

Ask HN: What are the strongest moral arguments against piracy? - csallen

It's common for people to draw ethical comparison between file-sharing and theft, shoplifting, etc. I'm considering writing a blog post that argues against that point of view. However, in the words of Charlie Munger, "I feel that I'm not entitled to have an opinion unless I can state the arguments against my position better than the people who are in opposition." So I'll ask those of you who would be my opposition: what are the best arguments you have for why downloading a song, movie, application, etc is unethical?
======
onlawschool
The file-sharing/theft analogy is a fairly sound one. If I steal tangible
property--say, a pack of gum--very few people would argue that my decision to
do so was ethically defensible. Given that intangible property--say, a song--
may be much more expensive to produce and arguably adds much more social value
for having been created, why should we treat intangible property any
differently?

Lets keep analogizing...

Like the manufacturer of the pack of gum, the song's creator has invested time
and money into the development, production, and distribution of that product.
And like the gum, the song has some intrinsic value (or else why would I take
the time to download and listen to it?). Why should I be able to realize that
value for my benefit without compensating the person responsible for its
creation any more than I should be able to enjoy a delicious pack of bazooka
joe without ponying up to the candy store?

One might argue that the ability to reproduce the digital download without
imposing any cost on the creator of the intellectual property differentiates
the intangible from the tangible. If my friend has 10 apples for sale at $1 a
piece and I eat one while he isn't looking, he now only has 9 apples that he
can sell, limiting his maximum gross revenue to $9. This feels wrong because
the product is tangible & the loss quantifiable. On the other hand, if my
other friend records a digital video that she is selling and I download it for
free, she can still sell 10 more copies of the song and earn $10. However, had
I paid for the download, she would have $11 rather than $10.

In each case, my unauthorized consumption left the person who had spent their
own resources (both human and capital) with $1 less at the end of the day.

I might try and justify having downloaded the video for free by telling myself
that my illicit consumption whet my appetite for her films, making me more
likely to make purchases from her in the future. However, the same could be
said for the juicy apple that I took from my other friend. Perhaps because I
stole my first apple I will now come back and patronize his fruit stand
regularly. Ultimately he will sell more fruit because of my indiscriminate
apple theft, yet my original sin still feels unethical. As well it should.

When Curebit allegedly violated the intellectual property rights of 37
Signals, they suffered quite the backlash here on HN
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3523024>).

Of course, it is easy to distinguish between downloading someone's
intellectual property for personal use and misrepresenting another's
intellectual property as your own, especially for commercial purposes. Yet, at
their core, both acts simply represent varying degrees of the same unethical
behavior.

Like it or not, your gain, whether tangible or intangible, comes at the
expense of the counter-party to the would-be transaction. Further, if enough
people felt justified in their apple theft, it would be harder to find a
decent fruit stand. Fruit vendors would close up shop or begin selling
cheaper, lower-quality apples in order to minimize their losses to theft.
Similarly, if enough people feel as though misappropriating intellectual
property is acceptable, it is much more difficult for creators of such to
continue to afford create.

