James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I love you James Lileks, but I had to stop listening to Ricochet #102 for a moment and punch this out. Breaching copyright -- for personal use, anyway -- is not theft! As a former policeman in a common law jurisdiction, I can tell you that there are eight very specific elements of the crime of larceny that must be proved in every case. One of those elements, with regard to the stolen property:
depriving the owner of the use therein
That is, if I take your iPad, you don't have it any more. That's stealing. That is what might be called a natural crime. Any society that has improved itself beyond rule of brute force recognises this. Steven Pinker lists 'Property' amongst the human universals in The Blank Slate.
But if I copy some music you downloaded from the iTunes store, you still have the music. So does iTunes and the copyright owner. What we are talking about is breaching a recently invented law in the same category as, say, smoking a cigarette in the wrong place in New York, or breaching a provision of Dodd-Frank.
Illegal, yes. Wrong, arguably. A widely and naturally recognised sin? No!
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Comments:
Mar '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I'd guess that James would say that the use he's being deprived of is making money from his work product.
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
As the holder of a copyright, I'm curious to know how it isn't theft?
Jun '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Violating a trademark is not a sin, except to the extent that when we knowingly violate laws imposed by Caesar, we are sinning against God's authority. Theft is when you deprives the owner either of use or possession, or of exclusive rights in the thing. When a thief joyrides in your car between 2 am and 5 am, while the owner is asleep, he has stolen your car regardless that the police had it safely back in your driveway by the time you needed to drive to work. It is a form of conversion (theft) to deprive someone of a right to copy and exclusively profit from his property. It is clearly wrong to do. I may not put much value on a p-diddy song, but p-diddy spent hours of his life creating, recording and marketing his little jingles. By stealing his profits you are stealing his time, and depriving him of moments of his life. That is wrong. He cannot have back those minutes of his life that were measured by the value he could have receive from selling the music vice one's stealing it.
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
It's obviously not a widely and naturally-recognized sin, or we wouldn't be having this debate. But it is theft.
Dec '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
If I write a computer program and you take it without my permission, you stole it from me. Even if it I had no intention of ever selling the program, and you used the program for personal use only, you still stole it. What I have been deprived of is the competitive advantage I would have had over you in life if you had not stolen my work.
The emotional edge provided by a song I created; the clarity of thinking provided by an essay I wrote; the productivity advantage created by a piece of software I coded. The very fact that you decided my work was worth taking implies that it created a value add to your life. The previous disparity of value in our lives, that you removed by absconding with my work, is what you have robbed me of. How is that not theft in the oldest sense of the term?
Edited on January 19, 2012 at 1:41pmFeb '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I am increasingly frustrated by those who seem to put their desire for an item ahead of the recognized value of someone's creative work, not to mention the creative work that goes into producing, packaging (even in a digital format), marketing, and releasing a product - just because it is digital, doesn't negate any of that (and not to mention the various legal costs associated with all that) - as a musician, educator, editor, and composer/arranger (in real life), it is infuriating to think that my efforts and my contribution, would be stolen by someone too lazy and too immoral to recognize my right to make honest money from my honest labors, my thoughts, and my creativity. Incredible. I just spent nine months preparing a new orchestral work, if you want to use it, you are going to by G*d pay me for my efforts and those nine months of my life. You just can't take it because it jolly well suits you any more than you can waltz into my house and walk off with my piano.
May '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
As Megan McArdle argues persuasively over at The Atlantic, copying without permission in fact "deprives [the owner] of one very particular use: the ability to sell [the item] for its set price." For content producers relying upon content for their livelihood, this is an important, perhaps the most important, use to which they would put their creations, and a major motivation for them producing the content to begin with. McArdle works through the various rationalizations one might employ to avoid the conclusion, but the bottom line is: yes, copying is stealing.
Feb '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
As to it being a sin, last time I checked this was still in force:
Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt NOT steal.
