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:
May '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
James Of England
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. · Jan 19 at 5:25am
I buy an album, I make a copy for personal use, that is or is not stealing? I think it is not. If I buy said album, make a copy and keep the copy and then sell the original album, I think that is theft.
May '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
IMHO, intellectual property theft is (as the lawyers would say) malum prohibitum, rather than malum in se. If I had to live in a world where people wrote music only for the love of writing it, and not for the profit, that would be fine with me. Yes, I see the benefit of encouraging innovation by giving the innovator monopoly rents for a while. The 20 year term that applies to patents seems plenty long enough. The copyright term (life of the author plus 20 years) is flat out ridiculous, Who is stealing from whom here?
Sep '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I have some barometers that I live by. One of them is: If Chris Dodd is for it, I am against it. I am not deep in to the particulars, but these kind of things can too easily have unintended consequences.
Much like earmarks to some. Against them unless it affects them.
Apr '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
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. · Jan 19 at 5:52am
Yes, you are precise here but inaccurate. If a fellow copies a passage from your book, don't you still own your book? You lost no physical property. And when he copies those words into another book, doesn't he own that book? You're talking about physical property, but that's not the issue here.
Even if you had a property right claim in what he took, it wouldn't be on the physical book he created. Who's doing metaphysics now? You're claiming ownership of much more than the physical book. Tell us, precisely, what you own and what is stolen.
If you don't want to have a metaphysical debate, then you must avoid making metaphysical claims. I don't think you can tell us what is stolen without getting all metaphysical.
What is stolen?
Oct '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
The Supreme Court considered this issue in Dowling v. United States, and came down on the side of it not constituting theft. The three dissenters thought the federal statute should be construed more broadly, though even they seem to prefer conversion over theft. I agree with Stephen, but I'm glad a lot of people are arguing the meaning of use, because it's an element of the crime that must be proven. To the others who argue a general sense of wrongness - may your fortune forever busy you from sitting on a jury.
May '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
I'm a woodworker, there are many styles of woodworking in furniture, for example a rather contemporary one the Maloof style, named after a wonderful woodworker Sam Maloof, who recently passed away, but most all woodworkers would recognize the Maloof style.
I present the Maloof rocker.
There are many woodworkers making rockers in the Maloof style, are they stealing?
Here is a rocker in the Maloof style that is made by a woodworker who is selling it to make his living...
I can see the differences, but it is certainly the same style, is this theft?
By the way, these copies sell for over $5000 to start, the originals are becoming priceless.
Domo
Aug '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
The argument seems to be that ease of copying negates the action of theft.
To "copy" an automobile, you've got to fire up the assembly line and get those robots churning out the bits. You've got to input the raw materials to get the finished product on the other side.
To "copy" a recording, you've got to fire up your computer.
The auto thief waits until the product is finished; the music thief does the actual production work. But the fact that a book or a recording can be copied easier than a Rolls Royce does not alter the definition of stealing.
Oct '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Stephen Dawson:
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.
I think you are being too abstract here, someone could be giving you his IP with the clear contractual clause that you don't copy it to someone else.
Lets see the case of ProjectZomboid, an independent gaming venture, which cost them 2000+ hours of programming and art design. So for these people it ain't abstract.
That being said, I don't think that piracy displace much of the customers, people who copy things over the internet aren't the people would actually buy the product generally.
Jun '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Ah, one of my favorite topics. For more than 40 years copyright holders of film and television programs did not make a peep about the copying of their content on VHS tape. In fact, companies like Sony that sold and distributed copyrighted material on air also made VCR products that consumers could use to copy that material. The game changed when digital copying in the form of DVD replication arrived on the scene and the studios working as a consortium developed an encryption technology to attempt to prevent copying because the copy could be indistinguishable from the original. Clearly that wasn't enough, since the encryption schemes have been repeatedly hacked. Thus DRMA was born to make it illegal to make of copy of digital content. The language of the act seemed to be very broad sweeping and in conflict with the doctrine of fair use which allows for copying of copyrighted material for numerous purposes, including archiving.
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Aug '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Samuel Amaral
That being said, I don't think that piracy displace much of the customers, people who copy things over the internet aren't the people would actually buy the product generally.
