but if you believe that you cannot rely on science then what can you rely upon?
Speaking strictly of evidence for court cases: eyewitness testimony, together with a requirement that if someone is found to have lied, they get the same penalty the accused would have if found guilty.
But the concept of copyright and IP is a valid, and useful one, and it should be strictly enforced.
Agreed.
The best thing anyone who wants copyright law reformed could do is to help clamp down on the 0day sharing of new creative works on p2p without the copryright holders permission.
I'm not sure you've hit the mark here. Most people today have grown up in an environment where the public domain has already been plundered. This has happened long before they start their downloads, and looks to continue unabated. With the likes of Cliff Richard, Disney and the *AA's continually pushing for longer and stronger copyrights, can you provide any evidence that reducing illegal downloading would result in reasonable copyright terms? They have been lobbying for longer, stronger copyrights since long before the internet. The way to reduce illegal downloading is to return the public domain. If someone is illegaly downloading a movie, what difference is it to them if its 0day or from the 80's. If we had to choose between a legal download from the 80's or an illegal 0day, I think many, even most people would choose the legal download. If we had an abundant public domain, you would have very little difficulty persuading people that stronger enforcement of copyright is a good thing.
You say that much of current copyright law is insane, but you want it to be enforced more strictly. Do you really see great benefit coming from more effectively enforcing insanity?
The Iliad, The Odyssey, Saint George and the Dragon, Journey to the West. How many did you need?
or Matrix. Show me the pre-copyright recording studios.
Obviously the video technology was not yet developed when copyrights were invented, but surely you aren't suggesting that pre-copyright cultures didn't have theatre?. Or that video and audio recording technology would not have been developed without copyright?
To be honest, I don't really care if no more 100 million dollar movies get made. But to say that no movies would be made, well, I find that unlikely. There is still merchandising, movie theatres, advertising. They'd find other business models. It may require them to be more economical in producing them.
So basically you support a business model where either... nothing new gets made... or... some people (the 'mugs') pay for the stuff so that you and your buddies can take it for free.... Thats called freeloading. Nice attitude.
Maybe you should try reading posts before you reply. It makes for more enlightening conversation. Hope you don't mind if I quote myself "Introduce 14 year copyright terms, then talk to me about preventing piracy." I didn't say there should be no copyright. Nor am I in the habit of breaching copyright. To me, the bottom line is that I perceive copyright to be an exchange, a social contract: you get temporary monopoly, the material goes into the public domain. The contract has been broken by the copyright holders preventing the material from going into public domain (through lobbying etc). Until they fix their end of the deal, they can quit bitching about copyright violation as far as I'm concerned.
Copyright has been "strengthened" for the copyright holders at the expense of the public to the point that it is really more honest to talk of the misappropriation of the public domain than it is to talk of "theft" of songs. So if your freinds can't make enough money without further "strengthening" copyrights at the publics expense, let them find other ways of making money rather than rob the culture.
its not a free market. People are cirumventing the market by taking the product without paying. It's just pure bull to suggest that downloading pirated music is part of the free market.
Your post is loaded with presuppositions that not everyone shares. Many people think, for example, that if they buy a CD, that they own it. I know that this is a revolutionary thought, but bear with me, there actually are people who think that. There are those that would answer, yes, you own the CD, but not the music! Since I can't separate the music from the CD, this is nonsense. What the author does have though, is the copyright, which is indeed a government granted monopoly. Not on all music, but on that particular album. Remove the government granted monopoly though, and there is no moral imperative to prevent me from taking the product I purchased and making another product from it. An mp3 file for instance. The public domain is definitely part of the free market.
Entertainment has been around a lot longer than copyright. If the entertainment industry as it exists today can't earn it's way without a government granted monopoly enabling it to overcharge for products with near zero reproduction and distribution costs, then it's not clear to me that they are providing a benefit to society worth protecting. Certainly not giving up the public domain for as is effectively the case now. Introduce 14 year copyright terms, then talk to me about preventing piracy.
I'll show you some of what could perhaps be called reasoning. Perhaps not, I don't really care.
I have, here in my house, a two month old daughter. If you were to come here and try to kill this "blob of undifferentiated human cells" as you call her, should I prove capable of doing so, I would certainly kill you first. Your sentinence or supposed value wouldn't make me have the slightest hesitation. The reason: I consider myself the protector of my children, it would be my duty to do so. How common is this reasoning? Common enough that the law where I live would back me up. I would quite likely be acting legally even if it were not my child.
You don't have to consider that to be reasonable. I don't consider unreasonable to be the highest insult. However, I do not defend the killing of fertilized human eggs in most circumstances, as I think that genetic heritage is a better measure of humanity than arbitrary judgements based on the abilities of the person in question.
