7 ms·

It's a reiteration of a sentiment I've seen a lot recently: "My livelihood doesn't depend on copyright, so I'll feel free to violate yours." Are people really

It's a reiteration of a sentiment I've seen a lot recently: "My livelihood doesn't depend on copyright, so I'll feel free to violate yours." Are people really so unconcerned about the livelihood of others? Each of us is already free to give away the fruits of our own labors -- but why insist that others must do the same?

kiba 17y ago
It is actually a very capitalist/libertarian mentality. "If you are able to compete in the market, good for you. If you couldn't compete, so what?" It does not however, mean that they support government granted monopolies, subsidy, or other form of crony capitalism. To some libertarians, copyright and patent are a form of crony capitalism.
- wwalker3 17y ago
  If I know that an author doesn't want me to copy his book, I won't copy it. It's not a matter of law or monopoly, it's just politeness.
  - kiba 17y ago
    I don't think most copyright abolisionists would want to either, simply out of principles or sprites. My comment were mostly in the context of a competition, not customers.
  - apotheon 17y ago
    That's great. Now . . . let's see if we can avoid legislating politeness.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      Clearly we can't, since virtually everything that can be downloaded for free on the Internet is being downloaded for free on the Internet, books very much included.
      - apotheon 17y ago
        I'm not sure exactly how you think that addresses my point. Perhaps you're fallaciously affirming the consequent.
  - wlievens 17y ago
    Legal and economic systems can't depend on politeness.
- apotheon 17y ago
  You're pretty much on the money, here -- except that I prefer the term "economic individualist" to "capitalist", generally, since "capitalism" was originally a pejorative term invented by Marx and company to refer to economic individualism.
tsuraan 17y ago
The biggest issue with copyright today is that the law itself is contemptible, so people do not respect it. Our constitution (for those in the US) allows the government to create a time-limited copyright law, for the purpose of promoting the arts. As it stands today, no work has returned to the public domain in most people's lifetimes, and very few people expect it to happen. Copyright is an agreement between society and creators of art, literature, music, etc. It says that if they will share their creations with society, then society will allow them to profit from that for a time. After that time is up, everybody gets to share the works freely. Society has been granting the artists the monopoly on distribution, but we haven't been getting the ability to share them after a period of time. It's this imbalance that causes people to lose respect for the law. I don't think copyright should be abolished, but I do think it needs to return to its original term, and I believe that retroactive extensions are an abomination against what copyright is supposed to create. I'm not terribly eloquent, but Thomas McCauley was. His words are at http://baens-universe.com/articles/McCauley_copyright http://baens-universe.com/articles/McCauley_copyright .
- tptacek 17y ago
  What a red herring. That the media industries have distorted the time frames of copyright has nothing to do with the fact that people are rampantly downloading new media over the Internet. The movie industry in particular would be perfectly happy --- overjoyed, in fact --- if they could just get movies locked down within a new release window measured in weeks.
  - tsuraan 17y ago
    Laws that breed contempt for themselves won't be followed. If we had a respectable copyright regime, content producers would have a leg to stand on. There will always be scofflaws in any society; the goal is to minimize that behaviour, not to eliminate it. Besides that, what is lost when a penniless student downloads a song? A sale? From a student who has no money? The losses are from people who can afford to make purchases. Those people must be convinced to follow the law, and the essential first step is to make the law something that people can respect.
randallsquared 17y ago
As a plantation owner might have complained, it's like saying, "My livelihood doesn't depend on slaves, so I'll feel free to 'free' yours." Admittedly, copyright is probably less harmful than slavery overall (and certainly is far less so on an individual level), but the analogy seems pretty good: slavery wasn't made illegal until it was already economically untenable, too.
apotheon 17y ago
What's that -- a long-winded way to say "tl;dr"? Look again, and see that "My livelihod does depend on copyright(able works)." While those aren't the specific words used to express the sentiment, that's definitely the sentiment explicitly expressed toward the end.
- tptacek 17y ago
  No, his comment was neither long-winded nor did it say "tl;dr".
  - apotheon 17y ago
    whoosh Apparently, you too did not read the article, nor most of my comment -- or maybe you ignored the beginning of wwalker3's comment, where (s)he said: > It's a reiteration of a sentiment I've seen a lot recently: "My livelihood doesn't depend on copyright, so I'll feel free to violate yours." Compare that with the meat of my own comment. Notice the relevance, and the fact that the opening to wwalker3's comment is completely off-base.

