Why do you say voting for a minority party candidate is throwing away your vote?
Past history. No independent candidate has ever been elected President. Independents are outnumbered in the Senate 99 to 1. Independents in the House are outnumbered 433 to 1. What makes you believe it's not throwing it away?
Once you accept that your vote will have no effect on the outcome of the election,
Since the government [theoretically] is only concerned when control leaves the airline and enters into the terrorist hands (because at that point the jet becomes a weapon),
The likelihood of terrorists gaining control of an airliner with box cutters again is essentially nil. The entire plan depended on the passengers believing they might live if they cooperated. Until September 11th, the majority of the flying public couldn't even conceive of someone using a 767 as a missile and the primary concern for hijackings was the lives of the passengers. It should also be noted that most of the hijackers had valid ID.
Some manner in which the plane cannot be flown by terrorists as the control over the aircraft leaves as soon as its taken over.
Very simple. Lock the cockpit door and don't open it. Even if the hijackers threaten to kill everyone on board unless the pilot opens the door, he has no reason to believe they will survive if he does.
Wikipedia entries are often entered by experts in that field
there is no verification of expertise of the wiki writers so it's more or less a "use at your own risk".
so how do you make the leap from "no verification" at all to "often entered by experts?"
Experts often contribute. No one checks to make sure they're experts. What's so hard to understand?
If you think it is important to assert that illegally depriving someone of potential gain is not theft, that's fine with me. The distinction is not relevant.
The distinction is relevant because the comparison is dishonest and I will continue to make it for that reason.
If you can't tell the difference between diagreeing with someone's views and a personal attack, that's not my concern.
The point was that you dismissed the argument because of who made it and not because of any flaw in the argument. It's called argumentum ad hominem, literally "attack of the man" and is a logical fallacy.
Laws, of any kind, do not and cannot create or grant rights.
Yes, they can and do. Real property (physical or otherwise) rights exist because the law gives them to you. Without the law, anyone could take your property without your permission unless you yourself protected it. And if they succeeded, you would have little recourse except to go try and get it back.
The law can only recognize and protect rights that exist naturally.
You are really deluded if you believe this. Without law and a government to enforce it, the only "natural" right is the right to try to survive. There is no such thing as theft without law because there is no such thing as property. Ownership itself is a man made construct. Without law a thing is "yours", in the loosest sense of the word, only for as long as you can hold onto it.
The "expression of an idea" is in know way equivalent to an idea.
I didn't say it was. In fact, my claim has always been that the expression of an idea is what is covered by copyright, not the idea itself. Many copyright scholars use this term the same way I do.
I see no further purpose in continuing this. I've presented logical justifications for my positions.
No, you haven't. You've made assertions and not backed them up except with flawed analogies to real (however you define it) property. You've completely ignored the distinction between rivalrous and non-rivalrous uses of resources, pretending I never even mentioned them. You've yet to provide one bit of evidence that supports your assertions. You've distorted my arguments, and accused me of "harping" on arguments which you yourself brought up and abandoned as soon as they became inconvenient.
You have presented ideological fervor
I have presented logical arguments with supporting evidence which you have ignored at every turn.
falsely accused me of an ad hominem attack on Lessig
You discounted an entire argument because of who made it and not based on any flaw in the argument. That, by definition, is an ad hominem attack.
and continued to childishly harp on your "theft" sorepoint long after it became clear that I just don't care.
Whether or not you care does not change the fact that you are deliberately misleading people to believe that copyright infringement is the same as property theft in order to push the idea that every infringement necessarily harms the copyright holder and that the harm is more serious than it is. It is dishonest and I will continue to call you on it regardless of whether or not you care.
Of course something is different if it isn't the same. What's your point?
The point is that copyright infringement is not the same as theft as you claimed it was. Saying it is deliberately misleads in order to further your agenda.
I'm not attacking Lessig. I said I think he's often wrong because I disagree with the community or societal premise of many of his arguments. I.e., I believe one thing, he believes another. That leads us to two different places.
You discounted the argument because of who made it and not because there was anything wrong with the argument.
Every right protected by copyright law is derived from an author's original exclusive rights. Copyright law recognizes and protects -- rather than creates -- the exclusive right I acquire when I create my work.
Absolutely wrong. Without copyright, there is no exclusive right on any creative work you make public. Period. Copyright gives you those rights by taking that freedom away from others. We've been over this.
Copyright law concerns the duplication and dissemination of work of art via a medium of some nature.
Yes, and that content protected by copyright is often called the "expression of an idea": how the idea is shared, or expressed. You will find the term "tangible medium of expression" used quite often in copyright law. The term "expression of an idea" was brought about to reinforce the concept that copyright does not protect an idea, but how you convey (or express) it to others. The story, song, or painting is the idea. The form it takes when you convey it to others is the expression of the idea.
I don't understand your fixation on this "owning" thing.
You brought it up, not me. I'm correcting your error.
If I create a unqiue work, who else can own it besides me?
This assumes it must have an owner at all.
[snip yet another comparison of creative works to real property]
We've been over this, too. Without copyright, any creative work you make public falls instantly into the public domain: people are free to quote, copy and use that work in anyway they like with or without your permission. And it doesn't cost you anything for them to do so. As soon as you make it public, it is no longer yours to control. Copyright gives you some of that control, at the expense of others freedom, so that you may profit from it, in return for which you will share the work with the public and, at the end of the copyright term, it falls into the public domain. That was the deal. And the reason for the deal was to encourage creators to share their creations so society may benefit from them.
Do you actually believe if you got everyone to agree with you that copyright infringement was not theft, that anything would change?
I'm at least trying to keep it from getting worse. There is no reason to compare copyright infringement to property theft except to mislead the public into believing the harm is greater than it is. It's the same reason you don't claim that jaywalking is murder.
Copyright length is a political issue that has and will vary over time. I think it's too long now, but I also don't think that it matters much. People will neither suffer harm or be benefited if something like Mickey Mouse stays copyrighted.
Society is being harmed by keeping things written 80 years ago out of the public domain. People will be punished for using copyrighted materials that should have been in the public domain decades ago. How does society benefit by keeping Steamboat Willie locked up?
I think Lessig is usually wrong because he bases much of his argument on balancing the rights of the individual with the rights of society
You're still attacking the man and not the argument.
I am claiming that, in most circumstances, it is illegal,
no one is arguing otherwise.
ought to be illegal,
This is still under contention.
and is typically practiced by people who are motivated by the prospect of "free stuff" rather than principle.
"Typically" doesn't mean all. And that means there are instances of infringement that don't cause you harm. Stealing on the other hand, necessarily causes harm every time. So it is not the same as stealing.
In my opinion, if I create something, I own what I have created. Only one copy exists. I have full and total rights to do with it as I please. No one else has any rights to it, period. I might decide to burn it. I might decide to put it in a closet.
This is all true. However, copyright covers none of this until you make it public. If you want to keep it to yourself, that's fine.
Ownership of the original work, of course, remains with me as long as I wish.
No. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want to profit from the sale of your work, using the protections of copyright to do so, you must give up that ownership. As soon as you make it public, it's no longer yours. That was the deal. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.
I'm not interested i changing my mind,
Like I said, you are only interested in hearing opinions that agree with yours.
or in changing your's.
Then why bother talking to me about it. What's your point?
(BTW, those quotes are just something you made up; they didn't come from me.)
I didn't say they did. I was paraphrasing to clarify my terminology.