I have good friends who are musicians, and they are seeing huge declines in their incomes from music sales, even though they seem to have larger fan bases and draw greater crowds at concerts.
So, you have friends who are unable to produce sufficient income in a free market from their chosen proffesion, and instead of suggesting that they change their business model or proffesion, you want me to help enforce and strengthen an unnatural government granted monopoly, preventing the utilisation of modern technology for the efficient reproduction of goods?
I don't know much about his science being wrong, but his moral outlook certainly seems questionable:
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. 'Anthropological Review,' April 1867, p.236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
The Project Gutenberg Etext The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
If he was to first propose his theory today, it would likely be rejected as people would distance themselves from such racist remarks. I note that this is not the real evidence that Darwin was wrong that you asked for, nor do I have an alternate scientific theory for the origin of species.
Or are you saying that a car cannot belong to someone because it also took a whole society to make, and therefore must be public domain?
The people who made my car don't still claim ownership of it. It's mine.
No, I said I own the work, and you copying it doesn't change the fact that it's my work.
You said if someone takes a copy they are stealing. For it to be stealing, that copy would have to be your property.
This argument is more ignorant than weightless. What I've already said, was that the book may be yours, but the story in the book isn't.
Rubbish. I can read it, think about it, tell it to my kids. If it's my book, and the only way to remove the story is by removing the book, it's my story. The only thing I don't have is the copyright.
The law says you own the copyright, that is, it's the right that is exclusively yours, not the idea, work, story or whatever. But you don't want to go by the law, or any existing philosophy of right and wrong. You have your own arbitrary standard that nearly nobody other than RIAA/MPAA and similar standover organisations share. The law in every country disagrees with you.
Well, guess what, you can have your arbitrary ideas, but if you ever have a real dispute with me on this, you'll have to do it by the law, not your ideas. No government deals with personal copyright infringement as theft. Everywhere I know it is a civil matter not a criminal matter. Your assertions to the contrary are meaningless.
So you think it's bad for business to send information by email at your request? You subscribed to it, they have every reason to believe that you want to recieve it. As another poster said, people like you make it harder to fight spam.
Perhaps you would find it even easier to filter the address using your own mail client rules rather than falsely reporting companies who haven't done you wrong.
Because buying something gives you rights to the work, as I keep repeating, the purchase is me giving you permission to take my work, for you to store on whatever medium you want.
It's plain english, I don't know how I can simplify it any more.
It's not that you require more simplicity. It's consistency that's lacking in your views. First you say you own all copies, now you say I can copy to any medium I want. What you seem to want is not consistent with the terms you use, specifically, theft. This post from yesterday may explain it to you. I don't know. Perhaps you'll never get it, you'd don't seem to want to.
but it's still my creation, that wouldn't exist unless I had created it.
Your work is also built on the work of thousands of other people and centuries of inovation that have made it possible for you to be a programmer. It also would not exist unless those others had made their contribution. That's a strong case for saying your work belongs in the public domain. However, as an incentive, you've been offered a temporary monopoly on the right to copy that work. You own that right, not the work itself. If you don't agree, just go consult with your IP lawyer, he/she will set you straight soon enough. Maybe if you were paying me a couple hundred dollars an hour you'd be quicker to understand.
If somebody travelled the world researching something, and you saw their papers and wrote down on your own paper what you read, that wouldn't make what you wrote down *your* research, to say it is is plagiarism.
You don't seem to have much of a grasp of the different (legitimate) ways the word "your" can be used. "Your pencil" would generally mean the pencil is your property. "Your parents" does not indicate that the parents are your property. If I purchase a book, I can quite legitimately say "That's my book". If I lend it to someone, when they give it back to me, they may say "Here's your book" even though we both know I didn't write the book. Catch that? Think that's plagarism? But get this, I own that book, not the author. The author owns the copyright. See the difference yet?
In any case, here are some points you still haven't answered. I'm really not interested in anything you have to say unless you answer these points:
"if copyright gave you ownership of resulting copies there would be no exclusion for parody etc."
Do you think the exemptions on copyright for parody are theft?
"Would you claim that the time limitation on copyrights and patents is unjust? That society is stealing from the IP holders when their rights expire? After all, my car, furniture, house, none of my physical possessions have a time limitation to my ownership, even though there may be various taxes such as land tax payable."
Do you think it's theft for copyrights to expire? Does the public domain consist almost exlusively of stolen material?
Face it, the effort you put in to create a program is tiny compared to the work to develop the language you wrote it in, to develop the computer you wrote it on, to develop the ideas and curriculum you were educated with, to develop the electrical delivery that powered your computer. You only have those ideas to implement because you were allowed to build on the ideas of others. It is appropriate that others will be allowed to build on your ideas, which is to say, they are not your exclusive property, even though it is appropriate for you to be rewarded for your efforts.
