Anti-copyright movement?

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Actually, what Alex mentioned is becoming the new business model for this kind of media. It stems from the fact that digital media can be copied infinitely and at virtually no cost (and distributed with similarly minimal investment), and thus has very little market value in and of itself. What an increasing number of artists are doing now is treating recordings of their songs as marketing materials to sell what really makes money: the concert tickets and swag. These things are hard or impossible for someone to replicate on their own, and thus their scarcity gives them a free market value.

In fact, you are at once denying the idea of natural rights and defending the idea that artists have a natural right to dictate who does and does not have permission to replicate his or her work. Have you not conceived of the possibility that the only rights are those which someone is willing to defend?

Liberty. It is the ideal into which many in our culture are indoctrinated from soon after birth. It is not unusual.

That's what it is sold for, though, and that is what I buy it for.

I already have, though. When I have purchased a DVD, no one has a right to place restrictions upon what I do with it. No one. Once it has been released to me, by the consent of its owner, then it is my property. This would still be so if it were given to me at no charge.

You are thinking within the limitations of American law, which is the point of contention. Your argument becomes circular here. Refrain from this.

I do not consider myself bound by a contract unless I have staked my word or signature upon it. If the movie producers want to bind me contractually, which is itself a social custom with which I often differ, then they should not release their product to me without having received my word or signature. I am not bound by something that I do not agree to.

I would deprive my city of land value if I were to paint my house and decorate my lawn unattractively. Where do my rights end, though, and those of the city begin? This is the question that is at stake here. Do I lose my right to how I decorate my home, or does the city lose its right to income that it needs to sustain itself? In real life, there will always be moral conflicts. In real life, very little in justice is clear or certain. This is why we have to think about it and have discussions about it.

Oh, but, by the reasoning that I am using for the purposes of this discussion, a person that I am paying for a service has the right to discontinue this service at any time, and I, in turn, have the right to stop paying for it at any time.

I am denying the idea of "intellectual property" altogether. At its root, it is a suggestion that an artist has a right to place restrictions upon the actions of others.

I am arguing that it lacks legitimacy altogether, though. I am arguing that, strictly speaking, such things should be considered illegal.

No. I'm just very forceful and blunt by nature. It has nearly gotten me arrested a few times. I tried taking a neuroleptic for it, but an allergic reaction nearly killed me. I don't even know what to do about it. You're at WP, man. Most people here have psychiatric issues. Count that as one of mine.

Hold up, boy. Again, you're basing your point on the point of contention. This is why you are wrong.

So, let us get this straight. You are arguing that file sharing is wrong because it is illegal. Is that straight? It seems to be a consistent theme in your arguments.

You are saying, "Pirates know that what they are doing is wrong because they know that it is illegal, therefore file sharing should be illegal."

Here, you are basing your argument upon the point of contention. Don't give me this crap.

In fact, my original point was that a particular view seems to have become widespread in this society. Even if you were to stand your ground and bravely defend copyright law, defeat the evil gryphon and restore justice to the Kingdom of Wrong Planet, my original post will not metamorphose from, "By golly! A lot of people seem to think that file sharing is okay, don't they?" to, "File sharing is a-okay, guys! Share! Share! SHARE!" It was you, sir, who showed up spoiling for a fight over the opinion we should have of these people. If you don't want to be punched in the nose, do not walk into a saloon and throw your hat on the floor. Some of us just wanted to get blitzed and have an enjoyable night, sir.

Why, then, have you thrown me the most dodgy possible reasoning? It's absolute crap!! It would have been one thing if you'd posed a reasonable argument, but bad logic causes my eyes to bleed! I'm not just yelling at you over disagreeing with me, either. Look above at where I gave a reasonable responses to reasonable arguments. I didn't get mad over those, did I? Don't feed me crap logic, though! IT INFLICTS PAIN UPON MY SYNAPSES!

No. That is the position that I take for the sake of my central point: a person who actually holds such views is actually capable of existing, and such sentiments are actually becoming very widespread. Your characterization of file sharers as people who "just like getting free stuff" is outright wrong. File sharing is not necessarily, universally immoral. It is not perfectly or even reasonably analogous to material theft.

