You're taking something that legally does not belong to you and making it yours. Maybe "stealing" is too crude a term to use - a lot of commentators think so, and I respect their position. Nevertheless, I find it hard to see how gaining ownership for free of something for which the owner charges money is not theft.
But I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise if you can spare the time to try.
Let me note that I'm not persuaded by arguments based on the fact that the copyright holders are often money-grabbing bastards - that's a given, and I accept it, but the crappiness of the victim doesn't excuse a crime.
"we are simply downloading what we aren't prepared to pay for..." Yes you are, and that's called stealing. Your crime is not victimless; it just happens that you think the victims (big music corporations) aren't worth your consideration.
Whenever certain members of a community (whether it's a real community or a perceived one) behave illegally or immorally, it impacts on the law-abiding remainder of the community. Some children refuse to behave civilly in shops, and steal from them, so shopkeepers are legitimised in barring all children without an adult from their shops. Some young men are careless and inconsiderate drivers, so insurance companies charge a higher premium for all young men. It's not right, but it's the way that our top-down catch-all governmental systems work, and while they do work that way, we have a responsibility to our communities not to act in such a way that allows the whole community to be stigmatised.
If you break the law, thereby allowing the community of internet users to be tarred with the brush of "criminals", then you're part of the problem that brings about this legislation.
Because as long as people are downloading copyright-infringing files, the record industry will think it's okay to inflict financial penalties on every internet user, as this legislation suggests. So those people who already pay legitimately for their music end up having to pay again to support illegal downloading.
I don't think I'm going to persuade anyone that stealing is stealing, regardless of how undeserving you think the original owner is. I'm very firmly against this legislation and the tactics of the recording industry in general. But, in the end, if someone has a legal right to something that you want, you should pay them for it, because if you don't you are branding yourself (and in many eyes the whole community of which you're a part) as a criminal. And, in the meanwhile, you should lobby for a change in copyright law, and support musicians like NIN and Radiohead who try out different models of distribution and charging. Ignoring the law is not a good way to change it for everyone's benefit.
I think it would be unfair to mod the parent as troll. True, the comment ignores the fact that art adds a lot to people's lives, is an historically important form of artistic expression, has cultural value as a tool for cohesion and relationship-building, and is very enjoyable. On the other hand, it picks up on some important points. Firstly, music as a commercial product is, in the end, a luxury item. The amount of time and effort spent trying to get around paying for it would only make moral sense if it were something like food or water. If you can't afford to buy it, you can still hear music on the radio, the TV, in bars and clubs and pubs and many free live venues. You can make it yourself, on your own, with friends. Secondly, the amount of money paid for the works of top artists is pretty extortionate. Why is Paul McCartney so rich when people who teach, nurse, clear our garbage, can't afford to pay their bills? I would suggest it's because we have a pretty screwed-up understanding of value.
These two points might seem to contradict each other. But they both add up to the fact that we place too much importance on commercial music (which is a different thing from music as an art or an abstract idea.) So I think the parent deserves better than to be called a troll, even if the phrasing of the comment is unfortunate.
The parent got modded "insightful"? This really pisses me off. Someone can post something that adds nothing to the discussion other than to insult the original poster, and it's "insightful". I know that being anti-copyright-infringement isn't popular here, but the level of prejudice shown in moderations on this topic is astounding.
But as I understand it, this proposal seems to be suggesting the extra $5 charge to cover already-existing downloading from unregulated torrents. Otherwise, there's no point in it - people will continue to download illegally because not all the content they want is covered by the licensed sites or because they don't want to pay the voluntary charge, companies will still complain that their content is being stolen, and we'll be in for a whole new round of legislation.
I know that not all downloading is illegal. "Illegal downloaders" doesn't assume that - it's like for example saying "Christian parents", referring to a subset of parents, not saying that all parents are Christians.
Inconvenience, mislaying your property, having a plot spoiled... would you consider these rational reasons for theft in the real world? In a case where the copyright owner won't ever make their product available for purchase, maybe you have a case. But the others just don't wash for me, I'm afraid. "I'm sorry for stealing the iPod, your honour, but I've lost mine so I thought it would be okay..." And yes, I know, downloading a file doesn't deprive a retailer/owner of a physical object. But it still deprives them of the revenue that object represents. More importantly, it allows crappy legislation like this proposal to seem legitimate, which in my view is the worst crime of the illegal uploaders/downloaders.