Format shifting, creating backups etc, you should be entitled to
Why? If you own all copies, and I buy one copy then format shift and backup, I now have three copies. Why do you not think that's stealing two copies if copying is theft?
We're talking about where one party is says "I take" without the other person saying "I give", which is theft.
Not really. If I create a copy of something, I don't need your permission to take it, you didn't make it so it's not yours. In the case of a copyrighted work, what I need is permission to copy. As I said before, this is the way the law works in any country I'm aware of. It seems to me, therefore, that the vast majority of people who have put serious thought into this issue see it my way. Which is really to say, I've seen the way the law works and I'm in basic agreement with it regarding copyrights. It wasn't, of course, originally my idea.
And the law treats theft and copyright breach very differently, not just different words, but very different processes and penalties. The fact that the MPAA in particular has successfully indoctrinated some people into thinking of copying as equivalent to stealing a handbag or car is more of a tribute to the effectiveness of advertising than a contribution to rational discourse.
Distribution share is a good way of putting it. If people are not buying debian though, they are not a part of the server market, even though debian has a large distribution share.
Frankly, a single server in some guy's basement, selling porn on Debian stable, is still a server. That is part of the server market.
No, that's part of installed user base of servers. Market is a word that is very much related to sales. If the guy didn't buy debian, he's not a part of the server software market, as it would be recognised by businesses. The nature of Free software, and a great benefit, is that it is not restricted to the marketplace.
Now you're just making stuff up. I never said I own my parents
Perhaps I can remind you what you said: "Is there a law granting me ownership of my parents? If not, are you saying that calling them "my parents" is incorrect? That they are not "my" parents? Is another child that they both had not "my" brother/sister? Is that because there is a law that grants me ownership of them?"
...the context being that you were saying ownership exists regardless of the law. So I'm not making stuff up, you just used an example that did not it any way strengthen your case.
But let me put it this way, if somebody takes a photo of my parents, they may then own the photo, but the people in the photograph are still -my- parents. The photographer can't say "this is a photo of my parents" just because that person took the picture.
Let me put it this way, if I buy a book, it's my book. I'm not the author, but I own that copy of the book. I think books, being a written work, are a much closer analogy for software than parents. Even in your example though you say "they may then own the photo". Would they be stealing your parents if they made another copy of the photo? They can quite legitimately say "This is my photo".
Anyway, "ownership" is relative, it's opinion.
So my opinion that you don't own copies of your software is ok then. Relatively.
if everyone in the world agrees that you own something, but there is no law stating it, it can still be said that you own it.
Your opinion does not meet this condition.
You argue that somebody doesn't own their creation
No, I argued that if they didn't create the copy they don't own it. I also stated that they are (and should be) given exclusive rights to copying for a limited time. Since this is the law pretty much all over the world, it would seem that far more people agree with my relative opinion than agree with your relative opinion.
Here's an example I hope will illustrate my point: Say you write a program and make it available for a charge, downloadable. I pay you the agreed amount and download it to my hard drive. However, before installing it, I now find that I have no need for the program. Can I delete it wothout your permission? Morally, according to you? I would think that if you own the actual copy, then for me to delete it would be vandalism or some similar wrong. I should not destroy your property without your express consent, even if you can easily replace it. However, if I own the copy, but you have the exclusive right to control copying, I can delete it without destroying anything of yours.
Is there a law granting me ownership of my parents? If not, are you saying that calling them "my parents" is incorrect? That they are not "my" parents?
And if I clone your parents, will my copies actually be your parents? Will you call them "Mom" and "Dad"?
Is there a law granting me ownership of my parents?
You don't own your parents. If you disagree, just try to sell them, see how far you get.
You have said nothing that demonstrates your ownership of copies of your work. Even though copies were difficult to make in earlier times, it was still possible and was not considered theft. The fact that you claim ownership of copies other people make of your work has no basis in reality. You produce the work, the other person produces the copy. Obviously it is much easier to make a copy than it is to produce an original work. There are sound reasons for society to grant you a monopoly on that work for a limited time, but it remains: you produce the original work, you own the original work, someone else produces a copy, they own the copy. Would you claim that the time limitation on copyrights and patents is unjust? That society is stealing from the IP holders when their rights expire? After all, my car, furniture, house, none of my physical possessions have a time limitation to my ownership, even though there may be various taxes such as land tax payable.
If you don't make the copy, you don't own the copy, that's all there is to it. Any additional rights you get are solely given to you by law, temporary and changeable. Any assertion by you that they are somehow immutable property rights is meaningless.
