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Downloading books and articles from libgen is technically "theft of intellectual property". So is torrenting proprietary software, music, etc. I'm often surpri

Downloading books and articles from libgen is technically "theft of intellectual property". So is torrenting proprietary software, music, etc. I'm often surprised to observe the extent to which Americans, both inside and outside of academia, and regardless of their station in life, overtly engage in this form of 'IP theft', given how much anger there is these days at China for alleged IP theft (I'm granting for the sake of argument that the allegations are fully accurate). Why don't Americans find this form of 'IP theft' equally ethically problematic? I suspect the answer is some combination of: (i) deep down people don't really feel that 'big evil publishers' like Springer, Kluwer etc really deserve all that money; we are less likely to feel bad about 'stealing' from someone if we don't feel that the person from whom we are taking the thing away is morally entitled to it. (ii) $30 per article etc is just too expensive and impractical. Paying is not a consistently followable policy, so we may as well consistent pirate. To the extent that 'Chinese theft of intellectual property' occurs, can it be attributed to the same motivations? Some analogue of (i) arguably obtains. After all, Americans committed two of the biggest thefts in human history: first the entire continent stolen from the natives, then, entire human lives stolen from generations of black people. So much of America's present-day prosperity and advantage can be chalked up to these two egregious acts of theft, neither of which they have remotely adequately compensated for. Obviously you can't return something you stole from some person (people) if you killed him (most of them). And the idea of reparation for slavery has never gained mainstream acceptance. The example this sets is "let's steal with abandon, after all our descedents can play the 'I was no part of that' defense just like present-day Americans". As for (ii), I'm not entirely sure. Has anyone ever looked into just how much money a Chinese company would have to pay if it were to fully comply with intellectual property laws? I find it hard to imagine it not being just as exhorbitant as Springer, Kluwer etc, in many cases.

