are there ANY conditions, prefixes or suffixes regarding the freedoms in bill of rights, human rights declaration, or the first amendments of american constitution ?
The supreme court reserves the right to interpret the constitution as they see fit, because we all know that to interpret something means to change its meaning completely, right?
Also, how could we forget all of those nonexistent people who died because of these information leaks?
Yes, releasing information that reveals the corruption of our elected officials that are supposed to be representing us (or corporations abusing the system) is horrible, and they deserve all of that privacy and secrecy. I just can't even stand to think of all of the people who died because of Wikileaks' irresponsibility!
Which is why there are lawsuits in California over beach ownership?
Oh, that's what you were referring to. Legally owned land. I'm sure that would be done away with, because it doesn't make sense for people to own beaches and large sections of land that they don't even need.
There's no shortage of actual land even right now (even including the legally owned land, some places are just worse off than others and far more popular), and people simply don't need to own large sections of land like they do now. Additionally, discouraging overpopulation would of course solve this problem even further (but the reason for that is more to do with resources than land).
I think greed is pretty embedded. I mean, preschool tries really hard to get kids to share toys. They try to have that culture. So does Seaseme St. Are you really claiming that there's a bias given to these kids that's more powerful than intentional indocrination, and yet can somehow be eliminated?
It's more like unintentional indoctrination. It's powerful because it's extremely widespread. If preschool kids (and everyone else) grow up in a society that believes that money is extremely important, a society which greed and corruption thrives in, it is likely that they will inherit these traits.
It seems to totally ignore that not all resources are capable of existing post-scarcity (e.g. land).
Land, even now, isn't a problem. It likely never will be if that system is implemented properly (as overpopulation would be heavily discouraged, naturally).
But it really requires creating a "new soviet man", that is getting rid of certain aspects of human nature.
Not really. No one is inherently evil. In certain aspects we may have instincts, but most behaviors can be changed. The environment right now is largely what likely makes people desire more than what they need currently (a greedy environment where corruption and selfishness thrives most likely due to the existence of artificial currency which just separates people into little groups, making them feel superior to one another for having more things).
Which one are you talking about? The current one which promotes war for profit, greed, corruption, abuse of the environment for profit, abuse of living beings for profit, pollution, artificial scarcity, inefficient use of resources, and planned obsolescence? Like it or not, our capitalistic society is largely outdated and our technological progress has shown that. If this continues, the consequences could be disastrous. Capitalistic societies typically treat the planet as if its resources are unlimited and use far too much of them, only to later dispose of a great deal of them. It's not sustainable.
I promote this system. Futuristic or not, we're doomed if we don't come up with some sort of alternative.
People pay them if they want to. Can you imagine working under those conditions, where you turned up at work and your employer paid you if they felt that you had done work justifying your getting paid.
Criminalizing people for victimless crimes isn't the answer.
Lack of respect for copyright deprives the artist _and_ society by reducing the incentive to create.
Which is exactly the problem I'm talking about. Copyright infringement is a victimless crime (for reasons I've already pointed out), and the file sharers aren't where the problem lies. The problem lies in society itself. Criminalizing people for actions which hurt no one is not a way to fix this.
Speaking of incentive, what happens if someone were to not buy a product, and because of this, the business went bankrupt? Many people who did buy the product would be disappointed, there would be less incentive, and much of society would likely be 'harmed'. That's all file sharers do: not give someone their money while not interacting with them in the slightest.
Copyrights do protect them. The protection is not perfect, but it is there. Case in point, Paramount pictures does not create copies of Warner movies and sell them.
Yes, I suppose I was only thinking about file sharing. It's certainly not a 'protection' that I believe should exist, as I'm very much against criminalizing people for victimless crimes (for reasons I've already pointed out). The 'need' for copyright laws when individual media and resources are abundant (or in the case of digital media, unlimited) truly shows how outdated our society is. To "promote incentive" isn't a good reason because someone's primary motivation shouldn't be entirely profit in the first place. If they do not care about what they are doing, they should not do it.
How would any barter system not have the same effects as using currency?