It is possible to pose a rebuttal to patent law. You would argue that inventors and researchers would be deprived of their right to profit from holding the rights to a unique product. You would argue that this is unfair to the inventors and researchers. In answer, I could argue that it is wrong and deeply unfair for other people to be forbidden to produce and profit from a useful idea. In fact, I could characterize patent laws as a hangover from tyranny. In fact, I actually support patent law because it is a useful way of motivating people to come up with useful ideas, although it has its drawbacks. For example, advancement could be impeded if a person were to first patent a product, then refuse to ever produce it. For example, a group of Christian fanatics could set out to discover and patent a potentially life-saving application of stem cell research with the explicit intention of making sure that it is never used. Fortunately, Christian fanatics tend to be incompetent ninnies, but I would suggest several revisions to patent law or discarding it outright if such things were to happen. Also, I doubt that patent law allows for this sort of nincompoopery.

No, I am disagreeing with this specific interpretation of natural rights. I believe that a creative individual has the right to their work, and they do not sell this for a mere $15. See MysteryFan3's post about that.


Only if the person selling the disc has waved any copyright. Otherwise, that's not what they're trying to sell you. Again, you are claiming to have bought something that the other person never agreed to sell. That is dishonest.


I was under the impression that we were debating copyright law that forbids the distribution of copyrighted material for free or for profit. If you purchase something which is copyrighted, you are in essence agreeing to abide by copyright restrictions. I don't know what other framework we would be debating within, if there were no copyright laws I doubt we would be having this argument. I really don't see how my argument is circular here: we are operating within a particular legal system which asserts certain rights (perhaps not all those you would like to see respected), and the legal system protects those rights.


Assuming you are operating within a legal system which recognizes copyright law, then you have agreed by purchasing copyrighted material. A sale is considered a contract, but we engage in so many that it is considered too cumbersome to sign formal papers every time you buy something.


And so you are trading with people you consider criminals? Look, my point still stands. You and the person you are trading with are operating under a different set of assumptions about what is being traded. You at the very least have the responsibility to make it clear what you think you're purchasing so that the seller can either refrain from selling to you or adjust the price if they had intended to sell you something much more limited than what you wish to purchase.


Well, I tend to state my opinions rather forcefully as well. Look's like the pot calling the kettle black. You demand understanding from me because you claim to have psychiatric issues, and yet ignore that I also frequent WP and can be assumed to have similar issues. You are the one who initiated personal attacks.


No. I wasn't ever arguing rightness or wrongness all that much. I maintain that the rights to a creative work remain with the person or persons who created it, and that they do not waive those rights with the first sale of a $15 CD. Look at the example of software- the production of a software application can cost millions of dollars. An individual disc with the application on it costs next to nothing. In selling those discs, the people who wrote the software must be able to recoup their costs and should be permitted to have a reasonable expectation of earning a profit. File sharing isn't wrong because of being illegal, but the actions of pirates are wrong in that they are agreeing to a contract and then willfully violating it. This is dishonest, and I see no way around it. In essence, it is wrong to violate existing copyright laws because when you purchase a disc you agree to abide by those laws. If you want to argue over whether copyright laws should exist, you would have to look at other issues on the more economic side of things. Such analysis is probably beyond my grasp of economic theory, you could try asking AwesomelyGlorious for his opinion. However, I would still argue on the side of property rights for the creator of these CDs and DVDs.


sigh More ad hominem attacks. Unfounded too. Kindly point out any formal logical fallacies I have committed. Our disagreement seems to be merely because the two of us hold differing notions of property rights, and frankly I see far more flaws in your reasoning than in mine. You have argued that purchasing a CD with the consent of the original owner gives you complete creative rights over it, but that isn't what they agreed to sell you., and thus they have not consented to the trade that you are claiming they agreed to. Please offer some kind of justification for this blatant deceptiveness.

