I could maybe agree about business and science, but engineering? Engineering is means to an end, not a goal in itself.
Simple. The government has chosen (rightfully in my opinion) to lessen IP rights for the social benefit that it brings. There was a trade-off between the loss of income and the benefits of the citizenry to access to the books. Note that there were built-in limitations that prevented the losses from being too steep. Inconvenience, the limitation of the number of physical copies the library could house, and the physical duration of the book.
Likewise, lending a book or physical object to a friend has built-in limitations that provide a trade-off that naturally balanced needs and rights.
In both cases, there are losses to the rights-holder (although in Canada at least, writers are compensated to some degree on the basis of library holdings) but they are limited by the nature of the transaction.
And then the digital era blew that compromise all up, not because of anyone being evil, but because the nature of the medium made all the old natural compromises impossible.
To protect the rights that the industry had, industry tried to restrict the rights that we previously enjoyed. Likewise, if our rights were fully protected, then Napster proved that people simply stopped paying when they could get it for free. There is no middle ground anymore, more’s the pity.
Oh please. If creators cannot sell or license their rights because the new owners or lessees are afforded lesser rights, then that’s exactly the same as taking them from the original creator. The tone reeks of “Sorry, you make your living from this, but you don’t really understand what’s good for you, so we’re taking away those rights. By the way, I don’t hear you thanking us.”
Abuses in the industry do not justify removal of IP rights.
What’s even more ludicrous is that some forms of media are so expensive that they can only be created by huge media conglomerates. But since they’re not individuals (and presumably can’t innovate??!?), they shouldn’t be protected?
Theft in a moral sense is taking that which doesn’t belong to you. It takes lots of forms. Theft of credit, theft of design (as took place in the OP), theft of property, etc. Try and steal a 5 year-olds IP and even they understand moral conduct enough to call it “stealing”.
Look, I’m fully in agreement that IP protection is a trade-off between allowing the rights-holders to benefit from their work and allowing innovation to flourish.
But the idea that essentially unlimited copying of a movie, song or book to a target market within a few years of its release enhances innovation enough to justify the massive lost in revenue to the rights-holders is just garbage. You know it. I know it.
This whole justification that is used 99.9% of the time is moral cover for “I don’t want to feel bad when I steal, so it’s not stealing”.
At least the students I talk to are more honest about it. “Paying for something you don’t have to is just stupid.”
I have a question for you.
I don’t normally download video.
I watch HBO’s Game of Thrones, but do not have a traditional Cable TV subscription, so I have no access to HBO. In my country, there is no online-only version of HBO.
Every year, though, I buy the Blu-ray copy. I own hard copies of Seasons 1-5.
Season 6 aired this past spring, but it will not be out on a hard-copy until January.
What would you say would be my moral position if I downloaded Season 6 today, so that I could watch it now, and then bought the Blu-ray copy in January?
I’m not depriving HBO of any money, because I’m still buying the Blu-ray. In three months, It’ll be perfectly legal to spend however much time I want watching it. However, downloading and watching it now is illegal. The only difference, in the long run, is how long I have to wait before watching.
Is it still “theft” even though, from my perspective, it’s not available for sale, and I will be purchasing it as soon as it is?
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Our baby was colicky, and we live in a shitty little apartment with noises all around. We initially started with just playing shitty white noise apps, but then got smart and ripped an mp3 of an 11 hours white noise youtube video, put it on an ipod and blast it through our dock speakers. There are definitely plenty of “starship ambient sound” youtube vids too. You wouldn’t have all the visuals, but throw in an LED star turtle (baby loves that too) or somesuch, and you’re basically there.
Already happening!!! And I think that’s great. The awareness on Kickstarter will help to introduce more products that can be shipped reliably and cost efficiently.
Friend of mine used to play FPS games with his girl’s crib next to his PC. She had a real easy time sleeping, and whenever she was in a quiet room she seemed to fuss a lot. There’s definitely something to keeping some level of noise going on around a baby.
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Are you in the UK? Because I think they are released here in November… the 15th.
Huh. You’re right. I’m sure that in at least one previous year, it wasn’t released until January.
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I think every season but this was one was released the following year. I think they moved this one up, since season 7 filming was delayed to wait for snow.
I for one am quite glad it’s coming so soon, as it will cheer me right up after the election. This will be the first season that laps the books, so I’ve been wondering about all sorts of things regarding the direction things are going to go in.
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I would say yes, but let me elaborate.
Obviously, it’s theft of of a pretty much nominal amount - you are reducing the the worth of the live rights that HBO may wish to sell in the future. But it is theft.
Now, let me make it clear. I am a moral pygmy. I make dozens of ethical violations each day. Sometimes I speed a little (making it slightly more likely that I will get into an accident and increasing the speed of traffic so that everyone is a little more at risk). I don’t try and conserve resources that could be conserved. If my children insist, I will read a scanlated manga, a clear ethical violation.
But there’s somehow this mistaken impression that if we’re not ethically pure, we’re utter evil. And I consider this attitude terrible. It means we go through logical contortions to justify what we do because if we’re doing it, it can’t be wrong.
Instead, I think a much healthier attitude is to acknowledge those dozen little crimes that each of us commit each day and be every so slightly bothered by them. I want that slight guilt that I’m ripping off that manga author whose name I don’t know, whose manga I didn’t really care for, and who I am never going to compensate, even if his “loss” might be fractions of a cent if it could be measured at all.
Because that same guilt will make me less likely to to pirate something I can buy or to pay for that shareware I use, or join a Patreon for someone I actually like.
We’re in a society where technology is always going to outstrip attempts to put the genie back in the bottle. In the end, the only hope is that there’s some fraction of us that feel just bad enough that we decide to respect IP when we could just as easily steal it.
Sadly, that seems mostly found in us over 40’s. Of course, it’s a lot easier to be moral about IP when the relative cost is not so high…
I suspect books and music are going to become mostly hobbyist games, which for me will be a pity, since most of the entertainment I enjoy is produced by adults who have real responsibilities, and thus have to stop doing what they love if they can no longer support themselves and their families on their earnings.
TLDR; Yes, it’s theft, but it’s exceedingly small potatoes. Be slightly more moral somewhere else to make up for it.
Eh, it’s nature, not nuture.
Baby one would sleep through anything. I almost, but resisted giving the “get them used to some noise” advice.
Baby two woke at a pin drop (although he was a much better sleeper over all) and I destroyed a lot of precious naps before I gave in (I’m a slow learner). Made me realize a few months in that I wasn’t an absolute expert on children - I was only an expert on baby one (who was already changing to become toddler one, just to spite my putative knowledge).
It did, however, kill my “no, this is what babies are really like” tendencies.
(Except for advising my brother - “No, you really do need to put a diaper below and above the baby while you’re changing them.”)
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