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> Your arguments against copyright are so solid that they appear to change with each comment you make. I don't think you're reading very carefully, then. > Wh

> Your arguments against copyright are so solid that they appear to change with each comment you make. I don't think you're reading very carefully, then. > What is lost when a penniless student downloads a song? Not much. What is lost when every penniless student downloads a song? Tens of millions of dollars. You're assuming they'd all spend money on the song -- which, if they're penniless, they wouldn't. The only difference for most of them is whether they hear the song -- and tell their friends (who have more money to spend) about how highly they esteem the song. Whoops, now you're talking about free advertising. It's worth considering not only how much money each song is supposedly worth per customer, but how many people would actually get the song if the only way they could get it was by paying for it. The real question for a business would not be "How many people are listening without paying?" but, instead, should be "Would we get more money if we punish people for listening without paying, or for encouraging them to share with others who might then spend money to get more songs because they liked what they heard?" Conflating punishment for not paying with actual potential profits isn't really very useful as an economic metric. > People download because technology has, for the time being, made it easier to download than to buy. That simple fact has no bearing on whether it's right to download without buying. True. The same is true of the law. We need to look elsewhere than what laws are on the books and how many people are downloading illegally to find a basis for the ethics of the situation.

tptacek 17y ago
This is just handwaving. "Whoops, now you're talking about free advertising". Whoops, now you're talking about dictating the recording industry's business model back to it, because you don't like the one they chose. If that's your argument, why are you tilting at windmills? Why aren't you instead writing a blog post advocating that musicians ditch the recording industry? I think I know the answer: because that would be boring. Is it unethical to disobey the law? We could waste lots of time on that question. I personally don't think it's black-or-white. But who cares? That's not the argument I was responding to. The argument I responded to, which you've now jumped into the middle of, is the idea that because copyvio is rampant, the law must be wrong. That logic doesn't hold. Something like 15% of all transactions in Brazil in the mid-2000's were fraudulent because of bank and credit card theft. The laws weren't the problem.
- apotheon 17y ago
  > Whoops, now you're talking about dictating the recording industry's business model back to it, because you don't like the one they chose. We dictate business models in much the same way in other cases where a particular business model explicitly relies upon violations of individual rights -- such as telling people they shouldn't pursue a business model of armed robbery. > If that's your argument, why are you tilting at windmills? Why aren't you instead writing a blog post advocating that musicians ditch the recording industry? I've done that too. I like to write something new, and non-repetitive, from time to time. Do you just regurgitate saved copies of your old material all the time? You're right -- that would be boring. > Is it unethical to disobey the law? All else being equal, there's nothing about the law itself that makes it unethical to disobey. There are some laws it's unethical to disobey; there are others it is not. There are cases where disobeying a law would be unethical even if the law itself is unethical, but those cases are not defined merely by the fact it's a law. Feel free to dispute that, but you should do something more impressive than offer a circular argument (which is the form most "but it's the law!" arguments take). > The argument I responded to, which you've now jumped into the middle of Jesus fucking Christ. This is a public discussion venue. I am sick and tired of people coming up with the "Why are you interrupting my discussion?" excuse to dismiss comments in public discussion venues. Try actually addressing points made rather than inventing spurious excuses to shut people up when you disagree with them. > the idea that because copyvio is rampant, the law must be wrong That's not the argument that was advanced. The argument is that a bad law predisposes people to disregard even the good purpose of the law (assuming it has any good purposes), and may even predispose them to disregard other laws in general. There's nothing in that argument that reverses the causal relationship between behavior and the ethicality of a law the way you just did. You're right that violation of a law doesn't make it a bad law in an ethical sense (though it might make it "bad" in an enforceability sense, depending on how it gets violated). That's not the obvious interpretation of preceding statements on the subject, though -- at least as far as I've been able to determine.
- tsuraan 17y ago
  "The argument I responded to [...] is the idea that because copyvio is rampant, the law must be wrong" No, it has nothing to do with often violated laws being wrong. It has to do with broken social contracts. As I said in my original posting, copyright was formulated as a contract between society and an artist. The deal is that if an artist shares his work with society, then society will allow the artist to have a limited time monopoly on the work. In return, society gets ownership of that work once the monopoly's time period has expired. That is a social contract that isn't terribly hard to justify. Our new contract, apparently, is that an artist can create a work, share it with the world, and profit from every time the work is shared. Not only that, but when the artist dies, his next of kin get to keep that deal going. For all of eternity, given the trends of the last several decades. That's a deal that is repugnant to me, and to nearly everybody that I've met. It's not something that I can find any way to defend, so convincing people that copyright is a just institution is quite difficult. I want copyright to be just and defensible; I write software for a living, and I like being able to profit from its sale. However, I can't explain that copyright has any moral basis when it clearly doesn't. The only reasons that I see not to violate copyright today are fear of legal reprisal and personal feelings of loyalty towards individual content producers. Loyalty is good, and fear of punishment can be effective, but I'd love to have a law that's founded in some sort of morality.

