To really understand what's going on you have to drop down to the rights of the issue.
One either violates a right, or one infringes a privilege (disobeying the annulling of a right).
Theft is the violation of an individual's right to privacy (to exclude others from the objects they possess/spaces they inhabit), by invading it & removing a possession. However, invading someone's privacy to make a copy of their diary and remove/communicate it without, is an equivalent violation.
So, a burglar copying an author's private manuscript could indeed be said to be stealing the author's intellectual property - an act of IP theft (a violation of the author's exclusive right to their writings).
Naturally, once an author, Shakespeare say, has sold or given you a manuscript or copy thereof, you are at liberty to do whatever you want with your own possession, e.g. destroy it, or make and sell as many further copies as you fancy (as you might copy a basket or vase). There is no rights violation in doing so.
In 1709 Queen Anne annulled this natural right of individuals to make & sell copies of their possessions (relating to literary/graphic/printed works). The privilege of 'copyright' was thus created (annulling the people's right to copy, for some arbitrary period, e.g. 14 years from publication).
To disobey this privilege of copyright is an infringement. It violates no right of the individual. On the contrary, it is a liberty and right that the individual is born with, but prohibited by law.
So, applying 'steal' or 'theft' to copyright infringement is to attempt to elevate the assertion of a natural liberty contrary to privilege into a crime. Similarly, when people claim copyright is a right (as if a natural or human right, as opposed to a legislatively granted quasi-right) this is to pretend a right is being violated, rather than a privilege being infringed.
This is why natural rights aren't taught in school - they undermine the state's interest in derogating from the people's rights in their own interest (obviously with pretexts that privileges are in the people's interest).
Without copyright an artist exchanges their intellectual work for the money of their fans (who consider the production of that work equitable to the amount of money they offer for it).
Art for money, money for art.
The market for copies at monopoly protected prices has ended.
The market for intellectual work continues.
We do not have to help publishing corporations understand this because they have a fiduciary obligation not to understand it - as should by now be obvious.
We have to help artists and fans understand the new disintermediated market, where the exchange is of work for money, not 'work for advance + 1% royalty upon recoupment' + 'money for copies that cost <1% of retail price' (with the intermediaries ending up with 99% of revenue).
Of course, not all artists are commercial, but for those who are, future income does not rely upon copyright.
The ironic thing is, while the cartel are busy hyping copyright into a human right, their corporate state is busy redefining human rights as illegitimate interference in 'democratic' government.
Oops.
If only people learnt the difference between an 18th century state granted privilege, and a human right - self-evident in Homo Sapiens since half a millions years BC or thereabouts... until the Stationers' Guild persuaded Queen Anne to enact her statute of 1709 annulling everyone's right to copy, to share and build upon our own culture. See http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276
Mike, are these 'counterfeit' shoes you're referring to sold as the genuine article, or sold wholesale to vendors as counterfeit items (to pass off), OR are these simply cheap imitations intended for sale to people fully aware that they are imitations, who have no intention of selling them as genuine?
There's nothing wrong with cheap imitation shoes eh?
If an artist sells or gives me their painting, or a copy of their painting, then ethically I do not need their permission to make whatever use of it I fancy, whether to use it to light a fire, inspire me to produce a painting of my own, to serve as the source for 5,000 postcards that I'll print and sell at $1 each, or to warp in Photoshop and use as the basis of a wallpaper design I've been paid $3,000 to produce.
Note that no dishonesty occurs in any of the above. At no point do I imply or claim that the artist's work is mine, or vice versa.
Copyright was always wrong, but it was at least effective at providing a reproduction monopoly.
Today it's still wrong, but it is now also ineffective, except in terms of punishing a few to serve as ineffective lessons to the rest.
As this article explains, even the death penalty cannot 'educate' people into surrendering their liberty. You just hasten revolution - as the cartel probably realises, even as it lobbies for ever more draconian enforcement.
