What I really, really hate is looking at the code that I wrote 10 years ago
- finding it could be much more elegant and more efficient - assuming I was an idiot - rewriting the code to make it much more efficient - and then finding out that the optimization misses a really subtle corner case - and finally remembering that, yeah, I wasted 3 days hitting this stupid corner case years ago...
Now every time I do something even slightly non-obvious, I document *why*, not just *how*.
, and they probably make you sign contracts that you'll stay with them through the whole series.
While multiple book contracts are not uncommon, it's very unusual for it to be more than 2-3 books.
Most authors, given the choice, go with a mainstream publisher because self-published books by unknown authors usually sell in the double digit range. For known authors, you're throwing away 60-80% of your sales (the non-ebook sales) and basically saying to your readers that if you can't afford an e-reader (or don't like reading from them) I don't care about you. Most authors aren't comfortable telling the majority of their readers that to get lost (if they have the choice).
Considering most e-books should be like $2 to $5 dollars at best?
Especially since the editors, distributors, cover designers, cover artists, proof readers, copy editors, slush readers, accountants, lawyers, human resources, typesetters, and most of all writers don't need to be paid. Oh, and the rent, utilities, internet, computer equipment, and furniture can all be got for free.
Oh wait, you're willing to pay $2 for an e-book instead of $35 for a HC. Well, if my experience as a publisher was anything to go by, about $5 is the printing and distribution of the book, so I guess they only need to take a 93% pay cut... Silly me.
Well, it's too late for CBC Radio (Canadian National Broadcaster), which interviewed the school trustee in whose district the school can be found.
The conversation went back and forth with the trustee pointing out the rather more mundane reasons for the temporary ban when the interviewer inevitably said something innocuous about the students handling their balls.
The trustee failed her resist double-entendre roll and said something like "Well, that's rather naughty", which of course flustered the interviewer...
I suspect the rest of the board will be ribbing the trustee about the interview for a long, long time.
Again yet another lie, there is a difference between claiming the work is yours and making a copy of it.
How so? It's simply a derivative work - I changed the name on the front cover.
However, if altering a work is immoral, but simply direct copying is fine, then having a big, bad corporation copy my work, leave my name on it, and sell it giving me nothing is completely moral?
Look, I understand that it's very convenient to say that "No, *your* copying example is wrong and immoral, but *my* copying example is completely moral. It's completely a coincidence that your example harms *me*, while my example deprives *people who are not me*.
Why don't we just cut to the chase. Anything that harms me or my friends is immoral, while anything I would actually considering doing is moral. Heck, we can even add the chaser to that - all those evil corporations (pigopolists!) are evil and trying to scam and rob me. And since they employ pretty much everyone, then everyone (except my friends) are evil and trying to scam me, therefore I am *totally* morally justified in taking any action I can get away with (and that I'd actually want to do - obviously icky actions that I would never do are still immoral), since they deserve it.
To be honest, at least that has the advantage of being consistent.
Sorry for going over the top, but I figure a line like "Lies, lies and more lies, the pigopolists never stop" deserves more than bloodlessly pointing out of the logical inconsistency in your position.
I copy your essay and hand it in first to the teacher. I get an A, you get an F. You still have the essay - all I did was copy.
Even a 10 year old will tell me that the I stole your essay.
In case the analogy with piracy is not clear: all I did in the above example (as with piracy) is take your ability to exploit your work. Now in the essay case, I've removed your primary market and in the piracy case, I'd only be removing a tiny part of the market, namely myself. As such, the immorality is smaller in the case of piracy, but it's a matter of degree of immorality, not kind.
Another example - I send my CD into a Label, which then copies and sells millions, giving nothing to me. Is there anyone who wouldn't use the term "steal" and "theft"?
I'm sorry, but repeating "copying is not stealing" doesn't make it so in the minds of almost anyone who isn't desperately trying to justify their actions. Piracy for personal use of a single item is a little more subtle because the amount stolen has a lot less value, but we don't say it's not theft based on the value stolen. Sorry, but the rest of the world understands steal to mean to take what isn't yours. (Again, we're talking morality, not legality.)
Look, I know how it goes. "I am not immoral" "I engage in piracy" "Therefore, piracy is not immoral" But for the sake of your self-respect, man up. So you engage in the occasional immoral action. It doesn't make you incredibly evil. It just means that there are times when the convenience of getting something for free outweighs the responsibility you feel to pay for what you use.
I'm not saying people shouldn't pirate. I'm just saying they shouldn't be hypocrites about it. If nothing else, it's probably better to be viewed as someone who occasionally performs very low level immoral acts, than someone whose sense of morality is completely at odds with the run-of-the mill humanity.
You're not going to buy a song you never heard by a band you never heard of.