May '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I have kids, they are kids, well they are teenagers now, but when they were kids and I'd buy a DVD of a movie they liked, I'd make a copy and put the original away in a safe place, out of reach by said kids. Often the DVD would get damaged by the kids as they would change the DVD to another DVD. If I make a copy of a DVD I own, I bought, and I put the original away, am I too guilty of stealing? I remember a friend's father was a huge audiophile, he would buy an album, vinyl, remember those, and then record it to a reel to reel set up he had, this way he could record several albums on one tape, he could then play the tape all at once while he worked, he was a writer, and he would not wear out the original albums. Was he too a thief? I think he would be appalled if you suggested he was, as he owned thousands of albums, and rarely played the originals, as he was preserving them, he hated, and I mean HATED CDs when they came out.
Aug '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
It depends on how one defines "use".
How does one "use" a music file?
If the definition of "use" is limited to listening to the music file, then copying is not stealing, because the original owner can still "use" the file by listening to it.
However, if the definition of "use" also includes the ability to sell the IP of that music file, then copying is stealing because the original owner ability to "use" the file by selling it has been reduced (though not eliminated).
Apr '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
It's difficult to know from your examples. In purchasing a copy of the music, you purchase both the physical item and limited property rights. Contracts vary, but many allow for copying for personal use.
Apr '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Demonstrate that, please. To do it, I think you'll need to explain how you come to own an idea. I don't think you can do that.
Apr '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Demonstrate that, please. To do it, I think you'll need to explain how you come to own an idea. I don't think you can do that.
May '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I think the golden rule explains best why the copying and distribution of a commercial item (i.e. something that someone else created and that they are selling or have the potential to sell ) is wrong. Ask yourself, if you spent 9 months of your life writing a song or a book or a computer program that you wanted to sell to compensate you for the time you invested, would you want someone copying what you had done and giving it away free to your potential market? Honestly, you know you wouldn't. Then don't do it to someone else.
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Jeff Younger
Demonstrate that, please. To do it, I think you'll need to explain how you come to own an idea. I don't think you can do that. · Jan 19 at 5:33am
I can explain precisely how I came to write a book--or at least, I can do it as precisely as I can explain how I came to own any other property. That is to say, without getting into a metaphysical debate that would be strictly academic.
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
More to the point, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't profit from it.
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
St. Salieri: As to it being a sin, last time I checked this was still in force:
Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt NOT steal. · Jan 19 at 4:50am
The debate is whether it's stealing (i.e., theft). Not whether theft is sinful.
May '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
This is a law invented to further the goals of commerce, not to enforce some natural moral code.
Intellectual property is a matter of shading and degree and to a certain extent the copyright/trademark line is arbitrary. When Rob refreshes a trope in a sitcom like "hang a lantern on it," it is only degree of difference from appropriating a plot twist invented by Claire in a competing novel. If someone likes the way you wear a scarf in combination with a fetching hairstyle and apes this at a future cocktail party, is this "stealing?"
For those that claim this deprives you of your ability to earn a living, understand please that this is not in fact the case. It may de facto deprive you of a certain standard of living unavailable without the law, but it does not limit your actions in any way. In many ancient cultures that did not have this law, artists simply had to work harder at their craft.
It does not mean it is not a valid or constructive law, or that it should not be enforced, but some perspective on the moral outrage is warranted I believe.
Oct '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Jeff Younger
Demonstrate that, please. To do it, I think you'll need to explain how you come to own an idea. I don't think you can do that. · Jan 19 at 5:33am
The concept of Ownership might be a natural right, but what can be owned is an agreed-upon convention. To a people with no mining tradition, mineral rights might seem a bizarre claim. We have decided that a particular collection of ideas given form as musical notes or words or visual images constitute property.
Nov '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
There are already copyright laws that apply to the internet. Isn't it the question of being found guilty and punished (by a govt agency, not court) by having your site taken down, etc.? A link is just a link, and you put quotes around someone's actual words, etc. Perhaps this is like any other 'good' law- it can always be taken too far and the owner has responsibilities too.