5 ms·

I've always been suspicious of the ethics of pirated music and I sincerely want to know how people who pirate music justify it. From my perspective, a musician

I've always been suspicious of the ethics of pirated music and I sincerely want to know how people who pirate music justify it. From my perspective, a musician put forth a lot of effort and cost into creating a piece of music. At that point, I consider that the musician owns what they have created and can choose whether to keep their music to themselves or share it with the wider world. From my point of view it is the musician who gets to decide what they want to do with their work: sell it through a record label, sell it independently, give it away for free. As a consumer of the music I don't think it's in my place to make the choice for the musician about what they want to do with their work. Is there something I'm missing? Am I framing it the wrong way? Or am I right in thinking that people who pirate music are unilaterally making the decision for the original musicians on how their work should be distributed?

DrHankPym 16y ago
Honestly, I just don't care anymore. Napster has shown it's face over 10 years ago, so anyone still thinking the same music business model is going to sustain forever is a fool. Hacking a system to create artificial value is not the answer, especially when producing music is becoming cheaper and cheaper.
- Silhouette 16y ago
  > Hacking a system to create artificial value is not the answer, especially when producing music is becoming cheaper and cheaper. Copyright isn't useful because it creates artificial value, it's useful because it lets a work with a high production cost be distributed for a low per-copy cost, amortising the initial costs over many consumers. Without some sort of model that allows this, we would be back in the dark ages where magnificent works were produced only by artists with rich patrons.
  - rome 16y ago
    Music production costs are the lowest they've ever been. Copyright was created as an incentive to create. Personally I believe that if there were no copyright law, musicians would still create.
    - Silhouette 16y ago
      You're oversimplifying. I don't think anyone would argue that in the absence of copyright, nobody would make music any more. However, that doesn't tell us whether the same quantity and/or quality of music would be made, nor, ultimately, whether the same number of people would get as much enjoyment from listening to music as they do today. No-one is forcing musicians to rely on copyright. If production costs are so low and giving away their work for free really generates increased overall income via secondary effects, then it is remarkable how little evidence there seems to be of professional musicians choosing that alternative strategy.
radu_floricica 16y ago
Jaywalking is just as obviously illegal. Would you support the death penalty for it? Or lengthy imprisonment? Or bankruptcy-generating fines? In the case of pirated music, using this kind of fines is much more immoral then the punished act itself - in the opinion of most of us.
- techiferous 16y ago
  Of course. I agree 100%. But this is different than the question I am asking. I'm not asking about what the legal consequences of music piracy should be, but how music piracy can be ethically justified.
  - flashgordon 16y ago
    I didnt think it was being justified though. It was an issue of one guy being charged almost 700k for 30 songs. If anything thing charge him 30 x price of each song (or even some multiple M, say 2, for "expenses"). To truly recover the costs, they should really be charging everyone who pirated the song or actively distributed it instead of who pinning the entire costs on one guy who pirated it or participated in a swarm.
    - techiferous 16y ago
      Conversation #1: Is it ethical to pirate music? Conversation #2: Is it ethical to sue $exorbitant for pirating music? Why does conversation #1 always turn into conversation #2?
      - flashgordon 16y ago
        except this time i thought #2 was turning into #1 (actually i found that happening a lot of other times too)...
        techiferous 16y ago
        Haha! True. But it's frustrating for me to ask: "Is it ethical to pirate music?" and the direct answer to be "It is wrong to sue people for tons of money for pirating music." That's a complete non sequitur.
rome 16y ago
I don't think theres any justification for piracy. That being said, there is no way to own music. A musician owns a copyright. He has to choose if it's worth the effort to enforce that copyright or think of a way to thrive despite piracy.
Estragon 16y ago
My main problem with the current laws is that they could only be enforced effectively by extremely draconian measures. Same as my problem with the drug laws, really. Unenforceable laws just breed disrespect for the rule of law.
- techiferous 16y ago
  Yes, it seems like a broken system where everybody is wrong/wronged. Definitely needs an upgrade!
burgerbrain 16y ago
How do I ethically justify downloading music? How do I ethically justify speeding? Jaywalking? Throwing metal cans into the garbage instead of recycling? Serving alcohol to minors? The answer to all of these is that I don't. I simply don't give a shit.
waterhouse 16y ago