That, unfortunately, is the publisher's sole true justification for existence. With books, you can't even *give away* a book to people unless they know that some disinterested party (i.e. a gatekeeper) has vetted it to know it meets at least a minimal level of quality. Otherwise their time is worth more than the slim chance that the book is one they like. (With vetted books, a fair number of people are willing to take the perhaps 1 in 10 chance they'll like a book.)
Labels and publishers main benefit is that they winnow the field massively. For music, they also heavily promote a few groups to allow have a chance at becoming a cultural phenomenon, something that the youngsters value very highly indeed. (Something in the book world that has only every been matched by one series: Harry Potter, but has obsessed publishers ever since.)
The RIAA's mantra "free music is stealing" is to get people to stop downloading, PERIOD.
I have to say, I think statistically speaking, it's pretty likely that a randomly downloaded song *was* pirated, especially when the campaign was at its height. While its not much consolation, I strongly suspect that the independents are simply collateral damage in the RIAA's battle against piracy. However, I think we can assume that the RIAA isn't crying any tears over their unintended casualties.
That being said, I'm also pretty certain that the RIAA's campaign is going to have next to no effect on people's willingness to download music that's clearly marked as free, especially given the large amount of music that is available for free. I don't think one should waste to much time or effort on hating a campaign that particularly aimed at the independents and didn't have any significant effect on them anyway.
I have a few friends who make their living as musicians.
Wow. All the musicians I know (not a lot) make their living at music-related jobs, but none can sustain a family on their music earnings alone.
As for authors (for whom I have a greater sample size), I know quite a number earning a low-middle class living, all with publishers. I know of almost none who do without a main-stream publishers. Currently, the independents who do make it are so few and far between, they're all household names in the book business.
They are the RIAA's competetion, and the RIAA is trying to crush them.
Okay, I confess my ignorance here. How can the RIAA even attempt to crush them? (I can imagine they'd be happy to do so, but I don't see what they've got that can touch independents...) I have to admit, that I'm quite curious!
If piracy prevented an artist from being able to sell his work I'd agree it was wrong, but it in fact does NOT prevent him from selling his work
Actually, it prevents the creator from selling to the *pirate*. Admittedly, it's not a huge loss (which is why I don't consider the immorality of piracy to be a huge thing, but it *is* a thing), but it is (statistically) a loss as some people would have purchased the work instead of pirating it.
I consider the difference between the essay and the piracy a matter of degree rather than kind.
As an example: doing 90 MPH in a school zone, and 80 MPH late at night on a highway are both immoral for the same reason - they put others are risk because your car is now less controllable than the road was designed for, but the former is much more immoral than the latter. And yes, I have indulged in the second, thus putting others at greater risk for my own convenience of getting home a little earlier. However, I don't try to pretend that I am not putting others at (marginally) greater risk for my personal benefit.
I strongly suspect that the level and target of your piracy is not something that would be of concern to anyone in the industry. I'd also have to consider the immorality of your piracy sounds pretty minimal (not available, already purchased). (The creators probably would like to have their heirs get something more, but it gets murkier as time goes on.)
I do hope you patronize those companies that do spend money to try and make these artists available to the current generation as it's not cost-free to do so.
As far as what's getting pirated, the two times I read surveys, what was pirated was essentially a mirror of what was popular (no surprise).
For me to believe copying a file is immoral you're going to have to convince me that someone has been harmed.
So, if you cheat on your spouse and they don't catch you and you don't give them a disease, it's moral?
Urk!
Second, the particulars:
In tenth grade, I copy your essay and submit it as my own. I get an A, you get an F. You still have your essay, all I've done is removed the ability for you to exploit your work for your benefit. No harm done?
Well, by pirating the work, you have removed the ability of the creator to exploit his or her work in the one fashion that probably matters (especially if they wish to continue creating more work).
i.e. In other words, you've harmed the creator.
Look, even a 10 year old knows that stealing somebody's work is stealing, even if nothing tangible is taken. Follow your moral intuition, rather than trying to find some semantics that allow you to defend piracy on moral grounds.
I'm sorry, but to me it *is* a lot like people who defend the morality of their adultery on all sorts of grounds - "My wife won't know so she won't be hurt", "my wife doesn't understand me", "She doesn't care", "She's unfaithful", "It makes me a better parent", etc. In the end, it doesn't matter. There will always be people who are unfaithful. Many will have good excuses. But it doesn't alter the fact that in all but the most arcane of cases, it's immoral.
In the end, I might not respect the adulterer too much, but I'll have more respect for the one who mans up than the one who desperately equivocates, trying to morally justify their infidelity.
I think you might well be among the 5% who would be better off. However, I still maintain the vast majority of music listeners would be worse off for their lack of Britney or whoever the hot young thing is.
I hear far better, more original music played by far better musicians in the local bars.
Agreed, but how many of them would like to make a living off what they do and how many *actually* make a living off it.
