The morality of File Sharing

[LeafByNiggle]

I don’t even see what you’re talking about as having anything to do with our discussion. You’re talking about taking and keeping money that is not mine but is someone else’s property. I’m talking about reading/seeing information on the internet that is no one’s property, not copying it or reproducing it or distributing it, which is what the law forbids. Your equating it with stolen money takes us right back to square one because you think the information on the internet is property like that money is.

Sorry if my analogy was misleading. I did not mean to imply that file sharing was like stealing property. If you read my earlier postings with Douglas you will see that I was arguing that file sharing is not theft. But in the posting you referred to I was using the analogy of stealing only to make a very narrow point. And that point was that to refute this quote of yours:

But not the persons who happen to come across the report lying on the street and decide to read it…But who is financially ruining them [the makers of the movie]? That’s why you-tube should be held to account for taking this permission themselves and having this material on their site. That’s why persons who try to do this individually in other sites should be held to account and stopped. Stopping persons from watching it after it’s already there is another matter…

In this quote you seemed to be drawing a distinction between the guilt of the original uploader and the guilt of the downloader. That is, you were saying that while the original uploader may have done wrong, once the material is up there the downloaders were not guiltly for their downloading. So to refute just that one point I presented the similar scenario of picking up money that the bank robbers dropped. It is similar because in both cases the original wrongdoer did something that allowed others to benefit by their wrongdoing. I certainly did not intend to imply that file sharing was like robbing a bank or any other kind of theft, or that files downloaded were any kind of property.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

You were the one who made it about financially ruining the makers. That’s why I said that it’s not financially ruining them, this was your claim.

Ah, perhaps I was making the mistake of reading too much into your posting. OK, if your point was simply that the few downloads that might happen would not financially ruin the makers of the film, then of course you are right. I used the exaggeration of “ruining” only to make a point that some harm might be done, in response to your statement:

But if I see a video on you-tube, I’m not stealing by seeing it, because I’m not taking it from anyone. It is you-tube that must answer, not me- I’m just seeing material that is not privately owned by anyone. If I try to usurp the exclusive rights to use it for property at this time, it’s wrong to me. I could be wrong but in any case, I don’t see that simply watching the videos without copying them could be grave sin.

in which you seemed to be implying that no harm at all is done. I will admit that the harm might be small. But the principle is one of benefiting from someone’s wrongdoing and causing some amount of unjust harm is all I was trying to establish.

And you’re insisting on “stealing from a poor person” vs a rich person- It has nothing to do with stealing.

I agree. I was only using stealing as an analogy to demonstrate that the immorality of an action should not be excused based on the riches of the vicitim.

The only way this works is if the information itself is someone’s property. I don’t see that it is- How can seeing/listening to what is no one’s property be stealing?

It is not stealing. But it is wrong for the same reason it is wrong to sneak into a movie theater without paying and watch a movie for free.

The Government says to us: *No one can try and make profits out of this information for this duration of time except this person (A) and those he agrees to give that right to. *But does the Government say: No one has a right to see/listen to it during this time without making sure to pay person A something first?

If you will notice I have not based any of my arguments on government laws. Others may have argued that those laws are the basis for why file sharing is wrong, but not me.

 

[exnihilo]

OK, go ahead and give me an example of when ignoring the law on Intellectual Property is the morally preferred thing to do.

If you had a clause saying you could not sell to certain groups of people, for instance a certain race or nationality. Actually the US government does just this. It says we can not sell or give some IP to foreigners. If someone held a right to the only cure to a deadly disease that was killing everyone and refused to sell it. I can imagine lots of clear cases where ignoring IP laws would be moral. I can imagine some difficult cases as well.

 

[thewanderer]

Sorry if my analogy was misleading. I did not mean to imply that file sharing was like stealing property. If you read my earlier postings with Douglas you will see that I was arguing that file sharing is not theft. But in the posting you referred to I was using the analogy of stealing only to make a very narrow point. And that point was that to refute this quote of yours:

In this quote you seemed to be drawing a distinction between the guilt of the original uploader and the guilt of the downloader. That is, you were saying that while the original uploader may have done wrong, once the material is up there the downloaders were not guiltly for their downloading. So to refute just that one point I presented the similar scenario of picking up money that the bank robbers dropped. It is similar because in both cases the original wrongdoer did something that allowed others to benefit by their wrongdoing. I certainly did not intend to imply that file sharing was like robbing a bank or any other kind of theft, or that files downloaded were any kind of property.