Dylan16807 8y ago
I can solve your dilemma easily. Don't use the phrase "Intellectual Property". Use "copyright" and "trade secret" to refer to those two separate concepts. "Chinese theft of intellectual property" is all about trade secrets, something completely unrelated to copyright. (There's also a distinction between violating copyright for yourself, and violating copyright to sell copies of something, but I don't think you meant bootlegging so we don't need to address that right now.)
- scarcely 8y ago
  Can you explain the moral relevance of that distinction - the reason one kind of theft of intellectual property is morally less bad than the other. One idea is this: stealing trade secret is "active theft" whereas stealing copyright is "passive theft". You do not need to leave your house in order to steal someone's copyright. By contrast, to steal closely guarded trade secrets you practically must conduct espionage. So this form of theft reminds us more of real world robbery. We are apt to consider the victim physically violated (by comparison, the idea that by downloading some pdfs from libgen while sitting at home in bathrobes we've 'physically violated' Springer obviously sounds very odd) If that's the response then my reply is twofold. First, just because something is more 'graphical' doesn't mean it's morally worse. For example, many omnivores tend to consider people who eat dogs and cats to be especially evil. On reflection, they realize that they have no principled basis for judging themselves to be morally superior to the dog- and cat-eaters. The only reason their initially reacted as they did was because they found the imagery of eating dogs and cats much more graphical, since dogs and cats are such cute animals. But cuteness is not (as most people would agree) a morally relevant difference. It's also worth pointing out that stealing trade secret is more graphical than stealing copyright only because of contingent technological reasons. If we lived before xerox machines, stealing books may require making efforts not that different from physical robbery. Second, I want to point out that you haven't really responded to the substance of my point. My point was that perhaps the Chinese is unconcerned about their 'theft of intellectual property (trade secret)' for the same reason many Americans are unconcerned about their 'theft of intellectual property (copyright)': because "it's not theft to steal something from those who aren't entitled to it". Simply pointing to the distinction between 'trade secret' and 'copyright' is not yet pointing to a distinction that makes an obvious difference. If the point is simply "stealing trade secret is obviously much worse than stealing copyright, because trade secrets are closely guarded, so you need to basically pry them away from the victim", then (i) see my first reply above and (ii) note that the two acts of theft I stated in my original post, because they involve literal acts of physical violence, is obviously much more 'graphical' than any industrial espionage.
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    > Can you explain the moral relevance of that distinction - the reason one kind of theft of intellectual property is morally less bad than the other. Two different crimes don't have to be strictly better or worse to get different reactions. But scale and profit are big factors here. Anyway, I don't think it's active vs. passive at all. Your original point (i) was much better. The person asking for money didn't make the science, and isn't using that money to fund more science. The Chinese "IP theft" is copying from someone that made it, is using it, and isn't interested in selling it. It's a violation of privacy, not just "IP". > "it's not theft to steal something from those aren't entitled to it" What's 'it' here, exactly? It can't be payment, because there's no price in the first place. But it's hard to argue that someone that developed a tech isn't entitled to the tech... If 'it' is exclusivity, that's a valid worldview, but it doesn't quite address the issue of using fraudulent means to get access. They're such very different actions that I don't see any point in bundling them together. But if you do insist on bundling, then you need to address how a pirate is making a personal copy, and a company copying tech is on a completely different level. > note that the two acts of theft I stated in my original post I have noted them. They are bad. I'm with the other responder in ignoring any attempts at whataboutism, so this note is irrelevant to anything else in the post. (Also china's performing extremely similar crimes, so it's a weird tack to use those as some kind of hypothetical comparison.)
SllX 8y ago
You’re conflating a lot in this post. People, internationally, including Westerners, violate copyright law on a regular basis to download information they previously did not have access to. Some of them, not all of them, feel justified in doing so because in some way their tax dollars probably helped pay for some of it. What Westerners, Americans mostly, but not just them, have taken issue with regarding Chinese theft of IP is threefold: State-sponsored espionage, bootlegging, and relaxed IP laws relative to Western countries that are also enforced in a relaxed manner. Personally of those, the only item on that list I would personally take issue with is the espionage, not because I think IP laws are worthless, but because we have bad, arguably unjust IP laws as the norm. I won’t address your pointed jabs at the United States. This is neither the topic nor the forum.
- scarcely 8y ago
  My reply to the first person who replied to me, above, also tries to address your point about espionage being especially bad.
  - SllX 8y ago
    The distinguishing factor is whether there is a victim, not “ease”. There is such a thing as a victimless crime and if we are talking about espionage, then there is definitely a victim. That is a case that can be made with copyright violation, but it is a much weaker case and generally has to be determined on a case by case basis whether or not there was actually a victim, i.e. was someone actually harmed in some way or are they just saying they were? I defer to the courts on this one.
    - scarcely 8y ago
      I agree that our intuitive reaction is to think that in one case there is clearly a victim whereas in the other case this is much less clear. However as I said when I brought up the omnivore vs dog/cat-eater example, our intuitive moral reactions are often unreliable and we need to always subject them to critical examination. When I ask myself, why does it seem to me, intuitively, that there is clearly a victim in the case of espionage but not in the case of piracy, I find that I cannot point to anything other than the sheer "graphical" character of espionage. When I think of espionage what comes to mind is careful, deliberate, calculated planning and execution (the evil villain in cartoons and all that), whereas when I think of piracy I think of a harmless dude at home sitting in front of his computer wrapped in bathrobes. The question though is whether this sort of difference has moral relevance. And I'm strongly inclined to think not. First notice that neither the spy nor the harmless dude physically harmed anyone. The damage is entirely monetary. (I will spare your American sensibilities and not bring up the violent character of those thefts I brought up in my OP). Now you may say, the harmless dude at best cost a few dollars damage but the spy cost billions. But on reflection this doesn't hold water, because (i) there are millions of these harmless dudes, so the damages add up and (ii) the damage caused by the spy is not on any single individual but is also similarly distributed, so at the individual level it could may well be very tiny. I could go on, but I hope you'll agree that the challenge I've poses for Americans (how to reconcile their different attitudes towards piracy and industrial espionage) is far from a trivial one and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise. I should also add the following point. Suppose in the future 3D duplication became a reality, so that those who want more KFC can just buy one and perform 3D "copy-paste" (sitting at home wrapped in bathrobes) - no need to steal the secret recipe. Likewise to get one more advanced CPU there is no need to spy and steal the secret blueprint and all that, just 3D "copy paste". Would you say that, in this future scenario, where making copies of fried chicken/CPU chips are no different from making copies of ebook and mp3s ─── would you say that these acts of "IP theft" also suddenly become virtually "victimless"? (Typing in a hurry so some editing may need to be done later on) Addendum: a variant of my parting example above. Programs written in some languages (e.g. Javascript) are much easier to reverse engineer than others (e.g. C). To get the source code of a closed source C program you pretty much have to conduct espionage (hack the developer's computer), whereas to get the source code of a closed source JavaScript program, it may take little more than hitting a few buttons. Would you argue that if someone's closed source C app source code is stolen via espionage/hacking, the developer has been victimized, but if someone's closed source JavaScript app source code is stolen via "hitting a few buttons", there is now suddenly no victim? It seems to me that holding such a view would have some absurd consequences. Suppose I can write an app in either C or JavaScript, I may then reason: "I should write it in JavaScript, that way I won't ever be victimized." - which I hope you'll agree, is clearly nonsensical.
opan 8y ago
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Intellect... https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy

