Want to copy something? Buy the original …
p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- I`m amused to confront the warped mind of the IP Nihilist, and yet bemused that it`s so difficult deprogramming them from some of the belief systems they`ve become indoctrinated with (more severely than IP monopolists are in believing copyright to be a natural right).
They have this strange notion that because intellectual works may be infinitely reproduced (well, at least until you run out of atoms in the universe with which to digitally represent them), that they may as well be treated as infinite resources, and therefore disqualified from constituting property — after all, they explain, it would be immoral to enable people to enclose infinite resources.
So as a hypothetical example, let`s say I take a few days to write some software for a client who has invited me to tender. I demonstrate my software, but tell the client they can`t have my intellectual property until they pay me good money for it.
According to the IP nihilist, because my software can be infinitely reproduced it is immoral for me to enclose it as my property, and that therefore the law should turn a blind eye should a burglar steal a copy of my software and deliver it to what would have been my client. Or at least, the burglar is guilty of no more than trespass, as no IP should be recognised to have been stolen.
The IP nihilist has mistaken a state granted monopoly`s constraint on the public`s liberty to make copies, as the copyright holder`s ownership of all copies of a particular intellectual work.
Therefore, they incorrectly deduce, if copyright is wrong, the concept of IP and owning intellectual work is wrong.
No, let`s not be so silly, people still own the books on their shelves, they`ve simply had their liberty to make copies of them suspended. It`s the state granted monopoly that`s wrong, not the recognition of intellectual works as property.
Simply because people should be free to make and sell copies of their own property, that doesn`t mean there`s no such thing as property. And simply because published works can notionally be copied without limit, that doesn`t mean the public has a justification to seize all intellectual works (including each other`s private intellectual property), nor to discount their theft as a non-event.
It is the intellectual work that takes the effort and that is the property of its creator or purchaser. Simply because copies could be made at negligible cost doesn`t mean the work may be seized from someone without their consent, nor that it should remain unsecured by the law.
So yes, the public should be free to reproduce the works in its possession ad coelum or even ad infinitum, but that doesn`t extend in the other direction ad inferos such that the public should be free to take copies of private works, private intellectual property.
If you want to copy something, at least buy the original, don`t steal it. You should be free to make copies of the software you obtain legitimately, but that doesn`t mean the law should turn a blind eye if you steal copies from someone. Free as in speech, not as in beer.
Abolish the unnatural intellectual monopoly (restoring our liberty), and then we`re left with perfectly natural intellectual property.
Our liberty is the freedom to make copies, not to steal them. And simply because you can set your PC to produce a billion copies of an MP3 file on your multi-terabyte hard drive that doesn`t mean you get to steal a copy of that MP3 file from your neighbour`s recording studio on the confused pretext they`re immorally enclosing an infinite resource (or even the facile It`s ok because they still have a copy).
It is the reproducibility that is infinite, not the resource (the intellectual work).
Crosbie Fitch – Digital Productions
[Fitch says he's researching and developing revenue mechanisms and business models for producers of digital art and in the process, 'has discovered that copyright is not only an ineffective anachronism, but is unethical and unconstitutional'.]
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
September, 2009
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September 9th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I cannot take this argument seriously until the penalty for infringement upon IP is proportional to the value of the loss. If it was done for commercial gain, then the value may be very high. On the other hand, if it was done for completely non-commercial purposes then, from a moral standpoint, the value cannot exceed the retail value of the loss or a low multiple of that number.
Until we get just laws to govern IP, then I consider of copy made a righteous act of civil disobedience.
September 9th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Someone can give you a copy of the original too.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
As long as the corporate terrorists are on the ground no discussion about copy and artists right is possible.
We have to destroy the terrorists first. This work is in progress.
September 9th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
If I had known this would be taken as the article’s title I would have emphasised that ‘buy’ includes ‘buy for $0′, i.e. receive as a gift. The important thing is that you have a right to copy your property, but not someone else’s (unless they give you permission). Copyright suspends that right to copy – it doesn’t stop your property being your property in any other respect.
So, don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with file-sharing or selling copies of DVDs – as long as the works you’re sharing weren’t stolen.
As much as I have arguments with IP maximalists, I have arguments with IP nihilists – both extremes.
September 9th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I’m all for somebody being paid for the work that goes into creating. If you create something then you are entitled to sell it for however much you feel its worth. I am against people who create something, sell it and then sell it again.. and again… and again… Pay once for one creative act. If you want more pay then create something else.
September 9th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Crosbie:
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re completely wrong.
