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Which university is this? If anything involving copyright is "moral," it's breaking it.

ascar 8y ago
Who defines "moral"? I can't see that breaking any law is the moral thing to do as the law is the moral code that society agreed to give it self (at least in a democracy). By your logic it might become moral to murder, because it benefits you and maybe many others more than the one murdered. Following the law is always a moral obligation and personally deciding which rules should be followed and which shouldn't is a dangerous space. Especially from a biased and self-centered world view, which we all have as individuals.
- jplayer01 8y ago
  Or, you know, it's the law corporations were able to push into existence through money. Law isn't necessarily a reflection of our moral code. It can be. Parts of it are (Grundgesetz or the Constitution, sure), but plenty of laws aren't decided by morality and aren't the arbiters of it either and even if they reflect the morality of some people, it isn't morally justified. Or people wouldn't have ever fought for black rights (Jim Crow laws say hello).
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "Who defines "moral"?" You do. And I do. You define it for you, and I define it for me. You and I are both going to define murder as immoral, and not commit murder. Should one of us define it otherwise, the other will in practice likely be powerless to prevent the outcome. This is the way the world works. At the end of the day, there is no universal ruleset that all humans will follow like automata; we each get to make our own path. The best we can do is attempt to persuade others to change their moral framework and to gang up with people who agree with us to create systems that inhibit those who disagree with us. There is no sense moaning about this state of affairs because this is the way it's always been and the way it always will be. > "By your logic it might become moral to murder" Something else to keep in mind, is that morality is likely rooted in some limited extent in biology. The basis for this assertion is that across time and cultures, one form or another of law against murder has always been popular in any human civilization you can find evidence for. Even when societies carved out formal exceptions to this rule, such as the legal witch burnings in recent European history, the human sacrifices in more ancient European history, or the human sacrifices seen in Aztec civilization (that had no plausible meaningful cultural exchange with Eurasia for many thousands of years), there still exist laws in some form against murder in general. My point with this likely controversial digression is that it's unlikely that anybody who constructs an argument for the morality of academic copyright infringement will accidentally construct a persuasive argument for casual murder. Even if you use formal logic to find a link between their perspective on copyright to casual murder, that formal argument will be irrationally rejected by nearly everybody, who has an innate predisposition towards rejecting a system of legal casual murder. tl;dr: reductio ad fortuita occidendum is not a persuasive argument.
- bloak 8y ago
  Perhaps we need some new entries for the Devil's Dictionary: law 1. (archaic) An agreed rule that everyone must obey. 2. A document produced by the government that grants additional powers to the police to confiscate property and otherwise punish people and to protect the police in case some troublemaker complains to a court. lawful Of or pertaining to an act of killing committed by the government, the police, or the armed forces.
- pixl97 8y ago
  You are putting yourself in a logical trap here, associating copyright law with murder... Which statement is true... "By locking knowledge behind pathways you are both directly and indirectly causes the death of others by limiting information to people that could use it to save others" "By not respecting copyright you are breaking the institutions that create scientific knowledge and making it riskier for said institutions to invest and create new things which can be used to save others" The law is always at moral odds with itself. It must try to achieve both goals which is an impossibility.

Who defines "moral"? I can't see that breaking any law is the moral thing to do as the law is the moral code that society agreed to give it self (at least in a democracy). By your logic it might become moral to murder, because it benefits you and maybe many others more than the one murdered. Following the law is always a moral obligation and personally deciding which rules should be followed and which shouldn't is a dangerous space. Especially from a biased and self-centered world view, which we all have as individuals.

jplayer01 8y ago
Or, you know, it's the law corporations were able to push into existence through money. Law isn't necessarily a reflection of our moral code. It can be. Parts of it are (Grundgesetz or the Constitution, sure), but plenty of laws aren't decided by morality and aren't the arbiters of it either and even if they reflect the morality of some people, it isn't morally justified. Or people wouldn't have ever fought for black rights (Jim Crow laws say hello).
darkpuma 8y ago
> "Who defines "moral"?" You do. And I do. You define it for you, and I define it for me. You and I are both going to define murder as immoral, and not commit murder. Should one of us define it otherwise, the other will in practice likely be powerless to prevent the outcome. This is the way the world works. At the end of the day, there is no universal ruleset that all humans will follow like automata; we each get to make our own path. The best we can do is attempt to persuade others to change their moral framework and to gang up with people who agree with us to create systems that inhibit those who disagree with us. There is no sense moaning about this state of affairs because this is the way it's always been and the way it always will be. > "By your logic it might become moral to murder" Something else to keep in mind, is that morality is likely rooted in some limited extent in biology. The basis for this assertion is that across time and cultures, one form or another of law against murder has always been popular in any human civilization you can find evidence for. Even when societies carved out formal exceptions to this rule, such as the legal witch burnings in recent European history, the human sacrifices in more ancient European history, or the human sacrifices seen in Aztec civilization (that had no plausible meaningful cultural exchange with Eurasia for many thousands of years), there still exist laws in some form against murder in general. My point with this likely controversial digression is that it's unlikely that anybody who constructs an argument for the morality of academic copyright infringement will accidentally construct a persuasive argument for casual murder. Even if you use formal logic to find a link between their perspective on copyright to casual murder, that formal argument will be irrationally rejected by nearly everybody, who has an innate predisposition towards rejecting a system of legal casual murder. tl;dr: reductio ad fortuita occidendum is not a persuasive argument.
bloak 8y ago
Perhaps we need some new entries for the Devil's Dictionary: law 1. (archaic) An agreed rule that everyone must obey. 2. A document produced by the government that grants additional powers to the police to confiscate property and otherwise punish people and to protect the police in case some troublemaker complains to a court. lawful Of or pertaining to an act of killing committed by the government, the police, or the armed forces.
pixl97 8y ago
You are putting yourself in a logical trap here, associating copyright law with murder... Which statement is true... "By locking knowledge behind pathways you are both directly and indirectly causes the death of others by limiting information to people that could use it to save others" "By not respecting copyright you are breaking the institutions that create scientific knowledge and making it riskier for said institutions to invest and create new things which can be used to save others" The law is always at moral odds with itself. It must try to achieve both goals which is an impossibility.