Despite the lowered costs of production, without the promotion of the *AA's, it's almost impossible to make a living in those artistic endeavors. (Pretty damn hard *with* the AA's, but at least remotely possible.) To be perfectly honest, without gatekeepers, most creators struggle to even give away their stuff for free.
Honestly, if I'm going to pretend I care about the creators,then I'm going to listen to them about they'd like to see. And to be honest, most I've talked with would like to see their publishers do reasonably well and see people purchasing their content from the labels, studios and publishers.
Possibly true, but morally irrelevant. The producer does have the right to sell it how it likes. If it does so badly, then bankrupt them by not buying the product. But you still can't morally steal the product.
As for libraries, they are an interesting grey area. Personally I have no moral trouble with them, the limited copies that they distribute do little financial harm and greater social good, although I could entertain arguments about why they are immoral. However, even if someone convinced me that the government making limited confiscation of owner's right was immoral, I'd say still say that it would be one of the myriad small immoralities that a society performs to sustain itself).
Alright, it's conceivable I misinterpreted the OP's work. However given the context of the comment, I still say my interpretation is probably accurate. However, I would be grateful to be corrected by the poster, if he or she would care to clarify what they meant.
However, to re-iterate my point, a lot of people use problems with the *AA's or copyright law (both of which have real problems) as moral justification for pirating main-stream music/programs/books currently available in a variety of media.
Needless to say, I don't have much patience for their moral equivocation. I have more respect for those who say it's "yeah, it's immoral and I don't care" than for those who pirate and burble on desperately trying to justify it.
Outside of replacing your "No, what's" with "It is", I'd agree with your most of your post.
Heck, I'd even say that pirating a work that where the creator has been dead for a decade is not terribly immoral.
But then we both know that's not what's being pirated, don't we?
In other words, problems with copyright law are being used as a moral smoke-screen to justify pirating what artists produced last month or year and companies are still spending millions making available to the public.
Of course it's debatable, anything based in morality always will be. (And I have to say that I find putting scare quotes are morality is somewhat scary:-))
But I'd state that in general, most people share a set of basic moral standards. The morality involved with intellectual work is obviously slightly more sophisticated than tangible work, but I think most 10-year olds would instinctively know that someone copying their essay and submitting it as their own so that the creator gets a F and the thief gets the A is morally wrong even if the creator is still clutching the essay in their hand (i.e. someone has stolen your right to exploit the work, but you still have the original).
And no, I'm not using stolen and thief in the legal sense - simply in the common sense usage of English.
I agree with your post in general about how the Labels may well help demotivate purchase, although I am suspicious of how many use this as simply an excuse to hang their "I'd rather not pay" hat.
However, I have to say that as I've gotten older, I've realized that sadly the world doesn't beat a path to the door of the better mousetrap builder. i.e. the *AA's may be awful in all sorts of ways, but the sad truth is that they're vital to the industry and always will be. I suspect that if they went down, perhaps 5% of the consumers and 5% of the artists would be subjectively better off.
The reality is that a *lot* of young people *like* the super-hyped product that spending millions and millions allows you to make. Without the millions (and the culture of indulgence and greed that goes along with it), it's not that it would be replaced with something from the grass-roots, it could simply die. There's no law that says their has to be a thriving market. Look at a lot of developing markets where the popular culture is American because the local markets where pirated into non-existence (Hong Kong films, anyone?)
There are all sorts of cultural phenomenon that don't have a lot of money associated with them that amuse, interest, and inflame the passions of tens of thousands of young people. Unfortunately, tens of thousands are essentially irrelevant from a gross cultural perspective. If you want various artistic endeavors to be culturally relevant to hundreds of millions, then you are going to have big (which essentially equals evil in many people's eyes) companies involved.
In other words, I don't think the *AA's are mafioso preventing artists from reaping their rewards - they simply are providing a vital service that they then exploit for maximum profit. Although from my understanding, maximum profit is not all that much, relatively speaking. (And remember, economics dictates that if they aren't earning a decent profit, they'll be closed down and the money used by the investors to do something that will make a profit.)
So, I do think the *AA are probably immoral and definitely stupid, I think the music world would be a lot worse off without them.
Which has little to do with current copyright law, as the other poster suggested.
Granted - except that the context of the morality of copyright law comment was in reply to a comment about the morality of piracy. In other words, the clear implication was not that there are severe problems with aspects of the copyright law, but that the entire concept of ownership of one's intellectual work was immoral.
copyright infringement is a civil matter due to law it is not a moral matter.
What? Whether it's a legal or civil matter has no bearing on the morality of the action.
You then quote a few straw-man scenarios where circumstances would make the moral obligation a lot smaller. I agree. In fact, I think that outright theft is reasonably moral in certain extreme circumstances.
