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Let's say I'm a private individual who thinks the world would love a book on robot kittens. The author I want to write the book says she will do it for $1M. But

Let's say I'm a private individual who thinks the world would love a book on robot kittens. The author I want to write the book says she will do it for $1M. But I don't have $1M to pay her. So we both agree that I will pay her some lesser amount, say $100,000, and then give her $1 for every book I sell. She's hoping I will sell more than 900,000 books, and I'm also hoping that. What exactly is unethical about that? How is that any less ethical than an author selling their own book directly, or selling their book wholesale to some other party (who then sells the book)?

breck 6y ago
Absolutely nothing unethical about that. Perhaps foolish, from a business standpoint (I don't know much about robot kittens, but I have to admit it does sound intriguing), but nothing unethical. What is unethical is saying, "you write a book on kittens, I'll print and sell the books and if anyone who buys it from me then tried to make copies, I'll have the government pay them a visit with guns". And that is exactly how our Imaginary Property system works.
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  But that's the way it works with an author who sells their own books as well - which you've said you're okay with.
  - jholman 6y ago
    It seems pretty straightforward what breck is claiming, I'm astonished at the incomprehension and downvotes. Breck has said, plainly, that the author is welcome to write a book and sell copies (on robot kittens or otherwise). Or accept money for writing a book, or offer money to write a book, with or without selling copies. Breck has also claimed that it is unethical for the author to attempt to control what purchasers of that book do with those copies, e.g. make copies of their own and sell them. Relatedly, they claim that it's unethical to profit off of someone else enforcing such control. In modern legal systems, if that purchaser sells copies, likely the author will ask the government to exercise their monopoly on violence to stop the copier, claiming that the copier violates "copy right", the right to control copying. Breck is saying that it is unethical for the government to stop this copying, and unethical for the author to ask the government to do so. This is a very coherent and reasonable position, though you may reasonably disagree. From this, breck reasons that if ADF has a contract with Disney that, to make any sense at all, requires that copyright be enforced, then defaults on this rogue's contract are not breck's ethical business, and thus breck is not sad that the contract is being violated. Much as breck would not be sad on the carpenter's behalf if the mob boss didn't pay his licensing fee, because the whole contract between the mob boss and the carpenter is (according to breck) unethical.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      Perhaps my confusion stems from how completely orthogonal this point is to the discussion of a contract not being upheld. Even in a hypothetical world where all "Imaginary Property" is completely free as breck imagines it could be, people may still choose to pay me for developing the robot kitten book. And if I have a contract with you that stipulates I get $9 from that money and you get $1 from that money, I would need to pay you. If breck has no sympathy for this person who is allegedly being screwed over by Disney, then he also has no sympathy for almost all writers, painters, photographers, and other artists in the world. Also, most programmers, since even the most popular open source software licenses still introduce restrictions with the threat of punishment. I'm sure breck publishes all of his code in Zero-Clause BSD, but that is categorized as "Other" (< 1%) when it comes to most popular github licenses, so there sure are a lot of unethical githubbers. So we've learned that breck has, basically, no sympathy for anybody. That's not a very interesting life philosophy in my book, and one I don't actually buy, which is why I was inquiring about the details of his viewpoints.
      - breck 6y ago
        There are a whole class of contracts called “unenforceable contracts”, and what I’m arguing is that imaginary property laws should fall into that category. They don’t, of course, not yet, and I think this guy has a strong case against Disney, if not ethical.
      - jholman 6y ago
        I understand initially thinking it's completely orthogonal; I had the same initial misunderstanding. That's the utility of the mob boss analogy. Imagine I sell weapons, legally and honestly, but also knowingly to "bad people". Suppose that those bad people acquire the money to pay me by doing things that you and I both agree are unethical (but perhaps legal, perhaps by a technicality), facilitated in part by the weapons I sold. We agree that, in this hypothetical, I'm contributing to unethical behaviour, right? So then, imagine that my contract with these bad people is in some way violated, so that I don't receive the full benefits I was entitled to, under the terms of sale of the weapons. Perhaps they were going to pay me over 4 easy payments of 99.99, and they defaulted after 2 payments. I think many people would agree that it's kinda my own fault for entering into such a bargain with such a devil. Breck is expressing that they fall into this camp. It's a very common position. An idea that's distinct-but-similar is the idea that it might be unlawful or unethical to possess stolen property, especially if knowingly so, even if you definitely did not yourself steal it. It seems pretty easy to imagine breck saying "I'm not that wound up about jholman having oh_sigh's stolen property, but I definitely would have no sympathy for jholman if someone else were to steal that property away from him too". As for the "breck must have no sympathy for anyone", you're not making enough of an effort. First of all, most writers write at an hourly rate, not for a cut of the profits, for example most advertising copywriters, most journalists, etc. Most painters sell paintings, not licenses, and while they tend to object to copying, most of their income comes mostly independent of law of copyright, because of cultural norms about what the worth of a painting is. As with the painters, so with most artists in the world. Etsy jewellers, for example, do not depend on copyright for their livelihood. Photographers maybe more true, and programmers, you're probably right. But you're wrong about the GPL; given what breck has claimed about their values, I can imagine two or three variations within those claims that are ethically consistent with the GPL. But finally, when you say "basically, no sympathy for anybody", this is truly silly. Even if everything I said in the previous paragraph is wrong, all writers, programmers, and artists collectively, make up a pretty small slice of the world. Even in the developed world there are many industries that work primarily by making and distributing physicals goods where copyright is irrelevant, and in the developing world this is even more true. That's billions of people that breck can still have sympathy for. I mean, once upon a time I believed some variation of what breck is claiming. I don't believe it any longer; I currently tend to believe that at least some copyright law is probably better for society than no copyright law. But they seem to be espousing it consistently.
  - breck 6y ago
    [edited: moved to proper thread]

breck 6y ago

Absolutely nothing unethical about that. Perhaps foolish, from a business standpoint (I don't know much about robot kittens, but I have to admit it does sound intriguing), but nothing unethical. What is unethical is saying, "you write a book on kittens, I'll print and sell the books and if anyone who buys it from me then tried to make copies, I'll have the government pay them a visit with guns". And that is exactly how our Imaginary Property system works.