I agree, but my comment was reacting to the terms of the proposal. I think that both the technical issues and issues of customer experience like the one you raise would make this incredibly difficult. The problem, of course, is that this extra $5 is presumably thought of by the industry as a penalty for criminals who are already ripping them off, not a payment by legitimate customers who can expect decent service in return.
Because none of us should be expected not to break the law when someone makes it easy for us to do so? So looting shops during riots is okay; we should blame the rioters not the thieves?
There is more to personal responsibility than "if it's difficult I'll refrain from doing it."
But how would they separate all the legitimate P2P traffic from the copyright-infringing stuff? Would non-"media package" users just be banned from P2P altogether?
Who'll pay extra for iTunes if they're already paying to use P2P whether they like it or not?
This is an utterly ridiculous idea. It taxes those who don't download copyright-infringing files to pay for those who do - and who will probably continue to download much more than $5-worth of tracks, subsidised by others.
Illegal downloaders need to stop freeloading off the rest of us and pay for the things they want.
Reminds me of the "feelies" in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - a new kind of movie experience in which you feel what's happening as well as seeing and hearing it, which is mainly used for pornography. Any tech that appeals to the senses in a more intense way than previously possible is probably going to be used for porn. Unless it appeals to the sense of smell, of course - Eau de Sweaty Muscle Man, anyone?
Yes, I do. Many people won't be taught numeracy and literacy skills by their parents. They won't be introduced to books or scientific ideas by their parents. They won't be told how the solar system works or where countries are on the map by their parents. Schools are essential for this basic education. Yes, there's a lot of stuff out there that your teacher would never tell you. But how would most people access that information without the teachers who taught them to read? One of the best ways to disempower and disenfranchise people is to deny them access to basic schooling.
Sorry, I don't agree. Sharing information is one thing. Sharing music is another. Music is, as I've said, I luxury product. No-one needs it; they just want it.
Of course you're right about the difference between immoral and illegal. And copyright law is made more problematic in that it benefits more than just the original artist/creator. Nonetheless, I believe that not paying a copyright holder for music is immoral - precisely because there is no actual need for anyone to have the product.
I don't think I am. My point is that the laws are crappy, but people who want to take for free something that they should be paying for are giving an excuse to the people who want to make these laws. If the only excuses they had were political, there'd be a larger outcry and a lot less support. But because they can camouflage them as legitimate anti-theft laws, they seem to many to have a valid point.
Absolutely. My smartphone is great for checking email on the go or finding taxi firms, but there's no way I could use it for anything more extended. It certainly couldn't double as a word processor. In contrast, I can use my Eee for writing papers, programming - indeed, for pretty much anything other than graphics programs or gaming. Having little girly hands for using on the little girly keyboard helps, of course:)
"Really, what people need to compare the Eee and its progeny to is not full-sized laptops but PDAs."
I kinda agree with you. Though the pda is a slightly different proposition in that it works like having a paper diary/notebook in your pocket - you can just take it out and add things without worrying about boot time or loading the right program. Still, my Eee cost less than my pda did, and if I had to lose one of them it would be the pda, hands down.
Re:These people need to crawl in a hole somwhere.
on
IFPI Turning To Lawsuits
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You're right, their behaviour has been crappy. But I think that we tend to lose sight of the fact that what we're talking about is a totally non-essential product. They're not restricting our access to water, shelter, education... Music is amazing, but there's no reason why we should be entitled to more than we can afford to pay for. A person isn't having his human rights infringed because he can't afford more than a couple of CDs and no-one will give him the music he likes for free. I think it's absolutely right to protest against fair use restrictions and the retardation of the Internet, but we have to acknowledge that it is illegal to distribute copyright-infringing material, and there's no valid argument to say that that is a fair or moral thing to do.
OK, I take your points. But I think some of the parallels you draw are flawed.
The radio analogy doesn't entirely work. A song can only be heard for free when the radio station chooses to play it, which I guess leads to people actually wanting to acquire songs they like for their own collection. So the copyright holder is likely to gain sales. This isn't the case with filesharing.
I think that different assumptions are made about online vs. "real-world" behaviour. I'm sure that most of us think that CDs are hugely overpriced. If we could have them for free, we would. But laws to protect against real-world theft have been around so long that most people don't question them or believe they have a moral right to subvert them. In contrast, "stealing" material on the internet has a shorter history, during which it has not established itself as a bad thing to do. We realised that we could do it easily without getting caught, that there were no real laws to stop us from doing it, and that it didn't feel like theft because we didn't gain anything particularly tangible from it or remove something tangible from another person. So we got used to doing it, without much of a sense that it was wrong. When people try to stop us doing it, therefore, we feel a sense of grievance.