1. Let’s say I “own” the books on my shelf. You’re correct to state that it’s a state-granted monopoly privilege (copy”right”) that infringes what SHOULD be my natural right to (let’s say) scan every book I own through an Optical Character Recognition program, so as to create digital copies.
But here’s where your argument fails:
2. After I have copied the books that I own, do *I* then own those digital copies?
If so, then it’s my *natural right* to do anything I goddamn well please with them, up to and including making MORE copies (like on a CD or DVD) and giving those copies to everyone in my family, at which point they then *own* their copies, and possess a natural right to make MORE copies.
I’m sure you wouldn’t quibble with that, given that you said:
“people still own the books on their shelves, theyâve simply had their liberty to make copies of them suspended.”
If I digitize every one of the 7500 vinyl albums in my collection (which is my *natural right* to do, absent the state-granted monopoly privilege of ‘copyright’), then I *own* those copies. Am I thus free to do as *I* see fit with *my* copies?
Like for example “giving” some of them to others?
At absolute *maximum*, content-creators can only be rightly considered to “own” the copies that THEY themselves have made (which is why shoplifting a *physical copy* from a store is fundamentally different from making a copy.)
But to claim that anybody — whether “content creators” or not — still magically ‘owns’ a copy that they sold *or gave away* is at base, to concede total agreement with those you deride as “copyright maximalists”.
Why?
Because you’re saying that previous *owners* should be empowered to abrogate the property-rights of *future* owners.
Sorry, Crosbie, but that’s called “rent”, and is very different from “property” at least inasmuch as you’ve constituted the term.
If the essence of *property* is “use and disposal” (which basically means, the ability to use such property as you see fit — up to and including exercising your natural right to make copies), then it follows that *previous* owners of said “property” have no right to abridge those rights, else it’s really NOT my “property”, in any meaningful sense of the term.
What you’re basically trying to do, Crosbie, is to achieve the *same result* as copyright via a different — and even more morally dubious — method. You’re trying to claim that the *present* owner has some sort of “right” to abrogate SUBSEQUENT OWNER’S property-rights, by dictating the terms of permissible future use, at time of sale.
(Like I said, that constitutes, at best, a rental.)
Sorry, Crosbie, but the notion that I — or anybody else — continue to “own” something AFTER HAVING SOLD OR GIVEN IT AWAY — represents nothing so much as the worst sort of “dead-hand control” and copyright maximalism imaginable.
If I have a *natural right* to copie stuff that I *own*, it doesn’t follow that I *own* every subsequent copy. I have absolutely no LEGITIMATE control over what anybody else does with *their* copies, for the exact same reason that the “previous owners” of the books and albums on my shelves have *no natural right* to interfere with *MY* natural right to make copies.
3. Every “copy” of anything floating around on p2p networks was probably *owned* by somebody at the point where it entered the p2p network. Those people excersized their *natural right* to make copies, and — here’s the important part — THOSE USING THE NETWORK excersized *their* natural right to receive such copies, which then became *their* property.
Not very clearly worded, but I trust you get the drift here.
The essential error of copyright monopolies is the presumption that “content-creators” continue to *own* the books or albums or whatever, and thus, are somehow entitled to be able to stipulate what *we* do with them, especially in regard to copying, and DISTRIBUTING SUCH COPIES AS WE SEE FIT.
Barring copyright, if I make a copy of a “ren and Stimpy” video and give it to my mom, I no longer *own* that copy — SHE does. And if SHE decides she wants to put *her* copies into a p2p network (essentially, the most efficient copying and distribution method out there right now), then she has a *natural right* to do so.
4. Read Eric Raymond’s book “Cathedral and the Bazaar”. He makes an excellent case for why “Free as in speech” inevitably leads to “free as in beer”, absent of governmental monopoly privileges. Why? Simple market-dynamics:
“competition” — in this example, the widespread/ubiquitous ability for everybody to excersize their *natural right* to make copies, and distribute those copies as they see fit — drives down prices.
Example:
Jimmy offers to exercise HIS natural right to copy Openoffice.org, and sell some of those copies for 150 bucks.
Eddie offers to excersise *his* natural right to make copies of *his* copy of Openoffice.org, but offers to sell them for ten bucks.
I’m betting (barring some kind of “added value” scenario), if two products are essentially identical, and one of them is much less expensive, you’re going to go for the best (lowest) price, right?
That’s why software under the GPL and similar licenses tends to become “free” in both senses of the term: people are actually encouraged to excersize their natural right to make — and distribute — copies, so the price of such copies is driven downward until it reaches, essentially, zero.