Well, patent law and copyright law are based on the same premise (intellectual property) so it is a completely untenable position to uphold one and decry the other. Your argument against patent law is rather silly: first, I doubt such a thing could ever occur (there really is no economic gain for someone simply to hoard intellectual property and not use it for profit) and there is a reason that neither patents nor copyrights are permanent. They grant temporary property rights to creative materials in order to help someone recoup research and development costs. Otherwise, you have an issue as in the drug industry where one company spends millions upon millions of dollars developing a new drug and is unable to make any profit off of it because some other company copies it and makes cheap generics. As a result of this, biomedical research in antibiotic development has more or less grinded to a halt, and the antibiotics we currently have are losing their effectiveness. This results in a major looming crisis as we have to deal with the threat of drug-resistant TB when no one is wiling to research new drugs to treat it. I am using this merely as an example, we all know that the stakes are not nearly so high in the music industry, but the principle transfers. If it is impossible to earn a profit because other people can copy your creative work (even taking their own profit form it) then their is no longer an incentive to produce those things.

You claim to deny the concept of intellectual property and at the same time uphold patent law, which is based on the idea of intellectual property.

While I do like free stuff, I also think the copyright system is outdated and should be changed. I mean, I would be willing to pay if I would get a decent return. Also, the movement is not only anti-copyright but anti-'IP' (intellectual property). I am member of a pirate party and can tell you that many people not only 'just want free stuff' but want better laws.

@orwell: intellectual property is a term which groups apples and oranges. The problem is that you can make a term like keu, which means both apples and oranges, but that doesn't mean that everything which is valid for apples is valid for oranges even though both are keu. (That said, the patent system needs either an overhaul or to be removed completely)

Another thing that can drive people to "pirate" is availability in stores. I know a few people that use P2P networks simply because they can't find what they're after.

Personally my reasons are idealogical. I don't much like art and ideas having a price tag.

Just as easily, I could believe that the artist does not have the right to place restrictions upon others, simply having had the idea for something.

I would be legally within my rights to sell my car for a penny.

You're thinking within the box like a pro. I, the file sharer, take issue with copyright law. In fact, I doubt both its legality and its viability. This is what our discussion is all about. It is not a discussion about what does or does not fall within copyright law on page 225, paragraph B. You sound like a Christian who defends Genesis with passages from Genesis.

No. I paid his asking price in full.

It was you who wanted to have a debate about copyright law. Originally, I wanted to discuss a cultural phenomenon. You are defending copyright law on the premise of copyright law, though. This is circular by definition. Why don't you just stick to your other arguments? I find them very challenging. When the law is in question, though, we examine the philosophy from which it was woven.

It would not be problematical. I sign the store's copies of my receipts when I purchase on credit, and it would be just as trivial for me to put my signature on a simple licensing agreement. Whatever rights that any manufacturer wishes to retain to his or her product, I would be willing to honor them if I have staked my word or John Hancock on it.

No. I very rarely buy or download movies. I check them out from the library, and I don't have to pay a dime. The music I listen to is mostly that which has been sent to me by friends who said, "By golly! You must listen to this song!" and, as a consequence, most of what I listen to is very strange and highly obscure. I credit to this my capability for thinking not only outside the box but on top of it, beneath it, and standing on my head.

I don't think that I was clear. That was a somewhat apologetic admission that I often do behave with more conviction than I should.

I don't make personal attacks, though. When I tell a person he's being a ninny, I'm usually right, and it needs to be said.

Nope. Outright pragmatism can justify nearly anything, which is what I generally go by in practice.

I didn't pose an argument against patent law. I suggested a couple of common premises on which one could disagree with it, but I did not trouble myself to craft an argument against it. I supported the idea of patent law on the grounds of practicality, which is something that libertarians lack the capability of taking into account, and then I stated a set of circumstances under which I would suggest serious revision.

I find my explanation more adequate: conservative Christians are generally too ignorant to really accomplish anything significant.

An opponent of patent law could say, "this is what the government is for." I am actually studying to research in the industry, by the way, and here is some news for you: biomedical research has come to a halt mostly because, to be perfectly frank, biochemistry is a prohibitively hard subject to learn. Most students go into a blind, white-faced panic when they are told they are required to take it. I find it very exciting and challenging.

It has long been the opinion of musicians and music fans alike that, well, you are quite wrong. It is a common view that the reduction of creativity to dollar value has helped to suppress it.

