You don’t have to. The good that an immoral act may do doesn’t make the act moral. It may justify the act, but the act itself is still immoral. As way of example, when writ very large (and to pull a Godwin) I don’t consider the bombing of civilians in Germany in WWII to be a moral act, even when it may very well have been justified.
Not at all! Exploitation can take many forms, including wanting to make a gift of their property for free. One act of piracy was having shadowy people sell stories on Amazon that others had written and made available for free. There, the author had hoped to exploit the work to get a good feeling of having provided others a service for free. And that was taken from them without permission.
I think copyright terms are a compromise between the rights of the creator and the good of the state.
It’s still a compromise, after all, there is a limit. It’s just a bad compromise. The gov’t has weighed the rights of the copyright holders too high compared to the needs of society. But regardless, both the rights of the copyright holders and the needs of the state are recognized.
1) Stealing: If someone breaks into your house and takes your original artwork that is more then rude that is stealing, but that is the only way they can TAKE them from you.
2) Copyright Infringement: If someone snaps a picture of your art and sells prints, that is a legitimate form of copyright infringement and they should be fined to compensate you for your work. You should receive a fair portion of that profit.
3) Personal Fair Use: If someone snaps a photo of your art for their own personal enjoyment, that isn’t taking your art at all, that is something that I feel is ridiculous to criminalize (“personal piracy”). AKA copying for personal use. Same as taping a song off the radio or recording a show on the vhs or checking a book out from the library, or writing down a poem from a book you read, or singing happy birthday at your child’s birthday party. This is where the “law” is bullshit, and fair use needs to step up. This form of copying is actually good for society and good for creators. It creates and expands a fan base and increased demand for original works and increases a creators ability to make a living off of their creative work. It should be encouraged.
These are 3 very distinct things and conflating them really reduces the conversation. I hope no one steals your original works and TAKES them from you. I hope no one copies them without your permission with the intent of distributing and profiting off of your work. I hope you are okay with your work appearing in a library or museum and realize that an individual capturing an image of that work for their own enjoyment is actually a good thing as that person is now a fan of your work and increasing your ability to make a livelihood off of your work. The people who want to criminalize #3 are not looking out for artists best interests, they are the “fat cat” media barons who make a killing off of controlling distribution at the expense of creators and artists. They are the only ones that don’t benift from #3 and they invest a huge amount of money (that they get off of the backs of creators) to try and convince everyone that it is in everyone best interest to eliminate #3. It isn’t. Consumers and Creators both benefit from #3, and will benefit even more when the system changes to remove the actual problem the media barons, rather then our personal freedoms of fair personal use.
That’s my thoughts for whatever they are worth. Please feel free to copy them whenever or wherever.
Sure, ‘piracy’ is unethical - in an obsolete frame of reference. One that only continues with any force at all because of entrenched monopolies’ power to maintain the status quo. It’s a piece of piss to envision a minor re-jig of social infrastructure to accommodate free sharing as a right, with producers correspondingly remunerated from consolidated revenue. Bam.
Networked computing has barely even begun to change our society. IP law is a brake on culture, technology and the economy. I and others argue it’s unethical to stand in the way of progress.
Actually, not so clearly. My original comment was incomplete. In the myth mankind already knew how to make fire. The gods demanded sacrifices whenever mankind killed livestock. Prometheus helped humanity trick Zeus into accepting the inedible parts as the sacrifice, and Zeus took back the ability to make fire. Prometheus restored what already was, and was punished for it.
Hmmm…I think the author made a distinction towards the end where he described only the latter as, in his belief, justified. But I basically agree with you. At the same time, if an otherwise decent person is filching a fiver from my wallet while I sleep, I’d rather find a common ground so he feels he can ask me to share openly rather than steal from me. And yes, the scale makes a difference. If someone embezzles my family’s nest egg, I’ll show no mercy. But five bucks is a sandwich and, if there’s a chance it’s just a good person who’s been shamed by society into thinking charity is evil, I’d rather try to make a friend than have a BLT. If I’m wrong, I lose a lunch. If I’m right, I gain a meeting of the minds. Just my perspective, not necessarily the right response for everyone.
My personal problem with copyright law is the idea that it was suppose to be for a limited time and then copyright works would fall in to the public domain in order to create a common culture for all of us work from and build on. You can’t have a society without a common culture.
