The idea of intellectual property is actually historically a new idea. I believe it sprang up in the 19th century. I do not consider it stealing, but I do believe that we are called to respect legitimate authority including civil authority. As such, I look to both the laws of the country and to whether the individual holding the copyright actually cares about or wants to utilize their copyrights.
The problem with this thinking is that calling on the historical newness of a concept does not mean you get to ignore it. Even if copyright is only ~100 years old, that doesn’t mean you get to ignore it. Does the Church say we can ignore the Marian dogma of the Assumption because it was only declared in 1950? No. As we grow as a society, more advance concepts come to fruition, and copyright is one of those. What people seem to ignore is that copyright has the word right in it for a reason. It protects something that society has recognized as being owed to an individual inherently. Just because this concept gets utilized for monetary gain by corporations more often than not doesn’t negate the right, and even then, those corporations are still run by people who have that right. The filesharing issue is as bad as it is because the MPAA and the RIAA have become faceless, people-less entities in many people’s minds, when it couldn’t be further from the truth.
For instance, the copyright to “Happy Birthday to You” belongs to Patty Hill. Now, she died in 1946, but the song is still protected by copyright laws. That is why if you go to most restaurants that regularly have their staff surprise you to sing to you on your birthday, they don’t sing “Happy Birthday to you.” If they do, they probably don’t do that sort of thing frequently enough to recognize that they’re violating copyright laws. In the United States, the song will not belong to the public domain until 2030. So just remember that if you haven’t purchased sheet music for “Happy Birthday to you” and you’re singing it to your child on their birthday, you’re violating copyright. As such, if you’re going obsess over obeying every copyright law in the country, you better drop that family tradition.
This is just blatantly false. There’s a big difference between a restaurant, who would utilize a song such as Happy Birthday in the process of making money, and a family singing a song in a private situation. You need to research and understand the concept of Fair Use before you go making examples that would lead people to believe they are breaking laws that don’t exist.
In regards to music, copyright laws only help musical artists who are well known. Most musical artists who are starting out encourage their small fanbase to spread their music in the hopes that the fanbase will build to levels that a record company will take notice. When they are signed onto a label, the artist signs over their copyrights to the record company in exchange for promotional and recording services. The contract includes an agreement as to what percentage of the profit the artist will get. The same is the case with books.
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As such, in discerning this I first ask myself “Is this public domain?” If its not, I then ask myself if the holder of the copyrights actually wants to utilize their rights. I also consider if the owner of the copyright is abusing copyright law to take advantage of people.
Again, you are making statements that can lead people astray. When a person or group sells their Intellectual Property (book, song, movie, etc.) to a company, that company can do whatever it wants with it as dictated by the terms of sale. The company has purchased a right, and all the inherent aspects of it. The creator’s desires about the copyright after they’ve sold it have absolutely no bearing on what the company does with it, how long they keep it, or whether you consider such uses as abuses. This is not arbitrary or relative. When you take a copy of some Intellectual Property that has a current owner, you are violating that right. You can sing Happy Birthday until you’re blue in the face, both legally and morally, in the privacy of your home or car with private company. Download a copy of Patty Hill performing it or sing it as an employee of a restaurant without paying Patty (or her estate, as it were) what they’re owed, and you’ve broken the law and violated a right.
The thing about copyright is that, even if all the legal restrictions surrounding it were to drop away tomorrow, it would still immoral for a person of conscience (especially a Christian conscience) to take something they haven’t paid for when the owner still requests such. The medium of the item makes no difference at all. We are called to follow a higher law than the broken laws of man, and that clearly applies to situations like file-sharing. If you feel that a company abuses the rights inherent in their purchase of an IP, or as gaining IP at an unfair advantage, do no support them with your money and advocate others do the same; that does not mean you have spontaneously gained the right to their IP and can take it by any means you deem appropriate.
Also, while I quote twoangels specifically to address some points, I’m speaking mainly to everyone who is trying to justify filesharing copyrighted works.