No. My feelings on copyright law are perfectly neutral. I have only taken a position on it for the sake of proving my central point, which you still aren't paying any attention to. I doubt you're even aware of it.

I generally support patent law, but, like any sort of law, it has practical drawbacks. I'm sure that copyright law has its practical drawbacks as well, but most of the music I listen to was created by people who either died hundreds of years ago or rely mostly upon live performances for their income. As I have told you, my tastes tend toward the extremely obscure and weird. In fact, I would not be upset to see the digital music industry die out altogether: it would make concert performances more attractive, therefore more widely available. Perhaps our society would benefit from having their heads pulled out of their iPods for a while.

I'm not sure where I stand on this whole debate. I can see both sides.

That being said, I only download music so I can listen to it before I buy it. I need to listen to the entire album several times before I can decide whether I enjoy it enough to shell out my $15.

If record companies allowed artists to stream their albums on their websites I wouldn’t need to download them. I feel like I’m being ripped off by stupid companies that only let me listen to 30 second samples. That just isn’t enough to tell if the music is any good.

As I said, we are both simply operating under different ideas of what constitutes property rights. No particular issue for debate there, we both have our own opinions and are unlikely to be able to convince the other on such a basic issue.


And musicians are legally within their rights to distribute their music for free over the internet (or permit others to do so) if they so choose. If they don't want that, I think their wishes should be respected because I view ownership of creative material as ultimately belonging to its originator.


But you claim to buy full creative rights. The seller did not wish to trade creative rights. They wished to sell a limited license, and you paid his asking price for that. As an analogy (overblown, I know): when European settlers cam to America and bought a certain amount of land from the natives, they would later claim to have purchased much more land than they actually had. That is essentially what you are doing. If the seller knows that you consider the transaction to include a transfer of creative rights, they can factor that into their price (or decision to sell). However, the pirates you defend purchase from sellers who assume that copyrights will be respected. You can't possibly defend that as an honest trade.


You do make personal attacks, such as your seeming desire to drag insults against Christianity into the debate, which I have ignored, and your accusations of me using faulty logic, which you have failed to substantiate.

You assume a consequentialist philosophy. I am not a consequentialist, so we simply disagree here.


Well, I would consider myself a minarchist, so I disagree that the government should be responsible for such things. But that's a different debate. And no, biomedical research specifically in antibiotics has slowed down because of generics. There aren't any fewer intelligent people working in biology today than there were 20 years ago, I would think that there actually are many more.


I have not stated the connection between my arguments very well. That's what happens when a deontologist tries to appeal to utilitarianism. Anyways, I still maintain that the artistic retains full creative rights. Everyone has the right to dispose of their own property as they see fit. If a musician wishes to distribute their music for free, or to permit fans to do so, that is obviously permissible. But if the musician doesn't want that, they should be able to retain control over creative works of theirs. I know, you will now argue that they are coercing the actions of others, which goes against what most Libertarians think, but the difference between us here is still that we have different ideas of which rights should be protected over others. I view my stance as more consistent, since you can choose not to deal with those who attempt to retain intellectual property rights, thus depriving them of any revenue from you without causing any conflict from two irreconcilable views on property rights.


You have stated that your central point is that people who hold the views you are espousing really do exist. I will take your word on that; I have not met any such people in real life. But I don't have to have first-hand knowledge of something for it to be real.


But I usually judge the rightness or wrongness of an action by the action itself, rather than the consequences. I will concede that it is senseless to allow someone a permanent monopoly on an idea (that obviously would stifle growth, and just seems unfair after a point, especially when the originator of the idea is dead) which is why copyrights and patents are not permanent. They are granted for an arbitrarily determined period of time. I will say that I don't think copyrights should remain in effect as long as they do, especially since patents are not as long-lived.

The whole thing is a can of worms. Holders of copyright, lets just say they do everything it's possible to do to alienate themselves. As a legitimate consumer I am accused of being a thief EVERY TIME I WATCH A DVD. And every time it annoys me that they are lying. Piracy potentially denies companies of revenue streams but that's not the same as theft. They also insist that pirates spend their money on funding organised crime, rather than buying things, things they like. They put on the most ridiculous adverts and trailers before I can watch anything. The user experience of piracy compared to legitimately purchased goods is immeasurably higher. With games they make things worse by adding all sorts of crazy restrictions, I need to have the same system, it needs to be connected to the internet, I need the DVD in the drive, I can only install it a handful of times. When the industry is fighting to protect it's right to butcher another great novel or produce some schlep film I can't see the benefit at all.