The ability to monetize one's work, whether it be apple mongering or song
writing, incentivizes and finances the production and distribution of higher
quality apples and songs. Remove those incentives and both the artist and the
entrepreneur will ultimately be unable to sustain their efforts in the long-
run.

~~~
csallen
Thanks for the post. I find myself both agreeing with some of your points, but
disagreeing with the way you've chosen to frame the debate:

    
    
      I agree that:
        - theft necessarily deprives the victim of property
        - an of act copyright infringement *can* adversely affect the victim
        - copyright gives many people an incentive to create art
        - some artists support themselves entirely via profits from copyright
      I disagree that:
        - copyrighted material is the equivalent of property
        - copyright infringement *ever* deprives the victim of property
        - an act of copyright infringement necessarily affects the victim adversely
        - copyright infringement today noticeably harms the progress of the arts
    

Your view -- that copyrights make an author's work the "property" of that
author -- is extremely common. Given the historical evidence, however, I
believe that view is completely at odds with the purposes of copyright (in the
US, at least). In the words of Thomas Jefferson:

    
    
      "Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give
      an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men
      to pursue ideas..."
    

Our copyright laws do not treat words, ideas, thoughts, etc as property that
can be owned. They simply give artists exclusive rights to how their creations
can be _used_ : copied, sold, displayed, performed, etc. Infringing upon
someone's copyrighted work by performing it without permission, for example,
is therefore not the same as theft. Even the Supreme Court of the United
States agrees: "...interference with copyright does not easily equate with
theft, conversion, or fraud."

This technical/legal difference translates into a moral difference, because it
necessarily changes the way you view the issue. The Constitution's framers
consistently espoused that speech, ideas, and invention should be free, and
that copyright is an _exception_ to this freedom. It was created _solely_ to
provide incentives for creation, not because it's "morally necessity" to
compensate authors. If anything, it was viewed a moral _wrong_ , allowed
_only_ because of the incentives it created. More quotes:

    
    
      "That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
      moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
      have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature... Society may give an
      exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to
      pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done,
      according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint
      from anybody... generally speaking, other nations have thought that these
      monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society"
      -- Thomas Jefferson
    
      "That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be
      glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we
      should do freely and generously."
      --Benjamin Franklin
    

So copyright infringement is certainly not the equivalent of theft. All that
said, you may claim that it remains immoral because it decreases artistic
incentives, and in doing so hinders the progress of the arts and sciences. If
you were to say that, I would agree with you completely. However, today we've
expanded the umbrella of what qualifies as an "infringement" much too far.

Original copyright law focused almost exclusively on profits. Works could be
shared, read, performed, displayed, etc, as long as it was done in private and
for free. Only for-profit public uses of a work required permission from the
author. The point was not to force everyone who enjoyed your work to pay, but
to ensure that you had a _monopoly_. In other words, to ensure that no one
could compete with you financially. For example, another artist using your
work and selling it.

Today, things are different. We have the internet, CD copying, file sharing,
etc. These allow people to enjoy share and enjoy artistic works _freely and
privately_. It's not the same as, say, copying 1000 VHS tapes and selling them
to passersby on the street.

So when the record labels lobby Congress to make file-sharing illegal, because
now they only make $10billion a year instead of $14billion, that's a
perversion of copyright law. _That's_ what's immoral. Copyright law doesn't
exist to guarantee middlemen insane profits. Nor does it exist to control what
citizens do for free in their own homes, whether or not that activity
ultimately affects artistic profits. It exists to provide sufficient
incentives, and _that's it._

The ONLY argument for the immorality of piracy must revolve around whether it
is actually harmful to the progress of the arts. My question to you is this:
Has the rampant file-sharing made possible by the internet harmed artistic or
scientific progress? Are books and movies and plays and inventions
disappearing? Is the current state of things unsustainable? Most certainly
not. If anything, the opposite is true: sharing on the internet has only
_spurred_ the creation of new arts and invention by creating a bigger and more
easily-accessible market than has ever existed.

The question can also be presented in reverse: Has the repeated extension of
copyright terms, lobbied for by giant content companies, helped the arts? When
oure forefathers created copyright law, it lasted a maximum of 28 years. Today
it lasts for an entire lifetime PLUS 70 years. Entire decades worth of movies,
books, music, etc are being lost, as they remain under the control of
copyright owners who have abandoned them because they are no longer
profitable. The public _could_ have and _would_ have maintained them and
improved upon them. But instead, we have to watch them rot. I'll finish with
this quote, from a court case in 1821:

    
    
      "While one great object was, by holding out a reasonable reward to inventors, and
      giving them an exclusive right to their inventions for a limited period, to
      stimulate the efforts of genius; the main object was `to promote the progress of
      science and useful arts;' and this could be done best, by giving the public at
      large a right to make, construct, use, and vend the thing invented, at as early a 
      period as possible, having a due regard to the rights of the inventor. If an
      inventor should be permitted to hold back from the knowledge of the public the
      secrets of his invention; if he should for a long period of years retain the
      monopoly, and make, and sell his invention publicly, and thus gather the whole
      profits of it, relying upon his superior skill and knowledge of the structure;
      and then, and then only, when the danger of competition should force him to
      secure the exclusive right, he should be allowed to take out a patent, and thus
      exclude the public from any farther use than what should be derived under it
      during his fourteen years; it would materially retard the progress of science and  
      the useful arts, and give a premium to those, who should be least prompt to
      communicate their discoveries."

------
_delirium
I find it slightly easier to look at arguments justifying copyright. That's
related to arguments opposing piracy, but the latter can be more complex. For
example, if you've established (via an argument justifying copyright) that it
is ethical and correct for a country to have copyright laws, why it's
unethical to pirate then boils down to why it's unethical to violate just
laws, which is a whole argument in itself (social-contract arguments,
deontological arguments, utilitarian arguments, etc.).

That might be too fine a distinction, but in any case, there are two main
varieties of arguments justifying copyright (though there are also some
others, advanced less often):

1\. Utilitarian arguments, that copyright improves well-being in some
important way. These divide (as I see it) into a more strongly stated
utilitarian-ethics approach, and a more weakly stated public-policy approach.
The stronger approach argues on utilitarian grounds that it is _ethically
required_ to have a copyright system, because of the moral good it produces.
The public-policy argument makes the more limited argument that a country
adopting a copyright system will improve the country's society, so it ought to
do so (but is not necessarily being unethical if it chooses not to).

2\. Right-of-the-author type arguments that argue for a property or quasi-
property interest in ideas, or some ancillary things around ideas. This is
somewhat more prevalent in French thinking than Anglo-American thinking, as
suggested by the French translation of the word "copyright", _droit d'auteur_.
The quasi-copyright category of "moral rights" is related to this, and can
support some middle-ground positions, such as a belief that copyright itself
is _not_ a right, but that being accurately identified as the author of a work
_is_ a right (i.e. some kind of anti-intellectual-theft position, where it's
ethical to copy a book, but not ethical to copy a book _and claim you wrote
it_ ).

There's an extra level of complexity when you look at contract law, corporate
copyright, and transferability. For example, some of the _droit d'auteur_
based approaches consider it an immutable, untransferable right _of the
original author_ specifically, who can enter into licensing arrangements for
the work, but cannot transfer or sign away their fundamental moral rights.

