p2pnet - rss feed: Theft and infringement
p2p news view / p2pnet: Online there’s a relatively well known concept called Godwin’s Law which suggests once a comparison to Nazis or Hitler is made, a conversation should be declared to be over. Once these analogies are made, any ability to have a rational conversation is dead and all focus will be on the analogy.
I believe a similar problem exists with the terms “theft” and “property” in conversations about copyright. I simply see nothing in common between the concept of “theft” of tangible property and the concept of infringement of intangible exclusive rights, such as copyright and patents.
This hasn’t yet stopped me from trying to engage in conversation with people who think that infringing copyright is a form of “theft”, but it isn’t a conversation that tends to be very fruitful and I often call it the Jefferson debate, as this has been a debate waged for hundreds of years with no resolution. On August 13, 1813, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to Isaac McPherson which included part of this debate.
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
The full letter explains in a very eloquent way the fact that intangibles such as ideas are entirely different from physical/tangible things.
I believe there are more accurate analogies to copyright infringement than “theft”. If I own a home, and a brothel moves in next door, their actions have reduced the value of my property. Since running a brothel is not legal in Canada, the activity that reduced my property value is handled under the law. If I instead had a neighbour that simply never kept up their home, this could reduce the value of my property, but in a perfectly legal way. There are even calls to municipal governments to pass by-laws about such activities which reduce property values.
No matter how frustrated I may be about the legal or illegal ways in which other people may reduce the value of my property, it’s not rational to use the term “theft” to describe it. Even if the value of my property is reduced to nothing, I still posses the property and thus nothing can be claimed to be stolen.
When someone infringes copyright, they’re reducing the value of the copyright in an illegal way, but it is equally inappropriate to use the term “theft”.
Just because I entirely reject the concept of “theft” as applied to copyright doesn’t mean I feel there’s no problem with infringement. The reason I disagree with the word relates to how it closes the minds of those who useit to more modern ways to produce, distribute and fund creativity.
If people believe holding a copyright is like owning a car, it greatly narrows in their mind the ways in which they can possibly make money while at the same time reducing the incentives for people to infringe.
This narrow thinking is also dangerous when in the minds of policy makers who enact laws which, while intended to help creative people, end up greatly harming the majority of us.
For the software I create, I use a business model that couldn’t exist if I were making and selling birdhouses or anything that’s tangible. I call it the 95% solution: 95% of what a customer wants their computer to do is already solved within the public pool of software licensed under FLOSS licenses. I then get paid a one-time fee to author the missing 5% which I not only deliver to the customer, but also put back into that public pool to enhance that commons.
My business model relies on the fact that for intangibles such as software, the marginal cost of reproduction and distribution is zero. When I make a copy of some existing FLOSS software it didn’t cost the author anything, and when people make copies of the software I authored, it doesn’t cost me anything.
My work isn’t put into the public domain, but publicly licensed. This is an important distinction as I do want my creative rights to be protected against a different form of copyright infringement.
Traditional copyright holders want to get paid royalties for any copies made of their work. I not only do not want to get paid royalties for my work, but the “Share and Share Alike” style license I use demands that those who make derivatives of my work also make their work available royalty-free. While I’m not asking for a monetary per-copy payment, I am asking that those who build on my work pay me by making their work available in the same way. Since my business model relies on the fact that most of a customer’s problem is solved in this public pool of software, it’s obvious why I want to use any leverage I can to ensure that this pool constantly grows.
Nothing of what I’m doing in my commercial software business makes sense to those whose minds have been narrowed by the concept of copyright “theft”. Those who believe that making an unauthorized copy is theft also tend to believe the way to get paid is to charge royalties on authorized copies.
It’s not only software where this confusion exists for them. When musicians take their recorded music and make non-commercial distribution royalty-free using one of the non-commercial Creative Commons licenses, they’re not “giving away” their music. What these modern musicians have done is realized that by licensing their music this way they can turn something that isn’t money making for them anyway into something that works as very inexpensive advertising.
Rather than paying expensive promoter of music they turn their fans into promoters, they take a smaller and less expensive risk by authorizing non-commercial distribution. They make money the way they always had: commercial distribution and use of their music.
Those whose minds are closed by the concept of “theft” won’t understand how this can make musicians more money. To them, any royalty-free distribution is a loss of money, and they can’t see how the theoretical loss of royalties from non-commercial distribution is most likely going to cost far less than an equivalently effective paid marketing campaign. While music promoters won’t like being replaced by Internet peer-to-peer advertising, the positive outcome for the musicians themselves can be far greater.
We need to look more closely at those who are the loudest in the copyright debate.
Are these people who represent musicians, or are they people who represent legacy middle-men who are actually fearful of being made redundant (”right sized”) by modern business models?
In Canada the most vocal groups are the US and the European major labels represented by the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Associatioin) that are the most vocal, followed by the United States government, and then pay-per-copy royalty collection agencies such as Access Copyright. These groups don’t represent creativity or creators, but they do represent legacy middle-men or legacy business models that are being “right sized” or “transformed” in a new economy.
Russell McOrmond - p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons).]
December 19th, 2005 at 7:15 pm
I have been calling thieves the music publishers have unlawfully claimed the ownership the music and songs composed my father, The publishers claimed to own the rights of the music when in fact they had none.
See details on my web site.
While these corrupt publishers were claiming to own the music and making money of it, my family, the real owners, could not exploit the music
In the music industry if a song has two conflicting ownership claims then one of two things happens. Either no one wants to use the music out of fear of getting a license from the wrong owners and then being sued by the right owners or a licensed is taken from the more credible claimant, the established publisher, even if the established publisher is a false claimant.
I ask, are the music publishers which I call thieves real thieves?