Currency is only 'needed' in systems with limited resources that promote (or fail to prevent) overpopulation. The problem, I believe, is and always has been not utilizing resources in an efficient way, not making sure that we don't consume too much (thus not allowing renewable resources to replenish quickly enough), and breeding until these problems worsen. I'm not saying that there's an unlimited number of resources, but by fixing the above problems, resources would be abundant for humans.
Every system requires trading.
That you know of. I'm talking about this. Futuristic or no, the problems I've listed have every bit to do with our capitalistic society, and failing to fix them could prove disastrous for the future.
All your points about "artifical currency" seem to apply equally if shiny hunks of gold were used.
Which is why I suggest ridding ourselves of any kind of it entirely, if possible. Whether or not such things exist in other mediums is irrelevant. The point is that the system is a broken mess.
If gold certificates are counterfeitable, what about contracts? Can I create a contract I proport to be between me and you?
saying "the time is the issue to me" does not make time the issue.
It is the issue. If there is a service with no time (or money) used, as I've been arguing all along, we shouldn't criminalize people for getting it for free as there was no harm done. All of the people you're mentioning are using their time, and time is not in an infinite quantity. Whether or not they're being paid specifically for time or not is irrelevant, as we're talking about piracy, which is an act that uses up zero time and hurts no one. The fact remains that in employing these services, they've wasted their time. Someone could pirate a game an infinite number of times and only waste their own time. There's no reason (outside of trying to keep this broken capitalistic society on life support) that we should criminalize people for an action which logically harms no one.
Also: what are your thoughts on sneaking into a concert? Do you consider that OK since the band is going to perform anyways? They're going to expel just as much energy is 999 people buy tickets and 1 sneaks in as if 1 buys a ticket and 999 sneak in. So is THAT justified to you?
As I've told many other people, yes, it is, and for nearly the same reasons as file sharing.
In a society which teaches people that you should only work for artificial currency (as there's really no choice), it encourages corruption (among the government and otherwise), greed (often people won't want to give back in order to keep their precious paper), artificial scarcity (as with the war on 'piracy'), planned obsolescence (making products to break sometime in the future so that more money can be made), war (often for profitable resources that shouldn't be used in the first place), abuse of the environment (chemical dumping to save money, or perhaps just not fixing a problem until it is too late because it's not profitable to fix it), and abuse of human rights for power (not to mention animals). At the rate we're consuming resources, this system of "use and throw away" simply isn't sustainable.
But the time isn't really the issue. You aren't paying the man X to come over and stand around near your pipes for a few hours.
The time is the issue to me. If you're not using their time, their money, or anything else, then it's not a problem. You are using their energy, however.
You are trading the benefit of his years of training and experience for X.
You're trading money for his services which also use up his time, not one or the other.
That is why copyright law exists.
You needn't restate the points that other people have made to me in the past. I'm well aware why people think it should exist, and I don't agree with those reasons (for reasons I've stated in this post and in others). If all that's at issue here is that the pirate has the artists work, then there is no issue, because they didn't take anything or use the artists time to get that work. They may have something the artist made, but again, that isn't doing them any harm. If a plumber didn't do the work and just stood around, no one would hire him. Even though that's partly about the work he is supposed to do, the 'harm' done to him by not paying him is that you wasted his time. If you didn't interact with them at all, no harm would have been done.
But if you download the album and not pay for it, you have broken a deal you knew existed
Irrelevant as I pointed out above because you didn't use up any of their time, resources, or money. Without time directly used, the service provided may as well be free (which is, if you'll remember, what I've been arguing the entire time). Without a direct use of a service, obviously they shouldn't get paid.
If the file sharer downloads the product, then they have demonstrated that the product does have an inherent value to them.
Yes, and? I never argued that it didn't have entertainment value.
Hence, they in fact are depriving the author of potential money.
You can't lose something that you never had, and if you never had it, no harm was done.
and I know you were about to
Well, you were wrong, it seems.
I should also point out that lost also has a definition (from the venerable Oxford English Dictionary) "of time or an opportunity not used advantageously; wasted".
I don't much care about the definitions (as in, they can't be used as an argument against me in this scenario because you know exactly what I mean).
The opportunity to derive income is clearly removed here by the actions of the file sharer, therefore an actual loss is present.
You can't own an opportunity, nor are you harmed by 'losing' one.
Whether that equates to harm is not addressed, and I have no intention of addressing that.
