Read this

As far as something is so straightforward I can't believe that people are still arguing it. Here is a link from the UK, just for you, Mayrel.

FACT of UK

This site clearly describes "theft of intellectual property". Argue with that.

James R. DiGiovanna (dba Crystal Paradigm)

Ye gods, we post dictionary definitions and copies of codified law and get a link to a industry group in rebuttal?

Even the BSA site [www.bsa.org] is less of propoganda than that.

Quote:
"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 everyone, 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 at 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." - Thomas Jefferson

Copy != Move.

Look, the argument of whether piracy is theft does not boil down to an Industry vs. Consumer argument. Even you agreed that piracy is a crime, Telastyn. Do a search on Yahoo! for Copyright theft and you will get matches from both sides of the argument, as well as legal counsel from both sides, and legal precedents from both sides. Whether you say tomato or tomahto, copyright infingement or copyright theft, it means the same thing. I.E. Copying software that you have no right to copy. The only people who are making a legal distinction between the two are software pirates trying to find justification for file-sharing.

James R. DiGiovanna (dba Crystal Paradigm)

Quote: Original post by kindfluffysteve
the fear in the current environment is the issue of piracy - which is rampant and easy and much practiced.

This I suppose comes from the old dysfunctional notion that it is easier to steal that to produce.

Quote: we all hate piracy. because it hurts any profits we might make.

As well as destroy the hard work of talented honest people.

I suggest something more ideal:
The internet and the massive piracy that is occuring ought to be embraced. It is so widely practiced, that you have to ask ourselves is it right to impose a law that bans a mass activity?

Abuse and neglect, the cruelest form of abuse, is also widely practiced, yet in many cases illegal. It should absolutely be banned, and in deed and in fact, piracy is already a crime for reasons I have cited and many, many more. Just because something is widely practiced is not a basis for determining whether it should be illegal or not, the test is loss, harm and damage.

Quote:
Such a model would decriminise a common activity, democratise entertainment from developer to user - without middlemen and would be cheaper for all. And would reward the developer fairly.

It might, but those who care little for democracy would find a way around it and the problem would arise under another name, but still loss, harm and damage would occur.

It's a crime, there's good reason why it is a crime, it should stay a crime, and any time you try to regulate or architect a free market system, you get room for abuse. Drawing a clear line between what is legal and honest and what is harmful and illegal is the only way it can work.

Democracy is based on tolerance, but the test is the reasonableness of the tolerance.

Quote: Original post by CrystalParadigm
copyright theft, it means the same thing. I.E. Copying software
James R. DiGiovanna (dba Crystal Paradigm)

It does not mean the same thing even though both are criminal activities.

Steal
Infringe
and here:
Infringe

Please follow the link I provided above, it explains things nicely. It is a legal page and it mentions copying from p2p networks as an example. I will not quote as it is better anyone reads from that page instead.

Here is the link again.

Please (to all of you), rather than going in circles, isn't it better to discuss ideas of what can be done to help minimize the loss of profit this criminal activity causes?

Quote: Original post by adventuredesign

Quote: Original post by kindfluffysteve
the fear in the current environment is the issue of piracy - which is rampant and easy and much practiced.

This I suppose comes from the old dysfunctional notion that it is easier to steal that to produce.

Since it is easier to steal than to produce, I don't see how that's a dysfunctional notion. I see we're supposing that piracy is theft again.

Quote:

Quote: we all hate piracy. because it hurts any profits we might make.

As well as destroy the hard work of talented honest people.

No, piracy does not destroy anyone's work. It is self evident that it creates more copies of the hard work of talented honest people.

Quote:

Quote:
I suggest something more ideal:
The internet and the massive piracy that is occuring ought to be embraced. It is so widely practiced, that you have to ask ourselves is it right to impose a law that bans a mass activity?

Abuse and neglect, the cruelest form of abuse, is also widely practiced, yet in many cases illegal. It should absolutely be banned, and in deed and in fact, piracy is already a crime for reasons I have cited and many, many more. Just because something is widely practiced is not a basis for determining whether it should be illegal or not, the test is loss, harm and damage.

But you are unwilling to perform the test. Unlawful copying causes harm. If copying games without directly paying the creator was legal, it obviously wouldn't be unlawful copying.

Quote:

Quote:
Such a model would decriminise a common activity, democratise entertainment from developer to user - without middlemen and would be cheaper for all. And would reward the developer fairly.

It might, but those who care little for democracy would find a way around it and the problem would arise under another name, but still loss, harm and damage would occur.