That’s where copyright and patent monopolies come in: they exist, to keep “market forces” from doing what they would otherwise do:
In the case of patents, they grant a monopoly over a particular technique or product, preventing “unauthorized” competitors from entering the market, and — not coincidentally — allowing the patent-holder to charge abritrarily-high prices (hence, the pharmaceutical industry, and the drastically-lower prices associated with so-called “generic” drugs.)
In the case of copyright, they allow “rights-holder” to “sell without selling”, in that THEY are empowered to interfere with *my* natural right to do with *my* property as I see fit — INCLUDING COPYING IT, AND DISTRIBUTING SUCH COPIES.
So tell us, Crosbie, are you in favor of “dead-hand control”, or not?
Because if you somehow believe that the publishing company or record label still “owns” the books/records/tapes on *shelves*, then you’re every bit as “maximalist” as Sonny Bono with his “forever minus 1 day” bullshit, and are just playing wordgames.
This is also why I’m pretty suspicious of so-called “Free licenses.” They’re a contradiction in terms, because they rest on the notion that the licensor still “owns” that which is being licensed, and can therefore stipulate what OTHERS do with it.
Does the record company still *own* the albums on my shelves, or not?
But I’ll play along, Crosbie: if you want to copy something, buy the original. Just make sure — especially in the case of the RIAA member corporations — to take advantage of the “first-sale” doctrine, so you get the best price you can.
Then excersize your “natural right” to copy. (Ya dig?)
(This also highlights why “selling copies” wouldn’t work in a genuinely free society (IE, absent monopolistic bullshit like copyright.)
Absent copyright, everybody who buys (or is given) one of *your* copies becomes — in effect — a competing “publisher/distributor” with all that entails.
September 9th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Crosbie:
I also don’t think you can justifiably claim that there IS such a thing as “IP nihilism”:
1. If they didn’t *value* the stuff, why would they even bother downloading it?
2. People are REALLY reluctant to pay corporate behemoths who collude with government, to buy themselves ever-longer and more draconian monopoly privileges.
Oh, and — in your example — if they guy broke into your house and *copied* your software, he’d merely be guilty of breaking and entering. Why? Is *your* copy still on the Hard Drive? If so, then he hasn’t “stolen” anything, because YOU STILL HAVE IT.
(Goddamn, exactly HOW hard is it to get the distinction between “theft” and “copying”?)
3. Let me pose a counter-example to you: Let’s say I’m over at your house drinking beer (if you like beer.)
You have a picture of dogs playing poker (on velvet, no less!) on your living-room wall. I take a picture of it with my cameraphone (say, I’m taking a picture of you to send to a mutual friend via email.)
Now, we’re talking natural rights here, Crosbie — NOT state-granted monopoly privileges such as copyright.
4. Later, looking at the picture of you, and decide that I like the velvet dogs-playing-poker painting in the background of the photo.
So I do some photo-processing with GIMP or Photoshop or whatever, with the painting magnified and centered and such.
Does THIS qualify as a “derivative work?”
Absent copyright, who “owns” the digitizal photo of dogs playing poker?
You? After all, You own the painting, because you bought it off of some guy at a flea market.
Answer: according to natural-rights and property (as historically understood) *I* own the digital photo, and am therefore free to copy it, send thousands of such copies to everybody I know, or even create “derivative works” based on it, say, by running it through photo-processing effects or reversing the colors or whatever.)
But according to IP law as it exists *now*, NEITHER of us “own” it. Even though you mistakenly believe that *you* own the painting hanging on your wall, according to copyright law, it’s still owned by the original painter or some other ‘rights-holder” (who sure as hell isn’t you, unless *you* painted it), and the State will gleefully interfere with *my* natural rights, on there behalf.
Same with the software example:
From a natural-rights perspective, the *only* thing the guy is guilty of, is breaking and entering/tresspassing.
If he steals *your* hard-drive, or *your* USB key, THEN there’s been a theft.
Copying IS NOT theft. It’s copying.
IF people have a “natural right” to copy (which is at least tacitly recognized by the fact that copyright-monopolies are explicitly granted FOR A LIMITED TIME), then they also *own* their copies, and are free to do as they see fit with them.
Or am I missing something, here?
September 9th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
“If I had known this would be taken as the articleâs title I would have emphasised that âbuyâ includes âbuy for $0â², i.e. receive as a gift. The important thing is that you have a right to copy your property, but not someone elseâs (unless they give you permission). Copyright suspends that right to copy â it doesnât stop your property being your property in any other respect.”