I'm going to assume you mean "you wasted his time".
Heh, yes.
The plumber has the following deal "I will provide you with the fruits of the service I am trained in, working pipes, in exchange for X dollars." if you get the fruits of this service, and do not give him X dollars, you are depriving him of his due income.
Yes, but I mean that you specifically asked him to come over, and by doing so, you've wasted his time. Pirates don't even interact with the artist at all, so there is no way that they could be wasting their time. 'Loss' of potential future gain does not automatically equate to wasted time (which is what we're currently talking about).
As for your example, again, they didn't have it in the first place (the potential profit that they could have gained). This private monopoly is what I'm arguing against in the first place.
so violating copyright is fine as long as what changes is bits that are really small and hard to see on a drive, but wrong when a CD is burnt
No, violating copyright is fine because nothing is actually taken in the first place. If the same applies to counterfeiting money, then I have no problem with that either.
or are you arguing that you think counterfeiting should be allowed because you think money is stupid?
Counterfeiting should be 'allowed' (by that I mean made pointless) by ridding ourselves of artificial currency completely, because all it seems to do is cause more trouble than its worth as well as spur things such as planned obsolescence, war, artificial scarcity, environmental abuse, and pollution.
No, seriously, deprivation doesn't require ownership.
The point I'm trying to make is that you can't logically equate 'loss' of future gain to harm because they never had said gain in the first place.
If someone is sleep deprived they do not have sleep they already have removed.
If someone is sleep deprived they've already failed to have slept. This isn't something that only happens in the future, but is an effect that is immediate. For every second that goes by, that is an extra second that they did not sleep. You can't be deprived of time that you could have been sleeping that only exists in the future.
If a plumber comes over and fixes your pipes, and you then refuse to pay him, you are depriving him of his wages.
If a plumber comes over and fixes your pipes, he has just wasted your time. If file sharers directly wasted the time of artists, then I would agree with you, but they don't (the decision to make the media was their own).
You cannot argue that the system is fundamentally flawed because it relies on artificial scarcity.
Yes, I can. Artificial scarcity is something that should be avoided at all costs. When something is abundant or unlimited in number (individual digital media), it should not be restricted to certain people because there is no good reason to do so. The way the current system works is not a good reason because that would mean it would rely on scarcity, which is obviously a bad thing. There's no reason that an action that harms no one (for reasons I explained in my other posts) should be restricted. Of course, I don't really believe that money and logic mix.
Copyrights protect the work of those who want their work to be protected.
Except that they don't, and people continue to share commercial media at the expense of no one.
Actually to be deprived of something you need to not be given it when you otherwise would.
No, because you can't take something that doesn't exist. At this point in time, the author does not own my money, so therefore I can't take my own money from him because the money was never his to begin with.
I don't see how you can logically state that you can harm someone by taking things they never had to begin with. They may want it, but that doesn't mean they lost anything or were harmed.
If it somehow could be equated to harm or loss, then I guess competition between businesses should be illegal because a customer might have gone to their store if their competitors didn't exist. Or maybe we should criminalize the act of informing potential buyers about a legitimately bad product because it could 'deprive' people of potential profit (something they never had).
It's also not their 'destiny' to have the object in the first place.
I explained what I believe the actual problem is here.
Actually, I've already said that I believe that deserving authors should be paid here. I don't believe I've said anything about me being someone who infringes upon copyright, either, so I don't know why you just assumed that I do (or at least, it looks like you did).
So if I spend 6 months of my life writing a software program and then sell it for $50 to someone who then seeds it to a file sharing site, that's not harming me?
No, because you didn't lose anything that you already had (if you say "time," then that isn't the file sharers fault that you decided to use that time).
I suppose when I write software I should just make it all free and just hope these "altruists" will donate money to me so I can feed my family.
You're not copying physical objects for one, you're copying digital media. Money is a poor solution to our problems in the first place, and I don't see how that harms anyone.
Lost opportunity is a real, actual, bona-fide cost.
That would only be true if they lost something that they already had... which they didn't. They didn't 'have' the opportunity to begin with, and you can't own opportunity.
Your position is that if you can rip it off, you should, because the artist isn't doing a good enough job at preventing you from sneaking into their concert. Your logic insists that anybody who can get around paying for a concert should. So, ideally, nobody would pay, right?