But I see you are unable or unwilling to provide an example of how. Even if you were, you are assuming that the loss, harm and damage of abusing this new system would be greater than the loss, harm and damage of abusing the current system. If that was not the case, where is the moral basis for preferring the current system?

Quote:
It's a crime, there's good reason why it is a crime, it should stay a crime, and any time you try to regulate or architect a free market system, you get room for abuse.

That last clause is unrelated to the rest of the sentence. Furthermore, copyright is a form of government regulation of a free market system. Copyright limits the ability of an agent to produce and distribute a product or service. In a truly free market, there would be no copyright. Therefore, by your logic, copyright is a potential cause of abuse and should be illegal.

Quote:
Democracy is based on tolerance, but the test is the reasonableness of the tolerance.

Democracy is based upon the principle that the majority is always right. It is rule by the people. Although that principle may be wrong, it is what democracy is founded upon.

> Furthermore, copyright is a form of government
> regulation of a free market system.

It is based on the general notion of 'property' or 'ownership', be it intellectual (as in patents and copyrights) or physical like land parcels. Governments are involved because it is far more difficult to protect intellectual property than physical property.

> No, piracy does not destroy anyone's work.
> ...
> In a truly free market, there would be no copyright.

The Innus have long practiced what you call a 'free market'. They don't consider 'ownership' as part of their culture and so there is no such things as fences or even locks on doors. Everyone uses everyone else's facilities and things. Even to the extent they don't 'have' children. My cousin is innu and she was given as a gift to my uncle for taking care of a village up north; refusing that gift would have caused a huge diplomatic incident (and the adoption red-tape was a mess as you might imagine).

If we were living in such a 'free market' as you say, I would be able to squat in your house, put my dirty clothes in your washing mashine, use your pool, and stuff your fridge with my beer. I'm not destroying anything, merely using things that do not have any rightful owner.

Quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
> Furthermore, copyright is a form of government
> regulation of a free market system.

It is based on the general notion of 'property' or 'ownership', be it intellectual (as in patents and copyrights) or physical like land parcels. Governments are involved because it is far more difficult to protect intellectual property than physical property.

The notion of property is not an inherent feature of the universe.

It may be argued that physical property is a necessary feature of a market economy, and I would agree.

But I do not accept that 'intellectual property' is necessary. Some forms of 'intellectual property' are beneficial. Trademarks, for example, obviously help protect the consumer from misleading advertising or product design.

On the other hand, copyright has no inherent benefit to the consumer. It serves to secure a source of revenue for the creator and distributor. It is obviously important for the creator to be compensated for his work, but copyright is not the only way to do that.

It is also undeniably the case that copyright does not cause creators to be compensated for their work. Instead, creators are compensated only in proportion to how well their work sells.

Quote:
> No, piracy does not destroy anyone's work.
> ...
> In a truly free market, there would be no copyright.

The Innus have long practiced what you call a 'free market'. They don't consider 'ownership' as part of their culture and so there is no such things as fences or even locks on doors. Everyone uses everyone else's facilities and things.

Well, no. That isn't what I called a 'free market'. Unless the law has changed radically since I last checked, copyright does not prevent others from using your house or personal property, and I only said that a 'free market' would have no copyright.

Quote:
If we were living in such a 'free market' as you say, I would be able to squat in your house, put my dirty clothes in your washing mashine, use your pool, and stuff your fridge with my beer. I'm not destroying anything, merely using things that do not have any rightful owner.

You fail to mention that I could stay in your house, put my dirty clothes in your washing machine, use your pool, and stuff your fridge with my beer.

Furthermore, I don't have a pool.

And, of course, I can drink the beer you stuffed my fridge with. Cheers! [wink]

Quote: Since it is easier to steal than to produce, I don't see how that's a dysfunctional notion. I see we're supposing that piracy is theft again.

Your actually telling me here that you see stealing as functional? In public? Think about that. Additionally, you need to be in touch with the fact of reality it is not a notion. It is a crime, a crime for which there are laws against it for hundreds of years. Plenty of precedent from people wiser than you or I showing how it is in fact a crime, a harmful crime. Piracy is among other things, the taking of something that is NOT YOURS. It's not a supposition, it is a fact. You need to reframe your paradigm on this due to overwhelming proof across hundreds of years of debate, discussion and contemplation of fact. Without acknowledging or understanding this basic truth, the rest of your suggestion simply don't have credibility.

Quote:
No, piracy does not destroy anyone's work. It is self evident that it creates more copies of the hard work of talented honest people.