I've never seen Lessig or anyone else present a convincing case that explains how ownership and all rights to that single original work pass from its creator to someone else without the permission and sanction of the work's creator.
Your still attacking the man and not the argument.
There is much discussion of "ideas" and such, but that is all besides the point, since the discsussion is not about ideas.
It is only about ideas and the sharing of them. Copyright covers the expression of ideas and nothing else.
I also think the current copyright flap exists because we apply copyright to a category of material that did not exist at the time of the Founding Father's.
The copyright flap exists because corporations believe the same things you do and have convinced Congress to extend the copyright term well beyond what is reasonable, institute punishments for copyright infringement that rival punishment for murder (because they believe, like you do, that copyright infringement is theft), and have extended copyright protection to things that may as well be ideas (because they believe, like you do, that these things should be owned).
And, I think copyright terms should correspond to the life of the work's author, not to some fixed term.
Copyright should be just long enough to give people incentive to publish their works and not one second longer.
Potential for future benefits exists and is very real.
A potential benefit, by definition, does not yet exist. Look it up.
A loss of future benefits is just as real as the loss of something you hold in your hand at present.
Just saying it doesn't make it true. Not getting something you don't already have is not the same as losing something you do have. End of story.
You keep saying "theft" and "steal"
You brought it up with your very first post, absolutely failed to defend it, claimed it's not what you meant, and claimed it's not important. It's not my assertion, it's yours.
I'm talking about illegal deprivation of potential benefits.
And calling it theft.
Since copyright law gives me exclusive rights to it,
Copyright gives you limited exclusive rights. Not ownership.
that seems like ownership to me.
You're wrong.
Don't go on about Lessig. I think he's usually wrong.
That may be so, but it doesn't invalidate my argument. I'm willing to bet that Lawrence Lessig knows much, much, more about this than you do. But, if you think it's wrong, attack the argument, not the man who made it.
People infringe copyright because they want free stuff.
So no one has ever downloaded a song and then bought the album. No one has ever download a song they had permission to. No one has ever downloaded a song for fair use purposes. Every single download of a song is to avoid paying for it. Are you now going to tell me that you know the motivations of everyone who has downloaded a song? Are you omniscient as well as infallible?
You've done nothing but make the same assertions over and over without once trying to back them up except through flawed analogies to real and rivalrous property. Your arguments consist entirely of circular logic ("it exists, therefore it should exist"), false dichotomies ("if it's not a gain, it's a loss"), and ad hominem attacks ("he's wrong on other things so he's wrong on this.").
You clearly do not get it and are not interested in trying.
Keep believing that you have an inalienable right to own that which, by it's very nature, cannot be owned. Keep believing that things you do not have and do not even exist yet can be taken from you. Keep believing that every single illicit copy of your works damages you in some immediate and irreparable way. Keep believing that copyright only exists to protect an inherent right to profit from creative works without regard to the cost to society. You'll be in for a nasty shock when we do get copyright laws fixed.
You refuse to listen to any of my arguments except to twist them into things I never said. You ought to be one of those loud-mouthed talk show hosts who rarely gives his opponents a chance to speak and distorts what they say when he does, who distorts the facts deliberately to mislead his audience, and then denies it later. You'd be quite good at it. It is clear you have no intention of listening to any opinion other than your own and I will not sit here and be preached to.
You have done absolutely nothing to even try to convince me of the validity of your viewpoint so I'm not going to waste anymore of my time reading your drivel. You, and people like you, are the reason that copyright law is the mess that it is.
Revenge is a natural instinct to lash out at those who cause you some form of injury or injustice.
Humans have a strong desire for justice. I forget which one, but I saw a television show where a child was given some candy to split up between him and another child. He decided how much to give the other child, but the other child could, if he wanted to, have the adult take all the candy away if the deal wasn't fair. Now, common sense would tell you that some was better than none, even if the other had more, and that the cry of "no fair" would be rare indeed. But it was surprisingly common. These particular children would rather get nothing for themselves than allow the other child to take advantage of them. I would not be surprised to find that revenge and the idea of justice being done causes pleasure in the human brain.
You may not want to use the word "steal" to describe what happens when someone illegally deprives me of potential benefits that may accrue to me as a consequence of my exclusive right to control my copyrighted work, but that's the effect of the infringement.
It has nothing to do with what I want and everything to do with what is accurate. Someone cannot steal what you don't have yet. If you're going to call being denied the possible existence (potential) of something "stealing", then you're really stretching the meaning of the word. In that sense, simply not winning the lottery or not getting the raise you thought you deserved is having something stolen from you.
The loss exists.
This is the bloody point. It's not a loss. You still have as much as when you started. You don't have less. It's just not a gain. Whether you are entitled to that gain is a different argument, but that doesn't make it a loss. And claiming it is a loss is deliberately overstating the harm of the infringement. Not having gained five pounds is not the same as losing five pounds.
As a result, the livelihood of anyone who used his pen to make a living was threatened.
Again, you're assuming that authors automatically deserve to make a living writing. Don't get me wrong, I believe they should be able to make a living, but only because it is good for society that they share their works. But as soon as that benefit is no longer there, there is no longer any reason to encourage them to write, and no reason to make sure they get paid to do so.
Why should I be interested in responding to your "requests" to demonstrate why infringement is "theft" or "stealing"? I don't care.
So, in other words, I'm not allowed to question your use of a term even when, in that context, the term is extremely misleading. Who the hell are you that your command of the english language is beyond reproach?
If someone breaks into my house and steals things, he's a thief.
Yet another comparison to property theft. You just don't give up. Yes, he is a thief and he did steal things. But that's what the word is supposed to mean. It doesn't make your use of it with respect to copyright infringement correct in any way whatsoever.
Your assertions lead me to conclude that you believe the words "steal" or "theft" should onlly be applied to physical property.
Read before you type. This is the third time you've made this claim and the third time I've had to correct you on it. Open your fucking eyes.
You are the one who keeps bringing up "physical" property and making comparisons to non-physical property that is also rivalrous. Stop claiming I said things I didn't. Once, only once, did I use the term "physical property" and corrected it to "real property" in my very next post. You are deliberately misrepresenting my position. Are you interested in an intelligent, if passionate, discussion or not? If not, let me know and I'll stop wasting my time and you can go on believing whatever you like about copyright no matter how wrong it is.
I'm not at all interested in playing word games.
Then stop playing them. Stop using the words "theft", "steal", and "own" until you can show me where copyright law supports your assertions. Stop claiming my argument was only about physical property when it wasn't.
If you believe copyright infringement does not deprive the victim of potential benefit, say so.
I do, but not in every case. Borrowing heavily from Lawrence Lessig, there are basically four types of copyright infringement, specifically related to song downloads, but applicable in other areas:
1) copying instead of buying. This causes harm and no one is arguing that. The qualification here is that they would have bought it if the copy wasn't available.
2) copying and then buying. This harms no one and acutally helps many copyright holders. Pe
I don't. In both cases, something I own is taken from me illegally.
I'll ask this again but I already know you're going to ignore it like you've ignored every other request to clarify your statements: what, exactly, that you own is being taken from you when someone infringes your copyright?
If copyright infringement is illegal, what difference does it make if people use the word "theft" in talking about it?
Fine, you win. When people speed, it's stealing. It's illegal, right? Therefore it must be stealing. When people jaywalk, it's stealing. That's illegal, too, right? It must also be stealing. Doing electrical work on your house without a permit, littering, and slander are all stealing. If everything that is illegal is stealing then why have the fucking word?