So, let's try this again, but forgetting about what rights the law gives you
and
So which bit of this isn't true?
Well, since you said to forget about what rights the law give you, the bit that says that copies belong to you is wrong. Without copyright law, nothing gives you any claim to copies you didn't make. I am pretty sure there is international law about stealing, certainly about piracy (argh, me hearties! type piracy, just to be clear). Really, in the absence of law, there are morals and force of arms. Show me the moral code you follow that gives you a monopoly on your easily copyable program. I'll probably disagree with it, but I'll see your point. In western societies however, it is commonly accepted that your moral code is not binding on me.
As Thomas Jefferson apparently said:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.
People have always copied ideas. Mass production has become easier, but mass production was difficult for everyone, even originator's of ideas. How about we modify your example. You sell someone a copy. They install it on two computers without permission. Stealing? Nonsense. Copyright violation? Absolutely.
There are no civilised societies that do not value free speech if your definition of a civilised society includes that the society values free speech.
If your definition of a civilised society does not include that the society values free speech, then there are civilised societies that do not value free speech.
If somebody takes, my program, without my permission, either on the medium I saved it on, or a medium they have saved it on, then they have taken something of mine, something with value, without my permission, and is therefore covered by the word "theft".
You made the original program. Your words were that the other person made the copy. The fact that it was easy for them to do this does not change the fact that you did not make the copy. What copyright gives you is the exclusive right to copy, subject to certain limitations, it does not give you ownership of the copies other people make. One very pointed example of this is the right to copy for the purpose of parody. Not very likely to pertain to software, I'll grant you, but if copyright gave you ownership of resulting copies there would be no exclusion for parody etc.
If someone copies your program, what they have taken from you is not the copy, it is the exclusiveness of the right to copy. This could probably be phrased better, but copyright protects your exclusive right to perform an action (copying said program/material). It does not protect your ownership of an object. If it did, it would be of no value to you, because the moment you sold me a copy (now my program) I could now copy it to my hearts content, and your detriment. So if someone copies your program, they have infringed your rights, not taken your property. Theft is simply an inaccurate description for what has happened. That's why if I came to your place and took the disk/tape you saved the software on, the law agrees I would have stolen it, but if I make a copy of it the law states I have infringed your copyright.
No, because it's only more recently that it's become so much easier to copy an idea than it is to actually implement it.
So if something is difficult it's ok to do, but if it becomes too easy, it's wrong? It is as a practical measure for the benefit of society only that we grant copyrights unless you accept that easy=wrong.
Are you saying that taking something that belongs to someone, without their permission, could not to be considered "theft" until there was legislature to say that it was?
No, I'm saying that there were already laws against theft. If copyright violation was theft, there would have been no need for a new law, the laws against theft would have been sufficient protection of your property. Since copyright violation is sufficiently different to theft to require a different set of laws, it is sufficiently different that is it appropriate to use a different term to describe it.
Understand what I'm saying: I'm not saying it's less serious or less wrong than theft, just that it's different. Comparable to the difference between fraud and theft. The definition of fraud does not contain the word theft. They are different, even though they have similarities.
That said though, it is only wrong because the law says it is. For thousands of years it was not considered theft to use someone elses ideas, songs, copy inventions etc. Is there any religion or philosophy that grants monopoly on inventions or ideas? On what basis do you claim ownership of these works that for most of human history have not been subject to individual property rights? Only the law gives you this right. Now, I believe in the rule of law, so I say go ahead, claim and enforce your rights under law, but if the law changed so you didn't have those rights, to what authority would you appeal? On what basis would you claim your goods had been stolen?
Well, you were the one that said they made the copy. *shrugs*
It's a grossly misleading example. He didn't copy the material, he copied the *design*
A copy of a program is made up of new bits, arranged in the same order (design) as the original program. Really, the only significant difference is that furniture is not covered by copyright laws and software is. If copyright infringement was theft, there would have been no need for copyright law, as there have been laws against theft for millenia. Copying is different to stealing, therefore new laws were required.
As far as I can tell, every technologically advanced country has become so in an environment of strong IP protection. I am convinced that copyright protection is a huge net gain for society, not just for the copyright owner, and am not arguing against it at all. But to say that copying is theft is simply not true. The existence of copyright law proves it.
Slashdot Mirror
but if you believe that you cannot rely on science then what can you rely upon?
Speaking strictly of evidence for court cases: eyewitness testimony, together with a requirement that if someone is found to have lied, they get the same penalty the accused would have if found guilty.
But the concept of copyright and IP is a valid, and useful one, and it should be strictly enforced.
Agreed.