~~~
csallen
Even if we were to accept the strong utilitarian argument, it doesn't really
say that it's "required" to have a copyright system. Copyright is a means, not
an end, and utilitarianism is about ends. Specifically, it's about increasing
the total amount of happiness among people. Which isn't so different from the
public policy approach, which is about improving society as a whole.

Neither of these systems hinges on the existence of a copyright system, and
even if they did, there are many many ways to _implement_ a copyright system.
Certainly, you can't say I would argue that the system as it exists today
flies in the face of both approaches. To understand why, it's necessary to
understand the history of copyright. Both copyright and patents

Both patents and copyright were justified in a single clause of the
constitution for the following purpose (and this quote comes directly from
Congress in 1988):

    
    
      "Under the U. S. Constitution, the primary objective of copyright
      law is not to reward the author, but rather to secure for the public
      the benefits derived from the authors' labors. By giving authors an
      incentive to create, the public benefits in two ways: when the original
      expression is created and ... when the limited term ... expires and the
      creation is added to the public domain."
    

Or, if a quote from 1988 isn't interesting enough, let's look at a quote form
the court in 1829, a date much closer to the initial creation of the
Constitution:

    
    
      "While one great object was, by holding out a reasonable reward to
      inventors, and giving them an exclusive right to their inventions for 
      a limited period, to stimulate the efforts of genius; the main object 
      was `to promote the progress of science and useful arts;' and this 
      could be done best, by giving the public at large a right to make, 
      construct, use, and vend the thing invented, at as early a period as 
      possible, having a due regard to the rights of the inventor. If an 
      inventor should be permitted to hold back from the knowledge of the 
      public the secrets of his invention; if he should for a long period 
      of years retain the monopoly, and make, and sell his invention publicly, 
      and thus gather the whole profits of it, relying upon his superior skill 
      and knowledge of the structure; and then, and then only, when the danger 
      of competition should force him to secure the exclusive right, he should
      be allowed to take out a patent, and thus exclude the public from any
      farther use than what should be derived under it during his fourteen
      years; it would materially retard the progress of science and the useful
      arts, and give a premium to those, who should be least prompt to
      communicate their discoveries."
    

This is about as utilitarian as it gets. The entire purpose is to help the
public, the populace, society _in general_. Allowing for the perpetual
monopoly of ideas, language, and art would be a crime against free speech and
_harm_ society. However, failing to protect it at all would provide 0
incentive for artists to create new work. So the most utilitarian balance is
to grant protection to artists ONLY if they go through the copyright system,
which would soon force their works into the public domain.

What we have today is an extreme perversion of this system. The content
industries have become the very monopolies we sought to prevent. Copyright was
originally 14-28 years maximum, but the content industries have successfully
petitioned Congress to extend that to the _entire_ lifetime of the author PLUS
70 years. And why not? They profit tremendously by doing this. But it doesn't
help authors (who are usually long-dead), it doesn't incentivize the creation
of new work, and it completely fucks over the public.

------
iamds
The main argument I have against piracy is this...

If you create something (movie, song, naked pictures of your wife, whatever),
you do not have to show it to other people. You don't have to sell it. You
don't have to give it away. If you want, you can keep it just for yourself and
not show it to anyone.

Or, if you choose to you could allow other people to see it if they give you
something that you want for it. You don't have to allow others to see/use it.
And if they don't want to give you what you want for it they are not forced to
take part in this transaction.

If you ask for a million dollars in exchange for watching your film, I can
either pay you a million dollars and watch your film, or not pay a million
dollars and not watch your film, simple. If you say that you want twenty
dollars for your song, and I am only allowed to play that on my zune, and not
on my iPod, then, again, I have a choice, I can pay you twenty dollars and
take your song and use it according to your rules, or not. No one is forcing
me to buy your song, and you have no obligation to let me have it.

What I can't do is say "A million dollars is too much, I know I'll just
download and watch the movie anyway". I also cannot say, "I hate DRM so, I'll
just bit-torrent the song so I can use on my iPod". And of course I cannot say
"I really want to see your wife naked, but you won't show me your photos, I'll
just take a copy off your computer anyway". If I don't like the terms of use,
then I just shouldn't use it.

