Slashdot Mirror
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."
This is very much worth the read. It is surprisingly erudite for a newspaper and it is also pretty nuanced. The critical points are illuminated (theft as deprivation of a good or theft as an unjust enrichment), the debate is balanced and excellent sources are used. Well worth the click away from /..
I think what's really positive here (besides the very good article) is that these ideas have finally hit mainstream. There's at least acknowledgement of a debate, and I think that will really help to move things forward. About the only point that's missing is that the temporary (I use the term loosely) monopoly provided to creative works should be set so as to balance the production of work with the public interest. We've seen several lengthenings of copyright, but there was no discussion of whether or not these were a good deal for the public at large. Greg London's Bounty Hunters (http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters) gives a good picture of this side of the issue.
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
The difference is, of course, that everyone already knows about it on slashdot, and has a dedicated opinion. This is the LA times, a somewhat more mainstream publication, ne?
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
The thing is, IP theft really does deprive owners of that IP of money. Ask Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens, all of whom had to go to court to prevent IP pirates from profiting from their works...and depriving them of those same profits. IP law got careful coverage in the US Constitution for a good reason; the Framers were well aware of its benefits.
I'd readily agree that current US law has gone much too far in reducing the scope of fair use and overestimating the monetary value of piracy in civil and criminal cases. But it's not fundamentally wrong, it just needs tuning.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
The truth, as always, is more nuanced than attempts to simplify it to nothingness can ever be. If you were actually to read the article, you'll see that it puts forward a very good case for refusing to label file copying either as "stealing" -- because it manifestly isn't -- or as "sharing" -- because that is equally loaded.
"Stealing" and "sharing" are both weasel words. The article does go into more depth about how the term "stealing" could be rationalised, without giving the "sharing" side equal treatment, so it's a little bit inequitable. But I am persuaded by its core argument: if you want to think of file copying as "sharing", go ahead, feel free. But if you do, your using loaded language is going to legitimise the **AA using loaded language. Of course the **AAs and their equivalents in every other country are complete bastards, but that's not the point. If you want fairness, it has to start somewhere. It sure ain't going to start with the **AA, so ....
Excellently put. Let me just add a little about why privacy is different than copyright:
The main difference between privacy and copyright is that copyrighted materials are not secrets. Copyright seeks to protect the materials after they have been published and disseminated to the public. Copyright does not and cannot influence information that is not shared publicly for profit or for free. Copyright does not restrict whether information can be shared. It restricts who is allowed to share that information.
Privacy is about protecting one's personal business from the outside world. Originally, this was just the government and neighbors. Now the scope has grown to include corporations and other malicious multinational entities. In other words, privacy is an opposite of copyright because no one seeks to share their private secrets while copyright would be meaningless in the absence of publication and dissemination.
Think of a video. One might film a video of an interesting story and sell or share it. It would make no sense to keep something like that locked up as the creator already knows the story and could easily just imagine it.
On the other hand, who would want to share a video of a secret love affair. The leak of such information would be devastating to both lovers.
Copyright proponents also often seek to violate privacy. DRM systems often include schemes which allow copyright holders to scan and sometimes even delete files on your computer from a remote location. Publishers also often compile lists of who reads what books and sell those lists for a profit (I hope you did not buy Catcher in the Rye from Amazon).
Can anyone still have any confusion about the difference between copyright and privacy?
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
Funny you should use Ben Franklin as an example. Those evil pirates profiting from his freely offerd work.
From Wikipedia:
Franklin was a prodigious inventor. Among his many creations were the lightning rod, the glass harmonica, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the flexible urinary catheter. Franklin never patented his inventions; in his autobiography he wrote, "... as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."[8] His inventions also included social innovations, such as paying forward.
Thus, I can only conclude that you weren't talking about mere legality, in which case I maintain that no transgression has been committed against anyone (in any but the most basic legal sense). Quit trolling. Quit dishonestly accusing people of trolling just because they disagree with you. 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. The Pirate Bay is a web site where individuals are offering to transfer files to me for an equally low price. "Title" is irrelevant here because we're not talking about mere legality. Second, "taking the free one" isn't done without permission and contrary to the law, because they're offering it to you. Taking the free album off a torrent site isn't done without permission either: everyone else in the swarm is offering it to you. (Once again, "contrary to the law" is irrelevant here because we're not talking about mere legality.)
Now, you might point out that it's being done without the permission of someone else who isn't party to the transaction, namely the copyright holder. 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.
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.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.