You appear confused by copyright to see people selling copies of your work as charlatans selling your work. They are not. They are selling copies.
If I sell a mug with a copy of one of your photos on it, I am not selling your work. I'm selling a copy of it (on a mug).
If I sell a book with your Techdirt comments in it I am not selling your work, but a copy of it. If you want to sell your work in commenting upon the ethics of copying you need to find one or more buyers interested in commissioning such work.
Only copyright fools people into thinking the copy is the work.
If you want me to make a copy of Macbeth as an eBook for you, give me $5 and I will, but don't for one instant think that I am selling you Shakespeare's work in writing a play. However, if you want me to write a sequel to Macbeth then I'd be looking for something like $10,000 for my work, which I suspect would be quite difficult to raise given I'm not renowned for my playwriting skills.
The same applies in photography or any other art (including software engineering).
> Crosbie, At last, we seem to have got somewhere, I was
> sure you would have claimed that my selling copies of my
> artworks as prints or cards would have been beyond the pale.
Strange. How could you be sure a libertarian such as I would be against a free market? It is copyright supporters who would deny others the liberty to sell published artworks as prints or cards.
> Of course if they specifically wanted me to make prints at some
> later stage I would need to charge the time/cost of doing
> that, but they could go elsewhere if they wanted to. So I'm
> not going to argue with you on that point.
Sounds fine to me.
> I have no issue either with people making personal
> copies of works they have already bought, copying from one
> device to another. Probably everybody does that anyway.
Apparently it’s about to be exempted as a copyright infringement. Eventually all individual liberties will be restored and copyright will effectively be abolished.
> Where things go wrong and become unethical in my
> opinion is in making copies of works in order that everybody
> else need not pay for it.
What, like a public library amassing large collections of books so everybody else need not pay to read them? You think that's unethical?
People who sing each other's songs, tell each other's stories, share each other's music and movies, are doing so to explore their own culture with others, and yes, because it's cheaper, easier and more immediate to do it directly than to procure public performance licenses or purchase authorised copies. The only people upset by this cultural liberty are people hoping to benefit from the reproduction monopoly known as copyright. It is copyright that is unethical, not people's liberty.
> Forget about copyright law and let
> not differences of opinion over that muddy the waters.
Are you ready to imagine a world without copyright then?
> Just
> consider an act of copying from the point of view of fairness
> and respect for others efforts.
Consider I buy a small basket and like it so much that I reckon I could make copies of it to sell at a market stall. In the monopolist's warped view of ethics, it would be unfair of me to do this. I should always buy baskets from the original vendor and resell those rather than make and sell my own copies.
> Now if they went to the trouble of doing that for their
> own personal pleasure, hung it up in another room in their
> house, then fine, this hurts my ability to make a living not
> at all and frankly I don't care.
It is a pragmatic argument, not an ethical one, to permit competition you can't do anything about anyway and competition you have a hope of stamping out with a grant of monopoly.
> However, if instead they use the exact copy of my
> photograph and start selling it this is where the moral issue
> arises for me. They invested no originality, creativity, or
> expended the time, effort, and sometimes unrepeatable good
> fortune, it took to capture that unique image.
They are not selling your intellectual work, they are selling a copy of it. The copy serves as an advert and endorsement of your services. If someone wants a copy they'll pay a manufacturer of copies. If someone wants your services as a photographer they'll pay you.
> Yet through
> their actions they will now start to undermine my livelihood,
> perhaps even passing it off as their own work which in
> addition undermines my moral rights to be identified as the
> creator. All of that seems to me to be immoral behaviour and
> I cannot understand how such behaviour can be justified.
Whoah! Don't conflate moral rights with a reproduction monopoly.
Sure, if you want to be able to charge monopoly prices then others in the market selling copies at a price that represents better value for money may well undermine sales of copies at your monopoly inflated price. This doesn't make the monopoly ethical, it just means you've got to hire some attack lawyers to protect your state granted monopoly.