It is my personal opinion that 100+ years of copyright enforcement that is currently the law is breaking with agreement with the public. We have allowed corporate interests to highjack our culture and science and hide it behind pay walls for far longer than was ever thought of as reasonable when the US Congress agreed to copyright.
I personally think if you can’t make a profit from something in 15-20 years then your doing it wrong and it is time to turn it over to the public and let the public have the culture. I have very little problem with people who want to violate copyright on things over 15-20 years old.
Most of the mess of our copyright laws currently are because of Disney and the record and movie industries. Disney is more than happy to steal from the common culture and then claim it as their own slapping a copyright on it and shutting everyone one else out who won’t pay their toll or tries to copy them when they copied first.
Long term copyright rights is not good for the well being of a society long term.
Gee, look how quickly this got shared on social media by people saying, “See? There are times when piracy is justified, and therefore it’s okay for me to pirate games (even though I CAN afford those games and don’t have any of the excuses in this article)!”
Except the article was just soso…i was disappointed.
for people who actually are passionate about the issue the real reasons are way more compelling then “get a free game”. personal freedom, fair use, the commons, the greater good, encouraging innovation, the ability of creators to make a living, all these things are at stake in this discussion which will likely affect generations to come.
The people who use this article as a justification for pirating games, didn’t really need any justification to start with.
The people who actually care about this issue have much more compelling arguments as it is a heck of a lot more important then “free stuff” no matter how much certain industries try and paint it into that corner.
Personal fair use is a difference of degree, not a difference of kind. They’re conflated because the act is the same: using someone’s property without their permission. Whether it’s a big business who sells the creator’s song and takes all the money, or a 100,000 individuals who pirate the creator’s song, leaving him with no sales is immaterial to the creator - in both cases the creator loses the ability to earn anything off their labours.
Again, difference in degree. Difference in kind? No.
Okay, this angers me. It’s not enough to steal the work, now you’re doing the person you’re stealing from a favour! They should be grateful! Never mind the vast majority of artists see a precipitous income drop. Never mind that your not asking them if they agree to this. This reminds me of those awful stories where the victim of a beating is then forced to thank the attackers for the beating.
I don’t care if you pirate. But if you aren’t even honest enough to admit that you are taking something because you don’t want to pay for it, that makes you a hypocrite. It’s not the act - it’s the self-justification.
Why do I have a feeling that you would be screaming from the hills if it was your IP being taken by, say, a corporation?
If the morality of the act is dependent on who is performing the act, then we’re talking tribalism, not justice.
Capital ‘P’ People? Government control of all forms of artistic expression?
Not even the true-blue communists of my acquaintance have ever suggested that would be a good thing. Sorry, but I call your bluff. It’s time to reveal yourself as a right-wing trolley.
Part of the point, surely, is that many here feel differently about a corp stealing their IP than just a guy who wants to share a funny picture.
The corporation is doing business in the marketplace, and so it’s held to that standard. And they’ve probably got deeper pockets than x guy on the street anyway, so you’re likelier to want to hold them accountable.
Fine, fine. Just destroy my analogy on the basis of history :-(.
Now the interesting question. What do you do when 100,000 people steal a dime each?
A dime is not something to be upset about. Yet now your family is $10,000 poorer…
And yet, the vast majority who site extended copyright laws as justification for piracy aren’t pirating anything more than 20 years old. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone who only pirated things old enough to be out of “reasonable” copyright.
Now here’s where I disagree. When I was young, me and my peers pirated. No surprise. Most of us knew it was wrong, but we did it anyway because we wanted the free stuff more than we cared about stealing it in a way that was totally safe for us.
But when we grew older, those of us that actually felt that twinge - that knew we were stealing a few pennies - actually started buying those works as we could. Sure, some still pirated and bought, some stopped pirating altogether. But the interesting part was that those that had internalized the message that they were doing nothing wrong? Well, they viewed the rest of us as suckers. After all, why pay for something you can get for free? Sure, they wouldn’t pirate if it was wrong. But it isn’t. After all, lots of passionate people told us we were absolutely in the right to take what we could pirate. And after that, paying for something that you have no moral obligation to pay for was just stupid.