I think they are thieves, even if what they took initially is not physical property, just the improperly named “intellectual property”.
This is because the publishers started with illegal claims but eventually the illegal claim resulted in unlawful profits and money is physical.
So, maybe a distinction should be made. If IP is taken for the purpose of eventual profit, then is theft.
I agree that IP is not a physical thing and that just making copies of the so called property or sharing it with others without a profit
is not theft.
A final note: The stealing of msuci by music publishers is rampant. A good article on the subject can be read here:
BIGGEST COPYRIGHT SCAM: RENEWAL RIGHTS APPROPRIATION
http://chocoweb.blogspot.com/
Any opinions?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 19th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
Fluff
Why should copyright holders be given protection for their creation for life plus ?
Their end effort produces a product of no value
Drug companies spend years developing a drug that saves or improves life, yet are protected for only twenty years
Farmers spend millions and get payed at rates that their grandfathers were payed.
The man who repairs your car does not get payed each time the car starts after a repair.
The plumber does not get payed each time you flush after a repair.
When Girl scouts sell you a cookie it,s yours.
When you buy a car, the manufacture does not have the right to tell you how to drive it.
If no music was played from this day on:
People would not die from its loss
There would be food to eat
there would be cloths to ware
there would be water to drink
there would be homes to live in
there would be cars to drive
there would be air to breath
there would be planes to fly
Life would change very little if at all, music is nothing more then fluff, how it’s become a top priority
for the government is beyond me.
The fluff salesman has done their job well i guess.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:27 pm
Fluff
Why should certain copyright holders be given protection for their creation for life plus? Their end effort produces a product of no true value.
Drug companies spend years developing a drug that saves or improves life, yet are protected for only twenty years.
Farmers spend millions and get paid at rates that their grandfathers were paid.
The man who repairs your car does not get paid each time the car starts after a repair.
The plumber does not get paid each time you flush your toilet after a repair.
When a Girl Scout sell you cookies, they are yours to do with as you please, and you are free to share them with whomever you please.
When you buy a car, the manufacturer does not have the right to tell you how to drive it.
If no music was played from this day on, people would not die from its loss.
There would still be air to breath.
There would still be food to eat.
There would still be clothes to wear.
There would still be water to drink.
There would still be homes to live in.
There would still be cars to drive.
There would still be planes to fly.
Life would change very little, if at all. Music, especially so called “commercial” music, is nothing more than fluff. How it has become a top priority for many governments is beyond me. The fluff salesman have done their job extremely well I guess.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:31 pm
The company that brought you their rootkit now brings protections fo a paedophile!!!! I wonder if the Christian Coalition still supports the RIAA.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179090,00.html
Talking about infringmant!!!
December 19th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
“Why should copyright holders be given protection for their creation for life plus ? Their end effort produces a product of no value”
But an actor that is paid $20 million to act on a movie is paid for each time someone vies the film. The actor is paid up front, based on an expectancy of number of viewers who will go the movies or buy the DVDs. Why shouln’t the author of the novel of the movie be paid as well? To suggest that the value of the autho’r work, a novel, is none is wrong.
If an artist can accumulate a wealth of 500 million dollars and is paid X amount for each record sold, why should the songwriters who wrote the songs not be paid for each record sold?
Why should an inventor not be paid for each unit sold of the invented device? Is it not true that if the inventor is not going to be paid something, the inventor may not even develiop the idea of the invention? Why spend money and time on development if you are not going to make money off the invention?
Why if a music concert rakes in one million dollars, nothing should go to the songwriters of the songs used in the concert. Certainly something of the money goes to the ushers and the clean up crew.
Then why should a movie producer invest in making a movie if there is no money to be made off the movie.
Sure, the compensation sytem for artist and songwriters is screweed up, with middlepersons and shareholders making the most money from the work of the the creative artists, with creators frequently getting nothing from their work. This is because the copyright laws written by the cartels are screwed up to begin with.
Until the creators are adquately paid through a new system of compensation, reasonable royalties from patents and copyrights are justified. for the creators, not the cartel middlepersons.
I agree that the life plus 70 years for music is an exageration. The patent limit of 18 years is more reasonable, for some products. For medicines and medical procedures, there should be no patents even if it were mandatory that the development of medicines and medical procedures be paid with government (the people) and non profit funds.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
December 19th, 2005 at 11:31 pm
Money is an abstract concept of valuation. The paper or metal (plastic in some countries) that money is made from is physical, but the VALUE is abstract. I do not disagree with the basic concept of your post, but on this point I must disagree.
December 20th, 2005 at 12:54 am
most of your examples are things that still happen, because someone is getting something physical in return. i got to watch a movie i expect to pay for it. i am getting something for my money. copyright in itself is theft, you have to steal my right to do as i please with my property for you to have your copyright. more you have to steal the same rights from every other person and/or organisation. that is wrong. the company/person that wants the end result should compensate the creator. and then that person or company should compete in the market by offering you something worthwhile to purchase it. you buy media these days and that is all you get. just the discs. a lot of the time you don’t even get manuals let alone extra’s. they are using copyright instead of having to compete. they are trying to sell you something that is limitless by imposing limits on it and your property at the same time to save themselves from having to compete.
Adam
December 20th, 2005 at 2:19 am
One good point in the reply - perhaps the intellectual property rights should be defined as “the right to profit” from the “property” and not as “the right to copy”.
December 20th, 2005 at 3:07 am
Money is rivalrous, and has very different qualities than non-rivalrous intangibles such as works of the mind.
December 21st, 2005 at 11:22 am
The paedophile knows too much about Sony payola and has a functional mouth as shown when he said Sony was racist. Poor Sony, the victim this time around.
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