The Absurdity Of Comparing Copying To Stealing
from the preach-it dept
This is certainly a point we've probably made hundreds of times on this site over the years, highlighting that infringement is different than "stealing" in some very important ways. And yet, industry folks, politicians and law enforcement continue to make the claim that one is "no different" from the other. We had already called out US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who's heading the prosecution of Aaron Swartz for making the bogus "no different than stealing" statement about Swartz's actions:"Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar and whether you take documents, data, or dollars," US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a statement. "It is equally harmful to the victim, whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away."Reader jjmsan points us to Matthew Yglesias' wonderful two paragraph debunking of this absurd statement, and the fact that US law enforcement continues to make such obviously false equivalency claims:
This is absurd. I wrote a book once, titled Heads In The Sand. I both own physical copies of the book and own the copyright to the content of the book. It is obviously not equally harmful to me if you break into my house and steal my physical copy of the book than if you were to somehow go to the library and make a photocopy of the book. The difference, not at all subtle, is that when you steal something of mine (be it my book, my iPad, my shoes, my money, my immersion blender or whatever), I don’t have it anymore. If you copy something that you’re not allowed to copy without my permission, that’s a very different issue. Perhaps you deprive me of income I would have had if you hadn’t done that, or perhaps you don’t deprive me of anything. As I’ve said before, I sometimes beg online for someone to send me a copy of an academic article that I can’t get free access to. It’s never the case that my fallback option in this situation is to purchase an extremely expensive academic journal subscription. Nobody is harmed when this sort of copying occurs, and even in the cases where there is a harm the nature of the harm is quite different from the harm incurred in actual cases of theft.It's that second paragraph that's really the crux of the issue here. We've all argued way too many times over the issue in the first paragraph. But there's simply no good reason at all for officials to use such language when it comes to copying, because copyright laws are entirely unrelated and have a totally different purpose than laws against stealing.
I’m not really sure why the people charged with enforcing copyright law are obsessed with obscuring this fact. The laws against stealing are hardly the only laws on the books. There is a perfectly sound public policy rationale for requiring cars to have license plates, but nobody would say “stealing is stealing whether you take someone’s car or just drive your own car without license plates.” The regulations against copying are supposed 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.” That’s a good reason to have a set of rules, but it’s a reason that has nothing to do with “stealing.” The question is whether the rules we currently have are actually good ways to achieve this goal.
Of course, it's also worth pointing out a key point that Yglesias seems to skip over which makes Ortiz's statements here even more ridiculous. For all the "stealing" talk regarding Swartz's attempts to copy JSTOR documents, he wasn't even charged with copyright infringement. The "stealing" claim rings even more hollow than usual because he's not charged with either "stealing" or "copying." He's charged with hacking into a system, against their terms of service. Now, I guess someone could try to claim that's some sort of "theft of service," but even that claim doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, because anyone who had access to the MIT network -- which allowed guest access, as Swartz was using -- had free access to JSTOR.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
There is a good reason they keep saying it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Oh yeah, from dictionary.com:
1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3.to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance: He stole my girlfriend.
Steal is still a pretty good way to describe it. You don't have to take the physical original to appropriate something, do you?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
verb (used with object)
3. to set apart, authorize, or legislate for some specific purpose or use: The legislature appropriated funds for the university.
4. to take to or for oneself; take possession of.
5. to take without permission or consent; seize; expropriate: He appropriated the trust funds for himself.
No one took "Possession" of someone else's ideas. It's not like someone claimed to own the thought in someone else's head...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
You have nothing, I have something (a digital copy of a song I paid for on itunes). You access my computer without me knowing, and you obtain a copy of it.
Now you have something. I do too.
Did you pay for it? Did you obtain the rights to it? Did you lawfully obtain it?
Now, let's say I give you the copy (you don't have to break in to get it). Is the result not the same? There is now more music, but only one of us has rights to it. What would you considering your copy?
Illegal, right?
So when you obtained the copy, you had to break the law, right?
So if not stealing (as in theft of service, theft of rights, etc), what would you consider it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
It can't be theft of service, because the file isn't a service. It can't be theft of rights, because the copyright itself wasn't transferred illegally; the second person doesn't now hold the copyright, just the file. That copyright itself is a privilege and not a right is a separate topic.
