Thread: Internet Piracy

Originally Posted by Alric

As for freedom, well freedom doesn't work unless you respect your neighbor. In nearly every argument I will argue for more freedoms. You will never see me promoting freedom to harm or steal from anyone however. No one has the freedom to steal your property and we are talking about intellectual property. Its the difference between being a libertarian or being an anarchist.

(my emphasis)

Again we come to this point. This would be a good time to review the OP: copying is not stealing. This is the foundation, basically, of my argument. When I copy a music file onto a friend's hard drive I do not harm the artist at all. The artist isn't even present, and he/she hasn't lost anything. The most one can say of copying is that it indirectly deprives the artist of my friend's money, assuming my friend would have paid if I had not given him a copy.

I agree that freedom does not give one the right to harm others indiscriminately, but just as I think the right to not be harmed should not trump the freedom of other people to defend themselves, I think the right to be paid for one's works should not trump the freedom other people to do what they like in private - especially when the prosecution is based on fuzzy claims like "they would have bought it if they hadn't been able to copy it".

Originally Posted by RedfishBluefish

(my emphasis)

Again we come to this point. This would be a good time to review the OP: copying is not stealing. This is the foundation, basically, of my argument. When I copy a music file onto a friend's hard drive I do not harm the artist at all. The artist isn't even present, and he/she hasn't lost anything. The most one can say of copying is that it indirectly deprives the artist of my friend's money, assuming my friend would have paid if I had not given him a copy.

I agree that freedom does not give one the right to harm others indiscriminately, but just as I think the right to not be harmed should not trump the freedom of other people to defend themselves, I think the right to be paid for one's works should not trump the freedom other people to do what they like in private - especially when the prosecution is based on fuzzy claims like "they would have bought it if they hadn't been able to copy it".

i can't even begin to count the number of times I have become a fan of a group because someone gave me their music and than I went to a concert and brought 4 friends, forking over 100 dollars directly to that band.

So the bands that I have pirated and then caused me to go to their concert have made more money off of me than if I wouldn't have pirated their music and just not listened to them because I didn't want to fork over money for CD.

It's not us who are stealing, its the record company. I choose to give bands the money that they have earned rather than forking it over to the RIAA so they can spend more money on lobbying and going after people like me.

So then printing my own books of say harry potter and selling them without permission of the person who wrote it, and the company that sells it is ok. Its not stealing because I only made copies, and then sold the copies.

Originally Posted by Alric

So then printing my own books of say harry potter and selling them without permission of the person who wrote it, and the company that sells it is ok. Its not stealing because I only made copies, and then sold the copies.

NO. You don't quite get it yet. If you print copies of a book and just keep them, you're not claiming to have written the book. But if you make copies and sell them, then you have stolen the IP, because you are now effectively claiming to be the author.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

NO. You don't quite get it yet. If you print copies of a book and just keep them, you're not claiming to have written the book. But if you make copies and sell them, then you have stolen the IP, because you are now effectively claiming to be the author.

Yes I agree, you shouldn't profit off other people's work. I just think content should be shared. The whole point of content is to be shared and spread.

That being said the author needs to be compensated....its just a really tough issue overall.

Originally Posted by drewmandan

NO. You don't quite get it yet. If you print copies of a book and just keep them, you're not claiming to have written the book. But if you make copies and sell them, then you have stolen the IP, because you are now effectively claiming to be the author.

Thats not true. You could sell the copies with the authors name still on it. In which case you are not claiming to be the author. Your only profiting off his work.

I don't see a problem with that.

Except it would be impossible to make any money as an author. Why would a company pay a person for their book, when they can create it without their permission?