tptacek 17y ago

This is just handwaving. "Whoops, now you're talking about free advertising". Whoops, now you're talking about dictating the recording industry's business model back to it, because you don't like the one they chose. If that's your argument, why are you tilting at windmills? Why aren't you instead writing a blog post advocating that musicians ditch the recording industry? I think I know the answer: because that would be boring. Is it unethical to disobey the law? We could waste lots of time on that question. I personally don't think it's black-or-white. But who cares? That's not the argument I was responding to. The argument I responded to, which you've now jumped into the middle of, is the idea that because copyvio is rampant, the law must be wrong. That logic doesn't hold. Something like 15% of all transactions in Brazil in the mid-2000's were fraudulent because of bank and credit card theft. The laws weren't the problem.

apotheon 17y ago
> Whoops, now you're talking about dictating the recording industry's business model back to it, because you don't like the one they chose. We dictate business models in much the same way in other cases where a particular business model explicitly relies upon violations of individual rights -- such as telling people they shouldn't pursue a business model of armed robbery. > If that's your argument, why are you tilting at windmills? Why aren't you instead writing a blog post advocating that musicians ditch the recording industry? I've done that too. I like to write something new, and non-repetitive, from time to time. Do you just regurgitate saved copies of your old material all the time? You're right -- that would be boring. > Is it unethical to disobey the law? All else being equal, there's nothing about the law itself that makes it unethical to disobey. There are some laws it's unethical to disobey; there are others it is not. There are cases where disobeying a law would be unethical even if the law itself is unethical, but those cases are not defined merely by the fact it's a law. Feel free to dispute that, but you should do something more impressive than offer a circular argument (which is the form most "but it's the law!" arguments take). > The argument I responded to, which you've now jumped into the middle of Jesus fucking Christ. This is a public discussion venue. I am sick and tired of people coming up with the "Why are you interrupting my discussion?" excuse to dismiss comments in public discussion venues. Try actually addressing points made rather than inventing spurious excuses to shut people up when you disagree with them. > the idea that because copyvio is rampant, the law must be wrong That's not the argument that was advanced. The argument is that a bad law predisposes people to disregard even the good purpose of the law (assuming it has any good purposes), and may even predispose them to disregard other laws in general. There's nothing in that argument that reverses the causal relationship between behavior and the ethicality of a law the way you just did. You're right that violation of a law doesn't make it a bad law in an ethical sense (though it might make it "bad" in an enforceability sense, depending on how it gets violated). That's not the obvious interpretation of preceding statements on the subject, though -- at least as far as I've been able to determine.
tsuraan 17y ago
"The argument I responded to [...] is the idea that because copyvio is rampant, the law must be wrong" No, it has nothing to do with often violated laws being wrong. It has to do with broken social contracts. As I said in my original posting, copyright was formulated as a contract between society and an artist. The deal is that if an artist shares his work with society, then society will allow the artist to have a limited time monopoly on the work. In return, society gets ownership of that work once the monopoly's time period has expired. That is a social contract that isn't terribly hard to justify. Our new contract, apparently, is that an artist can create a work, share it with the world, and profit from every time the work is shared. Not only that, but when the artist dies, his next of kin get to keep that deal going. For all of eternity, given the trends of the last several decades. That's a deal that is repugnant to me, and to nearly everybody that I've met. It's not something that I can find any way to defend, so convincing people that copyright is a just institution is quite difficult. I want copyright to be just and defensible; I write software for a living, and I like being able to profit from its sale. However, I can't explain that copyright has any moral basis when it clearly doesn't. The only reasons that I see not to violate copyright today are fear of legal reprisal and personal feelings of loyalty towards individual content producers. Loyalty is good, and fear of punishment can be effective, but I'd love to have a law that's founded in some sort of morality.