Data piracy != plagiarism.*
Nothing to see here, move along then.
* Because the Bad Stuffâą in plagiarism is not the copying (something that we in the academy do, and encourage), but rather is the false attribution.
Same experience for me in the UK. Except that I was fortunate enough to be within cycling distance of the library and the librarians upgraded my ticket to give me free reign of the adult section once Iâd read the kids section. Iâm likewise grateful for that facility and saddened by the way library systems are being underfunded and run down.
I used to spend tons of time in libraries and bookstores, as a patron/customer and working in them. I even had my own bookstall in the local flea market for awhile. Then my health took a sudden and precipitous downturn, I lost the ability to work, I had had no income and quickly burned through my savings, and it became very hard for me to leave the house. It also became difficult for me to hold and read paper books.
Our county library system had a subscription to OverDrive but at the time I investigated it, it required a better computer than I could afford, and we had a crappy Internet connection. Since it was hard for me to leave the house, and I stopped checking out books for a couple of years, the library cancelled my card. I was really hesitant for a long time to download copyright protected intellectual property and I used sites like Project Gutenberg to read public domain stuff. I also downloaded free books for the Kindle sotware on my PC through Amazon, but a lot of it seemed like low-grade fanfic.
I was really curious about all of the new books that I saw mentioned here and other places and finally gave in and started downloading books that werenât in the public domain, without paying for them. I havenât worked up any solid rationalizations for doing so, but back when I was able to read paper books I either got them from the library or bought them used - usually from thrift shops, so the authors and publishers werenât seeing any money from me even when I did have an income.
The Bad Stuffâą in copying is that you prevent someone from exploiting the fruits of his or her labours, whether it would be for fame, reputation, or most commonly of all, for money. All are the returns on the creatorâs labour. For piracy, the value is often not large, especially for the destitute, but it is not zero. It is theft, even if for only pennies.
What annoys me is hypocrisy. If people steal from the âotherâ in order to enrich themselves, thatâs all fine. An outsider (say a company) steals from poster in order to enrich themselves, and itâs a massive injustice. Itâs the morality of children, and I find it dismaying that the adults here embrace it.
Do I think the copiers should be thrown in jail? Of course not. My argument is not the magnitude of the crime, itâs the simple acknowledging that it is immoral, as the article suggests. I perfectly understand that itâs often worth the cost of committing an immoral act in order to enjoy something you donât own, but itâs simply sad to pretend that itâs not immoral in the first place. âIâm a good person, therefore anything that I do must, by definition, be good?â
(And Iâd hope that it was obvious my first sentence was for effect. It should be pretty obvious that submitting the same essay in real life would get the actual copier expelled.)
I can see the grey area of digital copying, as the company is not losing revenue from people who could never afford to pay for the software, but does the author still feel it is fine to steal property and cash from friends and strangers?
My parable is different in degree (and a large degree, Iâll admit). Itâs not different in kind.
But you understood the nub. In both cases, they prevent the creator from fully exploiting their work for your own personal gain, whatever that benefit might be.
No impact? Iâll completely admit that the losses from piracy are often ludicrously exaggerated. But I certainly remember my youth when oneâs precious dollars were spent only on hardware and stuff you couldnât pirate. Talking with students now, itâs pretty much the same thing. Can steal it safely? Then steal it. Canât steal it safely? Then itâs among the things that might be purchased.
Letâs not deceive ourselves. Piracy causes losses. (And yes, maybe in some places it can gain you sales. But thatâs for the author (or his or her representative) to decide.
When my friends and I were teenagers, we were learning Photoshop and Autocad. At the time, it cost less to buy a good used car than to buy that software. It still does. The âbest bargainâ on Autocad right now is renting it for $5k for three years. I cannot imagine 16 year olds teaching themselves ACAD on a retail version.
Well I would say the losses piracy does cause are at the decision level, not at any transaction level.And at that level itâs about changing minds, not punishing behavior.
[quote=âtlwest, post:25, topic:63860â]
The Bad Stuffâą in copying is that you prevent someone from exploiting the fruits of his or her labours, whether it would be for fame, reputation, or most commonly of all, for money.[/quote]
Nope: Not if you were not in the market in the first place, as the author of the article was not.
We do not disagree that piracy can hit people in the pocketbooks. We do disagree that this is always necessarily the case. The cost to the âIP holderâ is frequently zero because the pirate was not going to pay them rent in the first place.
Theft is when a property owner no longer has their property because someone stole it. There is a reason why âtheftâ and âinfringementâ occupy different parts of the civil and penal codes.