I don't think "I wasn't going to buy it anyway" is a very good defense of internet piracy.
Jun '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
continued - It's been argued repeatedly that personal copying of content for the purposes of archiving and eventual retrieval is protected under fair use doctrines. If the media that content is delivered to consumers is prone to damage (in the case of DVDs from scratches) then it appears to be within the parameters of the fair use doctrine to copy said material for personal use. Too often, this is confused with piracy which is the mass replication of content for personal gain.
Aug '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
“It is easy to see that the moral sense has been bred out of certain sections of the population, like the wings have been bred off certain chickens to produce more white meat on them. This is a generation of wingless chickens, which I suppose is what Nietzsche meant when he said God was dead.” -- Flannery O'Connor
Jun '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Before Gutenberg, you could make a living selling just one copy of your literary masterpiece. That's the last time that copying and selling (or giving away) the text, by a third party, was just public service and not picking an author's pocket.
Oct '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
DrewInWisconsin
Samuel Amaral
That being said, I don't think that piracy displace much of the customers, people who copy things over the internet aren't the people would actually buy the product generally.
I don't think "I wasn't going to buy it anyway" is a very good defense of internet piracy. · Jan 19 at 6:58am
Not a defense has a statement of mere fact. There is much exaggeration about the volume of pirated content and their effect on IP Holder revenue. Most of the those pirating a determined content would not actually buy it if they had the chance to, so there isn't much sale displacement.
Internet ''piracy'' is merely the evolution of the habit of software sharing of old, which is 1970's in the USA and 1990 in my country, go figure if time travel is invented yet, of sharing you copy of a software with others. but seems that this last paragraph is a tangent which went circumferential.
Nov '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Maybe it's time to get back to a strict reading of the patent/copyright clause:
At the time, science referred to a variety of fields concerning reliable knowledge, "useful Arts" referred to artisanal work; "invention"meant truly new, not simply a variation or extension.
Now I can't see that it referred to entertainment (e.g. novels, fine art, music, etc.) though maybe it did.
Full disclosure - as a fine artist, I'm perfectly happy not being covered, just don't put your name on my work, because that's fraud. But otherwise, Picasso rules - "Good artists borrow, great ones steal"; the arts have steadily declined as artists stopped happily lifting from each other. I also have my name on a scientific patent, and my first real (summer) job was as a runner for a patent law firm in DC. In that job I came across the patent for KFC. which convinced me never to eat it again.
Jul '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Show me someone who thinks there's nothing wrong with copyright violation, and I'll show you someone who doesn't actually create anything for a living.
Nov '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
What is being stolen isn't the thing itself. It is the income derived from selling the thing. If you make a copy of my Michael album album, you haven't stolen the album from me, nor have you stolen the songs from Mr. B. You've stolen money from him and the other entities who make money selling albums. We can justify it many ways. They make too much money anyway. I wouldn't buy it anyway, so its not like they are losing money, they wouldn't get it anyway. It's not hurting anyone. How can someone own an idea? Justify away, if that helps you. But make no mistake, you are guilty of theft regardless.
Aug '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
They screamed loudly when home videocassettes were first introduced! The only reason they didn't make a peep afterwards was because the Supreme Court ruled against them!
re: How Mister Rogers Saved The VCR
Jun '10
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
HalifaxCB: Maybe it's time to get back to a strict reading of the patent/copyright clause:
At the time, science referred to a variety of fields concerning reliable knowledge, "useful Arts" referred to artisanal work; "invention"meant truly new, not simply a variation or extension.
"Lmited times" seems to be the issue. The term of copyrights has been extended several times by acts of Congress well beyond the life of the original artist or artist(s). How long should material be protected? In perpetuity? 500 years? At what point does this begin to create levels of policing authority that becomes cost prohibitive well beyond the value of the content itself? One of the reasons that Napster took off is that some recorded content was no longer available on the open market. The recording industry had no intention of making it available because it wasn't profitable for them. But suing someone for acquiring material that was many years out of circulation can be another way to make a profit.
Nov '11
Re: James, oh James: Copying is not stealing!
Interesting. http://althouse.blogspot.com/2012/01/professor-lost-his-long-legal-fight-to.html