The best thing anyone who wants copyright law reformed could do is to help clamp down on the 0day sharing of new creative works on p2p without the copryright holders permission.
I'm not sure you've hit the mark here. Most people today have grown up in an environment where the public domain has already been plundered. This has happened long before they start their downloads, and looks to continue unabated. With the likes of Cliff Richard, Disney and the *AA's continually pushing for longer and stronger copyrights, can you provide any evidence that reducing illegal downloading would result in reasonable copyright terms? They have been lobbying for longer, stronger copyrights since long before the internet. The way to reduce illegal downloading is to return the public domain. If someone is illegaly downloading a movie, what difference is it to them if its 0day or from the 80's. If we had to choose between a legal download from the 80's or an illegal 0day, I think many, even most people would choose the legal download. If we had an abundant public domain, you would have very little difficulty persuading people that stronger enforcement of copyright is a good thing.
You say that much of current copyright law is insane, but you want it to be enforced more strictly. Do you really see great benefit coming from more effectively enforcing insanity?
Show me me the pre-copyright lord of the rings
... nothing new gets made ... or ... some people (the 'mugs') pay for the stuff so that you and your buddies can take it for free. ... Thats called freeloading. Nice attitude.
The Iliad, The Odyssey, Saint George and the Dragon, Journey to the West. How many did you need?
or Matrix. Show me the pre-copyright recording studios.
Obviously the video technology was not yet developed when copyrights were invented, but surely you aren't suggesting that pre-copyright cultures didn't have theatre?. Or that video and audio recording technology would not have been developed without copyright?
To be honest, I don't really care if no more 100 million dollar movies get made. But to say that no movies would be made, well, I find that unlikely. There is still merchandising, movie theatres, advertising. They'd find other business models. It may require them to be more economical in producing them.
So basically you support a business model where either
Maybe you should try reading posts before you reply. It makes for more enlightening conversation. Hope you don't mind if I quote myself "Introduce 14 year copyright terms, then talk to me about preventing piracy." I didn't say there should be no copyright. Nor am I in the habit of breaching copyright. To me, the bottom line is that I perceive copyright to be an exchange, a social contract: you get temporary monopoly, the material goes into the public domain. The contract has been broken by the copyright holders preventing the material from going into public domain (through lobbying etc). Until they fix their end of the deal, they can quit bitching about copyright violation as far as I'm concerned.
Copyright has been "strengthened" for the copyright holders at the expense of the public to the point that it is really more honest to talk of the misappropriation of the public domain than it is to talk of "theft" of songs. So if your freinds can't make enough money without further "strengthening" copyrights at the publics expense, let them find other ways of making money rather than rob the culture.
its not a free market. People are cirumventing the market by taking the product without paying. It's just pure bull to suggest that downloading pirated music is part of the free market.
Your post is loaded with presuppositions that not everyone shares. Many people think, for example, that if they buy a CD, that they own it. I know that this is a revolutionary thought, but bear with me, there actually are people who think that. There are those that would answer, yes, you own the CD, but not the music! Since I can't separate the music from the CD, this is nonsense. What the author does have though, is the copyright, which is indeed a government granted monopoly. Not on all music, but on that particular album. Remove the government granted monopoly though, and there is no moral imperative to prevent me from taking the product I purchased and making another product from it. An mp3 file for instance. The public domain is definitely part of the free market.
Entertainment has been around a lot longer than copyright. If the entertainment industry as it exists today can't earn it's way without a government granted monopoly enabling it to overcharge for products with near zero reproduction and distribution costs, then it's not clear to me that they are providing a benefit to society worth protecting. Certainly not giving up the public domain for as is effectively the case now. Introduce 14 year copyright terms, then talk to me about preventing piracy.
I'll show you some of what could perhaps be called reasoning. Perhaps not, I don't really care.
I have, here in my house, a two month old daughter. If you were to come here and try to kill this "blob of undifferentiated human cells" as you call her, should I prove capable of doing so, I would certainly kill you first. Your sentinence or supposed value wouldn't make me have the slightest hesitation. The reason: I consider myself the protector of my children, it would be my duty to do so. How common is this reasoning? Common enough that the law where I live would back me up. I would quite likely be acting legally even if it were not my child.
You don't have to consider that to be reasonable. I don't consider unreasonable to be the highest insult. However, I do not defend the killing of fertilized human eggs in most circumstances, as I think that genetic heritage is a better measure of humanity than arbitrary judgements based on the abilities of the person in question.
I have good friends who are musicians, and they are seeing huge declines in their incomes from music sales, even though they seem to have larger fan bases and draw greater crowds at concerts.