This is how the free market works, when you realise that no one is buying your
film, because you're asking too much for it, you can lower the price and hope
more people buy it. When you realise that no one is buying your music because
they want to be able to play it on all their devices - not just their zune,
you can sell it without DRM in the hope that more people will buy it. But, you
don't have to, and if you don't I can continue not buying it for as long as I
want - but I can not just say, "I don't like your terms of use, I'll just
pirate it anyway".

~~~
csallen

      > But, you don't have to, and if you don't I can continue
        not buying it for as long as I want - but I can not just
        say, "I don't like your terms of use, I'll just pirate it
        anyway".
    

I'll ask you what I asked someone else. What if me, you, and a few others are
hunter gatherers living off the land. I somehow get the bright idea to build a
house on some land, herd animals, and grow crops. Then I say, if anyone else
wants to copy this, it'll cost you 10,000 bananas. So what's the verdict - is
it right for me to have a monopoly on my idea? I came up with it after all. Is
it immoral for you to copy it without paying what I ask?

------
pavel_lishin
I'll take a thirty second stab at it - piracy is unsustainable. It costs money
to create music, movies and games - movies like Transformers, and video games
like Portal are unlikely to be created without a significant amount of
funding. While piracy doesn't directly take money away from the creators, it
can potentially subtract from their income.

~~~
csallen
Thanks for your response. I think there are two distinct points in your
paragraph, so I'll respond to them one at a time:

\------------

    
    
      1) "The Promoting of the Arts Argument"
          Wherein if we don't work to provide a significant
          amount of funding to artists, they won't be able to
          create expensive works.
    

It is true that, unless studios can see a significant amount of return on
their investment, they won't have an incentive to create massively expensive
content. But there are more than a few problems with this line of reasoning.

First, is there any evidence that technology and innovation will cease if
piracy continues? The mount of illegally-acquired content is increased
_dramatically_ in the last 10 years, but artistic progress hasn't stopped. In
fact it's increased. We still have expensive and technologically-
groundbreaking blockbusters like Avatar being produced. And there are more
self-published authors and independent filmmakers than ever before.

Secondly, where do we draw the line? There has to be a cutoff point. We could
theoretically create laws that force people to buy movies, guaranteeing that
the film industry has $100 million in funding for every movie it makes. Or $1
billion. Or $10 billion. But would that really be justifiable? At some point,
you're going behind "promoting art". There are plenty of movies that cost 1%
of Transformers to make, but contributed much more to society by almost all
accounts. I don't think it's the government's place to guarantee the financial
success of the artistic industry. And if they're going to do that, it should
be done via taxation, and the public should own some stake.

Third, why can't artists rely on supply and demand? If the public values art
so highly, it will pay for it. Louis C.K. released his new standup online in
an easily-copyable way, and he made millions. People still go to see movies in
the theater. They still see plays. They still go to art galleries, and live
concerts, and book signings. Hell, they still buy books and even e-books. This
is how artists have survived for centuries, and how art will continue to
progress. If you're good enough, people will want to see you and your work.

Fourth, why should anyone be _guaranteed_ success in the digital marketplace?
The downside to the digital world is that file-sharing, which will obviously
be a problem when audio and video are converted to bits. The upside is that
you can easily reach billions of people, so the potential for exposure and
revenue is huge. But as an artist, no one is forcing you down this path. As I
pointed out above, there are plenty of other ways that you can succeed. So how
is it justifiable for us to have laws that limit the populace's digital
freedoms, just so artists and companies can make business decisions with less
risk?

\------------

    
    
      2) "The Consequentialist Argument"
          Wherein piracy must be bad, because it ultimately
          results in less income for artists.
    

I don't think this argument is as strong as the first. We live in a capitalist
culture where nobody is guaranteed to succeed at _any_ business venture. I
don't see why there should be an exception just because the business is
related to art.

Your argument implies that, if the ultimate consequence of a decision is a
reduction in someone else's income, the decision is unethical. If that was the
case, then early car owners would have been immortal for failing to support
people still in the business of selling horses. And it would be unethical to
share a lawnmower with a neighbor instead of buying your own. And it would
unethical to borrow a friend's DVD (or copy its data) instead of buying a new
one.

This doesn't seem sufficient to me. It not _that_ you deprived someone else of
income: it's _how_ you did it. Compare all of the above to, say, copying DVDs
and selling them.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> First, is there any evidence that technology and innovation will cease if
> piracy continues?

That is, indeed, a flaw in my argument.

> Secondly, where do we draw the line? ... We could theoretically create laws
> that force people to buy movies

Reduction ad absurdium, bored.

> Third, why can't artists rely on supply and demand?