Without a monopoly, in a free market, you have natural competition. If anything, competing copy manufacturers enable you to get out of the copy manufacturing business and stick to what you know best, i.e. excellent photography. You should be delighted that so many in the marketplace want to make and sell copies of your photos.
It is printers who are upset about the dissolution of their monopoly, not artists (except those 'persuaded' to remain on message with their publishers).
Back to moral rights. Yes, it remains unethical for someone else to pass off your work as theirs, or theirs as yours. Copyright never did protect against plagiarism anyway. Abolishing the privilege of copyright doesn't mean abolishing laws protecting moral rights.
> Note I am still not talking about copyright, at this stage I am
> trying to keep the discussion on the point of what is morally
> right or not. I will be interested in your view of this, am I
> tramping on other peoples cultural liberty by prohibiting
> copies for any use other than personal? Am I incorrect on the
> morality of this issue, and if so, how?
You aren't trampling upon anyone's liberty. Copyright does this. It even annuls your liberty to make copies of your own work (you may retain the privilege to make copies or transfer it to a publisher).
If you would attempt to restore the public's liberty concerning your published work (unethically abridged by copyright) then you should provide a copyleft license with it, or otherwise covenant not to sue people for what they would be at liberty to do but for copyright.
Bear in mind that only people, human beings have a right to liberty. Corporations have no rights, so there's no ethical obligation to provide permissions to them if you fancy it's in your commercial interests not to. However, if you do provide a license to corporations it should still restore the liberty of any recipient human beings.
Gordon, a movie is just as much a 'one-off' work of art as a photograph. It is indeed just as possible to sell a movie to a million fans as it is to sell a wedding photo to a couple of families.
There's nothing wrong in selling works of art, or even copies of them.
What is wrong is an 18th century privilege that abridges people's cultural liberty, that imprisons people such as Emmanuel Nimley for iPhoning movies in the cinema, or fines the likes of Jammie Thomas millions of dollars for sharing a few mp3 files.
A good wedding photographer sells his photos to his customers and neutralises copyright upon them, e.g. CC-SA, so everyone can make all the copies they like.
A bad wedding photographer doesn't neutralise his privilege of copyright, indeed looks forward to exploiting it. This means he can charge monopoly prices for enlargements, additional copies, souvenir mugs, etc. They can also sue the happy couple for failing to purchase a license for publishing a photo in the local newspaper, on their website, or many years later in an autobiography.
So, there's nothing wrong with a photographer selling his work. It's derogating the liberty of others' that is wrong.
I've often come across this mysterious argument that copyright supporters make, that without copyright the artist can't prevent other people gaining 'an economic advantage' by selling copies of their work. Yet, the same supporters complain that without copyright the artist can't sell copies of their work (because everyone makes their own for nothing).
There appears to be a contradiction here. In a post-copyright world, either no-one can sell copies of an artist's published work (because without copyright everyone can make their own for nothing), or both the artist and other people can sell copies (because there's no copyright to prevent them).
The question is: Which is it?
The copyright supporter's answer is: Er? Both?
My answer is: The artist isn't in the business of selling copies in the first place, but in the business of selling their art (yesterday to publishers, tomorrow to their fans directly). Anyone can sell copies for whatever price the market will bear (in the case of digital copies, next to nothing).
If might just make a copy of some of your published work without paying you for it:
It has been interesting, particularly from the point of view that no one has offered a viable economic model that lets me work as an independent artist without the moral and legal protection of copyright. Nor has anyone shown that it is not morally wrong to take someone else's work without paying for it.
Something tells me you are not being paid to understand the economics of a free market without monopoly or the ethics of an 18th century privilege.
Get back to us when you do decide to abandon copyright in favour of liberty.
1) It is unethical, a derogation of the people's liberty, that has come to light as such in modern times as the people's use of modern technology to share and build upon their own culture conflicts with this 18th century monopoly.