So, you have friends who are unable to produce sufficient income in a free market from their chosen proffesion, and instead of suggesting that they change their business model or proffesion, you want me to help enforce and strengthen an unnatural government granted monopoly, preventing the utilisation of modern technology for the efficient reproduction of goods?
No.
Just require it in odt, then:
$ mkdir applicant_name_CV
$ unzip -d applicant_name_CV applicant_name_CV.odt
Write required script to search for terms.
I don't know much about his science being wrong, but his moral outlook certainly seems questionable:
"At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. 'Anthropological Review,' April 1867, p.236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla."
The Project Gutenberg Etext The Descent of Man by Charles Darwin
If he was to first propose his theory today, it would likely be rejected as people would distance themselves from such racist remarks. I note that this is not the real evidence that Darwin was wrong that you asked for, nor do I have an alternate scientific theory for the origin of species.
Or are you saying that a car cannot belong to someone because it also took a whole society to make, and therefore must be public domain?
The people who made my car don't still claim ownership of it. It's mine.
No, I said I own the work, and you copying it doesn't change the fact that it's my work.
You said if someone takes a copy they are stealing. For it to be stealing, that copy would have to be your property.
This argument is more ignorant than weightless. What I've already said, was that the book may be yours, but the story in the book isn't.
Rubbish. I can read it, think about it, tell it to my kids. If it's my book, and the only way to remove the story is by removing the book, it's my story. The only thing I don't have is the copyright.
The law says you own the copyright, that is, it's the right that is exclusively yours, not the idea, work, story or whatever. But you don't want to go by the law, or any existing philosophy of right and wrong. You have your own arbitrary standard that nearly nobody other than RIAA/MPAA and similar standover organisations share. The law in every country disagrees with you.
Well, guess what, you can have your arbitrary ideas, but if you ever have a real dispute with me on this, you'll have to do it by the law, not your ideas. No government deals with personal copyright infringement as theft. Everywhere I know it is a civil matter not a criminal matter. Your assertions to the contrary are meaningless.
So you think it's bad for business to send information by email at your request? You subscribed to it, they have every reason to believe that you want to recieve it. As another poster said, people like you make it harder to fight spam.
Perhaps you would find it even easier to filter the address using your own mail client rules rather than falsely reporting companies who haven't done you wrong.
Because buying something gives you rights to the work, as I keep repeating, the purchase is me giving you permission to take my work, for you to store on whatever medium you want.
It's plain english, I don't know how I can simplify it any more.
It's not that you require more simplicity. It's consistency that's lacking in your views. First you say you own all copies, now you say I can copy to any medium I want. What you seem to want is not consistent with the terms you use, specifically, theft. This post from yesterday may explain it to you. I don't know. Perhaps you'll never get it, you'd don't seem to want to.
but it's still my creation, that wouldn't exist unless I had created it.
Your work is also built on the work of thousands of other people and centuries of inovation that have made it possible for you to be a programmer. It also would not exist unless those others had made their contribution. That's a strong case for saying your work belongs in the public domain. However, as an incentive, you've been offered a temporary monopoly on the right to copy that work. You own that right, not the work itself. If you don't agree, just go consult with your IP lawyer, he/she will set you straight soon enough. Maybe if you were paying me a couple hundred dollars an hour you'd be quicker to understand.
If somebody travelled the world researching something, and you saw their papers and wrote down on your own paper what you read, that wouldn't make what you wrote down *your* research, to say it is is plagiarism.
You don't seem to have much of a grasp of the different (legitimate) ways the word "your" can be used. "Your pencil" would generally mean the pencil is your property. "Your parents" does not indicate that the parents are your property. If I purchase a book, I can quite legitimately say "That's my book". If I lend it to someone, when they give it back to me, they may say "Here's your book" even though we both know I didn't write the book. Catch that? Think that's plagarism? But get this, I own that book, not the author. The author owns the copyright. See the difference yet?
In any case, here are some points you still haven't answered. I'm really not interested in anything you have to say unless you answer these points:
"if copyright gave you ownership of resulting copies there would be no exclusion for parody etc."
Do you think the exemptions on copyright for parody are theft?
"Would you claim that the time limitation on copyrights and patents is unjust? That society is stealing from the IP holders when their rights expire? After all, my car, furniture, house, none of my physical possessions have a time limitation to my ownership, even though there may be various taxes such as land tax payable."
Do you think it's theft for copyrights to expire? Does the public domain consist almost exlusively of stolen material?
Face it, the effort you put in to create a program is tiny compared to the work to develop the language you wrote it in, to develop the computer you wrote it on, to develop the ideas and curriculum you were educated with, to develop the electrical delivery that powered your computer. You only have those ideas to implement because you were allowed to build on the ideas of others. It is appropriate that others will be allowed to build on your ideas, which is to say, they are not your exclusive property, even though it is appropriate for you to be rewarded for your efforts.