But in this case the supply doesn't really follow traditional economic models,
because once a song is recorded, the supply becomes effectively infinite,
since you can download the song as much as you want. And as far as Louis C.K.,
one anecdote is not proof.

> why should anyone be guaranteed success in the digital marketplace?

They're not guaranteed success in the current marketplace, either.

(ok, back hurts too much to type anymore)

~~~
csallen

      > Reduction ad absurdium, bored.
    

It's a valid question, is it not? The protection of artists must fall along
some continuum: either no protection whatsoever, the strongest protection
imaginable, or somewhere in between. So where do we draw the line?

In the last few days since I wrote my response to you, I've read up _a lot_ on
the history of copyright, and why we have it in the first place. And the line
drawn by the framers of our Constitution and our early courts was this: Speech
and ideas cannot be property. Giving people control over them endangers free
speech and harms the public. But failing to do so disincentivizes authors.
Thus, the goal was to _give the minimum possible protection that would
encourage the progress of art and science_.

All the evidence suggests that the amount of protection that exists today far
exceeds that minimum level. How can we justify that?

    
    
      > They're not guaranteed success in the current marketplace, either.
    

Exactly, and that's great. That's how it should be. Copyright law wasn't
created to _force_ people to buy artists' work. It was created to prevent
people from _profiting_ off of someone else's work. It was created to promote
progress in art and science. But today, it's clearly not. I've gotta run, but
I'll leave you with this example:

Every 20 years, when the copyright on Mickey Mouse is about to expire, Disney
spends a ton of cash to convince Congress to retroactively extend the length
of copyright terms. They always succeed, but the consequences are grave.
Something like 99% of copyrighted material is no longer commercially viable
more than 10 years after its creation. But since copyright terms are
continually extended, all of these works remain under the control of their
creators, and are never released to the public. Entire decades worth of movies
from Hollywood in the 1920s an 1930s have been left to decay, because their
owners have no incentive to promote them, but the public isn't allowed to
access them. Our entire history is evaporating before our eyes so Disney can
keep making money off of Mickey Mouse. So to recap:

1\. A great many historical works of art are being lost. 2\. New artists are
not allowed to re-imagine old stories and art from a century ago, because it's
still under copyright. (Ironic, because Disney created its art by re-imagining
old fairy tales.) 3\. Content companies like Disney have no incentive to make
new art, because they retain control of their old art.

So where's the progress? How does this system make art _better_?

------
SteveJS
Fairness/cheating: It violates reciprocal altruism with respect to the artist.
The act of taking without compensation implies the work has no value.

Authority/subversion: Arguments that the compensation is indirect (and
therefore excuses taking without payment) implies artists do not have the
right of entering into contracts to support themselves. (This dimension is
with respect to the law. Anyone arguing for piracy already values respect for
the law less and may actually value subverting authority instead.) (Arguing
for alternate payment models is arguing not for piracy but for a valid
alternative that is not piracy.)

Your moral argument for piracy will likely rest on Liberty/oppression,
implying the requirement to pay for something that has low/no marginal cost is
oppression. That may or may not be true, but it is independent of
fairness/cheating.

Loyalty/betrayal: This dimension speaks to self sacrifice. I don't think it
comes into play here.

Sanctity/degradation: This speaks to whether altering content is moral or not.
(Think about a your favorite song being rendered as elevator music ... very
immoral. Or someone altering Star Wars so that Han Solo didn't shoot first.)

And I grabbed these dimensions straight from here:
<http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/mft/index.php>

~~~
csallen
Thanks for responding.

    
    
      Fairness/cheating
    

What about the open source movement? I code using a lot of free technology.
Rather than implying the tech is of no value, I think the fact that I (and
millions of others) use it is a _testament_ to its value. We hold the creators
in high regard. The stated purpose of copyright law in the Constitution is to
"promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts". If anything, invoking
copyright law for nothing other than personal financial gain is immoral.

    
    
      Authority/subversion
    

I may be misinterpreting your point here, but I have no problem with paying
artists indirectly through representatives. If they want to enter into a
contract, that's their right.

    
    
      Liberty/oppression
    

My neighbor buys a book from Borders, reads it, and gives it to me. At this
point, I'm entering into a transaction with my neighbor, _not_ with the author
of the book, and _not_ with Borders. This is perfectly legal behavior in
accordance to the doctrine of first sale, which prevents owners from retaining
control over copyrighted material after it's been bought. This is also a very
moral doctrine, in my opinion, because it's excessively greedy to try to
maintain control over something even after you've sold it.

Where the confusion comes into play is with digital goods. Digital goods are
MUCH easier to manipulate (copy, trade, give, etc) than physical goods.
Theoretically, ONE person can buy a CD, then make it available to everyone
else on earth in a matter of minutes. This destroys business models that
worked with physical goods, but I would argue that destroying business models
is not immoral in a capitalist society. We don't condemn Henry Ford for
ruining the businesses of horse-and-wagon sellers.