In my case, I believe pretty strongly in property rights, and I believe intellectual property rights (as they are called) are incompatible with real property rights. Therefore, "pirating" anything is at least legally permissible. I don't intend to argue that point; you asked to understand and I'm explaining how I think. > From my perspective, a musician put forth a lot of effort and cost into creating a piece of music. And, sure, it would be nice if this musician were rewarded for his efforts--if it became a financially viable operation--and if he (or aspiring musicians who know of his example) were encouraged to make more good music. However (according to my view), once he puts his music into digital files and someone puts it on the internet (which is more likely the more popular his music gets), he has no legal way to compel anyone who downloads it to pay him for it. At this point, I'd say, "Yup. So he'll have to be somewhat creative (or get good at performing live or something) if he wants to make much money as a musician." Yes, it's possible that few people will pay him, and he'll be forced to go out of business (at least partially) as a musician. Sure, that'd be unfortunate (assuming his music was good), but that's the way it is. You may say, "This is unacceptable! There needs to be a legal fix for this situation." I say no; if you looked around and thought for a while, you'd see that situations like this are really not so unusual. Suppose I'm a student at a school and I'm a member of some club (math club, if it makes a difference), and I come up with a fundraising idea: host a dance on the Friday after exams for the academic quarter are over, provide food, and sell tickets. And it's a success: the math club makes a good profit, and we expect to do even better next time. But, now, when the next quarter rolls around, a different club with more advertising capability sets up their own dance and attracts most of our attendees away. Their dance is an even bigger success, our second dance turns out a loss, and we in the math club have no reason to expect the same thing won't happen again next time, so we discontinue our dances. Now that other club makes a profit and we get nothing; had I realized beforehand that this would have happened, I might not have bothered. This is unfortunate, isn't it? But I don't think even the most hardcore pro-copyright, pro-patent advocate would claim that I or the math club had the right to a share of the other club's profits, nor that they were infringing on anything that could be called my "intellectual property". Our only recourse would be this: we could go to the other club, say, "Hey, you guys are benefiting a lot from what was our idea, and we're getting nothing; you really should cut us in on some of that," and if they said, "No, fuck you," then we could spread the story and smear them as ungrateful jerks (which they would be). Also, threatening to smear them as such might induce them to pay up. But legal action? No. Suppose Apple spends a large amount of time and money on research and development, and it concludes that a) PC's are going to be displaced by tablet computers and b) a tablet computer should optimally have a x b x c dimensions. Then other companies simply trust Apple's judgment; they cut their PC R&D budgets, start developing tablets, and make them approximately the same size. Their products are successful, and they suffer little when PC's do eventually decline. Again, no one could claim this is intellectual property violation even under today's laws. But these other companies are benefiting from Apple's hard work, and Apple has no way to demand (and get) compensation. And suppose I set up a big museum, and it's very successful and brings in a lot of visitors. Many of these visitors buy food at shops next to my museum. I have brought the owners of these shops a lot of customers that they wouldn't otherwise have gotten; they are benefiting from my hard work, and I have no way to make them pay for it. (This can't be intellectual property--it doesn't even have to do with ideas.) So there are cases where someone can do a bunch of work and make something good, and other people benefit a lot and the original person gets very little in return, and yet this person has no legal recourse to make his beneficiaries pay him. These situations happen. They'd be less likely to happen as the people in a society become more prosperous, generous, and civilized--which suggests what I consider to be the proper solution.[1] On the other hand, trying to patch over these situations by fucking with the legal system is asking for all kinds of trouble (and we're getting it). I'd hate to see the legal system that resulted when someone patched over every case I listed above. [1] In the math club example, if the people in the second club were nicer--or if the main body of students had a strong sense of fairness that would be offended by ungrateful jerkishness, and the second club cared about their image--then the problem would be solved. Now don't take this to mean that my beliefs are utopian and therefore irrelevant. I've said that the default situation--that there are cases where people make great things and benefit many others but get little in return--is unfortunate, but a fact of life. Clearly I don't think the world is perfect or humans are perfect; nor do I expect them to become perfect in the near future. I said that things would become better, that unfortunate situations would become less common or less unfortunate, to the extent that civilization advanced and humans became more generous. I consider this an excellent reason to want to improve the human condition, to make everyone more wealthy. (Oh, and, if someone goes around claiming that people who pirate copyrighted stuff are "criminals", "thieves", "depraved"--or, for that matter, on the same level as actual pirates who board ships, kill people or take hostages, and steal or wreck the stuff on the ship; or if someone goes around attempting (sometimes successfully) to use the legal system to extract or extort huge amounts of money from "pirates"; then I'm most certainly not going to feel like an ungrateful jerk if I fail to compensate them for downloading something they made.)
tobylane 16y ago
I don't justify it. One young new singer (Pixie lott) wrote a blog post saying that she felt affected. I replied saying that I torrented her album, gave it to friends, follow her on twitter/etc, know all the lyrics, will never come to her performances, see the talent (songwriter and ballet) in her work, but I still won't pay.
- techiferous 16y ago
  "but I still won't pay" I find this position absolutely fascinating. It sounds like you are a fan of hers. Why won't you pay? Is it a protest of sorts?