Finally, as to your point on commercial/non-commercial, I agree that it's probably rather more moral to distribute something for free, but that doesn't change the impact it has.
In the end, if we want these products badly enough, we should be prepared to pay the person who owns the rights to them. It's not as though they're stopping us accessing essential drugs or basic food and water. These are luxury products, we don't need them, and there's no excuse for stealing them even if we do believe that the owners are greedy and can afford the loss.
I had no sense that you were ridiculing my ideas, by the way! I'm a novice in this area, and I appreciate the chance to discuss it.
OK, thanks. I agree about sharing music with your friends - but surely posting copyrighted material online or downloading it is very different? The former means that a relatively limited number of people share something between them, and someone in that group has paid for the content. So the copyright owners are losing maybe ten potential sales (probably a lot fewer) per file. The latter means that anybody with an internet connection pretty much can get hold of a file. The number of files you can get hold of isn't limited by what you or your group of friends owns. So the copyright owner can conceivably be losing thousands of sales on any uploaded file. Yes, I know that some downloaders wouldn't buy if downloading weren't open to them, but is that analysis broadly right?
I'm not pro these aggressive anti-filesharing tactics, and I think that copyright laws as they stand do more to line the pockets of businesspeople than they do to reward genuine talent and innovation. But whereas I would rip a compilation CD (or occasionally a whole album) for a friend, I wouldn't download copyright-infringing content. So I guess I would agree to an extent that those who upload and download this stuff should bear at least some of the blame for what's happening. Aren't they basically saying "yeah, we're doing something illegal, but we don't think it should be illegal, so why the hell do you get to try and stop us?" They know that what they're doing is going to draw aggressive responses that may harm other users, but they do it anyway because they want things for free that other people have to pay for.
Re:These people need to crawl in a hole somwhere.
on
IFPI Turning To Lawsuits
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Pirating isn't something I know a lot about. Do the pirates make money from what they do, or are they just distributing copyrighted material for free? And is the former considered morally (or legally) worse than the latter? I'm not writing to disagree with you, by the way - it's just that I'd like to understand the issue better before I make my mind up!
(Oh, and on a side note, is it okay to ask questions like this in/. comment threads? If I'm going to piss people off, I'll just wait until I can ask someone I know instead!)
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But I'm prepared to be persuaded otherwise if you can spare the time to try.
Let me note that I'm not persuaded by arguments based on the fact that the copyright holders are often money-grabbing bastards - that's a given, and I accept it, but the crappiness of the victim doesn't excuse a crime.
Whenever certain members of a community (whether it's a real community or a perceived one) behave illegally or immorally, it impacts on the law-abiding remainder of the community. Some children refuse to behave civilly in shops, and steal from them, so shopkeepers are legitimised in barring all children without an adult from their shops. Some young men are careless and inconsiderate drivers, so insurance companies charge a higher premium for all young men. It's not right, but it's the way that our top-down catch-all governmental systems work, and while they do work that way, we have a responsibility to our communities not to act in such a way that allows the whole community to be stigmatised.
If you break the law, thereby allowing the community of internet users to be tarred with the brush of "criminals", then you're part of the problem that brings about this legislation.
Because as long as people are downloading copyright-infringing files, the record industry will think it's okay to inflict financial penalties on every internet user, as this legislation suggests. So those people who already pay legitimately for their music end up having to pay again to support illegal downloading.
I don't think I'm going to persuade anyone that stealing is stealing, regardless of how undeserving you think the original owner is. I'm very firmly against this legislation and the tactics of the recording industry in general. But, in the end, if someone has a legal right to something that you want, you should pay them for it, because if you don't you are branding yourself (and in many eyes the whole community of which you're a part) as a criminal. And, in the meanwhile, you should lobby for a change in copyright law, and support musicians like NIN and Radiohead who try out different models of distribution and charging. Ignoring the law is not a good way to change it for everyone's benefit.
I think it would be unfair to mod the parent as troll. True, the comment ignores the fact that art adds a lot to people's lives, is an historically important form of artistic expression, has cultural value as a tool for cohesion and relationship-building, and is very enjoyable. On the other hand, it picks up on some important points. Firstly, music as a commercial product is, in the end, a luxury item. The amount of time and effort spent trying to get around paying for it would only make moral sense if it were something like food or water. If you can't afford to buy it, you can still hear music on the radio, the TV, in bars and clubs and pubs and many free live venues. You can make it yourself, on your own, with friends. Secondly, the amount of money paid for the works of top artists is pretty extortionate. Why is Paul McCartney so rich when people who teach, nurse, clear our garbage, can't afford to pay their bills? I would suggest it's because we have a pretty screwed-up understanding of value.