But, that’s exactly the point, Crosbie.
Granting the *natural right* to copy what you own (in other words, genuine property rights), monopolization — EVEN for the purpose of extracting maximum profit — are impossible. It’s hardly “nihilist” to recognize the fact that, given enough competitors, prices *will* descrease, to the point where *charging for copies* is ludicrous.
By the same token, “Charging for access” (say, 10 dollars to access the label’s back catalog, etc.), is only a partial ‘fix’, in that after somebody has access, their *natural right* to copy comes into play. So the monopoly privilege of copyright, they are totally free to make copies of what THEY paid to get from the VIP member’s area, and then “sell” them for 0$, if they so choose.
See where this leads, Crosbie? Given ubiquitous copying/distribution (digital distribution so thoroughly blurs the distinction between the two it’s not even relevant), charging for *copies* is simply ludicrous.
Sorry to sound harsh, and I really Do respect your desire to see creativity rewarded, but this one just made no sense whatsoever.
September 9th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
jon, you debunked the “copying is theft/stealing” myth long ago and many times over, so why do you allow someone who insists on perpetuating this such a prominent place on your website? Sounds almost like a troll, although I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:05 am
MM:
Are you referring to Crosbie, or me?
September 10th, 2009 at 4:37 am
Henry, I think you’ve misunderstood me.
This article was about an esoteric quibble I have with IP nihilists. Both them and I are for the abolition of copyright and patent (state granted monopolies).
What we quibble over is the matter of whether the law should secure an individual’s natural right to prevent burglars/thieves copying their private intellectual works, and the penalties and remedies in such a case.
If you think it’s fine for people to break open your briefcase, make and remove copies of your work, and be prosecuted for no more than breaking the catch on your briefcase, then you’re an IP nihilist (don’t recognise IP). If, like me, you believe the unauthorised copies should be recognised, then you’re an IP naturalist (natural exclusive right).
See the original article (freely copied by Jon) for a response from an IP nihilist to see more discussion of this difference between IP naturalism and IP nihilism.
September 10th, 2009 at 4:38 am
LINK: http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=213
September 10th, 2009 at 5:34 am
‘Copying is not theft’ is too facile to serve as a principle to class all copying as ethical. Property derives from privacy. The natural right that is violated in the case I discuss is privacy, whether it is violated in the process of transferring material or information. Theft is the unauthorised transfer of intellectual works, as much as it is removal of material works – across the boundary of the individual’s private domain. It is the violation of your privacy that is the fundamental offence. It doesn’t cease to be a violation simply because ‘you still have a copy’. If you invite someone into your house, then you have made them privy to that which they see, therefore they have authorisation to copy what they see (take photos). However, a burglar does not have such authorisation.
And remember ‘natural rights’ are not granted. They are imbued by nature. You have a natural right to prevent burglars taking copies of your hard disk, because such prevention is naturally within your power – you will be inclined to arrest that burglar if you detect them. However, if you sell a painting, you’ve got absolutely zero natural power to prevent the person you sold it to making copies of it, or the person they sell those copies to copying it, etc.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Crosbie:
1. Thanks for clarifying. But you’ll also notice that I am not the *only* one who misunderstood you.
For instance, your statement that “The IP nihilist has mistaken a state granted monopolyâs constraint on the publicâs liberty to make copies, as the copyright holderâs ownership of all copies of a particular intellectual work” is blatantly false.
You only “own” the copies which YOU have made. That’s how the “natural right to copy” works, Crosbie. The millsecond you’ve “published” the work — irrespective of the terms you set as condition of publication — it’s “out there”. You have a ‘natural’ right to control whether it’s “published” or not THE FIRST TIME.
Oddly enough, this principle is (implicitly) recognized even in current IP law via such things as “the first sale doctrine”, in that “rights-holders” have absolutely NO say over what happens to copies that they *already sold*.
So tell us again, Crosbie, why we should “at least buy the original”? If your quibble was about whether you “own” the software prior to publication, then it IS indeed a privacy issue, but that’s most definitely not what you said.
You explicitly admonish the reader that he or she should “at least buy the original”, and then offer as justification the fact that ” it is the intellectual work that takes the effort and that is the property of its creator or purchaser. Simply because copies could be made at negligible cost doesnât mean the work may be seized from someone without their consent, nor that it should remain unsecured by the law.”