However, that's all irrelevant to the what we see in the vast majority of everyday cases, and the misdoings of the *AA is irrelevant to the morality of the simple act of theft. Even if you're strongly anti-drug, stealing from a drug dealer is morally wrong, and no amount of equivocating will change that.
Again, say that "I can't be bothered" or "I don't care" or whatever - fine. Just don't pretend that in normal circumstances it's not immoral to steal the work that people worked to create and sell. I really hate the "I want to steal *AND* feel good about it" attitude.
(I know, I know, the psychology is "I am a moral person" and "I an engaging in this act" therefore "this act must be moral", but even I can't quite swallow the illogic of the defense.)
No, if the market doesn't want it, then you starve - no immorality.
But if people are pirating it, then pretty much demonstrably, people want your product. If they're willing to forego it for the price you charge, you also starve - no immorality.
But where they get the benefit of it *and* you don't get recompense you asked. *That's* immoral.
Because you're ripping off the artist (or author or video game creators, etc.). It may only be a 'few pennies', but that's how creative types make their living.
I'm sorry, but the "I'd rather steal from you than allow the company that publishes you to profit" attitude you see here is too stupid for words.
Say "I can't be bothered" or "it's not worth my while" or "I simply don't care" or whatever. But don't pretend that it isn't stealing from the artists.
As an aside, those big bad labels, publishers, studios, etc. are the reasons why creators who produce the work that thousands buy and would actually like to make a nice lower to middle class living can actually afford to do so. Most creative types I know are desperate to have the opportunity to work for a publisher because that's the only real opportunity to actually make a living doing what they love.
Because the idea of working hard to produce something people want, spending a considerable amount of money to make it available to people, and then expecting recompense is immoral.
Mr. Card has his issues. I suspect that the pressure he faced (from both editors and fans) was to darn well finish the multiple series he started (and was paid for)! (Although I gather he may well have had pretty understandable personal reasons for this blaming the editors seems a little tawdry.)
I suspect that "trilogy creep" is more likely to occur when an author realizes that *his* salary may depend on a sequel. After all, on a per book basis, the author has a *lot* more invested than the editor. In fact, I've heard editors express the sentiment that they would like to see the certain series wrapped up, but the author is reluctant. This may be because of monetary considerations, but it's also quite possible that the author is now thoroughly invested in his or her characters, and is not yet ready to bid them adieu. However, most likely of all is that the story the author meant to tell has grown and simply cannot be satisfactorily told in fewer books (at least in the author's mind).
Now, to be fair, I am speaking about a series where there is essentially a single story (with multiple arcs) spread over several books (as were the Martin, Jordan and Rowling series mentioned). I suspect that there may be more pressure from editors to "do another book" in those series that *don't* have a definitive end point (Laurel Hamilton, etc.) if the series is doing well. But once again, I suspect that the pressure comes from the author more than the editor.
Truthfully, from my reading, the main pressure authors feel nowadays is to wrap up series faster than they would like because the sales are good, but not spectacular, and the editor wants to move on to the next thing. Certainly by volume of author complaint, that's a far bigger concern for mid-list sf/fantasy authors.
Publishers typically have been leeches. Sucking 98% of the profit out of a book.
Wow. Know *anything* about the industry?
Let me give you the fundamentals: Now that we have viable self-publishing, there are perhaps 100,000 books published a month, and if we look at sf/fantasy genre fiction, a few thousand books published a month (all but maybe 50-100 self-published) in your particular genre. Most readers aren't even going to *look* at more than 30-40 titles a month, so there needs to be some filtering mechanism. This is why a self-published book by an unknown author sells on average a few dozen copies.
Moreover, it's a trap. Anything that a self-published author can do to promote the book, the other 2,000 authors can do as well. Still too many books for any human being to even look at. Reviews? Reviewers face the same problem, even if they're willing to wade the sea of self-published books, they're going to review a handful a month, and, to be honest, most (not all, but most) won't be of high quality, which is why they were self-published anyway.
Publishers basically serve the function of gatekeeper because they're willing to invest $20K of their money in the book, and most importantly of all, they don't care about the author, only about how they think the author's book will appeal to the reader. This means their opinion means something (unlike if the author invested the money in themselves), and is the sole reason why bookstores will carry a traditionally published book and won't touch self-published ones. They too need someway of reducing a few thousand titles into a few dozen and publishers are the only way of doing so for new and unknown authors.
Without publishers, every author I know would be doing something else for a living and bookstores as we know it wouldn't exist.
Sorry, but the idea that the world beats a path to the door of the inventor of the better mousetrap is something for teenagers to believe in. Surely you're old enough to have a somewhat more nuanced view of the world?
Slashdot Mirror
What I really, really hate is looking at the code that I wrote 10 years ago
- finding it could be much more elegant and more efficient
- assuming I was an idiot
- rewriting the code to make it much more efficient
- and then finding out that the optimization misses a really subtle corner case
- and finally remembering that, yeah, I wasted 3 days hitting this stupid corner case years ago...
