting to wonder if you ever went to kindergarten, because I'm pretty sure I was taught that there is a natural concept of "yours" and "not yours" and government is not the source of this concept. Whether or not men with guns are capable of taking away what is yours is not the definition of this idea.

[Kuciwalker]

This isn't about economics. This is about right and wrong. It is wrong to take something--anything--that doesn't belong to you, wasn't given or lent to you, without paying for it. Full stop. The end. Fin. Period. Exclamation point. SEMICOLON!

The entire notion of property is government economic policy, Guy. The notion of intellectual "property" is doubly so, because it didn't even exist for thousands of years of recorded history, and when created was explicitly justified as a measure of expedience, rather than as a way of recognizing an existing moral claim.

[Kuciwalker]

Is Shakespeare still under copyright? You sure as **** aren't robbing him, given that he's a moldering in the ground.

But I want to take the stuff without paying for it! According to you, that alone makes me an awful person. But you're defending me!

I don't follow you here. Can you please explain?

Let's say we passed the following law:

"If you would not have otherwise paid for a book, you can download it and that won't count as a copyright violation."

and further, stipulate that people actually follow that law (this is not supposed to be a reasonable assumption). Then the author of any book will receive precisely as much money as before. She will not be hurt at all by this change. But lots of other people will be happier!

Now imagine after the success of this law, we made a new one, but instead it said:

"If you would not have otherwise paid for a car, you can take it and that won't count as theft."

Many, many cars would be stolen, and their owners would all no longer have a car! They would be hurt a lot by this change.



This is the operative difference between piracy and theft. There are strong justifications for making piracy illegal, but are completely different from those for making theft illegal. To call both of them theft, to say they are not just both wrong, but are morally equivalent, conflates two very different moral problems.

[Guynemer]

I was upset because you're at least supposed to know a teensy bit about economics. It's depressing how consistently awful your posts here are, and that just sealed it.

This isn't about economics. This is about right and wrong. It is wrong to take something--anything--that doesn't belong to you, wasn't given or lent to you, without paying for it. Full stop. The end. Fin. Period. Exclamation point. SEMICOLON!

[Guynemer]

Is Shakespeare still under copyright? You sure as **** aren't robbing him, given that he's a moldering in the ground.

As I said earlier, I'd be all for rights expiring upon the death of the producer.

And when that person would not have otherwise bought the book, the author is no worse off. If the law really were "you only have to pay if you would be willing to give up that much money; otherwise you can get it for free" and people actually obeyed that rule, each author would receive precisely as much money as before and many people would be better off.

If the law were the same wrt cars, though, a whole lot of people would be much worse off.

I don't follow you here. Can you please explain?

[Kuciwalker]

Just wanted to say I agree with Guynemer, because for some reason Kuciwalker was tremendously upset to discover this in person just a few moments ago.

Theft

I was upset because you're at least supposed to know a teensy bit about economics. It's depressing how consistently awful your posts here are, and that just sealed it.

[Kuciwalker]

And when that person would not have otherwise bought the book, the author is no worse off. If the law really were "you only have to pay if you would be willing to give up that much money; otherwise you can get it for free" and people actually obeyed that rule, each author would receive precisely as much money as before and many people would be better off.

If the law were the same wrt cars, though, a whole lot of people would be much worse off.

It is utterly astonishing that you can't see this from an author's perspective.

Authors have no intrinsic moral claim on their intellectual "property". Otherwise, why do patents expire after only 20 years? Why does someone who writes a book get this monopoly on reproduction for life (and beyond), but inventors for only a couple decades? Or, why do the rights ever expire? You still haven't explained how "taking" a (digital) copy of Romeo and Juliet without paying for it isn't wrong!

You continue to try to dress up the fact that you are defending people who want a service without paying jack **** for it. I remain amazed that you deny this is theft, by any and every definition of the word.

I want to read Shakespeare without paying for it either. I'm not going to steal a physical book, I'll just download it off the Internet. Is that wrong?

You never addressed this. It seems a really big hole in your "getting stuff without paying for it is evil!" thing.

[Hauldren Collider]

Just wanted to say I agree with Guynemer, because for some reason Kuciwalker was tremendously upset to discover this in person just a few moments ago.

Theft

[Guynemer]

It is utterly astonishing that you can't see this from an author's perspective.

The book exists. It was not immaculately conceived. It was created by a number of people who worked very hard on it, and rightly expect to be compensated for that. The way they are compensated is by people paying for the book. And someone else wants to read it, but they don't want to actually pay for it, so they just ****ing take it.

[Kuciwalker]

But I took something that didn't belong to me that I wouldn't buy in the first place, and someone didn't get paid for it because of that. I really don't see the difference.

In one situation, Best Buy could have sold the television to someone else. You have now deprived them of that future sale. Whereas you have deprived the author of nothing.

It is utterly astonishing that I have to explain this to you.

[Guynemer]

But I took something that didn't belong to me that I wouldn't buy in the first place, and someone didn't get paid for it because of that. I really don't see the difference.

[Kuciwalker]

It is not wrong to read Shakespeare; it would be wrong (and utterly unnecessary) to steal Shakespeare in order to read it.

But I just went and downloaded a copy without paying for it! I'm a horrible person

I fail to see how it is extremely likely that copyright violators do not represent lost sales.

It's very likely that the majority of copyright violations do not represent lost sales, because of the scale of music piracy vs music sales.

I enjoy the NHL playoffs. I want to watch it on a big-screen HDTV. So I'm going to go to Best Buy and grab the biggest ****ing one I can find and walk out the door. I'd never actually pay for it, mind you; it's not like anyone is losing a sale here.

Guy, why do you continue to make this idiotic comparison? Best Buy is, in this case, losing valuable property. They are, in fact, losing something! And they could have sold that to someone else.