Would use of a different vocabularly alter the illegality of the behavior?
No more than calling it stealing makes it so. Why not call it murder? How about rape? It doesn't make it any more or less illegal.
It isn't "odd" that corporate content producers rely on copyright to protect their interests.
This is entirely expected. And it's also the reason why corporate interests shouldn't dictate public policy. What is good for corporations is not necessarily good for society.
But that doesn't mean I believe copyright infringement is not a crime or that the very existence of copyright should be questioned.
Show me where I've said that it shouldn't be illegal or that we do not need copyright at all (you'll ignore this also, but I have to ask). What I have said is that a) copyright infringement is not the same as property theft and b) copyright law's primary purpose is to serve the public benefit. Both of which you've disagreed with.
I don't believe I've argued that copyright infringement is property theft.
What the hell do you think "steal" means? The dictionary reference wasn't legal enough and you have yet to show, despite repeated requests, where copyright law calls infringement stealing. As I said before, you can't just change the language to suit your needs. The only reason to use the word "steal" in the context of copyright infringement is to make the comparison to property theft. You have also made the direct comparison of copyrighted works to real property without using the word "steal". What am I supposed to infer from these arguments? That you don't mean property theft? You are deliberately comparing copyright infringement to property theft to convey the point that each and every instance of copyright infringment necessarily and directly deprives you of something when, in fact, it is not true. Otherwise why use a word that is typically only used to mean property theft (unless you're talking about baseball and I sincerely doubt you are). It is dishonest and you know it. And then to claim that the word itself doesn't mean that, or that it's not important, is ridiculous. If it's not important, then stop saying it. If you don't mean what everyone else means when they say "stealing", then stop saying it.
The customary argument about whether or not IP is actually property or if ideas can be owned and controlled is a red herring and of no interest to me.
It's your red herring. You brought it up with your claims of ownership and theft.
I haven't said copyright infringement equates to property theft.
Yes you have. Many times.
here "Stealing and making umpteen zillions of copies of a copyrighted work is illegal."
here "IF you illegally deprive me of the potential to benefit and profit from the exclusive control of the distribution and marketing of my copyrighted work, you have, in fact, stolen something that I have a right to possess."
here "If I steal the proofs of a forthcoming novel by a famous author and start selling copies, have I not stolen from the author the money he would otherwise receive?"
here "If you infringe my copyright, you steal from me a certain amount of my potential fto benefit from control of that work."
and here "It is the potential you are stealing from me. That potential is precisely what copyright is intended to protect: the author's exclusive right to his work for a period of time."
You have gone off on a tangent about imaginary property, apparently intending to assert that only physical property is real or of value.
For the last time, the prerequiste that it be physical was your assertion, not mine. The comparison between imaginary and real property is not a tangent as it is you who are trying to compare the two. In many cases you have defended the restrictions of copyright by comparing creative works to real property. And each and every time you completely ignore the distinction between rivalrous and non-rivalrous resources. And, oddly enough, it is the same argument that content producers use to justify the extension in duration and scope of copyright laws, and the systematic suppression of any technology that threatens their business model. That is why the distinction is important.
I've said that copyright infringement deprives me of potential benefit.
You've also said that it was stealing. See above.
If your boss fired you without cause and got you blacklisted in your industry, would you not agree that your boss had deprived illegally of potential benefit?
Possibly, but I would not claim that he stole from me.
Again, I am not talking about ideas, or stories, or any other kind of analogue for "idea". I am talking about the physical medium on which I have recorded my work. The work is not the story; the work is not the idea; the work is the medium on which I have placed symbols that represent my ideas. That is something entirely different from an idea or a story. You are quite free to have your own ideas, regardless of their similarity to mine. What you cannot do without my permission is copy and distribute my work.
And none of this implies that copyright grants ownership or that infringement is theft as you have claimed.
Oh stop it. Just stop. You can't just twist the language any way you like to fit your needs. Copyright infringement is not theft, is not treated as theft, and calling it theft doesn't make it so. End of story.
>>...equate imaginary property to physical property which it clearly isn't.
Property does not need to be physical to be real.
Fine. Change "physical property" to "real property" and my argument still holds.
No more than they are free to enter my residence and acquire and copy any of my other possessions. If I make something -- a chair, an apple pie, a book -- no one has any right to it unless I permit it.
We live in a law by permission society. That is, if it isn't explicitly illegal, it is legal. So, again, with no law preventing it, without copyright law, everyone would be free to copy the work without restriction. Whether or not you permit it. Unless, of course, you show it to no one, and sell no copies of it, which defeats the purpose.
If I make something -- a chair,
rivalrous resource.
an apple pie,
rivalrous resource.
a book
The physical book, rivalrous resource. The story contained within, non-rivalrous resource. I'm not going to explain the distinction again and any comparison between the two will be ignored because it is yet another attempt to equate imaginary property with real property when it clearly isn't.
I am not discussing ideas. We do not, in fact, cannot, copyright ideas.
It doesn't give you ownership of the expression of an idea either.
Well, yes, but only if you imagine that my possession of anything else is at the expense of others.
It is. But the restriction of others freedom to your real property is because of its rivalrous nature, and the reason for the law to prevent the taking of it.
But, I own that manuscript.
You own the paper it is written on and the ink used to make the marks. But the story contained within is not, the idea nor the expression of it, owned by anyone. Show me where in copyright law you are given ownership of this idea or the expression of it. You are given limited exclusive rights to the copying and distribution of it, but not ownership.
I'm quite aware of fair use and the U.S. copyright law
If you believe that copyright infringment is the same as property theft, that copyright law gives you ownership of a story, then apparently you aren't.
But, fair use -- and the examples you site -- exist only within the overall context of copyright.
Fair use exists with or without copyright. Copyright simply does not restrict uses that are considered fair. It does not apply. It does not give any freedoms, it just doesn't take them away. The only arguments you can make are that copyright law specifies to which uses it does not apply, or that the term "fair use" itself wouldn't exist without copyright because all uses would be fair. But neither of those implies that copyright gives people rights they wouldn't otherwise have.
Whether or not you want to call this theft or whether or not you actually do believe that physciality is a prerequisite for theft doesn't concern me.
The prerequisite for physicality was your argument, not mine. The prerequisite for theft, in any context, is that you must have the thing for it to be stolen. Potential earnings cannot be stolen from you because you do not have them yet.
Those are semantic issues of little concern.
They are very much of concern because people like you are trying to equate imaginary property to physical property which it clearly isn't.
What does interest me is a belief that the illegal obstruction of my future benefits is good for society.
Show me where I claimed that.
I think to sustain your argument you need to show how rights to my work pass from me to someone else.
It is copyright law that gives you those exclusive rights to begin with. Without copyright law, everyone would be free to copy the work without restriction. Copyright law does not, in any way, give you ownership of the idea, whether or not you created it. Your exclusive rights are at the expense of others.
Within the term of copyright for that work, how could amy of those rights legally pass to anyone else absent my deliberate transfer of them?
Read the law. There are several instances where people may use and copy your work without your permission. I may make copies of your work for educational purposes without your permission. I may quote portions of your work for criticism without your permission. I may make a parody of your work without your permission. And, in some cases, the law has provided for compulsory licensing in which I may use your work without your permission for government set compensation. You clearly do not own the idea as was your assertion.
All rights to a copyrighted work are derived from the rights held by its author and pass to others only with the permission and intent of the author.
It simply boils down to a belief on your part that, somehow, you have a right to something that I own.
