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You're right, which makes this situation tricky to reverse. But the least we could do is stop continually extending and strengthening copyright terms, which at

You're right, which makes this situation tricky to reverse. But the least we could do is stop continually extending and strengthening copyright terms, which at this point are encouraging loads of rent-seeking behavior and quite possibly disincentivizing innovation and creativity on the whole. And culturally, imo we should fight against propaganda like "intellectual property" and the equating of copyright violations to theft. The moral argument against theft exists because it only applies to rivalrous goods.

WilTimSon 7y ago
I want to chime in that I absolutely agree that copyright terms need to be shortened and copyright laws need some fixing. Their current state is absolutely for the benefit of big corporations and doesn't help small authors as much.
Silhouette 7y ago
You're right, which makes this situation tricky to reverse. But the least we could do is stop continually extending and strengthening copyright terms I'm entirely with you on almost all of this. I see no economic or moral argument for granting the longer-than-human-lifetimes durations of copyright that we have in most places today. There is no good argument that I can see not to reduce the guaranteed period of exclusivity for new works to something much more reasonable, still enough to provide a robust economic incentive to create and share new work in the first place (which I note could be very different depending on the nature of each work, its creator(s) and its intended audience) but not completely disproportionate to that goal. For the record, I also see few good arguments against retrospectively reversing copyright term extensions that apply to works that were originally created and distributed when lesser incentives were in effect, and none at all if the rights haven't been transferred since such an extension was introduced in law. I'm in two minds on the theft question. Yes, intellectual and physical property are different things and have different characteristics, but ultimately both are artificial legal constructs anyway, as are the rights to control them that the law provides. Copyright infringement very often is done in a way that ultimately denies the rightsholder real money or other compensation to which they would have been entitled had the same actions been taken in a legal way, and in that situation I see little moral distinction between ripping the work without paying the money or stealing the same amount of money from someone's bank account after the fact. Clearly not all copyright infringement falls into this category, because of the usual (reasonable) arguments that not every illegal copy represents a lost sale, etc. However, it has been my experience that most of the time when people start raising the "copyright infringement is not theft" point in an argument, they're really attempting to use sophistry to shift the argument away from what was otherwise a straightforward case of them knowingly breaking the law and ripping someone off, and which is in fact still exactly that regardless of what label is used.
- csallen 7y ago
  > they're really attempting to use sophistry to shift the argument away from what was otherwise a straightforward case of them knowingly breaking the law and ripping someone off The other side of that coin is that terminology like "intellectual property" and the equating of copyright to theft are actually tools embraced and popularized by those who seek to extend copyright indefinitely, so they can grow their rent-seeking profits. They're successfully planting the belief in people's minds that ideas should be treated like physical property, with rightful permanent owners. That's a dangerous belief imo, but it has now become widespread. Also, it's my understanding that copyright law exists more to spur society-wide creativity than to protect any individual's right to profit from an idea. Yes, the mechanism by which copyright law operates is of course to grant creators limited monopolies. But I don't think we should get the law's mechanism mixed up with its moral purpose or even practical purpose. Calling it "theft" is an attempt to do just that, and is entirely unnecessary.
  - Silhouette 7y ago
    This is also true. It's unfortunate that attempts by both sides of the debate to steal the moral high ground through terminology are obscuring the ethical and economic questions, which as you point out are why this all exists in the first place.
DougN7 7y ago
I wonder who will make the large investments necessary for new research if as soon as something is figured out, it is quickly copied and the investment is lost. Particularly with new drugs, etc (though the cost of new drugs hurts my family, so I’m not in favor of those expenses, but I’m grateful someone did the expensive research).
- joshspankit 7y ago
  IMO that’s capitalism’s failing, not copyright’s. If the system were different it could reward cures much more than specific drugs. In the current system almost no one is chasing simple and cheap cures because complicated patentable drugs that people use for a lifetime are far more capitalistically profitable.
  - joshspankit 7y ago
    (Sorry, wrong term used here: I don't mean copyright per se, instead I mean any number of intellectual property 'methods' that we currently use on this planet (siloing, patents, copyright, licensing, etc, etc))
- BerislavLopac 7y ago
  Patents and copyright are two very different things.