The stated purpose of copyright law in the Constitution is to "promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts". If anything, invoking copyright law for
nothing other than personal financial gain is immoral. Instead, the law should
be used to stop those who would hinder scientific and artistic progress; for
example, by creating knockoffs and masquerading them as the original, thus
preventing the original creators from ever reaping rewards.

File-sharing does indeed make some forms of art a lot less profitable than
they _could_ be. And you may be tempted to argue that this equates to
hindering progress. However, I'd respond by pointing out that profit is not
the same as progress. There is no evidence to suggest that art has stopped
progressing due to file-sharing. If anything, it's only gotten better in the
last 10 years.

    
    
      Sanctity/degradation
    

Haha, well I wouldn't agree that it's immoral to modify art or music. In fact,
that's kind of the purpose. It's about expression, speech, creativity, and the
flow of ideas. This behavior is explicitly allowed by the fair use doctrine.

~~~
SteveJS
With open source both the producer and consumer sides are agreeing to share.
There's nothing wrong with that, it implies nothing about the value of what is
shared, and it is not piracy.

Piracy is where the consumer side of a transaction takes without permission.
That's cheating. It is immoral.

>invoking copyright law for nothing other than personal financial gain is
immoral. >This is also a very moral doctrine, in my opinion, because it's
excessively greedy to try to maintain control over something even after you've
sold it. >invoking copyright law for nothing other than personal financial
gain is immoral

It sounds like you believe personal financial gain is inherently immoral. Many
people do feel this way. Many people don't.

You should assume the opposite of your bias and form your argument on that
basis. It will make for a stronger argument.

~~~
csallen

      > Piracy is where the consumer side of a transaction takes 
        without permission. That's cheating. It is immoral.
    

That's not what piracy is, actually. Piracy is simply "an infringement of
copyright". And copyright is the exclusive right to copy a work, distribute it
for sale to the public, perform it publicly, display it publicly, or create
derivatives from it. It's not really comparable to a normal transaction.

    
    
      > It sounds like you believe personal financial gain is
        inherently immoral. Many people do feel this way. Many
        people don't.
    

Well, that's not really what I believe. I do own a company after all. It
doesn't get much more financial gain-seeking than that :)

The original intention of copyright was as follows: Ideas, expression, and
information have no owners. They belong to the public because of free speech
and all. However, this discouraged their creation, because if you wrote a book
someone could just put their name on it and mass-produce it, giving you no
credit. So lawmakers said how about we give authors a _limited_ time to
benefit financially from copyright. That will be a great incentive for them to
create new works. However, after that time ends, the public should enjoy
unrestricted use. That way we don't create monopolies on free speech and
expression.

My problem is that we're straying from this original intent. The entire
purpose was to _prevent_ monopolies* on information. You used to only have
copyrights for 28 years, max, before the public got full control over it.
Since then, content companies and artists have endlessly lobbied Congress to
give them more power, and today copyrights last an entire lifetime PLUS 70
years. Nothing _ever_ enters the public domain.

So the real question is: How can you argue that copyright infringers are
immoral, when the reality is that copyright holders are the ones who've
violated the original intent of the law purely for personal gain? Their
actions are ion violation of almost every moral foundation you listed
(fairness, liberty, authority, betrayal, degradation).

    
    
      > You should assume the opposite of your bias and form
        your argument on that basis. It will make for a stronger 
        argument.
    

Thanks for the feedback.

~~~
SteveJS
>How can you argue that copyright infringers are immoral, when the reality is
that copyright holders are the ones who've violated the original intent of the
law purely for personal gain?

I'd rephrase this as taking from copyright holders (violating the terms
proffered) is moral because the holders are immoral.

This is precisely an argument based on justice/fairness. It sounds like you
are taking a moral stand that piracy is equivalent to principled protest.

Taking a song for free when you are expected to pay for it isn't the same as
refusing to go to the back of the bus, unless you do so with the explicit
intent of suffering unjust consequences in the service of changing a bad law
or social norm.

I believe it is uncontroversial that most piracy is done with the expectation
of not being caught. Arguing for piracy is a difficult moral position because
it is a 'small wrong' (breaking a proffered contract) with highly unlikely
consequences. If you wish to take the principled protest stand you need to
argue that it is right to pirate content with the intent to get caught.

Getting away with piracy doesn't really work as a moral stand. (Advocating
piracy can be a pragmatic stand for the creative destruction of specific
industries ... but that alone doesn't transform the individual act of piracy
into moral one.)

A clean separation of 'pragmatic' or 'force of history' arguments from 'moral'
arguments may serve you better.

For moral arguments you cannot ignore the moral consequences of the individual
actions advocated. It's the classic doing wrong for the greater good. Breaking
the law for principled protest is moral because the protester is seeking the
consequences of breaking the law rather than avoiding the consequences.

------
chrisbennet
Basis for argument:

I am probably not in the minority in thinking that I own the fruits of my
labor. If I raise some corn in my garden, I own it. I, and I alone, possess
_the right of disposal_ of that corn. Would you agree that the following
factors would not change that:

(a) It's easy to steal. (There isn't a fence around it.) (b) It (seems) easy
to make. (Just drop some seeds in ground.) (c) I sometimes give my corn away.
(d) Other people sometimes give _their_ corn away. (e) Some people can't grow
corn but _really_ like corn. (f) I have lots of corn. (g) Historically, people
couldn't sell corn. (h) People who stole my corn liked it so much they told
their friends and their friends bought my corn. (i) Growning corn is an
outdated way to make a living in the 21st century.

Expansion on the above:

Suppose I create a cake recipes instead of corn. _I can come to an agreement
with someone else to control the distribution of that recipe._ Anything from:
"Here is my special recipe dear, please keep it in the family." to "In
exchange for $X dollars you can use my recipe for a year."

How is stealing/copying my cake recipe by taking it from my kitchen any
different than taking corn from my garden?

Notice that the above argument does not depend on patents, copyright or some
definition of "intellectual property".