Show me where I said that.
Then you deliverately obfuscate the issue by goiong off on a tangent about the mean of words like "steal" and "theft".
It is you who are deliberately confusing copyright infringement with property theft in an effort to make the argument that ideas can be owned plausible.
The main point that you are deliberately ignoring is that it is not possible for someone to steal something you don't already have.
It isn't important if depriving me of revenue by stealing my wallet is called theft and depriving me of revenue by infringing my copyright is called something else.
It bloody well is important because they aren't the same thing. One is taking something you had. One is not. One concerns rivalrous resources. One does not.
Both are wrong, both are illegal, and both occur because someone takes something that does not belong to them.
What is being taken from you when someone infringes your copyright? What, exactly, did you have before that you do not have now?
Here's the point: If I create something, I own it.
Bullshit. You can't own an idea. Plain and simple. And copyright does not give you ownership of an idea. Nor does it give you ownership of the expression of an idea. It gives you exclusive rights which are limited both in duration and scope. Read the law.
I have full rights to it.
No you don't. Again, read the law.
No one else can own it, copy it, or have any rights to it in any form unless I transfer those rights to them.
Yes they can. Read the law. Specifically "fair use".
That seems self-evidently clear to me
Because you are deluded and very clearly and demonstrably wrong. Read the law.
To argue otherwise is simply an exercise in ideological wish fulfillment.
It is an ideology which happens to agree with the intent of the people who gave you copyright in the first place.
But that is a common occurence here.
Fuck you. Take your self-righteous, anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-a-"common slashdotter" attitude and shove it up your ass. Your corporatist bullshit is what is ruining this country. Ideas are not property. Never were. And copyright law does not make them property no matter how much you want it to.
Pointing to definitions in online dictionaries is pointless. Do you think legal standards are established via reference.com?
Who said anything about legal standards? I was talking about the English language. But, if you want to argue legal standards, show me where in copyright law it says infringement is theft.
if I crack your bank account and transfer all you money to my accounts, am I not a thief?
Yes, because you took something from me that you had no right to and now I no longer have it. I have less than before you stole from me.
If I steal the proofs of a forthcoming novel by a famous author and start selling copies, have I not stolen from the author the money he would otherwise receive?
Stealing the proofs is theft. But that's not copyright infringement and it's not what we're talking about.
Selling copies is not theft. It costs the author nothing for you to make copies of his work. Not one red cent. He still has as much as he did before you made the copies. What you have done is made it harder for him to sell his copies. But that's not theft. Never was and the law doesn't treat it as such.
The benefit due a work's creator could include the pleasure derived from giving it away, from putting the sole copy in a desk drawer and not telling anyone,
Both of which he could do without any law whatsoever.
making a deal with a publisher to market it and try to make as much profit as possible.
This is what copyright makes possible. But it's the incentive, not the sole purpose.
In all cases, it is the work's creator who has the exclusive right to decide how copies are made and how they are distributed.
Only because copyright takes that right away from everyone else.
The Constitution mentions copyright in response to theft-by-publishers common at the time.
The framers put copyright in the Consitution, specifically mentioning "limited times" because the climate in England at the time was that copyright was forever.
Yes, it does promote progress, but it does that by ensuring that a work's creator, and only that creator, has the "exclusive right" to their creations. That includes selling it to make a profit and preventing anyone else from doing the same.
Again, the exlusive right is the means by which the creators are encouraged to share their work with the public.
Finally, the reason you should care if people get paid is because they will stop producing anything if they don't make money doing it.
The rather large assumption you're making is that the production of creative works is desirable. If this production is not beneficial to society, what do I care if it doesn't happen?
The state gives you property rights. It does so because a capitalist society rewards productivity with wealth and property. They protect your property because it would make little sense for you to work for it when you could just take it, or if someone could take it from you. They also protect it so you have more time to be productive instead of protecting it. This is all because productivity benefits society.
Copyright protects non-rivalrous resources. That is, any number of people can use the same resource and not deplete it. A song or a story can't be used up. It also can't be stolen. If I tell you a story, we both now know the story. You can tell the same story to a million people and not degrade my knowledge of the story in the slightest. Non-rivalrous resources don't need protecting. But the sharing of ideas benefits society and one way to encourage the sharing of ideas, in a capitialist society at least, is to reward the sharing with wealth. So copyright law gives the creators this ability and, in return, they will share their ideas and allow society to use them, albeit later than if there was no copyright. It makes no sense to reward creativity unless it benefits society. The purpose behind copyright must be the benefit to society first. Otherwise, what's the point? Welfare for authors?
IF you illegally deprive me of the potential to benefit and profit from the exclusive control of the distribution and marketing of my copyrighted work, you have, in fact, stolen something that I have a right to possess.
steal: To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
First, copyright infringement takes nothing from you. You still have just as much as you did before the infringement. There is no theft, your own definition of the word aside. Second, copyright takes rights away from others, it doesn't give the copyright holder any rights he wouldn't otherwise have.
Copyright exists to protect the right of a work's author to benefit from the distribution and marketing of that work.
The right to profit? No, absolutely not. Copyright gives the author the ability to profit as an incentive to share his works.
Your assertion that copyright exists to benefit society or to encourage people to publish is incorrect, then, and reflects your aspirations about how society should be organized.
It's not my assertion. It's the Constitution making that assertion. You ought to try reading it sometime.
[Congress shall have the power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
"to promote the progess". To benefit society. And for no other reason. It was not to create jobs. The ability to profit is the means; the incentive to share. The benefit to society from the sharing is the goal. If the goal is not to benefit society then why should I give a shit if any of them get paid?
Stealing and making umpteen zillions of copies of a copyrighted work is illegal.
There is no theft. There's nothing to steal. Stop calling it stealing.
The issue of how many copies you need to make before you jump from civil to criminal law doesn't interest me.
It will when you inadvertently infringe on someone else's copyright and they come banging on your door.
The corporation producing that copyrighted material may or may not be scum, but upholding the principle of copyright takes precedence.
The principle of copyright and copyright law have less and less to do with each other every day. Copyright law is unreasonable and made that way because the corporations want it that way. The principle of copyright is to encourage people to publish their works so that society may benefit. It was never intended to make property out of something that, by its very nature, can't be owned. Defend copyright by fixing the law, not by jailing the people who break an unreasonable law.
But, they are not intended or obligated to give priority to the public interest.
Which is exactly why they shouldn't have the power they do. Letting corporations, whose only duty is to their bottom line, decide public policy is incredibly bad for society.
Stealing copyrighted material is illegal. Don't allow your fears of corporatism to excuse criminal behavior.
Don't let the corporate FUD lead you into thinking a civil matter should be made a criminal one.
Re:Water in a frypan can be similar
on
Solder in Space
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· Score: 2, Informative
What makes the water skitter around the pan is the steam underneath the droplet escaping to one side. The boiling rosin vapor may be escaping from one side of the ball and creating a jet.
This is thing with these ratings ideas, you can slap warnings and ratings over games as much as you want, but it still doesn't stop shops like GAME selling them to kids,
The purpose of the legislation is to give parents the information they need to make the decision, not have the government make the decision for them.
But more importantly, it doesn't stop parents buying these 'unsuitable' games for their kids,
So, in other words, it is the government's responsibility to raise our children and not the parents'. And you think this is a good idea?
Slashdot Mirror
Why do you say voting for a minority party candidate is throwing away your vote?