2) It is no longer effective in protecting a monopoly such that a publisher can make major profits selling cheap copies at high prices (enabling them to budget a fraction of those profits in the form of advances and minuscule royalties).
So, how does an independent artist sell their work if a publisher can no longer sell copies of it above cost price (in the presence of a free market in a post-copyright world)?
Although anyone in the artist's audience can produce copies, only the artist can produce their art. Clearly, the artist must stick to the business of selling their art, not copies of it, though they can of course dabble in making value-added copies, e.g. signed vinyl editions.
Let us consider you are one of many fans of a novelist.
If you want them to write a sequel to a novel of theirs that you like, pay them to write a sequel. The novelist will no doubt be very happy to accept a joint commission.
If you want to buy a copy of that sequel in hardback form pay a printer to print & bind a copy for you. The novelist will no doubt happily 'print' copies themselves in eBook form free of charge.
Both the intellectual work and the copy of it are exchanged for money.
Moreover, in this forthcoming world without an 18th century privilege of copyright, in which authors are paid for their writing and printers are paid for their copies, the people are at liberty to make their own copies, sell or give them away, read the work in public, and produce their translations or abridgements, or even their own sequels. There are no lawyers prosecuting copyright infringements, collection societies demanding license fees, or publishers keeping 99% of the revenue. The authors and their readers are happy, but lawyers, collection societies, and publishers reliant on copyright for their revenue are going to have to find another business.
Yes, unknown authors are going to have to start off by giving their work away or getting paid very little for it until they build up a readership interested and enthusiastic to commission more. Fortunately, digital copies being extremely cheap to 'print' and 'distribute' together with no privilege restricting redistribution by recipients, means that an undiscovered author's costs of self-promotion are also pretty low - perhaps inversely proportional to the popularity of their work.
This is happening, and it's not me that's making it happen. It's the nature of human beings, information and its communication.
There's no point arguing that it's better if people don't assert their liberty to share and build upon their own culture, in order that an anachronistic monopoly can continue to generate massive profits for publishing corporations (and their lawyers) so that they can dish out advances to promising authors (who look forward to the lottery chance of recoupment and a tiny fraction of profits amounting to significant royalties). Such an argument may persuade King Canute, but it doesn't help him hold back the tide. You can lobby and ultimately fail, or you can adapt to a world without copyright and learn to exchange work for money (instead of copies at monopoly protected prices).
Invoking a supernatural being is a cunning solution if you need to establish coercive law that is above argument (if the majority of those subject to it are credulous, compliant, and ideally consenting).
It is sad to see Christians torn between their indoctrination by the church and corporate state that copying certain works is wrong and their indoctrination by religious dogma that sharing is good (not yet decreed by a new messiah to the contrary).
The resolution to the dilemma is easily found in an understanding of natural rights (which is strangely difficult to understand if one has been deeply programmed by copyright and other unnatural precepts).
As to the DVD, I'd say it was more precisely "Own a DVD with this film on it - but with recognition of your natural right to copy or otherwise communicate it annulled by Queen Anne's 18th century privilege". But yes, copyright is our right to copy annulled, and thus an abridgement of our liberty to enjoy our own property. And this precedent that liberty can apparently be abridged by law then leads people to assume that it can be alienated by contract, even a unilateral 'adhesive contract', e.g. "by purchasing this DVD you agree to surrender your liberty to make copies" which cannot actually be done by the purchaser even if they agreed to do so. Liberty is an inalienable right not because we think it would be a jolly good idea to define it as such, but because this is the nature of it. Liberty is as naturally inalienable as a shadow.
It's crazy because natural rights aren't democratically determined. So there's nothing to be gained by 'redefining' a legally granted right into a natural right.
The copyright cartel are simply clutching at all possible straws as their sandcastle inexorably collapses under the incoming tide of the people's cultural liberty.