Format shifting, creating backups etc, you should be entitled to
Why? If you own all copies, and I buy one copy then format shift and backup, I now have three copies. Why do you not think that's stealing two copies if copying is theft?
We're talking about where one party is says "I take" without the other person saying "I give", which is theft.
Not really. If I create a copy of something, I don't need your permission to take it, you didn't make it so it's not yours. In the case of a copyrighted work, what I need is permission to copy. As I said before, this is the way the law works in any country I'm aware of. It seems to me, therefore, that the vast majority of people who have put serious thought into this issue see it my way. Which is really to say, I've seen the way the law works and I'm in basic agreement with it regarding copyrights. It wasn't, of course, originally my idea.
And the law treats theft and copyright breach very differently, not just different words, but very different processes and penalties. The fact that the MPAA in particular has successfully indoctrinated some people into thinking of copying as equivalent to stealing a handbag or car is more of a tribute to the effectiveness of advertising than a contribution to rational discourse.
Testimony of witnesses is widely regarded as evidence, but is not scientific. It has the rather obvious problem that people can lie, be mistaken etc.
Distribution share is a good way of putting it. If people are not buying debian though, they are not a part of the server market, even though debian has a large distribution share.
Frankly, a single server in some guy's basement, selling porn on Debian stable, is still a server. That is part of the server market.
No, that's part of installed user base of servers. Market is a word that is very much related to sales. If the guy didn't buy debian, he's not a part of the server software market, as it would be recognised by businesses. The nature of Free software, and a great benefit, is that it is not restricted to the marketplace.
What part of the marketplace does Debian have? None, really, not if you define marketplace as something you can track via sales.
Market:
1. an open place or a covered building where buyers and sellers convene for the sale of goods; a marketplace: a farmers' market.
Market is indeed defined by sales, not the installed user base. IBM would probably be only interested in sales.
Now you're just making stuff up. I never said I own my parents
Perhaps I can remind you what you said: "Is there a law granting me ownership of my parents? If not, are you saying that calling them "my parents" is incorrect? That they are not "my" parents? Is another child that they both had not "my" brother/sister? Is that because there is a law that grants me ownership of them?"
...the context being that you were saying ownership exists regardless of the law. So I'm not making stuff up, you just used an example that did not it any way strengthen your case.
But let me put it this way, if somebody takes a photo of my parents, they may then own the photo, but the people in the photograph are still -my- parents. The photographer can't say "this is a photo of my parents" just because that person took the picture.
Let me put it this way, if I buy a book, it's my book. I'm not the author, but I own that copy of the book. I think books, being a written work, are a much closer analogy for software than parents. Even in your example though you say "they may then own the photo". Would they be stealing your parents if they made another copy of the photo? They can quite legitimately say "This is my photo".
Anyway, "ownership" is relative, it's opinion.
So my opinion that you don't own copies of your software is ok then. Relatively.
if everyone in the world agrees that you own something, but there is no law stating it, it can still be said that you own it.
Your opinion does not meet this condition.
You argue that somebody doesn't own their creation
No, I argued that if they didn't create the copy they don't own it. I also stated that they are (and should be) given exclusive rights to copying for a limited time. Since this is the law pretty much all over the world, it would seem that far more people agree with my relative opinion than agree with your relative opinion.
Here's an example I hope will illustrate my point: Say you write a program and make it available for a charge, downloadable. I pay you the agreed amount and download it to my hard drive. However, before installing it, I now find that I have no need for the program. Can I delete it wothout your permission? Morally, according to you? I would think that if you own the actual copy, then for me to delete it would be vandalism or some similar wrong. I should not destroy your property without your express consent, even if you can easily replace it. However, if I own the copy, but you have the exclusive right to control copying, I can delete it without destroying anything of yours.
Is there a law granting me ownership of my parents? If not, are you saying that calling them "my parents" is incorrect? That they are not "my" parents?
And if I clone your parents, will my copies actually be your parents? Will you call them "Mom" and "Dad"?
Is there a law granting me ownership of my parents?
You don't own your parents. If you disagree, just try to sell them, see how far you get.
You have said nothing that demonstrates your ownership of copies of your work. Even though copies were difficult to make in earlier times, it was still possible and was not considered theft. The fact that you claim ownership of copies other people make of your work has no basis in reality. You produce the work, the other person produces the copy. Obviously it is much easier to make a copy than it is to produce an original work. There are sound reasons for society to grant you a monopoly on that work for a limited time, but it remains: you produce the original work, you own the original work, someone else produces a copy, they own the copy. Would you claim that the time limitation on copyrights and patents is unjust? That society is stealing from the IP holders when their rights expire? After all, my car, furniture, house, none of my physical possessions have a time limitation to my ownership, even though there may be various taxes such as land tax payable.