oh_sigh 6y ago
But that's the way it works with an author who sells their own books as well - which you've said you're okay with.
- jholman 6y ago
  It seems pretty straightforward what breck is claiming, I'm astonished at the incomprehension and downvotes. Breck has said, plainly, that the author is welcome to write a book and sell copies (on robot kittens or otherwise). Or accept money for writing a book, or offer money to write a book, with or without selling copies. Breck has also claimed that it is unethical for the author to attempt to control what purchasers of that book do with those copies, e.g. make copies of their own and sell them. Relatedly, they claim that it's unethical to profit off of someone else enforcing such control. In modern legal systems, if that purchaser sells copies, likely the author will ask the government to exercise their monopoly on violence to stop the copier, claiming that the copier violates "copy right", the right to control copying. Breck is saying that it is unethical for the government to stop this copying, and unethical for the author to ask the government to do so. This is a very coherent and reasonable position, though you may reasonably disagree. From this, breck reasons that if ADF has a contract with Disney that, to make any sense at all, requires that copyright be enforced, then defaults on this rogue's contract are not breck's ethical business, and thus breck is not sad that the contract is being violated. Much as breck would not be sad on the carpenter's behalf if the mob boss didn't pay his licensing fee, because the whole contract between the mob boss and the carpenter is (according to breck) unethical.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Perhaps my confusion stems from how completely orthogonal this point is to the discussion of a contract not being upheld. Even in a hypothetical world where all "Imaginary Property" is completely free as breck imagines it could be, people may still choose to pay me for developing the robot kitten book. And if I have a contract with you that stipulates I get $9 from that money and you get $1 from that money, I would need to pay you. If breck has no sympathy for this person who is allegedly being screwed over by Disney, then he also has no sympathy for almost all writers, painters, photographers, and other artists in the world. Also, most programmers, since even the most popular open source software licenses still introduce restrictions with the threat of punishment. I'm sure breck publishes all of his code in Zero-Clause BSD, but that is categorized as "Other" (< 1%) when it comes to most popular github licenses, so there sure are a lot of unethical githubbers. So we've learned that breck has, basically, no sympathy for anybody. That's not a very interesting life philosophy in my book, and one I don't actually buy, which is why I was inquiring about the details of his viewpoints.
    - breck 6y ago
      There are a whole class of contracts called “unenforceable contracts”, and what I’m arguing is that imaginary property laws should fall into that category. They don’t, of course, not yet, and I think this guy has a strong case against Disney, if not ethical.
    - jholman 6y ago
      I understand initially thinking it's completely orthogonal; I had the same initial misunderstanding. That's the utility of the mob boss analogy. Imagine I sell weapons, legally and honestly, but also knowingly to "bad people". Suppose that those bad people acquire the money to pay me by doing things that you and I both agree are unethical (but perhaps legal, perhaps by a technicality), facilitated in part by the weapons I sold. We agree that, in this hypothetical, I'm contributing to unethical behaviour, right? So then, imagine that my contract with these bad people is in some way violated, so that I don't receive the full benefits I was entitled to, under the terms of sale of the weapons. Perhaps they were going to pay me over 4 easy payments of 99.99, and they defaulted after 2 payments. I think many people would agree that it's kinda my own fault for entering into such a bargain with such a devil. Breck is expressing that they fall into this camp. It's a very common position. An idea that's distinct-but-similar is the idea that it might be unlawful or unethical to possess stolen property, especially if knowingly so, even if you definitely did not yourself steal it. It seems pretty easy to imagine breck saying "I'm not that wound up about jholman having oh_sigh's stolen property, but I definitely would have no sympathy for jholman if someone else were to steal that property away from him too". As for the "breck must have no sympathy for anyone", you're not making enough of an effort. First of all, most writers write at an hourly rate, not for a cut of the profits, for example most advertising copywriters, most journalists, etc. Most painters sell paintings, not licenses, and while they tend to object to copying, most of their income comes mostly independent of law of copyright, because of cultural norms about what the worth of a painting is. As with the painters, so with most artists in the world. Etsy jewellers, for example, do not depend on copyright for their livelihood. Photographers maybe more true, and programmers, you're probably right. But you're wrong about the GPL; given what breck has claimed about their values, I can imagine two or three variations within those claims that are ethically consistent with the GPL. But finally, when you say "basically, no sympathy for anybody", this is truly silly. Even if everything I said in the previous paragraph is wrong, all writers, programmers, and artists collectively, make up a pretty small slice of the world. Even in the developed world there are many industries that work primarily by making and distributing physicals goods where copyright is irrelevant, and in the developing world this is even more true. That's billions of people that breck can still have sympathy for. I mean, once upon a time I believed some variation of what breck is claiming. I don't believe it any longer; I currently tend to believe that at least some copyright law is probably better for society than no copyright law. But they seem to be espousing it consistently.
- breck 6y ago
  [edited: moved to proper thread]