james_gnz wrote:

igorfrankensteen wrote:Seriously?

This reads to me like it's another leading question, designed to support an unspecified agenda. Please say why you ask.

Okay, sure. My view is that copyright is not a moral right.


It seems to me that discussions about whether or not copyright is a moral right often end up kind of circular. e.g. Those who think copyright is a moral right may argue that it's a moral right because copyright holders are harmed by copying, and that copyright holders are harmed by copying because it violates their moral rights, whereas those who don't think it's a moral right may argue that it's not a moral right because copyright holders aren't harmed by copying, and that copyright holders aren't harmed by copying because it doesn't violate their moral rights. (Or something like this.)

I'm not sure the argument can be progressed by trying to work back to "first principles", and hoping to reach agreement on those, because I'm not sure we can easily identify which are the "first principles", or that we'd necessarily agree on them if we could. I think, perhaps, for either side to make a convincing argument, they'd need to show an inconsistency in the other side's position. In particular, I think perhaps one side would need to find a statement that both sides can agree on, but that contradicts with the other side's position, and not theirs.

Bollocks. or at least, so far as I have ever seen, heard, or read, "moral rights" has never had anything to do with why we have copyright laws.

I wondered if this thought experiment showed a contradiction in the position that copyright is a moral right.

Nope, because copyright isn't based on morality.

igorfrankensteen wrote:The answer to the version of the question that I think is actually behind this one, is absolutely yes.

But what's your answer to this question, and is there a contradiction between the two?

My answer to this imaginary situation is the same.

igorfrankensteen wrote:Stealing from someone hurts them, and by extension, hurts anyone who depends on a world without legalized theft. The fact that the thievery isn't instantly discovered and prosecuted, or that the harm caused, takes a long time to be evident, is beside the point.

I'd agree with that, but I don't think copying is stealing, and I think this is an argument that might end up kind of circular.

Okay, you can pretend that copying isn't stealing, but it is, and if you do it and get caught, you'll be in deep do-do, no matter what you think. And you'll deserve your punishment, because you willfully stole.

I'm With Stupid wrote:If said films were available on Mars to purchase legally, then yes, the would arguably be harming the producers of them. Basically, I don't think anyone is harmed if a North Korean gets a pirated copy of the new Star Wars film or a Saudi Arabian man accesses some gay porn because they were never going to sell them in those territories anyway.

By this reasoning, stealing is okay as long as the thief couldn't have bought what they stole.

Perhaps a more accurate analogy: it's okay for a foreigner to come here and steal your car and ship it to his home country, because you were never going to sell it to him.

Perhaps a more accurate analogy: it's okay for a foreigner to come here and make a complete replica of your car and ship the replica to his home country while your car is still in your garage, because you were never going to sell it to him.

pcCoder wrote:Perhaps a more accurate analogy: it's okay for a foreigner to come here and make a complete replica of your car and ship the replica to his home country while your car is still in your garage, because you were never going to sell it to him.

That would still be stealing from the designers and manufacturers and sellers of your car. The owner of the car might not suffer, but then the person who BUYS a copy of a film (on Blu Ray or whatever) doesn't suffer if someone else steals a copy of the same film. But the OWNER of the film suffers a loss.

To suffer a loss you must first have. You can't lose what you don't have. He isn't suffering a loss, he is simply not gaining extra to add to what he does have. While I agree with people getting paid for work, the concept of owning the intangible has always been an absurd one in my view, and the concept of IP simple one of the ways to get paid repetitively for an effort of work performed once.

Since I use open source operating systems and applications, with the few closed items being maybe a video driver, and rarely watch TV so have no interest in owning or downloading movies, the debate of the issue doesn't really affect me directly. (Well at least not until they decide to have PCs locked down the same way they have tablets locked and declare that "rooting" my own PC is a violation of some law, and someone decides to agree with them with the claim that they are the IP owner of said PC and therefore have rights to lock the PC down so I don't really control it, and that by rooting or tampering with it they are suffering harm.). But I still have the opinion that it (IP laws) inhibits more than encourages growth and innovation, contrary to the original intent.

james_gnz wrote:

I'm With Stupid wrote:If said films were available on Mars to purchase legally, then yes, the would arguably be harming the producers of them. Basically, I don't think anyone is harmed if a North Korean gets a pirated copy of the new Star Wars film or a Saudi Arabian man accesses some gay porn because they were never going to sell them in those territories anyway.

Okay, so the moral right depends on availability? I guess for me this raises the issue of what is (sufficient?) availability. I'm wondering whether financial position has a role in this. e.g. If someone in one country has $350 a week to live on, and someone in another country has $14 a week to live on, would a copy be sufficiently available to both people if it's available at $100? Do you have a clear idea of sufficient availability in mind?