Now every time I do something even slightly non-obvious, I document *why*, not just *how*.
, and they probably make you sign contracts that you'll stay with them through the whole series.
While multiple book contracts are not uncommon, it's very unusual for it to be more than 2-3 books.
Most authors, given the choice, go with a mainstream publisher because self-published books by unknown authors usually sell in the double digit range. For known authors, you're throwing away 60-80% of your sales (the non-ebook sales) and basically saying to your readers that if you can't afford an e-reader (or don't like reading from them) I don't care about you. Most authors aren't comfortable telling the majority of their readers that to get lost (if they have the choice).
Considering most e-books should be like $2 to $5 dollars at best?
Especially since the editors, distributors, cover designers, cover artists, proof readers, copy editors, slush readers, accountants, lawyers, human resources, typesetters, and most of all writers don't need to be paid. Oh, and the rent, utilities, internet, computer equipment, and furniture can all be got for free.
Oh wait, you're willing to pay $2 for an e-book instead of $35 for a HC. Well, if my experience as a publisher was anything to go by, about $5 is the printing and distribution of the book, so I guess they only need to take a 93% pay cut... Silly me.
Well, it's too late for CBC Radio (Canadian National Broadcaster), which interviewed the school trustee in whose district the school can be found.
The conversation went back and forth with the trustee pointing out the rather more mundane reasons for the temporary ban when the interviewer inevitably said something innocuous about the students handling their balls.
The trustee failed her resist double-entendre roll and said something like "Well, that's rather naughty", which of course flustered the interviewer...
I suspect the rest of the board will be ribbing the trustee about the interview for a long, long time.
Again yet another lie, there is a difference between claiming the work is yours and making a copy of it.
How so? It's simply a derivative work - I changed the name on the front cover.
However, if altering a work is immoral, but simply direct copying is fine, then having a big, bad corporation copy my work, leave my name on it, and sell it giving me nothing is completely moral?
Look, I understand that it's very convenient to say that "No, *your* copying example is wrong and immoral, but *my* copying example is completely moral. It's completely a coincidence that your example harms *me*, while my example deprives *people who are not me*.
Why don't we just cut to the chase. Anything that harms me or my friends is immoral, while anything I would actually considering doing is moral. Heck, we can even add the chaser to that - all those evil corporations (pigopolists!) are evil and trying to scam and rob me. And since they employ pretty much everyone, then everyone (except my friends) are evil and trying to scam me, therefore I am *totally* morally justified in taking any action I can get away with (and that I'd actually want to do - obviously icky actions that I would never do are still immoral), since they deserve it.
To be honest, at least that has the advantage of being consistent.
Sorry for going over the top, but I figure a line like "Lies, lies and more lies, the pigopolists never stop" deserves more than bloodlessly pointing out of the logical inconsistency in your position.
To use the analogy I used elsewhere:
I copy your essay and hand it in first to the teacher. I get an A, you get an F. You still have the essay - all I did was copy.
Even a 10 year old will tell me that the I stole your essay.
In case the analogy with piracy is not clear: all I did in the above example (as with piracy) is take your ability to exploit your work. Now in the essay case, I've removed your primary market and in the piracy case, I'd only be removing a tiny part of the market, namely myself. As such, the immorality is smaller in the case of piracy, but it's a matter of degree of immorality, not kind.
Another example - I send my CD into a Label, which then copies and sells millions, giving nothing to me. Is there anyone who wouldn't use the term "steal" and "theft"?
I'm sorry, but repeating "copying is not stealing" doesn't make it so in the minds of almost anyone who isn't desperately trying to justify their actions. Piracy for personal use of a single item is a little more subtle because the amount stolen has a lot less value, but we don't say it's not theft based on the value stolen. Sorry, but the rest of the world understands steal to mean to take what isn't yours. (Again, we're talking morality, not legality.)
Look, I know how it goes. "I am not immoral" "I engage in piracy" "Therefore, piracy is not immoral" But for the sake of your self-respect, man up. So you engage in the occasional immoral action. It doesn't make you incredibly evil. It just means that there are times when the convenience of getting something for free outweighs the responsibility you feel to pay for what you use.
I'm not saying people shouldn't pirate. I'm just saying they shouldn't be hypocrites about it. If nothing else, it's probably better to be viewed as someone who occasionally performs very low level immoral acts, than someone whose sense of morality is completely at odds with the run-of-the mill humanity.
You're not going to buy a song you never heard by a band you never heard of.
That, unfortunately, is the publisher's sole true justification for existence. With books, you can't even *give away* a book to people unless they know that some disinterested party (i.e. a gatekeeper) has vetted it to know it meets at least a minimal level of quality. Otherwise their time is worth more than the slim chance that the book is one they like. (With vetted books, a fair number of people are willing to take the perhaps 1 in 10 chance they'll like a book.)