Just to clarify, I’m pretty sure MaryBeloved was specifically referring to a case where no one is downloading anything. They are simply watching it online.

 

[Cristiano]

Just to clarify, I’m pretty sure MaryBeloved was specifically referring to a case where no one is downloading anything. They are simply watching it online.

From a technical aspect watching online or downloading are the same thing, from a moral aspect they are the same thing too.

 

[thewanderer]

From a technical aspect watching online or downloading are the same thing, from a moral aspect they are the same thing too.

She clearly does not see them as the same, so maybe it would be helpful if you explained why they are?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

If you had a clause saying you could not sell to certain groups of people, for instance a certain race or nationality. Actually the US government does just this. It says we can not sell or give some IP to foreigners. If someone held a right to the only cure to a deadly disease that was killing everyone and refused to sell it. I can imagine lots of clear cases where ignoring IP laws would be moral. I can imagine some difficult cases as well.

OK, I will agree that in such cases it might be moral to ignore IP law. So I will restate my contract argument accordingly: Those whose acquire IP are bound to the implicit or explicit terms of the license agreement or terms of use agreement on the grounds of normal truthfulness when making the agreement, unless there is an overriding moral reason to violate the said terms. That will allow you to disclose how to cure anthrax, but still won’t let you off the hook for watching a bootlegged download of Avatar.

 

[Marybeloved]

OK, I will agree that in such cases it might be moral to ignore IP law. So I will restate my contract argument accordingly: Those whose acquire IP are bound to the implicit or explicit terms of the license agreement or terms of use agreement on the grounds of normal truthfulness when making the agreement, unless there is an overriding moral reason to violate the said terms. That will allow you to disclose how to cure anthrax, but still won’t let you off the hook for watching a bootlegged download of Avatar.

But you do realize that this principle as you’ve put it says nothing about watching those movies?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

From a technical aspect watching online or downloading are the same thing, from a moral aspect they are the same thing too.

Well, maybe not. There is material (audio or video or even text) that providers choose to make available in a real-time format only. They may do this for reasons of wanting to present the material with ads, or for some other reason they don’t want people to retain permanent copies of the material. This is their right to do as IP providers. An example of an in between case is downloading “free” e-books from a public library. Most libraries are bound by an agreement from their suppliers to let out these e-books for a limited time only (2-3 weeks, just like regular books.) They enforce this policy using various technologies, which are not important to this discussion. But the point is downloading in that case is not absolute. You get to “have” that download for only a couple of weeks.

The point is not all downloads are treated the same. And drawing a distinction between real-time downloads and one-time downloads is possible. So I would agree with Marybeloved on this point: watching in real-time is not morally identical with one-time downloading. But I claim that even with this difference, watching in real-time can be in some cases just as wrong as sneaking into a movie theater and watching a movie without paying.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

But you do realize that this principle as you’ve put it says nothing about watching those movies?

Yes, the principle I stated only talks about the wrongdoing of the one who uploaded a bootlegged movie. It does not directly say that watching those movies is wrong. But if you then consider that watching those movies is cooperating with the wrong committed by the uploader that makes watching them morally suspect on indirect grounds.

People upload movies for various reasons. It might not be for monetary profit - they get nothing for their upload. Buy maybe they have a grudge against the movie industry or some other type of revenge. In any case they upload movies so that others will watch them. If no one watched them then the uploading would be meaningless. So by watching to movie you give meaning to the wrongdoing of the one who uploaded the material in the first place. That is what I mean by cooperating with evil.

 

[twoangels]

My continous argument is mainly from the argument of loss, if someone uses something and doesn’t pay for it, the individual loses something that he should have earned.

My husband and I regularly utilize our public library to read books, watch movies and get audio books for long trips. When what we want is not available we consider how much we want it and whether we’re willing to pay money for it. If we figure we can do without it, we skip it.

I remember years ago hearig an author interviewed about how he hated libraries because it took away some of his potential buyers and he lost profits.

File sharing is very similiar. Just like the library bought a copy of the book or an individual bought a copy of a book and then donated it to the library, there is someone out there who did purchase that file.