So that’s why I’m here. I’m doing my best to foster a little twinge that eventually leads grown-ups to pay for something when they could just as easily and safely steal. Won’t work on everyone, but everyone needs a hobby.
That is the LIE isn’t it? It isn’t the same thing at all and I clearly explain the differences above. We aren’t talking about physical property here are we, we are taking about intellectual rights to which there are two sides. I outline all three possibilities above, and they are not the same thing at all. The same action different degrees sounds like a nice soundbite if you don’t understand the issues at all.
Except every single study into the subject has shown the opposite effect. In every single studied case it has increased the profitability of the artist and increased overall sales. You also aren’t considering the rights people have to give up if we give away personal use, much more important rights then assured profitability, actual rights and freedoms. You also aren’t considering that NO creative person creates in a void, real progress and innovation, great art, it all “stands on the back of giants”. The creative/intellectual commons is crucial for that and every single thing removed from that is stealing from the greater whole for the benefit of the few. The really sad thing is we haven’t been convinced to give those things up to assure the profitability of the creators and inventors, we have done so to assure the profitability of the people actually profiting off of their labors, the companies that use and control the markets at the expense of the artists and creators and consumers. We aren’t dumb enough to fall for that forever which is why more and more people are educating themselves about these issues.
That’s only because you don’t understand it. That and you value the imagined loss of profit to the wrong people more then you value the actual lost of rights and freedoms of the masses, and the collective commons and collective good of all over the benefit of the few.
You really don’t understand the stance of people for copyright reform and against the current form of intellectual property do you? most of them pirate nothing. also if you think “pirates” are one unified group with singular action you are really really far away from understanding who pirates are and why they pirate. i’d take a break to inform yourself and study these issues. they are complex and they are important and they will affect society for generations to come.
You wouldn’t steal a car? Are you a real user? Or one of those commercials from the early 90s?
My god…i don’t know if i should laugh or cry. You don’t even get that copyright infringement isn’t and never has been stealing, one of the most basic facts of these issues. Not to mention the question of how you can steal money you never would have spent. Imagined loss is not worth sacrificing actual freedoms.
That is called driving trollies…sure it is a hobby, just not a good one. How about working for peoples rights instead of corporate profitability? That’s be a much more beneficial hobby.
wow…now i’m not eve sure i should be replying to you at all after that statement…yikes.
Personal Fair Use software piracy taught me everything I know about computers.
At age 13 when I first got the internet I thought AOL chatrooms were the entire internet. I didn’t visit a “website” until 6 months later. I only visited this particular site because someone told me that I could get games for free. At age 13 I obviously had no credit card, therefore I didn’t have the means to purchase anything online, especially back then when software was barely ever actually distributed online. Only pirated software had online distribution.
Learning how to download, unzip, install and crack games and other software taught me so many things: Registry Editing, how to get rid of multiple viruses and how to reinstall windows when you can’t get rid of the viruses. My passion for games and digital art and music were all kickstarted by the world of piracy.
While I still regularly pirate movie & tv shows to this day, I also have a dvd collection that covers most of the wall. I have hundreds of comic books, hundreds of paperback books, multiple computers, tons of game consoles and games and so many gadgets and bullshit that my basement looks like some sort of 90’s cyberpunk nightmare with motherboards and hard drives piled up willy-nilly. I justify my continued piracy of shows like The Walking Dead like this: I spend a LOT of money on entertainment, more than most of the people I know, my piracy is hurting no one. In the case of shows like The Walking Dead, I have cable, I have Netflix, but I missed seeing the newest season on TV. It is not yet out on Netflix. Why do I have to wait a few more arbitrary months before seeing content that I’m paying for with my Netflix and cable subscriptions? I’ll just stream it in hd quality from one of the multiple pirated streaming sources, it doesn’t affect anyone but me, since now I can’t have the show spoiled by literally everyone on the internet.
Virtually every student and beginning designer in the field steals software to be able to actually do their job. I’m sure it’s the same for any career involving expensive proprietary software, but graphic designers need the Adobe suite to function. Even at 50-60% off for students, the old Creative Suite was thousands of dollars; college kids can’t afford that on a ramen noodle budget. Among my friends and I, being able to legitimately purchase Adobe products was the sign of becoming successful.