You are aware that there are other types of illegal activity than theft, right? Walking across someone's yard isn't theft of right-of-way, it's trespass. If a neighborhood child comes into your unfenced yard and drowns in your pool, you aren't guilty of theft of life, but you may be guilty of creating an attractive nuisance and manslaughter.
Bernie Madoff wasn't found guilty of theft, but of fraud. People who take money from their company or investors are guilty of embezzlement.
Theft is specific. Some things are analogous to theft, but that isn't how the law works.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Smuggling
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Um, the same thing the law does: infringing (notice again, not stealing).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Okay, then, let's try this the other way.
I think you've overlooked something important. You didn't pay for your copy of the song. You paid for a license to a song from iTunes. That's why you can't sell me your copy. You don't have the right to because you don't own it.
That's why copyright infringement is not theft. The same property rights do not apply. You could however sell me your Lincoln Towncar.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Exactly what it has been called, what it has always been called and classified in law: Infringement.
Infringement is not theft. The law says so, the judiciary says so, every case to date says so.
Good luck on your time-wasting crusade to conflate it with theft tho. I guess even trolls and shills need some way to earn a living.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Is there anything missing compared to what you had before?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
...
So when you obtained the copy, you had to break the law, right?
I think you just said "recieving a gift is the same as stealing." Is that the direction you mean to be heading in?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
A park ranger came up to me demanding to know what had happened. I told him that I had taken a picture of the mountain. No sooner had I uttered those words than a fleet of black helicopters descended on our location. An engineer jumped out of the first one, grabbed my camera, and proceeded to pull out all of the bytes one at a time with a very tiny set of tweezers.
It took most of the weekend, but the mountain is now back to where it was (along with a couple of families camping in the mountains and a very confused black bear). The moral of the story is copying things, or even remembering them can be critically damaging to our planet, and thus our children.
And won't somebody please think of the children?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
You say think of the children, I say THINK OF THE POOR BEAR u bastard ;)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Secondly, content is NOT property. It's natural state as part of the public domain, because that's where it came from, makes the public the real owner of any published content. Copyright does not bestow any title of property over author's works, only the copyright is theirs and that is temporary (if you can call "lifetime" temporary). No one can "steal" from you what was never yours to begin with.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
When copying works you don't have permission to, you are not depriving anyone else of, especially the rights holder, the possession of that content.
Fixed.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
This isn't always true. A painting or artwork is considered property - it has a physical presence. If I create a painting and display it (whether on a website or in a gallery), it is still "mine" - and it is also content. The public does not own it, I do.
The images I display on my website of my artwork and photography are "mine" - the physical aspects of them. I can touch them, hold them in my hands, etc. They are not part of the public domain and the public doesn't own them just because I display them on my website as sample work.
You need to be careful how you define "content". Anything on a website can be considered content, including a digital representation of a real work.
Redistributing that sample image isn't likely to cause much in the way of harm if you sell physical works, but it still doesn't belong to the public, nor does it reside in the public domain just because you can see it on the website.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
All works reside in the public domain by default, because all works belong to the public domain (all works are based on ideas and expression possessed by the public domain, i.e. the whole of human history, everything is based on what came before), copyright just takes certain rights away from the public domain to provide special privileges to copyright holders.
Painting = property
Sculpture = property
Ideas and expressions of those works are not property.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, but I wasn't really talking about ideas or expression. Content can contain more than ideas and expression. The contents of my purse are not ideas or expressions, yet they are "contents" (hence my statement on being careful you define content).
[A digital image displayed on a website is not anyone's exclusive property.]
Says who? A digital image is created by someone - regardless of how. The ideas in it can be public even the methodology or expression can be "public domain", but the digital image still has a physical value (ie: money) if the image is one that is licensed or sold. So no, it is not belonging to the public or nobody because it's displayed digitally.
The actual "sight" of the image (ie: what you see with your own eye) is yours or anyone's or the public's. How you interpret the image is yours too, and in many cases, what you do with that (derivative work) is yours (or the public's if that's how you choose to see it).