The reason we have copyright laws is because it takes a lot of work to make the original file that it simply would never sell for how much it was to make the original file. It is like building your own house and investing large sums of money into it and then finding the market crashes and you owe more on the house than what it is worth.

Another example would be this. A wealthy man in the real estate business decides to purchase miles of high valued land. He gets it at a bargain price because no one can outbid him. Then he advertises that he is giving away free land. His brother agrees to build houses on the land for half the price of what other builders would charge. Everyone looking for houses see this as an opportunity to get a nice brand new house for less than some broken down fixer upper, so they all rush toward it. The wealthy man naturally has every right to be this generous. His brother has every right to charge insanely low fees for his work (which he can do because he’s able to get all the business that other builders can’t get). But by doing this, they hurt the market. They may cause some real estate companies to file for bankruptsy. The smaller companies may go out of business. If this goes on long enough, all the other real estate companies could go out of business and enable the wealthy man’s business to be the only one of its kind in the area. Thus having absolutely no competition, one day he can decide to raise the cost of land to higher than they were before. He has this right to do this. It is his land afterall.

Certainly this violates social justice principals. Government laws however that are designed to help promulgate social justice are not based on natural laws. A law can work for a certain number of years and then be found to be hurting social justice principals years later.

The same is true with copyright laws. There are plenty of reasons to have copyright laws for the sake of social justice, but the laws are not natural laws to discourage objectively immoral behavior. It falls under the category of seat belt laws, requiring all car owners to purchase liability insurance. Its not objectively immoral for me to sit in a car without a seat belt. Its not objectively immoral for me to drive a car without insurance. But these laws help society function better and that is why they are good.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Another example would be this. A wealthy man in the real estate business decides to purchase miles of high valued land. He gets it at a bargain price because no one can outbid him. Then he advertises that he is giving away free land. His brother agrees to build houses on the land for half the price of what other builders would charge. Everyone looking for houses see this as an opportunity to get a nice brand new house for less than some broken down fixer upper, so they all rush toward it. The wealthy man naturally has every right to be this generous. His brother has every right to charge insanely low fees for his work (which he can do because he’s able to get all the business that other builders can’t get). But by doing this, they hurt the market. They may cause some real estate companies to file for bankruptsy. The smaller companies may go out of business. If this goes on long enough, all the other real estate companies could go out of business and enable the wealthy man’s business to be the only one of its kind in the area. Thus having absolutely no competition, one day he can decide to raise the cost of land to higher than they were before. He has this right to do this. It is his land afterall…

The main difference between this and file sharing is that the wealthy man in your story paid for the land and become the exclusive owner of that land. So he can do what he wants with it. But someone who buys a DVD of the latest movie did not buy the exclusive rights to that movie. They only paid for for the limited right to use that DVD in certain ways. That small purchase did not give them the right to use that DVD any way they want. If you go to Sony Pictures and purchase the exclusive rights to Men In Black 3 for multi-millions then you can turn around and upload it to You-Tube without guilt. But if you buy a single DVD of that movie you don’t own it in the same way that the wealthy man in your story owned the high valued land.

 

[Marybeloved]

The main difference between this and file sharing is that the wealthy man in your story paid for the land and become the exclusive owner of that land. So he can do what he wants with it. But someone who buys a DVD of the latest movie did not buy the exclusive rights to that movie. They only paid for for the limited right to use that DVD in certain ways. That small purchase did not give them the right to use that DVD any way they want. If you go to Sony Pictures and purchase the exclusive rights to Men In Black 3 for multi-millions then you can turn around and upload it to You-Tube without guilt. But if you buy a single DVD of that movie you don’t own it in the same way that the wealthy man in your story owned the high valued land.

Neither do you own it if you buy the full rights. If you did then why does it expire after 50 years? It keeps coming back to this “ownership” argument, which IMHO is utterly false and which seems to be the only way people can argue that watching those movies is wrong.