Past history. No independent candidate has ever been elected President. Independents are outnumbered in the Senate 99 to 1. Independents in the House are outnumbered 433 to 1. What makes you believe it's not throwing it away?
Once you accept that your vote will have no effect on the outcome of the election,
Then why bother?
In particular, if it keeps some suicidal maniac off of my plane, yes, I'm perfectly willing to show my ID.
That's an awfully big "if". And, in fact, what this case is trying to show, and which the government wants to keep secret.
Since the government [theoretically] is only concerned when control leaves the airline and enters into the terrorist hands (because at that point the jet becomes a weapon),
The likelihood of terrorists gaining control of an airliner with box cutters again is essentially nil. The entire plan depended on the passengers believing they might live if they cooperated. Until September 11th, the majority of the flying public couldn't even conceive of someone using a 767 as a missile and the primary concern for hijackings was the lives of the passengers. It should also be noted that most of the hijackers had valid ID.
Some manner in which the plane cannot be flown by terrorists as the control over the aircraft leaves as soon as its taken over.
Very simple. Lock the cockpit door and don't open it. Even if the hijackers threaten to kill everyone on board unless the pilot opens the door, he has no reason to believe they will survive if he does.
so how do you make the leap from "no verification" at all to "often entered by experts?"
Experts often contribute. No one checks to make sure they're experts. What's so hard to understand?
Vote these corporate tools out of office.
And the next set of corporate tools in.
These guys couldn't even figure out when the century began.
This could, quite possibly, be the only time the answer to that question actually mattered, and it turned out it didn't anyway...
If you think it is important to assert that illegally depriving someone of potential gain is not theft, that's fine with me. The distinction is not relevant.
The distinction is relevant because the comparison is dishonest and I will continue to make it for that reason.
If you can't tell the difference between diagreeing with someone's views and a personal attack, that's not my concern.
The point was that you dismissed the argument because of who made it and not because of any flaw in the argument. It's called argumentum ad hominem, literally "attack of the man" and is a logical fallacy.
Laws, of any kind, do not and cannot create or grant rights.
Yes, they can and do. Real property (physical or otherwise) rights exist because the law gives them to you. Without the law, anyone could take your property without your permission unless you yourself protected it. And if they succeeded, you would have little recourse except to go try and get it back.
The law can only recognize and protect rights that exist naturally.
You are really deluded if you believe this. Without law and a government to enforce it, the only "natural" right is the right to try to survive. There is no such thing as theft without law because there is no such thing as property. Ownership itself is a man made construct. Without law a thing is "yours", in the loosest sense of the word, only for as long as you can hold onto it.
The "expression of an idea" is in know way equivalent to an idea.
I didn't say it was. In fact, my claim has always been that the expression of an idea is what is covered by copyright, not the idea itself. Many copyright scholars use this term the same way I do.
I see no further purpose in continuing this. I've presented logical justifications for my positions.
No, you haven't. You've made assertions and not backed them up except with flawed analogies to real (however you define it) property. You've completely ignored the distinction between rivalrous and non-rivalrous uses of resources, pretending I never even mentioned them. You've yet to provide one bit of evidence that supports your assertions. You've distorted my arguments, and accused me of "harping" on arguments which you yourself brought up and abandoned as soon as they became inconvenient.
You have presented ideological fervor
I have presented logical arguments with supporting evidence which you have ignored at every turn.
falsely accused me of an ad hominem attack on Lessig
You discounted an entire argument because of who made it and not based on any flaw in the argument. That, by definition, is an ad hominem attack.
and continued to childishly harp on your "theft" sorepoint long after it became clear that I just don't care.
Whether or not you care does not change the fact that you are deliberately misleading people to believe that copyright infringement is the same as property theft in order to push the idea that every infringement necessarily harms the copyright holder and that the harm is more serious than it is. It is dishonest and I will continue to call you on it regardless of whether or not you care.
Of course something is different if it isn't the same. What's your point?
The point is that copyright infringement is not the same as theft as you claimed it was. Saying it is deliberately misleads in order to further your agenda.
I'm not attacking Lessig. I said I think he's often wrong because I disagree with the community or societal premise of many of his arguments. I.e., I believe one thing, he believes another. That leads us to two different places.
You discounted the argument because of who made it and not because there was anything wrong with the argument.
Every right protected by copyright law is derived from an author's original exclusive rights. Copyright law recognizes and protects -- rather than creates -- the exclusive right I acquire when I create my work.
Absolutely wrong. Without copyright, there is no exclusive right on any creative work you make public. Period. Copyright gives you those rights by taking that freedom away from others. We've been over this.
Copyright law concerns the duplication and dissemination of work of art via a medium of some nature.
Yes, and that content protected by copyright is often called the "expression of an idea": how the idea is shared, or expressed. You will find the term "tangible medium of expression" used quite often in copyright law. The term "expression of an idea" was brought about to reinforce the concept that copyright does not protect an idea, but how you convey (or express) it to others. The story, song, or painting is the idea. The form it takes when you convey it to others is the expression of the idea.
I don't understand your fixation on this "owning" thing.
You brought it up, not me. I'm correcting your error.
If I create a unqiue work, who else can own it besides me?
This assumes it must have an owner at all.
[snip yet another comparison of creative works to real property]
We've been over this, too. Without copyright, any creative work you make public falls instantly into the public domain: people are free to quote, copy and use that work in anyway they like with or without your permission. And it doesn't cost you anything for them to do so. As soon as you make it public, it is no longer yours to control. Copyright gives you some of that control, at the expense of others freedom, so that you may profit from it, in return for which you will share the work with the public and, at the end of the copyright term, it falls into the public domain. That was the deal. And the reason for the deal was to encourage creators to share their creations so society may benefit from them.
Do you actually believe if you got everyone to agree with you that copyright infringement was not theft, that anything would change?
I'm at least trying to keep it from getting worse. There is no reason to compare copyright infringement to property theft except to mislead the public into believing the harm is greater than it is. It's the same reason you don't claim that jaywalking is murder.
Copyright length is a political issue that has and will vary over time. I think it's too long now, but I also don't think that it matters much. People will neither suffer harm or be benefited if something like Mickey Mouse stays copyrighted.
Society is being harmed by keeping things written 80 years ago out of the public domain. People will be punished for using copyrighted materials that should have been in the public domain decades ago. How does society benefit by keeping Steamboat Willie locked up?
Of course, it's different. So what?
That makes it not the same.
I think Lessig is usually wrong because he bases much of his argument on balancing the rights of the individual with the rights of society
You're still attacking the man and not the argument.
I am claiming that, in most circumstances, it is illegal,
no one is arguing otherwise.
ought to be illegal,
This is still under contention.
and is typically practiced by people who are motivated by the prospect of "free stuff" rather than principle.
"Typically" doesn't mean all. And that means there are instances of infringement that don't cause you harm. Stealing on the other hand, necessarily causes harm every time. So it is not the same as stealing.
In my opinion, if I create something, I own what I have created. Only one copy exists. I have full and total rights to do with it as I please. No one else has any rights to it, period. I might decide to burn it. I might decide to put it in a closet.
This is all true. However, copyright covers none of this until you make it public. If you want to keep it to yourself, that's fine.
Ownership of the original work, of course, remains with me as long as I wish.
No. You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want to profit from the sale of your work, using the protections of copyright to do so, you must give up that ownership. As soon as you make it public, it's no longer yours. That was the deal. Otherwise, keep it to yourself.
I'm not interested i changing my mind,
Like I said, you are only interested in hearing opinions that agree with yours.
or in changing your's.