Labels and publishers main benefit is that they winnow the field massively. For music, they also heavily promote a few groups to allow have a chance at becoming a cultural phenomenon, something that the youngsters value very highly indeed. (Something in the book world that has only every been matched by one series: Harry Potter, but has obsessed publishers ever since.)
The RIAA's mantra "free music is stealing" is to get people to stop downloading, PERIOD.
I have to say, I think statistically speaking, it's pretty likely that a randomly downloaded song *was* pirated, especially when the campaign was at its height. While its not much consolation, I strongly suspect that the independents are simply collateral damage in the RIAA's battle against piracy. However, I think we can assume that the RIAA isn't crying any tears over their unintended casualties.
That being said, I'm also pretty certain that the RIAA's campaign is going to have next to no effect on people's willingness to download music that's clearly marked as free, especially given the large amount of music that is available for free. I don't think one should waste to much time or effort on hating a campaign that particularly aimed at the independents and didn't have any significant effect on them anyway.
I have a few friends who make their living as musicians.
Wow. All the musicians I know (not a lot) make their living at music-related jobs, but none can sustain a family on their music earnings alone.
As for authors (for whom I have a greater sample size), I know quite a number earning a low-middle class living, all with publishers. I know of almost none who do without a main-stream publishers. Currently, the independents who do make it are so few and far between, they're all household names in the book business.
They are the RIAA's competetion, and the RIAA is trying to crush them.
Okay, I confess my ignorance here. How can the RIAA even attempt to crush them? (I can imagine they'd be happy to do so, but I don't see what they've got that can touch independents...) I have to admit, that I'm quite curious!
as the victim of adultery (I'm now divorced)
I withdraw my analogy. Sorry.
If piracy prevented an artist from being able to sell his work I'd agree it was wrong, but it in fact does NOT prevent him from selling his work
Actually, it prevents the creator from selling to the *pirate*. Admittedly, it's not a huge loss (which is why I don't consider the immorality of piracy to be a huge thing, but it *is* a thing), but it is (statistically) a loss as some people would have purchased the work instead of pirating it.
I consider the difference between the essay and the piracy a matter of degree rather than kind.
As an example: doing 90 MPH in a school zone, and 80 MPH late at night on a highway are both immoral for the same reason - they put others are risk because your car is now less controllable than the road was designed for, but the former is much more immoral than the latter. And yes, I have indulged in the second, thus putting others at greater risk for my own convenience of getting home a little earlier. However, I don't try to pretend that I am not putting others at (marginally) greater risk for my personal benefit.
I strongly suspect that the level and target of your piracy is not something that would be of concern to anyone in the industry. I'd also have to consider the immorality of your piracy sounds pretty minimal (not available, already purchased). (The creators probably would like to have their heirs get something more, but it gets murkier as time goes on.)
I do hope you patronize those companies that do spend money to try and make these artists available to the current generation as it's not cost-free to do so.
As far as what's getting pirated, the two times I read surveys, what was pirated was essentially a mirror of what was popular (no surprise).
First: your premise:
For me to believe copying a file is immoral you're going to have to convince me that someone has been harmed.
So, if you cheat on your spouse and they don't catch you and you don't give them a disease, it's moral?
Urk!
Second, the particulars:
In tenth grade, I copy your essay and submit it as my own. I get an A, you get an F. You still have your essay, all I've done is removed the ability for you to exploit your work for your benefit. No harm done?
Well, by pirating the work, you have removed the ability of the creator to exploit his or her work in the one fashion that probably matters (especially if they wish to continue creating more work).
i.e. In other words, you've harmed the creator.
Look, even a 10 year old knows that stealing somebody's work is stealing, even if nothing tangible is taken. Follow your moral intuition, rather than trying to find some semantics that allow you to defend piracy on moral grounds.
I'm sorry, but to me it *is* a lot like people who defend the morality of their adultery on all sorts of grounds - "My wife won't know so she won't be hurt", "my wife doesn't understand me", "She doesn't care", "She's unfaithful", "It makes me a better parent", etc. In the end, it doesn't matter. There will always be people who are unfaithful. Many will have good excuses. But it doesn't alter the fact that in all but the most arcane of cases, it's immoral.
In the end, I might not respect the adulterer too much, but I'll have more respect for the one who mans up than the one who desperately equivocates, trying to morally justify their infidelity.
I think you might well be among the 5% who would be better off. However, I still maintain the vast majority of music listeners would be worse off for their lack of Britney or whoever the hot young thing is.
I hear far better, more original music played by far better musicians in the local bars.
Agreed, but how many of them would like to make a living off what they do and how many *actually* make a living off it.