The only reason that we can’t sell our own copies of the movie is that the Government has deliberately restricted us from doing it, to everyone else but the copyright holder for a duration- Not because the DVD buyer “doesn’t own” the movie the way the rich man owns the land- NO ONE owns the movie the way the rich man owns the land or any other property. It cannot be owned- it’s information. It is not that the maker “owns” the movie- How could he own information and ideas, however creative? It’s nothing to do with ownership unless we talk about taking the files/DVDs that belong to the makers-Not the copies that others make of those files. If we speak of ownership in that regard then we will be talking about ownership of the ideas/information itself. In that case then anyone who watches a movie they have not bought is taking something that belongs to another for free.

The Government tells us we can’t make our own copies of the movie or distribute them or make profits off of them- that’s all. Only the holder can do so for a certain duration. The owner doesn’t “own” my copy any more than the person whose idea for a chair is replicated by another, owns the second chair made after the concept of the first. Neither does he “own” the idea of the chair- He just owns his chair that he made. It has just been made illegal to make that second chair to others for a time, so that the one who first came up with the idea can profit from it. To speak about ownership would be to say that someone owns the concept of the chair, or any chairs other people make after the concept of that chair- That’s ridiculous. He thought of it first, it doesn’t mean he owns it. He does not “own” the rights to these movies any more than the person who first risked and explored and used all his means and discovered Everest or the Americas can be said to own either Everest or the Americas or the right to see and enjoy and travel to and use them.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Neither do you own it if you buy the full rights. If you did then why does it expire after 50 years? It keeps coming back to this “ownership” argument, which IMHO is utterly false and which seems to be the only way people can argue that watching those movies is wrong.

I do not need to establish perpetual ownership to make my point. It is enough that the maker of the movie has the exclusive right to public performances even for a limited time. The difference between having that exclusive right and buying a single DVD is the difference between $10,000,000 and $19.95. But my argument does even rest on “ownership”. My argument rests on the importance of an agreement between the buyer and the seller. If the uploaded violates that agreement then his part of the bargain was a lie, which is morally wrong. It has nothing to do with owning an idea or anything like that.

 

[twoangels]

The main difference between this and file sharing is that the wealthy man in your story paid for the land and become the exclusive owner of that land. So he can do what he wants with it. But someone who buys a DVD of the latest movie did not buy the exclusive rights to that movie. They only paid for for the limited right to use that DVD in certain ways. That small purchase did not give them the right to use that DVD any way they want. If you go to Sony Pictures and purchase the exclusive rights to Men In Black 3 for multi-millions then you can turn around and upload it to You-Tube without guilt. But if you buy a single DVD of that movie you don’t own it in the same way that the wealthy man in your story owned the high valued land.

My point is that technically speaking, the only thing being exchanged is a file, CD, DVD or whatever. The purchasing of “rights” is a civil law concept constructed to find a way to uphold social justice.

 

[twoangels]

I do not need to establish perpetual ownership to make my point. It is enough that the maker of the movie has the exclusive right to public performances even for a limited time. The difference between having that exclusive right and buying a single DVD is the difference between $10,000,000 and $19.95. But my argument does even rest on “ownership”. My argument rests on the importance of an agreement between the buyer and the seller. If the uploaded violates that agreement then his part of the bargain was a lie, which is morally wrong. It has nothing to do with owning an idea or anything like that.

Which again makes it a situation of civil contracts and civil law, not natural law.

 

[Marybeloved]

***I do not need to establish perpetual ownership to make my point. It is enough that the maker of the movie has the exclusive right to public performances even for a limited time. ***

Yes it does rest on it in a way. You don’t need to establish perpetual ownership,no, but your argument does rest on the idea of ownership, even if temporary. Because that “agreement” rests entirely on the premise that the innovator owns these exclusive rights to this idea and no-one else, that’s why you think the DVD buyer cannot legitimately use it the same way the innovator can unless he “purchases” this exclusive right first. But my point is that the copyright holder does not in reality have this exclusive rights that he can exchange with others at all, rights that he can legitimately “sell” and others can “buy”. Agreements (Contracts) are based on the idea that each party has something to exchange, not just that they agree. I can promise to let you take a picture of the sea if you pay me- If you did not pay me and went ahead on your own and took that picture, no real violation in justice occurs, because I had no right to try to sell you the view of the sea to begin with!

