3 ms·

No, it isn't. Watch it again. If you flee from a hotel, restaurant or taxi without paying for the service, you produce a tangible damage in the form of staff ti

No, it isn't. Watch it again. If you flee from a hotel, restaurant or taxi without paying for the service, you produce a tangible damage in the form of staff time and other physical resources. That's in no way comparable to making a copy of a digital work by your own means.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
How about if you gate-crash a rock concert, or jump the turnstile at a subway?
- vibragiel 16y ago
  That's just the same. You're occupying space, a scarce tangible resource at concerts and the subway. Plus other derivated resources. Scale it up if you don't see the damage: I could easily make 1000 copies of a digital work without the author even noticing, but you can't sneak 1000 guys into a subway station or concert area and not screw over the organization and the rest of the users.
  - michael_dorfman 16y ago
    If the concert is sparsely attended, or there are enough empty cars on the train, you can sneak 1000 people on without effecting the rest of the users. However, in all cases, revenue is lost, and services have been received without due payment. The scarcity of the resource is irrelevant, IMHO.
    - vibragiel 16y ago
      Ok, what about 10 million people? There is no service in the act of copying a digital work. A service is an economic good, i.e. it needs to be a scarce resource. Scarcity of resources constitutes the core of Economics, so it is hardly irrelevant.
      - michael_dorfman 16y ago
        It seems to me that there are three different arguments going on here. First: from a legal perspective, the work itself is considered a service, and the illegal copying/consuming of that work is legally considered "theft of services." You may not like this definition, but it is the law of the land (for some values of "land" including the US of A.) Second, there is the economic argument. Here, you are claiming that "scarcity of resources constitutes the core of Economics." This may (or may not) be the case, but the notion of intellectual property currently has a place firmly within the domain of economics, even if not at its core. Again, you may wish it weren't, but intellectual property is a mainstream economic notion. Finally, there is the moral argument, which seems to be that "copying should be permitted, since it does not take anything corporeal away from anybody." In this case, I think the case of JRR Tolkien is instructive; you may recall that a US publisher, Ace paperbacks, printed and sold copies of "The Lord of the Rings" when another publisher (Ballantine) actually had the rights. The Ballantine edition contained a plea from Tolkien stating that "Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it and no other." Morally, I am with Tolkien on this one. I think that common courtesy (at least) requires that the people responsible for creating a work of art be remunerated for that work by those wishing to partake of it, if they so desire.
        prodigal_erik 16y ago
        These are good arguments. I'm not aware of theft-of-service laws being used against copyright infringement, possibly because copyright laws are more obviously applicable and call for vastly higher damages. Indeed it's the draconian nature of current copyright laws, and the intrusive tactics needed to successfully enforce them, that make me cautious about using analogies to theft rather than the specific tradeoffs of having copyright laws when we decide where the line should be drawn.
    - prodigal_erik 16y ago
      Revenue isn't lost, merely not gained. If you convinced all those people to stay home, you wouldn't see more money in the till. Theft-of-service isn't really theft. It's a newer problem that required a separate body of law because the laws against theft don't apply to it. It only has the name it does because someone wanted to manipulate you into thinking of it in a certain way. They wanted to connect to your stone-age "MINE!" survival instinct rather than having to win the economic debate about the relative merits of making this economic good excludable.

michael_dorfman 16y ago

How about if you gate-crash a rock concert, or jump the turnstile at a subway?

vibragiel 16y ago
That's just the same. You're occupying space, a scarce tangible resource at concerts and the subway. Plus other derivated resources. Scale it up if you don't see the damage: I could easily make 1000 copies of a digital work without the author even noticing, but you can't sneak 1000 guys into a subway station or concert area and not screw over the organization and the rest of the users.
- michael_dorfman 16y ago
  If the concert is sparsely attended, or there are enough empty cars on the train, you can sneak 1000 people on without effecting the rest of the users. However, in all cases, revenue is lost, and services have been received without due payment. The scarcity of the resource is irrelevant, IMHO.
  - vibragiel 16y ago
    Ok, what about 10 million people? There is no service in the act of copying a digital work. A service is an economic good, i.e. it needs to be a scarce resource. Scarcity of resources constitutes the core of Economics, so it is hardly irrelevant.
    - michael_dorfman 16y ago
      It seems to me that there are three different arguments going on here. First: from a legal perspective, the work itself is considered a service, and the illegal copying/consuming of that work is legally considered "theft of services." You may not like this definition, but it is the law of the land (for some values of "land" including the US of A.) Second, there is the economic argument. Here, you are claiming that "scarcity of resources constitutes the core of Economics." This may (or may not) be the case, but the notion of intellectual property currently has a place firmly within the domain of economics, even if not at its core. Again, you may wish it weren't, but intellectual property is a mainstream economic notion. Finally, there is the moral argument, which seems to be that "copying should be permitted, since it does not take anything corporeal away from anybody." In this case, I think the case of JRR Tolkien is instructive; you may recall that a US publisher, Ace paperbacks, printed and sold copies of "The Lord of the Rings" when another publisher (Ballantine) actually had the rights. The Ballantine edition contained a plea from Tolkien stating that "Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it and no other." Morally, I am with Tolkien on this one. I think that common courtesy (at least) requires that the people responsible for creating a work of art be remunerated for that work by those wishing to partake of it, if they so desire.
      - prodigal_erik 16y ago
        These are good arguments. I'm not aware of theft-of-service laws being used against copyright infringement, possibly because copyright laws are more obviously applicable and call for vastly higher damages. Indeed it's the draconian nature of current copyright laws, and the intrusive tactics needed to successfully enforce them, that make me cautious about using analogies to theft rather than the specific tradeoffs of having copyright laws when we decide where the line should be drawn.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    Revenue isn't lost, merely not gained. If you convinced all those people to stay home, you wouldn't see more money in the till. Theft-of-service isn't really theft. It's a newer problem that required a separate body of law because the laws against theft don't apply to it. It only has the name it does because someone wanted to manipulate you into thinking of it in a certain way. They wanted to connect to your stone-age "MINE!" survival instinct rather than having to win the economic debate about the relative merits of making this economic good excludable.