These two points might seem to contradict each other. But they both add up to the fact that we place too much importance on commercial music (which is a different thing from music as an art or an abstract idea.) So I think the parent deserves better than to be called a troll, even if the phrasing of the comment is unfortunate.
The parent got modded "insightful"? This really pisses me off. Someone can post something that adds nothing to the discussion other than to insult the original poster, and it's "insightful". I know that being anti-copyright-infringement isn't popular here, but the level of prejudice shown in moderations on this topic is astounding.
And no doubt this is "-1 Redundant".
But as I understand it, this proposal seems to be suggesting the extra $5 charge to cover already-existing downloading from unregulated torrents. Otherwise, there's no point in it - people will continue to download illegally because not all the content they want is covered by the licensed sites or because they don't want to pay the voluntary charge, companies will still complain that their content is being stolen, and we'll be in for a whole new round of legislation.
When you download shit, does it have all the natural aroma and texture of the original shit, or does the compression compromise its quality?
I know that not all downloading is illegal. "Illegal downloaders" doesn't assume that - it's like for example saying "Christian parents", referring to a subset of parents, not saying that all parents are Christians.
Inconvenience, mislaying your property, having a plot spoiled... would you consider these rational reasons for theft in the real world? In a case where the copyright owner won't ever make their product available for purchase, maybe you have a case. But the others just don't wash for me, I'm afraid. "I'm sorry for stealing the iPod, your honour, but I've lost mine so I thought it would be okay..." And yes, I know, downloading a file doesn't deprive a retailer/owner of a physical object. But it still deprives them of the revenue that object represents. More importantly, it allows crappy legislation like this proposal to seem legitimate, which in my view is the worst crime of the illegal uploaders/downloaders.
I agree, but my comment was reacting to the terms of the proposal. I think that both the technical issues and issues of customer experience like the one you raise would make this incredibly difficult. The problem, of course, is that this extra $5 is presumably thought of by the industry as a penalty for criminals who are already ripping them off, not a payment by legitimate customers who can expect decent service in return.
Because none of us should be expected not to break the law when someone makes it easy for us to do so? So looting shops during riots is okay; we should blame the rioters not the thieves?
There is more to personal responsibility than "if it's difficult I'll refrain from doing it."
But how would they separate all the legitimate P2P traffic from the copyright-infringing stuff? Would non-"media package" users just be banned from P2P altogether?
Who'll pay extra for iTunes if they're already paying to use P2P whether they like it or not?
This is an utterly ridiculous idea. It taxes those who don't download copyright-infringing files to pay for those who do - and who will probably continue to download much more than $5-worth of tracks, subsidised by others.
Illegal downloaders need to stop freeloading off the rest of us and pay for the things they want.
Reminds me of the "feelies" in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World - a new kind of movie experience in which you feel what's happening as well as seeing and hearing it, which is mainly used for pornography. Any tech that appeals to the senses in a more intense way than previously possible is probably going to be used for porn. Unless it appeals to the sense of smell, of course - Eau de Sweaty Muscle Man, anyone?
Yes, I do. Many people won't be taught numeracy and literacy skills by their parents. They won't be introduced to books or scientific ideas by their parents. They won't be told how the solar system works or where countries are on the map by their parents. Schools are essential for this basic education. Yes, there's a lot of stuff out there that your teacher would never tell you. But how would most people access that information without the teachers who taught them to read? One of the best ways to disempower and disenfranchise people is to deny them access to basic schooling.
Sorry, I don't agree. Sharing information is one thing. Sharing music is another. Music is, as I've said, I luxury product. No-one needs it; they just want it.
Of course you're right about the difference between immoral and illegal. And copyright law is made more problematic in that it benefits more than just the original artist/creator. Nonetheless, I believe that not paying a copyright holder for music is immoral - precisely because there is no actual need for anyone to have the product.
I don't think I am. My point is that the laws are crappy, but people who want to take for free something that they should be paying for are giving an excuse to the people who want to make these laws. If the only excuses they had were political, there'd be a larger outcry and a lot less support. But because they can camouflage them as legitimate anti-theft laws, they seem to many to have a valid point.