The fact you would suggest it does not destroy anything, such as a person's ability to make income from their hard work, for one, a company's ability to protect it's trade secrets, for two, is rediculous to propose. It does indeed create more copies of the hard work of talented people, but not copies they are entitled to profit from because they do not own it. Plain and simple. Doom 3 was negatively effected by this, Half Life 2 was effected by piracy, nations and individuals for a very long time have been nothing but negatively effected by piracy. It is an old, old crime for which people have hung, have done time in jail, have lost their jobs and professional standing and reputations by engaging in. Overwhelmingly, without dispute except by those who simply can't see, accept or understand the reality, it is crime. There is no filtering or rationalizing around these facts, so stop trying.


AD-"Abuse and neglect, the cruelest form of abuse, is also widely practiced, yet in many cases illegal. It should absolutely be banned, and in deed and in fact, piracy is already a crime for reasons I have cited and many, many more. Just because something is widely practiced is not a basis for determining whether it should be illegal or not, the test is loss, harm and damage."

Quote:
But you are unwilling to perform the test. Unlawful copying causes harm. If copying games without directly paying the creator was legal, it obviously wouldn't be unlawful copying.

I am not obligated to perform the test because the test has been performed in every sense possible by rule of law and reason for centuries, I am simply repeating known fact. You forget one simple thing here, the person copying the game is conducting so in an act of piracy, does not possess the right to copy it, prior to any institution you would architect, unless they obtain the legal permission to do so.

You say, "If copying games without directly paying the creator was legal, it obviously wouldn't be unlawful copying." But that doesn't exist yet, so you are simply creating the circumstance that it does without it being a reality before it does exist. If it doesn't exist yet, then you can't do it. Until it does, it is a crime.

If you really want to surrealize an economic system that would promote a piracy based copy schema, you would find yourself either in an uphill legislative battle nobody would take you seriously for, or, simply be laughed out of every office you walked into. Your choice. Personally, I think you should try to talk to your local legislators about the idea, and see what kind of reaction you get. Most of them will laugh at you and never take you seriously again, I suspect.

Or, call a software rights attorney or copyright attorney in the phone book, and run your idea past him. Take notes, close notes, of the reactions you obtain, and consider them well and objectively. They will absolutely clue you in about how rediculous your idea is, and, if you promote these ideas in the town where you live, you'd be basically branded an idiot, and probably have to move away in shame. You only get one reputation. Based on the type of reaction you have encountered here, amongst the community members on a very broad basis of a preponderance of members responding, so objectivity is ensured, tell me, what kind reaction do you think you will obtain elsewhere? Please, go ahead and give it a try. We would love to hear you come back and tell us just what you discovered.

Quote:
But I see you are unable or unwilling to provide an example of how.

That is because I am not in the habit of trying to draw example of how one breaks the law, out of ethical and moral choice. To actively engage in contemplating systems that would break existing law before the existing law could be changes would simple be idiocy I choose not to engage in. I'm not the kind of person who sits around all day thinking, 'hmm, if piracy were made legal, how could I still manifest illegality to thwart the legal system anyway?' What possible reason then, would I have for producing such a preposterous example? I'm not an idiot, my legal rights and responsibilities indicated to the contrary, so tell me, why should I, in as reasonable and rational terms as you can describe?

Quote:
Even if you were, you are assuming that the loss, harm and damage of abusing this new system would be greater than the loss, harm and damage of abusing the current system. If that was not the case, where is the moral basis for preferring the current system?

I did not assume that, you are projecting that. A tidy, but baseless and false assumption rationalized for your (whatever, like convenience) purposes. I never stated that the harm in the new system would be greater than the harm from the existing system, I simply said that another way around the process would be found. Please quote in your reply precisely where I said what you say I said, as everyone here is reading exactly what both you and I write, and can verify your representations.

There is no moral basis for preferring the current system. Crime by definition is amoral, unreasonable and illegal, I can have no preference for anything but the opposite of that. That is why penalties exist for it.

Quote: AD - "It's a crime, there's good reason why it is a crime, it should stay a crime, and any time you try to regulate or architect a free market system, you get room for abuse."

That last clause is unrelated to the rest of the sentence.

Maybe unrelated in your mind, but those of us who are reasonable, objective and truth minded, restating the existing fact is nothing but tying in my suggestion to the basis point, which is, once again so you have no interpretational issues of convenience here: Piracy is a crime, there's good reason and precedent why it is crime, it should stay a crime.

Nothing good ever came out of trying to regulate crime except the reduction of harm, loss and danger to innocent, law abiding, hard working citizens, those regulatory bodies are the criminal courts system, the police and public safety system, and the penal system.