DrHankPym 16y ago

Honestly, I just don't care anymore. Napster has shown it's face over 10 years ago, so anyone still thinking the same music business model is going to sustain forever is a fool. Hacking a system to create artificial value is not the answer, especially when producing music is becoming cheaper and cheaper.

Silhouette 16y ago
> Hacking a system to create artificial value is not the answer, especially when producing music is becoming cheaper and cheaper. Copyright isn't useful because it creates artificial value, it's useful because it lets a work with a high production cost be distributed for a low per-copy cost, amortising the initial costs over many consumers. Without some sort of model that allows this, we would be back in the dark ages where magnificent works were produced only by artists with rich patrons.
- rome 16y ago
  Music production costs are the lowest they've ever been. Copyright was created as an incentive to create. Personally I believe that if there were no copyright law, musicians would still create.
  - Silhouette 16y ago
    You're oversimplifying. I don't think anyone would argue that in the absence of copyright, nobody would make music any more. However, that doesn't tell us whether the same quantity and/or quality of music would be made, nor, ultimately, whether the same number of people would get as much enjoyment from listening to music as they do today. No-one is forcing musicians to rely on copyright. If production costs are so low and giving away their work for free really generates increased overall income via secondary effects, then it is remarkable how little evidence there seems to be of professional musicians choosing that alternative strategy.

radu_floricica 16y ago

Jaywalking is just as obviously illegal. Would you support the death penalty for it? Or lengthy imprisonment? Or bankruptcy-generating fines? In the case of pirated music, using this kind of fines is much more immoral then the punished act itself - in the opinion of most of us.

techiferous 16y ago
Of course. I agree 100%. But this is different than the question I am asking. I'm not asking about what the legal consequences of music piracy should be, but how music piracy can be ethically justified.
- flashgordon 16y ago
  I didnt think it was being justified though. It was an issue of one guy being charged almost 700k for 30 songs. If anything thing charge him 30 x price of each song (or even some multiple M, say 2, for "expenses"). To truly recover the costs, they should really be charging everyone who pirated the song or actively distributed it instead of who pinning the entire costs on one guy who pirated it or participated in a swarm.
  - techiferous 16y ago
    Conversation #1: Is it ethical to pirate music? Conversation #2: Is it ethical to sue $exorbitant for pirating music? Why does conversation #1 always turn into conversation #2?
    - flashgordon 16y ago
      except this time i thought #2 was turning into #1 (actually i found that happening a lot of other times too)...
      - techiferous 16y ago
        Haha! True. But it's frustrating for me to ask: "Is it ethical to pirate music?" and the direct answer to be "It is wrong to sue people for tons of money for pirating music." That's a complete non sequitur.

rome 16y ago

I don't think theres any justification for piracy. That being said, there is no way to own music. A musician owns a copyright. He has to choose if it's worth the effort to enforce that copyright or think of a way to thrive despite piracy.

Estragon 16y ago

My main problem with the current laws is that they could only be enforced effectively by extremely draconian measures. Same as my problem with the drug laws, really. Unenforceable laws just breed disrespect for the rule of law.

techiferous 16y ago
Yes, it seems like a broken system where everybody is wrong/wronged. Definitely needs an upgrade!

burgerbrain 16y ago

How do I ethically justify downloading music? How do I ethically justify speeding? Jaywalking? Throwing metal cans into the garbage instead of recycling? Serving alcohol to minors? The answer to all of these is that I don't. I simply don't give a shit.

