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If I don't think a product in the shop is reasonably priced, I don't have the right just to take it. The shop can decide to reduce the price in response to the

If I don't think a product in the shop is reasonably priced, I don't have the right just to take it. The shop can decide to reduce the price in response to the market - they may make less profit than before and make up for it in volume. However, that is entirely their perogative. There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer. A digital good has the cost of production front loaded, it just has next to zero marginal cost. That may be the cost of education and experience, for example. If you make something of value, you absolutely have the right to choose how you are rewarded - if the buyer decides that choice isn't right for them, you can either change the offer or you look for your next customer. You may choose to give it away, if your reward is the satisfaction of someone using it, but that is your choice, not the consumer's.

logicchains 3y ago
>There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer There's absolutely a difference. If you produce a physical good, and somebody takes it, you no longer have it. If you produce a digital good and somebody copies it, you still have the original, you're still free to use and enjoy it as you see fit. Fundamentally property rights are a negative right: you have the right not to have your stuff taken. Negative rights don't conflict with eachother, that's why they make a good basis for society. Intellectual property is a positive right: you have the right to control how other people use their property, which conflicts with people's right to use their property as they see fit.
- awjlogan 3y ago
  Intellectual property is a response exactly to the difference in the marginal cost because it recognises the threat to the value creating producer. Just because you don't tangibly see the cost of the IP, that doesn't mean it was free to produce. You can absolutely argue that IP law is cynically applied, but in principle it protects high capital and low operating expense businesses from those who would like to do the low operating expense part without bothering about the high capital part.
haswell 3y ago
> If I don't think a product in the shop is reasonably priced, I don't have the right just to take it We need to collectively stop using these kinds of physical goods analogies in discussions about piracy. To claim that there is no difference is a fundamental miscalculation. To be clear, I do not condone piracy. I purchase the content that I view. But these kinds of fallacious analogies are misleading and dangerous to Internet freedom.
- awjlogan 3y ago
  In what way is it fallacious? Or dangerous? (That's a genuine question). Fundamentally, it's the same problem - producers have to adjust their prices to reflect the threat to their income. If I produce something, and I forecast X% of my overall market to be stolen, I have to adjust my selling price according. It doesn't matter if that something is physical or digital. If I produce something that is digital I have the luxury of being able to reduce the cost as low as I like to capture as much value as I can, but that is still my choice as the producer.
  - haswell 3y ago
    These arguments have been rehashed for decades at this point, and I think it’s best that I just link to an overview [0]. The bottom line is it there is a lot of nuance here, and simple analogies that make one act appear to be the same as the other lead to some reductionist conclusions that have been repeatedly taken up by lawmakers who do not understand these nuances. -[0] https://phys.org/news/2015-04-downloading-ethics-digital-piracy.html https://phys.org/news/2015-04-downloading-ethics-digital-pir...
    - awjlogan 3y ago
      Thank you for the link, appreciate the read and the nuance is important and I don't at all believe in the fundamentalist view on either side. I'm in complete agreement that threatening someone with massive legal ramifications is not good, but I do believe that people who make things of value should be able to do so with proportionate recourse to law to protect their livelihood. Law is, of course, made (or at least moulded) by those with money/influence so weighing the proportionality is the issue.
beej71 3y ago
If you sell a table, I am absolutely free to pirate that table by going home and making a copy of it. Totally legal. Creator gets no money for their work. Digital goods have far more legal protection against this than physical ones. They are not the same.

logicchains 3y ago

>There is zero difference between a digital and physical item if you are the producer There's absolutely a difference. If you produce a physical good, and somebody takes it, you no longer have it. If you produce a digital good and somebody copies it, you still have the original, you're still free to use and enjoy it as you see fit. Fundamentally property rights are a negative right: you have the right not to have your stuff taken. Negative rights don't conflict with eachother, that's why they make a good basis for society. Intellectual property is a positive right: you have the right to control how other people use their property, which conflicts with people's right to use their property as they see fit.

awjlogan 3y ago
Intellectual property is a response exactly to the difference in the marginal cost because it recognises the threat to the value creating producer. Just because you don't tangibly see the cost of the IP, that doesn't mean it was free to produce. You can absolutely argue that IP law is cynically applied, but in principle it protects high capital and low operating expense businesses from those who would like to do the low operating expense part without bothering about the high capital part.

haswell 3y ago

> If I don't think a product in the shop is reasonably priced, I don't have the right just to take it We need to collectively stop using these kinds of physical goods analogies in discussions about piracy. To claim that there is no difference is a fundamental miscalculation. To be clear, I do not condone piracy. I purchase the content that I view. But these kinds of fallacious analogies are misleading and dangerous to Internet freedom.

awjlogan 3y ago
In what way is it fallacious? Or dangerous? (That's a genuine question). Fundamentally, it's the same problem - producers have to adjust their prices to reflect the threat to their income. If I produce something, and I forecast X% of my overall market to be stolen, I have to adjust my selling price according. It doesn't matter if that something is physical or digital. If I produce something that is digital I have the luxury of being able to reduce the cost as low as I like to capture as much value as I can, but that is still my choice as the producer.
- haswell 3y ago
  These arguments have been rehashed for decades at this point, and I think it’s best that I just link to an overview [0]. The bottom line is it there is a lot of nuance here, and simple analogies that make one act appear to be the same as the other lead to some reductionist conclusions that have been repeatedly taken up by lawmakers who do not understand these nuances. -[0] https://phys.org/news/2015-04-downloading-ethics-digital-piracy.html https://phys.org/news/2015-04-downloading-ethics-digital-pir...
  - awjlogan 3y ago
    Thank you for the link, appreciate the read and the nuance is important and I don't at all believe in the fundamentalist view on either side. I'm in complete agreement that threatening someone with massive legal ramifications is not good, but I do believe that people who make things of value should be able to do so with proportionate recourse to law to protect their livelihood. Law is, of course, made (or at least moulded) by those with money/influence so weighing the proportionality is the issue.

beej71 3y ago

If you sell a table, I am absolutely free to pirate that table by going home and making a copy of it. Totally legal. Creator gets no money for their work. Digital goods have far more legal protection against this than physical ones. They are not the same.