Stealing items off the internet

[marceleonidas]

HELLO I AM THE ORIGINAL POSTER OF THIS THREAD
wowsers!!! A TON of responses! A few things I would like to say:

1. Some of you have been resorting to emotions E.G. “turns my stomach” - If your consience makes you feel that way - PLEASE EXPLAIN
2. Thought out, logically based arguements ONLY please. Some of you have been giving links- YOU ROCK!

I asked someone about this and they gave a very interesting answer. Basically it was this:

As long as the intention of a JUST law is obeyed then thats all that matters.
E.G. If the speed limit on the high way is 75, is it OK to go 80? Well lets look at the intention: The intention of road laws is to allow people to get places safely without putting people on the road or off in danger. Now the situation: Every one is going 85, are you putting yourself in danger if you go 75? yes. Do all the pedestrians know that people ALWAYS go 85 on this 75 road? Yes. so is it bad to be breaking that law? NO, because you are staying safe which is the original intention of the law.

Now heres my question: Is the purpose of copyright law to keep people from having software that they wouldnt pay for anyways? OR is it to supposedly maintain the value of the creation by way of making it scarce?

if you dont want to answer either of those then simply tell me, WHAT IS THE JUST INTENTION BEHIND COPYRIGHT LAWS?

 

[edwest2]

I work for a media company. The intention of copyright is simply this: the right to copy. If you are the legal owner of the right to copy, no one else, legally, can copy your work. The law grants copyright ownership of certain types of media for a certain number of years. In fact, you can put the copyright symbol on anything that can be copyright before filing the actual copyright form with the Library of Congress (which must be done in a reasonable period of time).

So, I create this previously unknown movie called Star Wars. As the copyright owner, anyone who wants to make toys based on my work needs my permission followed by the payment of a royalty fee. Anyone who wants to write books based on my movie needs permission and needs to pay a royalty on every copy sold. Every time a radio station plays a song I own, they have to pay a royalty to me if I own the copyright.

In some cases, a copyright can be renewed, and if I die before the copyright term expires, I could assign the copyright to a family member, business associate or even another company in my will.

Hope this helps,
Ed

 

[Theophorus]

Copyright law IS immoral. It creates scarcity where there is none. Copyright and patent law is a modern phenomenon. Is it suddenly a sin now whereas it wasn’t in years past?

Copyright is not that modern a phenomenon actually. Im fact it can probably be traced to 6th century Ireland! St Colum cille(St. Columba to much of the rest of the English speaking world) was once staying at a monastery were he decided to copy Finian’s book of the Psalms secretly. When he was found out and brought before the king, King Diarmait made his decision that “To every cow its calf and to every book its copy”.

So what? The fact that something takes a long time to make does not make it valuable. Just because you work hard does not mean that you deserve to get paid.

Now I’m still waiting for a real response to my scarcity argument. Something cannot be property if it is not scarce. Since ideas are not scarce, how can they be property?

I’m sorry I don’t quite understand from your posts, but why do availability and scarcity determine ownership? Is property simply supply and demand? In which case does might equal right?

Surely following your arguments an idea turned into a product is scarce, as it is only one idea, you did not come up with it but you want it. It is an idea turned at expense into a product which you want. If you choose to appropriate said product without due acknowledgment of the creator and without paying them for their work, how is that not stealing?

 

[crazzeto]

Regarding scarcity, let’s not forget that there are only a finite number of people willing to purchase (or desiring) a given product whether or not the product it’s self is finite. So in any case, there is product scaricity regardless, a copy pirated is still a sale lost to the true owner of the copyrighted materials.

No matter how you slice it, theaft is theaft. All these attempts to redefine ownership (like anything else one might try to redefine) is just a distraction. The end result is the same. You stole something, and bare the mark of grave matter on your concience.

 

[smndtupidisaftr]

Copyright is not that modern a phenomenon actually. Im fact it can probably be traced to 6th century Ireland! St Colum cille(St. Columba to much of the rest of the English speaking world) was once staying at a monastery were he decided to copy Finian’s book of the Psalms secretly. When he was found out and brought before the king, King Diarmait made his decision that “To every cow its calf and to every book its copy”.

As far as I know, copyright law was nonexistent during the Renaissance in Italy, yet look at the innovations from that time period. I’m just saying, you can probably find isolated examples of copyright law, but it didn’t really start across the globe until the past couple of centuries.

I’m sorry I don’t quite understand from your posts, but why do availability and scarcity determine ownership? Is property simply supply and demand? In which case does might equal right?

Simply put, air is not property because it is not scarce. The same applies to ideas. Unless by someone taking it you are deprived of its use, it cannot be property, because you still have it. You can’t steal an idea because you will still have the idea after it is “stolen.” Hence ideas are not property.

Surely following your arguments an idea turned into a product is scarce, as it is only one idea, you did not come up with it but you want it. It is an idea turned at expense into a product which you want. If you choose to appropriate said product without due acknowledgment of the creator and without paying them for their work, how is that not stealing?

The product is scarce, not the idea, as there is an unlimited supply of that idea.

 

[Melchior_1]

An update;

This has bothered me for awhile. I tried to justify downloading and using certain software due to age, and downloading music/comics. But at the end of the day, it’s still something I’m not paying for.

I found out my brother-in-law, who pirated a couple hundred gigabytes of games, movies and software programs over the years, apparently told his mom (my mother-in-law) that he felt convicted by God to get rid of them all. So he did.

I used the rationale of “I can’t let him one up me” as a joke, but the reality is this is something I should have done anyway.

90 gigabytes of downloaded material deleted or uninstalled. The only downloaded items I kept are music that I used to own and lost the CD’s (or I still have the CD’s and just wanted digital versions), comics I already own and I wanted digital copies, and text files of the Star Wars books I used to own. Essentially, if I had bought it before, I kept it.