Then why bother talking to me about it. What's your point?
(BTW, those quotes are just something you made up; they didn't come from me.)
I didn't say they did. I was paraphrasing to clarify my terminology.
I've never seen Lessig or anyone else present a convincing case that explains how ownership and all rights to that single original work pass from its creator to someone else without the permission and sanction of the work's creator.
Your still attacking the man and not the argument.
There is much discussion of "ideas" and such, but that is all besides the point, since the discsussion is not about ideas.
It is only about ideas and the sharing of them. Copyright covers the expression of ideas and nothing else.
I also think the current copyright flap exists because we apply copyright to a category of material that did not exist at the time of the Founding Father's.
The copyright flap exists because corporations believe the same things you do and have convinced Congress to extend the copyright term well beyond what is reasonable, institute punishments for copyright infringement that rival punishment for murder (because they believe, like you do, that copyright infringement is theft), and have extended copyright protection to things that may as well be ideas (because they believe, like you do, that these things should be owned).
And, I think copyright terms should correspond to the life of the work's author, not to some fixed term.
Copyright should be just long enough to give people incentive to publish their works and not one second longer.
Potential for future benefits exists and is very real.
A potential benefit, by definition, does not yet exist. Look it up.
A loss of future benefits is just as real as the loss of something you hold in your hand at present.
Just saying it doesn't make it true. Not getting something you don't already have is not the same as losing something you do have. End of story.
You keep saying "theft" and "steal"
You brought it up with your very first post, absolutely failed to defend it, claimed it's not what you meant, and claimed it's not important. It's not my assertion, it's yours.
I'm talking about illegal deprivation of potential benefits.
And calling it theft.
Since copyright law gives me exclusive rights to it,
Copyright gives you limited exclusive rights. Not ownership.
that seems like ownership to me.
You're wrong.
Don't go on about Lessig. I think he's usually wrong.
That may be so, but it doesn't invalidate my argument. I'm willing to bet that Lawrence Lessig knows much, much, more about this than you do. But, if you think it's wrong, attack the argument, not the man who made it.
People infringe copyright because they want free stuff.
So no one has ever downloaded a song and then bought the album. No one has ever download a song they had permission to. No one has ever downloaded a song for fair use purposes. Every single download of a song is to avoid paying for it. Are you now going to tell me that you know the motivations of everyone who has downloaded a song? Are you omniscient as well as infallible?
You've done nothing but make the same assertions over and over without once trying to back them up except through flawed analogies to real and rivalrous property. Your arguments consist entirely of circular logic ("it exists, therefore it should exist"), false dichotomies ("if it's not a gain, it's a loss"), and ad hominem attacks ("he's wrong on other things so he's wrong on this.").
You clearly do not get it and are not interested in trying.
Keep believing that you have an inalienable right to own that which, by it's very nature, cannot be owned. Keep believing that things you do not have and do not even exist yet can be taken from you. Keep believing that every single illicit copy of your works damages you in some immediate and irreparable way. Keep believing that copyright only exists to protect an inherent right to profit from creative works without regard to the cost to society. You'll be in for a nasty shock when we do get copyright laws fixed.
You refuse to listen to any of my arguments except to twist them into things I never said. You ought to be one of those loud-mouthed talk show hosts who rarely gives his opponents a chance to speak and distorts what they say when he does, who distorts the facts deliberately to mislead his audience, and then denies it later. You'd be quite good at it. It is clear you have no intention of listening to any opinion other than your own and I will not sit here and be preached to.
You have done absolutely nothing to even try to convince me of the validity of your viewpoint so I'm not going to waste anymore of my time reading your drivel. You, and people like you, are the reason that copyright law is the mess that it is.
Revenge is a natural instinct to lash out at those who cause you some form of injury or injustice.
Humans have a strong desire for justice. I forget which one, but I saw a television show where a child was given some candy to split up between him and another child. He decided how much to give the other child, but the other child could, if he wanted to, have the adult take all the candy away if the deal wasn't fair. Now, common sense would tell you that some was better than none, even if the other had more, and that the cry of "no fair" would be rare indeed. But it was surprisingly common. These particular children would rather get nothing for themselves than allow the other child to take advantage of them. I would not be surprised to find that revenge and the idea of justice being done causes pleasure in the human brain.
You may not want to use the word "steal" to describe what happens when someone illegally deprives me of potential benefits that may accrue to me as a consequence of my exclusive right to control my copyrighted work, but that's the effect of the infringement.
It has nothing to do with what I want and everything to do with what is accurate. Someone cannot steal what you don't have yet. If you're going to call being denied the possible existence (potential) of something "stealing", then you're really stretching the meaning of the word. In that sense, simply not winning the lottery or not getting the raise you thought you deserved is having something stolen from you.
The loss exists.
This is the bloody point. It's not a loss. You still have as much as when you started. You don't have less. It's just not a gain. Whether you are entitled to that gain is a different argument, but that doesn't make it a loss. And claiming it is a loss is deliberately overstating the harm of the infringement. Not having gained five pounds is not the same as losing five pounds.
As a result, the livelihood of anyone who used his pen to make a living was threatened.
Again, you're assuming that authors automatically deserve to make a living writing. Don't get me wrong, I believe they should be able to make a living, but only because it is good for society that they share their works. But as soon as that benefit is no longer there, there is no longer any reason to encourage them to write, and no reason to make sure they get paid to do so.
Why should I be interested in responding to your "requests" to demonstrate why infringement is "theft" or "stealing"? I don't care.
So, in other words, I'm not allowed to question your use of a term even when, in that context, the term is extremely misleading. Who the hell are you that your command of the english language is beyond reproach?
If someone breaks into my house and steals things, he's a thief.
Yet another comparison to property theft. You just don't give up. Yes, he is a thief and he did steal things. But that's what the word is supposed to mean. It doesn't make your use of it with respect to copyright infringement correct in any way whatsoever.
Your assertions lead me to conclude that you believe the words "steal" or "theft" should onlly be applied to physical property.
Read before you type. This is the third time you've made this claim and the third time I've had to correct you on it. Open your fucking eyes.
You are the one who keeps bringing up "physical" property and making comparisons to non-physical property that is also rivalrous. Stop claiming I said things I didn't. Once, only once, did I use the term "physical property" and corrected it to "real property" in my very next post. You are deliberately misrepresenting my position. Are you interested in an intelligent, if passionate, discussion or not? If not, let me know and I'll stop wasting my time and you can go on believing whatever you like about copyright no matter how wrong it is.
I'm not at all interested in playing word games.
Then stop playing them. Stop using the words "theft", "steal", and "own" until you can show me where copyright law supports your assertions. Stop claiming my argument was only about physical property when it wasn't.
If you believe copyright infringement does not deprive the victim of potential benefit, say so.
I do, but not in every case. Borrowing heavily from Lawrence Lessig, there are basically four types of copyright infringement, specifically related to song downloads, but applicable in other areas:
1) copying instead of buying. This causes harm and no one is arguing that. The qualification here is that they would have bought it if the copy wasn't available.
2) copying and then buying. This harms no one and acutally helps many copyright holders. Pe
I don't. In both cases, something I own is taken from me illegally.
I'll ask this again but I already know you're going to ignore it like you've ignored every other request to clarify your statements: what, exactly, that you own is being taken from you when someone infringes your copyright?
If copyright infringement is illegal, what difference does it make if people use the word "theft" in talking about it?