No, and you saying this makes it very clear that you have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm saying that logically, nothing is taken. That's it.
As for my opinion about people buying digital media (which I previously said nothing about), I believe that if the person likes the media and the author is deserving (which they probably often are), they should buy the media if they wish to see the author make future products. They aren't hurting them by not doing so, however.
If the file sharers want to see the author make future products, they should obviously pay them.
This is how your ethics work?
I could assume that you wish for artificial scarcity and wish to criminalize people which logically do no harm to anyone else, but I won't. As I pointed out above, I said nothing about what people "should" do.
But, I did say this:
I believe that instead of criminalizing the entire population for deeds which logically don't hurt anyone, we should instead fix (or try to) our broken capitalistic society which almost forces artists of digital media and other people to introduce artificial scarcity in order to turn a greater profit. The real question is: how? We certainly won't get there by continuing to believe the false assumption that file sharers are hurting others, that much I know for certain.
I believe that it's our capitalistic society that needs fixing, not file sharers, and not artists (they're only trying to make a living, I understand that).
Legitimate competition faces the same challenges as their competitors. All businesses (from artists to large corporations) face competition.
Yes, they all do face competition (or most). They all face the 'theft' of potential future gain.
But, again, it logically isn't possible to equate 'loss' of potential future gain to harm because they never had the gain in the first place.
You can't really call someone who breaks the law in order to beat you a competitor, per se.
Yes, you can. If they provide a better service, illegal or not, they are competitors.
So if only one person buys a ticket to a concert, and 9,999 other people jump the fence and sneak in so they can get their entertainment without having to pay what the artist has asked, that's cool... because the artist never had their money in the first place, right?
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are there ANY conditions, prefixes or suffixes regarding the freedoms in bill of rights, human rights declaration, or the first amendments of american constitution ?
The supreme court reserves the right to interpret the constitution as they see fit, because we all know that to interpret something means to change its meaning completely, right?
Also, how could we forget all of those nonexistent people who died because of these information leaks?
Yes, releasing information that reveals the corruption of our elected officials that are supposed to be representing us (or corporations abusing the system) is horrible, and they deserve all of that privacy and secrecy. I just can't even stand to think of all of the people who died because of Wikileaks' irresponsibility!
Organ and limb harvesting of death row inmates should be required too.
To be honest, I don't see the problem with this. They're dead, they don't need them, and it could potentially help people.
And harvesting from the general population should be compulsory as well.
Don't see the problem here, either. They have no use for their organs or limbs.
Which is why there are lawsuits in California over beach ownership?
Oh, that's what you were referring to. Legally owned land. I'm sure that would be done away with, because it doesn't make sense for people to own beaches and large sections of land that they don't even need.
There's no shortage of actual land even right now (even including the legally owned land, some places are just worse off than others and far more popular), and people simply don't need to own large sections of land like they do now. Additionally, discouraging overpopulation would of course solve this problem even further (but the reason for that is more to do with resources than land).
I think greed is pretty embedded. I mean, preschool tries really hard to get kids to share toys. They try to have that culture. So does Seaseme St. Are you really claiming that there's a bias given to these kids that's more powerful than intentional indocrination, and yet can somehow be eliminated?
It's more like unintentional indoctrination. It's powerful because it's extremely widespread. If preschool kids (and everyone else) grow up in a society that believes that money is extremely important, a society which greed and corruption thrives in, it is likely that they will inherit these traits.
It seems to totally ignore that not all resources are capable of existing post-scarcity (e.g. land).
Land, even now, isn't a problem. It likely never will be if that system is implemented properly (as overpopulation would be heavily discouraged, naturally).
But it really requires creating a "new soviet man", that is getting rid of certain aspects of human nature.
Not really. No one is inherently evil. In certain aspects we may have instincts, but most behaviors can be changed. The environment right now is largely what likely makes people desire more than what they need currently (a greedy environment where corruption and selfishness thrives most likely due to the existence of artificial currency which just separates people into little groups, making them feel superior to one another for having more things).
That system is unworkable.