Dylan16807 8y ago

I can solve your dilemma easily. Don't use the phrase "Intellectual Property". Use "copyright" and "trade secret" to refer to those two separate concepts. "Chinese theft of intellectual property" is all about trade secrets, something completely unrelated to copyright. (There's also a distinction between violating copyright for yourself, and violating copyright to sell copies of something, but I don't think you meant bootlegging so we don't need to address that right now.)

scarcely 8y ago
Can you explain the moral relevance of that distinction - the reason one kind of theft of intellectual property is morally less bad than the other. One idea is this: stealing trade secret is "active theft" whereas stealing copyright is "passive theft". You do not need to leave your house in order to steal someone's copyright. By contrast, to steal closely guarded trade secrets you practically must conduct espionage. So this form of theft reminds us more of real world robbery. We are apt to consider the victim physically violated (by comparison, the idea that by downloading some pdfs from libgen while sitting at home in bathrobes we've 'physically violated' Springer obviously sounds very odd) If that's the response then my reply is twofold. First, just because something is more 'graphical' doesn't mean it's morally worse. For example, many omnivores tend to consider people who eat dogs and cats to be especially evil. On reflection, they realize that they have no principled basis for judging themselves to be morally superior to the dog- and cat-eaters. The only reason their initially reacted as they did was because they found the imagery of eating dogs and cats much more graphical, since dogs and cats are such cute animals. But cuteness is not (as most people would agree) a morally relevant difference. It's also worth pointing out that stealing trade secret is more graphical than stealing copyright only because of contingent technological reasons. If we lived before xerox machines, stealing books may require making efforts not that different from physical robbery. Second, I want to point out that you haven't really responded to the substance of my point. My point was that perhaps the Chinese is unconcerned about their 'theft of intellectual property (trade secret)' for the same reason many Americans are unconcerned about their 'theft of intellectual property (copyright)': because "it's not theft to steal something from those who aren't entitled to it". Simply pointing to the distinction between 'trade secret' and 'copyright' is not yet pointing to a distinction that makes an obvious difference. If the point is simply "stealing trade secret is obviously much worse than stealing copyright, because trade secrets are closely guarded, so you need to basically pry them away from the victim", then (i) see my first reply above and (ii) note that the two acts of theft I stated in my original post, because they involve literal acts of physical violence, is obviously much more 'graphical' than any industrial espionage.
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  > Can you explain the moral relevance of that distinction - the reason one kind of theft of intellectual property is morally less bad than the other. Two different crimes don't have to be strictly better or worse to get different reactions. But scale and profit are big factors here. Anyway, I don't think it's active vs. passive at all. Your original point (i) was much better. The person asking for money didn't make the science, and isn't using that money to fund more science. The Chinese "IP theft" is copying from someone that made it, is using it, and isn't interested in selling it. It's a violation of privacy, not just "IP". > "it's not theft to steal something from those aren't entitled to it" What's 'it' here, exactly? It can't be payment, because there's no price in the first place. But it's hard to argue that someone that developed a tech isn't entitled to the tech... If 'it' is exclusivity, that's a valid worldview, but it doesn't quite address the issue of using fraudulent means to get access. They're such very different actions that I don't see any point in bundling them together. But if you do insist on bundling, then you need to address how a pirate is making a personal copy, and a company copying tech is on a completely different level. > note that the two acts of theft I stated in my original post I have noted them. They are bad. I'm with the other responder in ignoring any attempts at whataboutism, so this note is irrelevant to anything else in the post. (Also china's performing extremely similar crimes, so it's a weird tack to use those as some kind of hypothetical comparison.)