kiba 17y ago

It is actually a very capitalist/libertarian mentality. "If you are able to compete in the market, good for you. If you couldn't compete, so what?" It does not however, mean that they support government granted monopolies, subsidy, or other form of crony capitalism. To some libertarians, copyright and patent are a form of crony capitalism.

wwalker3 17y ago
If I know that an author doesn't want me to copy his book, I won't copy it. It's not a matter of law or monopoly, it's just politeness.
- kiba 17y ago
  I don't think most copyright abolisionists would want to either, simply out of principles or sprites. My comment were mostly in the context of a competition, not customers.
- apotheon 17y ago
  That's great. Now . . . let's see if we can avoid legislating politeness.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    Clearly we can't, since virtually everything that can be downloaded for free on the Internet is being downloaded for free on the Internet, books very much included.
    - apotheon 17y ago
      I'm not sure exactly how you think that addresses my point. Perhaps you're fallaciously affirming the consequent.
- wlievens 17y ago
  Legal and economic systems can't depend on politeness.
apotheon 17y ago
You're pretty much on the money, here -- except that I prefer the term "economic individualist" to "capitalist", generally, since "capitalism" was originally a pejorative term invented by Marx and company to refer to economic individualism.

tsuraan 17y ago

The biggest issue with copyright today is that the law itself is contemptible, so people do not respect it. Our constitution (for those in the US) allows the government to create a time-limited copyright law, for the purpose of promoting the arts. As it stands today, no work has returned to the public domain in most people's lifetimes, and very few people expect it to happen. Copyright is an agreement between society and creators of art, literature, music, etc. It says that if they will share their creations with society, then society will allow them to profit from that for a time. After that time is up, everybody gets to share the works freely. Society has been granting the artists the monopoly on distribution, but we haven't been getting the ability to share them after a period of time. It's this imbalance that causes people to lose respect for the law. I don't think copyright should be abolished, but I do think it needs to return to its original term, and I believe that retroactive extensions are an abomination against what copyright is supposed to create. I'm not terribly eloquent, but Thomas McCauley was. His words are at http://baens-universe.com/articles/McCauley_copyright http://baens-universe.com/articles/McCauley_copyright .

tptacek 17y ago
What a red herring. That the media industries have distorted the time frames of copyright has nothing to do with the fact that people are rampantly downloading new media over the Internet. The movie industry in particular would be perfectly happy --- overjoyed, in fact --- if they could just get movies locked down within a new release window measured in weeks.
- tsuraan 17y ago
  Laws that breed contempt for themselves won't be followed. If we had a respectable copyright regime, content producers would have a leg to stand on. There will always be scofflaws in any society; the goal is to minimize that behaviour, not to eliminate it. Besides that, what is lost when a penniless student downloads a song? A sale? From a student who has no money? The losses are from people who can afford to make purchases. Those people must be convinced to follow the law, and the essential first step is to make the law something that people can respect.

randallsquared 17y ago

As a plantation owner might have complained, it's like saying, "My livelihood doesn't depend on slaves, so I'll feel free to 'free' yours." Admittedly, copyright is probably less harmful than slavery overall (and certainly is far less so on an individual level), but the analogy seems pretty good: slavery wasn't made illegal until it was already economically untenable, too.

apotheon 17y ago

What's that -- a long-winded way to say "tl;dr"? Look again, and see that "My livelihod does depend on copyright(able works)." While those aren't the specific words used to express the sentiment, that's definitely the sentiment explicitly expressed toward the end.

tptacek 17y ago
No, his comment was neither long-winded nor did it say "tl;dr".
- apotheon 17y ago
  whoosh Apparently, you too did not read the article, nor most of my comment -- or maybe you ignored the beginning of wwalker3's comment, where (s)he said: > It's a reiteration of a sentiment I've seen a lot recently: "My livelihood doesn't depend on copyright, so I'll feel free to violate yours." Compare that with the meat of my own comment. Notice the relevance, and the fact that the opening to wwalker3's comment is completely off-base.