I never said that. I was simply refuting the privacy issue. If you put something on display in public, you cannot claim that your privacy has been violated. My argument in that respect is not flawed.

“If I give someone permission to show my diary to a 3rd person, that doesn’t give the 3rd person the right to then show it to a 4th, 5th, 6th, etc person.”

That’s not a very good analogy, because that’s not what’s happening in this hypothetical situation. A better analogy would be putting your diary on Facebook and opening it up to the public. You’re putting your diary on display for EVERYONE to see. There is no 3rd-to-4th person permission or 4th-to-5th person permission involved here. It’s one-to-many relationship. Again, this is only in reference to the privacy issue that Crosbie Fitch brought up. We already know that it’s illegal to share copyrighted property.

Buck

Buck[/quote]

Sorta, but not really in the case of radio. Radio isn’t an artist just putting their music up for the world to hear. Radio is a radio station paying an artist (or label) for the rights to play that music for the world to hear. So just because the radio station payed the artist, doesn’t mean that everyone else in the world now has the right to take that music for their own.

If I give someone permission to show my diary to a 3rd person, that doesn’t give the 3rd person the right to then show it to a 4th, 5th, 6th, etc person.

I see your point, and I hate what the music industry is doing (has been doing and will continue to do), but your argument is flawed.

Buck

It is the unauthorised removal or communication of something across the boundary of an individual’s private domain.

Thus it is still theft to steal a copy of someone’s diary from their bedside drawer as it is to steal the diary. It doesn’t undo the violation to leave the original or even the copy. Granted, the victim in one case at least retains a copy, but either way, a copy has been stolen from them. The remedy is to reverse the theft.

That’s how to recognise IP theft (and violation of an author’s constitutionally recognised, natural exclusive right to their writings).

In all other cases copyright infringement is simply ignoring a state granted monopoly, i.e. making copies of your own property against the wishes of the monopoly holder. Thus if you buy a copy of “The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾” (rather than stealing it from someone), then there is no theft in making a copy, nor any violation of anyone else’s privacy or natural exclusive right (copyright is a privilege aka ‘legal right’, a government grant of an exclusive right – natural rights, or simply ‘rights’ as they used to be termed, cannot be granted, but are instead recognised, as they are by the US constitution).

The observation that manufacturing a copy is productive whereas removing someone’s possession denies them its use is a non sequitur, and sheds no light on the ethics of the matter.

Fundamentally, we are at liberty to do what we like with our own possessions, but not with those of others (unless they give us permission or make us privy).

We are naturally at liberty to make copies of the baskets we buy or copies of the poems we buy, but we would violate our neighbour’s privacy if we burgled them and made and removed copies of their baskets (whoever designed them) or made and removed copies of their poems (whoever wrote them).

Similarly, we are naturally at liberty to remove our baskets from our cars, and our books of poetry from our bookshelves, but we would violate our neighbour’s privacy if we burgled them and removed their baskets or their books of poetry from their cars or houses.

So, it’s an oversimplification to say that copying isn’t theft. It would be better to say that making copies of your property and distributing them isn’t theft.