Qu0ll said:
"David Brown" wrote in message
Arguments put forward by yourself and others in this thread reek of
an attempt to justify what is immoral and utterly reprehensible
behaviour.
Whether the perpetrator ever sees the inside of a prison cell is
completely irrelevant to the fact that deliberately depriving people
of their legitimate right to an income in an apparent attempt to
amplify their own sense of significance is beyond being defensible.
IMO there are three concepts that are mixed often in this context, and
this discussion is no exception.
There is the legality of an action. This depends on the laws governing
the action. Some actions that violate a copyright in one place at one
time don't do so (didn't do so, won't do so) in another place at another
time.
There is the morality of an action. I contend that there is enough proof
that there is no universally valid concept of morality. Even so
seemingly universal and basic moral imperatives like "you shall not
kill" have their exception clauses: unless it's in self defense, unless
it's for the good of the nation, unless it's to defend one's religion,
.... -- which of course are then subject to individual judgment and far
from universally accepted in their individual judgment. Copyright is
even worse -- I'd say there is nothing universally moral about
copyright. (There are people who consider not sharing whatever you own
greedy and immoral, for example. For them, copyright is in its essence
immoral.)
Then there's the notion that there's some morality in sticking to legal
actions. Well... there were enough examples in history that show that
what many people consider the moral thing to do was illegal. War is
pretty much always illegal (at least by the legal standards of the
invaded country). So what's an invading soldier to do -- follow the law
of his land (that presumably govern his body) or follow the law of the
place where he is (which is, by general convention, the law that governs
his actions)? Or, probably closer to home for most, driving faster than
the speed limit is violating a law. (The traffic code is a law.) I'm
pretty sure there's a large majority that doesn't think there's anything
immoral about driving a bit faster than the speed limit.
So... there doesn't seem to be much of a universal moral at all, much
less something that's universally moral about copyright. But of course,
copyright is a legal concept in most if not all countries -- but again
of course quite differently seen in different countries, as legal
concept and as legal reality.
The legal concept of copyright also isn't that old. Originally, the idea
probably was that copyright helps the creators of original works to make
money from their works. It maybe still does, but reality is that it
helps to a much greater degree others (not the creators) to make money
from original works that they didn't make. And that's the real rub here.
It is far from clear whether there aren't other, more efficient ways to
deal with original works or not; there just isn't much empirical data to
work from, on both ends of the divide.
It's somewhat ironic that the origins of the copyright were to counter
the monopoly of the printing industry, whereas today one of its main
effects is maintaining the oligopoly of the big content distribution
corporations.
Interesting in this context is also
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=489762
Gerhard
