response 109 of 206:

Sep 15 21:10 UTC 2000

#106> I answered that questionin the other item. And I don't honestly care
if you take my argument seriously. Theft is theft.

response 111 of 206:

Sep 15 22:12 UTC 2000

Speaking of the media royalty:  CNN.com ran a story which reports
that Germany is planning to put a similar tax, but a more whopping one, 
on computers, modems, CD burners, and presumably other items.
The article says they were thinking about a 30% levy.  This would be 
handed over to the copyright industry.

response 113 of 206:

Sep 15 22:36 UTC 2000

Let me clarify my position; I forget that these are linked items, and so not
everyone has read my posts on the subject already. Plus, I'm not sure I've
specifically addressed the law issue.

I rarely debate law. I debate ethics. As far as I'm concerned, the laws in
this country are so confusing and overbearingly anal-retentive  that it's
pointless to discuss them. Therefore, the "lega" definitions of words are not
the most relevant to me.

(er, legal)

Copyright infringement is theft, asthe term "theft" is defined in common
parlance; I provided that definition elsewhere. Napster encourages copyright
infringement. Actually, I have no particular opinion about whether Napster
and like companies should operate; my thesis has and will continue to be:

People who use Napster or any other system to infringe on legal copyrights
are committing an immoral act. I call this immoral act "theft", as do many
others.

I have no particular problem with copyright infringement per se; I personally
find it excessive that the RIAA would get so irate about it. As immoral acts
go, stealing from the rich is fairly low on the burn-in-hell scale, especially
if yo're taking a copy, and you wouldn't normally have purchased it anyway.
I also agree with the argument that distributing "samples" for free encourages
sales, and so in the long run the benefit to the company probably outweighs
theallegedly lost sales.

The crux of my thesis doesnt concern all that. It concerns the simple fact
that people who infringe on copyrights are committing an immoral act, and all
the justifying in the world isn't going to change that. It's a principle
issue: If your opinion is that it's all right to rip Lars off because Lars
and co are ripping you off, then say so. You're doing a bad thing in response
to a worse thing. Groovy. It's this sanctimonious "we have a right to this
music, and the RIAA is depriving us" attitude that I find distasteful.

I have home copies of things. Big whoop. It was inappropriate of me. Big
whoop. Ya know what else? I do 90 on the freeway. I'm rude to people now and
then. I yell at my cat when I'm in a bad mood. Those are all roughly the same
as macking some track from some superstar. And if I were scolded for any of
them, I'd say, yeah, I ain't perfect, but I try. I wouldn't say, "Hey, I have
a right because..." (well, maybe with the speeding, but that's because if you
do the speed limit in some areas, youre more of a danger..).

So whether you want to call it theft or infringement, polygon, the point is
the same -- there's no clear legal or moral justification for making illegal
copies of copyrighted materials.

response 115 of 206:

Sep 15 23:48 UTC 2000

  re #113:  When you say things like "I have no particular problem with 
  copyright infringement" and then turn around and talk about it being 
  "an immoral act" you send out some seriously mixed signals.  What, if
  anything, is the distinction in your mind between "immoral" and "illegal"?

  re #114:  The law on these matters is bizarre because it has essentially
  been written by the copyright holders.  There are only a few small groups
  who lobby against copyright extensions, additional restrictions, etc, and
  their resources are dwarfed by the movie studios, record companies, and
  book publishers whose interests all lie in the opposite direction.  
  If these laws seem strange compared to other laws, it's because other laws
  are usually written with some sort of consideration given to the public 
  interest..

response 117 of 206:

Sep 16 06:44 UTC 2000

An act which is illegal violates public law.
An act with is immoral violates moral law.

What is stolen is the creator's right to control the distribution of their
work. Copyright is temporary because, it is assumed, the creator's rights on
distribution end shortly after their death. Copyright expiration is generally
based on the life of the creator.

response 119 of 206:

Sep 16 12:06 UTC 2000

everyone should buy all their entertainment media in the far east, for pennies
on the dollar of u.s. prices.

response 121 of 206:

Sep 17 00:15 UTC 2000

Re #117:  No, "right of control" is not what's 'stolen'; *compensation* is
what's being taken.  Infringing copyright means that the copyright holder
is not compensated for the copy.

response 123 of 206:

Sep 17 04:30 UTC 2000

So if I download a legal mp3 released on mp3.com, for example, it's illegal
for me to put it on a disk and give it to a friend, even though they could
download exactly the same thing themselves at no loss to anybody?

response 125 of 206:

Sep 17 14:03 UTC 2000

Frankly, I think this is why the whole issue is confusing for people... we
(Americans, especially, but capitalists in general) are taught to think of
our morality vis-a-vis property strictly in terms of $$$. If you've ever been
robbed, though, did you first fret about the money involved, or did you first
fret about the sense of violation, the emotional value of the stolen objects,
etc.? For many artists, and for those who first developped intellectual
property law, the issue isn't (solely) about money, it's about creative pride,
and the right to control what one has created. OF course, there's an element
of, "Hey, this is what I do for a lliving, I need it for my livelihood" --
and effect on market value is a major factor for determining financial
restitution in infringement cases. But there's also a sense of pride involved.