waterhouse 16y ago

In my case, I believe pretty strongly in property rights, and I believe intellectual property rights (as they are called) are incompatible with real property rights. Therefore, "pirating" anything is at least legally permissible. I don't intend to argue that point; you asked to understand and I'm explaining how I think. > From my perspective, a musician put forth a lot of effort and cost into creating a piece of music. And, sure, it would be nice if this musician were rewarded for his efforts--if it became a financially viable operation--and if he (or aspiring musicians who know of his example) were encouraged to make more good music. However (according to my view), once he puts his music into digital files and someone puts it on the internet (which is more likely the more popular his music gets), he has no legal way to compel anyone who downloads it to pay him for it. At this point, I'd say, "Yup. So he'll have to be somewhat creative (or get good at performing live or something) if he wants to make much money as a musician." Yes, it's possible that few people will pay him, and he'll be forced to go out of business (at least partially) as a musician. Sure, that'd be unfortunate (assuming his music was good), but that's the way it is. You may say, "This is unacceptable! There needs to be a legal fix for this situation." I say no; if you looked around and thought for a while, you'd see that situations like this are really not so unusual. Suppose I'm a student at a school and I'm a member of some club (math club, if it makes a difference), and I come up with a fundraising idea: host a dance on the Friday after exams for the academic quarter are over, provide food, and sell tickets. And it's a success: the math club makes a good profit, and we expect to do even better next time. But, now, when the next quarter rolls around, a different club with more advertising capability sets up their own dance and attracts most of our attendees away. Their dance is an even bigger success, our second dance turns out a loss, and we in the math club have no reason to expect the same thing won't happen again next time, so we discontinue our dances. Now that other club makes a profit and we get nothing; had I realized beforehand that this would have happened, I might not have bothered. This is unfortunate, isn't it? But I don't think even the most hardcore pro-copyright, pro-patent advocate would claim that I or the math club had the right to a share of the other club's profits, nor that they were infringing on anything that could be called my "intellectual property". Our only recourse would be this: we could go to the other club, say, "Hey, you guys are benefiting a lot from what was our idea, and we're getting nothing; you really should cut us in on some of that," and if they said, "No, fuck you," then we could spread the story and smear them as ungrateful jerks (which they would be). Also, threatening to smear them as such might induce them to pay up. But legal action? No. Suppose Apple spends a large amount of time and money on research and development, and it concludes that a) PC's are going to be displaced by tablet computers and b) a tablet computer should optimally have a x b x c dimensions. Then other companies simply trust Apple's judgment; they cut their PC R&D budgets, start developing tablets, and make them approximately the same size. Their products are successful, and they suffer little when PC's do eventually decline. Again, no one could claim this is intellectual property violation even under today's laws. But these other companies are benefiting from Apple's hard work, and Apple has no way to demand (and get) compensation. And suppose I set up a big museum, and it's very successful and brings in a lot of visitors. Many of these visitors buy food at shops next to my museum. I have brought the owners of these shops a lot of customers that they wouldn't otherwise have gotten; they are benefiting from my hard work, and I have no way to make them pay for it. (This can't be intellectual property--it doesn't even have to do with ideas.) So there are cases where someone can do a bunch of work and make something good, and other people benefit a lot and the original person gets very little in return, and yet this person has no legal recourse to make his beneficiaries pay him. These situations happen. They'd be less likely to happen as the people in a society become more prosperous, generous, and civilized--which suggests what I consider to be the proper solution.[1] On the other hand, trying to patch over these situations by fucking with the legal system is asking for all kinds of trouble (and we're getting it). I'd hate to see the legal system that resulted when someone patched over every case I listed above. [1] In the math club example, if the people in the second club were nicer--or if the main body of students had a strong sense of fairness that would be offended by ungrateful jerkishness, and the second club cared about their image--then the problem would be solved. Now don't take this to mean that my beliefs are utopian and therefore irrelevant. I've said that the default situation--that there are cases where people make great things and benefit many others but get little in return--is unfortunate, but a fact of life. Clearly I don't think the world is perfect or humans are perfect; nor do I expect them to become perfect in the near future. I said that things would become better, that unfortunate situations would become less common or less unfortunate, to the extent that civilization advanced and humans became more generous. I consider this an excellent reason to want to improve the human condition, to make everyone more wealthy. (Oh, and, if someone goes around claiming that people who pirate copyrighted stuff are "criminals", "thieves", "depraved"--or, for that matter, on the same level as actual pirates who board ships, kill people or take hostages, and steal or wreck the stuff on the ship; or if someone goes around attempting (sometimes successfully) to use the legal system to extract or extort huge amounts of money from "pirates"; then I'm most certainly not going to feel like an ungrateful jerk if I fail to compensate them for downloading something they made.)

tobylane 16y ago

I don't justify it. One young new singer (Pixie lott) wrote a blog post saying that she felt affected. I replied saying that I torrented her album, gave it to friends, follow her on twitter/etc, know all the lyrics, will never come to her performances, see the talent (songwriter and ballet) in her work, but I still won't pay.

techiferous 16y ago
"but I still won't pay" I find this position absolutely fascinating. It sounds like you are a fan of hers. Why won't you pay? Is it a protest of sorts?