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"I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it" Fantastic - your comment history indicates you're a programmer of some kind,

"I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it" Fantastic - your comment history indicates you're a programmer of some kind, running a company. I'm sure you've got some interesting insights into this field. If you could just write them up into a decent book, edit it properly so I can understand it, make it pithy, smart and worth reading so I can get the most of your "description", pay someone to draw some decent diagrams, etc, and then ship it over, that'd be great. But because it's just "information", and can be replicated freely, I'm not going to pay you to do any of that. I just want the "information" - the production costs are all up to you. So noone's out anything, any this is a perfectly reasoning thing to expect, right?

atlassic 14y ago
Publishing a book has been on my bucket list for a while. And I have no plans to bitch about it being "stolen". Name recognition and being able to say "I wrote the book on X" is far more valuable than the royalties most authors make these days. So please, steal my book, and ask your friends to steal it too. Your free marketing on my behalf will be most welcome.
- GHFigs 14y ago
  You're confusing your own choice to give away your own work with the choice of many to take work of others not freely given. It's unreasonable to assume that everybody would make the same choice as you, which is why a creator's right to make that choice is important. Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Or would you rather not have that choice at all?
  - vidarh 14y ago
    > Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Or would you rather not have that choice at all? I'd like to point out here that in most countries, copyrights and moral rights are legally entirely separate. Moral rights (the right to be recognized as the creator of a work, and in certain circumstances the right to dis-avow your involvement with a work, if it has been modified in certain ways for example) are generally non-transferable, for example. Trying to conflate the two to argue against someone's belief that reproduction / copying a work is ok is thus rather meaningless - we can easily enough have one without the other.
    - GHFigs 14y ago
      I'm not conflating the two at all. The point is that having rights over your own work implies other people have rights over theirs, too.
      - icebraining 14y ago
        But defending attribution rights doesn't mean you have to defend copyright.
  - derleth 14y ago
    > Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Except everyone is against this. Everyone is against plagiarism. That's where the law falls down: We have laws against 'copyright infringement', a wonky idea that essentially nobody understands or cares about, but not against plagiarism, which is what most people actually are against and will work to combat. Some people actually think copyright infringement and plagiarism are the same thing, to the extent they believe that proper attribution keeps them on the right side of the law. It does, of course: The right side of the moral law, which is all most people ever really follow. Then you have the few zealots, who try to equate copyright infringement with theft. They might just as well try to claim that it's a violation just like rape is a violation so The Pirate Bay is guilty of rape. They'd still fail, but at least their failure would be more amusing to the rest of us.
- dalke 14y ago
  You're being dense. Why do I have to make a perfect copy? Without copyright protections, I could get a copy of your book, remove your name from the title and use my name instead, and then sell it to others. Who would of course be free to do the same. Where's your marketing strategy if people just think you're one of the 250 people who claim to have written the book? "It's almost as if copying something isn't actually the same as taking a physical object from someone." It isn't. The legal system and laws concerning copyright are very different than those concerning taking a physical object, and have been for centuries. Anyone saying they are the same either 1) don't know the law, or 2) deliberately want criminal property law to include civil copyright law. Probably so they can have the police do their dirty work.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Most countries separate moral rights (to be recognized as the creator of the work) from duplication rights in various ways. Moral rights are usually not transferable for example. There's no reason why we can not enforce the two differently. Especially seeing as there seem to be much less interest in violating authors moral rights - most pirated works retain the original credits. I would hazard a guess that most people would in fact be far more opposed to violations of a creators moral rights than of duplication rights.
    - dalke 14y ago
      Yes, I was using a US viewpoint, given that I'm a US citizen, HN is hosted in the US, and most of the participants are also under US copyright jurisdiction. The US doesn't have moral rights like what other countries have. Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. is the Supreme Court example showing that works which have entered the public domain can be edited, and in doing so, remove information about the original authors. Moral rights, as I understand them, only apply when something "would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation." However, modification depends on copyright. These are two separate things, and I think you agree with that. Scalia, writing for the Court in the 8-0 decision, points out that Dastar "could face Lanham Act liability for crediting the creator if that should be regarded as implying the creator’s “sponsorship or approval” of the copy." Because Dastar did not include mention of Fox as the original author, there is actually less chance of the new work being 'prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation' and less infringement on moral right. Therefore, I don't understand how your mentioning of moral rights affects my "one of 250" scenario. Since different countries seem to have different view on what exactly moral rights means, could you explain what the specific principle is and how long that moral right would last? When you do so, could you also comment on how moral right would change the Dastar case, and how it might affect the following circumstance, also quoted from Scalia's Supreme Court judgement? "A video of the MGM film Carmen Jones, after its copyright has expired, would presumably require attribution not just to MGM, but to Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote the musical on which the film was based), to Georges Bizet (who wrote the opera on which the musical was based), and to Prosper Mérimée (who wrote the novel on which the opera was based). In many cases, figuring out who is in the line of “origin” would be no simple task."
EliRivers 14y ago
I have no interest in writing a book. Why would I do that for you? I said "I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it". That is not - I repeat - not the same as "I am happy to write a decent book, edit it properly so you can understand it, make it pithy, smart and worth reading so you can get the most of my "description", pay someone to draw some decent diagrams, etc, and then ship it over". If you can't see the difference between those two things then your perception and judgement is so hopelessly skewed as to render almost anything you say inherently untrustworthy. If you can see the difference, then you know full well that you've constructed a false argument. Why you would do that I have no idea. Maybe you don't like the argument at hand and you want to change it to one you do like. Maybe you're suggesting that someone else who had done all those things would not be so keen to let someone copy it. That's great. I'm not someone else. As an aside, I do not think that piracy is okay. I do think it's not the same as taking physical property. I do think it's not the same as selling credit card numbers. That's my argument.

atlassic 14y ago

Publishing a book has been on my bucket list for a while. And I have no plans to bitch about it being "stolen". Name recognition and being able to say "I wrote the book on X" is far more valuable than the royalties most authors make these days. So please, steal my book, and ask your friends to steal it too. Your free marketing on my behalf will be most welcome.