Also note that, in your denunciation of so-called “IP Nihilists”, you said:
“Simply because people should be free to make and sell copies of their own property, that doesnât mean thereâs no such thing as property. And simply because published works can notionally be copied without limit, that doesnât mean the public has a justification to seize all intellectual works (including each otherâs private intellectual property), nor to discount their theft as a non-event.”
PUBLISHED works, Crosbie — you said NOTHING about “unpublished” works, and your “hypothetical example” explicitly involved a “just about to be published” bit of software code.
So if you *really do* understand the difference between a state-granted monopoly privilege and a natural right (the substance of all your previous argument for as long as you’ve been posting here), you simply can’t make the argument that you were making.
If it’s been published — under WHATEVER terms such publication originally involved — once published AND ‘puchased” (or even “bought for $0″) those terms AND PRICE only obtained to the FIRST SALE. If people’s “natural right to copy” wasn’t impeded via the mechanism of copyright, they’d *naturally* be free to make copies of “their property” EVEN IF THOSE WORKS WERE NOT ORIGINALLY “theirs”.
Or are you seriously — and I’ll ask this again — trying to posit some kind of “natural rights” justification for the Sonny Bono notion that the publsher (or even writer) still “owns” the books on my shelves? If the publisher — OR CREATOR — still continues to ‘own’ all copies of a given work EVEN AFTER HAVING PUBLISHED AND SOLD THEM, then proclaiming a “natural right to copy”, much less opposing the State-granted monopoly privilege of copyright — is senseless.
Why?
Because the whole issue then reduces to the claim that people have a “natural right” to copy and distribute AS THE ORIGINAL ‘OWNER’ sees fit, but their ‘copies’ ALSO belong to the original owner, who retains some sort of magical *right* to perpetual ownership of “all copies of a given intellectual work”.
So then you’re in total agreement with “maximalists” such as the RIAA member-corporations, when they attempt to interfere with/abolish the “first-sale doctrine”.
And you’re also in complete agreement with them on the issue of “fair use”, because — as I said before — IF “all copies of a given intellectual work” continue to be ‘owned’ by the original publisher, people then have a “natural right” to copy AS THE ORIGINAL PUBLISHER OR OWNER PERMITS.
Honestly, Crosbie, if your hypothetical example was about an *unpublished* work just prior to publication, you shouldn’t have brought the issue of “published” works into the debate.
And to mischaracterize the “copying isn’t theft” distinction as “facile?” Damn, out of everybody here, I *thought* you would most clearly get the distinction.
Sloppy argumentation about an admittedly-obscure quibble which ends up in de facto “copyright maximalism” (”all copies of a given intellectual work”) isn’t very encouraging.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
I said Crosbie. why was comment deleted?
September 10th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
in answer to the question
September 10th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@ MM:
Because I didn’t know what ‘Crosbie’ by itself was supposed to mean.
Cheers!
September 10th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
hey, ok.
September 10th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Henry, it is not the case that you naturally own the copies you make. You must own or have authorised or public access to that which you would make copies of. A person’s natural liberty to make copies is delimited by everyone else’s natural right to privacy.
And yes, the right to publication derives from the right to privacy.
The first sale doctrine logically follows from the fact that, irrespective of monopoly, the copies you purchase are still your exclusive property to do with as you will (copyright simply suspends your liberty to make copies of your own property).
The “at least buy the original” phrase implicitly includes “at least be given the original” given that a gift is equivalent to a zero priced sale. The receipt of a file via file-sharing can be considered a gift, though it may also be the gift of a stolen file.
And by ‘original’ I mean the work from which you’d make a copy, which could itself be a copy.
2 a : that from which a copy, reproduction, or translation is made
So, that sentence therefore means “at least the works in your possession from which you would make copies should be legitimately obtained rather than stolen”. It was a concise exhortation intended for an audience able to deduce this expansion.
As I said, if I’d known Jon was going to make that the title, I would have explained it.
And yes “Copying isn’t theft” is facile. It may well be shorthand for “Infringing a monopoly isn’t theft” or “Copying does not deny the victim the use of that which has been copied”, but that’s not quite the same thing. It’s the monopoly (suspension of liberty) and theft (violation of privacy) that is wrong, not IP. Unless, you are an IP nihilist, in which case you don’t recognise IP and hence cannot recognise its theft.
September 10th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
I see no one knows the phrase “short and to the point” then . The problem with intellectualised arguments like this is that quite frankly people lose the will to live after reading 3 lines and with each reader twisting things like a semantics competition at lawyers covention ………it loses any meaning and thus has no point .
September 13th, 2009 at 3:38 am
Rent, rip, return.
Especially in the case of Big4 “product”.