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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:33
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This is a thread on Ektopos, a philosophy forum that I'm a member of, where we are discussing the piracy issue.
The first two posts seem to be pretty opposed and illustrative, the latter (BenElijah) is mine.
Link
Post 1:
quote:
I've generally moved through life with the impression that stealing is somehow wrong. I don’t just mean wrong legally, but wrong in a moral sense. So I’m still somewhat surprised by what strikes me as theft by people I generally wouldn’t expect to be thieves. To come to the point I’m talking about people that pirate commercially produced music and films. The common sentiment I often hear is, “Well everyone’s doing it!” Of course all the philosophers recognize the fallacy here. I was recently surprised by a philosophy professor who asked if I’d burn him a copy of a music CD. He was actually surprised at my refusal, which may say something about his opinion of my character. So I’m wondering if other people see an ethical problem here, or is there someway we can justify such stealing?
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Post2:
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Its an interesting situation. I personally see it in two ways. Firstly, stealing means that you are taking the resources of another for yourself, and they are losing because of it. So in other words, you are directly depleting their finite resources. However, in terms of digital information, text, music, movies, images and the like, this is a resource that is for all intents and purposes infinite, the only expense being hard disk space, processor time, memory and bandwidth etc. I can make a copy of a 6 megabyte music file, send it to a friend, and he has the music but I have not lost out in the process. This is not an argument about bandwidth of course .
This leaves the anti-filesharers with one alternative, that those who are sharing copied files are erroneously accessing private information, for example, like trespassing. However, while that may hold water if one has hacking into ones computer and extracting a copy of the files, since the record company in the first place puts the information into the public domain, via cd's, dvd's etc, this cannot hold water as it is already up for public distribution. Trying to control that is like trying to hold back the tide with a bucket and spade. I am aware that the implications of this are that the notion of copyright becomes void, yet even as an author myself I have no problem with this, since people would rather buy a book on paper than view it on screen, and cd music is of higher quality and more convenience (plus the opportunity to include merchandise). I think that the record companies see a threat to their business's and don't want to undergo a painful evolution. However, the world of business is such that you either evolve or die.
You may say that the author or owners of that information have a right to control that information when it is public but I maintain that is flawed. You place it in the public domain, and that information is emancipated from you, wherein your only concern is providing the material means for its distribution. Since that is irrelevant here, I can claim that the entire publishing industry in its many incarnations have been living on borrowed time since the 15th/16th century, waiting for a means of replication and distribution that undermines material concerns of paper and time etc. We have that means with affordable personal computing now.
I see no ethical problem with me copying music files, both receiving and distributing them. As a matter of fact, I have 15 downloading now and 6 outgoing!
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My position is difficult but I cannot really refute it, except in its extremism, but then, thats a term and idea I generally ignore for ambiguity. Thoughts?
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Japher
Piracy IS wrong because it IS illegal. |
I don't think law=morality... look at our drug laws... smoking marijuana is illegal, but it's not wrong. Nor is file-sharing.
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The real question, however, is should it be illegal? |
No it shouldn't. Piracy = selling copied software. Copying files from a computer, no matter the content, is not stealing, nor is it piracy.
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Times have changed. The RIAA didn't. |
exactly... the RIAA and the companies it represents are "losing" money for two reasons. One, people aren't willing to pay for the **** they sell. Two, they failed to adapt to a changing marketplace. It's pathetic, that in response to their own ineptitude and failures, that they are lashing out and suing 12 year olds.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:33
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quote:
Speaking of RIAA, is it worse ethically to d/l a couple of songs of many different artists, or d/l whole albums?
Or is there no difference?
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No difference. No discernable logical barrier.
quote:
I don't think law=morality... look at our drug laws... smoking marijuana is illegal, but it's not wrong. Nor is file-sharing.
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Agreed. Most assuredly agreed.
What did people think about my two points; (i) that business that do not evolve to new external conditions die out, and I won't shed tears over their laziness, and (ii) that the publishing industry has been living on borrowed time since they first started... waiting for a means of cheap and fast replication in everyone's homes? It just means competition.