Which one are you talking about? The current one which promotes war for profit, greed, corruption, abuse of the environment for profit, abuse of living beings for profit, pollution, artificial scarcity, inefficient use of resources, and planned obsolescence? Like it or not, our capitalistic society is largely outdated and our technological progress has shown that. If this continues, the consequences could be disastrous. Capitalistic societies typically treat the planet as if its resources are unlimited and use far too much of them, only to later dispose of a great deal of them. It's not sustainable.
I promote this system. Futuristic or not, we're doomed if we don't come up with some sort of alternative.
People pay them if they want to. Can you imagine working under those conditions, where you turned up at work and your employer paid you if they felt that you had done work justifying your getting paid.
Criminalizing people for victimless crimes isn't the answer.
Lack of respect for copyright deprives the artist _and_ society by reducing the incentive to create.
Which is exactly the problem I'm talking about. Copyright infringement is a victimless crime (for reasons I've already pointed out), and the file sharers aren't where the problem lies. The problem lies in society itself. Criminalizing people for actions which hurt no one is not a way to fix this.
Speaking of incentive, what happens if someone were to not buy a product, and because of this, the business went bankrupt? Many people who did buy the product would be disappointed, there would be less incentive, and much of society would likely be 'harmed'. That's all file sharers do: not give someone their money while not interacting with them in the slightest.
Copyrights do protect them. The protection is not perfect, but it is there. Case in point, Paramount pictures does not create copies of Warner movies and sell them.
Yes, I suppose I was only thinking about file sharing. It's certainly not a 'protection' that I believe should exist, as I'm very much against criminalizing people for victimless crimes (for reasons I've already pointed out). The 'need' for copyright laws when individual media and resources are abundant (or in the case of digital media, unlimited) truly shows how outdated our society is. To "promote incentive" isn't a good reason because someone's primary motivation shouldn't be entirely profit in the first place. If they do not care about what they are doing, they should not do it.
How would any barter system not have the same effects as using currency?
Currency is only 'needed' in systems with limited resources that promote (or fail to prevent) overpopulation. The problem, I believe, is and always has been not utilizing resources in an efficient way, not making sure that we don't consume too much (thus not allowing renewable resources to replenish quickly enough), and breeding until these problems worsen. I'm not saying that there's an unlimited number of resources, but by fixing the above problems, resources would be abundant for humans.
Every system requires trading.
That you know of. I'm talking about this. Futuristic or no, the problems I've listed have every bit to do with our capitalistic society, and failing to fix them could prove disastrous for the future.
All your points about "artifical currency" seem to apply equally if shiny hunks of gold were used.
Which is why I suggest ridding ourselves of any kind of it entirely, if possible. Whether or not such things exist in other mediums is irrelevant. The point is that the system is a broken mess.
If gold certificates are counterfeitable, what about contracts? Can I create a contract I proport to be between me and you?
Sure.
What about counterfeiting? Is that justified to you?
As long as nothing is stolen in the process, yes. You'll find that I'm very much against many of our capitalistic ways.
saying "the time is the issue to me" does not make time the issue.
It is the issue. If there is a service with no time (or money) used, as I've been arguing all along, we shouldn't criminalize people for getting it for free as there was no harm done. All of the people you're mentioning are using their time, and time is not in an infinite quantity. Whether or not they're being paid specifically for time or not is irrelevant, as we're talking about piracy, which is an act that uses up zero time and hurts no one. The fact remains that in employing these services, they've wasted their time. Someone could pirate a game an infinite number of times and only waste their own time. There's no reason (outside of trying to keep this broken capitalistic society on life support) that we should criminalize people for an action which logically harms no one.
Also: what are your thoughts on sneaking into a concert? Do you consider that OK since the band is going to perform anyways? They're going to expel just as much energy is 999 people buy tickets and 1 sneaks in as if 1 buys a ticket and 999 sneak in. So is THAT justified to you?
As I've told many other people, yes, it is, and for nearly the same reasons as file sharing.
How does a paper currency do that?
In a society which teaches people that you should only work for artificial currency (as there's really no choice), it encourages corruption (among the government and otherwise), greed (often people won't want to give back in order to keep their precious paper), artificial scarcity (as with the war on 'piracy'), planned obsolescence (making products to break sometime in the future so that more money can be made), war (often for profitable resources that shouldn't be used in the first place), abuse of the environment (chemical dumping to save money, or perhaps just not fixing a problem until it is too late because it's not profitable to fix it), and abuse of human rights for power (not to mention animals). At the rate we're consuming resources, this system of "use and throw away" simply isn't sustainable.