Fine, you win. When people speed, it's stealing. It's illegal, right? Therefore it must be stealing. When people jaywalk, it's stealing. That's illegal, too, right? It must also be stealing. Doing electrical work on your house without a permit, littering, and slander are all stealing. If everything that is illegal is stealing then why have the fucking word?
Would use of a different vocabularly alter the illegality of the behavior?
No more than calling it stealing makes it so. Why not call it murder? How about rape? It doesn't make it any more or less illegal.
It isn't "odd" that corporate content producers rely on copyright to protect their interests.
This is entirely expected. And it's also the reason why corporate interests shouldn't dictate public policy. What is good for corporations is not necessarily good for society.
But that doesn't mean I believe copyright infringement is not a crime or that the very existence of copyright should be questioned.
Show me where I've said that it shouldn't be illegal or that we do not need copyright at all (you'll ignore this also, but I have to ask). What I have said is that a) copyright infringement is not the same as property theft and b) copyright law's primary purpose is to serve the public benefit. Both of which you've disagreed with.
I don't believe I've argued that copyright infringement is property theft.
What the hell do you think "steal" means? The dictionary reference wasn't legal enough and you have yet to show, despite repeated requests, where copyright law calls infringement stealing. As I said before, you can't just change the language to suit your needs. The only reason to use the word "steal" in the context of copyright infringement is to make the comparison to property theft. You have also made the direct comparison of copyrighted works to real property without using the word "steal". What am I supposed to infer from these arguments? That you don't mean property theft? You are deliberately comparing copyright infringement to property theft to convey the point that each and every instance of copyright infringment necessarily and directly deprives you of something when, in fact, it is not true. Otherwise why use a word that is typically only used to mean property theft (unless you're talking about baseball and I sincerely doubt you are). It is dishonest and you know it. And then to claim that the word itself doesn't mean that, or that it's not important, is ridiculous. If it's not important, then stop saying it. If you don't mean what everyone else means when they say "stealing", then stop saying it.
The customary argument about whether or not IP is actually property or if ideas can be owned and controlled is a red herring and of no interest to me.
It's your red herring. You brought it up with your claims of ownership and theft.
I haven't said copyright infringement equates to property theft.
Yes you have. Many times.
here
"Stealing and making umpteen zillions of copies of a copyrighted work is illegal."
here
"IF you illegally deprive me of the potential to benefit and profit from the exclusive control of the distribution and marketing of my copyrighted work, you have, in fact, stolen something that I have a right to possess."
here
"If I steal the proofs of a forthcoming novel by a famous author and start selling copies, have I not stolen from the author the money he would otherwise receive?"
here
"If you infringe my copyright, you steal from me a certain amount of my potential fto benefit from control of that work."
and here
"It is the potential you are stealing from me. That potential is precisely what copyright is intended to protect: the author's exclusive right to his work for a period of time."
You have gone off on a tangent about imaginary property, apparently intending to assert that only physical property is real or of value.
For the last time, the prerequiste that it be physical was your assertion, not mine. The comparison between imaginary and real property is not a tangent as it is you who are trying to compare the two. In many cases you have defended the restrictions of copyright by comparing creative works to real property. And each and every time you completely ignore the distinction between rivalrous and non-rivalrous resources. And, oddly enough, it is the same argument that content producers use to justify the extension in duration and scope of copyright laws, and the systematic suppression of any technology that threatens their business model. That is why the distinction is important.
I've said that copyright infringement deprives me of potential benefit.
You've also said that it was stealing. See above.
If your boss fired you without cause and got you blacklisted in your industry, would you not agree that your boss had deprived illegally of potential benefit?
Possibly, but I would not claim that he stole from me.
Again, I am not talking about ideas, or stories, or any other kind of analogue for "idea". I am talking about the physical medium on which I have recorded my work. The work is not the story; the work is not the idea; the work is the medium on which I have placed symbols that represent my ideas. That is something entirely different from an idea or a story. You are quite free to have your own ideas, regardless of their similarity to mine. What you cannot do without my permission is copy and distribute my work.
And none of this implies that copyright grants ownership or that infringement is theft as you have claimed.
It is the potential you are stealing from me.
Oh stop it. Just stop. You can't just twist the language any way you like to fit your needs. Copyright infringement is not theft, is not treated as theft, and calling it theft doesn't make it so. End of story.
>>...equate imaginary property to physical property which it clearly isn't.
Property does not need to be physical to be real.
Fine. Change "physical property" to "real property" and my argument still holds.
No more than they are free to enter my residence and acquire and copy any of my other possessions. If I make something -- a chair, an apple pie, a book -- no one has any right to it unless I permit it.
We live in a law by permission society. That is, if it isn't explicitly illegal, it is legal. So, again, with no law preventing it, without copyright law, everyone would be free to copy the work without restriction. Whether or not you permit it. Unless, of course, you show it to no one, and sell no copies of it, which defeats the purpose.
If I make something -- a chair,
rivalrous resource.
an apple pie,
rivalrous resource.
a book
The physical book, rivalrous resource. The story contained within, non-rivalrous resource. I'm not going to explain the distinction again and any comparison between the two will be ignored because it is yet another attempt to equate imaginary property with real property when it clearly isn't.
I am not discussing ideas. We do not, in fact, cannot, copyright ideas.
It doesn't give you ownership of the expression of an idea either.
Well, yes, but only if you imagine that my possession of anything else is at the expense of others.
It is. But the restriction of others freedom to your real property is because of its rivalrous nature, and the reason for the law to prevent the taking of it.
But, I own that manuscript.
You own the paper it is written on and the ink used to make the marks. But the story contained within is not, the idea nor the expression of it, owned by anyone. Show me where in copyright law you are given ownership of this idea or the expression of it. You are given limited exclusive rights to the copying and distribution of it, but not ownership.
I'm quite aware of fair use and the U.S. copyright law
If you believe that copyright infringment is the same as property theft, that copyright law gives you ownership of a story, then apparently you aren't.
But, fair use -- and the examples you site -- exist only within the overall context of copyright.
Fair use exists with or without copyright. Copyright simply does not restrict uses that are considered fair. It does not apply. It does not give any freedoms, it just doesn't take them away. The only arguments you can make are that copyright law specifies to which uses it does not apply, or that the term "fair use" itself wouldn't exist without copyright because all uses would be fair. But neither of those implies that copyright gives people rights they wouldn't otherwise have.
Yeah. But mine is applicable in so many more situations.
Whether or not you want to call this theft or whether or not you actually do believe that physciality is a prerequisite for theft doesn't concern me.
The prerequisite for physicality was your argument, not mine. The prerequisite for theft, in any context, is that you must have the thing for it to be stolen. Potential earnings cannot be stolen from you because you do not have them yet.
Those are semantic issues of little concern.
They are very much of concern because people like you are trying to equate imaginary property to physical property which it clearly isn't.
What does interest me is a belief that the illegal obstruction of my future benefits is good for society.
Show me where I claimed that.
I think to sustain your argument you need to show how rights to my work pass from me to someone else.
It is copyright law that gives you those exclusive rights to begin with. Without copyright law, everyone would be free to copy the work without restriction. Copyright law does not, in any way, give you ownership of the idea, whether or not you created it. Your exclusive rights are at the expense of others.
Within the term of copyright for that work, how could amy of those rights legally pass to anyone else absent my deliberate transfer of them?
