Copyright Infringement, Intellectual Property and Pirating

Okay,

I need to talk about this because it seems like there is something wrong with the world. Since this is a webmaster forum and we deal with intellectual property, I hope to get a little more sane responses.

Stealing intellectual property against the owners permissions or without compensation is stealing. Right?

Someone stealing your website is wrong.
Someone stealing a musicians music is wrong.
Someone stealing a programmers software is wrong.
Someone stealing a authors words is wrong.
Someone stealing a producers movie is wrong.

I hope we're on the same boat. Over at digg, it appears that the "moral majority" feels they are entitled to free music and movies. Everyday, it seems biased articles from torrentfreak are pushed onto the front page.

When did it become moral to steal the hard work of another person?

 

I like the way you phrased that. Stealing is stealing?



I don't believe in intellectual property.

IP is only enforceable by the state with violence. The notion of theft is ridiculous. It's impossible to prove that the person would have bought the "IP" that is being distributed or sold, and thus incurring a loss of business for the IP holder. Or in other words, I'm not paying for a Metallica album, but if the price is some hard drive space and bandwidth which I have already paid for, then I might download it.

IP is also not based on principle. The length of ownership is completely arbitrary and state mandated. In all other property rights scenarios, your property remains yours as long as you hold it.

In my opinion, IP creates state sponsored monopolies, and limits competition and choice in the marketplace. It's also impossible to enforce consistently. And that is because it is an artificial notion, not a naturally occurring consequence of free market behavior.

You should read Stephan Kinsella. He's one of the most prominent libertarian IP lawyers.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/kinsella2.html

~

 

Of course it's theft.

It astounds me the level of intellectual schizoprenia displayed by some people - placing "property rights" as the zenith of human "endowed, inalienable rights," to include one's own life, for godsake, as a "property rights" issue, yet the very engine of what they hold most dear - the "innovations" endemic to a capitalist, free market system - are somehow now a breed apart when it comes to what drives those innovations.

Ideas manifest in the material world. They are the last bastion of individualism, and it is ridiculous, though not unexpected, to see this kind of two faced dismissal of property rights when it comes to ideas simply because the demon-entity state has historically been involved in the protection of those rights. A man's life is his "property," but not what comes from his brain?

Ridiculous. It is theft, plain and simple. Whether it is science, or art, an act of creation is something unique, and to be protected.

As to Stephan Kinsella, yeah, great stand. The guy is an IP lawyer who gets paid big bucks to defend intellectual property. His livelihood is based on the very thing he supposedly argues against. And as Lew Rockwell's mouthpiece, he has vigorously exercised the property right to intellectual property, for godsake, shutting down other websites that have allegedly made an incursion on Rockwell's intellectual property!

http://anti-state.com/forum/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=8515;start=0

(Note the website is a market-anarchy website. Should be music to the ears of some, here).

"I don't believe in the right to intellectual property. Therefore, I make my tasty living off of and vigorously defend the right to intellectual property."

Yep, brilliant. Or, a fantastic display of brilliant hypocrisy.

 

I never liked that one. I've got the LFG and AFK hats. Jinx rocks.

 

People who download music from the internet, IS NOT STEALING (same goes for the uploader) ITS CALLED SHARING, and the last time I heard is that SHARING IS A GOOD THING

 

Great - can I "share" myself to whatever you have? So, "life" is property, but an idea emanating out of the brain is, uh, air, nothing?

So: Bust my ass for 20 years in penury and anguish, work my ass off to develop something that betters the world - bring it out to the world, and fuck it - it doesn't belong to me, others can wholesale just rip it off and make their windfall on the idea? Cry all the time about dampening effect of state intervention, in all its flowerings, on innovation and progress, then defend this cataract of "dampening" on someone's willingness to work his or her ass off to develop an original creation?

No, no hypocrisy here. Typical.

 

Property rights are great, but the market innovation you're referring to diminishes their value and expands the public concept and right to "fair use."

Simply put, content producers are best served, financially, by co-operating with content "theft." Its a simple question of marketing at this point. Do you want to be like Metallica, a running joke on the internet? Or Nine Inch Nails, who provides new free CDs every few months? They are both making plenty of money.

The copyright laws are insane anyway, and rarely serve the content creator but rather the corporation they work for. This had a lot to do with why I dropped out of music, not fear that people would download my songs but fear that the "boss" would tell me what I could or could not do with it: That I could be dead in the ground for years and yet my children could not post the song on their own website without violating the copyright of someone who never wrote the song in the first place.