SllX 8y ago

You’re conflating a lot in this post. People, internationally, including Westerners, violate copyright law on a regular basis to download information they previously did not have access to. Some of them, not all of them, feel justified in doing so because in some way their tax dollars probably helped pay for some of it. What Westerners, Americans mostly, but not just them, have taken issue with regarding Chinese theft of IP is threefold: State-sponsored espionage, bootlegging, and relaxed IP laws relative to Western countries that are also enforced in a relaxed manner. Personally of those, the only item on that list I would personally take issue with is the espionage, not because I think IP laws are worthless, but because we have bad, arguably unjust IP laws as the norm. I won’t address your pointed jabs at the United States. This is neither the topic nor the forum.

scarcely 8y ago
My reply to the first person who replied to me, above, also tries to address your point about espionage being especially bad.
- SllX 8y ago
  The distinguishing factor is whether there is a victim, not “ease”. There is such a thing as a victimless crime and if we are talking about espionage, then there is definitely a victim. That is a case that can be made with copyright violation, but it is a much weaker case and generally has to be determined on a case by case basis whether or not there was actually a victim, i.e. was someone actually harmed in some way or are they just saying they were? I defer to the courts on this one.
  - scarcely 8y ago
    I agree that our intuitive reaction is to think that in one case there is clearly a victim whereas in the other case this is much less clear. However as I said when I brought up the omnivore vs dog/cat-eater example, our intuitive moral reactions are often unreliable and we need to always subject them to critical examination. When I ask myself, why does it seem to me, intuitively, that there is clearly a victim in the case of espionage but not in the case of piracy, I find that I cannot point to anything other than the sheer "graphical" character of espionage. When I think of espionage what comes to mind is careful, deliberate, calculated planning and execution (the evil villain in cartoons and all that), whereas when I think of piracy I think of a harmless dude at home sitting in front of his computer wrapped in bathrobes. The question though is whether this sort of difference has moral relevance. And I'm strongly inclined to think not. First notice that neither the spy nor the harmless dude physically harmed anyone. The damage is entirely monetary. (I will spare your American sensibilities and not bring up the violent character of those thefts I brought up in my OP). Now you may say, the harmless dude at best cost a few dollars damage but the spy cost billions. But on reflection this doesn't hold water, because (i) there are millions of these harmless dudes, so the damages add up and (ii) the damage caused by the spy is not on any single individual but is also similarly distributed, so at the individual level it could may well be very tiny. I could go on, but I hope you'll agree that the challenge I've poses for Americans (how to reconcile their different attitudes towards piracy and industrial espionage) is far from a trivial one and it's intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise. I should also add the following point. Suppose in the future 3D duplication became a reality, so that those who want more KFC can just buy one and perform 3D "copy-paste" (sitting at home wrapped in bathrobes) - no need to steal the secret recipe. Likewise to get one more advanced CPU there is no need to spy and steal the secret blueprint and all that, just 3D "copy paste". Would you say that, in this future scenario, where making copies of fried chicken/CPU chips are no different from making copies of ebook and mp3s ─── would you say that these acts of "IP theft" also suddenly become virtually "victimless"? (Typing in a hurry so some editing may need to be done later on) Addendum: a variant of my parting example above. Programs written in some languages (e.g. Javascript) are much easier to reverse engineer than others (e.g. C). To get the source code of a closed source C program you pretty much have to conduct espionage (hack the developer's computer), whereas to get the source code of a closed source JavaScript program, it may take little more than hitting a few buttons. Would you argue that if someone's closed source C app source code is stolen via espionage/hacking, the developer has been victimized, but if someone's closed source JavaScript app source code is stolen via "hitting a few buttons", there is now suddenly no victim? It seems to me that holding such a view would have some absurd consequences. Suppose I can write an app in either C or JavaScript, I may then reason: "I should write it in JavaScript, that way I won't ever be victimized." - which I hope you'll agree, is clearly nonsensical.

opan 8y ago

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Intellect... https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Piracy