The ownership that enables this agreement is an artificial creation of the Government that has no real roots in real rights possessed by these parties. Like if the Spanish Government had decided to create such rights for Columbus over the Americas, so that any who wanted to come to the Americas would buy this right from Columbus, or any who wanted to profit from them would have to buy it from him. This is an artificial ownership because it is merely designed to reward Columbus for his hard-work and imagination and investment that has lead him to discover what is a treasure for all humanity, not just him. In moral law, as I see it, that agreement only has force because of the authority of the Government and its just motives in exercising that authority in that manner, not because the agreement itself is good and must be obeyed in justice, morally speaking. The just motives of the government are:Reward innovation and ensure the continuance of innovation and creativity for the good of society. So it comes down to the authority of the Government exercised for the good of society, not any true agreement rooted in any real rights that we can legitimately exchange for money.

 

[_Abyssinia]

What is the legal difference between burning a movie off the internet on to a DVD or just to watch on your computer, and burning a movie that is aired on the television on to a DVD?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Yes it does rest on it in a way. You don’t need to establish perpetual ownership,no, but your argument does rest on the idea of ownership, even if temporary. Because that “agreement” rests entirely on the premise that the innovator owns these exclusive rights to this idea and no-one else, that’s why you think the DVD buyer cannot legitimately use it the same way the innovator can unless he “purchases” this exclusive right first. But my point is that the copyright holder does not in reality have this exclusive rights that he can exchange with others at all, rights that he can legitimately “sell” and others can “buy”. Agreements (Contracts) are based on the idea that each party has something to exchange, not just that they agree. I can promise to let you take a picture of the sea if you pay me- If you did not pay me and went ahead on your own and took that picture, no real violation in justice occurs, because I had no right to try to sell you the view of the sea to begin with!

The ownership that enables this agreement is an artificial creation of the Government that has no real roots in real rights possessed by these parties. Like if the Spanish Government had decided to create such rights for Columbus over the Americas, so that any who wanted to come to the Americas would buy this right from Columbus, or any who wanted to profit from them would have to buy it from him. This is an artificial ownership because it is merely designed to reward Columbus for his hard-work and imagination and investment that has lead him to discover what is a treasure for all humanity, not just him. In moral law, as I see it, that agreement only has force because of the authority of the Government and its just motives in exercising that authority in that manner, not because the agreement itself is good and must be obeyed in justice, morally speaking. The just motives of the government are:Reward innovation and ensure the continuance of innovation and creativity for the good of society. So it comes down to the authority of the Government exercised for the good of society, not any true agreement rooted in any real rights that we can legitimately exchange for money.

Your examples are of discoveries of things that were already there - just waiting to be discovered. For such examples it is easy to demonstrate that the discoverer has very little natural law right to what he discovered. But when a piece of software is written or a movie is made there can be little doubt that something of value has been created - not merely discovered. And the creator of that work does have a natural law right to what he created. In your example of taking pictures of the sea, you have no right to sell permission for others to take pictures of the sea. But if you take a particularly good picture of the sea you do have the natural law right to say what happens to that picture, including who may make copies of it. There is some value in that picture that you put there. These rights make sense even in the absence of any government at all.

 

[Marybeloved]

Your examples are of discoveries of things that were already there - just waiting to be discovered. For such examples it is easy to demonstrate that the discoverer has very little natural law right to what he discovered. But when a piece of software is written or a movie is made there can be little doubt that something of value has been created - not merely discovered. And the creator of that work does have a natural law right to what he created. In your example of taking pictures of the sea, you have no right to sell permission for others to take pictures of the sea. But if you take a particularly good picture of the sea you do have the natural law right to say what happens to that picture, including who may make copies of it. There is some value in that picture that you put there. These rights make sense even in the absence of any government at all.

That’s the difference between us then, because to me, ideas and information are exactly like those discoveries of Everest and space and the sea- except they happen in the mind. Just because a person has gotten that “light” and seen it (the idea) before the rest of humanity, does not give them any ownership over it, and most certainly not in natural law. The idea of the wheel always existed, only no-one had seen it before the first person who saw it and then through creativity, helped everyone else to see it.

You can have your picture that you have taken, it’s yours. But how can you own the image captured apart from your picture? Who is to say that once you’ve sold it, you get to control how many people see it and how? If you keep it to yourself, nothing will ever happen to it. But if you share it, how can you try to control how people see it? That is like asserting ownership over the particular view of the sea at that moment in which you got to see it and captured it. But that “window” through which you saw the sea is not your property.