If the legal system is absurd, it is not my place to defend it. If some property owners feel left out because their concept of property demolishes the reality of a public domain that grows with the technology, well, I won't be crying for them and their lawyers.

 

So you fix the laws. And as original producers, you seek to exert a market structure that works to cure the misappropriation of rights by third party licensees (such as the corporations) so that you, as an original producer, own their rights, properly. You do not cure it by saying "theft is; therefore, learn to go to bed with it." No more than say you're cool with anyone stealing anything of value to you, and will work with it, because avarice exists.

And let's be clear: a patent protects original creation. An improvement on that creation is a new creation, and benefits accrue to the innovator. This is innovation, and progress.

 

That's one way of looking at it. But not how I come at it.

Quite simply, IP is not something that can be argued consistently.

If you hear my song, then go out and write an album of songs, are they not derivative works? How can I prove that I influenced you and likewise, how can you prove you were not influenced by me?

That is why the IP landscape is littered with "fair use", expiration dates etc.

Now, here is what I do believe in, and Kinsella agrees with this.

We can contract for property rights, if both parties agree, and then this would fall under contract law, unauthorized distribution penalties, etc. But I don't think many people would favor heavy rights for the creator without a state monopoly on such.

 

Precisely what I said above: all life is derivative. All creative things build on the shoulders of creators before us. If you make a substantive improvement, you own a new creation. This is endemic to IP.

What can't be argued consistently is the opposition to IP, while making one's livelihood off its defense; off "corporeal" rights as an arbitrarily created definition of "natural property right," but somehow cutting off the line before an idea emanating from that life. In fact, the whole intellectual posture is riddled with inconsistency. Schizophrenically so, actually.

 

Precisely. I think that the open source paradigm has poisoned the well for IP. Not to mention that it is almost impossible to protect something digitally for IP purposes. All that does is raise the cost. Which I have some experience from, working with a firm which designs physical products, but doesn't have the capital to defend it's patents.

 

If that is true, than all property is enforceable by the state with violence.

Care to share your website, so I can steal it?

Yes. Finally someones says. Why would people want to create with their minds something for the world when there are people out their ready to "loot" good ideas and profit off them? You will never see a cure for cancer that you can buy a pharmacy. There will never be a bottle of pills you can buy to cure it. You know why? Because it takes millions and millions and millions of dollars develop, test, create, make, distribute and they need to make that money back as well as make money for the very person that created it, and no idiot is going to put it in a store where people can come in a steal it and start under cutting them and selling it for profit.

Yes. It's so great hearing someone else say it for a change. Are you an Objectivist?

Nice!

 

Sharing is a good thing? I suppose it could be in some scenarios. Does that mean I get unlimited access to your bank account, so I can share it with my friends? Cause SHARING IS A GOOD THING.

Exactly. If I spent the next year writing a book, not making a penny in income because I'm doing this, I want to be properly compensated for my work over that time. I don't need people that feel "entitled" to my hard work for free stealing it and benefiting from it.

What is with you people and the term "fair use"? The public doesn't have fair use to my house or my bank account or my car.

Oh, so you acknowledge it is wrong, but good people that create should bend to the moral fabric of people that steal because it is "financially" easier?

What's next? Are we going to legalize murder because it is really expensive to catch people that do it?

Oh now you have another opinion on the topic. You're fighting "the man". Did it ever occur to you that these musicians choose to work with these corporations to make big money?

That's property. If you sell the property to someone else, they can do what they want with it. Don't sell it and you can own it as much as you want. You just won't have a big corporation that will make famous to help you. That's all.

 

Uhm, no it isn't. If I steal your car, you can reclaim it from me. If I steal your idea or name, what are you going to do, suck my brains out?

IP is inherently foolish. Which is why it should be at the contractual level, instead of being mandated by state fiat, which always serves the special interests, monopolies and oligopolies.

Can you steal my domain name? My PR? My backlinks? My new content which hasn't been published yet? My readership? My RSS subscribers?

The value of my website is not the template and content. It's the traffic and positioning. My marketing and customer base so to speak. It doesn't look like you've bought and sold many websites. A site with nice content and nice template but no traffic of SERP position, pre-existing ad revenue is almost worthless.

Yeah, why would anyone create Linux? Or FireFox.

Right. Like Linux. Like Wikipedia.

Prior to IP law, did anyone produce great works of music and literature? Did anyone find cures for diseases? Gimme a break man.