I am all for creative commons and give away much free work, and I believe that copyright laws are rather flawed, and also don't believe that "stealing" and "copyright infringement" are the same, nor cause the same harm, though both can sometimes cause monetary loss...or not.
I do still believe the image is MINE - until copyright runs out, or I say otherwise (which usually comes long before copyright runs out). You can license it, or you can buy it, or you can probably even use it in your blog. You just can't claim you created it.
I wasn't in any way talking about the ideas or expressions contained in the image, but about the actual image itself. There is quite a distinction between the ideas expressed in an image, or the expression of something and "the actual image itself".
The difference is I can sell or license the image I created (that's mine). You cannot (nor can the public) sell or license the image I created...not without my permission.
I have a feeling we're talking about slightly different aspects of the art/image and not quite meeting up.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You emphatically state that the image is your property. How can it be? Does it include only subject matter that didn't exist before your creation of that image? Is it made of materials that you own? Is your only claim to ownership to that image is that you used your camera to photograph it? If you think copyright provides title of ownership to the images you take, you are mistaken. It is clearly written in copyright law that the copyright, not the work which it covers, is the property of the author. Therefore, you do not own that image. Only the copyright is yours.
I wouldn't be surprised if that concept bothers you, but you do own something. Your labor, your skill, your ability to create is yours and yours alone. If people want you to create, you command for whom you will create. That is what you own. The art is just your business card, your advertising, your hook. Labor is the good that people will always pay for. Labor is scarce and always in demand.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
By your logic, feeling violated is the same thing as being raped because a lot of people use the the term rape to describe non-sexual violation, as in, "the government is raping my constitutional rights." Would you be okay with being prosecuted for rape when you're actually doing something quite different but were accused of "raping" someone's rights, just because they wanted to use colorful language to paint the action in an awful light?
If copyright violation is actually stealing, why aren't people being prosecuted for theft? If it really is the same, we don't need copyright laws.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Move goalposts much?
Copyright infringement is illegal.
Stealing is illegal.
That doesn't mean that copyright infringement = stealing.
This is basic stuff, and not at all hard to understand.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re-bunked, just to show how your take is wrong.
Ortiz doesn't say that every theft is of the /same/ stuff, you conflating propagandist, but mentions different items to show that the underlying principle is the same regardless.
"It is equally harmful to the victim, whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away."
That seems unarguable in this area: a sale of a wanted product doesn't occur either way; the only difference is whether the "thief" profits in /money/ not just in the joy of "liberating" what someone else is selling.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re-bunked, just to show how your take is wrong.
Prove that there was "harm" to the victim. In physical materials this is easy in the the victim now has to replace the item that was stolen. In this case the "victim" still has all the items in their library, and no evidence that what Swartz did has stopped or changed anyone's mind from buying a subscription.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re-bunked, just to show how your take is wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re-bunked, just to show how your take is wrong.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re-bunked, just to show how your take is wrong.
Well, now, there's a surprise.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re-bunked, just to show how your take is wrong.
aw, in what way, a bruised ego? figuring out they aren't a sepcial snowflake when it comes to their ideas? too bad for them, really, i hope more and more copytards go through that "harm", maybe then all of this patent/copyright bullcrap will slink to back to whatever abyss it came from
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Words matter - under the law.
Curious onlooker: So will you be levelling charges of theft?
A/P: We will be levelling charges of [anything but actual theft].
Why do they have to embellish at all? Just state what law has actually been broken and leave it at that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
Now. Matthew Yglesias wrote: "As I’ve said before, I sometimes beg online for someone to send me a copy of an academic article that I can’t get free access to. It’s never the case that my fallback option in this situation is to purchase an extremely expensive academic journal subscription."
Okay. First, Yglesias considers /his/ wishes to be the only factor: he clearly doesn't care beans whether /someone else/ wishes to retain the Constitutional rights that he even goes on to list in the next paragraph! That's just typical of someone who sets themselves above others. But society only works among reasonably equal Peers. Yglesias only sees it going only one way: to /his/ benefit.