But through all that I realise that I do still want certain things to be made, and for that to happen I have to be willing to pay for it. That's really something that cannot change, new content costs resources. I also realise it's in no-one's best interest to pay for something they can get for free, so there has to be something to protect copyright to retain this setup. I just wish it wasn't so obnoxious, and when it is I'm glad there are people with the technical skill that helps with the boycott of these technologies.

That IS my central point! Good! Now, let us discuss this, starting anew. What needs to be taken into account in understanding people who engage in these activities is that it is really abnormal for people to think about their behavior in a strictly economic sense. Although, in the ultimate reckoning, they are seeking out the higher degree of gratification, you're not putting the pieces together until you have given an analysis of how art is reflected in and by human behavior. Your original simplification was just flat-out wrong, for, although you may be an obnoxious bean-counter, most people aren't. The premise on which I am making my argument is the simple fact that music and movies are not strictly economical forms of gratification. People don't increase their monetary wealth by listening to Elvis Presley. The music, movie or game is the end product. This is a very simple idea, and, if you really don't get it, I give up.

The next box you need to break yourself from is this belief that such gratification is only available through things that are sold on shelves. In fact, everyday social interaction and the daily dramas of living can provide me with the same satisfaction that I can attain by watching a soap opera. I have plenty of drama in my life. Do you want to hear the start of it? I could write a novel based on what I deal with in the space of a week. The kind of gratification that is conveniently packaged into a little CD can be gotten just by learning how to play a musical instrument. It doesn't take long to learn, and it's not painful to do. Can you accept this?

Now, rebellion and defiance is a fairly constant theme in our culture. It is a staple in our music, cinema and literature. It is not logical to believe that people will not adapt these values to aspects of daily living. In psychology, it is called, "modeling." Here is why the music industry's initial reaction to file sharing was stupid: all the industry did was create an opportunity for thousands, eventually millions of people to, by simply downloading music from Kazaa, fulfill the fantasies with which they had been reared. Like Bush, neglect for diplomacy was at the root of their failure. With the blessings of a few sympathetic artists (don't bother me with the figures. There's enough of them to matter), downloading music became, for many, a fun thing to do in itself.

Try to get this through your brain: the very act of collecting files by these means is an end product. People like my boyfriend pack their hard drives with music and movies not for the sake of having "free stuff" but strictly for the thrill of going out looking for them. The files themselves are just game pieces.

yes, lets get rid of copywrite
but at the same time, lets get rid of ownership of all possessions globally
brave new world again coming on.....

so sure, as a musician producer i will produce for free
but as long as i can go to any shop and take what ever i want
go to any restaurant and have anything i want
and sleep with any one i want too? that would be a cool perk
on the illegal side
all drug dealers would also have to give their drugs away to who ever they want
and every thing absolutely everything will be free free free!! !

it all sounds very fair to me
please feel free to download my music
please leave your address so i can visit your house later so i can come and take anything i want
as after all " all property is theft man..."

yep, native american philosophy, yes, i am sharpening my tomahawk for scalping
as i like the native american philosophy now that we are following it

seems fair...

The uprise against copyright laws is not resurging due to filesharing advocates, really.

The question of property in the digital age is being fought over.

My favourite example: john deer tractors come with a licence agreement that states you can only use john deere hardware to repair your tractor, and only a licensed technician is allowed to do it.
In other words: you are not allowed to fix your tractor with just any sparkplug available.
Farmers have been banding together to pay hackers to crack their tractor's firmware, which is a violation of the licence agreement and falls under copyright law.

Biogenetic engineering of hybrid seeds - copyright law as well.

This is not about the music industry, and not about stuff going on on the internet either.
Copyright law is the battleground of the 21st century.


Also: mickey mouse is about to become public domain, as the author died long enough ago.
The disney corporation is hellbent on trying to extend the period between death of the author and the creation becoming public domain.