Incidentally, I wonder if Mike might let us know how many copyright naifs read Techdirt these days that it continues to be worth debunking these monopolists' ever more ludicrous claims?
It would be an idiocratic future that 'recognised' state granted monopolies as human rights. Trouble is, so few people know the difference between a natural right and a legislatively granted 'right' (a natural right annulled) that getting copyright recognised as a human right isn't completely implausible. :-}
On the post: Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft
Re: Re:
One either violates a right, or one infringes a privilege (disobeying the annulling of a right).
Theft is the violation of an individual's right to privacy (to exclude others from the objects they possess/spaces they inhabit), by invading it & removing a possession. However, invading someone's privacy to make a copy of their diary and remove/communicate it without, is an equivalent violation.
So, a burglar copying an author's private manuscript could indeed be said to be stealing the author's intellectual property - an act of IP theft (a violation of the author's exclusive right to their writings).
Naturally, once an author, Shakespeare say, has sold or given you a manuscript or copy thereof, you are at liberty to do whatever you want with your own possession, e.g. destroy it, or make and sell as many further copies as you fancy (as you might copy a basket or vase). There is no rights violation in doing so.
In 1709 Queen Anne annulled this natural right of individuals to make & sell copies of their possessions (relating to literary/graphic/printed works). The privilege of 'copyright' was thus created (annulling the people's right to copy, for some arbitrary period, e.g. 14 years from publication).
To disobey this privilege of copyright is an infringement. It violates no right of the individual. On the contrary, it is a liberty and right that the individual is born with, but prohibited by law.
So, applying 'steal' or 'theft' to copyright infringement is to attempt to elevate the assertion of a natural liberty contrary to privilege into a crime. Similarly, when people claim copyright is a right (as if a natural or human right, as opposed to a legislatively granted quasi-right) this is to pretend a right is being violated, rather than a privilege being infringed.
This is why natural rights aren't taught in school - they undermine the state's interest in derogating from the people's rights in their own interest (obviously with pretexts that privileges are in the people's interest).
On the post: Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft
Re: Re: Copyright & rights
What do you mean?
On the post: Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft
Re: Re: Re:
Without copyright an artist exchanges their intellectual work for the money of their fans (who consider the production of that work equitable to the amount of money they offer for it).
Art for money, money for art.
The market for copies at monopoly protected prices has ended.
The market for intellectual work continues.
We do not have to help publishing corporations understand this because they have a fiduciary obligation not to understand it - as should by now be obvious.
We have to help artists and fans understand the new disintermediated market, where the exchange is of work for money, not 'work for advance + 1% royalty upon recoupment' + 'money for copies that cost <1% of retail price' (with the intermediaries ending up with 99% of revenue).
Of course, not all artists are commercial, but for those who are, future income does not rely upon copyright.
On the post: Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft
Re:
On the post: Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft
Copyright & rights
Oops.
If only people learnt the difference between an 18th century state granted privilege, and a human right - self-evident in Homo Sapiens since half a millions years BC or thereabouts... until the Stationers' Guild persuaded Queen Anne to enact her statute of 1709 annulling everyone's right to copy, to share and build upon our own culture. See http://culturalliberty.org/blog/index.php?id=276
On the post: Can't Stop Social Media-Driven UK Riots? Go After Social Media-Driven Water Gun Fights
Re: It's all fun and games until...
On the post: Oh No! What If More Than One Shoemaker Makes Shoes With Red Soles?
Counterfeit or imitation?
There's nothing wrong with cheap imitation shoes eh?
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
Note that no dishonesty occurs in any of the above. At no point do I imply or claim that the artist's work is mine, or vice versa.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Copyright was always wrong, but it was at least effective at providing a reproduction monopoly.
Today it's still wrong, but it is now also ineffective, except in terms of punishing a few to serve as ineffective lessons to the rest.