Despite the lowered costs of production, without the promotion of the *AA's, it's almost impossible to make a living in those artistic endeavors. (Pretty damn hard *with* the AA's, but at least remotely possible.) To be perfectly honest, without gatekeepers, most creators struggle to even give away their stuff for free.
Honestly, if I'm going to pretend I care about the creators,then I'm going to listen to them about they'd like to see. And to be honest, most I've talked with would like to see their publishers do reasonably well and see people purchasing their content from the labels, studios and publishers.
Illegal != immoral
Agreed.
Piracy sells content.
Possibly true, but morally irrelevant. The producer does have the right to sell it how it likes. If it does so badly, then bankrupt them by not buying the product. But you still can't morally steal the product.
As for libraries, they are an interesting grey area. Personally I have no moral trouble with them, the limited copies that they distribute do little financial harm and greater social good, although I could entertain arguments about why they are immoral. However, even if someone convinced me that the government making limited confiscation of owner's right was immoral, I'd say still say that it would be one of the myriad small immoralities that a society performs to sustain itself).
Alright, it's conceivable I misinterpreted the OP's work. However given the context of the comment, I still say my interpretation is probably accurate. However, I would be grateful to be corrected by the poster, if he or she would care to clarify what they meant.
However, to re-iterate my point, a lot of people use problems with the *AA's or copyright law (both of which have real problems) as moral justification for pirating main-stream music/programs/books currently available in a variety of media.
Needless to say, I don't have much patience for their moral equivocation. I have more respect for those who say it's "yeah, it's immoral and I don't care" than for those who pirate and burble on desperately trying to justify it.
Outside of replacing your "No, what's" with "It is", I'd agree with your most of your post.
Heck, I'd even say that pirating a work that where the creator has been dead for a decade is not terribly immoral.
But then we both know that's not what's being pirated, don't we?
In other words, problems with copyright law are being used as a moral smoke-screen to justify pirating what artists produced last month or year and companies are still spending millions making available to the public.
Of course it's debatable, anything based in morality always will be. (And I have to say that I find putting scare quotes are morality is somewhat scary :-))
But I'd state that in general, most people share a set of basic moral standards. The morality involved with intellectual work is obviously slightly more sophisticated than tangible work, but I think most 10-year olds would instinctively know that someone copying their essay and submitting it as their own so that the creator gets a F and the thief gets the A is morally wrong even if the creator is still clutching the essay in their hand (i.e. someone has stolen your right to exploit the work, but you still have the original).
And no, I'm not using stolen and thief in the legal sense - simply in the common sense usage of English.
I agree with your post in general about how the Labels may well help demotivate purchase, although I am suspicious of how many use this as simply an excuse to hang their "I'd rather not pay" hat.
However, I have to say that as I've gotten older, I've realized that sadly the world doesn't beat a path to the door of the better mousetrap builder. i.e. the *AA's may be awful in all sorts of ways, but the sad truth is that they're vital to the industry and always will be. I suspect that if they went down, perhaps 5% of the consumers and 5% of the artists would be subjectively better off.
The reality is that a *lot* of young people *like* the super-hyped product that spending millions and millions allows you to make. Without the millions (and the culture of indulgence and greed that goes along with it), it's not that it would be replaced with something from the grass-roots, it could simply die. There's no law that says their has to be a thriving market. Look at a lot of developing markets where the popular culture is American because the local markets where pirated into non-existence (Hong Kong films, anyone?)
There are all sorts of cultural phenomenon that don't have a lot of money associated with them that amuse, interest, and inflame the passions of tens of thousands of young people. Unfortunately, tens of thousands are essentially irrelevant from a gross cultural perspective. If you want various artistic endeavors to be culturally relevant to hundreds of millions, then you are going to have big (which essentially equals evil in many people's eyes) companies involved.
In other words, I don't think the *AA's are mafioso preventing artists from reaping their rewards - they simply are providing a vital service that they then exploit for maximum profit. Although from my understanding, maximum profit is not all that much, relatively speaking. (And remember, economics dictates that if they aren't earning a decent profit, they'll be closed down and the money used by the investors to do something that will make a profit.)
So, I do think the *AA are probably immoral and definitely stupid, I think the music world would be a lot worse off without them.
Which has little to do with current copyright law, as the other poster suggested.
Granted - except that the context of the morality of copyright law comment was in reply to a comment about the morality of piracy. In other words, the clear implication was not that there are severe problems with aspects of the copyright law, but that the entire concept of ownership of one's intellectual work was immoral.
copyright infringement is a civil matter due to law it is not a moral matter.
What? Whether it's a legal or civil matter has no bearing on the morality of the action.
You then quote a few straw-man scenarios where circumstances would make the moral obligation a lot smaller. I agree. In fact, I think that outright theft is reasonably moral in certain extreme circumstances.