2nd requires only substituting nouns to refute: "It’s never the case that my fallback option in this situation is to purchase a -- Lincoln Town Car."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
Logical fallacy. Content is not property. A Lincoln Town Car is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
If not, why not?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
Ok,any1 willing to start ThePirateScholar.org with me? I'd go for Peter Sunde and the crew but I need sober ppl and they would be more drunk than sober.
Oh that reminds me that there's no case against Aaron. But never mind me, the Govt is always right, no?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
Umm.. Yeah... Yeah, it kinda does... That's what PUBLIC DOMAIN IS.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
That's not what the public domain is. If JSTOR has a copy of a public domain document on their computers, that copy is their property. You can't just take it because it's in the public domain. You're confusing the copy with the copyright.
If I invite you into my home and tell you you can browse through my library, that doesn't mean you can take any book that happens to have a copyright in the public domain. That book is my property.
Or more analogously, say I tell you you can copy a couple of photo files from my computer. If I happen to have some other files, like say a scan of a book that's in the public domain, that doesn't mean you can copy that file too. That file is my property and your use would be unauthorized.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
I haven’t done a thing to your copy. Once again, you don’t own a copy of a digital file, you have just (temporarily) licensed the right to use that particular arrangement of 1s and 0s.
If it’s in the public domain, everyone has the right to use it. If you don’t want me to copy it, you need to prevent me from having any access to it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
Okay. First, Yglesias considers /his/ wishes to be the only factor:
You aren't familiar with academia are you?
Generally the practice described is approved , encouraged, and even facilitated even by the publishers. They even used to hand out free reprints for authors to give away to people who requested them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Wouldn't gov't subsidizing academia be better than waging wars for empire?
If everyone produces one thing and allows it to be shared freely, everyone no longer only has access to their one thing, but access to hundreds, thousands, millions of things -- and at no loss to anyone.
Anyone choosing to restrict their products -- in exchange for payment -- is the one acting immorally: they break the plainly moral rule purely for self-interest.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mike, there's a reason they use the word "stealing".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Mike, there's a reason they use the word "stealing".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Given the advances in scanning technology it is no longer the dark ages where their monks produce copies by hand. But they have always charged like this, so they need to continue to do this. (A related example of this nonadapting behavior is record labels still charging the breakage fee based on typical vinyl record breakage.)
JSTOR declined to press charges, but this is continuing as a great piece of theater. They want to paint this as evil hackers pirating these documents and we need stronger laws to lock them away forever or they will rob all of us.
Isn't the real robbery the fact that a non-profit is charging people a fee to see the documents, and limiting access with rules trying to keep them out of the publics hands? How much needs to be paid to let them recover their costs for each document? Should we keep paying that price once the costs have been paid? Or is this another non-profit with top heavy administration that just wants more?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
> index, annotate etc all of these articles.
If they had annotated, then they would have copyright on those annotations, and thus would have an actual case.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
JSTOR says that’s their policy because they spend a lot of money to scan, markup and index material, and that their service is available to many people — though not all — through university and public libraries.
“In reaction to this individual’s message accompanying the files it is important to understand that there
are costs associated with digitizing, preserving, and providing access to content,” a statement from the company said. “We have worked, and continue to work, extremely hard to provide access to scholarship to more and more people around the world every day in ways that are sustainable and that assure the public that the content will also be preserved and available into the future.”"
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/07/science-pirate-bay/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Is this a new form of effectively extending copyright? Just put in your TOS that users are prohibited from copying the material, and now you don't have to worry about the fact that the material is public domain?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
* may or may not have come from JSTOR at some point, or
* may or may not of been annotated by JSTOR at some point, or
* may or may not of been indexed, hidden behind a paywall, charged fees for by JSTOR, or
* may have been part of a so called 'usage license' created by JSTOR
AND
those same copies I now have are classified under the public domain in the jurisdiction to where I reside.
Then I have an absolute right and priviledge to do anything whatsoever with those copies. This can include:
* sharing
* editing
* transforming them into other works
* charging for the use of them
* selling them back to JSTOR
* reading them in public at midnight under a full moon whilst naked singing the theme song to cats.