~~~
csallen
I agree with everything you said, but do not agree that this is relevant to
laws about copyrights or patents. This is THE most important thing that people
fail to understand about the copyright debate, because they are not aware of
the history or the purposes behind copyright law:

Ideas and words are NOT property. They cannot be "owned". Any system that
allowed otherwise would be a blatant attack on the freedom of speech. The
framers of our Constitution (and the creators of our copyright laws) were
keenly aware of this. In the words of Thomas Jefferson:

    
    
      If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive
      property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an
      individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the
      moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and 
      the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
      ...
      That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
      moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
      have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them,
      like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any
      point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being,
      incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in
      nature, be a subject of property.
    

_Copyright law does NOT make an idea your property._

What it _does_ do is give you a financial monopoly. It gives you the exclusive
right to publicly display your work, publicly perform it, distribute copies of
it for money, etc. If that's all copyright law does, why was it created? Well,
let's look at what life was like in the old days:

Let's say you were a brilliant author, and you just wrote a book. You would
begin the laborious task of making copies of said book, and either selling
them or distributing them to libraries, friends, etc. Then some rich guy who
owned a printing press would find it, make a zillion copies, and you wouldn't
get a dime.

Nothing was _innately_ wrong with this, because one has no right to own or
control an idea or speech. But from a utilitarian point of view this was a bad
system, because nobody had any incentive to create works of art. And so for
the _sole purpose_ of incentivizing the creation of art, governments began the
"embarrassment" (Jefferson's words, not mine) of restricting speech in order
to give artists monopolies, rather than giving monopolies to the printing
press. And I actually agree that the copyright system was a sensible thing to
do.

However, the laws we have today are an absolute perversion. Copyright is meant
to prevent businesses from profiting by ripping off artists. It was _not_
meant to prevent individuals from sharing or enjoying art for free in the
privacy of their own homes. But we're allowing big media companies to reframe
the debate using misleading terms like "intellectual property", "piracy", and
"theft". And we're allowing them to strip our rights away from us, not to
promote the progress of science and the arts, but to line their pockets.

------
pjdorrell
This is a very leading question. "Piracy" is immoral within the context of
copyright. But if the copyright system itself is immoral (because, for
example, the successful enforcement of copyright is in total conflict with
important digital freedoms), then we should get rid of copyright. Or maybe
reduce it in some way. In which case the term "piracy" will lose meaning, and
we will just call it "copying".

~~~
csallen
The context I'm considering is one in which copyright itself _may_ be
justifiable. In such a case, it's still possible to create "copyright" laws
that don't actually serve these justifiable purposes.

For example, let's pretend that everyone agrees on the following: A country
which produces no art is bad, and we should therefore protect incentives for
people to produce it. It wouldn't immediately follow that digital piracy is
unethical, unless it could be shown that it destroys incentives to produce
music.

~~~
pjdorrell
So you're not asking the question "What are the strongest moral arguments
against piracy?", you're asking the question "What are the strongest moral
arguments against piracy, if we all pretend to agree that a country which
produces no art is bad, and we should therefore protect incentives for people
to produce it?"

Firstly, that's a lot of assumptions to make, and to anyone who disagrees with
them, any further discussion may be uninteresting.

Secondly, the assumptions are somewhat confused or ambiguous. "A country which
produces no art is bad". What do you mean by "bad"? (And is there ever going
to be any circumstance where a "country" never produces any art at all?) And
what precisely do you mean by "art"? "We should therefore protect incentives?"
Protect which "incentives"? Incentives provided by copyright laws as they
exist right now? Natural incentives, like "I like painting"? Incentives like
"200,000,000 people downloaded my art on the internet, which makes me happy to
know they they all like my art, even though no one paid me"?