Would that somehow make counterfeiting wrong?
No.
But the time isn't really the issue. You aren't paying the man X to come over and stand around near your pipes for a few hours.
The time is the issue to me. If you're not using their time, their money, or anything else, then it's not a problem. You are using their energy, however.
You are trading the benefit of his years of training and experience for X.
You're trading money for his services which also use up his time, not one or the other.
That is why copyright law exists.
You needn't restate the points that other people have made to me in the past. I'm well aware why people think it should exist, and I don't agree with those reasons (for reasons I've stated in this post and in others). If all that's at issue here is that the pirate has the artists work, then there is no issue, because they didn't take anything or use the artists time to get that work. They may have something the artist made, but again, that isn't doing them any harm. If a plumber didn't do the work and just stood around, no one would hire him. Even though that's partly about the work he is supposed to do, the 'harm' done to him by not paying him is that you wasted his time. If you didn't interact with them at all, no harm would have been done.
But if you download the album and not pay for it, you have broken a deal you knew existed
Irrelevant as I pointed out above because you didn't use up any of their time, resources, or money. Without time directly used, the service provided may as well be free (which is, if you'll remember, what I've been arguing the entire time). Without a direct use of a service, obviously they shouldn't get paid.
If the file sharer downloads the product, then they have demonstrated that the product does have an inherent value to them.
Yes, and? I never argued that it didn't have entertainment value.
Hence, they in fact are depriving the author of potential money.
You can't lose something that you never had, and if you never had it, no harm was done.
and I know you were about to
Well, you were wrong, it seems.
I should also point out that lost also has a definition (from the venerable Oxford English Dictionary) "of time or an opportunity not used advantageously; wasted".
I don't much care about the definitions (as in, they can't be used as an argument against me in this scenario because you know exactly what I mean).
The opportunity to derive income is clearly removed here by the actions of the file sharer, therefore an actual loss is present.
You can't own an opportunity, nor are you harmed by 'losing' one.
Whether that equates to harm is not addressed, and I have no intention of addressing that.
Then I don't really see what your point was.
I'm going to assume you mean "you wasted his time".
Heh, yes.
The plumber has the following deal "I will provide you with the fruits of the service I am trained in, working pipes, in exchange for X dollars." if you get the fruits of this service, and do not give him X dollars, you are depriving him of his due income.
Yes, but I mean that you specifically asked him to come over, and by doing so, you've wasted his time. Pirates don't even interact with the artist at all, so there is no way that they could be wasting their time. 'Loss' of potential future gain does not automatically equate to wasted time (which is what we're currently talking about).
As for your example, again, they didn't have it in the first place (the potential profit that they could have gained). This private monopoly is what I'm arguing against in the first place.
so violating copyright is fine as long as what changes is bits that are really small and hard to see on a drive, but wrong when a CD is burnt
No, violating copyright is fine because nothing is actually taken in the first place. If the same applies to counterfeiting money, then I have no problem with that either.
or are you arguing that you think counterfeiting should be allowed because you think money is stupid?
Counterfeiting should be 'allowed' (by that I mean made pointless) by ridding ourselves of artificial currency completely, because all it seems to do is cause more trouble than its worth as well as spur things such as planned obsolescence, war, artificial scarcity, environmental abuse, and pollution.
No, seriously, deprivation doesn't require ownership.
The point I'm trying to make is that you can't logically equate 'loss' of future gain to harm because they never had said gain in the first place.
If someone is sleep deprived they do not have sleep they already have removed.
If someone is sleep deprived they've already failed to have slept. This isn't something that only happens in the future, but is an effect that is immediate. For every second that goes by, that is an extra second that they did not sleep. You can't be deprived of time that you could have been sleeping that only exists in the future.
If a plumber comes over and fixes your pipes, and you then refuse to pay him, you are depriving him of his wages.
If a plumber comes over and fixes your pipes, he has just wasted your time. If file sharers directly wasted the time of artists, then I would agree with you, but they don't (the decision to make the media was their own).