Well let's be clear, the OP doesn't ask whether it would be moral for them to copy our movies, it asks whether we would be harmed by it.

As for people who couldn't otherwise afford it copying something for free, that's a bit more complicated. On the one hand, it's perfectly reasonable to argue that these people would never have paid full price for it because there's no way they could have afforded it, therefore record companies can't claim (like they often do) that these things are a lost sale. But equally, in the long term, it's also reasonable to argue that the expectations of people to be able to access certain content for free degrades its value. So that when these people do get enough money to buy these products, they might not. In Vietnam, for example, there are very few people who pay money for music, and even when they become very wealthy, they are so used to music being free that they won't pay for it. But the cinema and live music are still pretty popular.

So then you have the question of whether these companies intend to expand into Mars in the future, in which case they'd argue that the expectation of movies being free that they're currently building up is harming their business.

Fortunately, for inhabitants of EGS8p7, Earth's copyright issues are of very little or no significance whatsoever.

james_gnz wrote:Okay, sure. My view is that copyright is not a moral right.
...

igorfrankensteen wrote:Bollocks. or at least, so far as I have ever seen, heard, or read, "moral rights" has never had anything to do with why we have copyright laws.

I guess there's the potential for confusion here, because "moral rights" has a specific meaning in relation to copyright. What I meant by a "moral right", more or less, is a right not dependent on law or custom/tradition. i.e. Not a right that you have only because the law, or custom, says you have it, but a right that you would have if, for instance, you found yourself stranded on an otherwise deserted island, not under any nation's jurisdiction, with a bunch of people with widely differing customs. This is part of the reason I chose to use another planet in the thought experiment--because this way we can't make any assumption about their customs. Your comments below suggests to me that you do view copyright as what I would term a "moral right".

igorfrankensteen wrote:My answer to this imaginary situation is the same.

igorfrankensteen wrote:...
Perhaps a more accurate analogy: it's okay for a foreigner to come here and steal your car and ship it to his home country, because you were never going to sell it to him.

Okay, so do you see any moral difference between the situation where Martians steal $100bn worth of cars, and the situation where Martians copy $100bn worth of movies? In particular, would we be justified in using force to invade/recover debt or similar in one situation but not the other?

What if the Martians have watched War of the Worlds and know to build up a resistance to things like flu before they come for us? How do you feel about them watching Independence Day? Not so harmless now, eh?

It's like any other crime. You start off making excuses for or legitimising criminal behaviour in something like film piracy and next thing you're giving up the planet's defence strategies.

Martian 1: "I see these Third Planet people have sent us a toy to play with."

Martian 2: "Yeah. Let's place a few 'artefacts' in its way and get them all confused..."

I'm With Stupid wrote:Well let's be clear, the OP doesn't ask whether it would be moral for them to copy our movies, it asks whether we would be harmed by it.

Okay, looking back at the discussion I think you're right here to an extent. I did slip from "harm" to "moral right", but I don't think this is as much of a mistake as slipping from "harm" to "moral" (at least in my view). i.e. It might be immoral not to give people what they deserve, but generally people can only claim violation of a moral right (and therefore compensation) if there's a possibility of harm (I think). Does this make sense?

I'm With Stupid wrote:As for people who couldn't otherwise afford it copying something for free, that's a bit more complicated. On the one hand, it's perfectly reasonable to argue that these people would never have paid full price for it because there's no way they could have afforded it, therefore record companies can't claim (like they often do) that these things are a lost sale. But equally, in the long term, it's also reasonable to argue that the expectations of people to be able to access certain content for free degrades its value. So that when these people do get enough money to buy these products, they might not. In Vietnam, for example, there are very few people who pay money for music, and even when they become very wealthy, they are so used to music being free that they won't pay for it. But the cinema and live music are still pretty popular.

So then you have the question of whether these companies intend to expand into Mars in the future, in which case they'd argue that the expectation of movies being free that they're currently building up is harming their business.

That's interesting. I guess it's kind of a slippery-slope argument. You're arguing that some copying is harmful, and it's difficult to draw the line between what's harmful and what's not, so perhaps all copying should be considered harmful? Do you see it kind of like if the neighbour's kids are playing on your lawn, and they're not really doing any harm, except that you're concerned it could be a problem if they don't recognise (physical) property rights? Does it change your mind on the poll question? (I think I ticked that you can change your vote.)

It's interesting that there is an aspect of copyright called "moral right". It has been described as "the right of the author to have their work attributed to them in the form that they created it."

I think there is a strong moral and practical case for this. If someone takes your work and passes it off as his own, or changes the work in ways you don't approve of but still attributes it to you then you may be harmed in a very direct way. There also seem to be no economic reasons to allow people to do this, it's misrepresentation or even fraud.