However, that's all irrelevant to the what we see in the vast majority of everyday cases, and the misdoings of the *AA is irrelevant to the morality of the simple act of theft. Even if you're strongly anti-drug, stealing from a drug dealer is morally wrong, and no amount of equivocating will change that.
Again, say that "I can't be bothered" or "I don't care" or whatever - fine. Just don't pretend that in normal circumstances it's not immoral to steal the work that people worked to create and sell. I really hate the "I want to steal *AND* feel good about it" attitude.
(I know, I know, the psychology is "I am a moral person" and "I an engaging in this act" therefore "this act must be moral", but even I can't quite swallow the illogic of the defense.)
No, if the market doesn't want it, then you starve - no immorality.
But if people are pirating it, then pretty much demonstrably, people want your product. If they're willing to forego it for the price you charge, you also starve - no immorality.
But where they get the benefit of it *and* you don't get recompense you asked. *That's* immoral.
Why would I feel morally obliged to do that?
Because you're ripping off the artist (or author or video game creators, etc.). It may only be a 'few pennies', but that's how creative types make their living.
I'm sorry, but the "I'd rather steal from you than allow the company that publishes you to profit" attitude you see here is too stupid for words.
Say "I can't be bothered" or "it's not worth my while" or "I simply don't care" or whatever. But don't pretend that it isn't stealing from the artists.
As an aside, those big bad labels, publishers, studios, etc. are the reasons why creators who produce the work that thousands buy and would actually like to make a nice lower to middle class living can actually afford to do so. Most creative types I know are desperate to have the opportunity to work for a publisher because that's the only real opportunity to actually make a living doing what they love.
Yet we have to feel guilty about pirating music because... why exactly?
Because their immorality doesn't excuse our own.
At least that was what my mother taught me.
Because the idea of working hard to produce something people want, spending a considerable amount of money to make it available to people, and then expecting recompense is immoral.
Mr. Card has his issues. I suspect that the pressure he faced (from both editors and fans) was to darn well finish the multiple series he started (and was paid for)! (Although I gather he may well have had pretty understandable personal reasons for this blaming the editors seems a little tawdry.)
I suspect that "trilogy creep" is more likely to occur when an author realizes that *his* salary may depend on a sequel. After all, on a per book basis, the author has a *lot* more invested than the editor. In fact, I've heard editors express the sentiment that they would like to see the certain series wrapped up, but the author is reluctant. This may be because of monetary considerations, but it's also quite possible that the author is now thoroughly invested in his or her characters, and is not yet ready to bid them adieu. However, most likely of all is that the story the author meant to tell has grown and simply cannot be satisfactorily told in fewer books (at least in the author's mind).
Now, to be fair, I am speaking about a series where there is essentially a single story (with multiple arcs) spread over several books (as were the Martin, Jordan and Rowling series mentioned). I suspect that there may be more pressure from editors to "do another book" in those series that *don't* have a definitive end point (Laurel Hamilton, etc.) if the series is doing well. But once again, I suspect that the pressure comes from the author more than the editor.
Truthfully, from my reading, the main pressure authors feel nowadays is to wrap up series faster than they would like because the sales are good, but not spectacular, and the editor wants to move on to the next thing. Certainly by volume of author complaint, that's a far bigger concern for mid-list sf/fantasy authors.
Publishers typically have been leeches. Sucking 98% of the profit out of a book.
Wow. Know *anything* about the industry?
Let me give you the fundamentals: Now that we have viable self-publishing, there are perhaps 100,000 books published a month, and if we look at sf/fantasy genre fiction, a few thousand books published a month (all but maybe 50-100 self-published) in your particular genre. Most readers aren't even going to *look* at more than 30-40 titles a month, so there needs to be some filtering mechanism. This is why a self-published book by an unknown author sells on average a few dozen copies.
Moreover, it's a trap. Anything that a self-published author can do to promote the book, the other 2,000 authors can do as well. Still too many books for any human being to even look at. Reviews? Reviewers face the same problem, even if they're willing to wade the sea of self-published books, they're going to review a handful a month, and, to be honest, most (not all, but most) won't be of high quality, which is why they were self-published anyway.
Publishers basically serve the function of gatekeeper because they're willing to invest $20K of their money in the book, and most importantly of all, they don't care about the author, only about how they think the author's book will appeal to the reader. This means their opinion means something (unlike if the author invested the money in themselves), and is the sole reason why bookstores will carry a traditionally published book and won't touch self-published ones. They too need someway of reducing a few thousand titles into a few dozen and publishers are the only way of doing so for new and unknown authors.
Without publishers, every author I know would be doing something else for a living and bookstores as we know it wouldn't exist.
Sorry, but the idea that the world beats a path to the door of the inventor of the better mousetrap is something for teenagers to believe in. Surely you're old enough to have a somewhat more nuanced view of the world?