And if we can decide which incentives it is that need protecting, and that we
_should_ protect them, are we agreed on _how_ we are going to protect them, or
to what lengths we should go to protect them?

Conclusion: we will need to spend a lot of time discussing the premises of the
question before we ever get to the point of answering the question itself.

~~~
csallen
You're right, of course, but I don't think a deep dive into the premises is a
practical. There's just not enough time. Any high level discussion is going to
require the participants to many layers of premises.

Whether we like it or not, there are basic beliefs about copyright already
entrenched in American culture and law. And even that is based on a common
sentiment regarding property and ownership. Which can't be justified without a
shared belief in having a government in the first place. Etc. I could keep
going.

Instead of starting from the bottom up, or from some arbitrary point in the
middle, I think a top-down approach is more practical. As messy as it is,
that's how the law has to work, otherwise decisions can never be made. Let's
just take the status quo for granted, and ask: "Are recently-passed and newly-
proposed laws even _consistent_ with the primary goals of copyright?" Or, to
frame it ethically instead of legally: "Does digital file-sharing conflict
with the societal values that led us to value copyright in the first place?

I suppose it's necessary to clarify exactly what those societal values are.
But, from a practical standpoint (not a theoretical one), it would be
premature to begin debating the justification behind the values themselves.

------
damoncali
The definition of ownership is the right to exclude others' access to the
thing that is owned. By circumventing that right, you are depriving someone of
ownership - in other words, you're stealing.

To invalidate that argument you have to redefine ownership, and that is a
tricky thing.

~~~
onlawschool
Well put... I like the way you frame the argument around the concept of
ownership.

However, we can't conflate access to another's property and the deprivation of
that property. If I walk on my neighbor's lawn without his permission, I am
accessing his property but not depriving him of ownership. Similarly, If I
misappropriate someone's copyright, I am accessing his property but not
depriving him of ownership.

In each case, the owner's rights are being invaded, but the owner is not
deprived of ownership.

Perhaps this explains the problem analogizing copyright infringement to theft.
It doesn't quite fit. Theft necessarily deprives the owner of his property,
copyright infringement does not.

Therefore, a more appropriate analogy in the law might be to trespass. If
someone trespasses on my property, they violate my right to exclude other's
access to such property without stealing it. The same can be said for
misappropriation of intellectual property.

~~~
csallen
I think we have to be careful with using the term "property". People are very
familiar with the concept of property. So when they hear that word in the
context of this debate, they (understandably but mistakenly) assume the
copyright makes artistic works the "property" of the author. From there, one
automatically begins to draw analogies to stealing, etc. However, none of
these terms are in keeping with copyright law, because copyright law is _not_
about property. The law is very careful to draw a distinction. Here's the
correct terminology:

\- Copyright law provides authors a _financial monopoly_. It gives them
exclusive rights as to how a work may be sold, displayed publicly, or
performed publicly. It does not make that work the "property" of the author.
\- Copyrighted material is known as "infringing material", which is not the
same as stolen goods. \- Violators are said to have "misappropriated" a
copyright, or to have "infringed" upon the province of a copyright, thus
committing "copyright infringement". This is not the equivalent of piracy.

Even trespassing doesn't seem like a valid analogy. But I would argue that we
don't really _need_ to analogize. Why not just look at the law for what it is?

The point is incentive authors to create new works by granting them a
financial monopoly on their works, but to protect public interests and the
freedom of speech, information, and ideas by making this monopoly limited in
time and scope. It wasn't designed to prevent people from _accessing_ an
author's work. It was to prevent them from _profiting_ off of it.

~~~
damoncali
Perhaps simpler: If you make something and I take it without permission, I'm a
dick. Going around being a dick is bad karma. Morally, we should all strive to
not be dicks.

~~~
csallen

      > Perhaps simpler: If you make something and I take it
        without permission, I'm a dick.
    

Yes, I agree. But this has _nothing_ whatsoever to do with copyright law.

~~~
damoncali
If you record a song, and I copy it to my hard drive without permission, I'm a
dick. Same same.

~~~
csallen
Your reasoning is too simple. It doesn't have enough rules to reflect the
complex nature of reality:

\- If I breathe, and you grow a plant that utilizes the carbon dioxide from my
breath without my permission, are you a dick?

\- If I go to the park, make a snowman, and leave, and you use the snow to
build an igloo, are you a dick?

\- If I'm singing a song in a subway, and you're also in the subway, and your
tape recorder picks up a faint echo in the background from a mile away, are
you dick if you keep the recording?

\- If we live in a hunter gatherer society, and I create the idea to build a
house, and you take my idea and build a house on your land, too, are you a
dick?