Not really. It's an Ad Hom attack instead of addressing the issue, an attack against the character of the man. What should matter is the soundness of the argument, not who is making it. But typically on this forum, people will attack the individual, and not the issues, most often when there is a fundamental lack of principle or understanding.

 

I can't get it out from you, just like if you steal my car, I can never get that time I lost where I couldn't use it. You will have to properly compensate me. And if you take that idea and try to turn it into something tangible, I'll sue you into the ground.

The same thing can be said about physical property. When I own a piece of land, I monopolize. It's mine, not yours. You have no say, I have all the say. It it has all the world's oil on it, it's mine, not yours. You can't have any of it. You have no say.

I can steal the intellectual property on it, which is what I was referring too.

People don't come to your website for sh*ts and giggles, they come for content. I can take that content, I can profit off that content, I can duplicate it and have your rankings drop at google. There are a lot of things I can do that will "destroy" the profitability of your site, without actually "taking" your intellectual property from you, but just using it.

Some people make that choice. Firefox is a little different than cancer treatment and other things that are little more useful to people.

Of course, wikipedia and linux compare to curing cancer. mmmkay

Yes. I'm not denying it won't happen. It you want to take my statement as an extreme, that's really your prerogative. It wasn't until creators got property rights that things really started to improve in scope. You'll notice our standard of living has greatly improved during a very short period of time, in the timeline of human beings.

It's fine, really. You can argue like that. I used to be libertarian and think like you did.

Are you serious? Would you take parenting advice from a child molester?

 

if record companies weren't such greedy pricks this wouldn't have happened

it costs like a quarter to make a CD and then they pay the band like $.50 per CD

now that bands are starting to distribute music themselves through music downloads with reasonable prices, eventually it will all even out

look at NIN they released an album online for like $5 and he made so much money off it he gave away his next album for free

 

Oh please.

What if I copy your book word for word in my basement. I rewrite all of your books, and I save all of your websites to my hard drive, and I sing all of your songs to my children? Will you sue me into the ground?

Totally different. The physical property cannot be cloned. Knowledge can be. Which is the entire argument for adding value. We pay to see Metallica in concert, even if we can listen to the music for free. We buy the official album if we desire the cover art, or perhaps line up at a store to obtain a signed copy. We buy the T-shirts, because it's not cost effective to produce only one.

I know. But without my domain name, you will have to rebrand it. Which will make it different.

It doesn't sound like you've got much experience as a webmaster.

Try creating and selling a website here in the marketplace, a site without a domain name, traffic or income. You won't get squat for it.

Now if you want to sabotage my site for the purpose of vandalism, then that's completely different. We're talking about copying my site to compete with me, to take my market share of profit from my content/layout.

Your argument of duplicate content is completely undone by the last 3 years and the move to syndicating everything, from attachments, to post content, to comments to images. Everything is syndicated now. It is ultra-rare that original content is overtaken by cloned content. When it is, the cloned content is SEO'd, it's marketed and promoted better etc. Market efficiency.

Don't go there. The argument is the millions of dollars necessary to design, test and market a browser to the share level that FireFox has.

Comparing to the cost. Don't be a troll.

What absolute nonsense. It's hard to believe you call yourself pro-capitalist when capitalism is undermined by patents and copyrights. Capitalism is about free markets. Private contracts, innovation and lower prices through competition. A marketplace where ideas and products thrive on their merit, not on government favor.

Geez, what a crock of bull. And to think I added your site to my feed reader.

Libertarians don't become Objectivists. It's the other way around. Objectivism is pro-state and pro-coercion.

If it was good advice, why not?

Again, another silly argument. Ad Hominem games.

 

"Clonability." Given that a human life is "property," I guess once we get to the stage where human beings can be cloned, fuck it - steal the new life, do with it what you will, since it's "cloned."

"Rebranding." Regularly preaching how much modern society sucks because it has no sense of value (the "American Idol generation"), and at the same time saying that because you simply rebrand original content - because you simply (and simplemindedly) put another label on someone else's hard work - Presto! It's yours, to do with and profit how you will. No value added whatsoever. Nothing created except a ripoff of someone else's genius (in its original Latin etymology). Beautiful - just what this society needs.

Under such a scenario, yep, I just see a tidal wave of creative minds sitting down at the genesis of a thought, working tirelessly and without compensation, coming up with useful things that benefit humanity, because the idea will be given another, really nifty name, and ripped off. Just a furious engine of progress, under such a scenario.

Arbitrary definitions, tortured constructions, hypocritical stands, anything, so long as the banner of anarchy is held high. Supper, don't bother.

 

I wasn't even going to lol.