Read the law. There are several instances where people may use and copy your work without your permission. I may make copies of your work for educational purposes without your permission. I may quote portions of your work for criticism without your permission. I may make a parody of your work without your permission. And, in some cases, the law has provided for compulsory licensing in which I may use your work without your permission for government set compensation. You clearly do not own the idea as was your assertion.
All rights to a copyrighted work are derived from the rights held by its author and pass to others only with the permission and intent of the author.
Read the law.
It simply boils down to a belief on your part that, somehow, you have a right to something that I own.
Show me where I said that.
Then you deliverately obfuscate the issue by goiong off on a tangent about the mean of words like "steal" and "theft".
It is you who are deliberately confusing copyright infringement with property theft in an effort to make the argument that ideas can be owned plausible.
The main point that you are deliberately ignoring is that it is not possible for someone to steal something you don't already have.
It isn't important if depriving me of revenue by stealing my wallet is called theft and depriving me of revenue by infringing my copyright is called something else.
It bloody well is important because they aren't the same thing. One is taking something you had. One is not. One concerns rivalrous resources. One does not.
Both are wrong, both are illegal, and both occur because someone takes something that does not belong to them.
What is being taken from you when someone infringes your copyright? What, exactly, did you have before that you do not have now?
Here's the point: If I create something, I own it.
Bullshit. You can't own an idea. Plain and simple. And copyright does not give you ownership of an idea. Nor does it give you ownership of the expression of an idea. It gives you exclusive rights which are limited both in duration and scope. Read the law.
I have full rights to it.
No you don't. Again, read the law.
No one else can own it, copy it, or have any rights to it in any form unless I transfer those rights to them.
Yes they can. Read the law. Specifically "fair use".
That seems self-evidently clear to me
Because you are deluded and very clearly and demonstrably wrong. Read the law.
To argue otherwise is simply an exercise in ideological wish fulfillment.
It is an ideology which happens to agree with the intent of the people who gave you copyright in the first place.
But that is a common occurence here.
Fuck you. Take your self-righteous, anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-a-"common slashdotter" attitude and shove it up your ass. Your corporatist bullshit is what is ruining this country. Ideas are not property. Never were. And copyright law does not make them property no matter how much you want it to.
Pointing to definitions in online dictionaries is pointless. Do you think legal standards are established via reference.com?
Who said anything about legal standards? I was talking about the English language. But, if you want to argue legal standards, show me where in copyright law it says infringement is theft.
if I crack your bank account and transfer all you money to my accounts, am I not a thief?
Yes, because you took something from me that you had no right to and now I no longer have it. I have less than before you stole from me.
If I steal the proofs of a forthcoming novel by a famous author and start selling copies, have I not stolen from the author the money he would otherwise receive?
Stealing the proofs is theft. But that's not copyright infringement and it's not what we're talking about.
Selling copies is not theft. It costs the author nothing for you to make copies of his work. Not one red cent. He still has as much as he did before you made the copies. What you have done is made it harder for him to sell his copies. But that's not theft. Never was and the law doesn't treat it as such.
The benefit due a work's creator could include the pleasure derived from giving it away, from putting the sole copy in a desk drawer and not telling anyone,
Both of which he could do without any law whatsoever.
making a deal with a publisher to market it and try to make as much profit as possible.
This is what copyright makes possible. But it's the incentive, not the sole purpose.
In all cases, it is the work's creator who has the exclusive right to decide how copies are made and how they are distributed.
Only because copyright takes that right away from everyone else.
The Constitution mentions copyright in response to theft-by-publishers common at the time.
The framers put copyright in the Consitution, specifically mentioning "limited times" because the climate in England at the time was that copyright was forever.
Yes, it does promote progress, but it does that by ensuring that a work's creator, and only that creator, has the "exclusive right" to their creations. That includes selling it to make a profit and preventing anyone else from doing the same.
Again, the exlusive right is the means by which the creators are encouraged to share their work with the public.
Finally, the reason you should care if people get paid is because they will stop producing anything if they don't make money doing it.
The rather large assumption you're making is that the production of creative works is desirable. If this production is not beneficial to society, what do I care if it doesn't happen?
The state gives you property rights. It does so because a capitalist society rewards productivity with wealth and property. They protect your property because it would make little sense for you to work for it when you could just take it, or if someone could take it from you. They also protect it so you have more time to be productive instead of protecting it. This is all because productivity benefits society.
Copyright protects non-rivalrous resources. That is, any number of people can use the same resource and not deplete it. A song or a story can't be used up. It also can't be stolen. If I tell you a story, we both now know the story. You can tell the same story to a million people and not degrade my knowledge of the story in the slightest. Non-rivalrous resources don't need protecting. But the sharing of ideas benefits society and one way to encourage the sharing of ideas, in a capitialist society at least, is to reward the sharing with wealth. So copyright law gives the creators this ability and, in return, they will share their ideas and allow society to use them, albeit later than if there was no copyright. It makes no sense to reward creativity unless it benefits society. The purpose behind copyright must be the benefit to society first. Otherwise, what's the point? Welfare for authors?
"Over my dead body"
"I accept your terms..."
steal: To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
First, copyright infringement takes nothing from you. You still have just as much as you did before the infringement. There is no theft, your own definition of the word aside. Second, copyright takes rights away from others, it doesn't give the copyright holder any rights he wouldn't otherwise have.
Copyright exists to protect the right of a work's author to benefit from the distribution and marketing of that work.
The right to profit? No, absolutely not. Copyright gives the author the ability to profit as an incentive to share his works.
Your assertion that copyright exists to benefit society or to encourage people to publish is incorrect, then, and reflects your aspirations about how society should be organized.
It's not my assertion. It's the Constitution making that assertion. You ought to try reading it sometime.
"to promote the progess". To benefit society. And for no other reason. It was not to create jobs. The ability to profit is the means; the incentive to share. The benefit to society from the sharing is the goal. If the goal is not to benefit society then why should I give a shit if any of them get paid?
Stealing and making umpteen zillions of copies of a copyrighted work is illegal.
There is no theft. There's nothing to steal. Stop calling it stealing.
The issue of how many copies you need to make before you jump from civil to criminal law doesn't interest me.
It will when you inadvertently infringe on someone else's copyright and they come banging on your door.
The corporation producing that copyrighted material may or may not be scum, but upholding the principle of copyright takes precedence.
The principle of copyright and copyright law have less and less to do with each other every day. Copyright law is unreasonable and made that way because the corporations want it that way. The principle of copyright is to encourage people to publish their works so that society may benefit. It was never intended to make property out of something that, by its very nature, can't be owned. Defend copyright by fixing the law, not by jailing the people who break an unreasonable law.
But, they are not intended or obligated to give priority to the public interest.
Which is exactly why they shouldn't have the power they do. Letting corporations, whose only duty is to their bottom line, decide public policy is incredibly bad for society.
Stealing copyrighted material is illegal. Don't allow your fears of corporatism to excuse criminal behavior.
Don't let the corporate FUD lead you into thinking a civil matter should be made a criminal one.
What makes the water skitter around the pan is the steam underneath the droplet escaping to one side. The boiling rosin vapor may be escaping from one side of the ball and creating a jet.
This is thing with these ratings ideas, you can slap warnings and ratings over games as much as you want, but it still doesn't stop shops like GAME selling them to kids,
The purpose of the legislation is to give parents the information they need to make the decision, not have the government make the decision for them.
But more importantly, it doesn't stop parents buying these 'unsuitable' games for their kids,
So, in other words, it is the government's responsibility to raise our children and not the parents'. And you think this is a good idea?