GHFigs 14y ago
You're confusing your own choice to give away your own work with the choice of many to take work of others not freely given. It's unreasonable to assume that everybody would make the same choice as you, which is why a creator's right to make that choice is important. Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Or would you rather not have that choice at all?
- vidarh 14y ago
  > Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Or would you rather not have that choice at all? I'd like to point out here that in most countries, copyrights and moral rights are legally entirely separate. Moral rights (the right to be recognized as the creator of a work, and in certain circumstances the right to dis-avow your involvement with a work, if it has been modified in certain ways for example) are generally non-transferable, for example. Trying to conflate the two to argue against someone's belief that reproduction / copying a work is ok is thus rather meaningless - we can easily enough have one without the other.
  - GHFigs 14y ago
    I'm not conflating the two at all. The point is that having rights over your own work implies other people have rights over theirs, too.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      But defending attribution rights doesn't mean you have to defend copyright.
- derleth 14y ago
  > Would you, for example, feel the same way about publishing a book if you had no right to keep other people from putting their name on it and claiming it as their own? Except everyone is against this. Everyone is against plagiarism. That's where the law falls down: We have laws against 'copyright infringement', a wonky idea that essentially nobody understands or cares about, but not against plagiarism, which is what most people actually are against and will work to combat. Some people actually think copyright infringement and plagiarism are the same thing, to the extent they believe that proper attribution keeps them on the right side of the law. It does, of course: The right side of the moral law, which is all most people ever really follow. Then you have the few zealots, who try to equate copyright infringement with theft. They might just as well try to claim that it's a violation just like rape is a violation so The Pirate Bay is guilty of rape. They'd still fail, but at least their failure would be more amusing to the rest of us.
dalke 14y ago
You're being dense. Why do I have to make a perfect copy? Without copyright protections, I could get a copy of your book, remove your name from the title and use my name instead, and then sell it to others. Who would of course be free to do the same. Where's your marketing strategy if people just think you're one of the 250 people who claim to have written the book? "It's almost as if copying something isn't actually the same as taking a physical object from someone." It isn't. The legal system and laws concerning copyright are very different than those concerning taking a physical object, and have been for centuries. Anyone saying they are the same either 1) don't know the law, or 2) deliberately want criminal property law to include civil copyright law. Probably so they can have the police do their dirty work.
- vidarh 14y ago
  Most countries separate moral rights (to be recognized as the creator of the work) from duplication rights in various ways. Moral rights are usually not transferable for example. There's no reason why we can not enforce the two differently. Especially seeing as there seem to be much less interest in violating authors moral rights - most pirated works retain the original credits. I would hazard a guess that most people would in fact be far more opposed to violations of a creators moral rights than of duplication rights.
  - dalke 14y ago
    Yes, I was using a US viewpoint, given that I'm a US citizen, HN is hosted in the US, and most of the participants are also under US copyright jurisdiction. The US doesn't have moral rights like what other countries have. Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. is the Supreme Court example showing that works which have entered the public domain can be edited, and in doing so, remove information about the original authors. Moral rights, as I understand them, only apply when something "would be prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation." However, modification depends on copyright. These are two separate things, and I think you agree with that. Scalia, writing for the Court in the 8-0 decision, points out that Dastar "could face Lanham Act liability for crediting the creator if that should be regarded as implying the creator’s “sponsorship or approval” of the copy." Because Dastar did not include mention of Fox as the original author, there is actually less chance of the new work being 'prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation' and less infringement on moral right. Therefore, I don't understand how your mentioning of moral rights affects my "one of 250" scenario. Since different countries seem to have different view on what exactly moral rights means, could you explain what the specific principle is and how long that moral right would last? When you do so, could you also comment on how moral right would change the Dastar case, and how it might affect the following circumstance, also quoted from Scalia's Supreme Court judgement? "A video of the MGM film Carmen Jones, after its copyright has expired, would presumably require attribution not just to MGM, but to Oscar Hammerstein II (who wrote the musical on which the film was based), to Georges Bizet (who wrote the opera on which the musical was based), and to Prosper Mérimée (who wrote the novel on which the opera was based). In many cases, figuring out who is in the line of “origin” would be no simple task."

EliRivers 14y ago

I have no interest in writing a book. Why would I do that for you? I said "I am happy to describe to you something I own so that you can make a copy of it". That is not - I repeat - not the same as "I am happy to write a decent book, edit it properly so you can understand it, make it pithy, smart and worth reading so you can get the most of my "description", pay someone to draw some decent diagrams, etc, and then ship it over". If you can't see the difference between those two things then your perception and judgement is so hopelessly skewed as to render almost anything you say inherently untrustworthy. If you can see the difference, then you know full well that you've constructed a false argument. Why you would do that I have no idea. Maybe you don't like the argument at hand and you want to change it to one you do like. Maybe you're suggesting that someone else who had done all those things would not be so keen to let someone copy it. That's great. I'm not someone else. As an aside, I do not think that piracy is okay. I do think it's not the same as taking physical property. I do think it's not the same as selling credit card numbers. That's my argument.