markfiend wrote:My take on copyright infringement, downloading, and so forth:
There is an argument that goes as follows:
If a man has an apple, I take the apple, he no longer has the apple. This is theft, as I have deprived him of his apple.
If a man has a digital file, I take a copy of the digital file, he still has the digital file. This is not theft as I have deprived him of nothing.
Obviously this does not take into account the effort the other guy may have put in to creating the digital file in the first place. But if the content creator agrees with this philosophy and gives his time for free (e.g GPL software, creative commons stuff, etc.) then fine.
The problem for the "ban all downloads" authoritarians is that extensive research suggests that the more music (for example) a person downloads, the more music that person is likely to buy. I have certainly in the past illegally downloaded music, decided I liked the music, and then gone and bought the same music. Perhaps I'm in a minority here though! But this download was not a 'lost sale'; I went and bought it later.
Another thing is that if someone were prevented from downloading a certain piece of music, you have no guarantee that he would instead buy it: most likely he'd just do without. So there's no way that this download was a 'lost sale' either.
Also, the music business can't put the download genie back into the bottle. The more strenuously they chase after downloaders, the more they reinforce the idea that they're the bad guys, chasing kids for thousands of dollars for downloading a couple of mp3s.
So while I agree that in principle, freeloading other people's creativity is "a bad thing", there are shades of grey.
And finally:
FedoraRefugee wrote:You would be a fool to live according to ANYONE'S ideas of morality, you should be raping, pillaging, and plundering your way through life because this is all you got and it does not matter anyway. You are creating your own chains! But that is all for another thread! Fell free to start it.
If this is what you think morality would be like without a god, I'm quite glad that you believe in one!
Good post.
If the content creator agrees to give his content away there is no problem.
I also do not subscribe to banning downloads or stopping filesharing. I think it is up to the content creators to find better ways to lock down their products. Unfortunately, this is a problem that must be addressed from the user end. As long as people believe that what they are doing is ethical and that it is not wrong and causes no damage then it is only going to get worse. That is why I mixed politics in the first place, because it is a result of this entitlement generation we now have world wide. People simply feel they are owed things. They are owed the right to that song or movie for free. That is all it amounts to, pure and simple. There are many excuses people use to justify this; they wouldn't have bought it anyway, they are sticking it to the man, they are not hurting anyone...But the simple fact is people think they are entitled to free media. The only way to stop the problem is for people to realize that continued piracy is only going to bring about even more draconian measures to stop it.
Another thing is that if someone were prevented from downloading a certain piece of music, you have no guarantee that he would instead buy it: most likely he'd just do without. So there's no way that this download was a 'lost sale' either.
This is true, I said this earlier. It is not a lost sale UNTIL the person STEALS the item. Then it is a lost sale because the person has both the property and the money.
Also, the music business can't put the download genie back into the bottle. The more strenuously they chase after downloaders, the more they reinforce the idea that they're the bad guys, chasing kids for thousands of dollars for downloading a couple of mp3s.
Very true! It is a sad state of affairs. The only real solution is to quit offering the product as MP3. That still would not stop people from bootlegging the tracks and offering them online, but as long as people are willing to steal there is no answer.
About the morality thing, it is more of a philosophical argument.
I am not saying that an atheist cannot be moral, that is silly, I personally know many good atheists, some even more moral than many of the Christians I go to church with. What I am saying is that it is an inconsistent position. It goes against Darwin's survival of the fittest. Why was Hitler wrong in murdering millions of Jews? Because the consensus opinion is that it was the wrong thing to do? Who are you to judge? Why is Hitler's opinion less valid than yours? Who sets the standards, and why should I believe the standards are right? Anyway...Let's not clutter up this thread with all that, there is already so much going on. Nick might have been trolling by starting this but it is threads like this that this forum needs to liven things up!
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