I think an alternative for the record companies is cheaper albums, because £14 is far too much, and an excessive profit, even after marketting, royalties, cost of production, recording, mastering etc etc. They should also bundle merchandise with them, because the record companies make a hell of a lot more profit on that.
Sava is 
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debeest
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Wow. I'm surprised at the sense of entitlement some people feel. "The technology for me to steal it exists, so I'm entitled to steal it."
Personally, I walk a fine line on theft of intellectual property. If I would buy something if it weren't possible to steal it, I feel I should buy it; otherwise it's stealing. If I wouldn't have bought it, then stealing it does seem like it's a gain for me that harms no one else.
Pretty tricky path to walk, so I have to be careful in judging whether I would have bought it or not. But it seems like a morally defensible position.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:33
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quote:
Speaking of RIAA, is it worse ethically to d/l a couple of songs of many different artists, or d/l whole albums?
Or is there no difference?
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No difference. No discernable logical barrier.
quote:
I don't think law=morality... look at our drug laws... smoking marijuana is illegal, but it's not wrong. Nor is file-sharing.
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Agreed. Most assuredly agreed.
What did people think about my two points; (i) that business that do not evolve to new external conditions die out, and I won't shed tears over their laziness, and (ii) that the publishing industry has been living on borrowed time since they first started... waiting for a means of cheap and fast replication in everyone's homes? It just means competition.
I think an alternative for the record companies is cheaper albums, because £14 is far too much, and an excessive profit, even after marketting, royalties, cost of production, recording, mastering etc etc. They should also bundle merchandise with them, because the record companies make a hell of a lot more profit on that.
Sava is
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Ben Kenobi
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McGregornobi!
Oct 2002
time: 21:33
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Whaleboy:
quote:
However, in terms of digital information, text, music, movies, images and the like, this is a resource that is for all intents and purposes infinite, the only expense being hard disk space, processor time, memory and bandwidth
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I am a writer. I write for a variety of folks, in a variety of genres and for a variety of purposes. This resource, my creativity is not infinite. Though what I write may be distributed to everyone, the resource is not infinite.
This is the same problem with music. What people have worked on and written, that is a limited resource as well. What you are doing by filesharing is exploiting the artist, by not giving him proper compensation for the use of this resource, his creativity.
Now, in my case, most of what I write does not belong to me, in that I freely distribute it to interested parties because to charge, would hinder the influence, in that people might want to read what I have to say, they do not want to pay for it. That is my right, as a writer to decline compensation.
Now, should I change my mind, that would also be my right, since the resource, my creativity, still belongs to me.
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debeest
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Mysterious double post.
Last edited by debeest on 05-02-2004 at 22:23
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Solver
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Apolyton Duke Of Something
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Latvia, Riga
Sep 2000
time: 07:33
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File sharing isn't piracy, but piracy can happen through fire sharing. If what you're downloading over p2p is copyrighted content, you're committing piracy.
The idea of piracy being morally OK because software is not a material thing is one of the common reasons for piracy in ex-USSR territory, where people aren't really used to seeing intellectual property as something having value. The other factor being the costs of software larger than 100 USD not being something that an average citizen can afford.
An interesting answer from many, many pirates. They feel stealing is wrong, they don't feel stealing software is stealing. Let them into a PC store, give them a 100% guarantee they wouldn't be caught if stealing. Still, most wouldn't just take software from the shelf, because it's in a big nice box there, and feels like a material object, and that's where the "stealing is wrong" moral part kicks in. However, an immaterial object is stolen without moral remorse.
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yavoon
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quote:
Originally posted by Sava
I don't think law=morality... look at our drug laws... smoking marijuana is illegal, but it's not wrong. Nor is file-sharing.
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wtf kind of reasoning is this. the drug laws WERE PUT IN because ppl thot it was immoral to do them. hell remember prohibition. it failed, but it was there because it was considered immoral to drink.
now I know YOU DON'T consider it immoral to do a lot of things. but to extrapolate that into a non-relationship between the law and morality. and even more absurdly a non-relationship between drug law and morality.
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04-02-2004 22:55
I think we agree... but I'm not sure... because I'm stupid and confused.
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