WilTimSon 7y ago

I want to chime in that I absolutely agree that copyright terms need to be shortened and copyright laws need some fixing. Their current state is absolutely for the benefit of big corporations and doesn't help small authors as much.

Silhouette 7y ago

You're right, which makes this situation tricky to reverse. But the least we could do is stop continually extending and strengthening copyright terms I'm entirely with you on almost all of this. I see no economic or moral argument for granting the longer-than-human-lifetimes durations of copyright that we have in most places today. There is no good argument that I can see not to reduce the guaranteed period of exclusivity for new works to something much more reasonable, still enough to provide a robust economic incentive to create and share new work in the first place (which I note could be very different depending on the nature of each work, its creator(s) and its intended audience) but not completely disproportionate to that goal. For the record, I also see few good arguments against retrospectively reversing copyright term extensions that apply to works that were originally created and distributed when lesser incentives were in effect, and none at all if the rights haven't been transferred since such an extension was introduced in law. I'm in two minds on the theft question. Yes, intellectual and physical property are different things and have different characteristics, but ultimately both are artificial legal constructs anyway, as are the rights to control them that the law provides. Copyright infringement very often is done in a way that ultimately denies the rightsholder real money or other compensation to which they would have been entitled had the same actions been taken in a legal way, and in that situation I see little moral distinction between ripping the work without paying the money or stealing the same amount of money from someone's bank account after the fact. Clearly not all copyright infringement falls into this category, because of the usual (reasonable) arguments that not every illegal copy represents a lost sale, etc. However, it has been my experience that most of the time when people start raising the "copyright infringement is not theft" point in an argument, they're really attempting to use sophistry to shift the argument away from what was otherwise a straightforward case of them knowingly breaking the law and ripping someone off, and which is in fact still exactly that regardless of what label is used.

csallen 7y ago
> they're really attempting to use sophistry to shift the argument away from what was otherwise a straightforward case of them knowingly breaking the law and ripping someone off The other side of that coin is that terminology like "intellectual property" and the equating of copyright to theft are actually tools embraced and popularized by those who seek to extend copyright indefinitely, so they can grow their rent-seeking profits. They're successfully planting the belief in people's minds that ideas should be treated like physical property, with rightful permanent owners. That's a dangerous belief imo, but it has now become widespread. Also, it's my understanding that copyright law exists more to spur society-wide creativity than to protect any individual's right to profit from an idea. Yes, the mechanism by which copyright law operates is of course to grant creators limited monopolies. But I don't think we should get the law's mechanism mixed up with its moral purpose or even practical purpose. Calling it "theft" is an attempt to do just that, and is entirely unnecessary.
- Silhouette 7y ago
  This is also true. It's unfortunate that attempts by both sides of the debate to steal the moral high ground through terminology are obscuring the ethical and economic questions, which as you point out are why this all exists in the first place.

DougN7 7y ago

I wonder who will make the large investments necessary for new research if as soon as something is figured out, it is quickly copied and the investment is lost. Particularly with new drugs, etc (though the cost of new drugs hurts my family, so I’m not in favor of those expenses, but I’m grateful someone did the expensive research).

joshspankit 7y ago
IMO that’s capitalism’s failing, not copyright’s. If the system were different it could reward cures much more than specific drugs. In the current system almost no one is chasing simple and cheap cures because complicated patentable drugs that people use for a lifetime are far more capitalistically profitable.
- joshspankit 7y ago
  (Sorry, wrong term used here: I don't mean copyright per se, instead I mean any number of intellectual property 'methods' that we currently use on this planet (siloing, patents, copyright, licensing, etc, etc))
BerislavLopac 7y ago
Patents and copyright are two very different things.