The notion of ownership of information doesn't really make sense to me except in the above sense. The originator has a right to say that something is his or her work. But that doesn't imply a right to decide who gets to see or use it once the work is out there and able to be copied.

I don't think the ownership metaphor works when we are talking about the rest of copyright law. Copying certainly isn't theft as it doesn't directly deprive the "owner" of anything.

That's not to say we should get rid of all copyright laws. But we need to keep in mind that they are pragmatic laws designed to encourage creativity and innovation. We should judge them by how well they do this and be careful that they don't unreasonably infringe individual liberties. Unfortunately the fashion for thinking of information as property has led to an absolutist attitude and a lot of bad legislation.

Chrisw wrote:I don't think the ownership metaphor works when we are talking about the rest of copyright law. Copying certainly isn't theft as it doesn't directly deprive the "owner" of anything.

It's only certain if one assumes that theft requires deprivation of the owner of property. In terms of word use and concept this has never been the case historically and still isn't today.

Chrisw wrote:That's not to say we should get rid of all copyright laws. But we need to keep in mind that they are pragmatic laws designed to encourage creativity and innovation. We should judge them by how well they do this and be careful that they don't unreasonably infringe individual liberties. Unfortunately the fashion for thinking of information as property has led to an absolutist attitude and a lot of bad legislation.

I agree with the part about pragmatism and how we should judge success. But I'm not sure that the last sentence isn't a "just so" story. Has this arisen from some generalised abstract attitudes? Or has it arisen from inertia and the law failing to keep up with technological innovation? Or from lobbying based on self interest whether that be "pirates" who don't want to pay or fat cats who want everyone to pay through the nose?

Is anyone significantly harmed by piracy of movies and music? It's incredibly widespread and yet the people doing it remain, for the most part, much poorer than the people who work for the companies that hold the copyright. I struggle to see any moral equivalence between copyright infringement and actual theft from actual people, or cartel behaviour that keeps prices high for essential commodities such as energy and HIV drugs.

I notice that the poll question is about whether we would be harmed without saying who "we" refers to. The copyright holders are companies. Even if they are harmed by copyright infringement (on this planet or elsewhere) it's not at all clear that this harm extends to any group that could reasonably be labelled "we".

There are serious issues involved in classing companies as corporate persons whose interests are comparable to those of natural persons (i.e. real people) and the laws in this area have been created not by impartial philosopher kings but to serve the interests of the companies.

logical bob wrote:Is anyone significantly harmed by piracy of movies and music? It's incredibly widespread and yet the people doing it remain, for the most part, much poorer than the people who work for the companies that hold the copyright. I struggle to see any moral equivalence between copyright infringement and actual theft from actual people, or cartel behaviour that keeps prices high for essential commodities such as energy and HIV drugs.

One equivalence one might observe is that the same is true of people who steal generally (or at least those convicted of it). They tend to be poorer than those they steal from. Does that impact on whether stealing is considered lawful or moral? If so, it certainly seems it's a defeasible point, as relatively few people regard theft as moral and lawful.

logical bob wrote:There are serious issues involved in classing companies as corporate persons whose interests are comparable to those of natural persons (i.e. real people) and the laws in this area have been created not by impartial philosopher kings but to serve the interests of the companies.

Is that right?

The version of this I've heard about is that corporate personhood stems from the desire to make contracts binding on them as legal entities. Hence the preamble in legal documents defining terms and clarifying who has what obligations.

Is it not in the interest of customers and consumers that companies can be prosecuted under the law and held to their contractual agreements?

Thommo wrote:One equivalence one might observe is that the same is true of people who steal generally (or at least those convicted of it). They tend to be poorer than those they steal from. Does that impact on whether stealing is considered lawful or moral? If so, it certainly seems it's a defeasible point, as relatively few people regard theft as moral and lawful.

The point I was trying to make was about harm. The massive level of piracy that goes on isn't acting to close the economic gap between perpetrator and victim, so how real is the harm? It's certainly rather more abstract than if I burgled the house of an MGM executive.

The version of this I've heard about is that corporate personhood stems from the desire to make contracts binding on them as legal entities. Hence the preamble in legal documents defining terms and clarifying who has what obligations.

Is it not in the interest of customers and consumers that companies can be prosecuted under the law and held to their contractual agreements?

That certainly is in the interest of customers, but it has to be balanced against the whole point of limited companies, which is to afford the members of the company the protection of the company as an entity rather than them as individuals suffering the consequences of their actions, most commonly in the form of protection from creditors.

Another historical driver for corporate personhood was to allow corporations to avoid state regulation by claiming "human" rights, particularly in the context of the 14th Ammendment in the USA.

james_gnz wrote:

james_gnz wrote:Okay, sure. My view is that copyright is not a moral right.
...

igorfrankensteen wrote:Bollocks. or at least, so far as I have ever seen, heard, or read, "moral rights" has never had anything to do with why we have copyright laws.