As this article explains, even the death penalty cannot 'educate' people into surrendering their liberty. You just hasten revolution - as the cartel probably realises, even as it lobbies for ever more draconian enforcement.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
If I sell a mug with a copy of one of your photos on it, I am not selling your work. I'm selling a copy of it (on a mug).
If I sell a book with your Techdirt comments in it I am not selling your work, but a copy of it. If you want to sell your work in commenting upon the ethics of copying you need to find one or more buyers interested in commissioning such work.
Only copyright fools people into thinking the copy is the work.
If you want me to make a copy of Macbeth as an eBook for you, give me $5 and I will, but don't for one instant think that I am selling you Shakespeare's work in writing a play. However, if you want me to write a sequel to Macbeth then I'd be looking for something like $10,000 for my work, which I suspect would be quite difficult to raise given I'm not renowned for my playwriting skills.
The same applies in photography or any other art (including software engineering).
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
> sure you would have claimed that my selling copies of my
> artworks as prints or cards would have been beyond the pale.
Strange. How could you be sure a libertarian such as I would be against a free market? It is copyright supporters who would deny others the liberty to sell published artworks as prints or cards.
> Of course if they specifically wanted me to make prints at some
> later stage I would need to charge the time/cost of doing
> that, but they could go elsewhere if they wanted to. So I'm
> not going to argue with you on that point.
Sounds fine to me.
> I have no issue either with people making personal
> copies of works they have already bought, copying from one
> device to another. Probably everybody does that anyway.
Apparently it’s about to be exempted as a copyright infringement. Eventually all individual liberties will be restored and copyright will effectively be abolished.
> Where things go wrong and become unethical in my
> opinion is in making copies of works in order that everybody
> else need not pay for it.
What, like a public library amassing large collections of books so everybody else need not pay to read them? You think that's unethical?
People who sing each other's songs, tell each other's stories, share each other's music and movies, are doing so to explore their own culture with others, and yes, because it's cheaper, easier and more immediate to do it directly than to procure public performance licenses or purchase authorised copies. The only people upset by this cultural liberty are people hoping to benefit from the reproduction monopoly known as copyright. It is copyright that is unethical, not people's liberty.
> Forget about copyright law and let
> not differences of opinion over that muddy the waters.
Are you ready to imagine a world without copyright then?
> Just
> consider an act of copying from the point of view of fairness
> and respect for others efforts.
Consider I buy a small basket and like it so much that I reckon I could make copies of it to sell at a market stall. In the monopolist's warped view of ethics, it would be unfair of me to do this. I should always buy baskets from the original vendor and resell those rather than make and sell my own copies.
> Now if they went to the trouble of doing that for their
> own personal pleasure, hung it up in another room in their
> house, then fine, this hurts my ability to make a living not
> at all and frankly I don't care.
It is a pragmatic argument, not an ethical one, to permit competition you can't do anything about anyway and competition you have a hope of stamping out with a grant of monopoly.
> However, if instead they use the exact copy of my
> photograph and start selling it this is where the moral issue
> arises for me. They invested no originality, creativity, or
> expended the time, effort, and sometimes unrepeatable good
> fortune, it took to capture that unique image.
They are not selling your intellectual work, they are selling a copy of it. The copy serves as an advert and endorsement of your services. If someone wants a copy they'll pay a manufacturer of copies. If someone wants your services as a photographer they'll pay you.
> Yet through
> their actions they will now start to undermine my livelihood,
> perhaps even passing it off as their own work which in
> addition undermines my moral rights to be identified as the
> creator. All of that seems to me to be immoral behaviour and
> I cannot understand how such behaviour can be justified.
Whoah! Don't conflate moral rights with a reproduction monopoly.
Sure, if you want to be able to charge monopoly prices then others in the market selling copies at a price that represents better value for money may well undermine sales of copies at your monopoly inflated price. This doesn't make the monopoly ethical, it just means you've got to hire some attack lawyers to protect your state granted monopoly.