What annoys you is undoubtedly important to you. Your annoyance is also irrelevant here.
Morality is not absolute, and is deeply context dependent. Theft is considered moral enough that is is mythologized as in Prometheus, and as in Robin Hood. Honor killings of homosexual family members are considered moral in Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Iraq today; the morality or immorality of an act is a poor measure of its ethical merits.
Tangential, but I would think Prometheus was more a story of IP theft - after all, Zeus still knew how to make fire.
Indeed, a fine example of where the immorality of the act was balanced against the good it did mankind. However, it justified the immoral act. It did not make the act moral.
Iâd question frequently zero. Sure, there are some instances of absolute dire poverty. However, what Iâve noticed is people allocate their discretionary income towards a basket of things they would like that they cannot safely steal. They then spend their discretionary income on some of those items, have none left over and claim that they couldnât possibly buy the materials they pirate because they have no money for any such items.
The reality might well be that I want $500 worth of books/music/software, and I could only afford $50. If I donât pirate, Iâll pay the opportunity cost of $50 for the enjoyment of the creatorâs work. If I do pirate, Iâll get $500 worth of enjoyment for free. And if thatâs your choice, thatâs your choice. I have friends who pirate, despite being full-grown adults with reasonably decent jobs.
But letâs not pretend that itâs completely ethical, twisting ourselves into bizarre knots in order to justify our actions. Itâs as sad as a child hitting someone and then trying to find some reason the victim deserved it.
Sure. But the morality evidenced here is âif I identify with the victim, then itâs bad. If I donât know the victim, and I do it, then itâs justified.â
Arguing about morality of âstealingâ a fire is useless.
Actually bringing and sharing said fire is way more helpful.
While your example is a straw-man argument - (because attribution etc.), it seems you are getting at one critical point of the debate :
⊠because it is certainly not universally agreed that the perception of other people is a legitimate arena for market exploitation. In fact one could argue that measures taken to restrict the transmission of this-or-that information is an abrogation of the freedom of speech - (possibly an even more deeply held social value than a presumed right to exploit a contrived scarcity).
Information goods share some of the properties of material goods - they take effort to produce; but not others - they take essentially no effort to reproduce. Insisting on placing them in identical territory is disingenuous at best. I agree that the state should be able to grant monopolies in terms of commerce related to the trade of information goods - but prosecuting non-commercial copying only makes sense in a radical market fundamentalist world-view.
Criminal prosecution of non-commercial piracy seems near idiotic, if not self-defeating. I find most of the acts by copyright enforcement to be stupid, and the attempt to extend copyright of questionable morality itself.
However, that does not change my fundamental point. The act of piracy itself is immoral. In most circumstances not hugely so, but still so. My attack is not on piracy or pirates - itâs on those who would claim that piracy is completely ethical.
And I still do not consider my original argument a straw man. It was writ large (the loss made clear) to illustrate the point that the crime is stealing the creatorâs ability to exploit his work. The manner in which it is done and by whom is immaterial.
I think copyright terms are a compromise between the rights of the creator and the good of the state. Itâs not a lot different from taxes, which also take the the fruits of oneâs labour for the good of the state. But in both cases, thereâs something being confiscated, even with good reason.
[Somehow this was pegged as a reply to Shaddack, when it is, of course, a reply to audaxaonâŠ]
The real harm results from unreasonably limiting a public technology that lets people easily copy and share content.
That might have been the case once, before they were extended beyond all of our lifetimesâŠ
Iâd argue that the act of individual piracy is amoral - not necessarily good, not necessarily bad. - but that is because I donât adopt an outlook that places primacy on either economic or governmental priorities. The âlossâ is far from clear - the creators exploitable abilities are hypothetical and in the example rest on a seemingly flawed system of plagiarism-prevention. Calling an academic mark an exploitation is a bit of a stretch, wouldnât you say (maybe theyâre grading on a curve)?
Another analogy might be if one was hiking and happened upon some berries that were growing on private property adjoining the path. Would eating those berries be a deprivation of the rightful property owners hypothetical future profits? What if there was no other path available for the hiker? The lines between nature and citizenry and property arenât conveniently neat (or real).
Hmmm⊠economics asideâŠ
I write software for a living. Itâs my craft, my artwork in an odd way. My time, my imagination, my deep thought.
Taking what I have made without my permission⊠itâs just rudeness, if nothing else. You have no claim to it. It is mine to give, not not.