It is they (the individual citizens and private entities engaged in lawful business and rights of liberty) whom the constitution, statute and regulations are designed to protect, not the person who abuses those inaleinable, inherent and legal rights in others.

You essentially want to make a revenue source methodology (a legal one) out of a illegal activity, when the fact is, illegal activity should never, ever, EVER, be given a chance to thrive. You cannot reform some things, especially corruption and criminal behaviors of particular kinds. That is why for better or worse, things like life sentences, and the death penalty exist.

Quote:
Furthermore, copyright is a form of government regulation of a free market system.

This is not the fact, allow me to correct you. Copyright is a government service (not a regulation, that would make it mandatory for everyone who created something to register it with the Registrar of Copyrights at the Library of Congress) made available for private individuals and public entities to register the original authorship and creation of works so that at a later time, they may cite the registration as an objective and dispassionate record (usually the only valid, admissible evidence legal venues can consider inclusive in tort argument) as proof of their exclusive ownership, practically the only regulations involved are the standards which describe what a work of original copyrightable work can be, and, the administrative precess involved for obtaining the declaration of copyright ownership and the government certification thereof.

Very rarely do goverments get involved in copyright abuse beyond this, unless the abuse is harmful to the citizenry, which the government is legally obligated to protect, as in John Ashcroft's recent crackdown on the internet. Otherwise, and in almost exclusive circumstances, when your copyright rights are violated, you have to go to civil procedure court to protect your rights you own. It is clear you know not as much as you think about democracy, law and copyright. Everyone (and hopefully including you now) sees, recognizes and understands that now.

Quote:
Copyright limits the ability of an agent to produce and distribute a product or service. In a truly free market, there would be no copyright.

In free markets, private individuals and entities exercise lawful business practice. You can have as wide an interpretation of a free market as you wish, but you cannot simply abandon a private person's or entities rights because it suits your rationale. The two are tied together in the free market, you are attempting to ignore half the reality.

Quote:
Therefore, by your logic, copyright is a potential cause of abuse and should be illegal.

Copyright is not the cause, the abuse of copyright is the cause of the illegality. The copyright protection schema is the protective aspect of rights, not the cause of abuse. Using your rationale (which is neither logical or reasonable), I could conjecture that because I own the land my house sits on, my ownership is the cause of land theft. The cause of the land theft occuring is not because I own the land, but because somebody who does not own the land I own feels it should be theirs without paying for it, or even obtaining my permission to sell the land.

Quote:
Democracy is based upon the principle that the majority is always right.

Democracy is not based on the principle that the majority is always right, it is majority rule except in the instance of minority rights violations. This is why civil rights, crimimal statute and corporate regulation exists, because majority rule is a primitive and harmful method of collective governing, tyrants and hegemons love majority rule, it's the equivalent of I got the most guns, therefore I rule. How fair is that, really? This is what you are advocating.

Democracy is based on the individual(s) (often in the minority) right to have certain basic and inalienable rights under law. If your reasoning was true, then things like the civil rights movement, designed and written into law to protect minorities, would be wrong, when we know that is not the case. That would be idiocy, and resplendent idiocy at that.

Quote:
It is rule by the people. Although that principle may be wrong, it is what democracy is founded upon.

The principle is not wrong, but your definition of who constitutes the people would not be right. It is about individual rights, not majority rights when the condition of rights violation without remedy by due process of law is present. You cannot separate them unless you are either a, in denial, or b, narrow minded, exclusionary (which is one of the legal tests of prejudice) of uninformed or underinformed. Which in the latter two cases, you would not speak without being fully informed first. Or would you?

If the majority had it's way all the time, then minorities would suffer harm, loss and damage. That by definition is illegal, thus, your suggestion is baseless in reason. Remember that logic can fail when reason (it's parent) is introduced.

You really ought to give this one a rest, and rethink your approach, study some piracy statues, some specific tort case transcripts, bring us a stipulated, verifiable case of facts based on legal precedent, and then try your idea out again. Start locally, where you live and work and go to school, so that you can get a feel for what kind of resistance or acceptance you will encounter attempting your bold and visionary legislative goals. You have tried them out here, and almost to a member, they do not share your views or reasoning, so persistence here is mostly futile for you from this point forward.

Thus, in the interest of fairness to you, I encourage you (in fact, most of us I suggest do encourage you) to try this out where you live locally, and bring us a review of your results, so that we may objectively reevaluate your findings on the basis of new fact.

[Edited by - adventuredesign on August 28, 2004 4:24:40 PM]