Without a monopoly, in a free market, you have natural competition. If anything, competing copy manufacturers enable you to get out of the copy manufacturing business and stick to what you know best, i.e. excellent photography. You should be delighted that so many in the marketplace want to make and sell copies of your photos.
It is printers who are upset about the dissolution of their monopoly, not artists (except those 'persuaded' to remain on message with their publishers).
Back to moral rights. Yes, it remains unethical for someone else to pass off your work as theirs, or theirs as yours. Copyright never did protect against plagiarism anyway. Abolishing the privilege of copyright doesn't mean abolishing laws protecting moral rights.
> Note I am still not talking about copyright, at this stage I am
> trying to keep the discussion on the point of what is morally
> right or not. I will be interested in your view of this, am I
> tramping on other peoples cultural liberty by prohibiting
> copies for any use other than personal? Am I incorrect on the
> morality of this issue, and if so, how?
You aren't trampling upon anyone's liberty. Copyright does this. It even annuls your liberty to make copies of your own work (you may retain the privilege to make copies or transfer it to a publisher).
If you would attempt to restore the public's liberty concerning your published work (unethically abridged by copyright) then you should provide a copyleft license with it, or otherwise covenant not to sue people for what they would be at liberty to do but for copyright.
Bear in mind that only people, human beings have a right to liberty. Corporations have no rights, so there's no ethical obligation to provide permissions to them if you fancy it's in your commercial interests not to. However, if you do provide a license to corporations it should still restore the liberty of any recipient human beings.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
There's nothing wrong in selling works of art, or even copies of them.
What is wrong is an 18th century privilege that abridges people's cultural liberty, that imprisons people such as Emmanuel Nimley for iPhoning movies in the cinema, or fines the likes of Jammie Thomas millions of dollars for sharing a few mp3 files.
A good wedding photographer sells his photos to his customers and neutralises copyright upon them, e.g. CC-SA, so everyone can make all the copies they like.
A bad wedding photographer doesn't neutralise his privilege of copyright, indeed looks forward to exploiting it. This means he can charge monopoly prices for enlargements, additional copies, souvenir mugs, etc. They can also sue the happy couple for failing to purchase a license for publishing a photo in the local newspaper, on their website, or many years later in an autobiography.
So, there's nothing wrong with a photographer selling his work. It's derogating the liberty of others' that is wrong.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
There appears to be a contradiction here. In a post-copyright world, either no-one can sell copies of an artist's published work (because without copyright everyone can make their own for nothing), or both the artist and other people can sell copies (because there's no copyright to prevent them).
The question is: Which is it?
The copyright supporter's answer is: Er? Both?
My answer is: The artist isn't in the business of selling copies in the first place, but in the business of selling their art (yesterday to publishers, tomorrow to their fans directly). Anyone can sell copies for whatever price the market will bear (in the case of digital copies, next to nothing).
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
Something tells me you are not being paid to understand the economics of a free market without monopoly or the ethics of an 18th century privilege.
Get back to us when you do decide to abandon copyright in favour of liberty.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
1) It is unethical, a derogation of the people's liberty, that has come to light as such in modern times as the people's use of modern technology to share and build upon their own culture conflicts with this 18th century monopoly.
2) It is no longer effective in protecting a monopoly such that a publisher can make major profits selling cheap copies at high prices (enabling them to budget a fraction of those profits in the form of advances and minuscule royalties).
So, how does an independent artist sell their work if a publisher can no longer sell copies of it above cost price (in the presence of a free market in a post-copyright world)?
Although anyone in the artist's audience can produce copies, only the artist can produce their art. Clearly, the artist must stick to the business of selling their art, not copies of it, though they can of course dabble in making value-added copies, e.g. signed vinyl editions.
Let us consider you are one of many fans of a novelist.
If you want them to write a sequel to a novel of theirs that you like, pay them to write a sequel. The novelist will no doubt be very happy to accept a joint commission.