Actually, there's an item in the Music conf (from which I'm reading this
linked item) about "selling out," that is, when pop songs are used in
commercials. That would be another reason for wanting to control a freely
distributed work -- while the work is "free," it's not automatically the case
that free works may be used freely; I may not mind if people circulate my
writings free of charge, but I wouldn't want somebody gaining commecially off
of something I provided free, even if it's not the whole of what they're
doing.

response 127 of 206:

Sep 19 20:49 UTC 2000

re #106: The concept of "legal meaning" is different than the concept of 
"truth".  The word "theft" implies that you're taking something that 
doesn't belong to you, and that you shouldn't take.  Is it theft 
if you're taking a rowboat without permission, in order to save 
a child who is drowning?  Of course not.  "Murder" implies that you're 
killing someone (or something) that you shouldn't have killed.  It 
isn't murder if you do it during a war, under the orders of a 
responsible officer, within the requirements of international law 
and your nation's military.  These are legal, political meanings (the 
lines of legality are drawn by politicians and people working for 
politicians).  They are *not* truth.  

A significant minority (some 40% of the U.S. population; more if 
the question is worded differently) believe abortion *is* murder; they 
can't be dismissed as irrelevant by anyone facing reality.  (And they 
can't dismiss the opposing viewpoint represented by the law, either.)

A less significant minority believes copyright violation is "theft".  If 
they convince the state of Michigan to define it that way, the truth 
doesn't change, even if the legal meaning does.  Killing of the king's 
deer used to be defined as a high crime; theft against the royal 
personage and therefore, treason.  People were hanged, drawn and 
quartered for doing it.

It's too convenient to dismiss opposing points of view just because the 
law right now happens to coincide with your preference.  You appeared to 
be doing that.

response 129 of 206:

Sep 21 13:48 UTC 2000

Is it theft to take a rowbnoat you shouldn't take in order to save a drowning
child? YES. Which universe are you living in, John? If you give it back, and
your intentions were good, like as not either the owner of the boat or the
court system won't punish you, but it's still theft.

Theft carries no implication of intent. Theft is easy: You possess something.
You don't have the right to possess it. You must have stolen it.

The sticking point, as I see it, is whether theft includes the component of
taking something from someone else, or if it can also include making a copy
of something you don't have the right to copy. Apparently, the legal
definition doesn't apply to the latter, but I think the vernacular definition
does.

This isn't an issue of a "less significant minority" (show me polls supporting
that, btw... you're surrounding by netizens, who seem overwhelmingly to
approve of doing what they please with other people's creative works, so your
view is tainted about what is "commonplace" in the mainstream), nor is it an
issue of what qualifies as "theft." The law determines what is legal, and has
already determined that copying a music file that you haven't paid for, but
which is oonly available at a price, is theft. The issue is whether Napster
can be held accountable for the actions of its users... that is, to what
extent a system can encourage or tolerate an illicit behavior before it's held
accountable for that behavior.

I'm surprised that nobody's dragged in the CDA and Engler v. Cyberspace,
because the core issue is similar. Napster isn't being taken to task for
copying a bunch of illegal sound files and telling the world to have at it...
they did no such thing. Napster is being taken to task for creating an
environment in which illegal behavior is encouraged, or at least not actively
discouraged.

The main difference between Napster and, say, Grex is that, while people do
illegal things with Grex as the medium, Grex was not designed for the chief
purpose of creating a climate which would lead to illegal behavior. While
Napster nominally warns about copyright infringement, their soul raison d'etre
is the exchange of copyrighted files, SOME of which may have been partially
or fully released into the public domain. Napster itself has admitted (or,
better said, alleged) that it has no control over the files that are traded.

(soul=sole, a few lines back. Damn homophones.)

response 131 of 206:

Sep 21 18:13 UTC 2000

Re 129.  "Theft carries no implication of intent. Theft is easy: You
possess something. You don't have the right to possess it. You must
have stolen it."

<polygon rolls his eyes> I realize that you don't give a damn about what
words mean, but I don't even know where to begin explaining how completely
wrong that is.

Just for starters, theft *does* require intent.  Depending on the
circumstances, posession of a stolen item may be *evidence* that you are
the one who stole it, e.g., if you're caught with dozens of stolen jewels
running away from the scene of a smash-and-grab at a jewelry shop. 
However, you might be the "fence" who bought the item from a burglar --
that is a whole different crime.  You might not know that you don't have
the right to possess it.  Circumstances matter.  Intent matters.