Absolutely. My smartphone is great for checking email on the go or finding taxi firms, but there's no way I could use it for anything more extended. It certainly couldn't double as a word processor. In contrast, I can use my Eee for writing papers, programming - indeed, for pretty much anything other than graphics programs or gaming. Having little girly hands for using on the little girly keyboard helps, of course :)
"Really, what people need to compare the Eee and its progeny to is not full-sized laptops but PDAs."
I kinda agree with you. Though the pda is a slightly different proposition in that it works like having a paper diary/notebook in your pocket - you can just take it out and add things without worrying about boot time or loading the right program. Still, my Eee cost less than my pda did, and if I had to lose one of them it would be the pda, hands down.
You're right, their behaviour has been crappy. But I think that we tend to lose sight of the fact that what we're talking about is a totally non-essential product. They're not restricting our access to water, shelter, education... Music is amazing, but there's no reason why we should be entitled to more than we can afford to pay for. A person isn't having his human rights infringed because he can't afford more than a couple of CDs and no-one will give him the music he likes for free. I think it's absolutely right to protest against fair use restrictions and the retardation of the Internet, but we have to acknowledge that it is illegal to distribute copyright-infringing material, and there's no valid argument to say that that is a fair or moral thing to do.
OK, I take your points. But I think some of the parallels you draw are flawed.
The radio analogy doesn't entirely work. A song can only be heard for free when the radio station chooses to play it, which I guess leads to people actually wanting to acquire songs they like for their own collection. So the copyright holder is likely to gain sales. This isn't the case with filesharing.
I think that different assumptions are made about online vs. "real-world" behaviour. I'm sure that most of us think that CDs are hugely overpriced. If we could have them for free, we would. But laws to protect against real-world theft have been around so long that most people don't question them or believe they have a moral right to subvert them. In contrast, "stealing" material on the internet has a shorter history, during which it has not established itself as a bad thing to do. We realised that we could do it easily without getting caught, that there were no real laws to stop us from doing it, and that it didn't feel like theft because we didn't gain anything particularly tangible from it or remove something tangible from another person. So we got used to doing it, without much of a sense that it was wrong. When people try to stop us doing it, therefore, we feel a sense of grievance.
Finally, as to your point on commercial/non-commercial, I agree that it's probably rather more moral to distribute something for free, but that doesn't change the impact it has.
In the end, if we want these products badly enough, we should be prepared to pay the person who owns the rights to them. It's not as though they're stopping us accessing essential drugs or basic food and water. These are luxury products, we don't need them, and there's no excuse for stealing them even if we do believe that the owners are greedy and can afford the loss.
I had no sense that you were ridiculing my ideas, by the way! I'm a novice in this area, and I appreciate the chance to discuss it.
OK, thanks. I agree about sharing music with your friends - but surely posting copyrighted material online or downloading it is very different? The former means that a relatively limited number of people share something between them, and someone in that group has paid for the content. So the copyright owners are losing maybe ten potential sales (probably a lot fewer) per file. The latter means that anybody with an internet connection pretty much can get hold of a file. The number of files you can get hold of isn't limited by what you or your group of friends owns. So the copyright owner can conceivably be losing thousands of sales on any uploaded file. Yes, I know that some downloaders wouldn't buy if downloading weren't open to them, but is that analysis broadly right?
I'm not pro these aggressive anti-filesharing tactics, and I think that copyright laws as they stand do more to line the pockets of businesspeople than they do to reward genuine talent and innovation. But whereas I would rip a compilation CD (or occasionally a whole album) for a friend, I wouldn't download copyright-infringing content. So I guess I would agree to an extent that those who upload and download this stuff should bear at least some of the blame for what's happening. Aren't they basically saying "yeah, we're doing something illegal, but we don't think it should be illegal, so why the hell do you get to try and stop us?" They know that what they're doing is going to draw aggressive responses that may harm other users, but they do it anyway because they want things for free that other people have to pay for.
You don't? Get with the times, man!
Pirating isn't something I know a lot about. Do the pirates make money from what they do, or are they just distributing copyrighted material for free? And is the former considered morally (or legally) worse than the latter? I'm not writing to disagree with you, by the way - it's just that I'd like to understand the issue better before I make my mind up!
/. comment threads? If I'm going to piss people off, I'll just wait until I can ask someone I know instead!)
(Oh, and on a side note, is it okay to ask questions like this in
I think this is it. (Originally mentioned in another comment above.)