If you want to buy a copy of that sequel in hardback form pay a printer to print & bind a copy for you. The novelist will no doubt happily 'print' copies themselves in eBook form free of charge.
Both the intellectual work and the copy of it are exchanged for money.
Moreover, in this forthcoming world without an 18th century privilege of copyright, in which authors are paid for their writing and printers are paid for their copies, the people are at liberty to make their own copies, sell or give them away, read the work in public, and produce their translations or abridgements, or even their own sequels. There are no lawyers prosecuting copyright infringements, collection societies demanding license fees, or publishers keeping 99% of the revenue. The authors and their readers are happy, but lawyers, collection societies, and publishers reliant on copyright for their revenue are going to have to find another business.
Yes, unknown authors are going to have to start off by giving their work away or getting paid very little for it until they build up a readership interested and enthusiastic to commission more. Fortunately, digital copies being extremely cheap to 'print' and 'distribute' together with no privilege restricting redistribution by recipients, means that an undiscovered author's costs of self-promotion are also pretty low - perhaps inversely proportional to the popularity of their work.
This is happening, and it's not me that's making it happen. It's the nature of human beings, information and its communication.
There's no point arguing that it's better if people don't assert their liberty to share and build upon their own culture, in order that an anachronistic monopoly can continue to generate massive profits for publishing corporations (and their lawyers) so that they can dish out advances to promising authors (who look forward to the lottery chance of recoupment and a tiny fraction of profits amounting to significant royalties). Such an argument may persuade King Canute, but it doesn't help him hold back the tide. You can lobby and ultimately fail, or you can adapt to a world without copyright and learn to exchange work for money (instead of copies at monopoly protected prices).
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crime and Punishment
It is sad to see Christians torn between their indoctrination by the church and corporate state that copying certain works is wrong and their indoctrination by religious dogma that sharing is good (not yet decreed by a new messiah to the contrary).
The resolution to the dilemma is easily found in an understanding of natural rights (which is strangely difficult to understand if one has been deeply programmed by copyright and other unnatural precepts).
As to the DVD, I'd say it was more precisely "Own a DVD with this film on it - but with recognition of your natural right to copy or otherwise communicate it annulled by Queen Anne's 18th century privilege". But yes, copyright is our right to copy annulled, and thus an abridgement of our liberty to enjoy our own property. And this precedent that liberty can apparently be abridged by law then leads people to assume that it can be alienated by contract, even a unilateral 'adhesive contract', e.g. "by purchasing this DVD you agree to surrender your liberty to make copies" which cannot actually be done by the purchaser even if they agreed to do so. Liberty is an inalienable right not because we think it would be a jolly good idea to define it as such, but because this is the nature of it. Liberty is as naturally inalienable as a shadow.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: RE: Crime and Punishment
But, of course, if the privilege is abolished it no longer results.
Nevertheless, this is the means by which monopolists (and some strange members of the Pirate Party) hope to hoodwink people into accepting copyright as a human right. And they are already having some success viz "The copyright industry started by affirming that copyright was a 'fundamental human right' under the European Convention itself and in European Union law, and this was accepted by the Court".
It's crazy because natural rights aren't democratically determined. So there's nothing to be gained by 'redefining' a legally granted right into a natural right.
The copyright cartel are simply clutching at all possible straws as their sandcastle inexorably collapses under the incoming tide of the people's cultural liberty.
On the post: If Even The Death Penalty Won't Stop Infringement... Perhaps A Different Approach Is Needed
Re: Re: RE: Crime and Punishment
Incidentally, I wonder if Mike might let us know how many copyright naifs read Techdirt these days that it continues to be worth debunking these monopolists' ever more ludicrous claims?
It would be an idiocratic future that 'recognised' state granted monopolies as human rights. Trouble is, so few people know the difference between a natural right and a legislatively granted 'right' (a natural right annulled) that getting copyright recognised as a human right isn't completely implausible. :-}
Next >>