response 21 of 72:

Apr 29 21:05 UTC 2004

About three or four years ago, in discussing the lack of moral 
authority behind the concept of intellectual property, I wrote:
  "The Lord did not say, 'Thou shalt not copy thy neighbor's
scrolls.'"
   (note to Certain Readers of Agora:  it's a METAPHOR)
 
Skip ahead to 2004:  From an article in a Christian news service:
http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/4/202004a.asp
"Poll finds music piracy rampant among believing teens"
 
"A new survey done by Christian pollster George Barna for the 
Gospel Music Association finds a disturbing trend among Christian
teens.  Not only are teen believers stealing Christian music through
Internet downloads and CD burnings, but they are doing it at the 
same rate that non-Christians are pirating secular music."
...
"The Barna survey found that only one in ten Christian teens surveyed
consider music piracy to be morally wrong, and 64 percent of them say 
they have participated in some form of music piracy."

The NYTimes has a variant of the story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/25/weekinreview/25lela.html
"Praise God and Pass the Music Files"

response 23 of 72:

Apr 29 21:29 UTC 2004

Sidebar:  what's up, twenex?  Some folks like music, but not secular music.

response 25 of 72:

Apr 29 23:21 UTC 2004

>  "The Lord did not say, 'Thou shalt not copy thy neighbor's scrolls'"

Of course He did. It was on the tablet that Mel Brooks dropped.

response 27 of 72:

Apr 30 00:55 UTC 2004

Hmm, and "seculars" don't?

response 29 of 72:

Apr 30 07:12 UTC 2004

Hmm.

response 31 of 72:

Apr 30 13:52 UTC 2004

Re resp:28: "You shouldn't steal other people's stuff" isn't exactly an
exclusively Christian ideal, though.

response 33 of 72:

Apr 30 20:15 UTC 2004

Apparently, some would disagree. There's an anti-piracy organization over here
called the Federation Against Copyright Theft.

response 35 of 72:

May 3 16:59 UTC 2004

Re resp:32: It may not be theft in the narrow sense of the word, but it
*is* denying someone compensation for their labor.

response 37 of 72:

May 3 18:25 UTC 2004

  re #35:  if I don't buy their product am I also "denying someone
  compensation for their labor"?  Pretty clearly few people would
  argue that I am. 

  Let's imagine two scenarios, then:

     In scenario A I do not buy their product and do not
     infringe upon their copyright to obtain a copy unlawfully.

     In scenario B I do not buy their product, but I DO
     infringe upon their copyright and obtain a copy unlawfully.

  The artist has the same tangible possessions and the same amount
  of money in both cases, but by your definition one of these cases
  is theft and the other is not.  What, exactly, have I stolen?

response 39 of 72:

May 3 23:57 UTC 2004

  re #38:  
  > Ah, yes, the "but I wouldn't have bought a copy anyway!" defense.

  I'm not defending anything.  I'm simply trying to establish what has
  been stolen.

  It's clear why the copyright interests deliberately misrepresent
  infringement as being theft, as it allows them to cast the debate in
  terms that are much more favorable to their position.  It's also an
  implicit admission of their belief in the weakness of popular 
  agreement with their aims.  

  If we're going to have a useful debate about infringement (which seems
  unlikely in any event) I'd prefer to be precise about what we say,
  as sloppiness confuses the issue quite a bit.

response 41 of 72:

May 5 13:15 UTC 2004

Some people deny not just that intellectual property has no value, but htat
it does not exist. I believe Richard Stallman, the FSF of which he is a part,
and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are three groups of them.

response 43 of 72:

May 5 14:56 UTC 2004

Heh.

I presume witting=willing?

response 45 of 72:

May 5 16:14 UTC 2004

> (178) #40/44:    David Brodbeck (gull)  Wed, May  5, 2004 (09:04)
>  Are you arguing that intellectual property has no value?  Or just that
>  "theft" is the wrong word?

In an argument it's traditional to respond to what your opponent wrote
rather than try to deduce telepathically what he meant and argue against
that.  If you want to have a useful argument on this topic, don't start
by assuming that anyone who doesn't agree with you 100% is an "information
wants to be free" Slashbot.

I think I've quite clearly limited my objections to the misuse of the
term "theft."  I don't see how I could have been any clearer, nor do I
see how you could deduce from what I have written that I am "arguing that
intellectual property has no value."  Clearly it has value -- it is 
bought and sold, is it not?  The term "intellectual property" is a bit
of a misnomer, though, in my opinion.

Allow me to ask my question again:  in the infringing case from the
two scenarios I outlined in a previous response, *what* has been stolen?