Whether or not JSTOR has a license to the docunments is irrelevant and since those documents are classified as within the public domain, for them to then try to enforce their license on them will result in there breach of license since you can not enforce a contract unlawfully.
Remember they are basically stating they hold an exclusive license on the copies of any form of that document, when in fact the only license they hold is upon the actual physical copy they currently have in their possession, NOT any others that are not in their possession.
As for any annotations, or indexing they have created on their copy, that's fine and good for them and the reason why they are still able to charge money, though that could soon be a problem, since they are value adding to the document. Courts have held that annotations, indexing etc does not give you ownership of the PD documents, just of your annotations (that are separate anyway from documents)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But he exceeded the level of service he was entitled to, so it was "theft of service." Whether the access is free or not is beside the point.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Yikes. I think pretty much everyone in the world is a thief, then.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
This argument has been tried before in various forms (see: Drew, Lori) and is really nefarious. Though it means I can turn all of you into felons pretty quickly. *Insert evil laughter here*
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The law, as written, allows a private entity to determine what is criminal behavior, which is deeply troubling. Courts haven't been sympathetic to that possibility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So what's the argument this doesn't apply to him? Are you saying that since JSTOR created the policy it's not fair to hold him accountable for what he did? It's safe to say that if the allegations are true, he knew damn well that he was breaking law, right? I don't see what all the hubbub is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
If the use that is authorized includes a prohibition against scraping the database and downloading entire volumes of journals, and you then scrape the database and download entire volumes of journals, how is that not exceeding authorized use?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Authorized use," isn't mentioned. Just "authorized access." He hadc authorization to access any and all of those files; just because you don't like the way he did it doesn't mean he exceeded his authorization.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
He explicitly did not have permission to scrape the database and download entire issues of journals. He had limited access, and he exceeded those limitations. He appears to have done so on purpose, full well knowing that he did not have permission to do what he was doing. In other words, he knew that he was breaking the law. It's got nothing to do with how I feel about it, it's just a fact.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The statute being used was intended to prevent/prosecute hackers who break into computer systems, and that's not what happened here by any reasonable measure. By all means, take him to task for breaking his contract or whatever, but calling this a breach of 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(4) is over-reaching.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Here's a typical statute:Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 31.04.
The TOS told him what services he could legally make use of. Violating the level of use he was authorized to have is "theft of service." So yes, violating the TOS is theft of service. What else would it be?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's like if my internet company offers free dial up service, but they also have cable broadband. If I sign up for the free service and then steal the cable broadband, I can't say it's not theft of service because they give it away for free. What I took, the service, was not given away for free. I should have paid for it. I exceeded my authorized use whether it's free or not.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Breach or Forfeiture of Contract perhaps?
Oh sorry.. that's the Legal definition you just want the "He murdered my service so he needs to pay" definition.
OH BTW, it still isn't a breach, forfeiture, theft, or any other type of tort unless and until a legal authority ie: Court or tribunal finds that it is.
Stating that someone infringed your copyright without having that finding upheld by procedural fairness rules (due process) is soon going to guarantee that a court might find you in breach of another tort called defamation.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Let's see... you have false token, deception, diverting someone else's service, failure to vacate a rental, and renging on a promise to pay. I don't see anywhere on there either "violating ToS" or "exceeding authorized use," so your argument fails.
As to your other point, where you claim he would have had to pay for the level of use he got, I haven't seen that in any of the reports; is there a limit to University's access that no one's talking about, and if so why isn't anyone talking about it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
JSTOR does not say you only have access up to x amount.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Still, Public Domain is Public Domain (heh) so it'd be ok if Aaron put everything in a site, providing he had the funds.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Yes it does.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
They do not have the legal capacity to make this condition for any documents that are within the public Domain, therefore in those instances this condition is voidable.
in fact condition 2.2c "modify, obscure, or remove any copyright notice or other attribution included in the Content;" is also voidable, as are conditions 2.2h, and 2.2j
In fact this is why we see if we go down the TOS a nice little condition
"9.3 If any provision or provisions of these Terms and Conditions of Use shall be held to be invalid, illegal, unenforceable, or in conflict with the law of any jurisdiction, the validity, legality, and enforceability of the remaining provisions shall not be in any way affected or impaired thereby. A waiver of any breach of these Terms and Conditions of Use shall not be deemed a waiver of other breaches of these Terms and Conditions of Use."