I guess there's the potential for confusion here, because "moral rights" has a specific meaning in relation to copyright. What I meant by a "moral right", more or less, is a right not dependent on law or custom/tradition. i.e. Not a right that you have only because the law, or custom, says you have it, but a right that you would have if, for instance, you found yourself stranded on an otherwise deserted island, not under any nation's jurisdiction, with a bunch of people with widely differing customs. This is part of the reason I chose to use another planet in the thought experiment--because this way we can't make any assumption about their customs. Your comments below suggests to me that you do view copyright as what I would term a "moral right".

igorfrankensteen wrote:My answer to this imaginary situation is the same.

igorfrankensteen wrote:...
Perhaps a more accurate analogy: it's okay for a foreigner to come here and steal your car and ship it to his home country, because you were never going to sell it to him.

Okay, so do you see any moral difference between the situation where Martians steal $100bn worth of cars, and the situation where Martians copy $100bn worth of movies? In particular, would we be justified in using force to invade/recover debt or similar in one situation but not the other?

If you insist on ignoring what I write, why ask me questions? I said, no, it's not a moral issue.

Ask something that doesn't include directly telling me what I already think, and I will try to answer.

We establish LAWS about such things, and set STANDARDS, in part to deal with the kind of nonsense being repeated endlessly here.

Asking over and over if it's okay to steal if the people you steal from aren't immediately impacted enough for blood to flow, is invalid "reasoning."

The original question was asked and answered. Yes, no matter what imaginary version of theft of intellectual property you concoct the answer will be the same. Yes. People who have their property stolen are hurt by that act.

There is no way to prove that the answer is anything else, because it isn't. No, there is no way to play mind games and justify theft. Period.

logical bob wrote:

Thommo wrote:One equivalence one might observe is that the same is true of people who steal generally (or at least those convicted of it). They tend to be poorer than those they steal from. Does that impact on whether stealing is considered lawful or moral? If so, it certainly seems it's a defeasible point, as relatively few people regard theft as moral and lawful.

The point I was trying to make was about harm. The massive level of piracy that goes on isn't acting to close the economic gap between perpetrator and victim, so how real is the harm? It's certainly rather more abstract than if I burgled the house of an MGM executive.

I don't think that's a logical argument - for a start the economic gap between pirater and pirated might well be less than it would be if they paid for the goods (or did something else with their time) and yet still growing. This isn't the only factor in the economy after all.

Of course we could say the same things you said about benefits fraud as well.

logical bob wrote:

The version of this I've heard about is that corporate personhood stems from the desire to make contracts binding on them as legal entities. Hence the preamble in legal documents defining terms and clarifying who has what obligations.

Is it not in the interest of customers and consumers that companies can be prosecuted under the law and held to their contractual agreements?

That certainly is in the interest of customers, but it has to be balanced against the whole point of limited companies, which is to afford the members of the company the protection of the company as an entity rather than them as individuals suffering the consequences of their actions, most commonly in the form of protection from creditors.

Another historical driver for corporate personhood was to allow corporations to avoid state regulation by claiming "human" rights, particularly in the context of the 14th Ammendment in the USA.

So it's a mixture of enforcing contract law and protecting employees and in some cases in one country to protect corporations then. Does that then sound fair to say they have been created to serve the interests of companies?

Thommo wrote:I don't think that's a logical argument - for a start the economic gap between pirater and pirated might well be less than it would be if they paid for the goods (or did something else with their time) and yet still growing. This isn't the only factor in the economy after all.

Of course we could say the same things you said about benefits fraud as well.

I'm not trying to construct a philosophical argument for the removal of copyright law. All I said was that I struggle to see how copyright infringement is morally equivalent to theft or to corporate cartel practices, mainly on the basis of its lack of undesirable consequences.

Two important differences with benefit fraud. (a) It consumes actual money from a finite supply whereas film piracy leaves the copyright holder with exactly what it had before. (b) The victim is everyone who pays tax rather than a company (assuming it makes sense to call the company a victim).

Both topics come down to saying that the people at the bottom of the heap really are failing to appreciate that society works for the benefit of them as much as anyone else. Looking at all the shit that goes on, that isn't a discussion that I care for at all. It's certainly far removed from the OPs cosy philosophical chat about "moral rights."

So it's a mixture of enforcing contract law and protecting employees and in some cases in one country to protect corporations then. Does that then sound fair to say they have been created to serve the interests of companies?

Is corporate personhood something forced onto protesting companies or something companies fought long and hard to acquire? That should tell you what you need to know on that score.