If you don't make the copy, you don't own the copy, that's all there is to it. Any additional rights you get are solely given to you by law, temporary and changeable. Any assertion by you that they are somehow immutable property rights is meaningless.
and
So which bit of this isn't true?
Well, since you said to forget about what rights the law give you, the bit that says that copies belong to you is wrong. Without copyright law, nothing gives you any claim to copies you didn't make. I am pretty sure there is international law about stealing, certainly about piracy (argh, me hearties! type piracy, just to be clear). Really, in the absence of law, there are morals and force of arms. Show me the moral code you follow that gives you a monopoly on your easily copyable program. I'll probably disagree with it, but I'll see your point. In western societies however, it is commonly accepted that your moral code is not binding on me.
As Thomas Jefferson apparently said:
People have always copied ideas. Mass production has become easier, but mass production was difficult for everyone, even originator's of ideas. How about we modify your example. You sell someone a copy. They install it on two computers without permission. Stealing? Nonsense. Copyright violation? Absolutely.
There are no civilised societies that do not value free speech if your definition of a civilised society includes that the society values free speech.
If your definition of a civilised society does not include that the society values free speech, then there are civilised societies that do not value free speech.
All clear now?
;)
If somebody takes, my program, without my permission, either on the medium I saved it on, or a medium they have saved it on, then they have taken something of mine, something with value, without my permission, and is therefore covered by the word "theft".
You made the original program. Your words were that the other person made the copy. The fact that it was easy for them to do this does not change the fact that you did not make the copy. What copyright gives you is the exclusive right to copy, subject to certain limitations, it does not give you ownership of the copies other people make. One very pointed example of this is the right to copy for the purpose of parody. Not very likely to pertain to software, I'll grant you, but if copyright gave you ownership of resulting copies there would be no exclusion for parody etc.
If someone copies your program, what they have taken from you is not the copy, it is the exclusiveness of the right to copy. This could probably be phrased better, but copyright protects your exclusive right to perform an action (copying said program/material). It does not protect your ownership of an object. If it did, it would be of no value to you, because the moment you sold me a copy (now my program) I could now copy it to my hearts content, and your detriment. So if someone copies your program, they have infringed your rights, not taken your property. Theft is simply an inaccurate description for what has happened. That's why if I came to your place and took the disk/tape you saved the software on, the law agrees I would have stolen it, but if I make a copy of it the law states I have infringed your copyright.
No, because it's only more recently that it's become so much easier to copy an idea than it is to actually implement it.
So if something is difficult it's ok to do, but if it becomes too easy, it's wrong? It is as a practical measure for the benefit of society only that we grant copyrights unless you accept that easy=wrong.
Are you saying that taking something that belongs to someone, without their permission, could not to be considered "theft" until there was legislature to say that it was?
No, I'm saying that there were already laws against theft. If copyright violation was theft, there would have been no need for a new law, the laws against theft would have been sufficient protection of your property. Since copyright violation is sufficiently different to theft to require a different set of laws, it is sufficiently different that is it appropriate to use a different term to describe it.
Understand what I'm saying: I'm not saying it's less serious or less wrong than theft, just that it's different. Comparable to the difference between fraud and theft. The definition of fraud does not contain the word theft. They are different, even though they have similarities.
That said though, it is only wrong because the law says it is. For thousands of years it was not considered theft to use someone elses ideas, songs, copy inventions etc. Is there any religion or philosophy that grants monopoly on inventions or ideas? On what basis do you claim ownership of these works that for most of human history have not been subject to individual property rights? Only the law gives you this right. Now, I believe in the rule of law, so I say go ahead, claim and enforce your rights under law, but if the law changed so you didn't have those rights, to what authority would you appeal? On what basis would you claim your goods had been stolen?
it's still my work, my creation.
Well, you were the one that said they made the copy. *shrugs*
It's a grossly misleading example. He didn't copy the material, he copied the *design*
A copy of a program is made up of new bits, arranged in the same order (design) as the original program. Really, the only significant difference is that furniture is not covered by copyright laws and software is. If copyright infringement was theft, there would have been no need for copyright law, as there have been laws against theft for millenia. Copying is different to stealing, therefore new laws were required.
As far as I can tell, every technologically advanced country has become so in an environment of strong IP protection. I am convinced that copyright protection is a huge net gain for society, not just for the copyright owner, and am not arguing against it at all. But to say that copying is theft is simply not true. The existence of copyright law proves it.