Which means in plain English.
These conditions in this contract of Service you agree to, could be held to be unenforceable and downright illegal, so just to make sure we need to cover our arse, since we know we cannot state conditions for all eventualities.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Theft
Winston Churchill
Mine now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If Copying is Theft
Sharing copyrighted works have been around since the photocopier. People would make copies of interesting things they read and share them around the office. Now days they just copy/paste to e-mail.
Equating theft with infringement is less a flaw in logic and more an act of desperation to attempt to garner public support for outrageous claims.
Except the public isn't as stupid as they want to believe.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: If Copying is Theft
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: If Copying is Theft
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: If Copying is Theft
There were earlier English translations of the bible, but Tyndale wrote the majority of the English translation which remains current.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: If Copying is Theft
My dad would have spent his entire life in jail if that were the case.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: So..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: So..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You forget what is being "stolen"
Since not enough support was gained for propping up that model, then the obvious warpath is to prove that EVERY instance of copying is a THEFT so that THEFT obviously must be stopped. Yeah. That'll happen. That'll fix it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You forget what is being "stolen"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: You forget what is being "stolen"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Consider the copyright itself
I am simply pointing out that the lines between dictionary definition of theft and the results of copying are not as clear as those that focus only on the copying of the thing itself conclude. It seems like something to consider if you are really trying to have an honest debate about this issue.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Generally, when you steal something it's pretty cut and dry that you took some physical item that wasn't yours. It's a pretty rare occurance that there is some ambiguity there.
Copyright violations on the other hand are much more open to interpretation. Is the copying allowed via the "fair use doctrine?" It's hard to tell and the only way to know for sure is to litigate it (and it's certainly not cut and dry even then).
Is something in the public domain? You can't tell by looking at it. Sure, you can make some inferences and be right most of the time, but again there is some ambiguity. So what you're doing could be perfectly 100% legal or illegal with massive fines attached.
What limits on the use of a material does the copyright owner have? In the case of Swartz, that's really what the entire case comes down to. Again, it's not an immediately clear line. You have to dig through the TOS (which may randomly change) to be sure.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Now had you actually taken his paper, put your name on it, and submitted it, it would be theft AND plagiarism.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
With copyright, no one is claming the music came from them, or in may cases, trying to profit from it.
(The theft bit came from the fact that you had literally stolen the paper it was written on.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Could also be classified as False and Misleading practice.
Aren't words great!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If It’s “Stealing”, Treat It As “Stealing”
No. You do none of these things. Instead, you call the cops, and have them prosecuted as the criminals they are.
That’s what “stealing” means. And that’s why copyright infringement is not “stealing”; if it was, why not just report it to the cops?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
terrorism
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thomas Jefferson ++
“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.”
This whole quest for pure originality, which the last century of copyright policy makers hav used as their foundation, disregards the inherently derivative nature of most creation. Let's get old school and think of ideas like fire rather than rocks.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Thomas Jefferson ++
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
An old tactic
The answer is simple (and someone may have said it already.
The reason people do obscure this is because when you want the masses (or the people in power) to think something is bad the quickest (but obviously dishonest) way to do it is to associate it with something that's already understood to be bad.
Wasn't there an article a while back here about how some politician was trying to say that piracy of movies was somehow related to child porn or something like that?
Politicians even do it amongst themselves when election time comes around. Wait until next year during campaign times. You'll see a few "(name of opponent) is soft on (issue that most people agree is wrong and should be punished swifty). Do you really want him/her in office?" type ads running.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- passing profits through a "double irish" to evade taxes
- purposely misleading our politicians with bogus figures to get laws that will cost the economy and tax payers millions.
- lying to our judges and juries to convince them into awarding millions of dollars in damages.
- failing to pay collected levies to deserving artists for many years.
- lobbying foreign government with the help of the state department to pass laws that will cost their local industry millions.
-
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Can't stop the signal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I totally annihilated a lot of races over the years!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Illegal copying is Stealing
[ link to this | view in chronology ]