The Semantics of File Sharing

ethericalzen writes "The LA Times has published an opinion article about the legal semantics and analogies of file sharing. The article includes arguments from those who believe file sharing is theft and those who strongly disagree. As it points out, the common analogies to theft are often incomplete or inaccurate. The author states, "balancing the interests of content creators against the public's ... is a much more complicated task than erecting a legal barrier to five-fingered discounts." He recognizes that it is not a trivial concept, and that the clamoring from both camps about definitions and moral boundaries will dictate how businesses and users function in the future."

Comments

Let me share the contents of your laptop

[EmbeddedJanitor]

If I shared the contents of your PC with the world, would that be OK?

How about sharing the contents of your bank account?

Let's face it folk. IP theft is theft. Just because it is easy to do or everyone does it does not make it right.

Re:Let me share the contents of your laptop

[mr_matticus]

But you haven't committed a transgression, because no one has lost anything. Don't be absurd. Taking something without permission where permission is clearly required to do so is a transgression. So is trespassing; so is spying on someone. They're not losing anything or forced to do anything, but you'd have to be truly out of your mind to say that's not a transgression.

Loss of an item has nothing to do with it. It does not matter what you took or whether the owner was without it; it only matters that you violated their legally protected right. A transgression is quite simply the violation of a legal right. By your logic, attempted murder isn't a problem because no one was actually hurt. (You see how bad a twisted misapplication takes things? So you might want to stop.)

Wrong. Look at the "free stuff" section on craigslist - it's full of stuff that is legitimately and legally for sale elsewhere. Instead of taking that free used microwave from someone who doesn't want it anymore, you could buy a used one from someone on eBay, or a new one from the store. By your logic, taking the free one is "stealing". Quit trolling. First and foremost, the free section on Craigslist is a section where individuals with title are offering to transfer it to you for the low, low price of coming to pick it up. Individuals are free to do so with their protected works as well. Second, "taking the free one" isn't done without permission and contrary to the law, because they're offering it to you.

Re:Let me share the contents of your laptop

[mr_matticus]

Well, it's illegal, but if that's what you meant, you should've just written "you're being punished because you broke the law" and avoided getting into the reasoning behind the law. The reasoning behind the law is quite clearly established. It is also quite clear that you disagree with it, so there's no point in discussing it with you.

The transgression, if you want to separate it from the law, is that a person's work is his own and it is not for others to take without consent. You don't accept that premise, but the law does, so your argument is not organic, it's purely academic and hypothetical.

Quit dishonestly accusing people of trolling just because they disagree with you. You're trolling because your entire point turns on changing the terms and scope of the discussion and disingenuously employing bad logic, not because you disagree philosophically.

You didn't make a case for why you think accepted wisdom is wrong, you're just trying to change the conclusion because you don't like it.

The Pirate Bay is a web site where individuals are offering to transfer files to me for an equally low price. Once again, you're dropping the issue entirely. Individuals on Pirate Bay don't have any right to offer the work of others to you. You don't have a free speech right to the verbatim work of others.

But that's true of the microwave too! Sears certainly didn't give me permission to get a free microwave somewhere else instead of buying one from them, and neither did any of the people selling free microwaves on eBay. Of course, their permission doesn't matter; they don't get to veto my craigslist transaction just because they'd like to sell me a microwave. Complete non sequitur. You're free to do the same with recordings and licenses (except non-transferable licenses) as well. You can pass that which is yours to give away. You don't have a right to co-opt someone else's work, waiting until their labor has produced it, and then take it as your own.

I contend that the copyright holder's permission doesn't matter either: they shouldn't get to veto my Pirate Bay transaction just because they'd like to sell me a copy. If I can find someone else who's willing to give me the product for free, whether it's a song or a microwave, I should be able to take them up on that offer. Hogwash. It's not the Pirate Bay's (or any member thereof) to give away. If someone on Craigslist wants to give you a CD, they're welcome to do so. If they want to assign an assignable license to you, they're free to do so. Some random person can't agree to give you something that isn't theirs to give, whether it's a microwave or a movie.

It's simply not possible in a society valuing individual autonomy and privacy to argue that one has a right of any kind to the work or thoughts of others. It would be possible if such works were without value, but because they unquestionably have value, there are boundaries to it. A clever, but ultimately vacuous, attempt to divorce the evolution of law and society from the issue doesn't gain you any ground.

The real issue is THEFT OF LABOR from writers

[electrictroy]

I tried to find my original message (posted on a different article), but I can't, so I'll just summarize:

- Imagine your boss tasked you to write a 100 page document, and after a week of work, you produce said document. The boss says, "Beautiful; great job" and you go home.

- You wait.

- And you wait some more, but no check arrives. You just gave away a week's worth of labor, and received no pay for that effort. That's called THEFT OF LABOR and is a violation of your basic rights.

----- Now imagine that your name is Stephen King, and the document you created was actually your latest short story. Your "boss" (aka the readers) copied the story off the internet, never paid for the story, and thus stole Stephen King's labor.

----- In another time (1700s/1800s) that would have been called slavery: Working for people, producing products, but not getting paid for it. It's a violation of the most basic human rights.

I don't consider downloading to be stealing property.
Instead I consider it to be theft of another man's labor.
I wouldn't want it done to me (creating documents w/o pay),
and I'm sure Mr. King, et al do not like it either.

In my opinion: If you download a product, and you either (a) enjoyed it or (b) stored it in your personal library, then you have committed a Human Rights violation. You've enslaved another person to entertainment you, and stolen their labor without just compensation. IMHO you should pay the writer some cash; give him what he deserves.