You cannot argue that the system is fundamentally flawed because it relies on artificial scarcity.
Yes, I can. Artificial scarcity is something that should be avoided at all costs. When something is abundant or unlimited in number (individual digital media), it should not be restricted to certain people because there is no good reason to do so. The way the current system works is not a good reason because that would mean it would rely on scarcity, which is obviously a bad thing. There's no reason that an action that harms no one (for reasons I explained in my other posts) should be restricted. Of course, I don't really believe that money and logic mix.
Copyrights protect the work of those who want their work to be protected.
Except that they don't, and people continue to share commercial media at the expense of no one.
Actually to be deprived of something you need to not be given it when you otherwise would.
No, because you can't take something that doesn't exist. At this point in time, the author does not own my money, so therefore I can't take my own money from him because the money was never his to begin with.
I don't see how you can logically state that you can harm someone by taking things they never had to begin with. They may want it, but that doesn't mean they lost anything or were harmed.
If it somehow could be equated to harm or loss, then I guess competition between businesses should be illegal because a customer might have gone to their store if their competitors didn't exist. Or maybe we should criminalize the act of informing potential buyers about a legitimately bad product because it could 'deprive' people of potential profit (something they never had).
It's also not their 'destiny' to have the object in the first place.
I explained what I believe the actual problem is here.
Actually, I've already said that I believe that deserving authors should be paid here. I don't believe I've said anything about me being someone who infringes upon copyright, either, so I don't know why you just assumed that I do (or at least, it looks like you did).
So if I spend 6 months of my life writing a software program and then sell it for $50 to someone who then seeds it to a file sharing site, that's not harming me?
No, because you didn't lose anything that you already had (if you say "time," then that isn't the file sharers fault that you decided to use that time).
I suppose when I write software I should just make it all free and just hope these "altruists" will donate money to me so I can feed my family.
I've already explained that I feel that this is a shortcoming of our capitalistic society here. I've also said that I actually think that authors should be paid here.
You're not copying physical objects for one, you're copying digital media. Money is a poor solution to our problems in the first place, and I don't see how that harms anyone.
Lost opportunity is a real, actual, bona-fide cost.
That would only be true if they lost something that they already had... which they didn't. They didn't 'have' the opportunity to begin with, and you can't own opportunity.
Your position is that if you can rip it off, you should, because the artist isn't doing a good enough job at preventing you from sneaking into their concert. Your logic insists that anybody who can get around paying for a concert should. So, ideally, nobody would pay, right?
No, and you saying this makes it very clear that you have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm saying that logically, nothing is taken. That's it.
As for my opinion about people buying digital media (which I previously said nothing about), I believe that if the person likes the media and the author is deserving (which they probably often are), they should buy the media if they wish to see the author make future products. They aren't hurting them by not doing so, however.
If the file sharers want to see the author make future products, they should obviously pay them.
This is how your ethics work?
I could assume that you wish for artificial scarcity and wish to criminalize people which logically do no harm to anyone else, but I won't. As I pointed out above, I said nothing about what people "should" do.
But, I did say this:
I believe that instead of criminalizing the entire population for deeds which logically don't hurt anyone, we should instead fix (or try to) our broken capitalistic society which almost forces artists of digital media and other people to introduce artificial scarcity in order to turn a greater profit. The real question is: how? We certainly won't get there by continuing to believe the false assumption that file sharers are hurting others, that much I know for certain.
I believe that it's our capitalistic society that needs fixing, not file sharers, and not artists (they're only trying to make a living, I understand that).
Legitimate competition faces the same challenges as their competitors. All businesses (from artists to large corporations) face competition.
Yes, they all do face competition (or most). They all face the 'theft' of potential future gain.
But, again, it logically isn't possible to equate 'loss' of potential future gain to harm because they never had the gain in the first place.
You can't really call someone who breaks the law in order to beat you a competitor, per se.
Yes, you can. If they provide a better service, illegal or not, they are competitors.
So if only one person buys a ticket to a concert, and 9,999 other people jump the fence and sneak in so they can get their entertainment without having to pay what the artist has asked, that's cool ... because the artist never had their money in the first place, right?
Yes, it is. Logically, nothing was taken.